Healthy Living

Big and Ripped Cycles

Recently I upgraded my workout and eating routines. Most of my research I pulled from websites of people who were very health conscious, and in great shape. Here is what I learned:

To get big, and ripped, (not too big, or dangerously ripped, I mean healthy) is a goal of a lot of people I know. But it isn't possible to get big and ripped at the same time, they need to be broken into cycles. To get big a muscle needs ample amounts of water, carbs, and protein surrounding it all the time. This means that during a big cycle one would be carrying a little bit extra on them, and eating and drinking a little bit extra. On the reverse, in order to get ripped, a muscle needs just less then enough so that it starts pulling from the bodies reserves, but not so little that it starts breaking down other muscles as fuel.

It isn't possible to have more than enough, and less than enough at the same time. Getting big and ripped is like walking: you take one step to get big, and one step to get ripped.

BIG CYCLE

TIME: 2-3 weeks

WORKOUT: Warm up your muscles by lifting some light weights. Lift the heaviest thing that you can lift four to six times. Take a little break. Now go back and do it again as much as you can. Take another break and then top off the workout by lifting what ever makes you feel good.

RECOVER: Only lift that muscle group once a week. It takes about a week for a muscle to fully recover. In the mean time eat a lot of healthy food and get about 8 hours of sleep a day. On the other days of the week work different muscle groups.

EAT: Eat enough that you feel like you have ample energy. You can eat whatever you want as long as it is in the right proportion. Cake? Sure, you can eat cake, but you will only eat about one slice of it per week to keep it in the correct proportion. Here are the foods that should take up most of your diet:

-Whole grain, Oats, Brown Rice, and Vegetables | Balanced with a little bit of meat or milk

-A fruit when you want some extra energy

Everything else should only be occasional, cakes and things are great for special occasions, but they do not build your body. BE CAREFUL: A lot of food companies sell foods and advertise them as everyday staples, but they aren't. White bread is a snack, not a staple. Fast foods, pizzas, these things are snack material.

Drink lots of water. For everything you eat, imagine that that food is broken up and needs to float somewhere. How much water are you going to have to drink to move that food around? Now drink that.

Ripped Cycle

TIME: 2-3 weeks

WORKOUT: Warm up your muscles by lifting some light weights. Take your heaviest weight that you can lift and cut it in half. Now lift that as many times as you can. Take a little break. Now go back and lift that same weight as fast as you can as many times as you can.

RECOVER: The same as before: Only lift that muscle group once a week. It takes about a week for a muscle to fully recover. In the mean time eat a lot of healthy food and get about 8 hours of sleep a day. On the other days of the week work different muscle groups.

EAT: Eat the same things as mentioned above, but slightly less food, and a little bit more water. Cold water burns calories because it cools your body down so your body has to work harder to maintain state. It also makes it easier for your body to break down its fat stores.

I encourage you to experiment with healthy living and this information, see what it can do for you!

0$ Chicken Coop

The 0$ Chicken Coop

Yesterday I met with a guy who sold a table saw to my roommate's brother. I was interested in his CNC machine, which he built himself. He lived several blocks from campus, in an area that was populated by small houses in regards to apartment complexes. The residents of these houses appeared to be graduates that had not yet married, but who hadn't continued on to grad school or left Provo in pursuit of work. Most of them appeared to be miniature Entrepreneurs, DIY's ( Do-it-yourself-'s) running out of home businesses from their small houses or barns turned into shops.

My contact also was running a business out of his barn shop. His barn was equipped with saws and routers and a brick kiln as well as his CNC machine. There were also several wooden electric guitar bodies scattered around which they had milled out with the CNC.

After asking a few questions about the machine another guy walked in and asked us if we could help him move his chicken coop. He needed several people to lift it so I offered to help as well.

We all hopped into the bed of his small red truck and drove to his house. In the back was his chicken coop with about 5 chickens living in it. He proceeded to hand us chickens and we would stick them in the coop. At one point of our moving preparations he looked at me and said, " This is a 0$ chicken coop! Made completely out of scrap material!"

We all grabbed corners of the coop and set it sideways on his truck, it didn't fit in the bed itself, and even sideways it left two of us standing on the tail gate which he left down, with the coop protruding about 2 1/2 feet out of both sides of the truck. The wait of the coop was so much that the back wheels looked like they were in danger, and that was before we hopped onto the gate.

We drove several blocks around Provo, finally deciding that the best place to put the coop was in front of my contacts house in a neighbors old garden. That's where I took the picture.

The difference..

I was intrigued by the ambition of these people. They were applying the value for value trade over and over again, and as a result were having a certain amount of success, but they definitely weren't the multi-millionaire that I had learned the principle from. What made the difference?

I believe the solution lies in their target market. To make a million dollars, you will either have to provide something that one million people will think is worth trading a dollar for, or that one person is willing to trade a million dollars for, or anything in between. The electric guitar market is completely saturated, even for custom guitars.

It intrigues me that the way then to make money is to find what people value and then to provide it to them. Or in other words, service.

Rocks and Waves

Service as a staple..

A couple months ago as I was going through some girl drama I realized that the particular girl I was interested in was acting very much like a wave. Sometimes she would show a lot of interest, and other times she would be very cold. Riding this wave made me sea-sick, and at one particular low I had a profound realization. Basing one's happiness on waves is a false happiness.

