The Deck of Cards

So I kinda want to alternate between writing about fitness, food, and gaming.  I wrote about food last time so this time lets talk about fitness.

People will sometimes utilize the same workout over and over again this will lead stagnation in progress.  So in order to change things up every once in a while I like to take a break from the gym and do a workout at home.  Home workouts are most of the time lots of reps and limited rest.  My current favorite home workout is the deck of cards workout.

The deck of cards workout uses the premise of variation to further ones fitness level.  Every deck of cards will have each suit designated as a different e exercise, normally something very basic, such as push ups, squats, or crunches.  My personal deck has eight different exercises, two per suit. The advantage of eight over four is that you can work more muscles, but you dont work them as hard individually, I think you will work harder overall though.

My deck not only has 8 different exercises, the suits are divided up by odds and evens.  This is the way that you are able to determine the number of reps that you do of a particular exercise.  I also tweaked what you would normally do which is each exercise is done the exact number of times on the card, I have it so that anything less then four is done twice, this not only gives more reps but it allows for limited rest.  Another important thing to note is that face cards are all worth 10 and the Ace is worth 15.

My exercises are, push ups, burpees, crunches, russian twists, lunges, and squats.  The final two exercises, kettle bell swings, and presses, are the only ones that need any sort of equipment.  The swings are a standard kettle bell movement, and presses are also a standard exercise.  I find that these exercises allow for the a workout that gets every part of the body.

So when you are actually doing the workout is to draw a card and then do what ever exercise is assigned to that card.  Once that exercise is complete you go onto the next card. Rest is kept to a minimum, just enough to draw the next card and figure out what it is.

Going Paleo

So I haven’t written a blog in a while.  I have decided to come back and start writing again because I want to get that desire to write back. 

Since I have last written I have discovered the paleo diet.  The paleo diet is sort of a low carb diet that emphasizes the importance of protein.  The idea behind the diet is to eat like a Paleolithic man, because our body was not designed to eat the types of foods that we currently eat.  Our digestive system was not meant to consume so much gluten or all the other chemicals that are in the diet of a modern man. 

I once heard some one say, the paleo diet is not a religion, it’s a guideline to eating better.  This is the idea that I want to focus on.  The foods that the current man eats can have a lot of chemicals that are not great for a humans body, high fructose corn syrup for example messes with the bodies insulin and leptin levels, which can lead to weight gain.  Because the paleo diet emphasizes eating healthy and cutting out processed foods, the body eventually gets rid of all the harmful chemicals and we become healthier. 

A bonus of eating less processed foods is that you will cut out a lot of carbs.  And carbs may not lead to weight gain, but they hold on to a lot of water.  So as you cut out the carbs it will show that you are losing weight.  This can make a person feel great about them selves.  Over time on the paleo diet, your body will process sugars less, because you are eating less of them, and start to process fat, which will lead to weight loss which is what people are really going for.

If a person can stay dedicated to not eating processed foods, and cutting out carbs, and other things that are not considered paleo, then a person can lose a lot of weight.  I am currently struggling with staying dedicated because I have a really bad sweet tooth and I almost feel addicted to some of the processed foods that I ate before I went on the paleo diet. 

Later on I will go into more detail about what should not be eaten on the paleo diet.  Well, that is how normal diets are created, but for a diet to feel better, it’s a better idea to think about what you should eat.  And when you go paleo, you can eat a lot of stuff, the only things you are really cutting out are the things that you shouldn’t be eating anyways, along with a few extra things… but that will come later.