FT Maple Grove Blog

Who cares about the weather - go on your daily walk anyway!

2010-01-08T07:41:00.000-08:00

January 7, 2010

Well that sucked! My lab and I just got back from our normal morning walk; and with today’s blinding wind and snow, this arctic air is starting to get old real fast.

While I was thinking about how miserable I was, my dog was running all over the place, and lo and behold, she was having fun! The wind chill was around 25 below with driving snow, and she was having a great time chasing all the papers flying down the street! Yup, she was doing her duty of protecting me from all the dangerous papers blowing at me! Attagirl!

I was staring down at the ground so I could keep my direction going straight, but I kept hearing a snapping noise. I looked up to see a flag at full mast waving in the driving and blinding snow. My thoughts turned to our soldiers working in 102 degree heat in Iraq and Afghanistan, keeping us safe.

As bad as it was, walking on the icy streets, seeing that flag reminded I how thankful I am to be walking and not in a wheelchair. Granted, my arms may not look the way I want them to look, I can’t bike as fast as I want to for as long as I would like, and my squatting 405 at times seems really really heavy. . . BUT… I can breathe fine and all of my limbs work just fine, my body still works just fine and I have nothing to whine about. I took a deep breath of that icy air and gave thanks to God.

When we came to the intersection 1 block from my house, my doggie wanted to turn and go around the big block to add another mile to our walk (in this bone-chilling weather?!). I rewarded her for all her work protecting me from flying paper, turned the corner and added one more mile to our walk. We both deserve it. Besides she was loving all this snow and wind.

We got home from our 3 mile walk and I fed her breakfast and after she was done (30 seconds later) she came over to say thank you as always by licking me to death – Yuk!

Remember, sometimes your actions are really appreciated by others even though they might not say anything at the time (if at all). In other situations, you might be the light at the end of the tunnel for someone else who is struggling with something harder that what you are going through.

I sure glad that it is going to be nicer tomorrow; sunny and a high of 12!

-SA

Cooking Day

2009-11-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Here is a few videos to show all of you my routine of cooking and how I do it. Please comment on this post.

Running in heels

2009-10-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

I was out walking my dog the other day - as I normally do in the morning - and as I came around the corner I saw this beautiful blonde lady/mom frantically running towards the awaiting bus with her kid.

As she was running, she was holding her kid's backpack and running down the street very elegantly in a rushed fashion (if there is such a thing) in high heels! I was truly impressed by this feat of physical athleticism! I mean here was this lady running towards the bus, throwing caution to the wind just to make sure that her child would not hold the bus up any longer just because the child overslept a bit. Very impressive!

Think about it for a second, ladies. A woman running down the street fast (nothing derogatory meant by that) wearing high heels (I don't know, 3-- 4 inches I guess) carrying a heavy backpack all the while looking graceful, as if it was no big deal that she could sprain her ankle and go tumbling at any second and go rolling in the street in the puddles. Oh yeah, did I mention it was raining and she had to dodge a few puddles?

How many of us are actually in shape or prepared enough to be able to run at the drop of a hat at a pretty good clip and maintain it for a good block or two? Far too many times we are too busy to take care of our health during our busy, hectic, American way of life. How many of us say that will take care of our health tomorrow but actually never do because we never have the time for it?

Most Americans are too busy to take care of their health today and unfortunately pay for it tomorrow. How many mothers and fathers out there would love to be a play with their kids but they can’t because there to out of shape or can't get down to the floor with them for fear of not being able to get back up?

Unfortunately, I hear this very often. There are a lot of people out there that are parents that can’t get down to play with their little kids because it's just too hard for them to get up-and-down off the floor. And when the kids get older, they also can’t play with them because they can’t keep up with them; sometimes the kids are only 5 or 8 years old and they can’t keep up the kids already. How are you supposed to keep up with your kids when they turn into teenagers and get into sports and want their mom or dad to come outside and play with them or practice with them?

Fortunately my kids can't keep up with me yet; but that's by design. With me working out 4 to 6 times a week and eating right the majority of the time, I don't see things changing anytime soon (I won't get into today's kids not be as active as we were, when we were kids - I'll save that for another topic). I remember hearing stories about my dad at how strong he was back in the day, he never knew this but, I was extremely impressed with that when I was in high school and have been trying to beat what he used to do ever since; though I don't know if I ever will since he used to be a really big strong guy with a lot more muscle than myself; way to go dad!

