Welcome back to leananmean.com. I made the decion last March to close this website down but over the the many months I’ve missed the oppertunity to speak out on various goings-ons around me. I guess I have a big mouth and I need an outlet to expouse my views.

What you can expect from [...]]]>  

Welcome back to leananmean.com. I made the decion last March to close this website down but over the the many months I’ve missed the oppertunity to speak out on various goings-ons around me. I guess I have a big mouth and I need an outlet to expouse my views.

What you can expect from me is the occasional post about anything that seems interesting – especially if I think whats out there is not the whole story. I should have pleanty of fodder. I will continue to speak about heath and fitness too as this is an interest of mine.

What’s happened this year of interest in my life? I was promoted to Rokudan (6th degree blackbelt) in Kenpo. That was totally unexpected but perhaps should not have been. Let me explain. A few years back I received our organizations lifetime acheivement award and a couple years back I was entered into the Kenpo Hall of Fame. I created a website for the karate school here so I guess it should not have been surprising that 10 years after my 5th degree promotion (where I had to write a thesis), that I would get the largely honorary (no specific deliverables) promotion to Rokudan.

Anyway I am happy to have the new degree and I’ll try to live up to the standards of this honor.

On the weight loss plan – I am not focusing on any diet anymore (as that seems fail mostly) but I am going to try and achieve a balance of mind, body and soul. I’ve never had a problem keeping my mind sharp. I have an MBA and I received my windows 2008 system administrator certification from Microsoft this year (3 tests).

As far as my body, injuries and appetite have been my downfall. Interestingly enough working out at the karate school (specifically sparring) and bag work at home (throwing punches incorrectly) have actually kept me from working out. I’ve inured my wrists, hands, knee, and feet over the last year and had to take time off for recovery. Although I’ve tried to do different exercise – it was a challenge this year.

As far a soul – I’ve reconnected with my Catholic roots and I’m trying to reconcile the child understanding of the faith with the adult version. The child version was far easier… all I had to do was go to church with my parents. Now I have to actually study the bible and ask the Lord for forgiveness as well as find time to worship, help the needy and pray. Whew… I actually find it all very rewarding and I feel like I’ve plugged a missing dimension in my life.

As far as the plan forward – mostly it is the body that needs work. I am not dieting any more but simply going to eat healthy meals (yes – fewer calories than I actually need but I’m not counting) with the good tasting foods I grew up on. For instance I’ve started drinking whole milk (from no milk since I was a kid) because it is very satisfying and helps be stay full.  Many more examples but in a nut shell I am feel satisfied all of the time now and should slowly take off the inches.

I’m steadily working out again since my last sparring session. I re-injured my knee and cut my face. The face injury healed fast but the knee still smarts. But I am able to bike, hike, walk and do bag work. This year I am going to stop sparring for the most part as 80% of the time I get injured. I don’t really need to spar to stay in shape for self defense and I’m not going to fight a MMA match anytime soon so why go overboard. I’m not anymore. I’m gonna be smart about this now.

Welcome back and I hope you stop by from time to time. I also wish all a happy new year!

Whats more I would hazarda guess and say that fad diets of any genre do [...]]]> The word “diet” is becoming passe like vampire movies. Everywhere I turn there are diet pills, commercials, books, websites (yes this I guess is one more to a point) and people espousing the latest, greatest diet! I am sick of diets!!!

Whats more I would hazarda guess and say that fad diets of any genre do not work. Now wait a moment – I’m not saying you cannot lose some weight with many of them, I am saying that if you are trying to reverse obesity – diets are not going to do the trick.

Here is what I have found to work. Eat or burn less calories than you take in. Now how you decide to do that is the only trick. You can pay some company the big bucks to “do their plan” or figure it out for yourself. The cool thing is if you figure it out for yourself (hopefully) you will find a compromise (yes – there will be some hard decisions) you can live with!

Now I happen to like eating less and exercising more because this is a good strategy for getting fit. But the devil is in the details. In this post I will go over how my diet is helping my overall fitness level and will not focus too much on exercise (see other posts for that). To start the conversation I found a couple of videos stating that diets do not work for your perusal.

While I agree with most of this video and really like how the focus is not on diets, I will say that one can try and eat healthy, love them self, increase activity levels, lose weight slowly, and still love themselves! I do understand that liking/loving yourself is the first step to making healthy changes.

I also agree that diets do not work. If the focus is short term to loose the love handles to strut your stuff at the beach and then go back to the “normal” way of eating – that is an unhealthy attitude I think (I’m not a health professional).

I think making “lifestyle changes” is the proper approach. This includes moving more and eating less calories than one burns (assuming you need to lose some fat). I don’t think anyone should starve themselves because how can someone eat like that for the rest of their lives? No what I am talking about if changing your food choices from high calorie to lower calorie choices (cumulative over the whole day) that meet your needs. If you need to lose fat, then you would eat less calories than you use reasonably.

