Dirty Thirty

So, I'e revamped my workout regimen to be more full body, CF-like. This was my first attempt to design a workout for my wife and I. I call it the Dirty Thirty after the adage of drinking 30 cans of shite beer, that often results in vomiting, not that I am hoping that his workout would make anyone vomit ;-). 


Alright so to it then: 


The Dirty Thirty - For time; that means do this as quickly as you can so that you can compare your time next time you do it. You should get faster each time!


30 - double unders (this is jumping rope where the rope goes under your feet 2 times for each jump
30 - forward walking lunges (that's 15 steps/leg) with a 30 pound dumbbell in each hand
30 - box jumps (24 inches is ideal, but use what you can or as high as you can!)
30 - situps
30 - back extensions
30 - burpee to pullups (this is a burpee and when you jump you catch a high bar and do a pull up; each rep your chest has to hit the floor on the burpee and your chin had to clear the bar for the pull, would be better if you could touch the bar with your chest!)
30 - back extensions
30 - situps
30 - box jumps
30 - backward walking lunges with a 30 lb dumbbell in each hand
30 - double unders


1 vomit... Just teasing. 


My first time out my wife and I were doing this together so we were working out some of the kinks and helping each other, but I completed this in just about 6 minutes. Next time I will shoot for 5 or lower. I think I could have done 5 had I not forgotten the routine and had to keep referring to my cheat sheet. 


Suggestions for making this easier: 

1. use a lighter weight for the walking lunges
2. don't do backward lunges at the end; they demand a bit more core stability and can cause overcompensation on the knees if you've never done them before
3. break up each 30 into smaller sets of 10 with a short rest in between
4. lower the height of the box jump or just jump in place
5. don't do double unders, just jump rope. if you do this, I'd recommend doing 60 jumps
6. don't do burpee to pullups, but rather do 30 burpees and then 30 pullups (& you could use pullup assist)

Suggestions for making this harder: 

1. increase weights on lunges
2. try doing 30 steps / leg on the lunges
3. add weight to the situps and / or back extensions
4. add weight to the pullups, or add weight to anything else

My new breakfast (of champions, of course!)

So, I've changed my diet a touch. Not too drastically, because I hate drastic changes, but a little bit. I happened upon some good resources on Paleo diet eating. Mostly, I typically think of fad diets as, well just that - fad diets. Take for example the Atkins diet - I hated that shite! I am not Enui and therefore I should not eat just whale meat. Sorry, but it's not in my genes. The Paleo diet, on the other hand is, after a little reading, quite interesting to think about.

In short, and I am by no means an expert, the Paleo Diet assumes the principle of mismatch between what (us) evolutionary psychologist call the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (the EEA) and our modern, industrialized world. The mismatch principle suggests (and I might note is supported by loads of psychological, biological, and anthropological data) that we are currently living in a world that was designed by us, but NOT designed for us. In fact, in strict EEA terms, our bodies are designed (by EVOLUTION) to be more like hunter gatherer tribes people.

Here are some straight up facts: Evolution is slow. It can take thousands, 10's of thousands, 100's of thousands, even millions of years for evolution to craft a change in an organism. We call this natural selection. In our ancestry, in fact in every organisms ancestry environments (that is landscape, food availability, predator risk, etc) tend to change fairly slowly. There are of course exceptions, but often in the event of exception many many individuals die. Take as an example, say, an ice age in the Northern parts of the world. Only those individuals who had evolved a mechanism to store large quantities of fat (for warmth) under our skin survived. The rest froze to death for a modern day anthropologist to dig up and become famous for ;-)  In stark contrast, Industrialization is fast. Once our ancestors invented a means to pass information from one member to another within generation - memetically - industry could grow exponentially. Once our ancestors invented a means for printing and mass distributing the information, thus preserving valuable neural resources from reinventing the same old "wheel" technology could, and quite literally has, grown at rates that approach light speed.

