Workouts in the home #1 Push Ups

I come to you this evening after having just finished a kettlebell and body weight exercise workout. The ladder of which I would like to touch base with you readers today. Regardless of losing the weight that I have, I still find that if I do push ups in a palm down manner, that I do end up with some pain in the wrists. At 220lbs that's a fair amount of weight on the wrists.

There are a few options that you can choose from that will help you do push ups in a safer way. I personally own these. Cheap, effective, everything you need. I believe I paid $14 CDN at Walmart for these. These allow you to have your wrists aligned properly with your arm, giving you a much more solid base and saves your wrist joints!

Option 2 consists of the Hex Dumbell. This is a very good option despite the price increases, you get more versatility this way, as you can now do dumbell exercises! Yay!

Option 3 would be the Doorway Pull Up Bar. This you get MAXIMUM bang for your buck. With some being relatively cheap but flimsy,  while others are higher priced but much more sturdy. You can do your wide, parallel and close grip pull ups as well as dips, deep push ups and crunches.

All three of these options would be a great way to help keep your joints healthy and get maximum range on your push ups. Something to consider for you at home fitness peeps or for those not quite comfortable enough to the hit the gym yet.

Up next: Squats, the wonder exercise.

I've neglected this

Well hey there, I'm back from my quite long hiatus.

We can all benefit from some regular routine exercise. I know you heard it as a child and thought nothing of it. More than likely because you were active enough as a child to accommodate the amount of calories you were taking in at the time.

Fast forward to present time, you're life, has more than likely gotten alot less "fun" and alot more "work. Active job, office job, whatever job you have, you can still benefit from some exercise, 3 days a week, 20 minutes a day. Now I don't know a single person that literally has no time in their day that they can put in 20 minutes to help better themselves. If you don't, good god, i'd hate to see your schedule. Moving on.

Now its as simple as, if your watching tv, do pushups until you can't do anymore. Then do squats, then do crunches, then do abs. By the time your favourite program is finished. You'll have gotten a 30 minute workout in. "But I didn't lift weights! This isn't working out!" Pardon me? One of the best and healthiest ways of working out is using your natural body weight. You walk around with it, deal with it everyday, now all your doing is, high reps of 0 weight.

No your muscle size won't get huge and jacked, but you will notice that you feel lighter on your feet, you'll feel more stable and have better balance. You'll get toned up, you'll have more energy, and you will feel alot better overall, mentally, physically and spiritually.

We're animals that were never supposed to be cooped up in an office and not be active. We developed as humans by running after our prey, sometimes for days, until we could jam a spear in its side and eat the hell out of that beast.

Just try it. You'll like!

I clearly slacked on this...

So..I got the desire to write a new blog today, and noticed that I haven't posted one since march...Good job me. Haha

I've decided that this blog is now going to heavily incorporate, my diet and exercise on my way to my weight goal of 230lbs.

So since march, I have lost another 10 lbs going from 265 down to 255lbs and to be honest with myself and you, I haven't been giving it my 100%. I make an honest effort to eat healthy, pick out smart and healthier foods. Stay active and work out at least 3 times a week with my kettlebell, (for cardio) and lifting weights around 5 times a week.

I've started to feel like I'm plateauing as far as weight loss, which could be attributed to my diet/caloric intake, or my lack of good hard cardio haha. I'll be more honest with myself, its the ladder of the two. Cardio is something I want to get into and love.

I can say that this journey thus far has been entirely for me, it took realizing that no one was going to do the work for me, they may help me, encouragement, etc. But it had to be for me and me wanting it. Thats the drive that pushed me into getting into shape and I can honestly say, I've never looked better or felt as good as I do now.

My new short term goal, ontop of the 3 kettlebell workouts a week, start riding a bicycle or running for at least 3 days a week as well. I'm hoping this added cardio work will 1) Get me in better cardiovascular shape. 2) Help me shed the fat I have left.

Heres to 25lbs more.

Check back soon for my roasted red pepper quinoa recipe. Its delicious and packed full of flavor.

Diet change, and the effect it can have.