What is reasonable? I would guess a pound a week for most people is doable without too much pain after they get used to the idea. Exercise should make this easier too such as walking for 30 to 60 minutes a day. Most people have tons of down time they use up watching a tv show they don’t really like. Why taking the dog out for a walk daily would accomplish exercise for you and your dog!

Here is what I ate yesterday.

• Breakfast
  • egg sandwich with cheese and low-cal margarine
  • glass of orange juice
  • banana
  • orange
  • coffee with half and half & splenda
• Lunch
  • 1/2 torpedo roll with 3oz roast beef, slice of cheese and low-cal mayo
  • diet root beer
  • banana
  • orange
• Dinner
  • turkey burger with slice cheese on full torpedo roll
  • two red potatoes
  • two carrots
  • diet orange soda

The calorie totals are about 650 for breakfast, 450 for lunch, and 600 for dinner or a grand total of 1700 calories. You see I am shooting for 1500 to 1800 calories a day. I was not hungry all day and I did a 45 minute boxing workout on the bag.

The trick is consistency for me. I find if I jump off of the reservation too many times a week – I will have a wash in calories but the way I eat is not really a diet (I don’t count anymore while I am doing it) but rather a way of eating I’ve grown accustomed to doing. We have junk food for my son but I mostly stay away from that.

This doctor makes a good point about seeing a health professional for advice. If the doctor does not feel comfortable making recommendations he or she can refer you to a nutritionist. The main point here is if you find yourself obese, you probably have not been making good food choices so you will have to “adjust” what foods you already like to ones you CAN eat for life!

Another good point is to visit USDA website for approved dietary guidelines so you can see the latest recommendations for healthy eating choices!

So I say Diet Smiet! Go figure out how to transform your diet into YOUR healthy living plan.

I remember back to the fifth grade when my mom enrolled me in dance classes at a local studio. At first I did not want to go because as you all know at 11 years old – Girls Have Cudies!!!

Well let me just say after the first couple of lessons my mom did not have to [...]]]>  

I remember back to the fifth grade when my mom enrolled me in dance classes at a local studio. At first I did not want to go because as you all know at 11 years old – Girls Have Cudies!!!

Well let me just say after the first couple of lessons my mom did not have to drag me down to the school anymore and I really liked dancing with girls (they turned out to be ok).

Later in the sixth grade I found even though it was kind of corny – square dancing in PE was ok too… Unfortunately or fortunately by the time I got to high school – all you had to do to dance was to let it all hang out. Needless to say any dance moves I was taught were soon forgotten.

In this post I am going to talk about a fitness goal and reward the wife and I are talking about doing when we are close to being in good shape – Salsa Dancing! Here is one example I found on youtube.

Isn’t that cool? Did you notice that letting it all hang out would not work? Yes there is a nice Latin beat but one has to have a certain continuity with your partner to make everything happen.

Our goals as we we lose weight are to find activities that we can do to have fun and keep in shape. My two left feet and losing a bunch of weight are the initial hurdles. Once we are near our goals we will look for a dance school that fits into our schedule (and budget).

We expect that learning how to dance will be fun but a lot of work. It should not be too bad in a dance school with at least some other beginning students.

After we are semi-proficient, our plan is to take monthly outings at some classy night clubs! While I have always envisioned having my own karate dojo in my back yard along with a koi pond in the Japanese garden – I guess I’ll have to make it double as a dance/fitness/gym space too.

Hold on a minute – can one really have fun and get into shape? Can you find something both you and your partner can enjoy?

Well in life people do best if they help each other out I’ve noticed. My sweetheart and I have cooperated with our diets and exercise idea so far.

She likes the new weight watchers plus points because she can eat all of the fruit and veggies she wants without it costing her. My honey still makes the turkey, boca, black bean or veggie burgers as well as the occasional chicken breast sandwich for dinners so I am still able to count calories easily.

You see I have noticed that when my sweetie pie is happy – I am happy so it is good to stay on similar pages. We are helping each other with exercise along with the pooches occasionally by walking around Santee Lakes (it is next to our house).

Today we decided that sometimes we are going to rent a paddle wheel boat and do that instead of walking.

Now the wife and I still do plenty separate of the exercises we like individually – for instance I did an hour of bag work today and my son and I did 3 1/2 hour mountain hike the last two Sunday’s but we plan activities together too!

I don’t know if my baby and I will ever get this good but as Nissan so aptly says, “Enjoy the Ride!”

I hope you have enjoyed this look at just one of our ideas of how to make exercise fun and exciting!

Disfrutar de la danza!

The acre back yard in the last house was my exercise track. Three to four days each week [...]]]> I started out in 2008 blogging in part about my progress getting into acceptable shape! I figured this would take about a year to re-teach my body how to accept exercise and get used to eating less food.

The acre back yard in the last house was my exercise track. Three to four days each week I would run the newly worn path for an hour or so. The wife and I started buying leaner meats and substitutes and I started counting calories and fat (so I could keep my diet 20% calories or so).