So what's the moral to the story here? Make time to exercise today so you can enjoy playing and spending time with your kids tomorrow.

Sunday Dirt Biking

2009-09-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

So do you want to see how I spent Sunday in my version of relaxing which happened to burn over 2000 calories? Check out these two short videos of me riding my dirt bike.

On the first video, you're waiting for me to come up out of the woods. When I come out, my buddy stops and asks me what my heart rate is after I've been riding for 15-20 minutes already at that pace; which is 183! Then when I try to start it up and get going, I look like a total goon and can't get it going again because I'm in the wrong gear since I am really tired from riding with my heart rate in the upper 170s to low 180s the whole time. Then at the very end of the video I don't do the jump because something is in the way I have to stop to pick it up…

On the second video, my buddy is filming me as I ride my dirt bike up my ramp in my truck as I am tired from riding my dirt bike after three hours and he asked me how it went and I told him I had a good time…

So I was just thinking, when I rode in the MS 150 (that's the weekend where I bike from Duluth back to my house - 165 miles) I burned 4000 calories in around eight hours; whereas I burned 2000 calories in only three hours of riding my dirt bike.

So Monday I had one of those days when I cannot eat enough! You ever have one of those days? I kinda enjoy those days ;)

- Scott

Intensity: my version

2009-08-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

So I have been talking about turning up the intensity during your workouts to a bunch of you so I thought I would share 2 quick clips of my workout with you about intensity and what my version looks like.

In the videos, you are going to laugh because I look pretty funny now as I watch them again; but during it, I didn’t notice a thing as I blocked everything out and got in the zone and then came out of it afterwards; that was fun! And to think I actually enjoy doing this stuff to myself!

Yea, I know, I am off my rocker
Anyhoo, this is what you’ll see in the video’s:
• Me working pretty hard
• Making a fool out of myself unintentionally; just working hard
• My maxed out leg press (though I could have done more)with the music too loud; sorry about that one
• My heart rate going from 93 up to 147 in 5 reps
• Me actually tired out and still trying to curl the weight making some weird faces to trying to “bring it” and using some “cheating” moves some of you won’t approve of; though not to bad ;)
• And my heart rate going from 88 to 161 in 6 curling reps
• What my new fabulous Fitness Consultant looks like
• And more of…

well here is your way to see how I look in my workouts, not looking my best ☺
If you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Let me know what you thought if you wish ☺ I can take it.

Proper Form

2009-08-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of my daughter lifting a hundred pound dumbbell with proper form with ease!

Turtleman Triathlon

2009-08-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

When you have five or six minutes check out the videos from my triathlon relay that I just got done doing in the pouring rain!

There was thunder. There was lightning. There were a ton of dark ominous clouds everywhere and no shortage of rain - pouring rain I might add.

So here are some of the details from my triathlon relay I just did!

Due to the weather conditions and the lightning, the officials decided not to do an official swim. They called a kiddie swim instead which means that you run through the start your timing chip on, but about 30 or 40 yards and ankle-deep water, come out of the water and hand your timing chip to the biker.

So here are my stats:

* my time was an hour one minute
* my speed average was 20.4
* our overall time was 1:56:56
* my max heart rate was 178
* my average heart rate was 168
* calories burned in a little over an hour: 968!

Very minimal training beforehand :-)

Did I mention it was raining sideways along with lightning and thunder?

My teammate was an old colleague of mine, Anderson. He did the “swim” and I did the bike and our buddy Troy Eichers did the run.

The Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG bus was there promoting its 'help fight cancer' agenda, too.

All in all, we all had a great time as always.

So go check out these videos - even though the videos the don't do it justice with all the pouring rain that you really can't see for some reason. Rain is coming down in sheets and buckets, and we all had a great time can't wait to do it again next year! :-)

Turtleman Video 1

2009-08-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

Turtleman Video 2

2009-08-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Turtleman Video 3

2009-08-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

Turtleman Video 4

2009-08-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

Turtleman Video 5

2009-08-10T14:47:00.000-07:00

Turtleman Video 6

2009-08-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Turtleman Video 7

2009-08-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hawaii

2009-07-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

MS 150 Bike Ride

2009-07-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

BABY

2009-07-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well here he is for the whole world to see: Levi Michael Lunderby!

Happy Fourth of July!

2009-07-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, nothing like a shot of adrenaline to wake you up in the morning!

