It's the trifecta! The trifecta, I tell ya!

Its not exactly the technological singularity, or even the other, more sciency, singularity, but still.

This reason.com post and the accompanying video (well worth a watch in my opinion - but I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't think that was the case) hits all the interests: government programs, health and food. And there is a TED mention, to boot.

Kinda I'm Doing Something (Take Two)

I'm sitting here, having a cup of Sencha tea, having exceeded what is expected of me from work today and having not yet gotten started on what is expected of me for tomorrow. And so I'm trolling the Internet to unwind a bit. And yes, its hot; and yes, blogging is probably not what is expected of me, regardless of my level of production.

But as I said, it's what I'm doing.

And I stumble upon a... its not really a review... more of promotional item by a journalist but we'll call it a review... about a self-published book called the "The Shack." The article itself is really well done.

A sample from the article: "The novel's subject is faith in God, but it is written as if to a reader who has little interest in religion. And although it is a Christian book, its author does not seem to follow any church." But wait, it gets better: "The Shack is to narrative form roughly what the Leatherman Multi-Tool is to pliers."

It makes me want to read the book. And I thought that the topic was cool and probably of interest to at least some of you.

So, I'm trying to kill the rest of my work day, and this got me to Part Two of the post: There is so much to do right now. My book is nearly finished. I've said that probably 100 times. But each time I say it I'm a bit closer. I'm on the final scene now, so I can't be far off. Plus, the next story is already writing scenes in my head. This writing stuff would be easier if I could take the scenes in my head and just transform them into written word, rather than, you know, actually writing them. And don't fear, because this actually does tie into The Shack, because the author of that book took two years writing his novel. So I'm in good company. The novel is self-published, yes, but its been on the best-seller list for 105 weeks.

There is just so much to do. House work, work work, yard work, dog work, car work, life work, health work, blog work, avoiding-the-annoying-census-girl work, book-writing work, book-editing work, reading work, hiding-messages work, XBox work. It can be, well, a little much.

Update: Oh, and in amongst all that other work, I'm surprising R. tonight with a steak dinner. I had kinda intended it to be a candle light dinner, but since it doesn't get dark enough for candle light, it will just have to be a surprise steak and potato and tomato dinner. That might not seem like much, but we don't eat beef or potatoes around here much anymore since we went on the the weight-loss/healthy eating path.

Speaking of which... I'm doing this Spartacus workout. Ten stations of 60 second workouts, with 15 seconds to change. Three full sets for a total of 41ish minutes. Its from the Bible. And its a killer workout that involves weights, but thanks to the stations also improves cardio performance and burns mucho calorieo. So me can eat Oreo. But instead I usually just eat Jello.

Food choice, schmood schmoich, apparently

Reason.com has an interesting article of the White House's recent anti-obesity initiative and a peak at the newly redesigned food pyramid, along with the usual anti-government seasoning.

I've got some thoughts at my other blog.

I try not to cross post too often, but part of this blog's 1000 & 1 things is health & fitness. So I thought I would expand upon my other post.

So here goes: Don't even get me started on the food pyramid. It was a staple in schools and on food containers while I was growing up. Nice orderly progresssion from grains/carbs at the bottom (base), progressing up through fruits and veggies and meat and finally ending up in the smallest, topmost portion with fats and sugars. It was very nice.

And pretty much completely wrong.

Turns out, the carbs and grains that made the base of the pyramid really shouldn't form the base, because outside of a few whole grains and vegetables, carbs shouldn't be the base of your diet. Why not? They are mostly empty calories, and worse yet, they are relatively calorie dense and don't fill you up like, say fats and protiens. And lets just forget that the smallest part of the old pyramid makes a demon out of "fats," despite that saturated fats are probably one of the more healthy things you can eat.

So you see, the pyramid was pretty much entirely ass backwards or upside down, take your pick.

To make matters worse, based partly on that pyramid and party on advocacy from decades earlier, companies started abandoning fat at all costs. The result - trans fats and low-fat foods with high calorie counts. Both have since been discovered to be evils in the battle of the bulge.