The figure above theoretically plots the difference between evolutionary and industrial change over n generations. The magnitude of change at any given generation can be thought of as the magnitude of mismatch.

Taking the above theoretically-derived data to the notion of eating. Imagine that we are the product of evolutionary change (a biological organism) existing in a world of industrial change. Thus, this very existence has wreaked havoc on our bodies, probably being one of the main drivers of food allergies, mental illness, among other things. When it comes to food, because we started this post with a discussion of food and the Paleo Diet, assume that our biology has evolved to digest properly, extract nutrients from, and process foods that we encountered n generations ago (think thousands to 100's of thousands of years ago). But now, we have evolved the brain power for agriculture: now we artificially grow animals, instead of hunting them. Now we harvest milk, while our ancestors would have most certainly not done so without getting kicked in the face by a bison, and most likely would not have sucked on the utter of a dead cow when they could be pigging out on bone marrow or organ meats. Now we grow grains and in order to utilize the grains they need to be artificially processed, mulled, hulled, and goodness knows what else. Our ancestors most likely harvested wild fruits, berries, nuts, tubors, roots, and root vegetables. Occasionally, a lucky ancestor may have happened upon a great protein resource - eggs. Eaten raw, gross by our standards, and mine included - I like Paleo, but would have a hard time thinking about going Raw Paleo. So in short, and by short I mean we've just scratched the surface, this is the heart of the Paleolithic diet. Eat like a caveman because that is what nature has in mind for you to eat.

Now back to my breakfast of champions. I used to eat one of either a very large bowl of cereal with cow milk (artificially harvested grains and dairy milk) or cereal and fruit topped with cottage cheese (same things here). So how does one make the swap to a Paleo breakfast but keep the breakfast-y foods they like to eat. It is so freaking simple. Here is my recipe for a dynamite tasting and healthy breakfast (and what's pictured at the start of this post).

Pecan waffles and Southwest Omelette

Here's how you make it - takes about 5-10 minutes prep (depending on how tired you are, last night my dog woke me up barking at 5 am, so it took a while this morning). Takes about 10-15 (MAX) to cook.

In an omelette pan start sautéing some vegetables - i use anything from broccoli, asparagus, spinach, okra, squash/zucchini, eggplant, onion, parsnips, carrots (you get the idea). Season to your liking. I use a cajun seasoning made of crushed red pepper, sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder (it's quite spicy and nice).

While the veggies are cooking prepare your 'waffle batter' and begin to heat up your waffle iron.
Waffle batter:  Combine 1/4 cup pecan meal + 1 whole large egg + 1/4 cup coconut milk (I use reduced fat, lite cocount milk, cuts about 66% calories from regular coconut milk). Whip together using a kitchen whisk. I sometimes also add a 1/3 smashed banana (really good) or some type of berry (blue, black, straw, etc).

By now your veggies are probably about ready to get egged. So pour 2 servings of Egg whites (I buy the 100% egg whites from the market, but you could easily make your own with real eggs).

Pour waffle batter into waffle iron and spread evenly. I usually wait just about 1 minute before closing the lid so that the bottom of this unusual mixture begins to cook a little.

Flip the omelette when ready.
The waffle iron will let you know when the waffle has been cooked, but with my waffle iron I need to let it cook another 2-3 minute so that I can pluck it out without the waffle falling to pieces.

And while all that was cooking, I chopped up a piece of red onion, a quarter of a tomato, and cilantro to make a fresh pico de gallo for a topping. Top the waffle with pure maple syrup or raw honey. Both are excellent toppings, although you do get more bang for the caloric buck using honey.

Enjoy.

I have found two major things associated with my change in diet:

1) i have loads of energy. That plus I sleep deeper. So when I wake up, I am usually not groggy, unless Bruno (my dog) has woken me up for no good reason at 5am and I have energy all day.

2) my knee joints no longer hurt. i had read about dairy related arthritic like pains, but never believed it. I can now do deep squats, one-legged squats, cleans, etc without pain.