My buddy, Mike, and I went out really early the morning of the 4th of July and celebrated our freedom by mountain bikin' on some single tracks up in Elk River. There were some fast down hills, windy up hills, and trees everywhere you looked - even in your way! We had spokes breakin', bones being knocked out of place, lungs crying for mercy, and legs on fire; some of us falling off bridges, going up and over tee-ter-totter’s, jumping off big rocks, flying over "rock gardens" and a few inconvenient tip overs. We donated some blood and skin to local weeds as we felt necessary along the way. I am awake now!!

What a great day to be alive and be an American citizen!

May God bless you and your family the way that he has blessed mine!

And keep our troops in your prayers. They need our love and support!

Enjoy the day!

Hey, where is the BBQ at? I’m hungry.

Burn fat by gaining muscle

2009-06-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

Everybody wants to lose weight. The question is what kind of weight are you losing? Is it body fat? Is it water weight? Or is it lean muscle tissue? Those of you who know me or train with me know I am a very strong supporter of retaining lean muscle or even gaining lean muscle tissue. Why is that? Because the average person burns an extra 35-50 calories per day for each pound of lean muscle tissue gained. So if someone gained 10 lbs. of lean muscle tissue, that would be an extra 350-500 calories burned per day by doing absolutely nothing! That is equal to a 45 minute cardio session! Think about it for a second, who wouldn't want to burn all those calories by doing nothing. I do. That's why I always preach to my clients and friends about the importance of keeping lean muscle tissue. Now you are thinking to yourself how do I do that? 1st and foremost you have to eat enough calories to SUPPORT the lean muscle tissue. If you exercise intensely 5-7 days a week (which I do and I tell all my clients to do) and are not eating enough healthy calories you WILL NOT keep lean tissue and you will not increase you metabolism (which is how many calories you body burns). You see your body is like a wood furnace. If the furnace is not getting enough wood (the fuel) the fire will slow down and go out. If your body does not get enough nutrition or calories (its fuel) it will slow down and go out which leads to sickness and disease. Excessive exercise and a lack of nutrients will always fail to develop lean muscle tissue. 2nd, focus on resistance training with moderate cardio. Resistance training can be done 3-6 days per week depending on the individual (no longer than 45 minutes) and cadio sessions are to be kept between 20-40 minutes max 5-7 days per week. Over 40 minutes of cardio actually will destroy lean muscle tissue. And 3rd is sleep. 8 hours per night is the goal. Muscle actually is built during rest not by working out. So there it is 3 simply things to remember to help burn fat. My motto is: You Cannot Out Exercise Poor Nutrition! Please comment, Email or call me with some feedback and questions. Yours In Health, Michael.

The importance of your Nervous System

2009-06-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

Well here is my very 1st blog. Never thought I would be doing one. I thought I would start with something people hardly ever think about: The Nervous System. Maybe I should have labeled this blog the importance of taking care of your nervous system. What is your Nervous System? Great question. Basically your Nervous System is your brain, your spine(or vertebrae) and your nerves. It is the communication center of your body. It is how your body communicates. If something disrupts the communication or flow of your brain sending messages to the rest of your body, either pain or sickness arises. So say you are in a car accident, the result is trauma to your spine, your vertebrae resulting in what is called a subluxation. If the trauma or subluxation is not taken care of pain and/or sickness will result. And it WILL be recurring. How do you take care of the subluxtions? Another great question! See a good chiropractor. Don't know of one? I know several great chiropractors. Please, please, please ask me. I want to see you healthy and functioning on an optimal level. Feel free to post a comment, call me, email me or talk to me about this subject. Until next time people.

I hate Michael!

2009-04-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

I hate Michael!

Who else is with me?

Yesterday I had the jerk stretch out my shoulder because it was hurting me, and he did a fantastic job of doing so, but in the process of him laying the smack down on me, he was telling me things that I shouldn't do so I wouldn’t irritate my shoulder.

I didn't ask him what I should or should not do for my shoulder. I just asked him to stretch me out since he's the master at that, so I kept telling him "I'm gonna keep doing the things that bother my shoulder and I will just have you fix it." He said okay and we did a few more stretches on it to take care what was ailing me. But he didn't even care that it was killing me! I mean that really hurt and I don't think he cared how much it was hurting me.

So who's with me? We can have buttons and T-shirts and who knows also what, who's with me?

