Been busy with work, our first vacation with the baby, and trying to squeeze in my workouts, so I haven’t posted for too long–though I do have a series of posts in the upcoming weeks I am very excited by. Here’s something that’s been on my mind lately: In 1960, the average male in the United States weighed 166 pounds. Today, the average American female weighs 168.5. As I am getting older, my obsession with being big and strong has diminished. I am trying to be lighter, leaner, and more nimble. In reading about this, I’ve been wrapping my head around the fact that in the average male weighed 166 (!) just a few years after my dad was born. 166 seems so light to me. In researching this, I stumbled across this amazing piece in Sports Illustrated by President-elect John F. Kennedy: The Soft American Beginning more than 2,500 years ago, from all quarters of the Greek world men thronged every four years to the sacred grove of Olympia, under the shadow of Mount Cronus, to compete in the most famous athletic contests of history—the Olympian games. During the contest a sacred truce was observed among all the states…Continue reading JFK calling Americans soft
Category: Fitness
Never* hit the snooze button again
One easy thing to do to improve your life is to pretend the snooze feature on your alarm does not exist. Disregard it. Waking up is easy for me. With so much to do and so little time, the last thing I want to do when I wake up is go back to sleep. I’m so excited to start my day that at least once a week I wake up in the middle of the night and check the time to see if it’d be inappropriate to get up for the day. 3:30 a.m.? I might just get up and start my day. 11:45 p.m.? Too early. I’ll try to shut off my brain and lay there until I fall back asleep. The other six nights of the week, I fall asleep within two minutes of putting my head on the pillow and wake up early without a spending a second more awake. But it wasn’t always that way. As a younger guy, I’d hit snooze a few times to “ease myself awake.” It was a BS excuse, and I knew it. Getting up for the day back then was a challenge and required a hit of willpower. During Marine…Continue reading Never* hit the snooze button again
One hundred steps more
About three times per week, I walk my dog just under four miles. I walk down the same street each time. Fifteen long city blocks, turn right, walk one block turn right, walk 15 blocks, turn right, walk one block, and I am home again. Once in a while I make small deviations, but otherwise this is the plan. Last week, on a lark, we arrived to the normal turnaround, and I thought, Why not keep going? Almost immediately, both the dog and I were “off.” My boots kept coming untied. I couldn’t picture our exact location on the “map” in my head. I took like three wrong turns. The dog didn’t know where to turn. Unlike our normal route, I couldn’t picture each house as we went past. The dog actually grew anxious at first, looking back to our normal turn. Pathetic, I thought, we go off route and things fall apart. I smiled to myself. Why are we such creatures of habit? Is it good to be so predictable? Could it be bad? Before I settled on any answer, the dog calmed down and forgot the stress. I figured out where we were on the “map,” and all was…Continue reading One hundred steps more
Lean Muscle Chili–a winter delight with great macros for just $1.73 per meal
One of my brothers is visiting from Arizona for ten days. He is moving up here for his first young professional job in about six weeks. We are excited to have him back in the North Country for good. The other night, we decided to work on a recipe for another healthy lunch option after recently posting about the Rob Special–another cheap, macro-rockin’ lunch option. We made an updated, healthier version of my main chili recipe. We called this version: Lean Muscle Chili. The name Lean Muscle Chili is a rip-off from my real chili recipe. In 2014, I won a chili cook-off (so what if there were only about ten entrants?) using my original Muscle Chili recipe. The real recipe contains copious amounts of ground beef and some venison. Right now, I have no venison (I passed on my one good shot at a buck in 2017, wahh!), and ground beef is so calorie dense that I’ve started using ground turkey as a replacement. More than just calories, I’ve been making a concerted effort to limit red meat these past few year because my blood pressure gets high sometimes. Limiting red meat, sodium, and alcohol has really helped my blood…Continue reading Lean Muscle Chili–a winter delight with great macros for just $1.73 per meal
A winter hike around the Louisville Swamp on the Mazomani Trail
