Love the Support
So yesterday I stumbled upon two different articles that support the Man Bicep beliefs.
This first article basically states that eating like a Caveman is good for you! THANK YOU!!! The diet can help you lose weight and improve your health – it can lower your blood pressure AND your cholesterol. Seems like carbs may be a bigger problem when it comes to high cholesterol than fat is!!
Of course, this article does recommend lean meats, which you may think is contrary to what I’ve said in the past, BUT I support eating “fatty” naturally raised meats such as grass-fed beef. Grass-fed beef, even the fatty cuts, is leaner than it’s grain-fed counterparts. So yea…eat “lean” aka grass-fed, naturally raised animals! 🙂
Second article that I LOVED is about NOT RUNNING! This is a post about weight training and dieting to lose weight/fat NOT running. I totally agree that cardio isn’t the best tool for weight loss and that there are actually a lot of negatives to chronic cardio.
So if you want to look super hot, stop the chronic cardio and start weight training! 🙂
Chalk up two more points for Man Bicep and 0 for Conventional Wisdom!
Weight lifting gloves? REALLY!?!
The new (unnecessary) gym fashion accessory.
Why do I see so many women (and men for that matter) wearing weight lifting gloves around the gym?
Was there some news article recently that said they are the new hottest gym fashion accessory?
I just don’t get it.
I’ve never seen a point to lifting gloves and I have no intention of ever getting them. Are people really that afraid of getting blisters and calluses?
I mean most of the women I see wearing them are lifting the barbie weights anyway, which are already covered in plastic and won’t give you blisters and calluses.
For two, part of the “gnarly-ness” of lifting a ton of weight is getting calluses and blisters!!! They are sort of like battle scars…just like the bruises on your shins that you can get from deadlifting!
I mean why are people wasting money on lifting gloves? Someone please explain why I wouldn’t just want to be super awesome and gnarly and lift without gloves? 😉
Also, can someone please explain to me why I see a ton of men walking around with lifting belts on? For one, they should strengthen their cores so they don’t need them. For two, most of them aren’t lifting enough weight to need them. And three, most of them should work on their form before putting on a belt or adding another plate!
Ok…please just stop with all the ridiculous accessories people!!!
All the random thoughts…
- There was an interesting article on Mark’s Daily Apple about Gateway Foods – those foods that you eat that lead you down a slippery slope toward full on binge. He says avoid them, but I ask…aren’t those the foods WORTH cheating for?
- Whether or not you enjoy the humor of this blog, this is a great post about nutrition. How can data about our diet be so misinterpreted? How can people not realize that carbs and vegetable oils are to blame for the climbing obesity rate and not animal fats? Read this post on Fatty Lane – Why We’re Getting Fatter – and let me know what you think.
- Why is every client that I talk to so intimidated by Spin class? Seriously, it is probably the easiest class to tailor to your personal fitness level. AND it is about the only cardio other than circuit training that I can stand doing for a full hour…
- Not to be mean…but Jazzercise? I can’t take a class named Jazzercise seriously…
- So I was curious to see what 5 fitness myths we should ignore in this article by Carol Sponagle. Myth #1 said that spot reduction (or doing crunches to reduce belly fat) doesn’t work…ok so far I agree. If you do lots of crunches you probably have a six-pack the question is “is it showing?” Myth #2 refutes the belief that if you aren’t working up a sweat, you aren’t working hard enough. Again, I agree. I sweat just standing still sometimes while Ryan doesn’t sweat after we do like the hardest workout in the world! Myth #3 says that no pain, no gain can be a misleading statement, which I agree it is. There is a difference between muscle fatigue and injury. At the same time, the average client that I work with doesn’t want to feel any discomfort so sometimes telling them “no pain, no gain” can get them to push just a teensy bit harder! Myth #4 states that women won’t get bulky from lifting weights..YAY! BUT I don’t really like the way the argument is worded. Why is so little space dedicated to refuting this myth?!? Also, why are barbells not included? Only free weights? And I’m not a fan of the statement “if you are a woman, using free weights will not make you look bulky unless you have a hormone imbalance (genetic or steroid-induced) and lift weights more than the average woman.” Ok the steroids part is true but what about lifting more than the average woman!?! 😦 I don’t like that statement at ALL! And to end the list Myth #5 really frustrated me. It says that the statement “avoid certain food groups, such as carbohydrates or fats” is false. Uhm nope! You should avoid certain food groups. IT ISN’T JUST ABOUT CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT!! Seriously, what garbage.
- Do you like foam rolling? I love it! I find that some clients love it while others hate it. The ones that love it realize that sometimes the statement “no pain, no gain” is incredibly true (especially when it comes to their IT bands)! Take that Carol! If you don’t suffer the pain of releasing all the knots, you may suffer more injuries than if you go through the painful process of foam rolling!!! Anyway, I highly recommend adding foam rolling to any warm up/stretching routine that you may do!
- I want more push up pictures in random places for our Push Up Craze!!!
