Tips for a Healthy Halloween

Tips for a Healthy Halloween
thecutestblogontheblock.com

 

• Buy treats only a day or so before Halloween – so they’re not around long to tempt you
• Keep the treats in an inconvenient, difficult-to-reach place till Halloween arrives
• Buy treats which you don’t particularly like, making it easier to resist

 

What to buy (edible)

 

• Buy healthy mini-packs of

• Raisins or other dried fruit
• 100% juice
• Sugar-free hot chocolate mix
• Trail mix
• Cheese and crackers
• Sugar-free gum

 

What to buy non-edible

 

• Buy non-edible treats such as

• Stick-on temporary tattoos
• Mini bottles of bubble bath or blow bubbles
• Costume accessories such as wax false teeth or a stick-on mustache
• Sidewalk chalk

 

Other tips and tricks

 

• Take your children out after dinner – when you’re not hungry
• Go through the “goodie bag” when you arrive home – discarding any outrageously unhealthy treats or those with questionable packaging
• Put the remaining edible treats in that same difficult-to-reach place – to be dispensed one at a time on a scheduled basis (such as dessert time)
• When you yourself get that urge to indulge, take a look at your watch and wait ten minutes (if you’re lucky, you’ll get distracted and forget about the urge)
• Set a date – maybe two weeks after Halloween – when you’ll dump the leftovers

Saturday Surprise

2 rounds for time: 

500 m. row
300 jump rope (or 100 double unders)
50 walking lunge steps
50 sit ups
50 GHD back extensions 

post time to comments.  

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This is a face that could only be brought on by burpees.  It seems that some burpees got the better of Kristy's foot.  

Here's a closer look! 

Burp - O - Rama / HOW do you know?

Every minute on the minute for 20 min. perform:

10 burpees

Post total rounds completed to comments.  

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HOW do you know?
by Neil Anderson

Globo dude:  "You know she was doing that wrong don't you?" 

me:  "How do you know?"

Globo dude: "I have been lifting now for..."

me (interrupting):  "Not, how do YOU know?...HOW do you know?"

Globo dude:  "I attended the university of..."

me (interrupting again):  "Not, how do you KNOW?...HOW do you know?"

Globo dude (frustrated); HOW do I know what? 

me: HOW do you know what she is doing?

Globo dude: "she's doing pull-ups...d... (almost says "dumb-ass")"

me:  "And why do you think she is doing pull-ups?"

Globo dude (face contorts as he tries to think of ONE other reason in the world a person would do a pull-up other than to build VERY LARGE muscles): "To build muscle?" 

me:  "so you don't KNOW?"

Globo dude: "huhm?"

me:  "I thought you were her fire chief or something" 

Globo dude (emphatically): HUHM?

me: "I was teaching her a more efficient and effective way of doing pull-ups, using a kip.  The requirements only read that she must do 7 pull-ups, each rep from the straight elbow position to chin over the bar position to qualify for the Fire dept. job she is trying for.  It didn't specify that kipping pull-ups would be disqualified.  So, when I asked HOW you knew she was doing it wrong, I was asking if you had knowledge that superseded her manual? 

Globo dude:  "What's a kipping pull-up?"

me: "The question you should have lead with." 

The Crusher / Cheap and Fake

Two rounds of: 

21 - 15 - 9 reps of

Thrusters 35/65
Burpees
Ozzie pullups

Post times to comments.  

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Rachel teaches nutrition at the UofU.  She requires that all her students shop at the local farmers markets at least once.  I applaud her!  

CHEAP AND FAKE;  That Outfit Makes You Look Fat

Rachel Jones, MPH, RD

University of Utah

 

Have you ever thought about what you do?  Have you ever thought about why you do it? Preparing for an athletic event takes a bit of soul searching.  It requires you to get up and do tough workouts every day.  Losing weight takes commitment to “push away” from the table long before others do.

 

When you meet someone who is dialed into their commitment, they are an unstoppable powerhouse.  At some point in life, you’ll need to go beyond doing things for the love of others and do things because there is something inside you that matters more than that. 

 

I agree with Neil.  The Biggest Loser is dumb.  Big change doesn’t happen in front of tv cameras.  That’s temporary.  You know what happens to all of the contestants six months from now.  It’s an entertaining and exploiting way for the rest of us to justify that “at least I don’t weigh 400 pounds and throw adult tantrums in front of America”.

 

Big change is quiet.  It happens in your darkest hours when everyone else is asleep.  When nobody is watching and nobody cares…..but you.   It’s when you say to yourself while driving alone…”I have more to lose by sticking with the familiar than risking change”.

 

When you wake up gradually to the understanding that you are worth more than people have led you to believe, you are on your way to breaking through a ceiling of mediocrity.   If you look around at what our society values, you will see that mediocrity is protected, guarded, subsidized, and even mandated.   But you are not mediocre.

