I made this info graphic to help me keep motivated. It breaks down fitness as it truly is. It’s quite simple really.
Let me know what you think.
Visual Representation of Fitness
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Tag Archives: fitness
Interview: Mike T Nelson
Mike Nelson runs ExtremeHumanPerformance.com and has some great insights on metabolic flexibility and health in general. Here’s an interview I did with him:
Background
Mike is a PHD Candidate for Exercise Science and Kinesiology. His research topic is metabolic flexibility.
He was working for a BA of Natural Science and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN. He only got the BA of Natural Science before moving on to Michigan Tech, where he did two years of post graduate work in Mechanical Engineering. He later went to graduate school there and received a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering after 8 years. Most of his classwork was in biomechanics engineering.
From college he went to work for a medical device company, which would pay for additional college courses after he was there a couple years. Mike took classes in exercise physiology because it was interesting to him (even his vacations). He ended up joining their PhD program about 6 years ago in bio-mechanical engineering.
Metabolic Flexibility
Your metabolism should be flexible. Certain people may be flexible or inflexible to certain nutrients like carbohydrates or fats. When you’re flexible towards carbohydrates, you’re more likely to consume carbohydrates more easily as an energy source. The same goes for fats. Outside of a lab, you can test your flexibility with carbohydrates by consuming large amounts of carbohydrates and seeing how you feel afterward. You can do the same with fats.
Great Questions
Minimal Effective Amount: What is the minimal amount you can do to get the maximum effect?
If you’re really healthy, shouldn’t you be able to take more abuse in terms of foods, odors, and germs instead of the other way around?
Working with Pain
Make minor movements in the injured part of your body to where you feel resistance, but not pain. Pay attention to your range of motion and gains over time. Your brain will learn again over time that moving in that way shouldn’t be painful, and it won’t be. When you start getting a larger range of motion back without pain, start adding speed and weight to the motion to increase the intensity of the movement.
Biofeedback
The most common way of biofeedback during exercise is the range of motion test where you reach for your knees and stop when you feel strain. I’ve done a post on that here. High quality movement will allow your body to move better. Doing exercises that improve your mobility, in general, will perform better and give you better gains. You should test your range of motion between each exercise every day because your body changes every day.
Personal Records Every Day (#PREveryDay)
There are three metrics affected by exercise. Those are: volume, density, and intensity. Volume is the total number of pounds you pushed during your workout. Density is just that volume divided by the amount of time you spent doing it. Intensity is the percentage of your one rep maximum. You should strive to set a personal record in your exercises every day.
Measuring Body Fat
The most accurate way to test your body fat is using a Bod Pod. There are other ways to measure your body fat like skin caliper readings, hydrostatic weight, waist/arm measurements, and taking pictures. Taking pictures and waist/arm are the most effective for people trying to casually lose weight or look better because those are more in line with their actual goals anyways. You’d be surprised at the changes you’ll see in your physique when you actually document it.
Thank You
Thank you for reading or listening, or both. What did you think? If you enjoyed this interview, show your support by subscribing via email or RSS. You can leave a comment below as well.
Officially Weigh in Once a Week Maximum
Weighing yourself on a weekly basis can give you a good idea of the progress you’re making. It will help motivate you if you’re making gains or motivate you even more if you didn’t make your mark that week. Weight also fluctuates naturally over time, so you’ll want to maintain a consistent schedule. Remember too, that you won’t see the results of today’s diet and workout until 4-24 hours later, so if you weigh in ever day, it’s most likely you won’t see today’s results until tomorrow.
Weight Fluctuates Greatly Over Time
Weight can fluctuate throughout the day or week. Depending on your current weight, it might fluctuate up to five pounds or more. Things like bowel movements, hydration, and food intake can all affect your overall weight. It can be off-putting to work hard and eat right, only to gain 2 lbs. because you’re more hydrated and feel better than you were last time you weighed in.