Summer Vacation

2009-03-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have a busy summer planned, how about you?

Where do I start with my list of activities that I plan on doing?

Let's just start in the month of May. The family and I are going camping up north on the North Shore for a four-day weekend. This also generally starts when we can go mountain biking on the trails - yay! So I will be doing a lot of mountain biking come May. My Tuesday night bike ride will finally have started up by then. Every Tuesday night we do 34 miles up and down hills in about one hour and 45 minutes. This is also the month when I start riding a dirt bike and racing!

Then comes June. My wife is having a family reunion back home. The last one was about 10 years ago. The whole family I will be flying back home for that. And I will also be biking the MS 150 in June. I am also looking for a triathlon to do. I'll be dirt biking a weekend or two as well.

In July I planned a few mountain bike runs with my wife over at Lebanon hills and then, of course, eating afterwards - huge amounts of food! My buddies and I have planned a bike ride up to Duluth and back over the weekend - that should be fun.

August is the Turtle Man Triathlon, an annual event that I normally do with my buddies. I'll be heading down to Millville to watch the pro-dirt bikers ride around the track in the dirt and that is always a good time. My beautiful wife and I will be taken up for a weekend to go dirt biking ourselves as she needs an excuse to get out of the house so I thought that would be a good one.

In September I'll probably be doing the Stillwater Triathlon with more of my friends. October bring more camping up on the North Shore (man, it is beautiful up there.)

And all this in addition to constantly workout 4 to 5 times a week; yup, eating for me is never a problem, unless there is not enough to eat, then there’s a problem!
I still have a few weekends open if you have some good ideas make sure to let me know!

What do you have planned for the summer?

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

2009-01-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

Almost every morning I take my little doggie for a walk (Hershey is a 55 pound chocolate lab, 3½ years old).

It was 28 degrees below zero the other day. (Don't believe me? I snapped this picture of our thermometer!)

So, I got up and it's 28 degrees below zero and and I had the same thought that most of you guys did, “how many pairs of extra clothes and I going to have to put on to go on my walk today?”

That is your attitude, isn't it? It's not so much a question of bad weather as it is a statement of bad gear or having the wrong kind of gear for the type of weather; or simply put, it's not crappy weather - it's crappy gear!

So I threw on a turtle neck and my spyder turtleneck thing (not sure what they actually call it) and then my spyder coat. I threw on some long johns, some sweatpants and put on my spyder snow pants-zipped up my collar, threw on a face mask, put on a hat, snapped on my hood and me and my doggie went for our daily walk.

We had a great time! We only went for about a mile because I had to come back and get ready to go to work, but both of us would've loved to stay out little bit longer than just the 15-20 minutes that it was.

Yup, my kids and I have a saying. If it’s bad/crappy weather outside that goes like this -- "it looks pretty spydery outside today."

Gotta love Minnesota, eh?

Tomorrow morning, I'm gonna see if I can take a picture of Michael biking into work; it’s supposed to be even colder than it was this morning. Oh wait never mind, that guys biking into work at 530 in the morning -- yes I said biking. The main thing to remember here is: I can get a picture him biking back home, so I don't have to be there so early in the morning. Now that's good thinking! Am I smart or what!?

The Prescription Drug Antidote: Exercise

2008-12-18T12:54:00.001-08:00

So I was watching the today show the other day - or was it yesterday? Anyhoo, one of the topics of the day was about kids getting high off prescription drugs. These kids would get the prescription drugs from their parents or from the Internet (which is pretty easy to use, I guess). What shocked me the most is that the stats on how many of us Americans are on prescription drugs when the majority of ailments could be corrected with daily exercise and better eating.

Guys, come on here! Are you kidding me? I mean, are you kidding me?!?! Why would we pay through the nose for prescription pain meds and other prescriptions here and there when we can just exercise and get rid of the root of the problem. When we fix the core problem, we don't need medications for the symptoms anymore. As it turns out, we are not only hurting ourselves, but we're hurting our kids too!

These kids go into the parents' medicine cabinet and steal their pain pills or other prescription meds with the sole objective of getting high. They feel the need to be high just to cope with the stress of whatever they're going through and the easiest way to do that is to grab some prescription meds from the 'rents. The shocking part here is they know what to grab and what not to grab. Some of the meds were of no value to the kids because it could not get them high.