I used to think I had strong will power because in the 1990′s I was able to lose all of my weight and keep it off for several years by doing a low-fat and walking program. I lost that “will power” after starting up college (while working full time and throwing two adult paper-routes).

Will power? Is that something needed to successfully lose fat and increase endurance? I used to think so and I would continually create short-term plans based on my will power.

I was successful each year through each Spring. I went from 260 to 224 the first year but by January I had gained almost all of it back and weighed 255 pounds!

The next year (2009) I went from 255 down to 229 pounds and thought everything was wonderful!!! I was working out from 14 t0 20 hours a week to keep the pounds in check during the holidays. I ate all of the cookies and pies and still managed to only have a slight gain starting 2010!

The starting weight in 2010 was 233 and I got down to 219 pounds by May! I thought this year was going to be the one that I finally transitioned to a healthy fitness level. But alas – stress and health concerns started rearing its ugly head.

We were trying to buy a house and not agreeing on much so the stress level was high and towards Summer I got real sick. I did not get better until the Fall.

During the sick period I stopped exercising and while I tried to not overeat – I still ate too damn much!

Fast forward to the end of 2010 and I weighed in this morning at 236 pounds – that means I’ve gone nowhere this year – a wash!

The cool thing about being human is we can learn from our mistakes and adjust our approach. In this post I will go over the winners and losers in fat loss ideas (for me) and post my new EASY diet and exercise plan for 2011. Please read on if this interests you.

Lets face it. Most guys and gals unless they have exercised regularly through out their lives – don’t get back into the exercise habit easily. One hears about aerobic exercise as the only exercise worth anything from all of the fitness “experts” but the truth is for most people – they will end up quitting in a month or two. Why? Aerobic exercise is hard and not only can make one sore but mentally it is even harder to make yourself do something that you know is going to be hard. Rationalization is something most people are good at. It is easy to talk yourself out of doing today what you can put off to tomorrow.

Weight lifting is another one of those lofty goals that fitness “experts” say you should do but most people join the gym, many hire the trainer and then they stop going by spring or summer. What was the point? I mean yes you have improved the bottom line for the shareholders of the gym but unless one has mentally prepared for the commitment – why set yourself up for failure?

I almost don’t want to mention the word diet because it has so many negative associations. Anyone embarking on a diet either trusts a friend or advertisement and just tries diets without too much forethought. I mean testimonials and hard-bodies are king! Yes I believe because the model tells me he/she did it on this plan and he/she looks sooooo goooood… I can do it too!

Diets don’t work! At least the way most people interpret them. If you view a diet as eating a new way that you are not prepared to eat for life then the “whatever” diet will fail for you. A better way of looking at a diet/life style change/new menu is to eat how you already eat but make some substitutions you can live with to lessen the calorie count. Thats it – not brain surgery or rocket science.

So to list the losers (at least at first while starting to get into shape):

• Aerobic exercise
• Weight lifting
• Diet

Here are the  winners:

• non-aerobic exercise (like walking at a comfortable pace – not too fast)
• house and yard work (cleaning and mowing)
• eat tasty foods you already like (not everything you eat is over the top)
• substitute ingredients for some foods you like to make them less calories
• figure out you failings (emotional/stress eater, will power, proximity of food, able to portion or not)

Ok – Now that I have got this out – I don’t think most will agree with me about aerobics/weight lifting and diets as being losers! Well let me say that I set myself up for disappointment by having unrealistic expectations. One example is bag work. I love the aerobic workout I get from kick-boxing the bag for 1/2 hour. I’ve tried to talk myself into doing bag work for five days a week but by the time I get to the third day – my middle aged body does not want to respond. I mean I cannot talk myself into doing it. I also usually end up breaking a knuckle or wrist because I like hitting so much (I forget to lessen the power of the punches).

Here is what I’ve evaluated that has worked for me over the past three years and what I am mostly going to do this year (2011):

• Eat 1500 calories on most days
  • my BMR (resting calorie usage) is 2100 calories
  • I eat three meals a day and I am not too hungry so long as I don’t drink caloric beverages too much
• Walk or bike at a comfortable pace for two hours a day
  • I will still do the occasional aerobic workouts – I like them and they help my blood pressure
  • I figure walking I burn 300 calories an hour – thats 600 extra a day
• Get plenty of sleep – try and reduce stress

You can see this does not seem hard. It is easy for me to talk myself into doing my exercise for the day and if I end up mowing the yard – it counts towards my total. I don’t ever clean the house but if you do  - that counts too.

The goal for me is to lose a pound every three days or so with my 1200 calorie deficit (600 diet and 600 exercise) or 3600 calories over three days. 3500 calories burned/dieted equals one pound lost!

So if you like what I’ve said or think I’m nuts – I’d like to point out my karate instructor’s words of wisdom he used to tell me – the proof is in the pudding! Come back on occasion and check the progress link at the top of this blog and see if my “Easy” diet and exercise ideas are working for me.

I wish you and yours a happy and prosperous New Year 2011!