Yesterday I was worried about my heart rate being too high, and in true extremist form, today (Friday, Dec 24) I had the complete opposite problem.

It happens to all of us. We come to the gym dressed and prepped then the unthinkable happens…

Some one is on YOUR machine!

Anyway, the softball team was working out this morning and I got stuck on the oldest and worst bike in the gym.

I was trying to maintain a healthy heart rate but that translates into a really unfulfilled workout. The heart rate range the machine says I should be in for weight loss makes me feel like I am not doing anything.

I don’t understand!

Moreover, today is Day 5 and I have not lost a single pound. However, I might have lost inches.

I will be working out twice today to make up for this setback.

200 measley callories burned in 20 minutes.

Workout 1 (6:30 am):

20 minutes on a stationary bike
Put the tension on 20 (the hardest setting)
and peddled slowly to keep my heart rate in the “fat burning” level.
This was not a challenge to me at all…

Workout 2 (3:30 pm):

20 minutes on elliptycal

10 to 18 in 2 step intervals.

Heart rate got up to 185 but it was normally around 170.

Burned 338 calories in 20 minutes!

This was a much better workout. Before starting at 10 and increasing 1 difficulty level per minute did not challenge me enough. But starting at 15 was too hard.

Starting at 10 and jumping 2 per minute to 18 is perfect.

Food:

Breakfast: oatmeal, table spoon of cinnamon and two table spoons of sugar
Snack 1: 2x carrot sticks
Lunch: Chipotle Burrito (PDF): tortilla, chicken, white rice, tomatoe, onion, green peppers, mild sauce (660 calories 14.5 grams of fat). Will not get a flour tortilla again! Alone it’s 290 calories and 9 grams of fat!!!
Snack 2: small dinner roll with half a tablespoon of jelly and two cups of applesauce
Dinner: Salad Bar, some pasta, light italian dressing

Note on Food: your body works like your bank account. The more money you have the more you feel comfortable spending. The more energy (healthy food) you eat the more your body will burn.

BUT! Deny it food and it’s like a recession. Your body will hoard the fat, slow down your metabolism and make your workouts useless!

I am going to kill myself if I am not careful!

My heart rate hit 185 today.
That seems dangerously over the 168 target 80% heart rate for a 25 year old.

However, I burned 376 calories!

Workout:

7 minute warm up at an easy level 5.
23 minute workout:
Level 10 to 17 ramp up (8 minutes)
Level 10 to 15 ramp up (6 minutes)
Level 10 to 18 ramp up (9 minutes)
3 cool off at level 1, no resistance.

Food:

Breakfast: cheese stick, jelly roll, oatmeal, milk
Snack 1: Nothing, forgot. I need a calendar reminder or something
Lunch: Wendy’s grilled chicken sandwich (310 cal. and 7 grams fat)
Snack 2: 1x Carrot stick, Kudos bar
Dinner: Subway foot long Black Forrest Ham (6 grams of fat)

All in all, Thursday, Day 4, was a great day.

I ate really good, and my workout felt awesome.
This might have been the best workout I’ve ever had before.

Wednesday, Dec 2nd. Day 3. Whew!

It’s 7:00 AM and time to AVOID the doughnuts!

Monday I worked out over lunch.
Tuesday my wife and I worked out after dinner. I hate working out AFTER I eat.
Today, wednesday, I worked out in the morning, by far my favorite time to do so!

Workout:

Back to the elliptical after the bike yesterday. Body for Life ramps starting at 7 and going to 11 for the first set. The following 3 sets were 10 to 15 and a 2 minute cool down after my heart rate hit 180!

Burned 335 calories!

That scared me quite a bit since the highest I have hit before is 165. The target heart rate chart for a 25 year old at 80% is 168.

Breakfast time! I am starving!

Food:

Breakfast: Conglomeration bread (bread, raisins, brown sugar), a piece about the size of my fist. (8:00 am)
Snack 1: 2x Carrot Sticks (9:30 am)
Lunch: Turkey sandwich, whole grain white bread, mustard, pickles & apple sauce (not on the sandwich).
Indulgence: 20oz hot chocolate. (Not too bad, but full of sugar)
Snack 2: Forgot to eat
Dinner: Taco Bell 9 gram of fat menu.

It felt great to exercise yesterday!