If these kids couldn't get what they wanted out of their parents' medicine chest, they went to the Internet. According to the teenagers interviewed, it is pretty easy to get meds over the Internet. Who knows where they come from. The kids don't care! The point is they were able to get them with their parents' credit card. We're not even going to talk about the invitation to credit card theft and identity theft! That, by itself, is an all too common problem.

We have a bunch of things wrong with this whole situation.

One: By becoming lazy and using prescription meds we are missing out on the health benefits of having a healthy body and a healthy mind.

Two: We are demonstrating the wrong lifestyle to our kid.

Three: Our kids now feel compelled to be on prescription drugs so they can “cope" with their problems and get by from day to day.

Four: Our kids are learning from us adults that exercising and proper eating just isn't that important because we can just get some pills for that.

So what do we learn from all this? (Besides making me hungry!) Llet's try to increase our daily exercise in our lives so we can become better people and set a better example for our kids. Its one thing to choose to screw up our lives, but let's not screw up our kids lives also. (I mean anymore than by just parenting them -- but that's a whole other issue there).

So how do we get more exercise in our lives? Wake up three minutes earlier in the morning and do it three minutes of cardio in the morning. Yes, just three minutes! What kind of cardio, you ask? Who cares. Just do something! It could consist of put on a pair shorts and walking down the stairs then back up the flight of stairs – Done. For some of you, that was your morning cardio. Depending on where you are physical fitness is, you might have to do less than that, or maybe more than that; but the important thing is just to do something, they key word here is, something.

It won't be long before you can start building on that! So this is how that works:

This week: walk up and down the stairs in the morning. Done.

Next week: walk up another set of stairs twice, and then consider yourself done.

Week #3: walk up and down the stairs 3 to 4 times for that week, then consider yourself done.

Can you see where I'm going with this? The main thing here is to build on our successes. Notice I didn't say get up in the morning jog 5 miles or else you can count it as cardio. I also did not say that if you don't do 20 minutes in the morning it doesn't come as cardio. I also did not say that your heart rate must be above a certain beat to come as cardio. The point here is to do something and then build upon that.

Well that was pretty easy! What's next? I think maybe next we should tackle the whole world peace or global warming issue myself!

My Fitness Assessment

2008-12-15T06:26:00.000-08:00

People are always asking me what I do on my fitness assessments. Or they want to know how well I do on them. Well, here are the results from my last fitness assessment on December 1st...

Now before I get into the results, let me tell you this. My weight fluctuates 15 to 20 pounds between the summer and winter months - as does my strength. In the wintertime I can build up my muscle and put on some weight by lifting heavy. In the summer months, though, I lose most of that because I do a lot of cardio - mostly riding my bike around. And my Tuesday night rides really burn a LOT of calories… I know, I know. None of you feel sorry for me. I get it!

But I get frustrated about my lack of progress just like you do -- though I choose my body's change. That means that I come to a fork in the road every spring and winter. Do I continue lifting heavy and try to gain more size in the springtime? Or do I just say, "Well that was fun but let's do more biking." knowing that I'll lose all the weight I gained before spring and my size and strength will all decrease. I'm okay with losing my strength and size each summer because I enjoy my bike rides and hanging out with a group of guys. So even though it's fun to be big and strong, it's also fun to bike fast. Enough babbling, let's get to it!

Keep in mind when you read this that this is very personal to me. The only person I'm trying to impress is myself. My only competition is with my old self. I get joy out of trying to beat my old records...

Okay enough stalling,

1. Body fat - comes in high at 13%. That is high for me. Normally in the summertime I am 9 to 10% -- once again I'm only in competition with me.

2. Blood pressure: 105/74. Again, a little high. Normally it's 105/60.

3. Resting heart rate: 56.

4. Treadmill speed was 4 miles an hour with a heart rate of 118. That wasn't good enough so I raised it to 4 1/2 mph and got a heart rate of 144 (that's a better test).

5. Curl ups for one minute: 95. (I think Shelley beat me with 100 something.)

6. Push-ups: 101 (No, Bob, I wasn't able do 100 straight. I had to take a break around 70.)

7. Leg press: 720 for six reps. (I got beat by a girl, namely Heidi who got over 900 before; so either one up her and get 1050-but that was last year-hey come on, I couldn't get beat by a girl in strength.)

