Archive for March, 2010

Does it really matter?

Your weight. It is just a number. Does it really matter?

2010, a year of action for me. I could also call this year, a year of reflection. I’ve been very thoughtful about what I want. What’s my legacy? How am I doing raising my kids? What are my passions? What do I offer as a fitness blogger, technologist? Where do I go? What do I do?

Today, has brought that even closer. A co-worker of my wife died unexpectedly today. She was young in my book, 33. She leaves behind her husband and a two year old son. Life is short.

I often live thinking I have plenty of time. I say to everyone that long lifespans run strong in my family. I have good genes, and I am taking steps fitness and nutrition wise to help get the most of my good genes. This thinking of plenty of time to go often means I waste time. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

Now, I did not know the lady who died. I may have met her once, but I really don’t know if I could pick her out. I’m sure there is more to this story that I do not know. My own human selfishness and ego makes me think of myself and my family. How blessed I am and grateful to be given such great gifts. I have two wonderful kids, a wonderful wife, family, and friends. We often take each other for granted. We take ourselves for granted. I implore you. Don’t!

So, your fitness, your nutrition, your weight. Does it really matter?

We can go two ways:

1) We can say to ourselves: I’m going to die soon anyway, I must as well live it up, eat what I want, like pizza, ice cream, cookies, cake, french fries, etc. Do the actions I want like waste time on the internet or watching TV.

-or-

2) We can say to ourselves: I’m going to die soon anyway, I should take care of my body to extend my usefulness. Extend my legacy. Extend the help I can give to others. Cherish the minutes we have together. Treat your body as a cherished gift that is borrowed and must be returned to the Maker.

Does it really matter?

In science, I have found if you are between two hypothesis. Often times, the combination of the two is the answer.

So. I should live it up. Eat what I want. Do the actions I want. Yet, how can I do the actions I want if I stuff myself with unhealthy food? How can I live it up, if I eat so much that I won’t even be able to walk around with my kids or ride bikes to the park, or do any number of things that people would classify as live it up.

How do we live it up? We must build our own self-discipline to live in moderation. Sure, you can eat cake, you can have ice cream, pizza, french fries. You just have to do it in moderation. We can’t eat that way for every meal. In fact, eating like that every meal makes all those treats less of treats.

Back to Why does it matter? This past month, I have gained two pounds, and my trend has started to creep up despite my increased exercise efforts. I know my diet and nutrition must change.

Add to that my constant inward look at myself and recent events.

I ask myself:

Does it really matter?

At fitbloggin, Roni gave the speakers some nice silver boxes with this quote from Winston Churchill

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Let’s give another example:  there is this theory in Personal Finance, that the more you give away, the more you get back in return. So, if you give 10% of your income, you will receive that money back more than you will ever think.

The same can be said for our own self-discipline and weight loss. By cutting back on what we get (eating), and increasing what we give (our actions and exercise), we will improve our individual lives ten-fold both physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Does it really matter?

It only matters if we think it does. We decide. Its a decision. Its our life. We can do and think what we want. That’s part of what makes us Human.

I’m saying a prayer tonight for the 2 year old boy without his birth mother and the husband without his mate. Raising children with two parents is difficult enough much less losing one’s partner.

Some links that recently reinforced my current reflective thoughts:

Watching this talk from Ben Dunlap on a passionate life

Derek Sivers writing that a real person is behind that computer.

Sean Wilson losing weight and breaking a weight milestone.
[Sean keep it up!  You'll make your goal sooner than later! Thanks for the inspiration.]

Mac talking about Beating Exhaustion.
[Mac you Rock too!  You have achieved more than what many people talk about doing.  Listen and Live.  You'll keep going.]

Does it really matter?

Sometimes we need to stop, listen, and enjoy.

Maybe we achieve goals, and we’re elated. Other times, we feel exhausted.

Life is a roller coaster. The higher the highs, the lower the lows. Without the lows, there would be no highs.

Live your life! Be passionate! Find something anything to motivate you!

No matter how difficult it is for you to lose weight, gain weight, exercise, or achieve whatever fitness goal you have. Remember. Its your choice. Your life is a gift. Cherish it. Move!