I went to my large whiteboard that I have in my kitchen and wrote down all of the waves in my life. This including money, power, popularity, and in that case, girls. ( which offended my roommate ) so for his sake and other's I write this disclaimer: the term girls represented my experience of basing happiness off of the conditional love that I was receiving from this girl. Girls are great! It's creating a need/dependent relationship on them that isn't healthy for either side..

Which brings me to my realization. I was basing my happiness on how this girl treated me, which was wave like, but how I treated her was in my control, which meant it could be constant, like a rock.

I decided then and there to base my happiness only on rocks. Constants. This does not mean that there isn't happiness in waves, honestly when you are on top it feels great! But the downside is that the wave will ultimately, at some point, fall.

When climbing rocks, on the other hand, the higher you get, the better the view. And the altitude you get you keep.

It's simply a matter of choosing which form of happiness one will pursue, one that rises but then disappears, or one that lasts. I prefer those that last.

Service

On the other side of my whiteboard I wrote down a list of constants. How I choose to act is something that I will always have control over, regardless of what opportunities are available to me. Since choosing to serve others brings me happiness, and increases how I value myself, I knew that it is something I could depend on, a staple for happiness.

Service for the sake of improving oneself, and not for the sake of recognition or compensation, can be quite an adjustment form the pursuit of momentary happiness that is obtained from waves. Waves and rocks are very different in nature, but after one has made the switch they quickly find out that it is a much more gratifying and lasting happiness.

Considering this, I invite you to serve others, not for the sake of how those you serve will react, but for how you will feel about yourself.

Faith

Faith and Hope..

I believe more people act by faith then they are inclined to believe. Actually, I believe when ever anybody acts at all, it is an act of faith.

For example:

If I see a cute girl, I might have hope that she might also be a nice girl! And so I would act and try to get to know her better. This action is called faith, because I do not know for sure whether or not the girl is nice, but I'm willing to find out.

I contrast faith with fear,

If I see a cute girl, I might have fear that she is a mean girl, which causes me to doubt any need to act, and I end up not doing anything.

-Hope leads to faith, which is when we do what ever we can to find out something we don't know. Hope leads us to act.

-Fear leads to doubt, which is when we resist exerting our own energy to find something out. Fear leads us to re-act, or be acted upon. We are literally saying to our environment, "provide me with enough reason to act."

The result of exercising faith is knowledge: by acting and talking to the cute girl, I have discovered, at least for that moment, whether the girl is nice or not.

People act by faith all the time. When ever they have enough hope that their reasons to act become greater than their reasons not to, they take a step into the dark to see what really is out there.

In my terms: "Faith is when we use our light to discover truth. Hope is our motivation for doing so,"

or as it says in scripture:

"therefore if ye have faith ye ^bhope for things which are ^cnot seen, which are true"

Milk Wins Again!

Milk Wins Again!

After discovering how great milk is, I began another study. Of all of the protein heavy foods that I knew of, which one provided the most amount of protein per dollar? My earlier studies showed that potatoes win the carb per dollar count, what about protein? Protein heavy foods tend to be more expensive, tuna, beef, meat, animal products have complete proteins but tend to cost several dollars/lb. After throwing the numbers into my google spreadsheet, the results came back. Lean ground beef was pretty high, with 42 grams of protein per dollar with tuna and eggs trailing not to far behind. Whey protein shake mix from the store offered an impressive 50 grams per dollar. I thought this would be hard to beat. Cottage cheese also contains whey protein, but is rather expensive, providing less than 20 grams per dollar. Then I calculated milk:

Milk: 77 grams of protein per dollar!

Milk wins again!

Milk Wins!

Milk Wins

I learned recently that the ideal ratio of carbs/protein/fat in the average person's daily diet is 50% carbs, 40% protein, and 10% fat. This brought new meaning to the term "balanced diet." This meant that if I was eating a carb heavy food (like oatmeal) then I would want to balance it out with a protein heavy food (like eggs.) All of a sudden traditional meals started to make more sense. Oatmeal and scrambled eggs for breakfast, tuna-fish sandwich for lunch, steak and potatoes for dinner, all of these are balanced. This made me curious though, is there a food out there that has a perfect ratio of carbs to protein and fat? After some calculations on my google docs spread sheet I was surprised that there was only one food that matched it perfectly... and the winner is!

Milk - In between 1% and skim is ideal: 50% carb/40%protein/10%fat.

This means you can drink milk and you don't have to eat anything else to balance it. Milk is a meal. Careful though how much you drink in one sitting, if you drink too much your stomach acids will curdle it, and that doesn't feel good. (I learned this the hard way :) )

The Value of Girls

Girls and Money

Girls should be fairly familiar with the value for value trade. Guys will spend a lot of value for something of equal value, and for them, that equal value is: finding a female companion, helpmeet, and mother of their children. Dating is worth it.

But note that I said finding and not necessarily securing, and dating and not necessarily marrying, even though those are end goals. I know some guys who will spend a lot of time preparing for a date, and then say "This better be worth it." What do these people mean? These people do not know what worth is! What is a companion/helpmeet/mother of your children worth? Think about it. Once you are married where will all your money go? Where will all your time go? An Eternal companion is worth all of your time, all of your money, and really everything of value with one exception (this is God, I will explain this in a different post.)

So if that is what an Eternal companion is worth, then what is a date, or a chance to get one step closer to this value of all values worth? Certainly it is worth 2 hours and a $10 meal.