Progress report

So in education we are often times required to submit "progress reports". These inform the student that, "Oh Shite" I am failing psychology 101. I had better study, work hard, put my nose to the grindstone; ah, F-it I will just ask the professor for extra credit. Progress, however you choose to achieve it, is something that pervades all of our existence. From lower organisms to humans, progress is something animals strive for. As humans, we attempt to get ahead, a better education, more money, nicer house, hotter wife... whatever. Animals strive for moving up dominance ladders, more mates, more food, being eaten "less often" or preferably, not at all. Evolution, of course does not work this way, does it? No. Evolution is not progress but change. And yet all of evolution's organisms somehow work toward progress - not at the species level, but at the individual level. At any rate, in fitness this also applies. So I thought I would provide a bit of an update on my fitness progress.

About 6-8 months ago I stopped using free weights for progressive overload resistance training in place of a program designed around gymnastics, martial arts, and mostly body weight maneuvers. About 8 months later I am leaner than I have ever been in my life, and I have maintained my strength. For shits and giggles, the other day I decided to drop into the weight room - to see, not surprisingly - that nothing has changed much in the average weight area of the gyms. Plopped my ass on the bench and did a few warm-up reps; about 50 reps with just the bar. NO this is not my max out weight HA! So I went for it - "Am I still as strong as I was when I doing weights, even though for the past 8 months I have not touched a weight, except maybe to use it to prop my L-seat or planche?"  225lbs - 4 sets 8-10 reps. Shit, at 34, going quickly onto 35 5 yrs old I am happy. That is as much, actually more than I was able to do when I was weight training. 

This little self-experiment, which many of my friends know full and well is my life. Yes, I use myself as a research subject all the time asking rather boring questions like: Will someone you call a friend kick your ass if you decide one drunken night to bend his wife over your knee and lay into her with a good spanking? Apparently, not...phew! This experiment - that lacks all kinds of controls and is completely riddled with confounding variables - asked the question: does my new exercise regimen work? My experiment was not without ridicule and putting myself at risk of laughs, jeers, giggles and flat out questions about the program. Yes, on more than one occasion I got the "what in the hell are you doing dude/mate?" So I explained... whatever. Here's the data m-f-ers - it works. Yeah, easy enough for me to say. But check this whack ass shit out - P90X. Yeah so just about everything I do is apparently listed in this new program. What the F?! I could have made millions? Huh? At any rate, the shite works! Try it!

The Turd Posts again!

So I've been a complete turd about posting to my blog. A lot has been happening in my life: I became Chief Editor of the scientific journal, adopted a dog, any various other things, which are not the subject of this post.

Actually, I've been working hard on my body weight workouts and as evidence that they do work, I thought I might share a few things that have happened to me in the gym. First, I am stronger than ever. I can do the handstand, the handstand pushup with wall - easily pumping out 3-5 sets of 6-8 reps. I've continued adopting, with the help of the trainer at the Gold's Gym, new moves with my suspension trainer. Second, I have become "known" around the gym. Not by name, but rather by what I do. One fella said to me he's never seen anything like my workout, but "it's apparently working." Another guy mentioned that he talks about "the guy in the gym who does no resistance training or work to hypertrophy, but is really cut up." Third, my wife' trainer who is a beast of a woman and I mean that in the most flattering way possible; she is trong as an oxe and ripped. She was a pro body builder and now is a cert personal trainer and is totally awesome. She regularly whips people into shape. Well she said in a conversation that I am the fittest guy in the gym and don't use half of the equipment; that compliment meant loads to me.

Now onto some new moves, progress updates, etc.

New move 1: Hanging L-seat to hanging planche. Hang your suspension trainer, ropes low to the ground for this one because if you fall, and you will the first time, it will hurt. Take my word for it on this one. So about a foot off the ground grab the handles and enter L-seat. This is hard as you try to maintain straight legs, tight core and no swinging. Then move legs thru into hanging planche. I have attained it once, it is absolutely killer. I got so excited it caused me to fall. Ouch!

