Tag Archives: health

Exercise

After six weeks on the RPM System

I’m overdue to give my six week re-assessment of the RPM System — two weeks late to be precise, since I started on May 18th. I’ve had good reasons: travel, and some heavy-duty work to get my wife’s raw food recipe book ready for the printers. (I handled the photography, the layout and the design.)

I also haven’t (and I’m ashamed to admit this) worked out for the past two weeks, for the very same reasons. So the photos and measurements you’ll see below really are taken after a two week “break” from the workouts, which involved prolonged sitting at my computer and at the wheel of our car.

In spite of the circumstances that came together to sabotage my workouts, progress was made. I’m happy about that.

Here’s what I look like now. Compare the difference between these photos and the initial ones (taken after a week on the system).

Here are my re-assessment results (power score and measurements). Compare them with the initial ones.

I was pleased to see a marked improvement in my power score, which is now 76, up from the initial 64. My guess is these are beginner gains, and subsequent power score improvements will be harder to achieve. Still, I’m happy and willing to put in the extra work.

The new numbers are:

  • 33 pushups
  • 50 band standing reverse flyes
  • 70 seconds for the modified abdominal plank
  • 180 seconds for the wall sit

There were some surprises when it came to the measurements:

  • Weight: 159.8 lbs, up by about 1½ pounds; my guess is the extra weight is from muscle mass, since I lost fat, as you’ll see below
  • Shoulders: 47.5″, up by ½ inch
  • Chest: 39″, up by 1 inch
  • Arms: 12″, down by 1 inch; this was an unpleasant surprise, but my guess is I had extra fat in the triceps area, which went away.
  • Abdomen: 32″, down by 1 inch
  • Hips: 36.25″, down by 1Âľ inches, which was definitely a surprise.
  • Thighs: 19.5″, up by ½ inch

I guess all that sitting on a chair not only atrophied my muscles, but put extra fat on my arms, around my abdomen (which I already knew of) and my hips, which I didn’t know about.

I’ve got another couple of confessions to make:

  • I missed about a week’s worth of workouts during the 6 weeks, again due to travel. I asked the folks at RPM what to do, and they advised me to do one extra workout per week until I caught back up. That’s excellent advice, so if you’re in the same boat, do that, it’s going to be worth it.
  • I haven’t done my aerobic workouts at all. I’ve been too busy. You know how they say you should do three of their workouts per week, and on your off days, do half an hour of your favorite aerobic activity? Well, I skipped out on that entirely. Shame on me.

Still, in spite of cutting all those corners and missing out on plenty of workouts, look at the progress I made! Can you imagine how much more dramatic my progress would have been if I had followed their recipe?

I think this is really good proof of the program’s potential. I missed workouts, played catch-up, took a two week break, and still I made out really nicely.

Don’t take that to mean I fudged on the actual workouts though! Every time I worked out, I did every exercise and every rep indicated. On some exercises, I even did extra reps. The way I see it, if I didn’t give 100% with every workout, I’d have cheated myself.

If you have any doubts about the RPM System and whether it can work for you, I don’t think you need to worry any more. Try it out, you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s only $10/month, and you get two weeks free with this code: 553677456.

I intend to keep going, and will post future updates about my progress.

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Exercise

The RPM System just got better!

As I mentioned in some of my recent posts, I recently (5/18) started on the RPM System, a new fitness regimen that you can do with only an exercise ball and an exercise band, and I love it. I recently passed my 6-week progress point, and I plan to post the results from that re-assessment this week.

