AAAAAAAnnnnd we're back!

Honestly I am coming back with new fitness posts.  I have to say the people that are STILL reading this blog with how long a break I have taken have really inspired me.  With only 13 total posts I have almost 2 thousand views.  I'm glad to hear you are still interested.

I have a whole list of things I want to talk about this time around.  First off an injury that took me 6 months to heal with the help of a chiropractor and a physical therapist.  Second, I AM A DADDY!!  Just 6 short weeks ago my little boy was born and it has been a wild ride.  I have some tips and ideas for the guys for not gaining her pregnancy weight as well as some ideas for the ladies about getting that shape back as quick as possible.  Third, since the last time I have talked with you I attempted to run 200 miles in 3 months.  That's less than 2.5 miles a day but finding the time and not wearing out is tough.

My latest challenge? The baby is crying, the diaper smells, work is calling, so WHEN do I get to work out and WHAT kind of exercises can I do?

If your interested in catching up with what I have been doing for the last 6 weeks I have a video blog on YouTube that I post to once a day.  This is mostly to update family and friends but I also try to be informative to new parents and we will squeeze in some good info on staying in shape at the same time.  I'll make sure to post any of those videos right to the site.

Once again thanks for hanging in there.  I can't wait to get things rolling again.

The truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup

There is a lot of confusing information out there about high fructose corn syrup.  First were the claims that it was linked to obesity because more and more things were made from it. Unfortunately there was no proof provided to back that up.  The corn refiners took advantage of that and started advertising campaigns like this commercial.

So does that mean that it is the same as cane sugar?  Not quite.

What is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)? It is made from corn. The corn is ground down into corn starch, the starch is refined into a glucose syrup and then enzymes are added to turn the glucose into fructose.  When all is said and done the mixture is about 55% fructose.  Both glucose and fructose are naturally occurring substances while not normally in the quantities we consume them. So we have established that  HFCS is made from corn and that it is refined into a naturally occurring substance in foods like apples.  So far the commercial is right on.  It also says that it is fine in moderation.  Also true.  If you are able to control your consumption of HFCS it does not have any severe side effects.

How does HFCS interact with the body? Recent studies are finding that your body's need to eat is heavily influenced by 2 hormones leptin and ghrelin. These 2 hormones are always in balance. Leptin checks to see if you have enough energy stores.  If you are eating regularly then your leptin level rises and tells the brain that it can burn as many calories as it likes because you have the reserves.  If you do not have the available energy then your ghrelin level rises and tells the brain that we need to conserve energy.  This will cause you to stop burning fat and become hungry.

When that check is made to see how much fuel you have available the body does not recognize fructose and a real energy source.  This means that you will not burn calories as fast and it will take more time to burn the calories you took in. You can read more about leptin and ghrelin here.

So what do we do? High fructose corn syrup is in much of what we eat.  You don't have to avoid it all together just be aware of how much you are consuming.  There are alternative to the more popular products that contain HFCS.  Pepsi has made strides to put original cane sugar back in it's drinks with it's "throwback" line.

Main point: Don't just listen to the talking heads.  These days no one is going to find out the entire story for you least of all the popular media.  Be aware of what you put in your body and how it effects you.  Here is a challenge for you: The next thing you eat that has nutritional facts on it, pick a ingredient you don't recognize and look it up.  Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's good for you and just because it's artificial doesn't mean it's bad.  As George Carlin said "crap is all natural, that doesn't mean I want to eat it."

Happy living
/Actuator/

First Injury: Keep your head up

So I have now had my first fitness related injury.  It's one of those things that you really shouldn't be proud of but I am anyway.

 I was hoping to avoid that for a little bit long but I suppose it's good to get it out of the way.  Still not 100% sure what I did to cause it but the chiropractor is fairly certain it was because of bad form.  Now I admit I am not 100% on when I'm lifting heavy but I try very hard to keep as close as possible for as long as possible.  However when all you want to get are those 2 last reps in, your focus becomes keeping that weight from falling on your head instead of keeping perfect form.

Sorry to those "do or die" types but if I'm hurting I'll say so.  This hurt like hell and kept me out of the gym for a while because every time it would feel a little better I would push through the pain and aggravate it again.  I say it was a neck injury but I had pain radiating from the spine and all over my right shoulder and upper back.  Apparently this is a common enough injury that when I finally went to my chiropractor, he recognized it pretty quick.  All I had to mention was that I have been lifting heavier recently to get that "ahhhhh" reaction.

