Day 58: Free Day

March 6, 2012 by

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: ,

Day 55: Week 8 Weigh-in

March 3, 2012 by

Well, I’m around 60% done with the 90 day Body For Life Challenge. I’m feeling great so far and feel better physically than I have in a long time. Now, for the weekly weigh-in. I gained 1 pound this week.

Hopefully it’s muscle gain – that would be great. It’s got to be…I’m eating so healthy and going to the gym 6 times a week. I’ve been pushing myself harder at the gym lately as well.



BOOM! Yes, I’ve been playing Skylanders with my son (in case any of you didn’t get the reference).

Now, for the weekly pics – from the front:

And, the back:

If you look closely on the pictures from the front, you can see two creases in my chest. Those are from sitting down for over an hour and a half giving my dog a haircut. Yes, I have to cut my dog’s hair. Pretty ridiculous, huh? Allison can’t handle a dog that sheds, so she bought a Yorkie. They never shed, which is great for allergies, but the downside is that their hair never stops growing. It needs to be cut once every month or two and is usually about a 2 hour ordeal…ugh. I’m not sure who hates it more, Chase (our dog), or me. I do like it when it’s all done, though, as does Chase. He gets more of his spunk back and seems to have more energy with short hair than when it is long and weighing his 6.5 pound body down. Isn’t he cute?

Filed Under: Body For Life, Pictures Tagged With: , ,

Day 54: English Muffin with Preserves

March 2, 2012 by

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: ,

Day 53: Third Running Interval Increase

March 1, 2012 by

This week I increased my intervals again – this time another .1 for a total of .3 increase since I started. I’m doing my increases every 2 weeks and will hit my goal in less than 4 weeks now. When I started my intervals were:

5 — 6 — 7 — 8

They are now:

5 — 6.3 — 7.6 — 8.9

The power run at the end was 9 when I started and it is now 10 for the last minute before the 2 minute cool down. I’ll do the current intervals for next week as well, then increase another .1 the week after. The final goal is to be 5–6.5–8–9.5 then power at 10. I don’t really want to go any higher than 10.0 on the treadmill. 10.0 is 10 miles an hour, or a 6 minute mile. I’m doing 10.0 now for my power run and will keep it there. The last minute is pure sprinting at a 6 minute mile pace.

This week has been one of my harder weeks. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve had a harder time getting motivated. I still haven’t missed a workout, though. This morning was especially difficult – more of a mental difficulty than a physical difficulty. It is a huge mental challenge to keep up with going to the gym 6 days a week. I think the thing that helped motivate me was that I knew it would only be 21 minutes. That’s not really that long at all if you think about it. I think there is a reason why Bill Phillip’s book is titled “Body-for-LIFE: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength”. It’s not just getting fit, eating right, and building muscle. It is also about mental strength. Training yourself to put health in front of other things in your life is a huge life change and something that will stick with you for the rest of your life if you do Body For Life. I’ll end with the motivational tip from the Body For Life website today, which I really liked:

If improving your life and your health are that important to you, you’ll find the time and make it flow with the groove of your life.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Workouts Tagged With:

Day 50: H20

February 27, 2012 by

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
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