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The 30 day Triceps Experiment Results

As a refresher, this is what I said I would do…

Here’s the rundown.

1. I will do 20 triceps lying presses (skull crushers) every day using a 15# dumbbell
2. I will do no more than 10 reps per set
3. I will perform 2 sets for each arm and alternate arms for each set
4. I will do this everyday for 30 days
5. I will not do any bicep specific exercises
6. I will continue doing other exercises like pull-ups, deadlifts,pushups and squats

OK, here’s what happened…

-At the end of the thirty days, did I lose any weight?

No, nope, negatory. But, on the bright side, I didn’t gain any weight either.

-Did my arms get any bigger?

Yes they did. I gained an eighth of an inch on both arms.

-Was it a complete waste of time?

Absolutely not. No experiment is ever a waste of time. For me, I found out that I could actually add an eighth of an inch to my arms by using only a fifteen pound dumbbell for 30 days. I also found out that even though my triceps always burned, I didn’t lose any weight.

I’m still curious as to why when I did the same experiment on my biceps I lost weight. Oh well (shrug). Maybe I’ll need to revisit that bicep experiment again one day.

And FYI, I’m already planning my next experiment… Kettlebell Swings. Stay tuned.

30 Day Triceps Experiment

Back in 2013, I performed a 30 day snatch experiment. In that experiment I promised to perform 20 snatches per day every day for a month (30 days) to see if I would lose any kind of weight. The reasoning was because I had lost weight on the previous 30 day biceps experiment by only adding bicep curls to my daily routine.

I lost a total of four pounds on the bicep curl experiment without even trying, but lost nothing on the snatch experiment. In that article I talked about “the burn” I got when performing bicep curls and still wonder if that’s why I lost weight. On the snatch experiment there was no burn to speak of, ever.

Why It’s Important To Check The Ingredients In Your Food

These days I find myself checking ingredients a lot more than I used to. I was on a mission in the supermarket, like I usually am when I need food, and made my way to the last aisle in search of milk, cheese and yogurt. The “normal” size of yogurt is too big for me to eat in one sitting, I’m not that big of a yogurt fan, so I was checking out some kid sized yogurts.

Now some of you might be asking yourselves, why don’t I just buy a large container of yogurt and scoop some into a small cup? My answer, longevity. I just can’t seem to keep the large tub from going bad. Smaller containers work best for me.

I stayed at a Hampton Inn hotel once and part of the breakfast buffet was a small sized Yoplait yogurt. The perfect size that I can’t seem to find in any of the markets by me. (sigh)

So as I was perusing the kids sized yogurts, one “natural” yogurt caught my eye. The container was the perfect size. The yogurt was strawberry flavored and I expected a natural yogurt to include strawberries in its list of ingredients. Wouldn’t you? To my surprise, strawberries were no where to be found on the list. Instead, it had natural flavors. I’ve read up on natural flavors and as far as I could interpret the info, almost any type of preservative can be added to that natural flavor and it can still fall under the umbrella of “natural flavors.”

So I passed on that brand. Things like that have made me much more skeptical about reading ingredients and to be much more mindful about what I’m eating.

So did I find a yogurt that day? Yes I did. I came across an organic yogurt. All the ingredients appeared ok and the sugar content was low, 12 g. I prefer the blueberry.

Mission accomplished.

How To Lose Weight By Eating What’s On Sale Results

I’ll keep this post short and to the point.

I gave this trial plenty of time to see if I would, or could, lose weight by buying what was on sale in my supermarket. Unfortunately I didn’t see any results by eating this way. I guess my sister has stumbled on what works for her.

So far for me, the best way of eating is covered in my guide, “Dieting Bites.”

It’s available for sale on Amazon and available for free as a thank you for signing up to my mailing list.

How To Lose Weight By Eating What’s On Sale

I was talking to my sister the other day about all the different types of diets that are out there and she had this to say: “When I want to lose weight, I just go on the ‘on sale diet.'”

Since I never heard of such a thing, I was intrigued. “What’s the on sale diet?” I asked.

She poured herself a cup of coffee, stirred in a teaspoon of sugar and sat down at the table. “I just buy what’s on sale.”

It didn’t make any sense to me. “What are you talking about?”

She rolled her eyes and continued. “When money’s tight, I go to the supermarket and I buy whatever’s on sale that week. If orange juice isn’t on sale. Then no O.J. for me.”

“And how does that make you lose weight?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know the science behind it. All I know is that I lose weight whenever I have to eat that way. I guess it’s because one: Maybe I eat less and two: I’m mixing up what I eat. Sometimes I end up eating sandwiches one week, while eating plenty of chicken for dinner, because it was ninety-nine cents a pound. Other weeks the ground beef is on sale and other times spaghetti, milk, cheese and yogurt are on sale.”

I began to see a pattern emerge. It seemed like she was eating a lot more of one type of food some weeks and then not having much of it on others.

So this week, she ate chicken every single day, but next week she didn’t have chicken at all, and ended up eating ground beef cooked in different ways. (burgers, meatloaf, or in spaghetti sauce)

I found this interesting because most people eat the same meals over and over again each week. When I went to the supermarket yesterday, I noticed it myself. My basket was pretty much full of the same exact things that I bought last week.

