Category Archives: family fun

How’re those New Years resolutions going?  Still eating good?  Still hitting the gym?  It’s ok if you’re not…change is hard.  I know, I’ve tried and failed before.  They say abs are built 80% in the kitchen and 20% in the gym.  You also can’t out-exercise a bad diet.  So how do you maximize your chances of success in the kitchen?

Try prepping meals for the week.  It’s an old bodybuilder trick that’s getting more and more popular among Crossfit, weekend athletes and soccer moms.  You plan 3 meals a day for each person and do one or two cookups; one on Sunday and one on Wednesday or Thursday.  You end up with every meal being ready for you and minimizing the chances of takeout because you don’t feel like cooking.  Oh, and you control what you’re eating…portions, macronutrients, calories, whatever!

So how do you start?

You need 3 things.

1. One, 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper
2. Pen, pencil, marker, chicken blood or other writing instrument.
3. Recipes.

Grab that sheet of paper and fold it into quadrants (in half lengthwise and across)

Top Left:  Find 6 recipes.   Write the names and cookbooks/pages or YouTube links.  (I’m going to suggest Fit Couple Cooks to start.)

Top Right:  That’s your shopping list.  Put all the stuff you need to buy there.

Bottom Left: Make a grid:  Monday-Sunday, breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Check off each one you have planned.

Bottom Right:  Make notes there.  I usually put stuff like “Beef Satay and Chicken Nuggets are in containers.  Chipotle chicken and beef salad is ready to go (not in single serving containers) and Buffalo chicken and beef w/sweet potatoes is cut up and ready to cook on Wednesday.)

Congratulations!  You have a plan!!!!  You’re 50% there!

Now go shopping and get everything you need.   Come home, arrange it nicely and throw it up on Instagram!

Then get to work.  Cut up all your meat.  I grab my scale and measure out 4 portion batches.   Then I start any brown rice or quinoa while I start chopping my veggies.   It’s wasteful, but I find paper plate and bowls help out here.  I try to keep 2 things cooking at once.

2 hours later, I’m putting 8-16 fully cooked meals in single serving bowls or lumped into food containers.  A piece of blue painters tape on each tells me what it is, how many calories (since that’s what I’m counting.  You can do macros or whatever.) and all that’s left is the cleanup.  My meals are ready, portioned and my head is clear for other things.

As of this writing, I have every meal for my wife, kids and I planned for the week.  For Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we have 4 different lunches and dinners ready.  We tend to eat the same things for breakfast, so any pre-prep for that is done for the whole week.  I’ll cook the rest on Wednesday or Thursday…give us meals on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  I leave 3 meals out so we can have flexibility: yes we order pizza or make pancakes for breakfast.   Hey, we gotta live and it doesn’t make sense to obsess over this stuff.

If you want to give it a shot, I’ll link to the online recipes I’m using this week, below.

If you have any other recipes or ideas, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Good luck!!!!

Beef Satay (I subbed the beef for chicken and adjusted the calories

Kangaroo (I’m using cow…c’mon now.)

Chicken Nuggets

Buffalo Chicken

Beef with Sweet Potatoes

“Now a life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure
Don’t make much for tragedy
But it’s a sad man my friend who’s livin’ in his own skin
And can’t stand the company
Every fool’s got a reason for feelin’ sorry for himself
And turning his heart to stone
Tonight this fool’s halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell
And I feel like I’m comin’ home”

~Better Days by Bruce Springsteen.

Last week I attempted my first Spartan Beast and failed.  For reasons both within and without of my control I came up short, and I’m stuck with a sour taste in my mouth for the whole thing.  I’ll spare you the details, save for one important one:  technically I DNF’d (did not finish) because I didn’t reach the last checkpoint in time.   I had gas in the tank, so I know I would have finished if the clock had been on my side, or I’d been faster earlier on.

I was really angry.  I had the bumps, bruises, scrapes and aches that Finishers had.   I had no shirt or finisher medal…and no real chance at a Trifecta this year.   It was a helpless anger, that led me to a lot of thinking, reflecting and realizations I needed to come to.

For a long time now, Spartan Race was dictating my exercise, my goals, my fitness levels…and everything has been slipping.   I lost the joy in exercise!!!   I knew this last summer and thought I had time to get it back…I didn’t.  The race hanging over my head, a several hour event I was dreading, was an anchor; dragging me down and slowing my progress.

I don’t know that I’ll ever get a Spartan Trifecta.  I’m very, very okay with that,  I don’t want it bad enough.  Sour grapes?  Nope.  I wasn’t having fun in my last 2 races.  Seriously, I wanted them over before they began.   I was subjecting myself to this, and would continue to do so!   If I’d finished on Saturday, I’d have booked a back to back Super and Sprint in July, just so I’d have the trifecta and wouldn’t have to wait for September!  This stopped being about health, fitness and fun and became about 3 pie shaped pieces of metal!!!!!