The biggest issue I've encountered in my quest to better myself, is people's food choices and diet structure. Simple things that can lead to losing the pounds that just seem to stick with us.

This is all personal experience and opinions, take it as you want.

My biggest change came from a single sentence that stood out to me. "Breakfast, is the fuel we need in our empty fuel tank every morning." I adjusted my diet accordingly, making breakfast my priority meal of the day, lunch being medium, and dinner being small.

My breakfasts usually consist of a 2 egg spinach, tomato and goat cheese omelette. Eggs are great sources of protein, which will help keep you full longer. With a piece of whole grain toast.

Breakfast is probably the biggest change I have made to my life besides cutting out as much bad food as possible. Having a larger breakfast and smaller subsequent meals has resulted in me not being as hungry throughout the day, but also less hungry at each individual meal. My overall energy in a day has increased as well, coming home I'd be tired at 7 pm give or take, now I have enough energy at any time to do whatever I want and not be phased by it.

I've lost 30lbs after making this change to my diet. I'll go more in depth into the foods I eat and make in the next entry. Set goals for yourself just make sure they're reasonable, it all starts with your mindset and whether you want to do it for yourself. Diet is only one part of the big equation, sadly, hard work is involved too.

Next time, breakfast avec moi, expect it up tomorrow night!

2012..The Year of who?

New year, resolutions, memories and days gone by.
Happy 2012, everyone, congratulations on making it this far.

The misconception that I'm finding with this whole new years thing, people and resolutions. I understand that its basically a fresh start thats forced upon you  due to the rotation of our planet around our sun. The only real issue I have with resolutions is the waiting up until new years to start those resolutions. My friends resolution this year was to quit smoking, they started before new years came around, and they are doing good! I guess what I'm trying to say is, why wait around for new years?

Everyday is a new beginning in my eyes, so that makes every single day the perfect time to set some goals, and start working towards them immediately that day. Diets suck, working out can suck, you want that cheeseburger, i dig buddy. But you gotta say, "fuck you craving, i'm better than that and will destroy you with this healthy piece of celery!" Cigarettes, a mistress I refused to ever try, I can only imagine what people trying to quit must be going through. I do know that once you do quit smoking, you will feel alot better!

Life is what we make of it, our happiness is dependent solely on us. So don't put things off any longer in your life, take charge now. Grab life by the hips and hump it into submission and make it your bitch.

I love you all, and wish you the best for this new year.

Comic Book Movies

Comic book and super hero movies are all the norm nowadays, though there may be plenty of choices to pick from, how often are they ever all they're hyped up to be?

Let me just start by saying that I love a well done comic book movie, there are plenty of great examples to choose from don't get me wrong, but quite a few stand out as, really? Thats what you did with all that production money? Movies where your at the end of the movie and you realize that the story never really had that, beginning, middle, end feeling to it. It felt more like it was just a long beginning then skip to the final battle of good vs evil.

For instance, in the recent Captain America movie, I won't give any spoilers, I'll leave it at: The story didn't develop and seemed way too fast. With that though, the movie overall was still pretty good. One other movie really comes to mind is Spiderman 3, where they chose to cast the evil venom as Topher Grace. Just because Toby is skrawny, doesn't the big hulking evil doer has to be as well.

Anyways, end of blog rant, haha have a good one errryyboddy.

General Accounts of Happiness

One of the great things about humans that I like is that we're all quite different, in how we feel, how we act, who we are and what we stand for. This is one of the things that makes great conflict and great understanding within our race as a people. 

The past few weeks of my life have been a nonstop chain of events that I didn't for the life of me see coming. An old friend that I used to have a rather large crush on came back into my life, with a dizzying amount of chances to spend time together. After over a year of not having spoke to one another, things between us feel like they have changed for the better. The simple gestures, the time we spend together and the appreciation we have for one another seem to emanate to the forefront of our friendship now.

I haven't been happier, for as long as I can remember. 

Technological Age

We as a species has arrived at a point, where technology may as well be considered another life form on this planet.Today the Reasearch in Motion servers (blackberrys) crashed apparently, leaving thousands without BBM, as well as blackberry emails and such for those that use that feature. Now, the outrage people expressed was....alot to say the least. Its crazy how connected and involved technology is with us, not just in our lives, but its literally almost like an attachment for our bodies it seems like.

