Category Archives: Health & Fitness

2012 MCRD Boot Camp Challenge

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course_map02This weekend, for the second consecutive year and the third time overall, I ran in the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Boot Camp Challenge.  It’s a fun, but challenging, race that I look forward to. Sane people tend to avoid it, but I enjoy it. Both for the experience itself (it’s rare to be able to experience the same obstacle course as Marine recruits) and the bragging rights.

post_raceLast year I finished in 26:44. Going into this year’s race, I hoped to at least beat my time. Breaking 25 minutes would have been even better. My hopes were quickly dashed when the emcee announced that, because we the competitors had demanded a tougher challenge, twelve obstacles had been added to the race. Twelve! I’d call that a significant hit to a 5k time.

I felt good, but not great, during the first mile. Since I don’t much fancy running, I don’t do it very often. As such, I’m not a strong runner, and while I probably ran the first mile in around eight minutes, people were passing me. That first mile was fast, mainly because there was a distinct lack of hay bales this year. My training for this race is a combination of sprints, squats, and box jumps. I don’t care how strong a runner you are, scrambling over hay bales, leaping and crawling under logs, crawling through tunnels, and climbing over walls will tax your muscles to the point where running becomes quite difficult. In the back of my mind, I knew the missing hay bales was ominous, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. That is, until I reached the mid-point of the obstacle section.

I came up to a long line of people crawling in the sand. This wasn’t the kind of crawling babies do, but the kind of on-the-stomach crawling that Marines do. I was not at all ready for this added challenge and, as a result, my stamina was sapped by the end of the crawl. In fact, my shoulders are still sore as I write this, almost 36 hours later.

As I finished, I knew I was far from placing in the top three of my age division. Even so, I stuck around for a bit to enjoy the festivities and await the posting of the results. I ended up running into a friend from work, which was nice as this was the first time I ran the race without any compatriots (in 2004 I ran as part of a three man team, last year I ran with a friend). In any case, my final time was 31:53, which put me in 30th place in my division (a 17 place improvement over last year) and 372nd overall (a 32 place drop from last year). In retrospect, it’s difficult to compare my performance from one year to the next, as the obstacles are different. In particular, I’m sure I lost at least four minutes to the sand crawl.

Just in case the official race results vanish in the future, I’ve created a local copy, in which I’ve also highlighted my result.

souvenirIn addition to the traditional t-shirt given to each participant, last year I purchased a camouflage t-shirt for Kaylee. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything for me to purchase this year. Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t leave without any souvenirs. Over to the right is a picture of one of them.

Grape Day Park

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Over the weekend my wife and I took the girls to meet up with some friends. Our original plan was, after having lunch, to spend some time at the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum in Escondido. However, after a couple of changes in that plan, we ended up at Grape Day Park, which happens to be adjacent to the museum.

Jump!

Action shot of me leaping from the grape slide.

The distinguishing features of the park are the slide, designed to look like a bunch of purple grapes, and Vinehenge. The latter feature is pretty awesome. It is a sculpture, by artists Valerie Salatino and Nancy Moran, of giant grape vines, which serves as an intricate climbing structure.

I couldn’t help myself. As soon as I saw the grapes and vines, I was all over them. I climbed from the bottom to the top, walking with all four limbs like a monkey. I leaped from the ground to the high vines, hauling myself up to perch atop them. I may have gotten more out of the vines than the kids did. Although, my daughter dubbed the tangle of vines the Spooky Forest, which from that point on was only to be entered with caution, not climbed upon.

We’ll definitely have to make this park a regular stop.

2011 Boot Camp Challenge

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A little over a week ago, on Saturday, 24 September 2011, I participated in the MCRD San Diego 2011 Boot Camp Challenge. This is a short, three mile race that, according to the website, has over 40 obstacles, including hay jumps, tunnel crawls, log hurdles, a six foot wall, trenches, cargo net crawls, and push-up stations. In addition, United States Marine Corps drill instructors are positioned at each station to make sure each obstacle is properly completed.

It’s a fun course, as depicted by the map over on the left. The numbers on the map represent: (1) hay stacks; (2) hay stacks; (3) hay stacks; (4–19) jump over logs, crawl under logs, wall; (20) tunnels; (21) push-ups; (22) wall; (23) bayonet; (24) trenches; (25) tunnels; (26) low crawl; (27) planks; (28) push-ups; (29–43) jump over logs, crawl under logs, wall; (44) hay stacks; (45) hay stacks.