Weighing yourself at the same time on the same day each week will remove a lot of the variables mentioned above. I prefer to weigh myself on Wednesday mornings before my morning shower. This is before I’ve eaten, but after I’ve gone to the bathroom. This mean’s I’ll be the lightest I can be, only weighing my natural body weight. I also avoid the unpredictable nature of weekend meals.
By all means, weigh yourself on Sunday evening after you’ve eaten. It’s all about consistency. If you weigh yourself at the same relative time, you’ll be able to get accurate relative results. When selecting the time you weigh yourself try to select the time of week with the least variability in your diet and water intake. You won’t be doing yourself any favors if you weigh yourself today when you’re lightest and then tomorrow after a big dinner.
Results from Today’s Exercise Won’t be Visible Right Away
Whether you’re trying to gain muscle or lose fat, it doesn’t hop on or jump off as you’re exercising. Sure it might look like you lose weight after an exercise because you didn’t drink any water and sweated out 3 pounds, but that isn’t real. It can play the opposite way too. Maybe you sweat out 1 pound and drink 2. That means you just gained a pound that won’t stick around.
As your body synthesizes protein during muscle repair and burns fat for energy your weight will change. That doesn’t happen during the workout for the most part. It happens in the 4-24 hours afterward when you go to the bathroom. You’ll also want to give your body some time to normalize it’s water balance after a workout. If you’re anything like me, you’ll drink upwards of 60 ounces of water during your routine.
Stay Motivated with Consistent Returns
If you don’t know where your weight really is it’s hard to know if you’re gaining or losing. Giving yourself consistency during weigh-ins gives you a really good idea of if you’re gaining or losing ground in your efforts.
If you don’t know where you are, it’s hard to feel good about the results. If you don’t feel good about your results, there is a good chance you’ll slip. When you meet your goals, celebrate in a healthy way, and when you don’t, try harder for next week. You only have seven days to meet your mark.
TREKDZ76Y2QR
Looking Back: 7 Articles from This Blog
I was just reading over at John is Fit and came across a reference to a post that Darren Rowse of ProBlogger wrote called: 7 Links for Bloggers. Basically you look at 7 posts that you’ve written that fit into 7 categories and talk about them in a summary post. It’s a great way to feature some of your best and popular work. It’s also a great time to reflect about what you’re writing. So, here’s what I came up with:
The First Post
This was the first post. I wrote this specific one, because I was starting my journey and I needed to do exactly what I was writing. You see, this blog isn’t about what I’ve done. It’s about what I need to do. I follow every bit of advice that I write here. I may not excel at it, but I’m trying. I wrote that and followed every word. Looking back: it worked.
The Post I Enjoyed Writing the Most
Pros and Cons of Vegan, Vegetarian, and Omnivorous Diets
This post really started off as a quest to find out the answer to which diet I should have. I did a ton of research while I was writing it and I just couldn’t stop writing. Ultimately I found out that I’d be just fine as an omnivore – as long as I could control myself. I thought I could and I did. I’m still going strong. I still find myself referring back to this all the time.
A Post that had Great Discussion
Synthesizing Protein Build Muscle
This blog is fairly new, so discussion is a bit sparse. Still, this post got two comments and is thus the most discussed. People were able give me additional information that I could research, and it ultimately lead to a few more post ideas. I hope to get more discussion in the future, but this is a start!
A Post that had a Title I was Proud of
Not only did I like the title of this post, I really enjoyed reading it. I wrote it after a female friend of mine was talking about how she lost 27 pounds in 3 weeks. That’s just not healthy. She was starving herself and didn’t feel very good a lot of the time. She was getting sick a lot too. Weight loss really isn’t everything. Being fit is everything.
A Post on Someone Else’s Blog I Wish I Had Written First
Think Simple Now is a relatively new blog to me. I started reading about two months ago. Inspiration and motivation are really the backbone of being fit and I realize that more and more every day. This post really just hit home for me. I wish I had thought of it first, let alone writing it first. Very, very inspirational words here.