- That’s all folks!
Sick :-(
So the last week and a half, I’ve been suffering from a cold that just won’t quit. I’ve had a sore throat, a stuffy nose, a head that felt like it was under water, a chest so congested I felt like there was a rock on top of me and finally…no voice (I think the two spin classes yesterday had something to do with the last one).
But throughout I’ve worked out and I haven’t taken any medicine. I don’t like missing a workout especially if I’m at work anyway. And I believe in only taking medication if it is a serious illness. I just don’t like taking stuff.
I’ve gotten ridiculed by people at the gym because I refuse to take stuff. But hey, I personally think they are crazy for taking stuff when they just have a cold.
After our discussion about medicine at work, it was funny to see this post on Mark’s Daily Apple yesterday.
What do you think? Is medicine good? Do you take stuff the second you feel a sniffle coming on or do you wait until you are barfing your brains out?
Also, do you keep working out when your sick? I figure if I can go to workout, there is no point in missing a workout. What do you think?
Today though maybe I should have stayed home. We were moving out old ellipticals (sort of like a sled push for most of them…and they are pretty darn heavy…) but some had wheels so we had to sort of pick them up. So I had to pick one up and push it. My hands were under the bottom of one side so when I went to set it down, I sort of dropped it so I didn’t smash my hands and ended up smashing my head.
I have a nice black and blue egg on my forehead. 😦
I guess at least it’s Friday! 🙂
I don’t usually write about cardio
BUT today I taught a VERY fun hour of spin with Dave. It was a “dueling” spin .
We divided the room in half and each of us led our halves through a TORTUROUS hour of spin. The competition was super fun.
AND we had a huge running joke going (that amused me at least!). The joke was “Who has the bigger bicep?”
Of course I do!! I have a MAN BICEP!!! (I think I’m a bit obsessed with biceps…)
I CAN’T eat healthy because…
One of the most frequent excuses I hear is that my clients can’t eat well because they don’t have the time to cook (or don’t enjoy doing it).
AND I always laugh at that statement. BECAUSE IT IS FALSE!
No matter how busy you are, you can always find time to eat healthily.
You can pre-cook a ton of meat on Sunday. I find it super easy to bake a full chicken on Sunday and eat that for lunch throughout the week. You can make salads with the pre-cooked meat or throw it in with some vegetables. You can make a ton of different sauces ahead of time even to throw on your dishes!
You can also make big casseroles, which will last you a few days.
AND if you don’t even have the energy to throw a ton of meat in the oven and let it sit, you can use a CROCK POT! Yep…a crock pot is the lazy Primal eater’s best friend!
You can throw meat in it with some liquid and veggies and leave it while you watch TV or head out to do errands. You can cook a huge amount of food for the week ahead of time or make fresh meals every day. To have FRESH meals every day, just load in the meat and such before you leave for work. It will be cooked and ready to eat by the time you get home!
A crock pot is about as easy as it gets!
So no more excuses about how cooking takes up too much time or that you don’t enjoy it! A crock pot makes cooking so quick and easy that no matter how much you hate cooking you can stomach this.
AND don’t try to make up some excuse about how you don’t have any recipes! There are tons of blogs out there with daily recipes AND one of my personal favorites is Ryan’s – The Grok Pot.
Yes the end of this is a shameless push for you to check out Ryan’s new blog. Also, it is a perfect description of what I eat on a daily basis. 🙂
We are both super excited about our new crock pot!!!
5×5 = Torture
So I’ve started reading Bigger, Faster, Stronger, which is a program that started in 1976. I think this program is still probably one of the BEST ways to increase your strength (and I really want to try the program at some point!).
Basically (and I mean this is a very BASIC brief outline..the book goes into WAY more detail) the book outlines a 4 week program. The first week you do a 3×3 workout (so 3 sets of 3 reps trying to do at least 70% of your max weight). The second week is 5×5. The third week you do either 5-4-3-2-1 or 5-3-1 (a max out week) and then the fourth week, you go back to higher reps either 10-8-6 or 4-4-2.
I think right now we’ve been way too focused on maxing out. We’ve been maxing out almost every week, which isn’t good and I think it is causing me to get very nervous when I go to max out (so much so that I’ve had a few bad lifting days recently).
So I decided it was time to change up what we were doing just a little. Yesterday Candy and I tried the 5×5 workout structure for our deadlift workout. We did two warm up sets (the first at 135lbs and the second at 185). We then did the next 5 sets of 5 reps at 225lbs. And let me tell you…it wasn’t easy.
And today…My back is definitely feeling it. On top of the 5×5 heavy deadlift, we did RDLs supersetted with split squats and then KB Swings supersetted with deep KB squats. We also did some bosu crunches and weighted hypers at the end.
It was a great workout! Around an hour because of the long breaks during the heavy lifting.
There really is something to the 5×5 program. It definitely makes me want to try the StrongLifts routine!
Is this worth a T-shirt or what!
So yesterday I got an email that said, “Is this worth a T-shirt or what!”