There have been some changes in the works on the backend of the RPM System website, which have just been completed. As a result of those changes, many of which came about from feedback provided by early users of the system, like me, the RPM System is a lot more affordable and easy to understand now:

  • The cost has been reduced to $9.95/month, which makes it affordable for just about anybody. It’s now much, much lower than a gym membership, and since you can do it at home, you’ll be saving time and money.
  • Those using the system will have the opportunity to sign up their family members at $7.95/month, with a special code, which will make it easier and even more affordable to stay fit. You’ll be able to work out together and encourage each other.
  • It’s much easier now to get the equipment you need for the program. There’s a new Equipment tab on the site menu, where you can purchase the exercise band and the ball, plus the door wedge and the metronome, which are the two additional items I didn’t know about when I started the workouts. Fortunately, you can get all of this as a bundle from the Equipment page, so you’ll be able to get right to the workouts without missing a beat. As a matter of fact, the door wedge is included with every exercise band, right off the bat. And you no longer need to get a metronome, unless you want to. All of the exercises have been changed to the same beat. If you want to try different beats as you advance through the workouts, you can, by using a metronome, but it’s no longer a must-have piece of equipment.

I took a few screenshots of their website, to give you a sense of the changes. Here’s the page where they describe why you should use the program. The new price is clearly posted there.

And here’s the Equipment page. As you can see, things are nicely bundled and the prices are quite affordable.

One of the things I like about this fitness program is the fact they donate to charities. It’s nice when a company decides to do that, especially in these troubled economic times. The founders donate 10% of the corporate profits to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer foundation.

If you’d like to try the RPM System, you can get a 2-week free trial through this referral code: 553677456. The normal free trial is 1 week, but this way, you get to really use the system enough to see its true benefits to your body. I have, and I plan to keep using it for a long time.

As I mentioned in my very first post about the RPM System, I am using the system for free. When the founders asked me to review it, that was one of the benefits I got in exchange for putting in the time and effort of using the system enough to be able to speak cogently about it. But I wouldn’t have stuck with it for 6 long weeks if I didn’t love it, and I do. When I say you should give it a try if you’re not already exercising, I really mean it! You will see results!

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Reviews

Sea kelp noodles with almond and mustard seed sauce

Part of the fun of being the husband of a raw food chef is that I get to eat interesting things. For example, our lunch yesterday was this: sea kelp noodles, with a sauce made of almonds, mustard seeds and tomatoes, and with assorted sea vegetables and sliced tomatoes on the side. The taste might have been a bit exotic for some, but I assure you it was delicious, nutritious, and 100% raw, which meant that all of the original nutrients in the vegetables were left intact.

Now I feel bad that I didn’t take the plate into our studio and photograph it properly. I was hungry, so I snapped a few pics with my smartphone and dug in. Shame on me.

If you’d like to learn more about raw foods and you can read Romanian, my wife Ligia writes about the raw food diet on her website at ligiapop.com. She’s writing a book of raw food recipes (also in Romanian) and I’m photographing each of those recipes for her — much better than I photographed our lunch…

For those of you who don’t understand Romanian, don’t worry, there are a TON of resources in English on the internet. Just search for “raw food diet” or “raw food recipes” and you’ll see what I mean.

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Places

Larriland Farm, Maryland

Larriland Farm is a place where you can pick your own fruits and vegetables. It’s in Woodbine, Maryland, well into the countryside, so it’s a nice getaway from the city.

They use integrated pest management techniques to grow their crops, which means insecticides are only used as a last resort. This makes their fruits and vegies healthier than the stuff you generally find on supermarket shelves.

We went there to pick strawberries. That’s our MINI parked near the strawberry field.

If you’d rather not go out into the fields but would still like the benefit of farm-fresh produce, they do have ready-picked bushels available for you to buy. And they have a few goats for your kids to play with, too.

No self-respecting farm would do without a red barn, right?

I like farm machinery. Don’t you?

Continue reading →

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Thoughts

Stats about cigarette companies

The following infographic presents some interesting facts about big tobacco:

  • The largest US tobacco company, Philip Morris International, is the 94th most profitable company in the country.
  • The top three US tobacco companies made over $50 billion in revenues in 2009.
  • China is the largest cigarette producing country in the world. Tobacco companies from that country made over $443 billion dollars last year.
  • Federal tax on a cigarette pack has gone up from 5 cents in 2002 to $1.01 in 2009.
  • Many life insurance companies in America are major stakeholders in tobacco companies.

Cigarette Companies

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