There are a lot of hay stacks on the course, and for good reason. Nothing breaks up your pace and depletes your muscles of glycogen quite like explosively leaping over hay stacks. Then come the obstacles. My group, the individual men, started the race early enough that I never had to stand in line to wait for an obstacle (I saw several lines in the photos of later groups). This is good for time, but exhausting as you sprint from one obstacle to the next only to do something that is very much not running.

If you’re anything like me, you saw number 23 and thought, “Bayonets?! Awesome!” At least, that’s what I thought when I first looked at the map. Yeah, not so much. We were allowed to run past the bayonet targets, and that’s it.

I had done this race once before, in 2004, but it has taken me seven years to finally do it again. That year I raced in a team of three with a couple of my friends. I don’t remember how we placed and the results are nowhere to be found, so I’ll just assume we didn’t do very well. Probably a good assumption, as the race was a week after my honeymoon and I recall being some 40 or so pounds heavier at the time.

I entered the race this year mostly as a test of my fitness. Was this paleo lifestyle thing really working out for me? Doing nothing more than three weeks of eating well, twice weekly body weight workouts, and once weekly sprints, I ran the race. I haven’t run more than a quarter mile since, well, since probably the last time I ran this race.

The results are here. Just in case that page vanishes, as most of the past results seem to have done, I’ve mirrored the page on my website, highlighting my result. I came in 47 out of 91 in my division and 340 out of 1,117 overall. Interestingly, my time of 26:44 would have put me 36 out of 48 in the mens elite division. Although, given the under 20 minute time of the first 10 people in that division, I don’t think I’ll ever race in it.

I’m sure I could have done better with more training, but my time was lower than I expected it to be. On the rare occasion that I do use a treadmill, it tells me that I run a 12 minute mile. So an average mile time of 8:55 for the race surprised me a bit. Back in high school, I could run a six minute mile, so I’ll consider that my new goal.

When I chose to wear shorts for the race, my wife asked me if I was worried about injuring myself on the obstacle course. Of course, I told her I wasn’t. I took the picture over on the right shortly after I got home from the race. I would call that relatively uninjured. Worst by far were my calves, which were sore for days, having run the race in my Vibram FiveFingers KSOs.

Overall, it was an incredibly fun race, and I can’t wait to do it again next year. I already have my calendar marked for Saturday, 6 October 2012. That’s over two months before the world ends, so I’m confident things will go off without a hitch. Next year I’ll try to get my time down to around 20 minutes.

Farewell Rubio’s

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Once one of my favorite restaurants, you and I simply don’t get along anymore.

I had food from Rubio’s for lunch today, brought in by the company hosting my colleagues and me for some technical training.  Not long after lunch, my asthma began to act up.  Since going Paleo several months ago, my daily inhaler and I have practically parted ways.  However, this evening I felt that I needed it.

A few weeks ago, I had dinner at Islands, where I indulged in some corn chips and salsa.  The following day, I needed my inhaler.  I, perhaps wrongly, concluded that grains, at least corn, were a trigger and have been much happier to avoid them ever since.

It should go without saying that I passed on the tortillas served alongside lunch today.  Nevertheless, not long afterwards I felt that all too familiar tightness in my chest, resulting in the use of my inhaler tonight, after two weeks without.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was the liberal use of soy in the cooking (is it to save money or demonstrate that the food is supposedly heart healthy?) that proved today’s trigger.  I don’t know what specifically was the cause, as it could be any one of soy’s negative properties, or even several in combination.  In the end, this is just further encouragement to avoid eating out.

Except for Elevation Burger (their site appears to be Flash-based, sorry).  That place is awesome.

Before & After: Why I Care About My Health

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At the beginning of the year, I commented on my weight loss success. To recap, that guy over on the right, that was me back in April 2007. Looking at the picture now, I barely recognize myself. Wow, I was fat. I couldn’t do a single pull-up without a machine providing weight assistance. Then, in September 2008, my first daughter was born. That was the motivation I needed to not just lose weight, but to improve my overall fitness. I was determined to be a healthy influence for my kids. Fortunately, the event coincided with learning about carbohydrate restriction for weight loss and a Paleo lifestyle for overall health.

Fast forward four years. We’re spending the July 4 weekend with my parents in Big Bear Lake. There’s a nice park with a playground down by the lake, about half a mile from the house. Playground equipment isn’t just fun for children and is way more exhilarating than a stuffy old gym. There are kids climbing, swinging, and sliding, contributing to an energetic atmosphere. The warm sun beats down me, manufacturing that essential of hormones, vitamin D. Not only is the equipment is good for the climbing and sliding you’d expect, but it’s good for pull-ups and dips. No one has told any of the kids that they need to go to the gym to exercise, they’re doing all of this for fun.

