Entries Tagged 'weight loss' ↓

Well finally we’re all clearing the Christmas/New Years period (not to mention my family’s annoying birthdays on the 28th & 3rd!), and as usual my partner is saying she’s put on at least a few kilos. Me on the other hand… I’ve dropped weight, because I’m not at the gym. Ah, the curse of the fast metabolism.

I see see the conversation going on in your head right now, “oh poor you, you have to work out to keep weight on, I wish I had that problem.” Well, its a problem none the less, and these days guys have plenty of pressure on them to be buff & strong… and besides… *I* like being buff & strong! The problem is…

I’m just lazy!

And my body knows it. Its telling my muscle cells, “Yo! We don’t need to maintain all this mass any more, the guy’s not using it anymore!” And I lose weight… but gain a tiny bit around my waist.

What am I going to do about it? I said in my Colorado Experiment post I’d read about a guy called Tom Venuto, so I’ve gone and got a copy of his ebook, and I’m putting his eating practices to the test, while sticking as closely to Colorado style rep schemes as I can.

I’ll see what Tom says to do anyway. I’ll also be dragging my other half along, but to be frank with you, there’ll be no before & after shots – we’re just a little too shy for that.

So stay tuned & I’ll let you know what I think of the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book, and then I’ll see what results we get from it, month by month.

While shopping for Christmas presents this year, my partner found a book called “Cook Right For Your Type“. Its a book about how to cook (and eat) for your own particular blood type.

I’ve read the book, and I was fascinated by the background on how blood types evolved, and the rationale about eating particular foods based on your blood type… but the important thing for us is more how eating like this is going to be good for our health and weight loss (or muscle gain, for me!).

My other half has a bit of acne that we’ve suspected has some kind of food related cause (its just a WILD guess), and the book says that a lot of his clients who follow his diet plan lose a lot of weight… So since late November, we’ve been trying to follow what the book says…

TRYING.

You see… Christmas & New Years kinda got in the way a bit, and we’ve been completely unable to see whether we might get any weight loss from following the diet.

The point of this post?

Just letting you know I’m following a B blood type diet, and my girlfriend is following an O blood type diet, almost to the letter according to “Cook Right for Your Type”, and “Eat Right for Your Type”
.

I’ll let you know how we go.

My brother & I have recently decided to give a variation of “The Colorado Experiment” a test. We regularly go to the gym 2 to 3 times a week as it is, but are now tweaking our sessions to match this Colorado Experiment we found on the net.

Briefly, the Colorado Experiment says to try very slow concentric and eccentric contractions for each rep, rather than the fast stuff we’re used to. In fact I usually rip each concentric (or lifting or pushing) part of the rep very hard and fast, but now with the Colorado Experiment guidelines, I’m doing a 5 second up count, and a 5 second down count on every rep.

We’re giving ourselves 1 minute rest between sets, but opposed to the experiment (which seems to favour nautilus equipment for commercial reasons) we’re just using compound movements like bench press, squats, lunges, cable rows and the like. Each work out involves every major muscle group in the body to stimulate as much testosterone as possible, and we follow a loose system that lets us get every major muscle group in under an hour in the gym. We’re still only working out 2 or 3 times a week, no cardio apart from the occasional taking the dog for a walk!

My initial thoughts are that its brutally hard, but that might just be the initial getting used to it stage. My muscles are also much sorer than usual, which not not necessarily a positive sign… but it shows that my muscles aren’t used to it, and that I’m challenging them in different ways (and that is important!).

Come by soon and I’ll let you know what benefits I’ve been receiving from the Colorado Experiment inspired workouts we’re doing.

Update: See the results of the Colorado Experiment Test, here.

Big congrats to “Dancing Craze” inventor, Stacy Cho, the winner of HopeLab’s Ruckus Nation competition and recipient of $50,000 in prize money!

What is Dancing Craze? It’s not really like anything else on the market today, in fact, its more an expansion of real dancing and the sharing of that experience. Dancing Craze users will wear motion sensors which will replicate the user’s moves on screen, and then allow the dancer to share those moves with others all over the world. You can even try your hand at matching other’s moves that have already been submitted, or submit group dances.

Hopefully we see a strong community build up around this product and really do see more kids getting up and moving to use it!

Hopelab will now begin prototype development of Dancing Craze, and the second prize winner, iBlob. So its anyone’s guess how long these products will take to get to market. Hopefully not long.

My brother has stolen my copy of Psycho-Cybernetics! It’s a complete outrage… or should I say, completely understandable outrage!

Now utterly dog-eared to oblivion, I’ve “donated” that copy of the book to him and we’re still waiting on another copy of the book to come through our local Borders bookstore. 1 month and counting so far I believe.

So, what else is new? Well, I have to make comment on the fact my partner & I have just moved house (away from the afore-mentioned book-stealing brother) and it must be the best work out we’ve had in months.

There really is no need for going to the gym when you’re moving house. So my recommendation? Move house REPEATEDLY.

I finally got my hands on a copy of Psycho-Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz the other day. I’ve been recommended this book by friends, business colleagues, and at least three authors I’ve read have recommended Maltz’s work. You could easily label the book an “Epic” or “Magnum Opus”… untold thousands of people from all walks of life, and from any profession you can name seem to have used Psycho-Cybernetics to their great benefit.

Psycho-Cybernetics is also widely hailed as the book that seeded the self-help movement. Before its release, self help was seen as something to be done in private, something embarrassing to be engaged in. Self-help’s massive popular following today can be directly traced back to Maltz’s work.

Now… I’m only a third of my way through the book, but I was inspired enough to post now, and promise you that I’ll have a review up shortly on how I think the book can be applied to weight loss.

But just briefly on that… so you know what kind of book this is… Psycho-Cybernetics revolves around shaping your own self image, so that rather than struggling to lose weight, pay down debt, or be more confident in social situations, you create a better self image of yourself so that all these things become natural, and easy for you.

A more instructive review soon, I promise!