Does it really matter? You must decide!

Birthday Bicycle Bash. Six steps to purchasing a bike.

Today, March 28, is my birthday. My wife and kids took me out to have a wonderful lunch today.  I had some carne asada.  it’s in my top ten of meals.  Yesterday, I had my brother and his family over with my parents for a Turkey Dinner.  Thanksgiving Turkey is another one of those top ten meals in my book.  In fact, if I listed out all the top ten meals, I’d probably talking about top 100 meals.

I don’t know where time flies.  I still call myself a young’un, but I’m sure many of you in the blogosphere would not call me that.  In fact, on some levels, I know that I’m not terribly young anymore, but I also don’t feel old either.  I love birthdays though.  Growing up, my family always made everyone feel special on birthdays.  I am happy to say my wife and children have carried that tradition on.  Between little surprise gifts, sweet hugs and kisses from my kids, or just plain time to relax, Birthdays have not really been full of anxiety, they’ve been full of joy.

Well, I don’t really get a big gift for my birthday every year.  However, with my triathlon training, I decided it would be very difficult to complete a triathlon without a bicycle.  So, I am now a proud owner of a Trek 7.3 Bicycle.

What Steps did I use in order to buy a bicycle?

1. Determine how much money you want to spend?  This is more a personal financial decision.  What can you afford in your budget. Don’t forget all the accessories (bike helmet, bike lock, water bottle cages, water bottle, bike rack, new components)
2. Determine what type of bicycle riding will you actually be doing.  Road Riding?  Off-Roading?  A little of both?  Be honest.
3. Research the bikes online. Don’t forget you can buy a used bike. I did not choose this route as I’m not really the best mechanic in the world, and bicycle maintenance is not something I want to learn at this time.  So, I wanted a new bike to give me the best possible smoothest beginning.
4. Visit some bicycle shops to survey the landscape.
5. Take some test rides. How smooth is the ride?  Do the gears shift easily?  Will it hold up for the types of rides you’ll be doing?  Its difficult to tell when you’re a newbie when you’re just riding it around the bicycle shop parking lot.  Try to ride it in the way you will.
6. Make a decision. Sometimes, you just have to make a decision.  Decide what’s good enough and go with it.  Don’t look back, and don’t second guess.

Since, I am a tri “newbie”, and I wasn’t sure if training for triathlons was going to be a passing fancy or a new hobby.  I wanted to find a bike that I could use in multiple ways, and that was between $500 – $1000 including all the accessories (bike helmet, bike lock, bike rack, etc…)

Here’s what I plan on doing:

• a Swift, light racing bike that can withstand the training and speed necessary for an Olympic distance triathlon
• a Commuter that I could use to ride the 2 miles I have to go to some of my consulting gigs in the local industrial park.
• a Trail Bike.  I want to be able to ride on gravel, wood chip, and grassy trails in the areas forest preserves and state parks.
• a Bike to ride with the kids.

Now, I really wanted a mountain bike, but I realized that the knobby tires and the heft a mountain bike is not conducive to the type of biking I will do.  I like the idea of doing off-road trail rides and light jumping, but until Mr. C and Miss M, my kids, get old enough.  I just don’t think I’ll be doing that type of riding.

As many of you will do, when you make a purchase, I did some research.

• Read online Reviews
• Read triathlon training books to see suggestions
• Asked Twitter friends
• Asked the Trek Twitter and the Cannondale Bikes
• Asked friends

There’s just so many choices of bicycles.  I’ve been thinking about buying a used bike for a while now.  In fact, I’ve had my heart set on a Cannondale bike for a long time.  For some reason though, the Trek just felt better.  It seemed right.  I like that both companies are American, but I was a little disappointed when I found out that the bike was made in China.  Nothing against China, I just think the U.S. could be doing some more manufacturing at home.  Regardless, I’m super excited.  I took a ride on the bike immediately when I picked it up.  I rode about 6 kilometers.  Wow, I was surprised how, literally, my butt was sore.  I might need to invest in a new bike saddle.  Although, the bike store told me that I might just get used to it.  We’ll see.  I have a long way to go before I do 40 km bike rides combined with 1.5 km swims and 10 km runs.