8. Bench press: 205 for five (last year it was 235 for five)

9. Last but not least was my impressive sit and reach at 16.25. (Last time it was 21, but now that I'm a desk jockey most of the time, my flexibility is going downhill fast -- I'll tell you what, sitting behind a desk does your body no good -- that dumb, but in our world today it a necessity unfortunately.) I don't think if I stretch and stretch and stretch, I could push the bar all the way to the end of the box like Shannon did and it still complained that the thing doesn't go far enough. I'll shut up!

The only impressive body circumference measurement is my 11 1/2 inch pipes! Did you get your tickets to the gun show? My guess is the steroids I've been taken for the last five years haven't been working too well. :-( Or, as Michael would say, 'they're not working, you better get a refund.' LOL

So there you have it, my last fitness assessment done couple weeks ago. So what's next? Try to get stronger for no reason, (well other than the fact is just fun to be strong and challenge your old self) duh! That and put on some size so my wife will stop calling me skinny (I know, I know, you don't care or feel sorry for me -- but you asked!)

Now let's get out there and make ourselves feel even better than we did yesterday!

Spectacular Olympics

2008-08-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

My kids think I'm nuts for shouting at the TV, but the Olympics were spectacular again tonight!

Did you see Phelps win his match by .01?!?!

Holy cow that was a great race!

He tied Mark Spitz’s record of 7 gold medals! And he still has a few more races left. Amazing!!

7 Gold medals in one Olympics?! Only the second time in 112 years...

Talk about a great lesson on not giving up. It's not over until it's over! Had Phelps glided to the wall, like his competitor, he would have taken home the Silver medal and may have missed out on his dream of winning 8 Gold medals. But that little extra push at the end made all the difference.

And how about the sportsmanship of Dara Torres?

On the splash and dash (50m) she goes over to one of the judges to try and stall one the race so one of her competitors can change a torn bathing suit! In the Olympics! Unheard of!

Sportsmanship at its finest.

And then she goes on to beat everyone!

What do you think? Confidence, maturity or maybe a little bit if both?

Not bad for a 41 year old mom in the Olympics, eh?

How would you like to be competing in the Olympics representing your country? Think about all the great training that you would be doing - and the great shape you would be in!

The Olympics

2008-08-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

I hope you guys have been watching the Olympics!

Holy Moly, they have been fun to watch!

Swimming: yeah Phelps is fast, no shocker there; but did you hear how much that guys eats in a day?

8-10,000 calories a day! A day!

Did you see an ounce of fat on that guy? How about when his suit is dangerously low on his 6 pack abs?

On the one hand that is amazing! I came close to eating that years ago when I use to deliver furniture all day long for Slumberland. My partner John and I would start at 730 in the morning and work until the day was done. Some days that was 2:30,3 some days it was 10pm or even midnight.

What usually frustrated me was after we got done late, I would have to hurry off to the gym to go work out; but my gym closed at midnight! Damn it! That meant that some nights I couldn’t get a work out in or could only get a short one lasting 30 minutes before I had to head back home, slam a weight gainer shake (around 1,000 calories), and then get to bed fast because I had to be to work in a few hours to do it all over again. I always thought "today is going to be different; I am going to be done earlier so I can get to the gym and get a great workout in tonight!"

We would almost run up the 3 flights of stairs (if it was easy, they would have carried it themselves!) and then take every other step on the way down so we could get done faster! And we got paid by the hour!

To keep up my energy I was almost constantly eating; I would eat around 6,000 some calories a day. And I would have eaten a lot more if I could have had a bigger lunch box to bring with or more money in my wallet so I could have eaten more when the food runs out.

I actually like to eat. It made me feel good! But I eat to live, not live to eat! I had never thought much about how much I ate until I was in a nutrition class in college. We had to write down everything during the course of the day for 3 days and bring it to class. I didn't think it was a big deal.

I remember looking over at the sheet of the girl next to me. I told her that she was suppose to write everything down that she ate throughout the course of the day, not just her snacks. She looked at me and said that she was trying to lose weight! She was eating only around 1,000 calories - at the most! We went around the room and said what our daily 3 day average was; we got to me and I told them that mine was around 6-7,000 and let’s just say that I didn’t make any friends. So they told me laughingly that I must have made a mistake somewhere and to re-do it; what for? That is what I ate. If you don’t believe me, go ask my mom so she can show you the food bill. (Thank you, Mom, for not killing me!) After all I was a growing boy!

