Plans for the Spring

I have mentioned before about the idea of doing things that you enjoy instead of just exercising for the sake of exercise. Another thing that I think is helpful is to schedule activities in order to keep yourself excited about getting and staying in shape. Here are the things that I've got planned for the spring so far.

Spring Outdoor Soccer Season

 I play for Hibernian FC in a local adult league. We play 10 Saturdays starting at the end of February going to the beginning of May.  It's a fun team to play with, we are sponsored by a local pub and it gives me a group a team to play with pretty much year-round.

My First Duathlon

 So what is a duathlon? It is basically a triathlon that replaces the swim with another run; it goes run-bike run. This is good for a couple of reasons: they can be held anywhere (not constrained to being by a body of water or pool) and they are good for someone (like myself) that are not as strong of a swimmer. We are off for essentially one week in the spring from soccer so this is the duathlon I decided on:

 

FS-Series Cary Short Course Duathlon. It is a 2.5 mile run, 17.65 mile ride, and a 2.5 mile run on Saturday, April 7. I decided on the short one (half the other distance) because of the other things I am trying to do and because I wanted to be able to "race" it instead of just finish. This is the third of three duathlons in the FS Series; I would have liked to have done at least one of the other two but I didn't really want to miss a soccer game. I have done a few of these on my own before but not this long of a distance; it will be interesting to train for and I definitely excited to try it. Here is the link if you want to check it out or sign up.

My First Half-Marathon


One of my goals for the spring is to race a half-marathon and now I am signed up for one.

 My current maximum-distance for a run is 7.5 miles and I am constantly increasing distance so I am not too worried that I will be able to run the whole distance. This is 13.1 miles on Sunday, April 15; yes, one week after my duathlon and one day after a soccer game (I think I will be playing goalie that whole game). Here is a link to the RunRaleigh site. This will be another step on my path toward reaching my other goals. (And here are my originals/longterm) 

Hopefully I will be adding other events to this schedule soon (the possibility of a "mud run" has been brought up). Here is the lead-up and review of my first 5k that I raced late last year. If you have any other ideas, let me know but it's already going to be a busy Spring!

  

Movie Workouts

I am a big movie fan. I collect DVDs; I watch movies daily and love to go to the theater as well. One thing that I am constantly impressed with is the shape that actors are able to get into for their different roles.

You might think that they have a lot of help: trainers, lots of time to work out, funds for whatever they need, etc. which is true but, as we all, know there is know solution to getting into great shape other than putting in the work with diet and exercise.

A thing that is cool about this also is that you can find pretty much every workout (and usually their diet too) for every actor for every role.

One of the first and most popular movie workouts is Brad Pitts from Fight Club. Here is a detailed diet and workout plan. If you read into it, you realize the commitment that he had to make, especially from a diet perspective, to get down 5-6% body fat.

Some other recent and popular movie workouts include: Tom Hardy in Warrior; Chris Helmsworth in Thor; Chris Evans in Captain America; etc. There are literally thousands of these things online. Remember Ryan Reynolds in Amityville Horror? No? Well he was ripped, too and you can follow his workout if you want as well. There is so much interest in these workouts that Google completes the search when you start typing the actors' names with "workout."

For the most part these things are just interesting to read but one thing I do like to use them for is to get ideas when I don't really no what to do or am looking for something different to do. So this week I started with the "workout" for one of the biggest fitness-inspired movies ever: 300.

I put workout in quotes because the actual workout is more of a fitness test, something they worked up to instead of doing it daily. It is called the 300 workout because of the name of the movie (obviously) and because there are 300 total reps and you do it as fast as you can.

Here is the workout:

Pullups - 25 reps

Barbell Deadlift with 135 lbs. - 50 reps

Pushups - 50 reps

24-inch Box Jumps - 50 reps

Floor Wipers - 50 reps

Single-Arm Clean-and-Press with 36 lbs Kettlebell - 50 reps

Pullups - 25 reps

I had to modify it some. First, because I don't have all of the equipment to do some of the exercises. And second, because this thing is impossible for almost anyone to do. I tried for the 3rd time this week today to do my modified workout and did respectable but still not really close. Here is a link to a very descriptive page that has original, intermediate, and beginner versions of the workout; all are good. It also has pictures and a video description of the workout.

So today I got in something that was a mix of all 3:

• 15 pullups
• 2x20 lb. deadlift 50 times
• 50 pushups
• 50 body-weight squat jumps
• Floor wipers with 2x20 lb. dumbbells 30 times
• Single-arm Clean-and-Press with 20 lb. kettlebell 50 times
• 10 pullups

I'm not sure how long it took me but during certain points, I definitely felt like I was going to throw up. This is something that is a new challenge and I look forward to making progress on it.

