Craig Ballantyne article

May 25-530,May27-300 total 102,464
weight 199.5 bf %20
calories left to burn 49377

Epictetus:
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Found an interesting website on working out without weights. Specifically using gymnastics moves to get in shape.

http://gymnasticbodies.com/home.html
Also found an interesting brief article by Craig B on push ups/fitness level. Despite hundreds of push ups a day in a single set-I can only do the low end of the "fit:" range in a single set. Here's the article.


How Many Pushups Can You Do?
by Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
The push-up is the all-American exercise. Too bad most Americans would have a hard time cranking out a single repetition, let alone the number they should be able to do for their age.
It's time to start re-gaining your upper-body strength. And in a challenge I put together for Men's Health Magazine last summer, I set the bar very high. Here, for example, are the numbers I gave for men under the age of 45 to determine their level of fitness:
Able to do less than 20 push-ups = out of shape
Able to do 20-34 push-ups = average
Able to do 35-49 push-ups = fit
Able to do more than 50 push-ups = "Men's Health" fit
(For a woman, cut the number of repetitions by 60 percent. So, to get an "average" fitness score, a woman under the age of 45 would need to be able to do at least 12 pushups.)
If you are a beginner, start with kneeling push-ups to build strength. Do one set of 5-10 reps today, and add one set every other day until you are able to do three sets of 10 kneeling push-ups.
Once you are able to do that, you'll be ready for the next level: lowering yourself to the ground for a 3-count, then relaxing onto your knees and getting back up to the start position. Work your way up to 8 repetitions... and then you'll be ready to do full push-ups.
If you're already doing full push-ups, here's how to improve your fitness score: Start by doing half the number of repetitions you can do, rest 30 seconds, repeat that same number of push-ups, rest 30 seconds again, and then repeat the push-ups. Do this two or three times per week, decreasing the rest period by 10 seconds each week. Retest your max after three weeks.Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS©2008

New blog

May21-200,may22-343,may23-20,may24-475 total push ups and chins-101,634
weight 199.5, 21%bf
calories left to burn 50750

Fate knows where you are going, but it is up to you to drive there.Michelle Keesling

Well a week back to work -lot of eating -not near enough exerise-one very bad combination. Guys week last week was full of skateboarding for an hour or two day with Joey and lots of workout time. Couldn't help but to burn extra calories. Oh well haven't gone above 200 pounds. As you can see on the graph to the right my weight has gone up and done all year-but the overall trend is down.
I started a new blog,the link is :

http://awesomebody-lmath.blogspot.com/

hi ho hi ho

May 19-527, total 100,596
weight 197.5 bf% 19%
calories left to burn 43750

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.-- Dr. Dale Turner

One day back at work can sure play havoc on a diet and exercise routine. Was at the office 13 hours yesterday and the drive home is an hour -so I did't eat so well and push ups weren't happening at the end of the day. Thats all right today is another day-will get in some push ups tonight

100,000 push ups and chins

may16-679,may17-421,may18-581 total push ups and chins 100,024
weight 195 18%bf
calories left to burn 33737

Albert Schweitzer:
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

My one week experiment with creatine loading and 200 grams of protein a day seems to have been a success. Although as usual my weight and bf % fluctuates up and down each day, it appears I have lost 3.99 pounds of fat and gained 0.3 pounds of muscle. Not bad for less than a week.

I reached 100k of push ups and chins. This feels like a bit of a landmark- 10% of the final goal completed. Even though I have been slogging away at this for over a year-somehow reaching the 100k mark makes it feel a little more like one million is achievable. My average daily push ups/chins is up to about 277 a day so progress is coming a little quicker. This week I was off ,so was able to post some higher numbers and spend a little more time working out. Tommorrow I am back to work so I will have to work a little harder to keep posting the big numbers.

Happiness degree

May15-653, total push ups and chins 98,343
weight 195.5, bf 21%
calories left to burn 37096

Ella Williams:
Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it.

Apparently you can take a Master's degree in happiness now. Well specifically it is a program founded by Dr Martin Seligiman at the University of Pennsylvania and it is a Master of Applied Positive Psychology. When I think back to my University days I remember Seligiman as the guy who brought us the theory of Learned Helplessness. Wikipedia defines Learned helplessness as : is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to believe that it is helpless in a particular situation. It has come to believe that it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile. As a result, the human being or the animal will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when it does actually have the power to change its circumstances.