 

You are worth being around people who support your success, whatever that looks like for you.  You are worth food that nourishes.  Food that comes from the sun, and dark rich soil.  Food that has one ingredient.  Food that needs no labels.   I’ve been talking with Utah farmers this fall.  They are warning me that they can’t continue to be farmers if people aren’t interested in eating food that is grown locally.  

 

I am dumbfounded that our “civilized” society doesn’t see a need to eat real food.   It is a reflection of what we value.  Cheap and fake.   It has been said that we are what we eat.  Start your own quiet revolution.  Try doing something different.  Be expensive and be real.   For the first time in history, Americans are spending the smallest percentage of their income on food.  Cheap food that overfeeds and undernourishes us.   As a nation, we are pathetic.  Farmers are dropping out of business like rain because they grow things that aren’t guarded, subsidized, or valued.  They grow apples, peaches, broccoli, and produce fresh milk that people don’t want to pay for.

 

But we’ll buy cheap and we’ll buy fake.  Because that’s what we value.  That’s what we are as a society.  That is the reality.  I am teaching the students at the University of Utah to value themselves.  “If you want to be different, choose different”, I tell them.

 

Weight loss for weight loss sake is temporary.   You want to be skinny so you eat smaller portions of cheap, fake food?  As the saying goes…win the rat race and you’re still a rat.  Change requires you to value yourself more than your society or others around you value you.   Anything else is temporary.  Anything else is cheap and fake.

Swingin

5 rounds for time:

row 500 m. 
20 kb swings 26/35
10 pullups

post time to comments

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Ava shows us how it is done.  IMHO, there is nothing more important a parent can do for a child's prolonged health than to workout beside them.  

C&J + 150 abs / IronMan Chronicles

3 clean and jerks AHAP
30 sit ups
3 clean and jerks AHAP
30sit ups
3 clean and jerks AHAP
30 sit ups
3 clean and jerks AHAP
30 sit ups
3 clean and jerks AHAP
30 sit ups

post highest weight achieved for each set to comments.

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IronMan Chronicles 

/p>

Flabaway

5 rounds for time:

15 barbell biceps curls 35/65
15 triceps overhead DB extensions 15/25
15 sideups R
15 sideups L
run 400 m

Post time to comments.

500 m Max Effort Row

Four rounds for time:

500 m max effort row.  
rest 2-5 min between each attempt.

post time of each effort to comments.

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I don't think there is a good nor accurate way to scientifically measure human girth.  

Top 10 reasons the BMI is BOGUS
By Keith Devlin - NPR

1. The person who dreamed up the BMI said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual.

The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack.

2. It is scientifically nonsensical.

There is no physiological reason to square a person's height (Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can't fix the data, rig the formula!). Moreover, it ignores waist size, which is a clear indicator of obesity level.

3. It is physiologically wrong.

It makes no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle and fat in the body. But bone is denser than muscle and twice as dense as fat, so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI. Thus, athletes and fit, health-conscious movie stars who work out a lot tend to find themselves classified as overweight or even obese.

4. It gets the logic wrong.

The CDC says on its Web site that "the BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people." This is a fundamental error of logic. For example, if I tell you my birthday present is a bicycle, you can conclude that my present has wheels. That's correct logic. But it does not work the other way round. If I tell you my birthday present has wheels, you cannot conclude I got a bicycle. I could have received a car. Because of how Quetelet came up with it, if a person is fat or obese, he or she will have a high BMI. But as with my birthday present, it doesn't work the other way round. A high BMI does not mean an individual is even overweight, let alone obese. It could mean the person is fit and healthy, with very little fat.

5. It's bad statistics.

Because the majority of people today (and in Quetelet's time) lead fairly sedentary lives and are not particularly active, the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population, namely the lean, fit and healthy. Quetelet is also the person who came up with the idea of "the average man." That's a useful concept, but if you try to apply it to any one person, you come up with the absurdity of a person with 2.4 children. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals.

6. It is lying by scientific authority.

Because the BMI is a single number between 1 and 100 (like a percentage) that comes from a mathematical formula, it carries an air of scientific authority. But it is mathematical snake oil.

7. It suggests there are distinct categories of underweight, ideal, overweight and obese, with sharp boundaries that hinge on a decimal place.

That's total nonsense.

8. It makes the more cynical members of society suspect that the medical insurance industry lobbies for the continued use of the BMI to keep their profits high.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

9. Continued reliance on the BMI means doctors don't feel the need to use one of the more scientifically sound methods that are available to measure obesity levels.

Those alternatives cost a little bit more, but they give far more reliable results.

10. It embarrasses the U.S.

It is embarrassing for one of the most scientifically, technologically and medicinally advanced nations in the world to base advice on how to prevent one of the leading causes of poor health and premature death (obesity) on a 200-year-old numerical hack developed by a mathematician who was not even an expert in what little was known about the human body back then.

Tabactive Rest

Complete 8 rounds of 20 seconds work followed by 10 seconds "active rest" of:

:20 squats
:10 hold in the bottom of the squat

:20 situps
:10 6 inches hold

:20 lunge switches
:10 hold in the bottom of the lunge

:20 pushups
:10 bridge

:20 Bulgarian side steps
:10 frog squat hold 

Post thoughts to comments

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Alison and Becky are famous!  Talking with Izaac Mizrahi in NYC.  