The first day always seems to be the hardest, then those wonderful endorphins kick in and you just want to keep doing it.

Food:

Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs & a jello pudding pack
Snack 1: Nothing (I’ve got to figure something out for snacks)
Lunch: Mexican, chicken enchilada, rice & beans, very few chips with salsa and a few dips of cheese sauce.
Snack 2: Nothing
Dinner: Turkey sandwich, on whole grain white bread, one slice of american cheese (the last chease I am eating before Florida), lettuce, pickles, light mayo (no more), mustard, and a full can of lima beans.

Snack Note: for anyone that doesn’t already know. Eating 5 times per day is ideal. But eating smaller portions is key to burning fat and keeping it off. Your body’s metabolism will shut down if you do not eat. The smaller and healthier the meal, the better. Eating with increased frequency also prevents your body from ever having that hungry feeling which makes it think it’s starving and it quickly switches into survival mode where it stores fat, slows down the energy burning metabolism, and makes you retain weight.

Eat Light, and Eat Often!

My wife helped me last night. Instead of eating more Thanksgiving left overs, I instead made a gigantic turkey salad, with spinach leaves, carrot shavings, and fat free ranch.

Workout: Stationary Bicycle

A friend of mine last night told me instead of trying the Body for Life ramp up and down like I did yesterday, to try sprints.

I told her I would alternate between the elliptical using Body for Life and a bike doing sprints to see the difference.

The sprints lasted for 7 minutes. My heart rate peaked at 165 and I didn’t like the workout.

I went back to the Body for Life method on the stationary bike. Worked out for 29 minutes and burned over 400 calories!

I really pushed myself to my limit. This was one of the best workouts I’ve ever had.

Today is Monday, November 30th, 2009.

Weighing in at 225 Pounds, gives me 15 pounds to lose by December 23rd, 2009 which is only 22 days away.

Why December 23rd?

Because that is the day my wife, two friends, and I leave for a week long vacation in Florida.

The last time we visited Florida I was 213 and felt pretty good.

Here, I will catalog my workouts and my food intake.

Food:

Breakfast: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich on White Bread
Snack 1: Nothing
Lunch: Turkey, Stuffing, Noodles, Broccoli & Cheese, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy (small portions, thanksgiving leftovers)
Snack 2: Nothing
Dinner: Same as Lunch Turkey Salad (see Day 2)

Workout: Elliptical Body for Life Ramp Up/Down

23 minutes on the elliptical
Started at level 5
Raised 1 level every 1 minute
After 5 level raises decreased back to level 5
After 5 more minutes and 5 level raises to 10, next 5 minutes went up to 15
Down to 10
Up to 15 again
Down to 10 and back up to 15 to finish

This was my start. It felt really good to be working out again. Here is to hoping to see 210!

Yet another reason I want to home school my children.
I have been screaming the school system is almost useless since I reached the high school level.
Just like having a 3 month summer off, because the male children were needed for the harvest,
the industrial age education is dead and gone.

Best quote from the talk: “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.” – Ken Robinson

This month has been super exciting looking into Google’s operation. InformationWeek has covered several articles showing Google’s effort to become more transparent.

By far one of the coolest videos to hit YouTube (which Google owns) was their walkthrough of one ultra efficient Google data center. Never have I seen anything like it. Shipping containers holding servers? Who would have thought? Google, that’s who. Watch the video at the bottom of this post.

Today Google shocked me again with the patent they filed for floating data centers. InformationWeek broke this story too.

Google on Thursday was granted a patent for its floating data center design, an idea that the company filed to protect on Feb. 26, 2007.

The patent describes techniques for designing a data center located on a ship, platform, or on shore that use the tidal motion of the sea to generate electricity and seawater for equipment cooling.

Google is considering floating data centers because of the practical problems it faces in trying to locate data centers on coastal land, where real estate is typically expensive and where inexpensive electricity and high-bandwidth connections may not be available. A floating data center would also presumably enjoy freedom from property taxes.

One word describes this idea, Awesome.

A Wired areticle this month really got my heckles raised talking about Engineered Obsolescence in America’s Technology. A book they mention in the article is a must read, Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

Design Products Woot Style

An idea I’ve had for a very long time would be a business that specifically designs products Woot.com style. Start with just one product, say a blender and engineer it to last forever, then sell just that product until it takes off and makes the company financially stable enough to continue.