Oh, and I forgot the best part of this little cross-over article: it gives me a place to crow about the fact that I'm down from 230ish pounds to 220 pounds. Almost all of it fat, as far as I can tell. And while on vacation R. and I worked out and I took a "fitness test" offered by one of the treadmills. It rated by VO2 Max as "above average."

Here I come, 210.

28.6

That's my BMI. 28.6. And I was generous, giving my honestly 6-foot 2-inch/2.5 inch height an additional inch or half inch of height. I used this morning's 229 weight. Even assuming that was high, 225 pounds at 6'3 gets me 28.1.

I'm not the first to rail against BMI, nor is this even my first time. But let's put that in perspective...

BMI Categories:
Underweight = less than 18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

To get to 24.9 I have to get down to 199 pounds. Now, I'm not particularly athletic. I keep in shape and workout. Yes, I lift some weights and do pushups, and I follow a program designed to get me lean. What I don't do is extreme weight lifting. I do push ups and just recently started using weights in one or two of my exercised. And I don't participate in any type of sport. So I'm not sure I fall into this site's "overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build." I wouldn't ordinarily describe myself as muscular. Frankly, if I'm muscular, I'd hate to think what the alternative is. Though, based on convos with siblings, I guess maybe I have a distorted view. Now, luckily, the site also includes a helpful "waist measurement" component. So let's look there, shall we? Athletes and "the muscular" should have thin waists and thus offset this whole problem, right?

Hmmm.... a waist greater than 40 inches with the same BMI is at a "high" risk.

Good thing: I've been keeping my waist measurements over the last year.

Bad thing:
- 41.5 in August '08,
- 39.75 in December '08
- 41.25 in April '09
- 40.75 in May '09

So, in the last year, AT BEST, I've been at an "increased" risk for diease, and then only by a quarter inch, easily within the margin of measuring error or happenstance of having been slightly dehyrdated. The rest of the time I've been in the "high" risk category. WTF?

And let's look at weight during that same period....
- 223.5 lbs on August 1, 2008
- 216.5 on Dec. 31 (exact date of the waist measurement)
- ? in April 09
- 226-229 in May/June '09.

So. My weight is up 6 or so pounds from August, 15 from December. My waist is currently right in the middle of the measurements from those two months (though lower than August and higher than December).

So, since August 2008 I've gained 6 pounds, lost .75 inches off my waist, and stayed pretty solidly in the "overweight" BMI category. A mere 10 pounds (240 total lbs) and I'm "obese." That's not an "overestimate," that's ridiculous.

I gorge too much at times. Guilty.
I carry the tiniest bit of weight in my belly. Guilty.

But frankly, to get down to 199, the very max I can weigh, or even to eliminate that belly, I'd have to have a six pack or be anorexically thin. To get to a perfectly respectible 20.6 BMI I'd have to weigh 165 pounds.

It's just not feasible. So I guess I'm athletic or muscular. I guess I have to be. Not sure what that means for real weight lifters or guys who are actually athletes. But it seems to me that if an average, in shape guy can throw the system that badly, its probably not much of a system.

BMI Prime, which tries to calculate for the overally tall, since they skew the scale (since when has 6'2 been abnormally tall? Tall, yes. But, abnormally?) puts my upper acceptable weight at .... 199.25. The same as BMI.

Chew on this

I bite my nails. Its a nervous habit. Sometimes its pretty incessent. I worked on it nine years ago, got to the point where I had eight nails on my 10 fingers (poor thumbs), and have since relapsed.

Being charitable, I can say I have somewhere between 3 to 5 "nails" on an average day.

That ends today. Hopefully for the better. Its worse on Mondays. I know this. That's when I head back to work. My weekly deadline begins in earnest that day. Maybe our shift to more daily publication will help. Either way, its something I'm working on starting ... now ... and I'm hoping posting and having a somewhat public pronouncement might help.