The human body is able to withstand tremendous amounts of weight. Even without developing your muscle with the intention of lifting, the back and more importantly the spine are designed for it. Studies have even shown that the curves in our spine allow us to support 10 times more weight than if it was straight.  That being said, we have a tendency to try and get our back under the weight.  Even in the movies you will see someone trying to push upward while bending their head forward with the strain.  However doing this straightens the natural curve in the neck and subjects your neck to undue stress. The point being the when you are doing heavy lifts, especially shoulder press of any kind, be sure to keep your head up.  Sitting here typing this posing like L, probably isn't helping any.

(Warning next part isn't so fitness related just an observation)
The solution?  A couple trips to the chiropractor will straighten it out if they don't scare you to death first.  They try this in multiple ways first the try and electrocute you with those contacts they put on your back.  And if you like me you try and handle as much voltage (or whatever) as you can cause we are manly men and we can take it.  But then they leave you alone in the room and you feel your muscles start to contract in ways they never have before and by the time they come back you've either become a contortionist or your dead.  Next they act like pedophiles.  You have to take your shirt off so they can rub oil on you (if they don't really need to do this someone let me know cause mine did) and rub your back down with the excuse that "you need to be loose".  Then they lay your cheek on their hand and tell you to relax.  This is the time when they have given up on you and decide your a threat and try to SNAP your neck clean off.  Just like this. Some how after a couple of times doing this you feel better and get to go back to working out like an idiot or learn so you never have to see that horrible man again!

As always I hope I was helpful.  If you like these posts or if you would like me to cover a topic feel free to leave a comment and let me know.  If you really think they are worth someone's time share them around.  I hope to have some of these topics recorded on my YouTube channel as well so come check me out there if you have not already.

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Still Awake (A cautionary tale)

So I sit here awake at almost 1 am. I need to be up at 6:30 for a doctors appointment and then to get to work.  Why are you still up, you ask?  Because I am silly and competitive. I didn't have much time for a workout today so after dinner and homework and such I decided to get some planks and pushups in.  I went to my favorite fitness social media site, Fitocracy.com, to enter my workout for the day and found I had been bumped down a couple spaces in the push-up challenge.  Well we can't have that now can we? I should have let it go.  So I figure out how many more I need to do and go on my way.  I enter in my new points and see that I'm still not back where I should be.  Undaunted I keep going.  Still not there. Now I know something is wrong.  I realize that this must mean the the person I can not pass is also logging pushups as he goes. The nerve of some peoples kids. I "followed" (similar to twitter) the gentlemen and kindly asked that he stop doing push up so that I could go to bed.  To my surprise he obliged although it was not nearly as late for him in some other timezone.

(Takes a sip of Sleepy Time tea)

So now I sit here having done two hundred some pushups and four minutes of planks.  My triceps are unhappy with me.  However the other thing I now remember is that when you push yourself you open up adrenal glands and get extra energy.  It is commonly recommended that you do not work less than 4 hours before you plan to go to sleep.  I have now taken a long hot shower and am sipping some tea trying to relax enough to go back to bed and try to find elusive sleep once more.

Goodnight humanity. Please remember sleep is just as important if not more important than any exercise you do.  It is when your body does it's best recovery and repair and it doesn't matter how many pushups you do if your not sleeping you won't get any better at it. (-sigh- sips tea again)

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Stupid Health People (A Rant)

Been reading a lot about health and fitness recently and I find the best information comes from individuals.  As soon as you put multiple people together and ask them to decide on something it all falls apart.  The funny thing is that all the individuals seem to agree with each other as long as you never ask them to admit to that.  But when it becomes a group or a coalition or a wellness center or some other collection of minds somehow not only do they not agree with the individuals but they do not agree with other groups.  I'm reminded of a saying I have seen on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and demotivational posters; "None of us alone are as dumb as all of us together."  There are variations but you get the idea.  The concept that as soon as people try to work together there needs to be a social system and a political system and hierarchy and everyone needs to put in there 2 cents.  With all the systems and processes hardly anything gets done after the easy ideas have been achieved. But worse that that is the idea that everyone must contribute something.  So that when things do get done it wasn't by the guy that came up with the ingenious fully formed concept.  It has been broken down and butchered and twisted until it's originator doesn't even recognize it anymore.

Lets get to what sparked this whole rant in the first place.  I've been researching a lot health topics recently and I started reading one about digestive health and it's relation to gas and bloating.  It started with a lot of good information the bacteria in your colon and the role they play in breaking down sugar and fiber that could not be broken down before. Wonderful.  Then we get to the part where they had to make some ridiculous claim.






