Over the weekend someone asked me what I do for fitness.
Most important, I think, is to step on the scale every day at about the same time (for me, first thing in the morning). Sometimes, multiple times. I'm currently in a phase of trying to add some muscle. A pound every month or so is enough. Weight fluctuates daily, but if I'm more than 2 pounds or so from where I want to be, it convinces me (helps trick my stomach, I suppose) into eating a little more or less that day.
These foods make me feel more full than others:
- Water. I drink two 20-oz tumblers of it within 15 minutes of getting out of bed. It replenishes what was lost overnight; kick-start fuels the systems for my foggy brain and stiff muscles. Since I sing, I also find that I need to do this about 2 hours prior to performance. Throughout the course of the day I drink at least 80 oz of water, sometimes as many as 120 oz. It depends how much I exercise; I lose as many as 5 pounds of sheer water after a half hour cardio workout. I can say with almost absolute certainty that my mid-day slumps are usually due to being under-hydrated. Sodas, coffee, soda, juices are much less effective than water. Am I sufficiently hydrated? Check for nearly-clear urine (sorry).
- Whole-grain wheat bread. I do eat my fair share of sugar in the form of peanut-butter sandwiches. Whenever I shop, I grab the less floury whole-grain style of bread. The fiber content is high, which fills the tummy. The peanut butter helps hit my protein goal.
- Apples or other fruit. Mostly apples though, just because I'm picky. But the fiber content here is also tremendous, the skin is rich with nutrients, and it's loaded with water too like many fruits and veggies. I rarely eat veggies, but they're valuable for similar reasons.
- Almonds. Recent teeth-cracking issues have slowed this down, but they're a fabulous source of nutrients that I'd recommend to anyone (the salted kind, anyway, the plain kind is blecch).
- Whole-grain cereal. Grains again. Honey Nut Cheerios is my go-to brand. Just enough sweet to be tolerable. If I'm in a must-pig-out mood, this is the food I allow myself to chow down until I'm reeling. Again, fibrous stuff passes through the body quickly.
- Milk, skim. Protein! And of course it washes down peanut butter wonderfully.
- Tyson pre-grilled chicken strips. Microwavable for the disinterested cook, I prep half a bag after every weight workout (and many of my cardio days) to pack on the protein without a disgusting amount of fat. This year I learned to consume within an hour of the workout to help muscles recover. It's worked.
My exercise is weekly. I aim for three weight workout days and three cardio days. They're almost all a half hour long. This allows me one day off a week, or two or three as long as I do a weight-cardio double session on another day (Note: I prefer to do weights before cardio on these days; research led me to this against my intuition that cardio is better for "warm-up.").
Weight workouts: 4 exercises in a set, 4 sets in a workout. The breakdown of a set: 2 "pulling" exercises (chin-ups, bicep curls, lat pull-downs, etc.) and 1 "push" exercise (bench press, tricep dips, etc.), and then 1 for the legs (recently, calf raises, to offset the quad-heavy exercises I do on cardio days). About 8-10 reps per exercise. I vary the type of exercise every workout, so that my mood can set the intensity and I don't get bored.
Cardio: Sometimes it's a 3-mile run outdoors or on a treadmill. Sometimes it's 30 minutes on a stationary bike. Lately, it's been making 100 baskets from all over the court to warm up for hoops season (I figure if I want to coach it, I'd better learn how to do it right!).
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