The Tip gives three good reasons for getting fit: Better Health, Confidence, and More Success with Romantic Endeavors (read better sex life). It is pretty vague, I assume the writer is fairly fit himself, and getting fit has never been a problem, hence the "Just do it, you lazy jerk," tip.
Getting fit has always been a particular struggle of mine. I was a fat kid growing up, and it really informed my identity. As an adult I've found gyms boring and diets hard to keep to with my wildly varying schedule. Whatever. This is about improving my life! Let's go!
1. Jumping In: The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris. Great book on body hacking. I'm cherry picking from this, but particularly taking on the Slow Carb Diet, which he recommends for rapid body restructuring. Many of the other things I am doing are gleaned from and cherry picked from this book.
2. Accountability: I called up my buddy Jessie Wright, who's a personal trainer, and set up some time to start to train. We committed to three days a week, working out with Kettle Bells, among other things. We set up a commitment to each other. Jessie, fitness genius that he is needs a work out buddy as much as I need him to guide me out of doing it wrong. If you need a personal trainer, I cannot reccomend a better guy!
3. Technology: If you are an smartphone user, both Lose It (free) and Meal Snap are amazing. Lose It allows you to track calories eaten and burned and makes it into a sort of game. You should see how many calories sex nets you. It also allows for accountabilities like reminders, and setting you up in competition with your friends. Meal snap lets you take a photo of your meal and it logs it, estimating how much that food counts for in calories. An added bonus, if you are eating a triple order of fish and chips, you have to take a picture of it.
4. Measurement: I don't believe that calories are the ideal measure, nor do I believe that weight loss in pounds the way to figure out if you're fit, but they are points on a scale to measure, and they are measurable and let you track results.
So Jessie and I took some measurements. We measured BMI, body fat, weight, and took measurements from waist, chest, stomach, biceps, and both thighs. The plan is to track these numbers every few weeks to get an idea of what's changing. We also did some fitness benchmarks, like number of sit-ups and pushups in a minute, mountain climbers, 8 point jumping jacks and time running a mile. I'm not going to lie, my results were not fantastic, but these are starting points.
I also took a before photo. Me, in my underwear as unflattering as I can be. No, I will not post it.
5. Fun: Also, to keep it fresh, I have been taking Kali and Wing Chun classes with my buddy Free Carradine. It's a causal class in how to beat on, and avoid being beat on with sticks. Really fun, and it makes my brain hurt. I really love the martial arts, and I find that my body really reacts well to this sort of training. And learning to wield weapons, that's just fun. There was a moment when I was training with Art last saturday and he was spinning these two short staves and I was wailing away at him with a six foot staff... yeah, we became thirteen year old nerds again, seeing the awesome warriors we have become. It was kind of a moment.
For me, the making of this project into a game is key for me. It's all just numbers and exercises and food in. They are all just data points on a spreadsheet, until you start playing.
Who wants to play with me?
5 comments:
I love this so much. Thanks for sharing, Eric!
Good for you, Eric. I've been playing a similar game the last three months and have dropped 20 pounds, which feels great. I like your approach and I wish you the best.
(Cross posting)
Do Meal Snap and Lose It integrate?
Would be awesome if you could just take a picture and then post the cals directly to Lose It.
On Cardio:
1) Heart. Rate. Monitor.
Seriously. Get one today. I've tried a few models and I think the Polar one's are the best. Alex spends more time with hers than she does with me. They give you some feedback about your body which can be really helpful early on. I found that as I'm starting out it gets really uncomfortable to run at a certain point. The HRM will tell you if you're really over-exerting yourself (say if your BPM is over 170) or if you're just being lazy (it's down at 120). That'll tell you if you can lay back a bit and still be getting the exercise you need or if you need to push through. The idea being that when your done you should feel good not overworked.
Get out! Treadmills are SO boring. There are great hills and trails around the San Gabriels. Run up them. You'll get your heartrate up quickly climbing a trail. There will be stuff to look at. You can imagine where along the trail would be the best place to lay an ambush (as I commonly do). The dog will love it too.
it's good to have a plan and it looks like you got one... if you wanna add some grappling to your routine let me know. I go to a couple places that are FREE.
Wonderful to hear! Cherry picking from 4HB is just what you're supposed to do. I, too, love metrics and making it a game. I'm generally pretty healthy and fit these days, but planning to use this summer without my sweetie to see what I can really become if I just go all out.
Super yay and glad you're having fun with it!
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