New move 2: Split squats to dumbbell snatch. Place a pair of dumbbells out in front o you about 36 inches or so. Lunge toward the dumbbells and when you go down, pick the dumbbells up. Actually, just grab the handles. Instead of lunging back, or forward, jump as you would during a split squat (that is your lunge position changes from (e.g.) left foot forward to back foot forward) while simultaneously snatching the dumbbells over your head. While in the lunge position, slowly lower the dumbbells and then lunge back to standing. A variation on this, place a series of dumbbells that increase in weight along a court/floor. Then lunge forward and walk. I have not tried that one.

Anyhow, I guess I am back, re-motivated to write about working out for a while.

Your fat? It's all your mother's fault

A recent article published in the journal Eating Behaviors has found evidence that the development of eating related disorders (e.g. anorexia and bulimia, especially in females) is related to family factors associated with, or surrounding food. The main finding is that family dysfunction leads to eating disorder, but that the connection between eating disorder and family function was completely mediated by negative family food-related experiences (e.g., parental modeling, parental expectations, and teasing about food, eating, or being overweight). Interestingly, a close look at the data show that maternal effects appear to have slightly larger impact (remember these are girl research participants) than paternal effects. 

Especially with the major eating holidays just around the corner this made me think about my family food-related experiences. I asked myself what were they like? Typically and at key times when stress might be particularly high, or low, like Holidays? I asked myself about whether I thought these experiences led to my eating "issues" and fitness addiction? 

My upbringing was not an unusual one for a boy born in Philadelphia and later raised in South Jersey. School every day; play (sports or video games) after school; make every attempt to convince mom and dad I had done my homework, when in fact I had not even bothered bringing it home; etc. Both of my parents worked full time jobs, and my dad worked overtime just about every chance he could get. It's probably, no in fact it IS the reason that we had an in ground pool and I was able to play on the local ice hockey club, which cost a fortune (+ travel around the country). Neither of my parents have college degrees, they came from working class families and were hell bent on their kids going to college. My mom was a medium sized, blonde bombshell, not that she flaunted it, but I've seen pics and my mom was hot! My dad was a beast. there are few other words I could ever use to describe this man - but a beast. He was an ex-marine turned railroad laborer. He swung a sledge hammer or operated heavy machinery for a lot of his life. He hand hands like King Kong. I remember one day we were laying down railroad ties to serve as an outline/barrier to our garden. He told me to grab one, which I did after about 15 minutes of struggling with how to hold the damn thing and walk with it. He grabbed one in his left and one in his right. Stood up and walked off as if he was carrying to grocery bags! He was also ripped, like Men's Health cover ripped and diesel. Strong as an oxe, obviouly I worshipped him when he was alive. He was also kind of a dick. He would scare the shit out of my friends on a regular basis. One of my very good childhood friends actually stopped coming to my home because every time he walked into my house my dad would grab him by the shirt (usually with about a fistful of chest skin too) and pick him up off the floor about 1-2 feet and say, "What the hell do you want?!"  Then drop him and laugh... hahaha, some sense of humor eh?

They, my folks, grew up in an era where fitness was not fab, posh, or even existent outside of NFL'ers, ironman comps, and pro body building. Fitness was neither science nor fad for them; it was not even a thought (ok until Richard Simmons' explosion onto the scene). As kids without televisions, and nintendos, and such, they were forced outside to work and play. They lost weight the old fashioned way - outdoor sweat! (Unlike kids of today!)  They were not taught to eat healthy. Rather they were taught to eat; if it was on the plate you ate it - else you went to bed hungry. Kind of makes sense to me, actually. Even health related disease was not a concern - my mothers OB/GYN told her that is was OK to drink while pregnant (that it would alleviate the tension and calm the child) and to smoke. Smoking was thought to, and now known to, reduce birth weight. Well I guess for mothers, reducing the size of objects tearing apart your vagina sounds like a pretty good idea....but nowadays we frown upon it, I think, although I have been to several Liverpudlian pubs... hmmm. Anyhow....