While I'm on the self-improvement topic I might as well add this: I've paused the push-up challenge. My Belly Off challenge, while not time consuming, is too much I think. The program has me doing 70-90 pushups, so I'm getting a decent amount in. Not all at once mind you, but interspersed with other bodyweight exercises over 10 or 15 minutes.

Plus, its nice to change it up.

Anyway, I did push ups today to see how many I could do consecutively. And I got to 50. 50! That's a 66 percent improvement from the 30 I could do before I started with the whole pushup/body weight workouts. For my age, to pass the military Basic Combat Training you have to do 26 in two minutes (a score of 50). Here's the chart. Active Duty requires 36 in 2 minutes (a score of 60). I did 50 in 1:30ish (a score of 74!). Needless to say, I'm pretty happy with my progress.

I'm happy with my writing progress, blog posting, fitness levels. Its been a pretty good week.

Have no fear - I didn't kill myself shoveling

I know I promised an afternoon update YESTERDAY on the push up challenge progress, but well, what can I say other than mea culpa?

Week 5, Day 1 (anyone else feel Deja Vuish?) went very well. Day 1 is the shorter routine. I can't remember the exact numbers, and no, I don't have time to research them, but its something like 36, 40, 30, 24 > 40.

I was wondering how this would go, since I only did 38 on my test Sunday. But that was after a long Saturday night and an early morning.

Well, like I said, it went well. I did the entire group up until the challenge at the end. I upped the 60 second break to 90 seconds, did 20, then took 30 more seconds and finished off the last 20.

Not too bad.

I'm still here

As I type this I'm huffing & puffing and my heart is beating as if I just ran a marathon. Though, I guess technically I just did a push up marathon.

Week 5, Day 3 (20, 20, 24, 24, 20, 20, 22) then a final set of 50 that I started after a 1:30 break, got through 25, took a 45 second break, then did 10 more, and finally a 15 second break and the last 15.

The first 150 went pretty well, though that last 20 and the next 22 are a dousy. That's 200 push ups in 10 minutes.

100 UPDATE: My mom has joined the 100 push up challenge. I think she does something like 3, so she's way behind in Group 1, Week 1, but good for her. Its not necassarily about how many you can do NOW, its about how many you'll be able to do and doing them at all. She's seeing the same kind of body transformation that I am. So for everyone and anyone reading this, join up. Its tough, but I promise you'll see results. As I said, I'm pleasently surprised by the results and the gains.

RANDOM NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: I'm still reading Curious Minds & becoming more and more curious about Scratch Beginnings.

I'm playing Ninja Gaiden II almost exclusively. I still love Horde mode from Gears II, but NGII has my focus right now. The first one was a tough, tough challenge. The game is known for its difficulty, and this one is living up to the title.

I'm really beginning to hate that final set...

because I absolutely flew through the first bunch of push ups on Day 2 (19, 19, 22, 22, 18, 18- 45 sec intervals). Sure, the last 18 was tough, and the 22 after that I showed fatigue. But 45? 45?!

I mean, my exhaustion test yielded 44 as a high. Now they want me to do 45 after having ALREADY done 140? That's a tall order. But I guess that's the idea.

I don't want even want to get into what the set of 45 was like. It was something like 15, 10, 7, 13. With breaks in between of various degrees. 140 push ups in 8 minutes. 185 push ups in, oh, I don't know, 11 or 12 minutes?

I'm really beginning to hate that final set ...

Tough Road

Day 1, Week 5, Group 3 - No joke.

Its 25 more push ups than I did the week before, in the same time frame. I think Days 2 & 3 will be easier, but Day 1 was a struggle, that's for sure. 25 more push ups is a LOT.

Week 5, Days 1 & 2

Update - My exhaustion test netted me 39 push ups. An increase of 9 over my previous best and putting me in the second grouping as represented here.

Day 1 (28, 35, 25, 22, > 35 [60 sec rests]) went well, though on the last set I took a 30 second break between 20 and the last 15 in the set.

