Day 58: Free Day

March 6, 2012 by Ben

On Body For Life, you are supposed to take one day off as your “free day” each week. I read an excellent article on the Body For Life website today that goes into detail about your free day and has some good pointers. I’ll give a quick summary here, but you should click over and read the entire article – it is a good read. Click here to read the article.

On your free day, you are allowed to indulge in all of the “unauthorized” food of your choice. The BFL website even has a picture of a donut with the article. The idea behind it is that if you have one day off, it is easier to withstand temptation during the week. I’ve definitely found this to be the case. If I am tempted with something, I just think to myself, “well, I can have that on my day off this week”. Another benefit is that after eating healthy all week, that splurge food may not be as good as we remember when we used to eat it all the time. It helps remind us how good we feel when we eat healthy. It’s not meant to be a binge day like a binge drinker, but rather a day to reward and treat ourselves. One thing that the BFL website mentioned is that if we’re going to treat ourselves, treat ourselves right. If you’re going to get a burger and fries, enjoy a high quality one, not a quick drive through. Here in Austin, TX, we have Mighty Fine Burgers, which grinds their own beef onsite and hand forms their patties right there in front of you.

If you’re ever in Austin, you have to check them out. For me, having the day off really helps make it easier to stay committed to healthy eating during the week. It has been a couple of years since I did Body For Life the first time. When I finished it last time, I tried to keep up the same habits, but gradually over time it became more difficult to say “no” to a cookie at the office, or a cupcake. Another reason why I did Body For Life this time around was to get myself back in the habit of eating healthy regularly. It definitely has helped me so far, and I’m seeing the rewards from it already.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition Tagged With: burger, day off

Day 54: English Muffin with Preserves

March 2, 2012 by Ben

Oroweat makes a 100% Whole Wheat english muffin that is great for breakfast or after a run. 1 muffin has 150 calories in it as well as 6g of protein. Nice.

When eating carbs, you should eat good carbs…whole grains and fruits/vegetables. These english muffins are a great “good” carb and taste very good, especially if you toast them.

When they come out of the toaster, spread some preserves on top of them. Body for Life recommends the sugar free preserves. I’m still trying to make up in my mind which is better for you – the sugar free or the low sugar. Maybe the low sugar to avoid the artificial sweeteners, but in any case, don’t buy preserves with a bunch of added sugar. You’d be surprised what some of them have in them. Fruit is naturally sweet – why do they have to add a bunch of sugar? I measured out 1 tablespoon, which is one serving size for the preserves. It was just the right amount to spread across two halves of the english muffin.

Mmmmmm…..

This goes perfect along with some egg whites as your protein for a solid, healthy breakfast. What do you like to eat for breakfast?

Nutritional Information for one english muffin with 1 serving of sugar free red raspberry preserves:

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition Tagged With: breakfast, carbs

Day 50: H20

February 27, 2012 by Ben

Our bodies are made up of anywhere from 55% – 70% water, depending on various factors (age, sex, etc.) With that much of your body being water, don’t you think you should drink a lot of water? Yeah, I know that you’re “supposed” to, but I honestly haven’t been drinking enough water until recently. Americans in general drink too many other things, when one of the healthiest things for us out there is the substance that compromises over half of our body. And, it’s free! Well, sort of. I mean, there is this little thing called a water bill, but it’s usually the smallest of our utilities, right? That is, unless you have a 10 acre sodded piece of land with a sprinkler system running through the whole thing.

So, here are several things I’ve learned about water recently. When doing Body For Life, you should drink 1 gallon of water per day throughout the day. That’s a lot of water! How many ounces are in a gallon? Have you ever wondered how to quickly calculate stuff like this? Just use Google Calculator. You just mosey on over to Google and type “1 gallon in ounces”.

Many folks don’t know that this functionality is built right into Google. The key word is “in”. Type the first unit, then “in”, then the second unit you want to convert to. For example, let’s say you want to know how many teaspoons are in a gallon? Everyone wants to know that, right?

Whew – now it will be easy for me to keep track of how many times I need to refill my teaspoon up during the day to ensure that I get enough water. That’s once every 75 seconds assuming 8 hours of sleep. I digress…

Another thing I recently read on the Body For Life website is that you should drink water before, during, and after your workout. They recommend 16 oz. before a workout (that’s 96 teaspoons), 4-6 oz. every 15-20 minutes during, and then more water after working out. It is important to keep your body hydrated during an intense weight training session.