So, obviously they learned - things change. Except when it came to food. Based upon this upbringing they were crazy eaters. We had the money to buy food and put it on the table and even have leftovers and that did not stop my mom and dad from saying - EAT UP BOYS AND GIRLS! A typical meal at my house consisted of: a meat (e.g., chicken, pork chops, meatloaf, hamburgers, and most items were breaded and deep fried, cuz we could(!)), at least 2 usually 4 different vegetables, a starch or two (e.g., potatoes and rice), bread, salad, and dessert. Every meal we had something for dessert. What's that? what's that you ask? Was I a fatto as a kid? Yes. Of course I was. I was a walking, breathing tird! When we sat down for dinner, which we always did together seven nights a week as a family (a great thing) we ate what we took and more. My dad would literally force us to eat more. "Come on! You can put down at least 2 more (fried) pork chops and some more green beans, I know you can!" Then afterwards, because of course I did it to impress him with how much I could eat, he'd shout "Jesus christ! Steve you eat like a truck driver!" No offense to Drivers, I have actually never seen one eat, mainly out of fear ;-) 

It was not until college actually that I changed my ways. I went on a long road trip to Daytona Beach, Florida with a friend of mine (that one who'd be picked up by his chest skin) and two females from one of our classes; I didnt know their names then, and still dont. Anyhow, on the way down - straight drive 24.75 hours - stopping only to urinate on the side of the road (much to the gals dismay), on this trip, I ate 3/4 of a 5lb bag of Mike & Ikes (you know, the world's greatest candy!) My friend so kindly said to me as we unshirted for the pool, dude - you're fat. Now this was probably a mate retention tactic on his part, as he was very close to mating the hotter of the two unknown females, but for some reason, at that very moment, those words struck a chord in me. I laughed, while angling my head down at myself - "I was fat!" How? When did this happen? 

This started me on a road to eating "disorderhood" - restrained eating as it is scientifically called. Where I monitor, binge, become addicted to exercise, and then stop and then start in a vicious circle of self-hate and exercise love. 

I now think back: What were the cues that made me eat the way I did, and think it OK to devour an entire Dennys Big Breakfast like it was a handful of peanuts? It probably was my family; there incessant desire for me to have what they did not. But I cannot blame them. They did not know. For me, it was me, my own doing. I ate, because eating fucking rules! I still love to eat and in a hot minute you might find me at the local Waffle House downing the pecan waffle supreme b-fast - that baby is about 6000 calories of no redeeming nutritional quality, but tastes like a gustatory orgasm! Brilliant, in other words. 

I wonder what people think about parental effects on their current eating habits? I constantly annoy my mom and sister now with the way I eat. My mom eats ok these days - but she doesn't weigh more than 99 lbs. But in general I watch what I eat. Try to measure serving sizes. Try to avoid dessert and sweets, replacing them with trail mix and dates. Anyone else have experiences like this? I realize that this is a huge theme in female development of eating disorders, but similar effects can and in my case have occurred in males. 

Anyhow, I gotta run. I have to make my pre-measured, low calorie, high protein and fiber, well-balanced afternoon snack before I go to martial arts :-)

Home made "nut butter"

So just about everyday, after our workout, my wife and I down a protein shake and then in a few hours take down our mid-morning snack. Our midmorn snack lately has taken the form of a rice cake (or 2) spread with some peanut butter. High carb, low sugar, high protein snack. It's a great, absolutely wonderful post-workout snack. Well in my enthusiastic culinary skills (read no idea how to cook, but like playing with new toys like my Magic Bullet), I decided I would try to make my own Peanut Butter. The problem, I had not peanuts. Doh!