This exercise was a huge eye opener for me! People hated me for eating so much and drinking a weight gainer shake over a thousand calories right before bed so I could gain some weight (and not wake up in the middle of the night just because I was hungry-that’s a waste of time). What? I was just always hungry and could barely satisfy it and then an hour later I had to eat again or else I got really crabby for some reason; weird huh!

I could go on about the time I went skiing with Karen and Heidi at Sun Valley last year and had to eat all the time; but we can save that for another time. But for now, just know that I passed my metabolism down to my daughter Dani-ha ha kiddo!

So Anyhoo, I can sympathize with Phelps on the eating deal. Sometimes it not that much fun to always worry or wonder if you're really going to have enough food for you.

The point here is, just because you are trying to lose weight, doesn’t mean that you should starve calories from your body to try to lose it - trust me, not having enough calories in your body at the right time is no fun. You don’t have the energy to do the things that you want to do.

Now on the other hand, did you watch the women's volley ball matches?

USA was playing Belgium yesterday and my first reaction was – ok, my second reaction I can tell you about - the Belgium players needed to lose some weight! And I'm not talking just 5 or 10 pounds, but a bunch of weight! I don’t know, 30-40 pounds!

Isn’t that mean, you say? No! Did you see them?! They are in the Olympics after all! And they would have done a lot better if they were thinner!

Think about it - how much faster could you run and jump if you had 30 pounds missing from you? And if this is your sport and you are representing your country?! I mean, come on! Your expertise and skill and quality of your game would have to go up immensely if you were at the right weight, right?! Olympian mean anything to you!?!

Now, granted, there are some sports where it is advantageous to be heavier; got it. Sumo Wrestling, for example. But volleyball is not one of them! This is a sport where you have to jump and dive and quickly pop to your feet again so you can jump up and spike the ball!

Oh well, that just made it easier for us to win , since they didn’t have the athleticism or conditioning to keep up that pace.

How about you? Do you have the conditioning to keep up the pace for your life? In our own way, we're all Olympians at life. And the game is so much more enjoyable when we're fit!

Wow! What a ride!

2008-07-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

34 miles

1hr 48 minutes

Avg pace 20.0 mph

Slowest speed 11.6 mph

Top speed 36.8 mph

Calories burned 1398

Avg heart rate 152

Max heart rate 172

Temp 94 degrees

This was one of the hardest rides to date but we had to push harder to break into the 20’s for once!

My lungs were burning my legs were on fire and we decided to push harder to get the avg above 20! We are a demented bunch of masochists!

I can’t wait to do it again next week!!!

Being out of shape sucks!

2008-04-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog site… blah blah blah

Here we go:

Being out of shape sucks!

Yup, no doubt about it! Today I had to drop my truck to get the oil changed. Instead of waiting for them to do it, I dropped it off and decided to bike home, since I never get out on my trusty steed because I am too busy working (and not to the liking of my family or Bob L.) or I have other excuses if you want to hear them (sorry I type 12 wpm; I’m not going to list them all!)

So I biked back – only 6 miles – no biggie or so I thought; I had an almost straight on head wind of almost mach one or about 700 mph (if looking straight ahead was 12 o’clock and straight to your right is 3 o’clock) the wind was coming from 11 o’clock so I have to lean into the wind a lot to make sure that I wasn’t going to get blown off the road and into the ditch. The shoulder on the highway was only 1 foot wide, at the widest - not the smartest place to ride :-( So I am biking home realizing that I am not in the biking shape that I was when I left off last summer.

You see last summer I was doing our bike rides with my buddy Stormin, and we would bike in our group and we would bike on the same country route that took us 34 miles and depending on who was with us our average pace was between 19-20 mph and that took us about an hour and 45 minutes or so; and when you got done, you were tired, but it felt good though, it was a good tired!

Now back to today, this wind was kicking my butt! And when the cars went passed me I felt their wind and I had to use my balance to stay on the road (read: stronger abs are a bonus) I couldn’t wait to get to the side street where it was safer (for those of you that don’t know I live almost in the country - 2 miles north of me and you are in the “country”) so the only way out of this place was on the highway for a couple of miles :-(. I was thinking that I was in better shape than this because I still worked out 3-5 days a week (once again too many excuses to list) needless to say this was my wakeup call!