And it’s over.  Ha, I un-liked Spartan Race and several related people and sites on Facebook.  Is this what breaking up is like now?   Didn’t have Facebook when I was dating.  

Haven’t figured out all my next steps.   Going to do some running because I used to enjoy that a lot.  Gonna throw around the heavy sandbag (which I got signed  by my friend Stephanie and the rest of Team Charleston Warriors!!!) and my goals will be 1: Do something about my midsection and, 2 have fun doing it.   In August I’ll be doing a Warrior Dash because they’re still fun for me. Till then,  I’m thinking of trying yoga, and getting back on the mountain bike.

I’m the one that DOESN’T look like a fitness guru.

“So Sean, why the song?”   I’m getting there.   I crapped out at mile 11 of a 15 mile mud run over obnoxiously hilly and rocky terrain.  I’m not one to undermine my troubles by thinking someone else has it worse.   But, in context, not many people would have bothered to do 11 miles last week.  I’m pretty lucky that here, at age 43 I have the health, time, money and sense of adventure to even try something like this.  Spartan didn’t give me those, I cultivated them.  Spartan was simply a way to express them….and now I want a different way to do that.

My good friend Ed ran a much earlier heat and texted me that night, the next day and several times since.  This level of athleticism comes easier for him and he struggled with the course.  (Edit: This is not to diminish his hard work and sacrifice to get to where he is.  In truth, I’m envious at times.)  Had I finished, my time would have been respectable compared to him, and I’ll take that as a small victory.  He’s going for the trifecta and I’m wishing him nothing but a great time doing so, and an amazing feeling when he crosses those finish lines.

I did the race my friend Cheryl as well.  She DNF’d as well and was my ride home, so we had 90 minutes to talk.   We really didn’t talk about the race.  She let me sulk and then we slipped back into the nonsense we joke about all the time; whatever guy she’s met online, some dumb thing we’d done in the past, or breaking into long winded diatribes on simple things.   By the time we got to my house, I was definitely better than when we left the mountain.

As I walked up the driveway and saw what my wife, Heidi, and daughters had done.   The front door was plastered with signs of encouragement.

This fool has every reason for feeling sorry for himself….but I just can’t.   I can’t call it unfinished business or a personal failure.  I took a shot, didn’t make it, and am opening new doors within myself because of it.   I don’t want to go back down the Spartan Path right now.   I started OCR for the excitement of something new and completely different.  That led me to running for fun for the first time in my life; even to doing a half-marathon!   Right now, I’m missing running for fun and lifting heavy weights because I feel like it.

The fun is just starting; I got some ideas, a sense of adventure and proof I can do some amazing things and most importantly, friends and family who care.   Let’s see where this takes me.

I’m one week into changing the way I live.  It’s going about as well as can be expected, and I’m pleased with that.

The good: I’m enjoying my workouts again and feeling really good.  Not doing the two-a-days yet, back to school week for the kids, new schedule; just have to figure it all out.  What I am doing it getting at least 30 minutes in each day, whether it’s T25, sandbag workouts or even a run.  I’m also free to experiment with my workouts; tie a rope to a bag and pull it across the yard.

The bad: Still having trouble with the knife and fork, but I’m working on it.  Ate well 5 days last week.  Saturday, Sunday and today…not really that well, but that’s in the past.   I’ll not going to realize all these changes overnight.

What is my eating plan?   I’ve had a lot of luck with simply counting calories, so I’m starting there: about 2200/day.  I’m looking to put on some muscle (arms, shoulders, back…things that will help with rope climbs, monkey bars, etc) so I should start looking at my protein intake.  I want to hit about 210 lbs… that’s 210 grams of protein each day as a target.  4 calories per gram; that’s 840 calories, subtracted from my 2200, leaving me with 1360 to split between carbs and fats.    I’m working on a 50/50 split there with an eye on healthy fats and complex, close to how nature made them, carbs. There are about 4 cals per carb and 9 per g of fat and that gives me a good idea of what I can eat at any given time.

Why this plan?   As I said, calorie counting has worked in the past.  Where it goes off the rails, for me, is carbs.   I can have 2 slices of whole wheat toast for 140 calories, or 3 slices of bacon for 90.   Duh!!!!    I make my tradeoffs; stir fry sauce instead of extra rice.  I can have pasta, but throw some chicken in.   I’m finding it more conducive to a life with 2 kids and a wife.   I can also track it on the MyFitnessPal app on my phone.

Just as I’m not going bust out 10 pullups next week, I’m not expecting to hit my diet goals every day.  If I can do Monday through Friday, and 2-3 meals on weekend, I’ll be happy.