Chicken
Ground beef
Pepper steak
Tuna fish in the can
Cheddar cheese
Donuts (yum…)
Italian bread
Orange Juice
Yogurt

I had already stocked up on the fruit and frozen veggies so I didnt need those. I always buy those in bulk, especially if I find them for $0.99 per bag.

Comparing this to my sister’s on sale diet, I saw why she might lose weight when she went on it. And it wasn’t because she was eating less food. In fact, I think she was eating more food than I was. So why was she losing weight?

Drum roll please….

I believe it’s the variety and lack of variety all at the same time. This week she didn’t eat chicken, but then next week it went on sale and she bought a bunch. So something else got cut out of her diet until it went back on sale, or she got a craving for it.

It makes so much sense. Think about it, if we lived way back in the hunter-gatherer days, would we be able to eat the same exact things every week? Or all year long for that matter? Doubt it. We’re lucky nowadays to have all types of food readily available, but that might just be one of the reasons we gain and have such a hard time losing weight. Right?

I plan on trying this out myself on my trip to the market next week, just to see how it goes. I’m curious to see if simply going on the “on sale diet” and changing nothing else would make me drop pounds.

I’ll post my results from this next experiment in the coming weeks. I think I need to follow it at least for one month to gauge the results correctly.

Curious to find out what happens?

Do You Hate Vegetables? 3 Tips That Make Eating Vegetables Easier

Growing up I didn’t like vegetables. I couldn’t be forced to eat broccoli. I would even strip my burger of the lettuce and tomato that would come on top. Broccoli was a punishment if there ever was one. I rather be spanked or sent to my room with no television or video games than eat those stinking vegetables.

How I Apply Newton’s First Law To Exercise

Newton’s first law states: An object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest.

You know what I like about quick workouts like my 1 minute workouts? The fact that they are quick. In my mind I only need to do the workout for 1 minute. If I mix them up and stack them, maybe 10 minutes. This makes it easier to get moving.

When I think about the fact that I need to get up and exercise for 45 minutes to an hour, I really don’t want to. However, if I only need to get up for a few minutes, it’s a lot easier for me to get started. And there’s the kicker. If I don’t feel like doing any more then I stop, but here’s the kicker. Once I get started, I keep going– just like Newton stated.

I’ve had days when I don’t feel like working out and force myself to just do that 1 minute. And once I’m done with the minute, my heart rate is up, my joints are lubed up and I don’t want to stop. I want to keep moving. If I do keep moving, I don’t set any type of time target. Instead I keep going until I feel like stopping. Once, I even kept going for 1 hour without even realizing it. That type of thing usually only happens with some sort of strength workout since training for strength is more like intervals and the minutes tick by faster since there are resting periods built in between sets.

So in conclusion. sitting on the couch makes us want to keep sitting on the couch. But moving for just a small period of time might just make it easier to workout a little bit longer.

Strength Training Confusion

I’ve tried different reps and set schemes, but when it comes to strength training, I keep coming back to exercising frequently and performing low reps. I also remove any sort of cardio type activity from the strength workout; no heavy breathing for me.

So what do I mean by frequently? At least three times a week. And low reps? How about 3 reps. I also don’t go crazy heavy. My goal is to work out with a moderately heavy weight and stay fresh. I stay away from fatigue and exhaustion. This allows me to workout more often due to my muscles and central nervous system not being knocked into oblivion.

Read more >>>Strength Training Confusion

The 100 Pushup Challenge Results

So I did the 100 pushup challenge and I must say I didn’t like it. I know now why my nephew stopped doing it too- it’s hard. The three times a week required was way too much for me. At one point I even switched to an easier level in the table. The number of reps required caused me to feel sore after every workout and fatigued the next day.

Now-a-days, I believe that whatever I did today I should be able to do tomorrow and have done yesterday. I didn’t feel fully recovered at each workout and it hindered all my other exercises. Maybe if I did only pushups it would have been different, but for all my troubles I only increased twenty pushups.

So that’s a total of 55 pushups. I wasn’t happy with that number, especially when I know I can get there without all the fatigue and soreness, my way.

What’s my way? I like to perform high sets of low reps. Things like 10 sets of 10, or pyramids, or 20 sets of 5 with little rest between the sets and even static holds. All of these options work better for me and I can do them everyday if I wanted to, so that’s what I’ll stick to. It’s what works for me and plenty of others too. Just ask the military.

Are pushups a strength or an endurance exercise?

My answer to that is yes, depending on where you are on the pushup scale. On one end, there is strength and on the other there is endurance. Can you perform at least 20 pushups? If so, then you are working endurance, focusing more on mastering the weight than getting stronger.

Can you only perform 5 pushups total? Then the pushups are focusing more on creating strength. Personally I like to use pushups as a cardio exercise most days. How’s that you ask? Well, what is cardio really? I define cardio as high reps of an easier exercise- more or less. So if I can do lots of reps, then the exercise is cardio.

I discuss using four bodyweight exercises as a cardio workout in my bonus report: What’s a better way to do cardio?

This report is also included as a bonus in 1 Minute Cardio 2.0