A Post I Wish More People had Read
This post really sums up how to be successful in your fitness goals. It came during a lull in readership, but I really think its gold. It sums up everything you need to do, and I always go back to it to stay motivated and on track. As a matter of fact it also inspired many of the posts that followed it, including one great one that’s coming up soon.
The Most Visited Post Ever
Supplemental Reading: Great Fitness Blogs
This post easily received twice the traffic that the next most visited post, but I think that’s for a few reasons: 1) it’s the latest post and I’ve grown quite a bit since the beginning of this blog, 2) it featured other people who in turn sent their readers here, and 3) it’s really a great post to launch from. I think a lot of people are recommending it.
Give it a Shot
If you do a 7 link challenge post in the fitness realm, I’ll link it up here. I’ll also be posting other ones I find. It’s really a great way to get a cross-section of someone’s blog fairly quickly. It’s also a blast to write, so hit me up with what you’ve got.
TREKDZ76Y2QR
Supplemental Reading: Great Fitness Blogs
On my journey to discover more about how to be fit myself, I’ve discovered some great places out there for material. Being fit encompasses a whole gamut of things, like eating healthy, exercising, and staying motivated. There are also places with great stories and overall fitness tips from people sharing their journey.
Extreme Human Performance
Mike T Nelson runs a blog that taps into an amazing group of people. They are concerned with reaching perfection and perpetual progress with muscle building exercise. Through them I found out about #PREveryDay, which stands for “Personal Records Every Day.” They do a ton of videos on the proper way to do specific exercises, which are extremely useful. Through this blog I found out biofeedback, which I’ve talked about before. Mike really knows what he’s talking about.
John is Fit
This guy John is documenting his journey to lose weight. He started at almost 300 pounds and worked is way to just above 260 pounds, but it looks like he’s been slipping a bit lately. I’ve only been following the blog for a short time, but I’m addicted to going back and reading old posts.
I’m really routing for this guy and hoping he can pull through. Hey John, if you’re reading this, maybe we can help each other get more fit. He’s been sporadic about posting, but it’s been at least once a month since he started and he often posts daily.
FitBuff
Brandon has an amazing story. He was never overweight, but he’s just been rocking his health since a young age. Although I wouldn’t consider him an expert, he’s walked the walk. He’s had some brushes with medical issues that just killed his fitness, but he always bounced back. His approach is total mind and body fitness, which ultimately leads to success. Brandon posts almost every day with intensely awesome, in depth content.
Josef Brandenburg
Josef runs a great blog and the recipes and food advice are amazing. He is really knowledgeable about food and health in general. Whenever you’re feeling like you need a pick-me-up for your next meal, hit up his blog first. He posts every couple days, so there is plenty to absorb out there!
Think Simple Now
75% of good solid fitness is motivation. The blog was started by Tina Su and is run by her and a slew of other contributors. The entire blog is about personal motivation in every aspect of life: happiness, finance, health, etc. This is the perfect supplement to your diet and exercise routing because it will bring you success in those and every other aspect of your life as well. They post one or two times a week, so you won’t have too much information overload either.
Thoughts?
I’m loving the data from “John is Fit” too. John, you deserve a little extra recognition for that because I’m a geek. What fitness blogs do you read? I’m really interested in absorbing as much as I can about getting healthier, so throw some info at me.
11 Simple Tips to be More Fit
Looking back at what’s been done so far, I thought I’d give you ten easy tips that will help you be more fit:
- Be in the right mindset. Getting your mental game together will go a long way in improving your physical performance. If you’re not where you need to be, identify the problem and neutralize it. You mind can be the biggest hurdle in making yourself better.
- Drink enough water. Water is the thing that gives all things life. It cleanses your system of toxins and allows you to extract energy from your food. If you’re dehydrated, you’ll feel horrible and perform even worse.