Came up with my Spartan Test workout.   Feel free to share, adapt and adjust as need be.  I’m planning on increasing the run distances each workout (100 m, 250 m, 500m, etc) Let me know how you do.

I love working out at home.   Yes my treadmill is collecting dust, but running on a treadmill in a basement was one of the ‘Enhanced Interrogation” methods that Cheney agreed to remove from the list, lest it appear too inhumane.   My rings, bags and pullup bar get a TON (no weight jokes) of use.  I can adapt just about any crossfit-style workout I see online, or do some old fashioned strength training/bodybuilding stuff.

But the girls…   I love them.  I love spending time with them.   Nothing kills workout mojo like balancing #beastmode with #dadmode and 2 kids swinging from the rings.    I understand them, I do.  There’s stuff to jump from, swing on, do flips, handstands and more.  To me, the workout area is a place to forge myself.  To them, it’s an indoor jungle gym.

And that’s my problem.   I want to encourage them.  I want them to enjoy their time in the gym.  I want to plant healthy seeds that they’ll thank me for later in life.  I don’t want them to think it’s off limits or time there ends in getting yelled at.   But I’m struggling.

They’re good kids.   There have been times they’d do part of a workout with me.  They WANT to run and jump and swing and be active.  It really comes down to if I have the time and the workout that can be done with them.  If I say ‘No, Daddy has to do this by himself” they’ll listen, but I don’t want to discourage them.

Ideas anyone?

A few weeks ago, in this post, I discussed the hows and whys I work out at home.  I’m going to say right now:  I’ve never had George Lucas call me and say ‘Sean, come hang at the ranch for a week or two.”, nor has Tim Cook emailed me to say “Sean, I’d like to match your current salary +50% for 5 years, so you can focus on being an IOS developer.”  Bruce Springsteen has DEFINITELY never showed up at my house saying “heard you were a fan, mind if I crash on the couch for a few days?   Let’s throw a huge block party this weekend; I’ll play, and buy the beer.”  I doubt those things will ever happen.  (wink wink)

IT TOTALLY WORTH A SHOT!!!!!!!!

At the end of a chain of events I never saw coming, my lovely wife and I checked out a new Crossfit gym near our house.  We loved it.   That’s important…WE loved it.   With sandbags, I’ve been doing modified Crossfit for a few years.  I’ve read the pros and cons, winced at the meatheads on YouTube and the ones who can’t be EXTREME!!!! enough.  I’ve seen the average people make amazing changes.   I’ve always been open to it, but needed that push.  She gave me that push.

What did I see?    I saw a coach who walked us through each exercise and stressed form.   The workout was ‘Fran’, 21 reps of thrusters then ring rows (or pullups if you can do them), then 15 reps, then 9 reps….all for time.   I saw it modified in such a way that we both nailed the workout and we NEVER encouraged to take on more than we could.  In fact, it was suggested we do them with PVC pipe and not the barbells.   We decided to do the barbells.

I also saw a subtle psychological trick.  I do sandbag thrusters with an 80lb bag.  I had the 45 lb bar and looked for some 10 and 5 lb weights to put on it.   All I saw were ‘plates’, which I assumed were the standard 45lbs.   They weren’t!!  They were rubber, and some we 10 lbs.   They also had 15 lb bars that looks like 45 lb ones.   Once could grab 10’s and put them on the light bar and look like they’re lifting 135 lbs to an average gym goer.   It’s the illusion of putting up a lot of weight.   That’s powerful!!!!!   You walk into a gym, haven’t done the workouts; you’re nervous.   You don’t want to look like a newb.    If you’re putting up 35 or 55 lbs next to someone doing 135….and your bars look similar, you’re going to feel less self-conscious.

What didn’t I see?   The jacked up, over caffeinated, super shredded, ‘brah’s’.   I also didn’t see any 3/4 naked women with 2% bodyfat, parading and flexing.   I saw people that looked like us; hopeful, encouraged AND encouraging.  I didn’t see ANYONE push anyone to do more than they could do.  I didn’t see form sacrificed.   I didn’t see ANY unsafe activities.

Hey, I’ll be honest, I’ve been injured because of bad form.   I’m not going to encourage my wife to do ANYTHING that could hurt her.   If I see someone encouraging time or reps over good form, that’s it…done.

This is new territory for me.   I’m excited.   I’m doing this with my best friend; someone who’s going to inspire and motivate me.   We’re going to have something new in common, something new to talk about;  Changes we’re making together.

My training has taken a turn for the better.   There’s something new and exciting on the horizon.    I’m going to be tracking progress here.   If you’re curious about Crossfit, I promise to do my best to be an objective source.

And, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Cook and Mr. Springsteen, feel free to message me right here.