Marc Abramowitz » Fitness

45 year old six pack

Marc — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:35:20 +0000

Saw a friend of mine the other day (who is a personal trainer) and he let me know that he recently started a blog where he has been writing about fitness, nutrition, and inspiration. He’s got some very interesting content on there. . . . → Read More: 45 year old six pack

Yoga

Marc — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:16:57 +0000

We started doing yoga recently at the YMCA. We did it three times and had three different teachers and monotonically increasing difficulty. The last workout was actually difficult enough to be discouraging – the instructor said the routine was a combination of yoga and martial arts. Whatever it was, it kicked . . . → Read More: Yoga

30,000 FitPoints

Marc — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:14:05 +0000

This will mean nothing to anyone, except to me and Nicole, but it seemed like something I should keep a record of somewhere.

Saturday’s trip to the gym was my 101st and I reached the milestone of 30,000 FitPoints and received a yellow T-shirt. Nicole got her T-shirt too, though she had reached 30,000 a couple of weeks ago (they had been out of T-shirts at the time and they happened to receive several boxes of T-shirts on Saturday).

FitLinxx #1

Marc — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 05:24:46 +0000

The next chapter in my fitness saga.

OK, well it’s only the third day of the month, but it’s kind of cool to be on top, even if for such a short time. It’ll be interesting to see if i can maintain it.

Also, I’m not an expert in statistics, but I’m puzzled how one can be ranked #1 and only be in the 94th percentile – shouldn’t #1 be 100th percentile by definition?

Another bike ride, another flat tire

Marc — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:44:41 +0000

We did an hour ride on the Coyote Creek Trail. Unfortunately, on the way back, I got a flat tire. I somehow messed up my portable pump, but luckily a nice guy stopped at let us use his. I saw some slime bubbling out of the valve and even got a bit on my fingers, but luckily the slime still seemed to do its thing and seal the puncture, as hours after the ride, my tire was still full of air. Cool.

It’s fun to work out at the Y.M.C.A. (Part Deux)

Marc — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:35:45 +0000

A little while ago, Ryan posted about some positive lifestyle changes, including a lot in the realm of health and fitness. His post is part of the inspiration for this one. There’s even a bit of a tip of the hat in the title. He named his for a Michael Jackson song — I went a little further back to The Village People.

Well, Nicole and I have been working on our fitness. We joined the local YMCA in March and we go there several times a week to do cardio and weight training. We also walk around our neighborhood a lot and typically each weekend we do a 1 to 2 hour bike ride on the Coyote Creek Trail.

Also, we’ve been eating a lot healthier, mostly inspired by Dr. Mehmet Oz and the book he co-authored: YOU on a Diet.

Last week I reached a couple of milestones. First, I reached 15,000 “FitPoints” on the FitLinxx system that the gym uses. For reaching this milestone, I got a towel. A towel is not terribly exciting, but it’s a symbol of progress. And then there is this most surprising (in a good way) chart from the FitLinxx web site:

Also last week, I did a mile in 11:13. OK, this isn’t the most impressive time ever, but for somebody who struggled to eke out a 15 minute mile in high school, I was pretty happy. And if I’m happy with my progress, I’m more likely to continue, so it’s all good.

I’ve lost about 12 pounds — not bad. I lost a few percentage points of body fat as well, according to our Tanita TBF-622 scale.

Good luck Ryan! And to anyone who is considering getting themselves into better shape, go for it.

Bike ride

Marc — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 02:36:04 +0000

We just biked about 2.6 miles along the Coyote Creek Trail to Embedded Way. We discovered a small foot bridge that takes you to Shady Oaks Park, a park we had not known about before.

It’s fun to workout at the YMCA

Marc — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 02:20:09 +0000

After a few trial visits, Nicole and I decided to join the East Valley YMCA. It’s reasonably nearby, inexpensive, and the staff are very nice and helpful. Best of all for the geek in me is that their machines have this neat computerized system called FitLinxx. You get an identification # which you type in when you start using a machine and it keeps track of what you do and how you’re progressing on your pre-established workout plan. It looks like you can also access your data from the Web so it could be fun to write some code to suck the data down from the Web.

Back to the bike store

Marc — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:02:50 +0000

After last weekend’s flat tires on the trail, we headed back to the bike store to bolster our defenses, after getting Nicole’s tube patched. We both got Tuffies liners (kevlar?) in our tires and I got a bike-mounted pump. We also got spare tubes for both of our bikes, tire levers, and a patch kit, stuffed in a little bag behind my seat. Later inn the day, I bought a book on bike maintenance. Hopefully, we’ll be much more ready for our next bike trip.

New bikes, flat tires

Marc — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:22:14 +0000

On Saturday, Nicole and I bought new bikes from the local bike shop. At first, I thought I could get by with the bike I had, but I noticed that the tires were shredded and the bike had a bit of rust and wasn’t as comfortable as newer bikes. The bike was about 10 years old after all, since this was the bike I bought to ride around at Stanford. And when I saw and rode Nicole’s new bike, I got jealous . So I bought a bike as well and Nicole and I both had shiny, new Giant bikes.

The plan was to go for a ride on the nearby Coyote Creek Trail with Nicole’s parents, who purchased new bikes of their own a couple of months ago. Well, ride we did, but after a few miles, Nicole’s dad had a flat tire from a burr that he picked up on the trail, so we headed back. On the way back, we noticed that Nicole had a flat tire as well, also from a burr that was stuck in her tire.

Two flat tires in one day. Especially surprising since all of our bikes were equipped with tires that had Slime tire sealant. While we were in the bike store, I overheard some people talking about kevlar liners that are supposed to be very good at protecting the inner tube (sounds like a good idea to me since kevlar is in bulletproof vests). I think next weekend we’ll head back to the bike store and have the kevlar liners installed on all of our tires.

Any other tips for preventing punctures?