- Work out. Really? Exercise is the basis of being fit coupled with a good diet. Get into a routine of working out at least three times a week for at least a half hour. That’s a minimum. If you can do more, do it. If you don’t exercise, you’ll never gain muscle and always be low on energy. Don’t just exercise your body either. Make sure you exercise your mind daily.
- Only eat carbs for energy and don’t over-do it. Having too many carbs will promote fat growth, but having too little will leave you starved for energy during your workouts. You need carbs to build muscle.
- Use biofeedback to get the most out of your workout. Listening to your body is the best way to increase gains when you’re working out. Do range of motion tests before each exercise in your workout and you’ll get maximum results.
- Pick a diet that works for you. I’m talking about vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous diets here. That whole South Beach, Atkins, Peanuts Only thing is just a gimmick. Pick the one that fits your lifestyle and is the easiest for you. I’m an omnivore myself.
- Eat high protein foods before and after you work out to build muscle. Get those proteins three hours before you work out and three to four hours afterward. You’ll get maximum synthesis then and see excellent gains in muscle growth. Of course only do it if that’s what you’re going for.
- Vary your workout to give tired muscles time to rest. If you give tired muscle groups that time to rest you can keep your heart rate up and give them some R&R at the same time. That will maximize your time to gain ratio.
- Don’t just worry about weight loss. Keep your mind on fitness, not weight loss. Unhealthy weight loss can cause health problems later. Don’t sweat it out or starve it out. Earn it.
- Cut out the alcohol. This is the single easiest way to lose weight and feel better. Alcohol dehydrates you and adds a ton of extra carbs and calories to you body that you don’t need.
- Strive for perfection and perpetual progress. This is the most important point. Striving for daily perfection is what will keep you going forever. This will keep you from slipping back into your old habits. When applied to other facets of your life, you’ll only see positive things.
If you exercise (hah, see what I did there) those ten tips every day you will be well on your way to becoming more fit. What tips do you have?
Weight Loss Isn’t Everything
If you’re only on a fitness kick to lose some weight to look good for the summer, then your thinking is deeply flawed. Being superficial about your health and wellness and doing it to look good will only get you so far. I will admit though: that’s better than not caring at all.
There is so much more to fitness than the finite goal of losing 5 or 10 or 100 pounds. If you only strive to reach that goal you have a pretty good chance of falling back into old habits and losing everything you gained. You need to get into the mindset of caring about your body and going beyond visible results.
Building Muscle
Building muscle will actually make you weigh more, but has added long-lasting effects beyond shedding fat. You will feel better and have more energy, which if you haven’t heard – is a good thing. Having more muscle also increases your metabolism, allowing you to enjoy those tasty foods you enjoy. Don’t go overboard though.
Focusing on losing weight only could also come in the form of losing muscle, which you don’t want. Reducing your body fat should be the only way you lose weight, otherwise you should be gaining weight in the form of muscle growth. If you’re overweight now, don’t focus on that. Focus on being healthy and growing muscle. Everything else will fall into place.
Unhealthy Weight Loss
Losing too much weight too fast can have detrimental effects on your health. Sweating out pounds or fasting for extended periods of time deprives your body of much needed nutrients and will cause health problems later. I always feel sorry for those Mixed Martial Arts fighters that have to sweat out pounds to meet their weight. Couldn’t we just promote healthy sports?
Losing 25 pounds in 2 weeks isn’t something to be proud of if you only weight 150 pounds to begin with. A lot of that was probably water or muscle, and now you’re dehydrated and weak, leaving you susceptible to illness or worse. Being emaciated and tired isn’t what life is all about.
Christian Bale in the Machinist - Being emaciated and tired isn't what life is all about.
Let’s face it: if losing weight was all that mattered, we could all just pick up a nice healthy heroine habit and the pounds would just fall off. Yeah. That’s good for you. If you didn’t pick up on the sarcasm there, I’m sorry.