So now this is me, playing with my daughter at the park this morning after breakfast. Inspired by MovNat, I couldn’t help myself. I saw those angled supports on the swing set and thought it would be fun to climb to the top. It turned out to be really easy. After doing a few pull-ups at the top, my daughter looked at me and asked, “Are we swinging, Dada?” I replied, “Yes, sweetie, we are swinging.”

Moments like this are why I’ve become so obsessed with health and fitness over the last few years. I can play with my daughters. I mean, really play with them. I’m not standing around the edges of the playground, merely encouraging them to do things I can no longer do myself. Someday they will be able to climb higher, run faster, and jump farther than me. But that day is far off and, as long as I’m around, I will give them a run for their money.

No Fair Food This Year

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Every year my wife and I attend the San Diego County Fair at least once or twice. Aside from the garden exhibits and animals, one of the big lures is the food. I mean, doesn’t this look delicious?

Fried Food at the Fair

Fair Fare

Not pictured is the deep fried s’more, which was a big hit with my daughter last year. It appears to have been replaced by the deep fried brownie.

A few years ago, I could eat a funnel cake, a battered onion, a doughnut chicken sandwich, some Indian fry bread, and follow that with various and sundry deep fried candy bars. As each year passed, we ate a little less of the food. Last year I could only stomach a couple bites of funnel cake after helping my daughter eat her deep fried s’more.

I took my oldest daughter to the fair today, to get her out of the house and shower her with attention after the birth of her baby sister. We even stood in front of the vendor pictured above. In the end, I ate nothing at the fair. There wasn’t anything that looked at all appetizing. Actually, the smoked turkey legs always look awesome, but I refuse to pay $10 for something I can make so easily myself. Maybe finally removing these foods from my diet has had an effect on my taste. Maybe the fact that I’ve been slowly replacing my wardrobe with size small shirts and, just yesterday, purchased several pairs of size 32 shorts, kept me from partaking of such disgustingly unhealthy fare. Either way, I don’t really miss eating that stuff.

Trying Out a CSA

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csaweek1CSA is short for community-supported agriculture. Last summer, the company I work for set itself up as a delivery location for the Sage Mountain Farm CSA. I’d been talking about signing up for it since it was announced and, last week, finally did so. I pledged for four boxes, just to try it out, and my first box was delivered on Wednesday. Getting the food home was interesting. I take the train to work, so I felt a bit strange standing on the train platform holding a box of fruit and vegetables.

Wow, what a lot of food. The picture on this post doesn’t do it justice. I was only able to fit about half of the included produce in my refrigerator and left the rest on the counter. Unfortunately, after Saturday’s heat, this meant that we had to throw some of it out. But, I was able to use most of what was on the counter before we did. I’ve never taken the time to try cooking beets or parsnips, and rarely buy chard, so having it selected for me was fun. That was one reason I wanted to try a CSA.

The sheer amount of food in the box caused me more stress than it was worth. I had expected the box to be much smaller and that we would still be able to visit the farmers market, which we enjoy attending. Suddenly something I thought would be a joy has become a burden. Why is there so much lettuce? I don’t even like salad. How can we possibly eat all this food? Where can I store it every week? How will I fit other food in my refrigerator? The small box, which I ordered, is advertised as being able to feed a family of two or three for one week. The members of that hypothetical family must be big fans of Michael Pollan, because they’d have to be eating mostly plants. We are not that family.

I have three more boxes coming over the next three weeks, so I’ll see how it shakes out. I’ll need to figure out what to do with the food when I receive it. I’m thinking of starting an extended family dinner and game night on Wednesdays, cooking as much of the food as possible and sending everyone home with leftovers. The rest I’ll prepare just enough so it won’t take up too much room in the refrigerator. Even so, I think that after the fourth box, we’ll go back to making our regular Saturday trips to the Vista Farmers Market. The market is more enjoyable for us. It gets us outdoors, we can pick our own food, and we can interact with the farmers and vendors.

A 30 Day Challenge, of Sorts

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Over the weekend, while reading posts from Richard Nikoley about Leangains and Primal Toad about his 30 day Paleo challenge, I got to thinking. Why not do a 30 day challenge of sorts myself?

Why of sorts?

