Half Assed Fitness

I've never really believed in substitutes. Why would you eat the fake version over the real version? I eat vegetarian on occasion and I've always wondered why all vegetable protein is flavored and molded to look like meat?

Anyway, the sugar free thing is what brought me to this idea again. I was contemplating sugar free substitutes for desserts and looked into what is in them if there is no sugar. Well, it turns out there are things like Splenda in them which is a sugar substitute. Some of these have a pretty bad reputation and after doing some reading, I've decided that no, there will be no sugar substitutes. If I'm not going to have sugar, I'm not going to have something "sugar like".

I'm going all natural baby!

The reason this is a rude awakening is because I've been drinking Hansen's Diest soda because it is calorie free. I never really looked at it that closely because all I cared about was the calories. Well, it's made with Splenda. Damn. I love this stuff but I'm not excited about the Splenda.

More research has led me to see that this is really my goal:

Replace refined sugars with natural sugars

Get in the habit of reading labels and avoid products made with white sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose, fructose, and ALL artificial sweeteners. Instead use natural sweeteners, including pure maple syrup, molasses, stevia, Rapadura (dehydrated cane sugar juice) or raw unfiltered honey. Many health food stores offer products made with natural sweeteners, like cookies and ice cream, and even licorice, although it is better to make your own. Use this step to help you become acquainted with all the natural alternatives to replace refined sugar products.

This comes from a great article called Replacing Refined Sugars with Natural Sugars One Step At a Time by Lori Lipinski. Her article goes through the stages of a day on sugar and some of the health concerns we should be aware of.

Sugar has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Not only does it totally lack nutrients, but when you eat sugar it actually robs your body of nutrients-- vitamins, minerals and even enzymes.

Sure sugar may be temporarily pleasing to the taste buds, but the rest of the body suffers for it. The sad thing is that most people are not aware of the devastating effects that excess sugar consumption has on the body.

Yikes, I knew it wasn't really all that good for me but I had no idea it was this bad. I may have to go more than 31 days after the trial. We'll see what happens.


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This is a juice recipe that I learned from The 3-Day Energy Fast: Cleanse Your Body, Clear Your Mind, and Claim Your Spirit.

This recipe is made with a juicer. I'm not sure if there is a way to make it without one.

Ingredients:
6 Granny Smith or Red Delicious apples
1 handful blueberries
1 handful raspberries
1 handful strawberries
1 sprig of mint (optional)
1/2 lime
Juice in juicer. Makes about 20oz.

Calories: 625

That's kind of a lot of calories for one dessert. A piece of pumpkin pie is only about 300. But it's sugar-free (other than natural sugars) and it's fruit which is healthy. The calories vary depending on the size of the apples you use, and it could easily be cut in half. I would suggest making half as much rather than trying to save half, I don't think it keeps real well.


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I have a confession to make. Between the holidays and the strength training I've been doing, I've gained four pounds. I'm not sure how much of it could be new muscle but I have pretty much been a slacker for the two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Thank god it's over!) I got cocky; feeling invincible. It just goes to show show how much more impact your diet has over exercise, I only missed one gym visit but I spent a lot of time shoveling snow to make up the difference!

It's a perfect time for the 31 days sugar-free trial. That's been my biggest weakness so far; cakes, cookies, pies, it's been ridiculous, it's everywhere I look. It's time to re-focus and get myself back on track though so I am going out to buy a new food diary, and will re-calculate my calorie goal and will basically go back into weight-loss mode. I've been in maintenance mode for about 5 months and I was doing really well until now without tracking. Since I've put on a couple of pounds, I need to keep track again to see where it might be coming from and get it under control. Better now than before it's 5 pounds, or 10 pounds.

According to this article it sounds like no more than one maybe two of these pounds could be muscle, the other two pounds would be fat. I'm really having fun building up my muscles, I want to make sure they can be seen so I need to keep my body fat percentages low.

