New Record!!!

2 hilly miles in 15 minutes.  7:30 pace!!!  30 second improvement!

Chocolate Milk - My New Recovery Drink

Chocolate milk is my new recovery drink.  Forget gatorade, etc.  Chocolate milk is delicious, natural, and provides all the protein, carbs  nutrients I need for quick recovery.  Just had it today after a run/workout and it was golden.

Chocolate Milk May Improve Recovery After Exercise  CME

News Author: Laurie Barclay, MD
CME Author: Désirée Lie, MD, MSEd
Disclosures

Feb. 27, 2006 — Chocolate milk is an effective postexercise drink that improves recovery, according to the results of a small, randomized trial reported in the February issue of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.

“Our study indicates that chocolate milk is a strong alternative to other commercial sports drinks in helping athletes recover from strenuous, energy-depleting exercise,” coauthor Joel M. Stager, PhD, from Indiana University in Bloomington, said in a news release. “Chocolate milk contains an optimal carbohydrate to protein ratio, which is critical for helping refuel tired muscles after strenuous exercise and can enable athletes to exercise at a high intensity during subsequent workouts.”

On 3 separate days, 9 male, endurance-trained cyclists performed an interval workout followed by 4 hours of recovery, and a subsequent endurance trial to exhaustion at 70% maximum oxygen consumption (VO_2max). In a single-blind, randomized design, the men drank equivalent volumes of chocolate milk, fluid replacement drink (FR), or carbohydrate replacement drink (CR) immediately after the first exercise bout and 2 hours of recovery. The chocolate milk and CR had equivalent carbohydrate content. Primary endpoints were time to exhaustion, average heart rate, rating of perceived exertion, and total work for the endurance exercise.

Time to exhaustion and total work were significantly greater for chocolate milk and for FR trials than for CR trials, suggesting that chocolate milk is an effective recovery aid between 2 exhausting exercise bouts.

Study limitations include the possibility that the 4-hour recovery period limited the complete digestion of the complex carbohydrates contained in CR.

“The results of this study suggest that chocolate milk, with its high carbohydrate and protein content, may be considered an effective alternative to commercial FR and CR for recovery from exhausting, glycogen-depleting exercise,” the authors write.

The Dairy and Nutrition Council, Inc, supported this study in part.

Mile Time

I think I hit slightly under 8:00 miles today.  I need to get an actual stopwatch/wristwatch.

Mile Time

Approximately 8:00/ mile.  Day 1 is always rough.

Fitness Assessment

So one of my goals on here is to be extremely fit.  I’m going to be starting that more seriously now with a combination of nutrtion, sleep, and exercise.

SLEEP

I’m going to try to sleep from around 10 every night and wake up at exactly 6 every morning.  I think if I do my workouts right when I wake up I’ll still have so much day left that I won’t feel that I’m wasting my time working out.  That’s pretty much it for sleep, not going to make that too complicated.

FOOD

I’m going to start eating protein-only breakfasts, which apparently is in the Norwegien tradition and boosts energy along with brain-power.  Then for lunch something similar, maybe a few more carbs but still essentially proteins, lots of fruits, vegtables.  Then for dinner more carbs as a reload from the day.

On the whole I’ll be trying to limit or eliminate as much as posisble processed foods, sugary foods, overly salty foods, caffeine, etc.  “Eat food, not too much, Mostly plants.”

EXERCISE

I’m going to work out once a day, in the morning.  This will generally include running, pushups, crunches, and other workouts I can do without buying a gym membership.  If I need a gym here then I can’t do this while traveling.  I’ll also be including hiking, maybe with a loaded pack, to hit the quads.  Also maybe some stairs for that.

Today I’ll be doing a fitness assessment on mile time, number of pushups, crunches, etc, etc.  You have to diagnose before you can repair.  I expect my results to be pretty bad ie 8-9 minute mile but we’ll see.  I’m hoping to get some kind of stat tracker up here to keep track of results, new records, etc.  Here goes nothing!

Matt

Here we go!

Alright for those of you who read the last post, I just accomplished my biggest goal a lot faster than I expected.  That was, essentially, to get a job.  Now that that small detail is resolved (whoo-hoo!) I can focus more on this blog.

I’m all about trying to achieve as much as possible with your life.  This blog isn’t really just about health and fitness but is more about making as much of your life (and my life) as possible.  I’ll use this space to figure out what I want to accomplish and how to do it.  This could range from philosophy to fitness tips to a while range of issues and experiments with different lifestyle habits, etc.  It can basically be anything I want it to be!  That’s the magic of having your own blog haha.  I won’t be trying to keep the writing as formal or flowery as mattzealand.  I’m more focused on goals and results here.

Now that that’s out of the way, what am I trying to accomplish here?  I’ve read several places that it takes twenty-one days to form new habits and break old ones.  At this point it actually becomes habit and it is easier to do the new habit than the old one, and inertia takes over.  I look at good habits like good investing.  1.  It’s all about consistency and 2.  Your return magnify exponentially over time.

What do I want?

That’s actually pretty difficult to define.  But definition is key if you want to achieve results.  This will probably focus on physical fitness primarily but obviously there is a whole host of things that I and others want to improve upon and achieve in.  These include

Physical/ Health

Financial

Career

Social

Fun/Adventure

Emotional/Spiritual

Volunteering/Contributing

I think in all of these cases its about trying to figure out what you think you want, making a plan, and taking massive action.  Obviously there is also a lot of interrelationship between these areas.  It’s hard to donate to a charity without money, and its hard to earn money at a job if you’re always sick and not physically well.  And on and on.  There is definitely a synergy to all the areas of life that can either work well together or work against one another.

I think that’s enough to understand the basic scope of what direction this site is taking and what the scope of the content is.  As for the specifics I myself don’t exactly know how it will shape up.  I’m actually discovering that as I write it.  Probably a mishmash of things, but variety is the spice of life, right?  I just hope this will help me define what I want and figure out better ways to live my life.

Until next time!

Matt

Welcome!

Alright so here’s what this blog is all about: Self Improvement.  It isn’t going to just deal with health and fitness, thought that is key, but also with time management, mental attitude, goal setting, etc.  This way I can experiment with new habits and also measure my progress.  One big part of doing things right is the “first things first” concept advocated in “7 Habits.”  That means that you have to take care of the important things first instead of using time-fillers to fritter away your most valuable resource.  I’ll be attempting to use this principle, and that includes the time I spend on this blog.  Right now there are more important uses of my time and until I accomplish these goals I won’t have the time to write about them.  After I accomplish them I’ll be back to tell you about them and add more content!

Matt