Perfection in Both Mind and Body
Fitness isn’t just about a flat stomach. It’s about striving for perfection both in mind and body. Every time you reach your goal, set a new, more ambitious one. Reach that goal too. Getting into the mindset of perpetual progress will keep you healthy for years to come and spill over into other facets of your life in a positive way!
Striving for perfection is no easy task, but continuous growth will only lead to great things. What seems hard now will be a breeze when you look back at it. Remember when you couldn’t bench press the bar? Now you’re doing 265 pounds?! What?!
Please: tell me what your goals are. Don’t just limit them to your own health and wellness. Let’s talk ambitious life goals too!
Synthesizing Protein Builds Muscle
Consuming foods high in protein before and after you exercise promotes the growth of muscle. Protein isn’t the only factor in muscle growth though, although it plays a big part in it. Be sure that you’re consuming enough carbohydrates and calories too.
Diet
I try to eat low-fat, high protein meats, such as shrimp and fish and poultry before and after each workout. I’ll eat something like a chicken sandwich or some steamed shrimp and crackers approximately 3 hours before a workout to give my body the protein it needs to repair my muscles. The added carbohydrates from the grains provide additional energy to increase performance.
I’ll also eat a protein only meal within three or four hours of the exercise. Some people will drink protein shakes of some sort as well, but I prefer to keep my diet natural. Your body naturally converts the foods in your stomach before stored nutrients, so it’s important to make sure you give your metabolism the path of least resistance when it’s supporting your body. This will lead to optimum gains.
High Protein Foods
Some of the following are great high protein, low-fat foods:
- Lean Steak or Hamburger – be careful with red meat and pork, because they often contain excess fat. Make sure your meat is lean.
- Shrimp and Fish – Most seafood is the leanest of meat and also contains Omega 3 Fatty Acids, which are good for you.
- Chicken, Turkey, or other Poultry – This is a great alternative to seafood if you don’t like the taste of fish. It is probably to most common high protein, low fat meat.
- Milk and Eggs – This is a great alternative to meats, especially if you’re vegetarian.
- Cheeses – As a rule of thumb, the harder a cheese is, the higher it’s protein content.
- Tempeh and Tofu - Great vegan sources of protein. There is little to know saturated fat in most vegan options as well.
- Beans, Nuts, and Seeds – Per calorie, these have much lower protein content that the foods above, but are great alternatives for vegans.
Most high-protein food, in moderation, are quite good for you. They’re great supplements to salads and sandwiches, but be careful about your choices, because many high protein foods can also be high in saturated fats. Red meat, I’m looking at you.
Try to stay away from processed meats like peperoni and sausage, because they’re usually augmented with excess fat and carbohydrates, which convert to hydrated body fat quite easily. You don’t want hydrated body fat, by the way.
Watch Out
There are many diets that focus on completely replacing most other foods with high protein, no carb food. Those diets promote weight loss, but at the cost of your overall fitness. Be careful about the luster of such diets. We all want to look great, but you should feel great too.
Like all changes in behavior, give this a try for a few weeks and see what kind of muscle gains you get. I suspect that if you’re true to the change you will see some great improvements in your muscle building efforts.
Ups and Downs of Carbohydrates
There are a lot of theories about how carbohydrates affect your fitness. Basically they are complex sugars and usually occur in baked products, but also occur naturally in fruits and vegetables like potatoes and bananas. This doesn’t mean you should shy away fruits and veggies, because there are different types of carbs.
There are simple carbs and complex carbs, and the complex ones are the ones you want to watch out for, because they’re converted to fat the easiest. Fruit and vegetables tend to contain simple carbs, while baked goods like pizza and bread tend to be made of complex carbs. Stepping back your complex carb intake can drastically affect the amount of hydrated fat on your body.