I am trying to decide if it is ironic or inevitable that the guy who came up with this theory is now starting the first masters degree program in happiness -I guess it makes sense. Any way some interesting articles on the University of Penn website:
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx#
Apparently some of the early research in the are suggested that there was a set point for happiness, and there was little you could do to change your basic level of happiness. Changing your happiness level was like trying to change your height -the researcher suggested. Recent research has indicated that this was an absurd claim and there are many ways you can alter your own happiness. Anyway interesting stuff. There is a pdf of the article Seligman did with Time Magazine-worth a read.

Not on the level of life changing events- but still happiness worthy in a small way-I am back down another half pound. Not profound change -but change nonetheless.

averaging over 200 grams

may 14-561,total97,690
weight 196 21%bf
calories left to burn 38500

Benjamin Franklin:
There are no gains without pains.

I didn't burn about 20000 calories yesterday. I just adjusted the count back to reflect my actual weight. My target is 185 pounds as of this morning I weighed 196 ( 11 pounds times 3500 calories=38,000). The month before I started the whey/creatine experiment on average I was getting 127 grams of protein a day. The last three days I have injested 231g,308g, and 197g. I have been taking 15 to 20 grams of creatine for the last three days. The day before I started I weighed in at 199.5 pounds at 20% bodyfat. So as of today it seems that I have lost 3.5 pounds and gained 1 percent bodyfat. Although the day after I started I jumped up a pound and down to 18% bodyfat. It seems like if I drop a couple of pounds my %bf goes up for a day or two before it drops or stabilizes. We will see what happens during next few days. In addition to the 561 chins/push ups yesterday I did 230 kettlebell swings and 400 reps of crunches.

kettlebells to double the burn

May13 -520 ,total 97,129
weight 194.5, bf 21%
calories left to burn 47567

Benjamin Disraeli:
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

It was my son -in- laws birthday yesterday, so Joey and I hosted a guys bbq night. Had Travis (Stephs Husband), Lawrence ( my oldest son) and Greg (Mel's boyfriend) over for t-bone steaks. They were great. Dispite eating a steak the size of my head -I still managed to go down a pound and a half yesterday. With the exception of the whey and creatine-I didn't really eat anything until grill night-just so I could eat whatever I wanted come dinner time. I decided to do a bit of kettlebell training last night as an additional way to burn off some calories this week. Not that I own an actual kettlebell ( they seem to be hard to come by up here in Canada). I have the poormans version -a 50 and a 35 pound cast iron dumbell. Mostly I just did swings and one arm snatches. The kettlebells are said to be able to "hack the fat off your body without the dishonor of dieing". You can find everything you ever wanted to know about kettlebells at :www.dragondoor.com. The forum is interesting if you have some time to spare. Rifs blog is also quite good for kettlebell training information:http://rifsblog.blogspot.com/.
Rifs wife has a cool blog page as well. She lost over a hundred pounds ( I think her site says 130) in her 40's doing kettlebells and yoga. Here's her website as well. Quite an impressive change-worth the read. http://tracyrif.blogspot.com. Anyway I will add some kettlebell work this week to burn some extra calories . It really gets your heartrate up.

19 different ways to do a push up

May12-650, total push ups and chins 96,609
weight 196 bf%21%
calories left to burn 47,567

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Well first day of creatine loading and I dropped three or four pounds. Percentage of body weight went up a bit too. The dropping a couple of pounds part I like-we will see how the rest of the week goes. Found an interesting video on this blog:

http://totaltransformation.wordpress.com/2007/05/30/how-many-push-ups-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-center-of-an-awesome-upper-body/

The video is on youtube. 19 different ways to do a push up. All demonstrated.

Guys week

May8-245,may10-300,may11-300,total 95,959
weight 200.5 bf%18
calories left to burn 48446

Alfred Adler:
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.

I am going to try a one week experiment. I am off this week. Cathy has the girls down in Florida to visit her sister. It is just Joe and I, -guys week. We get to watch all the shoot em up movies that the girls are not so fond of. I am not sure if I can handle it but Joe has been talking about going skateboarding for distance. I am pretty sure this is not what you call it-long boarding or something. Anyway -he's got two boards -so might just give it a go.