Mere miles from the 16th-biggest metropolitan area in the United States lies an underutilized gem. At 14,000 acres, the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge hugs the Minnesota River in stretches along 70 miles of the Minnesota River. And, get this, parts of the refuge come as close as eight and six miles from the skyscrapers in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul respectively. The refuge is a good spot for hiking and hunting. The refuge affords Twin Citians the opportunity to open their day hunting waterfowl in a swamp and end it bowhunting deer from a tree while working a full shift in between. The refuge truly is an oasis for the urban outdoorsman. One thing I like about the refuge is that it increases the likelihood I will raise my family in the Twin Cities metro area. The refuge provides some real outdoors activities near a thriving metropolis. I am a big fan of winter walks (see my recent post on the topic here), and–despite having grown up near it–I had never been to the Louisville Swamp. I decided to marry the two together. So last week, I dragged my sister along with me to hike the Mazomani Trail around…Continue reading A winter hike around the Louisville Swamp on the Mazomani Trail
“The Rob Special”–a protein-packed meal with perfect macros for just $1.99
Eating healthy lunches while working can be tough. Healthy options–like Chipotle when done right, for example–are expensive and time-consuming. I’ve figured out a way to eat a week’s worth of lunches for under $10 with near-perfect macronutrients. Over the course of the year, using this and other similar recipes, you could spend just $520 on work week lunches. A year’s worth of Chipotle lunches costs $2340 without a pop or chips. That’s an $1820 savings in a year. Plus, you don’t have to go wait in Chipotle’s line. And we all know that a Chipotle jaunt around lunch time takes 45 minutes at a minimum. Recipe like this could save you 45 minutes per day Monday through Friday. That’s 11,700 minutes in a year–or 195 hours! For a lawyer or other professional billing by the hour, that’s a huge savings. At big law firms requiring 1900 hours billed per year, 195 would cover about five week’s of billing. And while no one would actually eat every single meal at his or her desk billing for an entire year, the point remains; using this recipe (and others like it), you can save a bundle of time and oodles of money. My…Continue reading “The Rob Special”–a protein-packed meal with perfect macros for just $1.99
Lenten post-lift breakfast
It’s Ash Wednesday today, so Catholics fast from meat. Doesn’t mean I skimp on my post-workout protein. Here’s my break-fast today. Get it? Fast-break. Breakfast. Looks gross. That’s .75 cup oatmeal, two cans of tuna, and broccoli. The whole meal is just 405 calories and has 47.5 grams of protein, 40.5 grams of carbs, and 7 grams of fat.
Walking outside in the winter: a recipe for a healthier you?
I love walking. Because I “retired” from running in 2012 I had to find a replacement. I tried walking and loved it. As Forrest Gump might say: from then on . . . I. was. walking. The mental and physical benefits I get from walking are second only to my weightlifting and require way less energy. My left knee and lower back don’t allow me to run for distance any longer. After I got out of the Marine Corps, the negatives outweighed the positives for running. It wasn’t worth it. And I hated it by the time I was done in the Marines. But I still need some sort of cardiovascular workout for heart health and weight control. So for a couple years I’ve walked. I try to make at least ten miles per week. Extrapolated over a whole year, that’d be over 500 miles. But I never walked in the winter. Once the weather dropped below freezing, I focused on weightlifting and saved walking for summer and—primarily—Minnesota’s best season; fall. This year, my life changed a lot. I gained not only a wife but also a husky. And huskies need exercise. So I committed to continuing my…Continue reading Walking outside in the winter: a recipe for a healthier you?
How I lost over 17 pounds in five days
I’m going to explain the method I used to drop 17 pounds here, but first a caveat. This is not the way to lose weight for aesthetics. If you want to look good, the method I outline below is not the best way to lose weight. That’s because the vast majority of the weight I lost doing this was just water weight. You’ll see below how much and how fast I put the weight back on. This method can be helpful for combat sports, weightlifting competitions, and bodybuilding. You could also use this method for the last few days before a photoshoot, but you better already be lean going in. In the Fall of 2015, I competed in my first powerlifting competition. The competition was nine days after Thanksgiving, so it was not ideal for cutting weight. Thanksgiving is a high holiday to those of us in the North Country. And while you could definitely have a big eating day on Thanksgiving and make weight nine days later, I made the rookie mistake of letting my “It’s Thanksgiving” excuse bleed over into the Friday, Saturday, and (gulp) Sunday after Thanksgiving. Sunday night — 214 On that Sunday, I feasted on…Continue reading How I lost over 17 pounds in five days