I, Curtis

I have been browsing DVDs on Amazon as well as in the Columbia House club, looking at various categories. One of the categories I decided to browse was fitness. I notice something quite disturbing to me when looking at them, most of the covers featured women. Why are there no men in fitness? The only exceptions I found were Billy Blanks (he’s aging), Richard Simmons (hardly a man) and Jake (he’s aging too).

Even searching for military workout DVDs on Amazon returned a majority of women on the results. What gives?

Can men not properly instruct workouts?

According to the Internet Addiction Activity in my Health/Wellness course… I am not an Internet addict. I scored 28 on the following survey.
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Score the following on a scale of 1 – 5 (1 is rarely/never and 5 is always).
1. How often do you find that you stay online longer than you intended?
2. How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time online?
3. How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner?
4. How often do you form new relationships with fellow online users?
5. How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend online?
6. How often do your grades or school work suffer because of the amount of time you spend online?
7. How often do you check your e-mail before something else that you need to do?
8. How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?
9. How often do you become defensive or secretive when anyone else asks you what you do online?
10. How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts about the Internet?
11. How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go online again?
12. How often do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty, and joyless?
13. How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are online?
14. How often do you lose sleep to late-night log-ons?
15. How often do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being online?
16. How often do you find yourself saying “just a few more minutes” when online?
17. How often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend online and fail?
18. How often do you try to hide how long you’ve been online?
19. How often do you choose to spend more time online over going out with others?
20. How often do you feel depressed, moody, or nervous when you are off-line, which goes away once you are back online?
The higher your score, the greater your level of addiction and the problems your Internet usage causes.
20-49 points: You are an average Internet user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.
50-79 points: You are experiencing occasional or frequent problems because of the Internet. You should consider the Internet’s full impact on your life.
80-100 points: Your Internet usage is causing significant problems in your life. You should evaluate the impact of the Internet on your life and address the problems directly caused by your Internet usage.
to take action.

[cross posted from body.livecurt.net for your convenience]
A calorie is 4.1184 Joules, which is roughly 4 watts. A calorie is a physical unit of potential energy. When burned by the body a calorie produces electrical and thermal energy as needed throughout the day. Calories come from 3 things: protein, fat and carbohydrates. Oddly, the worse of the three are the carbs. One gram of protein is 4 calories, one gram of carbs is 4 calories, and a single gram of fat is 9 calories.
Protein is the best thing you can get from your daily calorie allotment, it powers your muscles and acts as a stored energy source throughout the day that can be easily accessed. It is best to eat protein rich foods before and after working out for the biggest benefit to your body.
Carbohydrates are evil. They break down very fast and should almost always be utilized immediately, or else, you risk them slowing you down as the metabolism revs up to burn through them and then crashes you right back down after its done. Carbs are best to eat at breakfast, when you can use them as quick fuel to get you started and the chances of them being burned away almost instantly are very high. If you live a life that isn’t active at all, eliminating carbs is likely your only hope for weight-loss, but keep your protein high to protect your muscles.
Fats are GOOD! Fat is very hard for the body to store as fat, because it is more complex and takes too long to break down (your stomach cant just pass fat out to begin building a fat monument on your abs). Fats are relatively quick energy, and aren’t reserved for high-level muscle use. Fast-twitch muscles need a lot of protein, but the slower fibers will settle for the fats. Saturated fats are bad, avoid them if possible. Fats in nuts and milks are usually the best for your body because they usually are carrying other things that are really great for the body.
There is some good news, you can blow off 10% of the calories eaten each day to the digestive process itself.
Want to know how many calories you should eat per day? To determine the number of calories you need to maintain your weight, take your current body weight and multiply it by 11, then take that number and multiple it by your energy multiplier, then add whatever you burn during a workout. So.. in an easier form: (Current Weight*11*Energy Multiplier)+workout calories. If you want to gain weight (bulk), add 500 calories per day, if you want to loose weight, subtract 1000 calories per day.
*Energy multiplier: 1.3 (sedentary), 1.6 (light work), 1.7 (moderate work), or 2.1 (hard labor).
Just a little wisdom I picked up in my research.

I expected when I started this plan of personal health and fitness that it would result in me losing some of my favorite foods, but so far, nothing has really had to be ejected. I no longer indulge in carbonated beverages at all, and the only thing sweet I drink is 100% juice and the occasional cup of tea (usually for the caffeine later in the day). For dinner tonight I had what I consider to be a “bad” meal, spaghetti and meatballs. I enjoyed a serving of spaghetti (2 dry ounces), a serving of sauce (1/2 cup), and 2 meat balls for under 500 calories. The negatives of the meal would be the 170 calorie piece of garlic bread that I decided eat with my meal. After the meal I ate a small slice of birthday icecream cake (122 grams) for a little over 200 calories, simply because I craved something cold and sweet. I don’t like that I consumed so many sugars, but I suppose occasionally I am allowed to indulge a little. I am still under 1500 calories for the day and quite full from dinner still.
Next week when I start trying to eat 5 – 6 small meals per day, these big meals will be a thing of the past, but I am trying to go into that fairly slowly. I will also be working on keeping my carbohydrates, proteins and fats in balance more.