Random As Rhyme

Those of you following a long might have heard me speak previously on the fact that I started eating better since a bout with the stomach flu this new years. Aside from not gaining any unwanted weight and feeling generally better physically and better about myself I didn’t really expect any other effects. However last Saturday I realized my assumptions were wrong.

I love hot dogs that you get from street vendors, be it out front of Canadian Tire, or on the street corner in Toronto. In the summers of the past I used eat more than my fair share of the random meat concoction that make up hot dogs and sausages. However since my ‘health kick’ most of this ’summer’ (booo 22 degrees) has gone by without me eating any.

When you are out riding street with your homies stopping at a hot dog cart is par for the course and since I had not had one in awhile I decided to treat my self to the real deal, a honey garlic sausage, why not?

Well had I known that about an hour later I would be holding vomit in my mouth until the car came to a stop (I have done the puke out of a moving car thing before and it is not pretty) I never would have got that sausage.

I have been noticing lately that my stomach seems to know throw temper tantrums at my old favorites. Harveys sits like a brick, Manchu Wok honey garlic chicken makes me gassy, and street meat sausages make me puke. I blame this solely on eating better and not the questionable food preparation techniques of these more than qualified chefs.

It’s not fair I didn’t want to make it so that I couldn’t eat my favorites every once and awhile I just didn’t want to look like this guy!

Someone pass the broccoli.

I’m skinny, I was born skinny (part of being born premature) and aside from a brief stint of being over fed as a youngster (pic inside) I have always been skinny. At one point I was pretty close to being un-healthily skinny (thanks mono) but now I seem to be have settled down to a nice stable healthy looking weight even though people still constantly ask me if I have lost weight. My weight has stayed the same since the beginning of the year but I started to wonder what my body fat percentage was and whether or not I was at a healthy weight.

I can’t really afford to get properly tested in a dunk tank so I opted for the next best thing.

A body Fat Estimator, and my girlfriends fancy digital scale. At 6ft 150lbs the digital scale placed my body fat percentage at 18% while this estimator placed me at 13% body fat.

To be safe I am going to say I am going to go with the high number 18%.

Is this a healthy number? Unhealthy? I had no idea so I asked Jeeves hit up google.

According to this chart from bmi-calculator.com

at 18% I fall in acceptable and 13% I fall in athletic. I think if I were to get properly tested I would fall in the ‘fitness’ category.

From my understanding though body fat percentages are only really used to plan weight loss goals and slice I have never, and hopefully never have to, set out to intentionally lose weight in my life this is all just hear say and poppy cock.

But at least I don’t look like this anymore

For no reason here is a video of a 400lb 7 year old

It’s been awhile since I have discussed my One Hundred Push ups endeavor and while I quickly failed at taking weekly pictures I didn’t give quit doing the push ups after one week like a lot of my friends. I saw the program through to the end (week 3-6) as recommend by my initial test.

At the end of week six (which I did while in Vancouver) I was able to do 50 good form consecutive push ups. That’s 50 away from my goal but also double what I started at.

So what now?

Well I am going to modify the program a little. While its a great start to training it becomes somewhat repetitive and boring so my new system will work like so:
Every other day to do as many consecutive push ups that I can then make up the difference in sets of 10.

Once I finally get to 100 consecutive good form push ups I will take an after shot and move on to two hundred sit ups.

In the meantime I am also going to keep active by riding a lot of BMX and boxing since my hockey season is over now (we won it all baby!).

Previously: Healthy Livin’

About six or so months ago I made a decision to lead a healthier life. I was never an unhealthy person but a series of health related issues caused me to really get my but in gear and try and keep myself in good shape for the years to come.

I was coming off a year of riding related knee injuries (Prepatellar bursitis) and was finding myself really tired in the afternoons and getting kind of soft. These two things alone didn’t trigger much of a change in my lifestyle.  I started taking inflammatory medication for my knee as needed and hit my basement gym a little bit more. Little did I know that two real kicks in the pants was about to come.

Around September 2008 I started to  get migraines, really bad migraines.  I felt like my body was attacking me and according to my Dr. there was seemingly nothing I could do about it other than take daily medication, blood pressure medication, like some old out of shape man. I found this really depressing being 24 and dependent on daily medication. I decided that this simply wouldn’t do and searched the internet for other ways to combat migraines.

I learned that leading a healthy life style with balanced amounts of sleep and physical activity greatly reduced the amount of migraines sufferers experienced.

So I decided to increase my physical activity. Sure I already rode two to three times a week but my body was used to that, it had adapted I had to bring something else into the mix.

So I joined a men’s hockey league (ASHL) with some high school friends and signed up  for fitness boxing at Hurontario Community center. Hockey I knew I would love again the instant I stepped back on the ice but boxing I had no idea I would like as much as I do.

I started boxing as much as I ride (twice a week) and the instructor, Andy Dumas, and other members have been helping advance my training as far as I am willing to take it.

On New years 2008 through the 2nd of January I was kicked again, while making a steak and lobster dinner with my girlfriend I came down with the stomach flu and was laid up on the couch/curled over the toilet for two days. It was the sickest I have been in a long, long time, and I lost all of my water weight and could not really eat solid food for a few days after.

Instead of writing the entire year off and sleeping until 2010 I decided to start making conscious choices to eat better. I never ate terribly, and don’t obscenely healthy now, but I take a minute or two to look at the nutritional information of what I am eating and glance at the menu for a healthier choice. I have actually only bought one lunch this year so far!

These live style choices have defiantly made an effect on me. Cardiovascular wise I am probably in the best shape I have ever been, and I am also at my leanest (healthy leanest not sick leanest)  and while I have been bigger muscle wise I am pretty happy with my strength and looks.

However I am not going to  rest on my laurels,  I recently picked up “Knockout Fintess” and came across two online programs I am going to work  through: hundredpushups and twohundredsitups. To keep myself more motivated I have decided to take pictures over the course of each six  week program and post them on here.

For the  dudes hopefully this is an inspiration, for the ladies  some eye candy.

I did the initial hundredpushups test and I did 24 consecutive push ups wish means I have to start on week 3 so here we go. Week 3.