Tabata x 6

Complete 8 rounds of 20 seconds work followed by 10 seconds rest of:

rowing
double unders
OH db press (strict) 15/20
jump rope
burpees
ab bridges

post max reps or distance to comments.  

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Neil's Law of Reciprocal Pain

 

Sorry for the recent repost.  I have gotten a lot of q's about my stance on injuries.  Thought this might clear some things up for some.  - N

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The only thing as certain as death and taxes is pain.  You're going to have it.  From a health and fitness stand point, you only have about TWO choices for how you will receive your pain. 

1)  You can take it in small increments on a nearly constant basis (as in exercise, soreness and small injuries), or

2)  You can put it off by never exercising and/or eating right, and take it all at once (as in a debilitating disease or heart attack or stroke, etc). 

I call this, "Neil's Law of Reciprocal Pain."

Pain comes around.  It's like clockwork.  You can try to put it off, but doing so just guarantees more of it.  "MORE" probably isn't accurate.  In truth, you really won't get MORE.  You'll just get what's been coming to you - the stuff you have been putting off.  Typically you get this all at once, too.  

The other day I had an interview with a guy about doing a daily T.V. fitness tip (I hope I landed the deal).  As we talked, I was telling him some new exercises that he should try.  Just about everything I told him to do, (deep push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, thrusters) was met with raised eyebrows and the question, "Aren't those exercises dangerous?"

This, I HATE. 

The "popular media" and certain dubious fitness professionals have duped us all into believing that exercising is dangerous if done without the proper education and training.  By "proper education" they mean "hyper-education."  By "training" they mean, "with them" - for a (usually steep)  PRICE.  It's a GIMMICK!  They are SELLING you. 

It's STUPID! 

Look, EVERYTHING you could possibly do for exercise is POTENTIALLY dangerous.  You could workout with absolutely, impeccably, PERFECT form (whatever that is...) and still get injured and/or sore.  It is simply part of the process.  It is inevitable.  Injuries are the one thing that all fit people have in common.  

I absolutely agree that a person should get a minimal amount of training before they begin exercising.  I absolutely agree that a person should strive to limit pain and injuries by becoming, at least, minimally educated before exercising.  But this shouldn't cost much in terms of time or money.  The internet is chocker-block full of useful suggestions on how to get into great shape in the safest, most effective way possible. 

If you understand that pain and injuries are part of the process, you are probably better off.  In fact, YOU are probably the person who is more likely to succeed at actually getting fit and healthy, because you have not limited yourself to the impossible.      

I find that people who are pursuing pain free fitness are only pursuing a (another) lesson in disappointment and/or futility.  Pain free fitness results - DO NOT EXIST. 

Fitness is about overload.  You must overload your body to make it become more fit.  If you simply give your body work that is "quite manageable" - it will not change.  It doesn't have to.  It had plenty of reserve to complete the work you were asking it to do.

To understand how fitness works you have to understand how your body responds to exercise in terms of evolutionary survival.  Exercise temporarily weakens your body.  This is an emergency situation for your body.  Your body hates to be weakened.  Your body thinks that if it is standing with a group of others and a saber toothed tiger attacks while it is weaker (like it is after exercising) - it is more likely to be the one who is eaten.  This temporary weakness also lowers your resistance to disease and illness.  Both of these are emergency situations in terms of evolutionary survival.  Your bodies' response to this is to build you back up to full strength as soon as possible. 

If you temporarily weaken your body consistently, as in exercising daily, your body will build resistance up.  It will become stronger so that when you weaken yourself later, you will still have enough energy left over to fight off the saber toothed tigers and/or disease.

THIS IS FITNESS!

People who are "out of shape"  don't need much in terms of exercise or intensity to see progress.  Exercise for these folks doesn't need to be overly vigorous.  It is therefore, inherently safer.  Problem is, to get more fit you have to steadily increase overload.  At some point, "just doing anything" isn't going to cut it.  At some point, you'll have to push the limits of your endurance, strength, power, speed, agility and stamina. 

Question is - how far should you push it?  This is impossible to know and it is different for everybody.  This leaves you with:

1) push too little and get nothing, or

2) push too hard and get some pain.

Neil's Law of Reciprocal Pain states: 

Pain is inevitable.  You are going to have it.  If you are pushing hard enough to get into shape (as you eventually should) you simply need to embrace this fact.  Therefore, life only REALLY gives you these two choices:

1) You can have a little pain - under your immediate and direct control - more often throughout your life through comprehensive exercise and active living, or

2) You can eventually have a bunch of pain equal to the cumulative amount that you have avoided - at a later date. 

Note:  This "later date" is to be decided by fate and is not under your direct control.  

I'm a control freak.  If I got to have pain anyway (remember, it's inevitable) - I'll take it on MY OWN terms, thank you.