Recipe #9: Restaurant-style Salsa (with dish)

I always have a craving for chips and salsa. It is one of my go-to snacks every binge day. There's a small problem though: most store-bought salsas are not very good. I'm not a big fan of "thick and chunky" salsa in the first place, which is what almost every jar contains, and most of them seem to be average in taste at best. I do like the salsa that you can get at Mexican restaurants around here and I've figured out a way to make it very easily, although I'll give you some possible extras as well.

Ingredients: 2 cans of "Rotel"-style tomatoes with green chiles (2 if it's a 15 oz. can, 3 if 10), 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. onion powder

• For the basic recipe, all you do is combine the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. You can certainly modify the spice level to suit your tastes as well.

Other possible ingredients/techniques:

•   Varying levels of fresh ingredients - I would almost always use canned tomatoes because they are just so easy and they work so well but you can mix and match fresher ingredients as you see fit.
• Chopped serranos or jalapenos instead of the green chiles found in Rotel. One of these will make it pretty hot and it will go up in heat from there. You could also use canned versions of these for more heat just realize that they will be pickled.
• Fresh cloves of garlic instead of garlic powder (2 would work well). You could also use jarred, minced garlic as well (1 tsp.)
• You can certainly use fresh onions as well instead of onion powder (1/4-1/2 chopped depending on the size of the onion)
• When adding these ingredients I would put them in before my tomatoes to make sure they're good and small before mixing it all together.

• Roasted ingredients - Roasting your ingredients adds a certain sweetness and affects the overall flavor. You can roast you fresh tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and onions on a grill, in a frying pan, in your oven's broiler or, in the case of the peppers, straight on top of the burner on your stove. After you roast these you'll just want to make sure you remove the burnt skins. You can also buy most of the stuff pre-roasted and canned as well.
• Varying levels of chunkiness - If you would like a chunkier salsa, you can use a little bit different technique. First add your peppers and garlic to the blender or food processor and mince. Next add 1/2 your tomatoes and onion powder and puree. Finally add the second 1/2 of your tomatoes and stir with a spoon. Whatever you want to have chunks of just add later and don't blend it.
• Additional spices/ingredients: You can add something extra to your salsa with cumin, fresh cilantro or some lime juice depending on your taste and all can add something positive. 

 My salsa definitely looks like spaghetti sauce.

What to do with your salsa:
As I said above, I always want chips with my salsa but I have yet to find any kind of chip that's on my diet. But you can use your salsa to cook with on your non-binge days. Here's something that I did today:

1. Took some chicken thigh filets and cut into large pieces and generously coated both sides with salt and pepper.
2. Seared on both sides in 2 tbsp. of olive oil over medium-high heat.
3. Added about 1 1/2 cups of salsa and turned the heat down to a simmer and let it sit for awhile.
4. For some greens I added a little of what I had at the very end: 1 can of drained green peas and 2 cups of baby spinach. 
5. Once these were stirred in I cut the heat and used it as one of dinner meals

It might not look so good put this was definitely a good home-made, Mexican-style dinner. And I am looking forward to putting my salsa to good use this Saturday when I can get some tortilla chips.

 

Recipe #8: Roasted Chick Peas

This new recipe was supposed to go as a replacement for salty snacks like potato chips or nuts. I do eat a lot of almonds and peanuts but these both have a good amount of fat so I am always looking for an alternative. I got the idea out of Men's Fitness but altered the recipe significantly in order to make it better (theirs wasn't tasting so great).

Ingredients: 1 can of chick peas (garbanzo beans) drained, 1 tbsp. olive oil, 1 tsp. cumin, salt, garlic powder, and onion powder to taste

1. Put the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and add the chick peas (Make sure you don't use extra-virgin olive oil because it has a low smoke point).
2. Add the cumin, salt, garlic, and onion powders and saute for 2 minutes.
3. Place the chick peas on a baking sheet and put in a 400-degree oven for 25 minutes.
4. Let the chick peas cool on the baking sheet before storing.

When I made these things the first time I ended up adding a pretty good amount of salt; the initial recipe only called for cumin but it wasn't really doing it for me. I ended up making 3 cans and baking them all at once and it worked out pretty well. I am going to try to bake them for a little longer next time because they weren't as crispy as I would like. Maybe finishing them in the broiler would work too. With the ones that I had left-over the next day, I added some salsa and micro-waved them and ate them with a spoon and that worked as a change in texture from the usual beans that I have for lunch.

I tried with black beans today and it didn't really work at all; they tasted fine and will be okay to eat but they didn't crisp up for use as finger food.