Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of good posts from the guys at the fitness health network, here are just a few of them.

Lazy man wrote two interesting posts about weightlifting that seem pretty relevant to my life right about now. The first one dealt with free weights versus machine weights, and the second dealt with building muscle strength in your legs.

Weight Ladder wrote about some ways to dramatically decrease your calorie intake. I’m not sure how dramatic they are, but they are good ideas to help you cut calories from your diet.

And Israel wrote a really good post about the link between the rise in obesity in America and the rise in quick weight loss diet programs. It’s a good read.

Next week, I’ve got one more Superfoods post planned so if you like it you have something to look forward to and if you don’t, you only have to skip reading one more entry. Have a great weekend.

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training if one will win life’s race.

“It is,” says Professor Mathews, “only by continued, strenuous efforts, repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything else. The process of obtaining this self-mastery — this complete command of one’s mental powers — is a gradual one, its length varying with the mental constitution of each person; but its acquisition is worth infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever costs.”

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education,” it was said by Professor Huxley, “is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns thoroughly.”

I’ve achieved mental discipline in some aspects of my life, including exercise. What I’ll focus on for the next few weeks is applying willpower to food.

Meanwhile, here are a few links from around the web:

• Jeremy at Almost Fit lists five reasons he avoids high-fructose corn syrup.
• Lazy Man has some tips for staying fit past middle age.
• Sally at Aprovechar shares 6 unconventional elements of her weight loss. This is a great article.
• Kevin at Weight Loss Journal asks, “Is stress making you fat?”

Finally,

Finally, Amy Jo forwarded a recent New York Times article about eating to enjoy instead of eating to diet. It’s filled with great insight like: “People of normal weight spend more time on meal-related tasks than people who are overweight or underweight.” One of my goals for the coming weeks is to actually spend time prepping my meals instead of grabbing quick stuff out of the fridge. (I hope to plan and prep meals the night before.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

This morning, before I went for my twenty minute run, Kris convinced me that instead of stretching, I should join her for half an hour of yoga. Wow, I’m inflexible. After yoga, and after the BfL portion of my run, I extended the workout another ten minutes so I could log a total of three miles. (Three miles is a good distance for me — I feel like it gives a good workout, but it doesn’t tax my body.)

Then, because today is my “free food day” on the program, I went out and had breakfast at my favorite diner: pancakes piled with big fat blueberries (on top, not inside, and not in syrup). Yum.

It’s been a while since I did a roundup of other fitness stories from around the web. Now’s a good time to correct that.

First, in a conversation at Get Rich Slowly this morning, somebody mentioned the Green Smoothie Challenge and pointed to this list of 70 green smoothie recipes. I’m going to make time to give a couple of these a try. (To replace the Odwalla and Naked juices/protein shakes I buy.)

Jim at Journal for Healthy Living has been exploring his town by bike, something I love to do. Once you get into the habit of biking places, it’s not so bad. Gradually, you begin exploring other paths, and you find new ways of connecting with your environment. I did this much more when we lived in a small town, but I’ve made an effort to do this some this summer, too.

Some quickies:

• Lazy Man has some tips on the proper ways to do squats.
• Sally says hello to the 150s. (Way to go, Sally!)
• Blaine at Run to Win has some tips on how to measure and map a running route using online tools.
• Kevin has a review of Eating for Life, the companion book to Body for Life.

Finally, I love Andrew’s post about why he loves running. “I run because he can,” he says. “Up until this year, I’ve had a stronge belief that I could never be a runner.” Amen! This describes me, as well. Once I got over the belief that I was physically incapable of running, and then the mental block that running was tedious, I’ve learned that I love to run. And, best of all, I can do it. I may not be able to run all my life, but I’m going to do so while my body still lets me. Great post, Andrew!

May you all have as much success in the coming week as I did over the past seven days!

From the NYT–body size may be an unreliable indicator of health.

From CNN.com–coming soon to a drugstore near you…Exercise in a pill?

From Time.com–Where you put on your extra weight may help determine which type of dieting will work better for you.