Fruit is going to be a big part of my diet during the next month...I have a great all fruit dessert drink recipe I will post. It is soooooo yummy and I imagine I will need it to keep my sweet tooth at bay and my blood sugar levels up.

Wish me luck! And if you have a weight-loss goal that you are working on....good luck to you too!

This post updated 12/29/08


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So I've decided to go sugar free for the month of January. I'm mulling it over in my mind already because I need to wrap my mind around it, prepare, and absorb the idea. That's just the way my brain works.

I know this is going to be a hard one. I've had at least one dessert/sweet/candy of some kind every day since I quit drinking. My theory behind this is that I was getting a lot of sugar in alcohol and I've been craving it ever since.

While researching recipes for sugar free desserts I found a few that had Cool Whip in them. Cool Whip? Isn't that just whipped sugar? I started doing some checking and this is what I found: Cool Whip is made of water, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated coconut and palm kernel oil (CPKO), sodium caseinate, vanilla extract, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60 (glycosperse), and beta carotene. Yum?

Ok, sugar isn't specifically listed here but corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup are almost synonymous with sugar, aren't they? I found a good article called High fructose corn syrup vs pure sugar is one worse than the other? It discusses the fact that they are both sweeteners whereas sugar is natural while high fructose corn syrup is not due to the processing it goes through. But in essence, it's sugar and I am going to exclude it during my 31 days sugar free.

Wish me luck. I think this will be harder than quitting drinking in a way. With drinking, there were obvious negative drawbacks such as hangover, difficulty getting motivated in the morning, etc. that you don't have with sugar. It's just good.

I may have to employ the same tactics I used for quitting drinking though. If you are interested in the method I used please visit this website. The information provided made it practically easy to quit a very destructive 20 year problem that I had. I know it can help anyone with an open mind and a real desire to quit any bad habit. Like sugar.



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I've been thinking about cutting sugar out of my diet. (Coffee too but I'm not ready to go there just yet.) Today I ran across an article by Zen to Fitness called 30 Day Sugar Free Challenge and it brought this idea back into focus for me.

I believe there are many reasons to cut sugar, whether you are overweight or not. For some it can be a source of extra calories and for others it's downright dangerous. In general it's one of those things that is easy to over indulge in and while it's very pleasurable and delicious, it's not really healthy.

Currently even though I take in some amount of sugar everyday, I am staying inside of my maintenance weight calorie goal so I doubt I will see any significant changes in my weight but maybe. I'm not really sure what kind of results I'll see but that's what 30 day trials are for!

In the Zen to Fitness article he mentions

This January marks the beginning of International Sugar Free Month and the 30 Sugar Free Days Challenge, organized by Dr. Scott Olson, ND author of the book Sugarettes, as a way to bring awareness to the addictive qualities of sugar and the health hazards of that addiction.

I'm going to go ahead and do the 30 Sugar Free Challenge in January. A couple of modifications though; there are 31 days in January so I'm going to make mine a 31 day challenge. The other thing is that while I like a challenge, and while I like Dr. Olson's idea of sugar free, there is something slightly ooky about the info on his website that leaves me feeling like I've been pitched a too-good-to-be-true gimmicky weight loss scam so I'm just going to cut out sugar in it's simplest form rather than follow his plan specifically.

• No Sugar
• No chocolate
• No ice cream
• No candy
• No cakes or cookies
• No mochas or lattes

I didn't list soda because I never drink it anyway.

So, I'm probably not going to post daily lists of what I do eat like in the vegetarian challenge but I will report weekly and let you know how I'm feeling, what I'm experiencing and if there are any significant physical results from this experiment.

Feel free to join me, and report your results in the comments. I'd love to hear from you.

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On November 12th I started the Stronglifts 5x5 program. I've been going regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays except for Thanksgiving week. So in actuality, I've done three full weeks of this program.

Three weeks doesn't sound like much but I am seeing progress:
*I can't figure out why there is a big gap here, please scroll down, thank you!

