Howie

[Howie]

I've become obsessed with health and fitness research lately. It seems like the more I learn the more questions I have. Diet and fitness is not nearly as simple as I used to think.
I have acquired a college Biochemistry text book and plan to read it entirely in the near future. There are several fitness and diet books I will read first so it may be a week or so before I get around to the text book (it's 1300+ pages so it's gonna be a involved read).
I burned through a kettlebell book yesterday and learned a few really cool tricks regarding strength and conditioning. I'll definitely be using my kettlebell as part of my regular strength training routine and did so last night for a killer workout.

[Howie]

Did my first day of the Kettlebell Strength program I put together based on the Info from Enter the Kettlebell. Gotta say I really liked it.
The 1 on 1 about workout was pretty rough but considering I haven't done ab specific workouts in over a month I did pretty well.
P90X2 should arrive right around the same time I finish up this program. So that should work out just right.

[Howie]

Just Arms baby! Love that workout! Last night's workout went well and it was good to see that my strength hadn't diminished during the month of doing Asylum. I added some pull-ups and suspension trainer exercises into the mix while Tony yapped in between exercises.
I'm really liking this new approach at working out.
I am back to my 4lbs loss (168lbs) after having gained back 2 of those due to Halloween candy interactions. I am feeling great again and feel like my health and fitness is back on track full force again.
One of the things I was most surprised about after devouring a bunch of chocolate bars is how absolutely horrible I felt and how quickly it deranged my metabolic condition. One night of bad eating choices regarding sugar (mostly Fructose) turned into over a week of sugar cravings and metabolic derangement.
One of the things this diet has time and time again pointed out to me is how bad certain foods really are for me.

[Howie]

Haha I should just start a blog.
Ok, so tonight I did the 8min run, Stand-ups, and killer abs and it was far more intense than I had expected.
If you are currently doing distance running as part of your fitness and not as part of a training program specifically for an endurance running goal I recommend you stop and give this 8min run a shot.
I set my treadmill for full inclined and than turned it to 8mph. I than let the treadmill get up to speed and at 0:59 I jump on and run till 1:59 than jump off. I than walk around the room get water and focus my energy on relaxing and recovering my energy. Once the clock hits 2:59 I jump back on and prepare to keep riding that pony like this for another 6 rotations.
Do this once a week to keep your heart strong as hell, and increase both power and burst speed. I got this from a weight lifter who swears this one addition to his regular workout week has increased his lifts by over 100lbs.
If you don't have a treadmill I'm sure balls out sprints or stairs would be an acceptable substitute considering this seems to be designed to mimic sprinting stairs.
It's been fun! Good luck.

[Howie]

I am really digging this Russian Kettlebell Training. It is very difficult and I haven't even ramped all the way up to full sets yet but I am on track so that's good.
So I've figured out that I have a mild intolerance to Dairy. This isn't a massive deal considering I don't eat much dairy at all but I just don't especially like that I need to pull yet another item off the list. Now that I've cleaned up my diet (Still not 100% compliance) it's surprising how obvious the intolerance is to certain food items. I did a 3 day dairy experiment to make sure it was the dairy I am having a hard time with and in just those 3 days I gained 5lbs! HAH! I'm sure it is in water weight due to inflammation but WOW! It's been two days sense the test and I've already dropped 2 of those lbs gained.
This is just one more step in the direction of getting my diet nailed down.

[wardjf79]

On a more extreme comparison, before I started cleaning up my act and joined you in improving my overall health and fitness in April, I was eating a lot of Super China Buffet and had joked that there was a correlation between eating there and the condition of my bodily functions. When I started exercising and eating better in April, I quit eating SCB (haven't since) all previous bowel malfunctions cleared right up. Food for thought.

[Howie]

Hmmm I'll add SCB to my list of Don't eats.
I think of things like SCB as food compounds rather than a food element. I couldn't really remove every item from a dish just because the meal jacked me up. I'd like to try each component of the meal alone and find out what the intolerance was from specifically.
Although I know that gluten is supposed to be the devil so far the thing that impacts me the hardest is sugar with Fructose being the biggest offender. Dairy isn't pleasant and neither is gluten but their discomfort seems less than sugar. For me sugar gives me all the effects of being hung over with none of the benefits of being drunk.
Think sugar and processed flour is no big deal? Spend 30 little days eating meat and veggies only than on day 31 go out and eat a king sized snickers bar and wash it down with a coke and let me know how you feel. I'll save you the pain, you'll feel like shit and immediately wonder why you ever made that shit a common snack.
One of the cool parts about cleaning up your diet is that you sorta press the reset button on your body allowing you to work with a clean canvas. Than you get to start experimenting with various items and really see how they effect you. It might sound odd but seriously learning new things about yourself is really interesting... At least it is to me.
This all being said Ward and I have been talking often via text about cleaning up his diet and titrating down his carb intake. He has been doing really well with the process and he's very close to what I feel is the last few steps toward a more ketogenic diet allowing him to further distance his mental addiction to sugar/carbs (it is an addiction no doubt about it). I on the same hand am going back through sugar withdrawals based on some of my poor snack choices over the last week. I am now going on day 3 of no sugar and it's much easier to not crave sugars but it's still a temptation. The source of the problem is of course all the awesome cookies, brownies, pies, cakes, and candy that goes along with the holiday season. The start was a two day relationships with candy from Halloween that didn't go well. I recovered from the candy and returned to my regular diet but what it did was weaken my will to just easily pass on treats. I didn't pass on brownies, cheesecake, cookies, and also the dairy experiment and the effects are that I had rebooted my sugar dependency.
The last two days I've been leaning on sweet potatoes to keep me level and strong willed (there is literally a pile of home baked cookies on my kitchen counter) and today I'm going to try to not have any sweet potatoes either.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that sugar is a problem for just about everyone. Keep your will strong.
Some interesting info about whole grain bread: studies have shown that the body has a bigger insulin response to whole grain bread than it does to table sugar. Still think it's the healthier choice? Keep in mind that a starch is sugar. Starches are polysaccharides which just means it's made up of 3 or more sugar molecules. Your body doesn't use or store starches, it uses sugar so once you eat starches enzymes just break them apart into sugars. Next time you have a whole wheat bagel and think you're making a healthy choice understand that as far as your body is concerned you may as well just start eating snickers bars for breakfast.
That was long winded today but this stuff is super interesting to me and I could honestly go on and on about it.

[Howie]

Haven't been on here posting in a bit because of the holidays. I've still been going strong with Paleo and the Russian Kettlebell workout. I am actually on my last week of the RC before taking a much needed rest week.

[Howie]

Been taking it easy over the past week making sure I'm rested up completely for P90X2. So after a log wait I'm going to finally be starting P90X2 today! I expect great results from this program so I am really stoked to get started. I'll be going on vacation to visit family during week 3 so I will be able to try out the on the road version of the program than.
Here's to getting ripped! Cheers.