8 things about getting fit

At the start of this year I made a resolution to get into better shape. At that point I felt I was in decent shape, and I was exercising on a regular basis. What I did not know was how much fitter I actually could be. Near the end of January I found this helpful IPhone app called Lose It, and decided to put it to the test. Using the apps calorie counting features I was able to see how unhealthy my eating habits were and begin making serious headway towards my goals. I started the program weighing in at a healthy 208 pounds and now I am down to 188 pounds. Losing the weight has been an interesting learning experience. I have found out a wealth of information about what to eat, what not to eat, and also I learned a lot about myself. Instead of going into a lengthy description of all of my findings I have decided to just list some of the most poignant things I have learned.

1. Losing weight actually isn’t that hard. The struggle seems to be half mental and half physical. With the right motivation and determination, you will be surprised at the ease of which you can lose weight.

2. Losing weight is actually terribly difficult. Old habits die hard and temptation is a constant antagonist. Sometimes to allure and instant satisfaction of that sugary snack or piece of candy is simply too hard to resist. I personally love bread, sweets and salty snacks, all of which car ruin a day’s calorie count if not carefully monitored.

3. Counting Calories is the best method I have found. Increasing exercise is very useful in losing weight, but the biggest results are seen when control what you eat. Counting calories allows you to enjoy the foods you love but it also lets you know what the consequences are. Want to have a beer with dinner? Go right ahead, but don’t forget that it is adding an additional 150 calories to your meal. When you actually take a hard look at what you consume you will be amazed how easy it can be to change your eating habits.

4. Water, water and water. I have become a believer in the usefulness and power of water. Most Americans simply aren’t getting enough and it can have an impact on your efforts to get into shape. By increasing your water intake, you will find that you won’t be as hungry as often, and your body will retain less water, so you will weigh less. The easiest way to increase your water intake is to get a bottle which you can refill, and pledge to refill it several times each day. I personally use a nice 26 ounce bottle and it gets emptied and refilled at least 5 times every day. Sounds daunting, but it is actually very easy.

5. Sodium is terrible for you. Sodium is something which I find a lot of people tend to overlook when they pick out foods. Most processed foods, fast foods, or canned foods contain a large amount of sodium which most people don’t even give a second glance. Beyond the obvious health effects of sodium such as high blood pressure, it can also cause your body to retain water, which will increase the number when you step on the scales.

6. Being fit is very satisfying. The great thing about working out more and controlling your diet is that if you stick with it and don’t cut corners you can meet a lot of your own personal health goals. Over these few months I have found that I can now run much farther than I could before, and lift more weight.

7. Avoid fast food like the plague. Although it may be fast and easy the amount of sodium, saturated fat, and calories make choosing fast food a bad choice. If you have to eat fast food take a good look at the nutrition facts of what is on the menu so you can make informed choices. A grilled chicken sandwich may seem like a healthy alternative but once you look at the numbers you may find it to be just as bad as the burgers. My personal favorite if I do eat out is KFC’s 395 calorie meal, which includes two pieces of their grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. Pair that with a diet soda, and you have yourself a decent meal.

8. Losing weight and counting calories will make you annoying. Counting calories by its nature is a very obsessive practice and it is far from masculine. Despite the drawbacks the benefits are well worth it.

So tell me, what sort of weight loss tips and tricks do you all have?

Winter Olympics

As most of you all have probably noticed the Winter Olympics are underway and I must say that it is really worth watching. What I love about the Olympics is through the power of national pride, I can be bothered to watch weird and unusual sports. If it wasn’t for my love of seeing America take home gold medals could I sit through a “sport” which resembles shuffleboard with brooms. No amount of national pride however can get me to tolerate or much less enjoy figure skating. Any sport where the men prance about in spandex, with frills and sparkles on their face simply should not exist. Outside of figure skating, let me tell you about the sports I have been finding most interesting.

Down Hill Skiing- I don’t know what it is about this sport but I can’t get enough of it. Perhaps the extremely high speeds paired with a difficult downhill course just make the level of excitement too high to ignore. Watching these brave athletes navigate the course truly puts me in mind of watching rally racing, which is always a good thing.

Bobsleigh- C’mon, who didn’t watch Cool Running’s as a kid and not fall in love with the sport of bobsleigh? Although Jamaica is not in the competition this year, it is still amazing to watch. Bobsleigh also ranks very highly on my list of sports I would like to try but will probably never will. Much like downhill skiing bobsleigh greatly resembles motor racing so it instantly gets the nod from me.

Speed Skating- Once again this is another sport which greatly resembles a motor racing in one form or another. What also makes speed skating great is that the racers aren’t afraid to get up close and personal with each other. The occasional push and shove among the competitors is always fun to watch and lets you know that the contestants are giving it all they got. On top of all that it is great to pull for American Shani Davis, because honestly there aren’t enough black people in the winter games.