Check-in

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been doing a very good job at building my habit of exercise.  I have lost about 10 pounds.  However, for the past month, my weight has stayed constant since my initial weight loss.  I’m not surprised as I have not really concentrated on my diet at all. I also went on vacation and had tons and tons of work to do.  I’ve been totally focused at getting into a workout routine. I wanted to cement the exercise habit before I began working on the nutritional habit.  I think I have a pretty good ingrained desire to exercise now.  Although, I definitely would call it a tenuous weak habit that will need greater and greater reinforcement. My next task will be adjusting my diet for peak performance and weight loss. I know what I need to do, but I just need to build the mental toughness necessary to achieve my goals.

In addition to my personal diet challenge, My next thought I have is what training plan should I use in order to prepare for my Olympic distance Triathlon on August 29.  I have to build enough endurance to swim, bike, and run.  How do you do that?  I have felt often that I’m over-training, but my Certified Trainer wife says that I have probably not gotten close to that yet.  Questions I still have:

• How do I know what training is too much?
• How important is rest in cardio workouts?
• What workouts do I need to do in order to build enough endurance to not only complete a triathlon, but feel good afterwards?
• What training plan can I do? Does it have to be so complicated with this type of swim this and this type of run here, and this type of bike here?  or can it be more simple like swim this many minutes.
• What habits can I create in order to destroy my over-eating habits?
• How can I make swimming in cold water with hundreds of others comfortable?
• How can I bicycle on busy streets and still be safe?

A word from my sponsor

Anyone want to sponsor a triathlete this year?  If so, please contact me.  :)

Otherwise, let me know what we can do help you achieve your fitness goals.

Getting to Green with Gruve.

As I mentioned, when I went to fitbloggin ‘10, I received all sorts of fun healthy items to test out.

The first one I’ll detail is the gruve.

If you are not familiar, gruve is a little device that you wear on your hip very similar to a pedometer. There’s some differences though. As I understand it, the gruve takes measurements of movement 1200 times a second. Using those measurements combined with your biometric data, the gruve calculates your caloric burn for that activity and determines whether you are sedentary or not. Its a very cool device.

Now, if the gruve identifies that you are sedentary for 50 minutes, the gruve then buzzes and buzzes and buzzes until you get up and move. This is great for me, as a computer consultant, I often sit at my desk for long periods of time, and the gruve helps remind me that I need to get up and move. Gruve was created with the help of the NEAT group from the mayo clinic. The NEAT group is the one behind the idea that today’s desk workers need to be up and moving. They’re the first ones I heard do studies on the the treadmill desk.

The goal behind gruve is to get to green.

As you can see in my chart above, You start out at red,  you progress into orange, then to yellow, then to blue, and then to green (oops, I have to get up and move to get to green.)

Its pretty fun way to keep track of your progress.  My wife and I were both happy to receive free gruves at fitbloggin from the gruvesolution team. We now have a little competition going on who can get to green first.  Although, I just don’t exercise in the morning as much as she does.  So, she’s going to beat me more often than not.

The gruve is not water proof nor does it do a very good job when you isolate muscle groups like you do with weight lifting.  So, when I swim or do my weight workouts, the gruve doesn’t track that activity.

I’ve been debating about buying the body bugg, the fitbit, the Philips DirectLife, or the gruve.  The only unit I have tested is the gruve, and I can say I’d recommend it.  I’d love to test the body bugg, because I think it uses more measurements beyond just movement like skin temperature and other items. I wonder how accurate they all are.

A little disclaimer time,  Yes, gruve gave me the device for free.  No gruve is not paying me for this review and there was no pitch to write.  I am writing of my own accord, because I think the idea is cool.  Now, if I could only find a device that would automatically measure the calories I consume without an intervention by me.  I’m also interesting in testing out the withings wi-fi scale.  Can you tell I love gadgets?

For a limited time, you can gruve with me.  When you buy the Gruve at www.muve.me, enter the promotional code BlogNGruve to get $70’s off.

You might want to look at the gruve guide too for research.