I’ve never been one to stick to anything every day for an extended period of time. Even 30 days is extended for me. After a couple of weeks I tend to get bored or distracted and generally change things or abandon them altogether. This blog is a perfect example of the sporadic nature of my hobbies. I tend to make permanent changes to my life gradually. A little change here, another complementary change down the road, and so on until they add up to a big change. How I ended up in my current state of Paleo illustrates that progression pretty well. So I’m not taking this challenge as seriously as I perhaps should, but I’d like to try something.

I wrote previously that I weighed in at about 172 pounds. Well, that was three weeks ago and I’m still hovering around that number. A friend of mine, @augmentedfourth on Twitter, started tweeting his daily weight. Last week I decided to give it a shot.

Tweet Your Weight Chart, 14 Feb 2011

Granted, the data are rather limited, but the first thing I noticed is that I haven’t just plateaued, but my weight appears to be trending upward! I decided that I had to do something to break through my plateau. Fortunately, this coincided with reading the aforementioned posts. So I put a plan together.

First, I will start using the FitDay account that I opened way back on 14 September 2010, when I weighed in at 186 pounds, and hadn’t touched since. I’ll have to get over my initial annoyance with entering food and activities and my displeasure at discovering that I’ve only lost 14 pounds in the last five months.

Second, I will re-craft my workout based on the Leangains descriptions. Today I performed deadlifts, chin-ups, and some crunches. More importantly, I will stick to a gym schedule and track my progress.

Third, of course, I will stop cheating on my diet. My biggest problems are drinking milk and going back for seconds (and sometimes thirds) at dinner. It’s not like I ever eat bread or candy, but I did have a few chips at a Mexican restaurant last night.

I’ll do my best to stick with this plan for at least 30 days so I can give it a full and fair evaluation. Maybe it will help me break through my plateau and become one of those incremental lifestyle changes. As a bonus, I may even see some muscle definition.

My Paleo Success Story

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I never thought I’d post a weight loss success story. Why would anyone care? However, with my ninja post, I made the decision to start putting more stuff out there. I imagine at the very least that some of my friends and family would enjoy the writing. Heck, if even one person finds a post interesting, useful, or inspiring, it was worth the effort to write.

I don’t have any of those semi-nude cell phone bathroom mirror pictures taken before I started losing weight, because there was never a day when I said I was starting this journey. My first drivers license, at the age of 16, listed my weight as 165 pounds. Over the years, through college and my various jobs as a computer programmer, I gained weight slowly. I always told myself that I’d start eating better and would start going to the gym on a regular basis. I won’t go any more into the entire history of my weight loss, since I already wrote about it during Mark Sisson’s last Primal Challenge.

chris_pre_paleoOf course, not having taken a picture of myself doesn’t mean that I don’t have any pre-Paleo pictures. A few weeks ago, while I was watching people make New Years resolutions, I lamented on Twitter that I didn’t have any “before” pictures. Mere minutes later I received an email from my dad with the photo to the right, taken in April 2007, a month after moving into my new house. Gee, thanks, Dad.

I always knew I was over-weight, but I never looked at myself and thought I was fat. I’m looking at myself now and thinking, “Wow, I was fat.” I must have realized it at the time, because I started keeping track of my weight, on a semi-regular weekly basis, in May 2007. According to my records, I peaked at 225 pounds. At first, losing weight wasn’t easy. But then I had two breakthroughs. The first was in mid-2008 when my wife was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and we both limited carbohydrates in our diets. The second was in March 2010 when I went Paleo. This second breakthrough is clearly visible in the chart.

weight_chart_jan2011

About five years ago I started studying again at the karate dojo at which I originally earned my black belt, when I was 18 years old. Shortly after I left for college and karate became one of those things I’d “get back to eventually.” Well, 10 years passed before I finally did. Unfortunately, when I pulled out my old gi, it didn’t fit. I had to order a new gi in a larger size. I never liked this new gi, because, while it fit my rotund physique, it was clearly too large for me. But it worked, and after a couple of years I earned my second degree black belt. However, as I approached my third degree test, I set my first goal. I would get my weight to 180 and buy myself a new gi.

I finally reached 180 in November 2010, but it wasn’t enough. I looked at myself and decided that my waist circumference was still too large to justify buying any new clothes. So I kept going.

As I write this, I weigh in at 172 pounds. I’ve had to buy new pants for the cold weather and I’m just barely keeping my old shorts up with a belt cinched to the last hole. Last weekend I decided that, as a late birthday present to myself, I could buy a new gi.

