If you’ve been following the past few posts, you’ll know I’m in the middle of traveling and I’m taking more of a “blog” approach by posting more about me and my experience of eating and exercising on the road. Before I talk about Day 3, I have two requests:
a) if you are getting anything out of this, post some comments! If I don’t get any comments, I’ll have to assume nobody cares and I’ll drop this thread
b) don’t unsubscribe based on this series – I’m just testing to see if people are interested in this kind of thing
Now on to Day 3…
Day 3 Workout
At last, I had a really good workout. I found a “24 Hour Fitness” nearby and went there at 5 a.m.
Yes, I have made some negative comments about 24 Hr Fitness before, and they are all still true. Nobody had a training log. Lots of meatheads doing nothing but curls and bench press. People doing way too much talking and not enough lifting. Etc. etc.
However, it is still FAR better than the hotel gym.
I did an upper body workout – day 4 of my own 6x6x6 Routine but I had to make some substitutions and tweaks:
Looking to burn fat with weight training? Tired of typical routines?
Get my metabolic routine here: Fat Burn Furnace!
I know, I know. You’re sick of getting emails from me. But I promise this is worth it.
I haven’t edited this yet, but it’s just some basic ideas of how you can do a lower body strength workout in your hotel room.
When you are pressed for time, and have no access to a decent gym (like I mentioned earlier today), you can’t just give up and skip your workouts! Shifting a day or so is fine, but skipping a planned workout? No way!
So check out these two unedited videos. By unedited, I mean that there are errors/quirks. But still worth the 10 minutes to watch them. Let me know what you think, and if this series is useful, please forward them to friends.
Video 1: my fridge
Video 2: leg workout in hotel room
Thoughts?
Continue reading about On The Road – Day 2 – Hotel Room Workout Videos
Yesterday I talked about my travel day, in terms of eating and exercising. Now that I’m here for my first full day, how did I do?
Let’s start with the training, which was a fiasco. My diet fared better but I’ll talk about that second.
Day 2 Exercise
Where on earth are people’s heads? I continue to be astounded at how top rated hotels have such crummy gyms. I’m staying at Treasure Island, a huge hotel in Vegas (though not the most expensive) – I’m guessing 3000 people staying here. And (more…)
Long time readers of WorldFitnessNetwork.com know that I don’t really run this site like a “blog” – the layout looks like a blog, but I focus mostly on sharing articles.
In contrast, “blogs” are more traditionally about the person writing.
Well, regardless of the definition, I’m going to try something for the next several days and I hope you’ll gain something from it.
See, I’m traveling on business. Since I’m not on vacation, I’m sticking to my eating and workout plans.
But it’s hard.
And I think you’ll learn from it.
So I’m going to share each day what happened the day before, regarding eating and exercise. You’ll see that, like you, I’m not perfect. But I have a determination that I think you can borrow, plus some tips, that might help you the next time you are traveling.
If this doesn’t interest you, fine, you can skip these. But don’t unsubscribe! I’ve already got two great articles queued up for when I get back.
Day 1 – Exercise
Normally, yesterday would have been a “leg” day for me. (I’m using my own 6x6x6 Routine right now.)
I usually work out in the mornings, but I was traveling across country and had to leave early.
And I knew I’d be too wiped out at the end of the flights to do legs.
First key: be flexible.
So I simply shifted so that my travel day was a “rest and recovery” day and the next day would resume my workout – right where it left off. In other words, missing one day doesn’t mean you trash the whole week. Just because “Tuesday is my leg day” doesn’t mean I can’t shift.
That said, travel has a lot of walking (low intensity cardio). I try to avoid shuttles from parking garages and stuff, intentionally to get extra walking in. So I did do a lot of walking – I’m guessing a total of about 4 miles.
Day 1 – Eating
Eating on the road is sooooo tough. But you need to plan ahead. I packed a couple of “protein bars” which I usually avoid because they aren’t great for you. But they are better than greasy burgers and fries. Having these helped because I eat every 3 hours and one of my flights was 5 hrs. And the layover was only 45 minutes so I knew I couldn’t order a custom meal.