Today though we have developed the technology to improve ourselves as well. There are robotic limbs that work like our hands do, perform all the functions we can. Also there is even cybernetic eyes now. Heres some mind blowing stuff, http://myownscientia.blogspot.com/2011/09/researchers-developing-new-form-of-life.html. Read that, craziness.

In short, technology, despite not being self aware yet, is clearly evolving along with us, getting more complex, and more impressvie everytime something new is developed.

p.s. Theres two Artificial Intellegence computers developed now in the world, and they apparently hooked them together, and the first thing they started doing to each other was lie to each other. Learned well from us eh?

Negative, never the answer.

Hey there interwebs.

Now I'm negative, I won't try and deny it, but I've seen the pros of being positive towards situations. The thing that i find lacking alot of the time in people and in our conversations, is the use of the unnecessary. How many times have you been in a conversation or a debate on a subject, and the people your talking with start pulling down negative "what if" statements and try to swing the conversation in their favor. Whether its putting down the other person's or trying to make their own side of the conversation or debate seem more appealing, or more important. I will not have any of this speculation and craziness in my conversations, if you want to talk to me, talk to me with facts and clear statements.

There is so much that we don't understand about everything, lets be honest here. There were times when Antarctica wasn't covered in ice, islands that were swallowed by the oceans because of rising levels and at a time when the technology wasn't there, they built the pyramids as well as other great structures. These are just a few of the bewilderments of the world, will the mysteries of the world ever have answers presented for them? Negativity will not get us there, and negativity will not unite our race as it needs to be.

Human beings are at a density now that, we have lost our responsibility. We were never meant to live in groups of thousands, we used to be groups of 50 hunting only what we needed to survive, there was a doctor for x amount of people, there was a blacksmith for x amount of people. The co-efficient of population is way off, instead of being 20:1 its now 5000:1 or more!

Our way of life will be changing in the next few years, that I promise you.

Till next time,

Nate

Better at finding the right words to say

You don't even know the things I would say, on my mind each and every single day.
DWAAAAYYYMMMMM!

Whats up everybody, so like 2 of you... LOL

I'm currently in study mode andddd running out of energy. I'm sorry I'm not all proper grammer and spelling in these.. this shit should have auto correct LOL.

Do you guys ever have something come into your life and it just puts you in a tremendously better mood? Happened to me the other day and I have to say, it was a welcome change of pace! I have excitement where there was none, fun and laughter when i felt lonely and life was boring. I'll report back on that as more develops.

In closing,
It is not the destination, but the adventure that gets you there that is important.

Until next time,

Nate

Days Go By

I start off tonight, with the question, Do you think one person can make a difference in the world of today? 

This question has been weighing on my mind in recent days, I found myself asking, do i do enough for my fellow humans? Am I as nice as I should be? I clearly take time for granted, thinking that there is never enough of it sometimes and knowing that there is always going to be a later. I've decided to start doing the things that I've been putting off in my life, such as travelling, trying things outside of my comfort zone and setting goals and accomplishing them. So far, its led to a happier, slightly more driven me and for that, I'd say its baby steps in the right direction. 

There is something calming about night time to me. Peace and quiet I imagine, never having much of it during a day really makes you yearn for it other times. To just sit and reflect on yourself and life, is another form of cleansing oneself. It puts you in a position where you can't give yourself any excuses to not face the things that are weighing on your mind. Its really helpful for me sometimes. 

"Laughter is an instant vacation" - Milton Berle

Motivational quote = Success

And with that, I say goodnight.

Appreciation, or lack thereof.

Civilization. What can we say about it? Fast paced. Opinionated. Selfish. Ridiculous etc etc etc. You get my point. Its tough to focus on the good points about what our civilization has accomplished because the vast majority of civilization is focused inwards and on ourselves. In my opinion this causes us to block out the negative things in our own lives, with negative things from others and to never really come to terms with the negative things in our lives.