And a funny one from the NYT–”Flawed Logic in Obesity Forecast”.  My favorite rebuttal using the same logic…At the current rate of population growth on Earth, there will some day be more people on Earth than molecules in the universe.  Ha!

More on Monday about how I tried to exercise while camping with the family.

As you may recall, I managed to complete week four and was moving on to week five. I didn’t do very well. Here are my results:

• Day one: 30 – 16 – 7 – massive failure
• Day two: 17 – 17- 16 – 11 – massive failure
• Day three: 20 – 15 – 15 -15- 24

Day one was terrible. Day two was thwarted by a family crisis (see below). And day three, I reverted to week four column one, which I did well at. Tomorrow, based on the advice of my friend Nickel at Fit 36, I’ll be dropping to week three, but moving to the second column. I’m patient. I know I’ll reach 100 pushups eventually.

As I said, this week has been difficult for me. I’m coping with a family crisis. My mother has been admitted to the hospital, where she’s likely to remain for days (if not weeks). My attention is elsewhere.

As a result, my post slots this week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday) will be filled by guest posts from readers and colleagues. I hope to return to normal schedule in about ten days.

Meanwhile, here are some recent articles I liked from around the physical fitness blogosphere:

• Gal at 60 in 3 notes that when lifting weights, you can increase difficulty by decreasing the speed at which you lift. I do this a lot, actually. Slow lifts can really burn. In a good way.
• Jim at Journal of Healthy Living writes that clear urine is best! As I’ve learned more about running, this has actually been a great way to tell whether I’m properly hydrated.
• A guest poster at SmarterFitter offers tips for self-yoga practice at home. My wife has been doing yoga several times a week, and is trying to convince me to join her.
• Finally, a guest author at Fat Man Unleashed offered an inside look at meeting of Overeaters Anonymous.

I should mention that this family crisis is playing havoc with my fitness regimen. I’m doing very well on food consumption (with occasional binges prompted by stress), but am getting almost zero exercise. Kris and I are going to work on changing that this week. I’m going to schedule three stretching sessions each day, and make time for trips to the gym. Take care!

There’s been a couple of good posts this week by the guys in the fitness health network. All of us seem to be coming to grips with our weight loss plans. Here are a few of the entries that I found myself relating to this week.

I’ve found myself back in the gym lately, but without a personal trainer. And I’ve been struggling to find a routine. I’ve got several routines that were given to me by previous trainers, but I’m finding them either boring or too easy. Lazy Man and Health wrote a post about beginning circuit training. While it’s not a terribly detailed post, it does touch on the biggest benefit, at least in my mind, of circuit training–keeping your heart rate up for the entire workout instead of having huge fluctuations that occur during typical work/rest cycles that a lot of us do at the gym. Keeping that heart rate up burns more calories, which helps you see results quicker!

I think all of us over at the FHN are over weight and concentrating on creating a calorie deficit. No Calories Needed is working on a food budget. The most interesting thing about his post is the very different caloric requirements that he obtained from the 5 or 6 different online calculators. This is a huge problem. In fact, he found a 1000 calorie/day difference between some of the calculators. If you’re trying to maintain a 500 calorie/day deficit, this might pose some problems. I think the best way to solve it is to pick a number and try it for two weeks. If you lose two pounds during those two weeks, you’re right on. If not, you may need to adjust your caloric intake for your specific metabolic rate.

And Fat Man Unleashed had a reader call him out on making excuses for not losing weight–and he lost two pounds this week. This happened to JD a few months ago too and really kicked him into gear. Now Israel has had some success too. It just reminds me that one of the main reasons for these blogs is that our readers support and motivate us to get the job done. We all thank you guys for that.

Next week, I plan on writing at least one post that I’ve done some research on. I’ve got some questions I want to answer about vitamins and also about the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. I don’t think I’ll be able to research both of them this week, so if any of you have preferences, let me know. Have a good weekend.

Generally I ignore blog games, but this one is interesting. I’ve shared many of my food vices in the past — most of them are related to cakes, cookies, and candy. I’m a sucker for fatty, sugary treats. In fact, just writing about this makes me crave fresh chocolate chip cookies.