One more thing about water – diet sodas. I mentioned earlier that I am trying to cut down on them and drink more water. Body for Life says that’s it’s ok to have an occasional diet soda if you want, but follow it up with an equal amount of water afterwards to make up for it. I’ve been doing this recently and have decreased the amount of diet sodas I’ve been consuming. Eventually my goal is to completely eliminate them. I know that it is healthier to just not drink them at all.

In case you’re wondering, the water image at the top I made using the free, open source tool, The Gimp and this tutorial and this video.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition, Technology

Day 43: Protein after Workout

February 20, 2012 by Ben

After working out with weights, you are supposed to consume protein within 30 minutes in order to ensure that your muscles can grow to their full potential. The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn. I have been trying to eat protein as soon as possible after a workout, but I’ll be honest – sometimes it isn’t within 30 minutes. The gym is only 5 minutes away from my home, but by the time I walk out to my car, head home, sometimes stop at the grocery store, get a call from work, then cook some egg whites or make a protein shake when I get home, it has sometimes not been within 30 minutes of my workout.

The other day as I was leaving the gym, I saw a guy getting his stuff out of a locker and he had a protein bar in his locker. Why haven’t I ever thought of that? Bring a protein bar to the gym – then you can immediately consume protein right after your workout! When doing weights 3 times a week, I’m going to try for the next little while to bring a protein bar to the gym so I can consume protein immediately after doing weights (for me Mon, Wed, Fri). We’ll see if it makes a difference in my muscle gain.

Our printer finally died in our office and it was time to get a new printer. I left the gym today and went straight to Fry’s Electronics to pickup the printer that I had ordered online for in-store pickup. Btw, I will never buy another “brother” brand printer again! Horrible driver, not very compatible with Mac and Linux, and just all around gave us problems. I went back to my bread and butter – Samsung Laser Printers. I’m not a fan of ink jet printers. I prefer a solid basic black and white laser printer. If I really need something in color (which is like never), I can print it at Kinkos, or if it is a photo use one of the many sites online or upload it to Costco or Walgreens. My laser printer toner will last for several thousand pages compared to several hundred for an ink jet. It’s much more economical and looks way better. I generally buy a very basic laser printer, and have had really good success with the basic Samsung Laser Printer. It was only $69.99 at Fry’s! You really can’t beat that, especially considering it was $95 at Newegg, which is usually the cheapest place online for computer stuff. Our last Samsung that we had before the brother lasted us for years. Oh, and I saw a sign at Fry’s today that said they match internet prices…hmmm. Good to know when I need something tech related in a pinch, but don’t want to pay local store prices.

Oops – got on another techy tangent. My bad. I have a tendancy to do that sometimes….back to my blog post – so I went to Fry’s to pickup the printer, and ate my protein bar while driving in my car on the way there to ensure that I got the protein in my system immediately following my intense lower body workout.

Btw, this brand of protein bars is quite yummy, and on par with the Body For Life recommended EAS brand of protein bars in regards to protein/carb balance. Not all protein bars are necessarily good for you. I’ll probably do a blog post soon about that my new discovery of these protein bars.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition, Random, Workouts Tagged With: protein bar

Day 39: Healthy Sausage Wrap

February 16, 2012 by Ben

Eating is a big part of Body For Life. 6 times a day, protein and carb each time. Workouts are important too, but you only have 6 workouts per week compared to 42 meals. It definitely takes some planning to make sure you always have a healthy carb and protein for each meal.

One very easy, yummy meal is — believe it or not — a sausage wrap. First off, buy some lean smoked turkey sausage. I tried Jennie-O the other day and it was delicious.

It only has 3g of fat per serving. For a wrap, I eat the equivalent of 2 servings, so that is still only 6g of fat in the sausage. Next, use a whole wheat tortilla. I like the Mission Whole Wheat Tortillas:

You can fry the sausage in a pan, but I think it tastes better if you have a grill. I threw it on our gas grill and it didn’t take any longer than cooking it on the stove. After pulling it of the grill, I cut 2 servings worth. The entire link is 7 servings, so I just eyeballed it.

Wrap in wheat tortilla and add some mustard. Mustard is great because it has virtually no calories (3 in 1 teaspoon), as opposed to the alternative of maybe a BBQ sauce full of sugar, carbs, and calories. Plus, I just really like the taste of mustard on a sausage wrap. If you’re not a mustard fan, it is good for your health to try to start liking mustard in favor of bbq sauce, mayonnaise, or ranch dressing on wraps, sandwiches, etc. Doesn’t it look yummy?

For less than 300 calories, around 8g of fat, and 21g or protein, it makes a great, healthy meal. Now, you know how I can easily generate the nutritional information for the meal, right? fatsecret.com, of course.