Snowboarding- I suppose my interest in this sport ties into my fascination with skateboarding and other “extreme” sports. The tricks and maneuvers the competitors can achieve are mind blowing and are super entertaining to watch. My only gripe about the snowboarding competition is that they don’t have enough events; I could watch this stuff non-stop.

So now that I have said my favorites please let me know what sports you all are watching!

Redemption

I sat in my room waiting to hear a decision. The last three months had been spent working hard and studying to prepare myself for when it mattered. At that moment I realized that a good portion of my future rested in the balance and if I failed to get the nod I would be back to the drawing board and have no idea what to do. I heard from downstairs my Father answer his phone and listen to the voice on the other line. My pulse quickens, my thoughts start racing, and I realize that this is it. He thanks the lady on the phone and ends the call. By this point I was downstairs and standing next to him. He does not even have to utter a word for me to know what happened. I didn’t get the job, and I was back to square one.

That was where things were for me around the first week of August. After three months of interviews and studying I thought I had a dream job lined up. A job which I thought I was perfectly cut out for, a sales position at a fairly large company in the Midwest. The position was great, six months of training and the company covered all of my living cost, after that I would be shipped out to a territory where I would begin my career as a salesman. If all had gone according to plan I would be house shopping and trying to figure out what sort of car I want to buy. Things simply didn’t pan out however and I did not get the job. I was left in a spot that so many of my peers were in, I was out of luck and there really was not much I could do about it.

After putting in four years of hard work at my undergraduate institution there was always a sense that you would be rewarded. From a young age I was told that the key to getting a good job was going to college. For the first 2.5 years of my college career that seemed like that would hold true. Unfortunately the biggest economic downturn just happened to occur right around the time I was due for graduation. Fingers crossed I still pushed forward with the hopes of landing a good job. I was determined to make sure that all of my hard work was not going to be for granted and I would not have to move back home for an extended period of time. Despite my best efforts I could not find a job and I ended up back home. Even with this setback I continued to keep my spirits up and determination keen. After failing to land the sales job I had been working towards reality truly began to dawn on me: I might be screwed. As pessimistic as it sounds it was around that point that I realized that I may not be finding a job for quite some time. Mind you this realization didn’t slow down the rate at which I was tossing out resumes and applications and hoping that something will stick, but it was always in the back of my head.

By mid September I still had nothing to show for my efforts. After one fruitless interview my mother mentioned that perhaps I could make a good lawyer. The legal profession is one I had never considered but I figured given my interest in technology and videogames, Intellectual Property law could be a good path for me. Knowing nothing of what it took to get into law school I went to UT’s law school and sought out more information. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me, as I had to prepare for the LSAT, get letters of recommendation and fill out applications, and best it was early October and law schools had been accepting applications for nearly two weeks. Knowing this I buckled down and studied and prepared myself for the what would be arguably the most important test I would take in a long time. The work itself was fairly dull but I did find satisfaction in knowing that all of this was up to me. Unlike applying for college there was no mom or dad to tell me when it was time to study or to pay for SAT classes , getting into law school would be from the sweat of my brow.

January eventually rolled around, and after three months of studying, test taking, and application filling I found myself in the same spot I was in this summer, waiting to hear back. Numerous failings in the job market had reigned in any optimism I had for my chances of getting in. My thought process was: “I gave it my all but don’t be too surprised if I don’t get in.” Although this mindset may seem awful pessimistic, and depressing it was necessary as I could not let myself get my hopes up as I had six months ago. Even with my mindset I still knew I would be terribly depressed if I did not get into any of the schools I had applied to.

So there I sat in my car, it was February 9th. After over a month of habitually checking the status of my application, I felt that a decision was near. Just a day before I had received a letter from the University of Cincinnati that I had been waitlisted, so I feared that I may suffer the same outcome at the University of Tennessee. I had been keeping tabs on what other applicants had been hearing via a forum for law school hopefuls. All indications told me that if I get a phone call from the university today it would be news that I had been accepted, if there was no phone call I could pretty much expect a thin letter in my mailbox later that week. I had a dentist appointment to go to, so reluctantly I placed my phone on silent and tried to push my nervousness out of thought. On a whim I checked my phone to see if I had missed any calls, the phone showed on the screen: 1 missed call, 1 new voicemail. My heart began racing as I listened to the message and heard the voice tell me that I was to call the UT admissions office at once. At that moment I nearly began crying, as I felt all of my hard work was about to repaid with one quick phone call. I dialed the number and spoke to the admissions staff member, and heard the greatest word I had heard since graduation: Congratulations.

Thanks to the Bruhs and all my friends for their help and encouragement through all of this. Although the work I put towards making this happen came from my own desires and drive, I always felt like I had a strong group of people behind me, cheering me on.