Yes Buell, this is definitely worth a t-shirt! Awesome boat-to-dock push up!!!
Vanishing of the Bees
Ok so sometimes I’m really glad that Ryan picks out the TV shows and movies that we watch because I would never have watched this documentary on my own (of course this also has a downside…sometimes I’m forced to watch movies like Step Brothers BLEH).
Anyway, yesterday we watched Vanishing of the Bees. The documentary talks about the fact that honeybees have been literally disappearing from their hives…just sort of dying off.
Which may leave you thinking…who cares all they are used for is honey…BUT THAT IS FALSE!
Honeybees are the reason that we have most of our vegetable and fruit crops.
Commercial honeybee operations pollinate crops that make up one out of every three bites of food on our tables.
So without the honeybees, we would be EXTREMELY dependent on foreign crops.
So of course…scientists began trying to figure out ways to SOLVE the problem…let’s be clear here…not ways to PREVENT the problem…but ways to SOLVE the problem.
They tried dividing up the hives to repopulate the abandoned ones. They tried antibiotics. But nothing was really solving the issue of the disappearance of the bees (or as they call it Colony Collapse Disorder). Hives were still being abandoned and droves of honeybees were still dying off.
The farmers then find out from their European colleagues that the disappearance of their honeybees may have something to do with the pesticides being used on some of the crops that the honeybees are pollinating.
The pesticides may be killing off the bees! But does the government respond by pulling the product off the market? NOPE!
Why? Because we would rather solve a problem with a new product rather than prevent it by not using an old one.
We would rather create drugs for ailments and disease than prevent them by educating people on healthy eating.
We have the attitude of we can SOLVE any problem so we don’t need to worry about PREVENTION.
BUT PREVENTION IS KEY!!!
Prevention will help us keep this planet healthy. Prevention will help you keep yourself healthy!!!
It’s like I tell my clients, you invest in your health now (prevention) so you don’t have to spend more money later dealing with all the medical bills (trying to solve the problems).
The same applies to almost every aspect of our lives, including the fact that it is worth spending more money on grass-fed beef and organic vegetables to save our environment and our health.
I mean…think about it…if pesticides are killing the bees…they’ve got to have some effect on us. Not to mention if the bees die off so do most of our fruits and vegetables!!
So stop believing there will be a solution to any problem and start trying to PREVENT the problems!!! Start eating well and buying organic and taking care of yourself!!!
PREVENTION may be the BEST SOLUTION to any problem!
(DISCLAIMER: I’m really not a hippie…not that there is anything wrong with being one).
“I’ve tried everything and nothing works”
“I’ve tried everything and nothing works.”
This statement always frustrates me. Why? Because it is absolute BULLSHIT (yep the curse is necessary to explain how absurd the statement is!)!
For one…there is ALWAYS something you haven’t tried.
And two…if you utter this statement then you’ve given up on trying.
There isn’t one program that will work for everyone because everyone is so different. BUT I guarantee that there is some diet or workout plan that works for you…not everyone but JUST for you.
How do I know that there IS something that will work for you? Because I’ve tried A LOT of different things. And I’ve found lots of diets and workout plans that DON’T work for me. Like a workout plan without weights..it doesn’t work for me because I just get skinny. I have to lift HEAVY to maintain any muscle and eat LOTS of protein.
And through all this experimentation I have found something that works for me (which of course I’m constantly tweaking to make it work even better).
And my diet and workout plan isn’t the same diet and workout plan that works for the Man Bicep Mom. She prefers portion control and applies the 80/20 rule daily. Her daily diet also doesn’t include red meat and saturated fat like mine does, but does include whole grains, which I don’t eat. She also prefers circuit training with weights to slow powerlifting style workouts.
And my diet isn’t the same as Brian’s even though we are both doing powerlifting style workouts. He does a lower carb diet similar but not the same to Primal. He will NEVER (I repeat NEVER) give up his peanut butter or whole wheat wraps!
BUT while the Man Bicep Mom’s and Brian’s diets are both different from mine, they work for them! AND there is something out there that will work for you!
You can’t get stuck on what works for OTHER PEOPLE! You have to think about yourself – what foods you like, how much time you have, what activities you enjoy doing, how much you enjoy cooking..
I mean just look at that U.S. New Diet Rankings list (which I still don’t agree with). There are 20 diets on there and each of them have people who voted “yes this diet works.” Even the Paleo diet, which was the “worst diet” had 5,791 people say it worked for them!!!!
Don’t get stuck doing a diet or workout plan just because it’s popular or worked for you friend. If you find you can’t stick to it during that first month when you are most committed, it probably won’t work for you. So don’t waste your time. Try something else.
I mean shoot combine diets and workouts that you’ve tried and make up your own!!! Self-experimentation is key!!!! ( I can’t repeat that enough!!!)
But PLEASE don’t tell me, “I’ve tried everything and nothing works” because that is a lie. Don’t give up!!!
Man Bicep 