Plenty of good has come from us, as well as plenty of bad. Humans are a virus, a virus with a conscious that we clearly ignore. We grow, adapt, fight, and survive. This is basic instincts 101.

I don't even know if i really have the right to be speaking on such broad terms, but this is just how i'm viewing society. We're selfish, media influenced (even if we don't realize it), and don't deserve what we have. We are a non-unified nation, that seems about as together and willing to work with one another, as two rival armies waiting for one wrong word said. Why is the concept of a unified planet so hard to come by? It is just constant back and forth bullshit with so many countries. I understand, land disputes, security factors, uneasiness with up and coming nations. But we were all up and coming nations at one point, bombs, bigger bombs, atom bombs, nuclear bombs, you get the idea. 

The UN, stands for something...doesn't it? Unbelievably naive? We could accomplish so much more as a people if we could only stop with the selfishness. In my opinion, yes, maybe if the USA goes bankrupt, they'll stop being the bully of the world and open their wasteful eyes. Alternate energy, who stopped its research and development? Oil companies, where are said oil companies generally located? USA. Who wont stand up to them and say, STOP KILLING THE FUCKING PLANET AND ATMOSPHERE! Hardly anyone.

In the early 90s, there was "EV" offered by a number of different auto manufacturers, GM and Honda for examples. Both were all electric, and both had ranges of around 200-300 MILES. The battery technology was there, the electric cars were there. What happened? Oil companies bought the company that developed the battery technology, and began producing much less efficient batteries only offering 100-150 miles of range.

Did you know? Electric cars were around in the early 1900s, being the preferred means of transport over gas vehicles, due to the electrics being quieter and a smoother ride. What happened there? Oil Companies. Most major North American cities, had electric trolley systems throughout the city. Who bought and destroyed and replaced them? Oil companies? Nope, GM, who opened a "ghost" company that built city buses, what'd they do with the trolley cars? Scrapped.

How are these mega companies, still around and still doing these obscene ridiculous acts?! Think of where we could be right now if it wasn't for this hindrance holding back the human race. Don't get me wrong I LOVE CARS and gas motors. But instead of technology being made to develop useful things, we are now counter-productively, going to have to figure out how to save our planet before we can really progress further technologically as well as a species. 

Autumn, my favorite time of year

Good evening readers, this is your host, Nathan.

Autumn weather is upon us, those overcast days and brisk damp afternoons. Sweater season is upon us. Do you have a favourite sweater? I do its some thermo thing, super warm lining deal. Its cozy. 

With the cold reminders of whats to come (winter wtf), it makes you appreciate a warm camp fire a little bit more, if you know what im saying. A nice warm hot chocolate or tea, or a nice firm manly shot of jack daniels. That puts hair on your chest let me tell ya. Its the last few months as canadians we can do alot of outdoor things. I guess what im trying to say is, just get out there, even just for a walk, and its almost that time for leafs to start changing color, and thats just never a bad sight. 

Thanksgiving and halloween, I  don't know if any other time of year can really top that kind of delicious holdiay samplings, not to mention halloween is always kickass. I think this year i'm going to carve a badass pumpkin, and im going to try and find, a HUGE motherfuckin pumpkin. But what should I carve. Any suggestions? 

Halloween too, costume ideas so far, have none. I wanted to go as a storm trooper last year but found out how expensive/hard to find stormtrooper armor is...b.s. I think i want to wear a cape this year. But who knows lol, i'll question some ppl. 

Do you have a fondness for pie? I do. Random? Yea, i agree. But its a good topic. I'm a huge fan of pie, most notably pumpkin pie, its what i look forward to most each thanksgiving. haha

So in closing, heres to welcoming another autumn, and hopefully its a good one.

Close minded, with a million viewpoints

Hey all.
Do you find you debate well with people? It doesn't matter the subject for the debate right now, I mean in the sense that, you don't lose your temper and you can actually go about having a meaningful debate.

I know the point of a debate is two sides, each arguing their point, but should the people that are on the opposing team not listen to the ideas that are you bringing to the table?

Enough with the who wins the argument, and more with the bettering of ourselves and our peers.