I asked the gruve team if there is Programming Interface (API) that I could tie simpleweight weight management tracking site into, but the team at fitbloggin was not sure.  I’m still researching that capability.

Exercise is good, but I really must concentrate efforts on reducing my calories in if I want to lose weight.  My weight’s been stable for a few weeks now even with my increased activity level.  I’m sure the hamburger and fries I ate today for lunch combined with my ice cream desert does not help.

what can I do to help you with your weight management?

fitbloggin can wear a person out.

This past weekend, I went to Baltimore for fitbloggin. It was super fun. The sessions were smart. The attendees were nice, and the sponsors were great.  A couple of quick thoughts, I was really surprised that there are not more male fitness bloggers.  I think there were a total of 10 men out of 150 attendees, speakers, and sponsors. I was not surprised by how smoothly the event ran. I expected a good conference based on my reading the promoter’s blog. (Roni you rock!) One thing that amazed me was the wonderful sponsors who were so generous with the really cool swag bags and gear. Thank you fitbloggin sponsors.

For my talk, I was going over the basics of Search Engine Optimization and Section 508 Web Accessibility.  I talk and present in front of people all the time, but for some reason, I was super nervous for this talk. I went so far as practicing bits and pieces of my presentation which I very rarely do.  I think it went well. Time went super fast.  There was so much more I wanted to include.  Like optimizing your anchor text.  Also, I want to emphasize that all need to be careful about the technical details.  I think SEO is something you can and should do on your own.  But, you can really screw up your blog too.  Its a delicate balance. Sometimes, it just nicer to have an expert do the work for you.

I could talk SEO and Blogging for a whole day or longer I think.  I wanted to demonstrate other blogging software other than Wordpress.  However, my tumblr, posterous, and blogger accounts wouldn’t log in very easily with the conference internet.  The internet was pretty good, but when you have a conference full of bloggers writing and tweeting away one can almost always expect inconsistencies with the internet.

I posted my SEO Fitbloggin slides at my octāvity Technology Consulting Business blog.

I thoroughly enjoyed walking around Baltimore’s Harbor and Fells Point.  Very pretty area.

I ran my first 5k this weekend on Saturday averaging about 5 mph. Then I let my wife talk me into running again on Sunday. We ran about 4 miles at about 6 mph.

Right now, my legs are super stiff. I’ve got a little bit of a ways to go before I get ready for my International Distance Triathlon in Chicago. Cool News is I get to begin Bicycle shopping. The weather in Chicago is starting to get warm enough to bike. I am so wiped out and exhausted from the super fun weekend. I don’t even feel like posting my usual requisite picture. I’ll post more later about all the fitbloggin swag that I’m so excited to try out.

As always, if there is anything I can do to help you with your weight management journey, please let me know.

Nutritional Menu Good news, but still more work to go.

I received an email today from Panera.

Panera Bread has announced that it will post calorie information on all Company-owned Panera Bread and Saint Louis Bread Co.® bakery-cafe menu boards by April 2010. The bakery-cafe concept expects franchise-operated locations to follow suit and have calories posted on menu panels by the end of 2010. This would make Panera Bread the first national concept to voluntarily post calorie information on menu boards across the country.

This is good news. You know I am a big fan of menu labeling.

Panera says they’ve noticed their customers have changed their purchase patterns as a result of their new informative menus.

“As we’ve been introducing our new menu boards across the country, customers have responded very favorably,” Scott Davis, Panera’s Chief Concept Officer said. “We’ve seen them gravitating towards options that allow them to customize their meals such as our You Pick Two® where they can pair smaller portions of our soups, salads or sandwiches to create a meal with fewer calories.”

“This whole initiative prompted us to take an even closer look at our menu offerings,” Davis said. “The result was we improved the nutritional content and ingredients in several of our menu items. We view it as a ‘win-win’ for both our customers and Panera.”

I think this type of responsibility and activity is only going to increase. If I were a restaurant, I’d be working on labeling my menu right now to stay ahead of the nutritional curve.

What can we do today?

Ask your favorite restaurant to add calorie information to their menus!

If you are a small to medium sized restaurant owner who’s determining ways to implement nutritional information for their constantly changing menus, contact us for some possible solutions.