I did, however, have a can of mixed nuts. I bought them to add to my homemade trail mix, which will interestingly, never ever see a trail (only my office :-)  The trail mix is really good, filling, and a low sugar, high fiber, high protein snack - something that our paleolithic ancestors probably dined on often. It contains: mixed nuts, sunflower seed, pitted dates, raisins, extra walnuts, and dried blueberries, cranberries, and cherries.

I digress. I was talking about making homemade nut butter. So here's what you do. Add about 1/2 cup (that's 8oz) to the magic bullet cup. Chop the nuts coarsely using the flat blade. It won't do much, but it will get them down from full size nuts to smaller more manageable chunks. You will have to shake the device and scrape the sides a few times. OK, when the nuts are a little smaller add 2 teaspoons olive oil and continue to blend using a pulse technique and shaking with the cross blade. As the butter gets thicker you will have to scrape the sides of the cup. Eventually, and actually quite rapidly it will smooth out. I blended mine a touch too long and it became liquidy, which I hope will wear off in the fridge. This is natural nut butter, so it's recommended that you refrigerate it.

At any rate, there you go. You get about half the butter you would in a small container of peanut butter you purchase at the grocery store. You get the fun of making your own. And you get a high protein, relatively low fat, high fiber, and no artificial additives spread for your mid morning snack.

Enjoy!

What of Overweight Personal Trainers

So last night I was fortunate enough to score tickets to a local professional Ice Hockey team, and while I found it really difficult (as if I was murdering a family member) cheering for the home team and not the Philadelphia Flyers (who were not even playing), I did just that. However, in between periods and even during periods when play was slow (read as: no one was getting slammed against a hard wood board!) my wife and I began an conversation with a fella behind us. Primarily because this guy made it abundantly clear that this was his first hockey game, that he was taken here by someone he was training, and that his profession was a personal trainer. Obviously without halt my wife and I turned so quickly we probably caused permanent brain damage. An interesting thing about our turning so quickly. It's a psychological effect known as "Attentional attunement." You can do a few neat little studies to test this effect. For example, if you are a teacher or a tutor, then do this right before a big exam. Ask them to remember a list of words, say 50 or so. 30 of those words should be randomly selected words, the others should be related to tests, test anxiety, etc (e.g., words like: test, mark, grade, question, etc). Chances are if you students play along with this little experiment (and care about their grades) they will be much better at remembering these test-related words. The same is true with just about anything. Alcoholic 'hear' and remember more words that deal with, well ethanol injected liquids. Similar effects can be shown in people addicted to drugs and sex. It even occurs in relation to race perceptions, but that's for another post. When it comes to fitness (addicts) we are not immune. Put a group of people who care about losing weight into a lab and ask them to remember a set of words that include words such as fat, skinny, weight, calories, etc. Guess what words they remember best?  

So in the few minutes it took for my wife and I to recover from our minor head turning concussion, our eyes began to re-focus and what we saw was 1) amazing, but 2) not uncommon. There, sitting behind us was one of the largest men (& I dont mean muscular) I've ever laid my eyes on. He must have easily been 350, maybe more, pounds.  This couldn't be the guy pitching himself as the Personal Trainer, could it? Yes, it was. This is now the third time I've met a personal trainer that, well, is fat! This seems completely inane to me and makes me wonder how this guy could even get a client, let alone be allowed to graduates PT school. I mean, it's tantamount to being a Cracker Barrel regular who's profession is nutritionist - makes not fucking sense. I wonder about these people: why did they get into this profession? Where they once thin? Are they trying to battle their own issues with being overweight? Do they think they represent the epitome of fitness and thus people will be lining up around the corner to sign up for a PT session with them? Well I could never, in good conscious do such. I pay for my wife's PT sessions and we agree that we would not pay over $100/month to someone who did not "look the part" - you could be educated until you are blue in the face, but damn it, if you cannot practice what you preach then how I can I pay you? I couldn't. Not sure how anyone else feels... Could you pa your hard earned $$ to an overweight PT? Why? How?