As I shopped online, I realized that I had never gotten rid of my old gi, the one I wore in high school when I earned my black belt. I dug it out of the garage, tried it on, and it fit. I was ecstatic (and I saved some money). Being able to fit into something old like this is even better than buying something new (don’t worry, I’ll be doing that soon enough). It’s amazingly motivating, too. I remember five years ago, struggling to get through my kata and sucking wind during bag drills, hating every minute. Now both are so much easier and I love doing them.

Here are the closest things I have to before and after pictures. On the left, taken in July 2008, I’m wearing the one-size-too-large gi. On the right, my 17 year old gi, which I’m much more comfortable wearing.

chris_pre_paleo_gichris_post_paleo_gi

Gone Primal

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A couple of years ago, when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, my parents were reading through Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes, and getting started with the paleolithic, or paleo, diet. It was a happy coincidence, as my wife was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. The diet information she received from my parents kept the condition under control without the need for drugs. In fact, her doctor thought she was lying about the low blood sugar numbers she was reporting and had her tested in the office during each visit.

I wasn’t immediately convinced. So many years of indoctrination by the advice of the so-called experts and the recommendations of the United States government left me believing at an emotional level that carbohydrates are not only harmless, but necessary to my existence. Plus, I really like oatmeal and granola.

It was hard to argue with results and, after following Dr. Eades on Twitter for a while, I tried the diet. It was okay, but I didn’t stick to it very well. I was still addicted to sugar and convinced that I could lose weight in the gym. I did lose a little weight and enjoyed being able to eat all the food I actually like, but have been conditioned to believe is unhealthy, without the guilt (no one likes potatoes anyway, only what they put on potatoes).

One blog that I’d run across a couple of times, but didn’t think to bookmark was Mark’s Daily Apple. I could remembered it as the interesting blog with the photo of the guy lounging in the grass, wearing his Vibram FiveFingers (I have a pair, too). My Google searches turned up nothing. Finally, one of the people I follow on Twitter posted a link. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about the diet for me. Mark Sisson’s idea of an Primal Lifestyle was the missing piece. I jumped in with both feet.

Now, my typical daily sustenance looks something like this:

Breakfast almost always consists of three fried eggs and two sausage links. I cook a third sausage link for my daughter to eat when she wakes up. I rarely skip breakfast (though strangely I did today) and haven’t deviated from this menu in over a year.

Lunch used to be a protein shake, plain whole milk yogurt with berries and stevia, and three bread-less sandwich rolls. A few weeks ago, I stopped eating the sandwich rolls. I suspect that changes to my metabolism have left me less hungry at lunch, so I practice intermittent fasting. Sometimes I’ll have the yogurt, sometimes I’ll get a burrito at the taco shop (I unwrap it and only eat the innards), and sometimes I’ll skip lunch altogether.

Dinner varies from day to day, but only a little. I typically cook a large cut of meat, like beef chuck or pork shoulder, in a slow cooker on Sunday, which gives us enough meat for the week. For a weeknight dinner, I’ll sauté onions, peppers, and garlic in coconut oil, then add some of the leftover meat, sometimes finishing by adding sour cream for a tangy cream sauce. Tonight I used a three cheese tomato sauce from Trader Joe’s.

My workout has changed significantly, too. I was a big nerd growing up, so I never went to the gym. I started going on-and-off in college, but have started going almost every day over the last eight months. Fortunately, I had a few sessions with a personal trainer once, and I’ve always followed her advice to avoid the machines and use free weights. But I was the typical guy, doing repetitive sets of weights, focusing on those beach muscles.

Since the release of Primal Blueprint Fitness, I no longer worry so much about going to the gym every day, trying to lift ever heavier weights. For one thing, it’s boring. Also, I think I overdid it and hurt my shoulder. I certainly don’t miss the horribly dull “chronic cardo.” Now I work out using my own body weight and sprint occasionally.

Suddenly I’m losing more weight. Fast. Even though I’ve taken a break from the gym for the last couple of weeks to rest my shoulder.

I’ve had a draft of this post saved for about two months, but never got around to polishing it for publication, until now. A couple of days ago, Mark Sisson kicked off the Primal Blueprint 30-Day Challenge. This is just what I needed, especially after cheating on my diet over the Labor Day weekend. I’m not half as dedicated to the lifestyle as most of the people who comment on Mark’s Daily Apple, but I’m going to try to join in the challenge and have some fun anyway.