Cons
There are various diets out there, like the South Beach Diet, which prohibit the intake of carbs to lose weight. The Atkins diet is another take on that same theory. The basic idea is that if you don’t take in complex carbs they can’t be converted to body fat. If your food can’t be converted to body fat, you won’t gain weight. That’s not entirely true, but it kind of works. I’m not saying it’s healthy though.
Alcohol is probably the most common carb out there and is the biggest culprit for gaining weight. There is a reason they call it a “beer gut”. As you drink beverages with higher and higher alcohol content the carb ratio goes down, but it never goes away. Also remember the alcoholic drinks are very high in calories. Some shots of liquor can have upwards of 150 calories!
Pros
Carbs and sugars also provide you directly with energy. That’s why you see people who run marathons taking in a large amount of calories, most of which are carbs. If your body is using the energy, they are the easiest form of food to convert.
When you’re going to the gym, if you eat a carb heavy diet about three hours before you go, you’ll feel more energized and probably perform better while you’re there. It’s good to eat a larger amount of them in the morning and cut back on them at night. This way you’ll have the energy for your day, but not convert them to fats while you’re sleeping.
The Take Away
Basically you need to remember that carbs aren’t as bad as some diets make them out to be, but they can be bad if you don’t moderate them. Remember that they are in most foods and beverages – especially alcohol. The easiest way to lose weight is to cut alcohol from your diet. For some people it’s also the hardest thing to give up.
There really is a lot of science that goes into figuring out how many to eat and when you should eat them. When you combine something complex like the science of consuming carbs with the science of drinking water or other consumption habits, it’s easy to get confused. We’ll try to break down those barriers for you and make it simple.
Need more help figuring out all of this? Just hit us up with your questions.
Simple Upper Body Workout Routine
This is about a simple upper body workout routine that I alternate every other gym visit. Basically I do one set of five different exercises (a circuit), moving through all of the exercises until I reach the first one. I then do a second set, and finally a third set. Every set is on 10 repetitions, and I adjust my intensity so that I’m usually failing between repetition 5 and 10 on the third set.
I try to alternate the exercises between muscle groups so that each muscle group has time to rest before I move on to an exercise in a similar group. For upper body, I tend to move between abs and arms. I also always start my visit to the gym with a 2 mile run to get my heart rate up. With a simple 5 exercise x 3 sets x 10 reps routine and a short run, you can easily spend an hour at the gym.
I note the intensity of each exercise I do in my phone and record it on a spreadsheet when I get back to my computer. This way I can track progress as I go. In my other life, I’m a data geek, so this stuff is important to me. I want to see statistical progress in my fitness adventures.
The following is a list of the exercises I do in one of my circuits for upper body work out on odd days:
- Bench Presses - Lay on a flat bench and push a barbell up towards the ceiling. This works your pecs and upper arms. Be sure to vary your hand stance to work different muscle groups. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
- Crunches on an Inclined Bench - Don’t do a full sit up yet. Just raise your body about a third of the way through a full sit up. This works your upper abs. Increase the incline until maximum and then add weight. I usually carry a disc weight flat across my chest while inclined to add weight.
- Bicep Curls – This mostly works your biceps, but can also work your forearm and pecs depending on your form. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
- Sit Ups on an Inclined Bench – Follow through and touch your elbows to your knees. This works your lower abs and pelvis. Be sure not to hold your hands behind your head, because that can cause neck injuries. Add weight by holding a disc weight.
- Tricep Curls - Lay on a flat bench and hold a single weight above your head. Push it towards the ceiling and then bring it back down. This works your triceps and forearms. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
If you’re unsure about how to do one or more of the exercises above, just contact me and I can help you get your bearings. I will be posting videos about how each one works at some point. I need to see what the rules are about cameras in the gym I go to. A quick video search on Google gets some pretty great results as well.
These workouts should work for just about anyone at any level. You should be able to adjust your weight to increase or decrease the difficulty of the specific exercise you’re doing. Even if you just started trying to be fit, you can start with one pound weights and move forward from there. Everyone has to start somewhere.