This week I am going to try creatine loading four times a day. Bought some whey protein -going to make sure I get at least 200 grams of protein a day as well. I'm off in the day so should have lots of time to burn those extra calories-get in some extra workouts-and a little yard work as well.

back under 200 -barely

may 7-300, total 95,064
weight 199.5 bf %20
calories left to burn 49707

Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam. Winston Churchill

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Smith_082405,00.html

This is a link to an article by Stew Smith. A couple of years ago I lost 60 pounds over the period of about a year, mostly by watching what I was eating ( obsessively as my wife would say with fitday) and doing Stew's Navy Seals programs-lots of push ups and chins. I started out weighing about 260-got a little under 200. In the article he recommends doing 200 push ups a day. Even if you are on some other kind of program. Usually if you are on some other kind of program they recommend breaking up the body parts. Stew observes that in basic training recruits do hundreds of push ups every day and get stronger by the end of basic training. I have kind of noticed that this kind of program seems to work for me. I have done all sorts of types of workouts thru the years,but I only seem to look noticably fitter if I stick to a program with hundreds of push ups/chins a day. Kind of flyes in the face of prevelant fitness dogma. However this is what seems to work. Anyway really going to try to burn significantly more calories over the next two weeks. Going to aim for 1000 calories a day greater burn than consumption.

200 pound barrier

May4-345 total push ups/chins 94,764
weight 201,bf 20%
calories left to burn 56000

Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
Plutarch

Having a bit of a hard time staying below this damned 200 pound barrier. My wife has observed that in a given day or two -I seem to have about a four or five pound swing in weight. This 4-or 5 pound swing was hovering around 214-210 neat Christmas. Lately it has been swinging between low two hundreds to mid 190's. So if my wife is right, and she usually is-I should just relax and keep trying to "swing" to a new low-as overall the top end of the swing seems to be working its way down also. My daily average number of chins/push ups has dropped a little as well-due to some missed days-averaging around 266 a day( since the beginning of the calender year). I suppose you could say this is helping my weight loss either.

100th post

May2-460,total 94,419
weight 201,bf 22%
calories left to burn 56000

This is officially my 100th post. Not sure if that is good bad, but the dashboard page on blogger tells me it is so. NBC30 posted this small press blurb:
Man Plans To Do 4,000 Push-Ups For Cancer
POSTED: 7:56 am EDT May 2, 2008
UPDATED: 8:16 am EDT May 2, 2008

A group of people training hard for the Relay For Life call themselves Abrahams Cancer Crusaders.
Russell Leonard is a member of the team and has been touched by cancer in many ways. His wife is a two-time survivor and he lost a friend and a co-worker to the disease.
Now, his friend who he works out with every day at the gym has been diagnosed with lymphoma.

To raise money, Leonard plans on doing 4,000 push-ups at the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life.
For each pushup he completes within a four-hour span, his company will donate $2.

Good on you Leonard. Hope you hit the 4000 mark in under 4 hours. Kind of gives a guy an idea or two?

Fat Tax

apr28-192,apr29-157,apr30-390,may1-290 total 93,959
weight 194.5 bf%20
calories left to burn 55738

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.Francis Bacon

yesterday MSN had a rather interesting article on the financial cost of obesity in America. I was searching for it today-couldn't find it. The article was talking about the various areas obesity was causing an increase in costs in America. Two areas were related to fuel costs, particularly in the airline industry. Instead of finding the original article I found an interesting globe and mail article. The article states that obesity costs the health care system in Canada about 1.8 billion in direct costs. Below is an excerpt from the Globe article. Essentially related to a ruling that airlines could not charge -essentially a "fat tax"

A ruling made last month by the Canadian Transportation Agency, ordering airlines to provide the same fares to disabled passengers, has elicited much discussion about the implications with respect to the clinically obese. Let's face it — looking at such people is not fun; their oversized bodies betray years of overindulgence and lack of self-control. Obese people are the victims of their own poor lifestyle choices. Society, and certainly the already struggling airline industry, should not be forced to pay for their unchecked gluttony.
If you find yourself agreeing with these assertions, you are likely a member of a not-so-silent majority. You are also a significant part of the problem that obese people face every day.
At the simplest level, obesity is about the balance of caloric intake and expenditure. It is tempting for us to simply conclude that its cause is lack of control, or gluttony. The fact is that such a conviction, while perhaps providing us with some level of self-satisfaction, is quite wrong. We know there are many factors that go well beyond individual levels of self-control. Obesity researcher George Bray said it best when he asserted that "genes load the gun and the environment pulls the trigger."
But even if we assume that at least a substantial part of the obesity epidemic does lie in individual lifestyle choices, this is by no means unique to obesity. The full article is at :
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080206.wcomment0206/BNStory/National/home/