But to be honest, the one vice I’m most trying to reduce lately is alcohol. I don’t know if this is my biggest vice, but it’s certainly one of them, and I’ve been drinking enough to make me concerned (8-10 drinks a week). I’ve read a lot lately from non-moralizing sources about the destructive effects of the stuff, so I’m trying to reduce my intake and my stock on hand.

As a general rule, you’re supposed to “tag” other people with these sorts of memes. I’m going to be a bad host and not do so. However, if you’d like to participate, please feel free to do so!

Meanwhile, here are some other interesting fitness articles from around the web:

At 60 in 3, Gal wrote about a subject I should take to heart: risky exercise. I have a tendency to want to push myself, to do more than I ought. In particular, I often continue to exercise when I know I’m injured. I’m getting better at that. In fact, I stopped in the middle of Saturday’s marathon training run and walked back to the start because I recognized I could not continue. But still: I tend to engage in risky exercise.

Lazy Man listed five reasons to jump rope. Kris gave me a jumping rope for Christmas as a sort of a gag gift. I’ve tried to use it once or twice but whoa!, it requires more coordination than I have right now. Still, I’ve been thinking I should practice it a little more. I can’t help but think it would give me a cardio workout when I don’t feel like running or biking.

Andrew recently ran his first 10k race, finishing in 53:14. Great work, Andrew!

Finally, SmarterFitter writes that diet-sized snack packs turn off willpower. “Willpower or not, these snack packs are just spendy ways to buy processed food,” Monica writes, “and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. If you’re trying to practice portion control, then what about nuts or fruit?”

Here are some other physical fitness stories from around the web this week:

At 60 in 3, Gal writes that a beginning is a very delicate thing. “The start of your day will set the tone for the rest of it. If you wake up tired and cranky you’re more than likely going to be tired and cranky for the rest of the day. If you make unhealthy food choices you’re setting yourself up for a day of bad eating.” Great advice.

MetroKnow at Almost Fit recently shared a series of articles about breaking free form fast food. In the final part of the series, he shared 20 tactics to kill the fast food habit. Useful stuff if you’re hooked on burgers and fries.

If you’re giving up that fast food, you might need something to replace the junk calories. Kevin at Weight Loss Journal has some tips for snacking without ruining your diet. Like many of us, he’s discovered that adding a little more protein can help you feel sated. My ideal snack? An ounce of cheese and some olives. (And fresh berries when in season.)

Next week, I’m going to get my body fat and other stats measured at the gym to see how much progress I’ve really made on the reshaping of my body. I feel firmer, and less flabby, but I’ve definitely still got some work to do on the body sculpting front. We’re going to a swim party on Sunday, and I’m still a little worried about the whole shirt off in public thing, but I’ll gut it out and have a good time.

Meanwhile, some of our colleagues have written some interesting posts this week, here are two that I particularly related to.

Lazy man wrote a nice post about how to get exercise without feeling like your exercising. Go play sports!

Kevin talked about the importance of ramping up your metabolism (naturally)if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

That’s all for today, have a great weekend!

Well, today I hit the weights after a 3 week break and it sure was hard. I didn’t decrease any of the weights that I had been doing last month, but I wasn’t able to complete as many reps–and each set was much more difficult than I remember it being the last time I worked out. I’m always amazed at how fast you can lose muscle strength. I want to continue to put on muscle while I’m losing fat so that I can keep my metabolism high. And since I’d rather be seen as an all around fit person, and not as a runner, I’m going to start doing a better job of splitting my workout time between running and lifting.

And, since everybody’s doing it, I thought I’d join in on the 100 pushup fad. On my 3 run days/week, I’m also going to be doing my pushups while continuing to lift weights on the other days. We’ll see how it goes. I’m excited.

The guys of the Fitness Health Network have posted some interesting stuff this week, here’s a few of the good ones:

Lazy Man wrote about Exercising for Kids and gave some Tips For A Healthy Heart.

Kevin gave us some good ways to combat common excuses that keep us on the couch.

And Israel found a post about how Golf Can Be A Dangerous Sport. Since I love playing golf in my free time, I thought it was going to be an interesting article. Good thing I don’t use a cart.

Have a great weekend.