More on the Presidential Fitness Champions Challenge

Just a couple of quick points.  Last night while looking at the results for the 2013 Platinum Champions list (1,000,000 points-wow!) I saw a name that looked familiar but wasn't who I was looking for.  Off to FaceBook and sure enough, it was a FB friend who is a powerlifting Lutheran pastor!  So I shot him a quick post and yes, he's now on his way to a second million point award.

And that leads to my second point.  As you can see by looking at the various "exercises" that you can earn points doing here there are some weird events.  Since I can juggle, I've logged a few minutes juggling when I tried teaching some co-workers that important skill, but exercise?  How come "snowmobiling" is an approved activity, as is moto-cross riding but not regular motorcycle riding?  The only logic I can think of for "skydiving" applying as exercise-1 step, then falling, then a few seconds of pulling your chute in so you don't get dragged away on the ground or in the water-the sheer terror factor, could apply the way some of us ride!  Yes I am a motorcyclist with a blog and am a little biased but some of the exercise choices are truly bizarre.

Enough for that rant, and I am one-third the way to bronze and about 1.4% to Platinum!

Presidential Fitness Challenge log

I almost completely forget that a good friend I worked with in Afghanistan had been working on his gold Presidential Fitness Challenge Award, so we all signed up.  I hadn't logged any workouts in over a year and have been a pretty big slug since getting back from Afghanistan.  Sure I've worked out here and there, but nowhere near as consistently as I should be.

So last night I found my old screen name and log in and went to the website.  Once logged in, I tried to remember recent workouts and noticed you can only go back 2 months.  But that's ok, because you can get points for work-outs, but also things like walking around, yard work, and "hauling and lifting".  Considering I helped two people move in the past two months, that was definitely some hauling and lifting!

Still got a long way to go to Bronze, the first award at 40,000 points and Gold at 160,000.  I only have just over 10,000 points, but the good news is that's in only a few months of logging work-outs and activity.  If I consistently log what I do, and work out a little more consistently I hope to get between 800-1000 points a week.  Do I have time and the discipline to get the 1,000,000 point Platinum award?

We shall see!

It's not quite going to be Paleo....

Tomorrow night a few of my motorcycling friends and I are going to a BBQ buffet place.  I'm not even going to pretend-I plan on way over-eating if their BBQ is any good!

It will be interesting to see how that much meat affects me-over time I have noticed the effect from big steaks, too much poor quality hamburger meat etc. so in the name of experimentation (ha ha) I'll suffer for you, my dear reader(s)!

May start another blog on Christian Meditation

I've always done a great deal of reading on meditation and Eastern religions and comparing that to what the Bible says about meditation.  I'm also concerned with how Western Christianity, especially in denominations like mine, can tend to an overly intellectual spiritual walk.  While meditation properly done (at least how I see Biblical meditation) would lead to more knowledge, it might avoid the academic knowledge trap I fell into instead of faithfulness.

Still researching and thinking this through, as I want to ensure I am in accordance with Scripture and not being a syncretist.

Comments welcome with ideas, links to germaine blogs or websites and your thoughts.

More on the "Eat It Like God Made It" Diet Plan-link to another article

Just a quick post to capture this link:

http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/real-cost-clean-eating-gwyneth-paltrow-164600862.html

I'm not sure I agree with everything Gwyneth Paltrow puts out about eating, or her worldview on why to eat that way, but some of it makes a lot of sense.  The author of the linked article injects some reality and some actual meal recommendations.

Feel free to check it out and leave comments.

I don't know about HGH

After the PED scandal in Major League baseball, right at the start of the NFL season there is renewed talk about HGH testing for football players.  This first round of testing will be what they are calling a "survey test" to find out how many players have elevated HGH levels and if there really is a problem.  I think there is-while sports are self-selecting (football players are generally the big fast guys, basketball players the tall quick guys, bicyclist/triathletes the endurance guys) the fact is most football players are far too big and fast to be all-natural.

While talk of a "level playing field" sometimes makes sense (Lance still had to ride his bicycle around France....Barry and A-Rod still had to hit pitches Clemens et al threw....) my real concern is the message we send young athletes, and the long-term repercussions on their bodies.  One of my EOD school friends admits to having used synthetic HGH for 20 years before switching to a natural alternative (and marketing it) and he definitely has maintained a noteworthy physique.  My fear is what is the long-term consequence of making your body think it is younger than you are?  I know there are natural problems caused by aging-I'm enjoying one of them, presbyopia, for the first time now-but what happens to cancer cells that are exposed to HGH or natural alternatives that rev our body up to late teen or 20s type metabolisms?

Not sure we've really thought out what this will do, and while human experimentation has real ethical concerns, we're running a big experiment on ourselves.

Linking to another blog post on breastfeeding

This doesn't have a whole lot to do with fitness, although it's related to eating things as close to way God made them in a way.  Breastfeeding is the best way for infants to be fed, and I am thankful my wife breastfeed both our children.

However, we do absolutely freak out about breastfeeding in America.  I haven't read any of Matt Walsh's other posts, but think this one is pretty good.

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/08/09/we-must-stop-these-crazed-half-naked-psychopaths-from-feeding-their-children-in-front-of-other-people/

Any thoughts in the comments are appreciated.

Just a generic post to keep the blog rolling

Don't really have much to say about what the Bible says about fitness today.

Not much workout tips or logs to post.

Just wanted to pop-in and keep the posts reasonably current and check-in.  Hopefully something of value this weekend will come to mind.