Day 2 (18, 18, 20, 20, 14, 14, 16 >40 [45 sec rest]) has been, perhaps, the most challenging and tiring of the entire challenge. My arms are achy and TIRED. I pushed the last rest period t0 60, but remember, the chart says "or longer if required," so I feel I'm well within my rights. Maybe more importantly, I did all 40. Two short rests to catch my breath, but I'm guessing not more than 3 or 4 breathes, so about 5 seconds.

Day 3 occurs Friday and pretty closely resembles Day 2 until the last couple sets, where its 17, 20, > 45. Then its a progress/exhaustion test. After that it will probably be Week 5 Group 3 for me. You need to do 46 to get into the final week, and I'm just not sure I see it.

The great news is that after last week's post about possibly getting weaker, its obvious I'm not. A 39 on the exhaution/progress test, and 40 today after all those other push ups is something I COULD NOT HAVE DONE, before.

Push up, up & away

Morning - I've just had my oatmeal, with peanut butter & milk, YUM. I'm about to finish off the last of my first cup of coffe and go and finish off this week's push ups. Once I'm done I'll post to let you know how I did.

In the meantime, I'm now listed on the 100 Push Up Challenge page. Check it out here.

Less success...

Day 2 went, well, less successfully. I did the push ups Tuesday morning. I was a bit tired (perhaps from shoveling the night before). It was before work. After a 3 day weekend.

The only ones I couldn't do were the last "challenge" set, but the last set of 25 was pretty tough as well.

I'm hoping to close out this week with a good day Thursday, get all my push ups done, take my test Sat. or Sun. and move on.

I'm seeing improvements in muscle size. As for total number. I could do 30 when I started, I'm almost sure I could 40 or 45 now. We'll see this weekend.

Success, Part Deux

Day 1 of this week's push ups - done on Sunday - was a success. Did 'em all.

Unfortunetly, the Eagles wouldn't have as much success. And yes, I'm still bitter.

SUCCESS!

Week 4, Day 3 - SUCCESS.

I did all my pushups today. It's the first time I've completed all the sets and reps in this week's program.

29, 33, 29, 29, 40 with 120 seconds in between.

Not too shabby. 40 is a new personal high. In full disclosure, I should mention that I took a rest in the last set at 30 & 35, but that is expressly permitted under the program rules.

Sunday I restart on Day 1, determined to complete them all and get through this week!

Pushing back ...

Well, the push up challenge is certainly living up to its name.

Day 1, week 4 (take 2, or is it 3, now) is 21, 25, 21, 21 >32. I hit them all (as usual) except the last, in which I only got to 20, took a 30 second break, then got the last 12.

For Day 2, I'm thinking about taking a longer break. The break is usually 90 seconds. The plans themselves say "longer if necassary," but I'm the kind of guy who plays through a video game on the hardest setting the first time, the kind who won't increase the break until its absolutely necassary. What does that make me? Stubborn? Stupid?

Anyway, today I'll probably, I don't know, go to 120, maybe 180, on my break in an attempt to hit the number. Then next week, maybe I'll take the break before the last set in Day 1 to 90 or 120.

100 push up challenge - Wk 1, Day 2 update

Well, I'm started on the path to 100 push ups.

Week 3, Day 1 (my first day, yeah, I started in Week 3) was pretty easily, frankly - though the last set (20 min) I could only do 22.

Day 2 was harder, even with the longer breaks, and I only just made it to the last set rep minimum of 25.

Here's the week 3 workout schedule, in case your interested.

I could really feel it today in my chest, shoulders and traps after I had completed the sets. I'm doing these in the morning of my regular workouts, which I'm continuing to do without interruption. I'm hoping that by keeping my regular workout sched my strength gains will come faster.

I'm torn too - I can definitely see how this will up the number of push ups I can do. Its a challenging but not too challenging program, but at the same time 30 to 100 in a LONG way. I think I might have recruited my dad to play along, so check back. Week 3, Day 3 is scheduled for Friday this week, since Christmas is on Thursday.