.	Starting	Current
Squats	40 lb	80 lb
Bench Press	20 lb	45 lb
Overhead Press	30-30-30-30-30 lbs	45-45-45-30-30 lbs
Deadlift	45 lb	80 lb
Push-ups	12-8-8	18-11-10
Pull-ups	10-7-6	10-10-8
Chin-ups	10-6-6	10-10-10

It's fun to watch the numbers go up, even if it is just a tiny bit each time. I'm feeling my muscles more now too. When I sit, when I move; I'm aware that they are there and they are a little bigger. I've gained about 3 pounds since I started this. I can't tell visually or by the way my clothes fit but I'm sure it's new muscle. I'm watching my calorie intake carefully to make sure.

Two other exercise that are part of this program are prone bridges and reverse crunches. I've been surprised to find these are continuously challenging even though there is no increase in the weight (they are body weight exercises) or the reps.

I took before pictures; I think I'll get about two months under my belt before I take "after" pictures. Once I can see some progress in the pictures, I'll post them. I'm a little shy about putting pics of myself half naked on the internet but for the sake of making a point and encouraging others, I'll get over it.

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I once knew a guy that drank a 12 pack of Coke everyday. EVERYDAY!!!!
Personally the thought of drinking even one a day is enough to make me hurl but I really don't like soda (pop, whatever you call it). One day he realized it probably wasn't the most healthy thing to do so he cut back to two a day. It makes sense, if it's something you really like, you don't really want to give it up completely, just cut back. Guess what happened? He lost something like 25 pounds in a matter of about 2 months. Wow!

Let's do the math....12 Cokes at 143 calories each is 1716 calories a day. (That's my total daily allowance right there, but that's another story). When he cut back to 2, his Coke calorie intake went from 1716 to 286. That's a calorie savings of 1430 a day. Since we know that 3500 calories equals a pound, he would be able to lose almost a pound every two days if the rest of his diet remained the same and he didn't start taking in extra calories somewhere else.

Alcohol was where all of my extra calories were coming from. I didn't really eat much sweets and I'm not really big on fried foods so there wasn't a whole lot of other places to cut back on calories. I'll admit, I was able to put away a significant amount of alcohol calories each week. Not a very healthy habit on a few different levels.

Instead of cutting back, I quit completely. In the first two months, I lost 15 pounds. Over the course of the next 5 months I lost a total of 27 pounds. That's a lot! While I did try to improve my eating habits to include more veggies and fruits and increasing my exercise as well, the drinking thing was the biggest change that I made.

Most of the overweight people I know have one main weakness that they keep giving into regularly. French fries, dessert, soda, alcohol, ice cream. All of these are high in calories and more enjoyable than they are healthy. If you are looking for a way to impact or kick start your weight-loss program, this can be a biggie. It can also be the hardest thing to do.

Isn't that always the way? Some of the most beneficial rewards in your life are gained through sacrifice and hard work. Why can't it just be easy?

What is the one thing you could sacrifice in your diet that would probably cause you to lose weight? How hard would it be to give it up?

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If it were up to the dogs, we would be out tromping around in the woods sniffing everything, and saying hi to every dog and human we encounter right about now. What the dogs don't know is that it's only 2 degrees outside at the moment and it's not a good idea for them or me to be exposed to that kind of punishment.

In general though, the dogs do get me out of the house and into the hills much more often that I would normally go by myself. I appreciate them for that. When we're out together I feel safer as well. Certainly no one would mess with a girl that has two large black dogs with her would they?

I've known people that have gotten dogs just because it motivates them to go running or biking.

All that and undying affection too. What a deal!


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I've been hearing this from some of my friends lately. It's kind of sad.

One of my friends says she goes to the gym 3-4 times a week but hates every single minute of it. Another skips quite often because she doesn't like it.

There have been times when I'm not able to peel myself out of my warm, cozy bed or the idea of another hour of sweet, sweet sleep overrides my going to the gym but I have never not gone because I hate the gym itself.

Granted sometimes it's crowded and the music ALWAYS sucks but hate it? Why would you hate it? I like it because of the variety.

My guess is that it's not the gym that they hate but their routine.