If you do get protein bars, make sure they use whey protein as the main ingredient. So many of them use soy protein, which is not good in large quantities for men. And some protein bars even have chocolate and/or sugars as the main ingredient. Watch what you buy!
I also stopped, on the way to the airport, and got a footlong chicken breast sub at Subway. I ordered all the veggies and had them scoop out some of the bread before preparing to reduce simple carbs (yes, even their “whole grain” is mostly simple carbs). No cheese, no dressing. This ended up lasting me for two meals (small meals, but still meals).
Now here’s one of the most important items: when I booked my hotel, I asked for a fridge to be added to my room. No charge (sometimes hotels charge). But this allowed for the second most important item:
On the drive from the airport, I stopped at a grocery store and bought healthy supplies, even things that needed to be refrigerated:
Are you trying to lose fat? Or to gain muscle?
That probably seems like a big question, huh? In fact, I get questions from readers all the time asking things like “what are the best guidelines for eating when you want to lose fat?” or “I’m trying to add a lot of muscle – how should I eat?”.
It seems that people consider these two goals to require vastly different strategies.
What I might have to say about this may surprise you:
It’s that the two plans are not so different as you might think.
In fact, whether you are trying to shed fat or gain muscle, your eating plan would be nearly identical!
The Similarities
In both cases you want to:
- eat frequent meals (every 2 to 3 hours or 5 to 8 meals a day)
- eat natural foods – plants or animals that are in a form close to how they occur naturally; a box of Fruit Loops obviously is as unnatural as Mark McGuire’s homerun record
- each day you want 30% to 40% of your calories to come from proteins, 30% to 60% to come from carbs, and 15% to 30% to come from fats; more carbs on workout days, less carbs on non-workout days
- eat protein with every meal
- eat a veggie or fruit with every meal
- eat breakfast!
- eat more carbs around your workouts, less other times of day
- eat protein around your workouts
- don’t eat high fats and high simple sugars in the same meal
Continue reading about Eating To Gain Muscle Or Lose Fat – It’s Almost The Same
About a week ago, I offered to our email subscribers an open Q&A session: “ask your questions and I’ll try to get them answered”. The asking is something we only offer the email list, but RSS subscribers can still see the answers. As usual we had tons of questions. I’m posting most of them here – the rest will await a future post. Note: Please read our disclaimers at the bottom of this page – what I write is for information purposes only and you should always seek professional, licensed advice before starting any exercise program. If you have more questions, send them through http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/contact/ . On to the Q&A!
1) Question – Tyson asks: “How about doing speed runs or short speed bursts 5 times a week? Do you think that would greatly encourage fat loss? Or should i stick to doing speed bursts 1-2 times a week for fat loss?“
Answer: My answer for the typical person is no more than two HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions a week. Note that I’m saying HIIT, not your typical interval training. I’m not sure which you mean when you say “speed runs”. HIIT is so intense that unless you are a pro athlete, you can’t last for more than about 10 minutes if you are doing it right. Tabata intervals are an example of HIIT (you go for 20 seconds AS INTENSELY AS YOU CAN – REALLY HARD, then take a 10 second break, then repeat, for a total of about 4 minutes). Most people can only do Tabata for about 4 or 5 minutes before feeling like vomiting. Myself included. I only do that once a week at most and only at certain points in the year.
Continue reading about Answers To Your Lean Muscle Questions – 4-21-09
A week ago, I offered to our subscribers an open Q&A session: “ask your questions and I’ll try to get them answered”. I’m happy to say we had ton’s of questions. I’m posting 11 of them here – the rest will await a future post. If you have more questions, send them through http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/contact/ On to the Q&A!
1) Question – John asks: “I am 5’5″ at 125 lbs. My body fat % is 10% and my goal is to increase my muscle mass by 10 lbs (especially pecs) and get ripped (for the abs). I do full body workout with weights 3x every (more…)
Continue reading about Answers To Your Lean Muscle Questions – 2-16-09
Researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts released results this month that might interest you. So let me see if I can walk you through their study. Bottom Line: Low carb diets, especially in the initial stages where they are basically “no carb” diets, end up starving your brain. So the key is you need some carbs, even in a low-carb diet. Here’s the explanation. The brain uses glucose (sugar) as it’s main fuel. Since (more…)
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