What to watch: Formula 1

With the Colts only a handful of days away from lifting the Vince Lombardi trophy triumphantly over their heads we begin to enter a sad period of time for many people. After 20 weekends of exciting football action the drought begins as we wait with great anticipation for the season to begin again. One question is what sports should one watch to fill the void that football has left behind? Basketball seems like a great option and baseball will be starting up as well. Instead of looking towards conventional sports this offseason I invite you to look at the wonderful world of Formula 1 (also known as Grand Prix) racing.

Formula 1 is worth watching simply because it is the culmination of the best of the best. Grand Prix racing drivers are well paid athletes who command some of the highest salaries in the sports world. It is also worth noting that these drivers are actual athletes and are in top physical condition so that they can cope with the extreme cornering and braking forces the cars are capable of producing.

The cars themselves are the most advanced racing machines on the road today. Most teams in Formula 1 spend well over 100 million dollars over the course of a season and some teams spend more than four times that. Every aspect of the cars represents the absolute pinnacle of technology.

Finally there are the tracks. Traveling across the globe to some of the most challenging and prestigious tracks in the world F1 is not left wanting for great venues. Places like Melbourne, Suzuka and Monaco sound a lot nicer than the NASCAR venues such as Darlington and Talladega.

Now that I have told you why you need to watch Formula 1, let me tell you who you should watch. The upcoming 2010 season has a lot of great story lines to watch out for and they should provide some great drama as they develop. In my eyes the biggest story for this season is what is going on at my favorite team, McLaren Mercedes. McLaren is one of the most successful teams in Formula 1 and they have assembled a great pair of drivers for this season. Their newest driver is none other Jenson Button of Britain who led the Brawn Grand Prix team to a World Championship in 2009. He will join Lewis Hamilton also of Britain, who is 2008 world champion and also the first black driver ever to race in F1. Personally I am fan of Lewis Hamilton simply because it’s great to see a black driver excelling in the sport. Having the two best drivers in the sport sounds like a great idea on paper, however history has shown that it doesn’t quiet work out. With both drivers being so talented and competitive it is only a matter of time before the two teammates turn their attention towards each other, and what had once begun as a team effort can turn into a bitter rivalry. Although both Hamilton

and Button say now that they plan to work together I will be watching these two drivers with great interest this season. Below I have included a clip of what can happen when you have two of the best drivers at the same team, as McLaren drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost showed us in 1989.

Another great story is the new Mercedes Grand Prix team. Mercedes has decided to step up their involvement in the sport and have bought Brawn Grand Prix which won the World Constructors Championship last year. With this take over Mercedes has made a German Dream-Team of sorts as they have paired together two great talents for this season. One of their drivers is Nico Rosberg of Germany, the son of a former champion and a driver with great potential. Alongside Rosberg is none other than seven times World Champion, Michael Schumacher, who outside of David Hasselhof is the most well known German alive. After a retirement from the sport for the past three seasons Schumacher has decided to come back for one last Brett Farve-esq attempt at the championship. It looks as though Michael has kept up his trademark physical conditioning and winning drive and it will be very interesting to see if he still has got what it takes at age 41 to compete against drivers nearly half his age. My bet is that he will not win the championship but he will be a constant threat to win races as the season progresses.

One final story to watch is the recent influx of new teams this season however the one most relevant to me is the US Grand Prix team. This new and exciting team is marketed as the All-American effort in Formula 1. Based out of Charlotte, North Carolina this team has the hopes and dreams of many American fans riding on its shoulders. Personally I am interested in the team and I hope to see them perform well, but given a smaller budget and rookie status I don’t expect much. It is also worth noting that the team isn’t quite as American as they say, for instance the motors the team will use are British, the driver they have announced thus far is Argentinean, and one of the team’s two founders is an Australian. So much for the All-American effort, but still it is good to root for the home team and US Grand Prix is definitely that.

I also realize that you may be slightly confused about the differences between F1 and the cars you see at the Indy 500. The Indy cars may look similar to F1 cars but they are heavier, slower in the corners and less technologically advanced than Grand Prix cars. Indy is also primarily an American series while Formula 1 is an European series, with races taking place all over the world. It is also worth noting that all of the cars in the Indy series are essentially the same as the cars use the same engine and chassis. One of the great aspects of F1 is that each team’s car is different from the next team and there are several different engine manufacturers involved in the sport.

Now that I have said all this I beg this of you: If you have any interest in both cars and motor racing you should give F1 a chance. Formula 1 has a fairly small following in the United States and there has not been a race in the US since 2007, which is a shame. If you find a team or driver to pull for and learn to appreciate the subtle strategy employed in the sport, you will find F1 to be a great sport to follow. This year’s F1 season gets underway on March 14^th at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The race is shown live on the Speed channel at 8am Sunday morning, and then replayed later that day.

Be sure to check out Formula1.com to learn more about the sport and the keep up with the developments for this upcoming season.