Cardio is boring. Very, very boring and most people only do cardio. I'm not sure why this is. To quote Jim Karas from The Business Plan for the Body:

Go to any health club. Walk into the cardiovascular room. What do you see? Dozens, maybe hundreds, of people on treadmills, Stairmasters, bikes, elliptical trainers, or other assorted cardiovascular equipment. Notice that a vast majority of these people are overweight. Many of these people spend hours each week on one of these machines or a combination thereof, desperate to lose weight, and firmly believing that all this cardiovascular exercise will burn hundreds, even thousands, of calories and enable them to achieve their goal, weight loss.
Now, go to the strength and resistance room. What do you see? The majority of individuals doing strength and resistance exercises are in vastly better shape. In which room should you spend the majority of your time?

There are a few parts to this. One; strength training isn't boring. Two; it firms you. Three; the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn.

I typically warm up on the treadmill or elliptical but I only spend a maximum of 20 minutes there. It's just to get my blood flowing and my muscles warmed up. Along with some very aggressive rock music this is a good way to wake up. Then it's on to the weights. Before I started the Stronglifts 5x5 program, I just did a variety of the weight machines with pretty good results. Now I'm making more tangible progress in my strength and that makes it even more fun. I also like to throw in a class like Body-Pump or even kickboxing for some variety.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

You can't go to the gym and do the same thing over and over and expect to see new muscles or gains in performance. Maybe your endurance but that's about it. Shaking up your routine on a regular basis is critical for your physique and your sanity.

Please, look up a new workout routine online or find a buddy and adopt their routine for awhile...load your MP3 with some booty shakin' tunes and try something new. I'm sure the gym will be more fun if you do.


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Right this minute, your body is the way it is because it has adapted to the lifestyle that you've chosen for it.

This is what I would choose for an exercise:



This is called Parkour and I find it fascinating. It's like street gymnastics. Fun, I wish I had learned about it years ago.

I love this idea.

Emily Yoffee over at Slate.com does something called Human Guinea Pig: Humiliating myself for fun and profit and she experiments with different lifestyles, jobs and habits so you don't have to.

Her most recent experiment is called
Spandex Fantasy: I have a lifetime's worth of flab. Can I turn it into muscle in four months?.

During the trial, Emily hires a personal trainer who works with her two days a week and expects her to work out on her own 3 more days a week. Although Emily has had a gym membership previously, she says that what she normally does at the gym is nothing like what the trainer expects her to do and at first, she skips out on her own workouts causing the trainer to say "If you don't do it, we can't make a miracle here, you have potential, but you need to work harder."


At some point, Emily decides to really give it a go and what do you know? She sees results.

Then one night, after six weeks of serious effort, I was pulling down on a triceps machine when I caught sight of my upper arm in the mirror and saw a long, diagonal bruise running across it. I didn't remember hurting myself, so I examined my arm and realized I wasn't seeing a bruise, but a shadow cast by my deltoid—my first "cut." Later that week, my husband came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth and said, "Hey, look at your arm! You've actually got some muscles—for the first time in your life."
I started out being able to do five push-ups, now I did 20; I went from 15 dips to 22; I could do a chest press with only 7.5 pound weights, now I was using 20 pounders.

This brings up a great point. If you try something and are consistent with it, you are going to see results. That's a given and not usually where the problem lies. The problem is motivation.

In Emily's case, it's really what she does for a living, and it's typically temporary (although it doesn't have to be). Her motivation is she has to post her results to the whole world in order to get paid. It won't make a very good story if she just says, "Oh it was too hard, I gave up".

So, if you know for a fact that you can make a change, lose the weight, gain some health and muscles, where do you get your motivation?

For me it was my pants. They were so tight I was getting ready to buy bigger ones, again. And that was it. I refused to go up one more size. I told myself I was skinny before, I could be skinny again and be damned if I was going to move up one more pant size. Anger and disgust have always been great motivators for me.