Simple Tech that Lasts Forever

Yes, you read that right, use modern technology and the art of simplicity to design a device that will literally run forever. Sure, dropping it, or running gravel through the machine would tear it up, maybe, but under normal wear and tear it should not stop in our lifetime.

Break it, and Buy it. Buy it, and it will Break!

Businesses figured out that by engineering products to break, they guaranteed themselves repeat business and product turnover. This new company, lets call it Forever Inc. would have no such compulsions. Before the Forever Blender sales started to decline they would begin engineering their next Forever product, like a Forever Toaster, Forever Lawnmower, or Forever Coffee Pot.

Forever Inc. is working for you.

The idea behind Forever Inc. is that they plan to kill each market they enter. Sales of the Forever Blender, and proceeding products, would spike as people realized they would last forever, then after “every household” had a Forever Blender, sales would decrease. But who cares? At this point the founders of the company, their employees and shareholders would all be very wealthy, America would have a phenomenal product, Forever.

Keep the Forever products coming… Forever!

As Forever Blender sales tapered off, Forever Inc. would release their next Forever product. The Blender sales would continue for some time afterward, even if not at the same level.

Companies around the would would hate this company and strive to see them destroyed, but with the power of crowd sourcing and the grass roots power of the internet behind Forever Inc. the people would prop them up, defending this benevolent company that finally gave them what they wanted, a product Engineered to Last Forever!

Use My Idea and start Forever Inc.

ForeverInc.com and ForeverProducts.com is already taken, but that should not stop you from starting this company. As I explained in this is an Idea Blog and I would love to see people use my ideas.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Lifehacker.com pointed to a blog I had not encountered before today, Divine Caroline.com. They had a phenomenal post detailing 18 Uses for Vodka.

Personally, I loathe alcohol, abhor it’s use internally, but these 18 points are all great when a cheap bottle costs less than $10 and the uses detailed cover hundreds of dollars worth of other products.

Here are a few of the 18 points I pulled out. Number Seven is the funniest.

2. To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, fill a trigger-spray bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, let set five minutes and wash clean. The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.

3. Clean jewelry. Soak the jewelry in vodka for five minutes, then rinse, and dry.

5. Remove the glue left behind by a bumper sticker. Rub the glue with a soft, clean cloth soaked with vodka

6. Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.

7. Spray vodka on vomit stains, scrub with a brush, then blot dry. ( I left this one in because it’s ironic. Drink the Vodka, then clean up your vomit with it! )

8. Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face as an astringent to cleanse the skin and tighten pores.

9. Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol cleanses the scalp, removes toxins from hair, and stimulates the growth of healthy hair.

10. Fill a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle and spray bees or wasps to kill them.

14. To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.

16. Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the urushiol oil from your skin.

The subject of today’s post is a derivative of a Mao Tse-Tung quote, or Mao Zedong, the famous Chinese Communist leader, in his Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, or as it was known in the west, The Little Red Book.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Mao Tse-Tung

DownsizeDC.org, an organization I recently joined posted a great article showing the very real different between Voluntary Cooperation and Government Violence.

Privatization is the only way.

As a staunch minimalist and a devout capitalist, DownsizeDC’s post rings deep within me. The government has shown time and time again they are completely incapable of being fiscally responsible and they have no business being involved in business ventures.

If not for the threat of government violence — of arrest, incarceration, and the loss of all your property — how would you choose to spend your money. Would you rather . . .

• Give money to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or Habitat for Humanity?
• Contribute to government foreign aid projects, or Doctors Without Borders?
• Rely on the FDA for safe food and drugs, or the Underwriter’s Laboratory?
• Deliver your mail through the post office, or Fed Ex and UPS?
• Contribute money directly to research clinics, or filter it through the National Institutes of Health?
• Receive treatment in a V.A. Hospital, or a private one?
• Give 15% of your income to Social Security, or use that money to buy annuities from a diverse portfolio of insurance companies?
• Continue paying taxes to a ponzi-scheme Medicare program that must eventually cut benefits and ration your health care, or pile-up those funds in a tax-free, interest bearing Health Savings Account?
• Contribute money to local charities to change and improve the lives of the poor, or to a food stamp program that merely maintains people in their poverty?

Now, I don’t want to go into to much detail, but please read the article, and join DownsizeDC if you agree.