I finally made it home in about 25 minutes or so, pretty tired! Inside my ears were cold [it was only 49 degrees with a wind chill of about a ka-jillion below (yes I am a freeze baby)] and so were my finger tips. I was feeling miserable :-(. The best part of the ride was when I got to make a right hand turn on my street! Now pedaling like the wind was fun! I could go 17 or 18 mph was no big deal even while I was sitting up! That ride just plain ol’ sucked!

Hold on a minute; I need to go eat.

Ok, now where was I? Oh yea, my average speed was 13.4 mph for the ride; extremely slow for me, but I was pushing fairly hard to get home and get some work done so I didn’t have time to lolly-gag around (even though it was finally sunny outside and not snowing any more.) In the shower I was thinking about what I did wrong and this is what I came up with:

Not enough cardio during the off season (Can you ever do enough? Plus if I do too much, I am one of those people that you love to hate- I lose too much weight and get too skinny :-(; yea, I know, you don’t feel sorry for me-I’m used to it.)
I’m too busy working; putting my work first too often in front of a lot of other things :-(
I need to get in better shape fast
I can’t be the owner of a personal training studio and be this pathetic!
I need to start putting my workouts higher up the priority list and not make any excuses for “doing it later or even tomorrow.”
If I am going to be leading all of my bike rides, this summer, I’d better be the leader that I claim to be and the one that my clients can look up to.
Damn it, I’m not super human-just normal.
Sitting in this stupid chair ain’t doing me any good as I take it easy- that’s the dumbest thing in the world.
No good stories ever came from sitting on the couch all weekend long watching movies the entire time! (This has never been me) but I need to move it so I can get ready to create some good stories; because if you are not coming back with a good story, why go out at all right? Seriously, have you ever heard someone say that they had a great time all weekend long sitting on the couch with their buddies talking about how fast they were flipping through the channels, or that was a good save when they almost spilled their beer on the carpet after they had to go thru all the work of getting up to get it from the fridge risking their life as they had to navigate the clutter in the house? Or how about when you scream out loud “5 second rule” when the nacho’s hit the carpet when you fumbled the remote? Me neither.
Being the owner of my own business, I have a lot to do that needs to be done yesterday!
I could start up a pity party and we could sit around and complain to each other that it is a cold and cruel world out there and getting older is a part of life and I should just get use to it.
I could even be the president of that club! Especially since I get hurt a lot doing all the stuff that I enjoy (and boy do I have the hospital bills to prove it) and now I have to start all over again – feel bad for me please :-(
I could go on and on, but I won’t - you get the point.

The good news is that I do get to start all over again! And that is good news because I am still alive! (for those of you that don’t know, I am getting over a broken finger and just recently got the pins yanked out of my finger a few weeks ago so I was limited to what I could do and not do) but I choose to start all over again because I can! I don’t have to take it sitting down! I am going to start working out 6 days a week again because I can! And I enjoy the feeling I get from a good ass kicking when I am in shape! So if I have to go thru a little hell to get there, so be it! I can’t let Stormin get the upper leg on me for biking!

I got a framed picture from a couple of my clients for my 40th birthday that reads “life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside thoroughly used up, totally worn out and proclaiming , “Wow, what a ride!!!” Man I agree with that 100 percent! Give it your all! That way you never have to wonder “if I only” or “I wonder what I would have been like if I would have…” Do it and find ut!
Go out and create some good stories to tell me! Especially the ones that my mother would ask “What were you thinking?! Did that sound like a good idea to you!?!” to which my reply was normally “Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.” and my mother would only shake her head in disgust and disbelief - but she got used to it as I got older (thanks Mom! :-))

BTW, if your story starts off as “Scott, you are not going to believe this, this sounded like a good idea at the time” you are going to get my full attention! We can laugh about how stuck you got or how far you got thrown out or… because being an adrenaline junkie, I have probably done it myself or still want to try it (if my boss will let me off work to go play. Oh wait, that’s me.)

So how am I going to change from this healthy wakeup call? Start working out however small and inconvenient it is to my work schedule on a regular basis - I owe that to my friends & family and my beautiful wife; God has given me a wonderful life and I am not going to piss it away feeling sorry for myself (which I don’t) that I can’t do something.

Now that I said that, the hard part is applying it to reality; when am I going to do it today? Right now! I hear some 100 pound dumbbells calling my name! They are laughing at me, mocking, taunting and teasing me, calling me a little Sally! I gotta go and show them who is boss around here! After all, I’m not like Kevin (besides I need to keep up with my “little” brother!)