And that's just what I did. Instead of going up a size, I ended up going down 5 sizes. It took awhile to be sure but I did it. And how you may ask? By following The Business Plan for the Body and keeping track of my calories.

What is your motivation? Have you found it yet? What is it going to take?

Image from Epicurean.com
Recipe from Dr. Weil's Recipe of the Day

8 Servings

The classic vinaigrette is made with 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. As you can see, this version has no oil in it at all, making it extremely low in calories. But don't worry — it's very high in flavor. Once you've tried this I'm sure it'll become your basic everyday staple for salad. And you can never eat too much salad!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried whole oregano
Pinches of rosemary and thyme
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 of a roasted red bell pepper

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender container. Blend to mix thoroughly.

Nutritional Information:

Per serving:
8 calories
0 g total fat (0 g sat)
0 mg cholesterol
2 g carbohydrate
0 g protein
0 g fiber
50 mg sodium

This looks so delicious! I can't wait to try it. I put dressing on pasta a lot for an easy meal, this would be great I'm sure. 8 calories is all! You could eat salad all day long with this dressing on it and barely register any calories. Unless of course you are putting croutons and cheese and meat on your salads. I was referring to vegetable salad of course!

From FitnessMagazine.com

INGREDIENTS
2 tsp olive oil
2 4-oz beef tenderloin medallions
1/4 cup sliced onion
3/4 cup sliced portobello mushrooms
1/2 cup beef broth
1/4 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS
Rub oil in a heavy skillet.
Heat to high heat; sauté tenderloins, turning once,with onions and mushrooms for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add broth and thyme; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes, or until liquid is reduced.
Season with salt and pepper.

Nutrition facts per serving:
Calories 247
Total Fat (g) 13
Saturated Fat (g) 4
Carbohydrate (g) 5
Fiber (g) 1
Protein (g) 27

I used peppered beef tenderloin for this and served it over plain penne pasta and it was wonderful! I think if you used non-marinated beef it would be kind of plain but as it turned out it was very flavorful. We will definitely be having this one again soon.

I find that the number one thing I slack off on when traveling is my water intake. In an unfamiliar environment or extended time trapped in a vehicle make drinking water less of a priority because I may find myself a long way from a bathroom when I need it. It's kind of a lame issue but I find that it happens repeatedly.

Typically I carry Nalgene bottle with me everywhere I go; work, meetings, the gym, around the house, everywhere. I like it because it's portable, convenient and I can see exactly how much water I'm actually drinking because of the measurement scale on the side. I shoot to drink two per day which equals the recommended 8 8oz glasses guideline. There is a lot of controversy over that amount but it's more than I take in when I'm not trying so it's a good goal number for me.

Water affects how much you weigh. If you chug down a big container of water and hop on the scale, you will weigh more until your body processes it and eliminates it. If you are dehydrated, you are going to weigh less than when your body is adequately hydrated. One way to know that your weight fluctuation isn't because of water retention or dehydration is to keep your intake consistent.

I'm happy to be home again, back in routine with access to my filtered water and where I know exactly where the bathrooms are.

Does anyone out there have any tips to offer on keeping hydrated while traveling...or do you just go with it and get back to you routine as quickly as you can?

This last week we drove a total of 1360 miles to see family for the holiday. We had a very nice time, enjoyed lots of games and good company and way too much good food. This kind of traveling really throws me off. My schedule is off, I'm in an unfamiliar environment, it's very disruptive. I didn't exercise the whole week. My intentions were good and I guess I did do a fair amount of walking but no gym time, I was very happy to get back at it today.

My intentions this morning were to do a repeat of my last workout rather than trying to progress but I was feeling very strong (and pent up) today and I managed to increase weight on all of my exercises and I even did quite a few more than what is outlined in the program.

I know a week isn't a lot of time but I really anticipated some loss of performance from not keeping on top of it. If I had stayed on plan I would be lifting 15 pounds more than my current level but I consider not backsliding an acceptable success.

Does anyone have any experience with how much time it takes before you start to regress? Not that I want to try it, I'm just curious.