So for those heated debates between friends, I say this to you. Open your mind, its a crazy world out there, and there is so much that you can learn just from listening to one another. Do you know what your friends thoughts are on global warming? Gasoline prices? or even Politics?

Its as simple as letting your friend speak their mind without grade school interruptions, challenge yourself next time to hold your tongue.

On that bombshell, keep your tires sticky side down.

Alpha Brain

It is sunday at about 5:20pm starting into this. I told my friend Steve I would let him know how my experience went with taking a supplement I recently purchased called "Alpha Brain."

I took them yesterday, and a productive day it was, considering I had a hangover. I took 2 pills when i woke up at 10, followed by breakfast. My hangover and headache were gone at some point after breakfast. Now despite a hectic morning of running around and getting things done. Around 4 in the afternoon I took one more Alpha Brain (max daily consumption it says 1-3 in morning and 1-2 after noon). At this point I felt like working on my air ride truck and needless to say, shit was accomplished. Heres my truck:

 Heres the motor ready to be pulled to get rebuilt:

On my day of Alpha Brain trials, I got the motor of my truck ready to be removed, I disconnected motor and tranny mounts, shifter, removed driveshaft, disconnected fuel and electrical. I drained all the fluids and removed the radiator. I just need to get the engine hoist from work and remove the motor.
Next plans, cut out wheel tubs in firewall to redo and make pretty.

So to sum up my experience as a whole of a day of Alpha Brain;

I was far more focused on my tasks and what i wanted to accomplish. I didn't get distracted by irrelevant things, and I was in a great mood all day. All in all I'm happy with my experience using Alpha Brain, and i'll continue taking it from time to time.

Dreary Sundays

Sunday today, not exactly the best looking outside as far as weather goes. Overcast, humid, and gross.

Restart to the week again tomorrow, monday, the day most people hate haha.

I was thinking about this while I started writing today, do you guys write with music playing in the background or without?

I'm finding that when i'm writing these and i'm trying to be inspired about what to write, I find myself getting distracted with the music I have playing and it clouds my thoughts. It might be a lack of subject on which to write, but also, its hard to jump into something you havent done much of and be able to do it all that well.

To me it seems like it can relate back to working out for me because at the onset of working out, you can't expect to just get instantly jacked, you have to work at it and have patience with it. Comparable to writing, the more you do it, the more comfortable you are with doing it. Repetition and results.

Maybe i'm just talking out of my ass though hahaha. Speculations about human nature, a never ending thought process that will leave you more confused than when you start. (quote - Me, bitches)

I digress, anyways, I just had a healthy whole wheat pasta w/vegetables n chicken and a salad. Yum, i'm thinking for one of my next entrys i'll do a step by step on how to make my "infamous" G.O.C.S. Sandwich.

And on that bombshell, keep your tires sticky side down.

My first blog

Surprise! Ya thats right, I got a blog, look out.

I really can't say for sure how this is going to develop obviously, but heres to hoping it goes well. 

So I decided to start a blog, because I have recently started writing in a notebook, nothing really direct or structured, just me writing. I found that after i wrote, I felt better, my mind was clearer and I didnt feel as stressed about things. Thats mainly the reason why I started this, that, and to share my thoughts and collective ideas with the interwebs.

I'd like to give you some background info about yours truly  so that you can maybe get an idea of where my topics might come from in future entries.  I'm an avid transportation lover, mainly focusing on cars and trucks, but I also find planes, trains and boats very interesting as well. 

I enjoy watching stand up comedy, I have a few comedians that I enjoy and i'll share with you in a future entry for sure. I find the physics behind everyday life very very interesting, being able to take basic things we do each day and know that there is a scientific explanation behind it is really fascinating. I enjoy movies, documentaries, and music too, so i will perhaps do some reviews of things I watch or listen to.

One of my biggest hobbies/interests is cooking. I love to create dishes, and recreate them in a different way. So expect me to do recipes and step by steps of how to make some of my favourites. My passion for cooking, is now a great asset for me, as I've been trying to eat healthier and work out, so I can lose weight. So expect a segement or two on working out as well. 

Well, I think that that is probably enough for my first entry, I will try to do another entry soon, so I hope you'll check back in and read.