"Vitamin dosages are critical in today's world since it's literally impossible to get the daily nutrients we need from the over processed food we eat every day"




Really now?  Define need please.  Need to survive? Well that can't be true because there are plenty of people living without it.  Need for the long term continued survival of the race? Need to fly? Okay that one I'll buy. All the people I know have eaten processed foods at some point and none of them can fly.  That word need that they all use aggravates me to no end.  I would even be slightly less irritated if they were trying to sell me something, but this particular site is not.  Then what do I need it for?  To enjoy my life?  I didn't even know I needed it five minutes ago.  The biggest irritation of all though is the fact that it never mentions what non-processed foods you can eat that will get you the vitamins you need to that you don't have to take supplements that they are suggesting.  This is of course assuming that the comment was aimed only at the processed foods being insufficient.  If the suggestion is that all food is insufficient that I want to know where the vitamins came from back in the day.  I'm picturing something like this

God: "Noah feed eat these each day and you will live well"
Noah: "What are they my Lord?"
God: "Oh I'm going to call them Fintstones.  Funny fictional family, kids are going to love them"
Noah: "Yes my Lord but what is this?" points at small yellow character
God: "That's Fred's best friend Barny.  He's my favorite because he so cheerful and lighthearted"
Noah: Opens mouth then closes it again. Long silence then "Yes lord"

-END RANT-

/Actuator/

Ab Myth - it's not muscle it's fat!

I have heard some of the craziest things in the world regarding abs.  One of them being he's not strong he's fat. Granted this is the exception rather than the rule.  Many people think that you can target belly fat by doing tons of ab workouts.  That is only going to work if you already have an extremely low body fat to begin with.  You will build your abdominal muscles and there are some fantastic benefits to that, but there won't be anything visible. This is why many of the Strength competition guys look like they have extra belly.  It's really just a small layer of fat over the muscle.  Also for people that are trying to gain a lot of muscle, also called 'hard gainers', consuming enough food to grow muscle without gaining a little fat is extremely difficult if not impossible.  Did you know the guys and girls you see in bodybuilding competitions are normally weaker during competition than the rest of the year?  That's because they eat more to pack on the muscle and then eat less and do more carido to have the lowest body fat possible to compete.

 

Let's break this down a little though.  For those of us not entering a strong man or body building competition any time soon, the logic is much simpler.  If you have enough willpower to keep working those abs to the point where you can see that area getting bigger, you are still working out more than the average American. More muscle also means you burn more calories so if you have not been increasing your calorie intake you should be loosing weight. The best way would be to work on all muscle groups evenly.  Even if you could get just your abs and nothing else, would you really want to be as over balanced as this guy? 

 

My personal experience with this was in high school.  I wasn't athletic and didn't participate in sports but I did get into kickboxing.  It was mainly cardio but we did plenty of crunches, planks, and pushups as well.  However not giving a damn about being healthy (as teenagers normally don't) I finished every workout session off with a Mountain Dew and anything that I was burning I was eating more to compensate.  Not on purpose, just because I was hungry more often. Point is my abs were getting bigger but my body fat percentage wasn't going down any.  My aunt noticed that I was filling out and told me I needed to slim down.  I explained my situation and she laughed at me.  She told me that I was silly and working out tighted up the fat.  You are allowed to laugh all I could do was sit and stare at her dumbfounded. Point is that you can get bad information from anyone even if they mean well.

Granted you are talking to someone who sill doesn't have defined abs so feel free to believe what you will. However if you want the lowdown from a professional here is my favorite article on the subject.



/Actuator/

Pictures by sumoman.co  CC-BY

About me, myself, and my blog

So the other day someone wanted to know what "Before you Actuate" meant.  So I figured anyone reading this might like an explanation as well.  The whole business started with my friend Ray/Sebron and his YouTube channel. He had done a few videos before but was starting the YTO (YouTube Orbit) the objective is to post 1 video a day for an entire year.  It doesn't have to be long or very interesting but there needs to be one a day with the opportunity for a few misses. As of today he has reached 310 videos so almost there.  Which when you see the extremely long list of people who have failed trying to do this it is a very impressive feat. 

So watching these got me interested in video and editing so I got hold of some software and started messing around.  I released a video on 11/11/11 just because I thought it was cool.  It really wasn't much of anything but I wanted to be able to say I put up my first video on that date.  The video was all old footage I had taken with different cameras over a very long period of time so it had no point to it.  It just looking like a movie trailer for nothing.  Somehow that snip-it got a ton of hits at least for a first video on a channel with nothing else on it.  That channel is called SelfActuate.  The thought process behind that was that I wanted to do fun exciting things and share them on an epic scale.  To actualize my hopes, dreams, plans, and whatnot.  I only made one other video for that channel and decided that I needed to refine my skills a bit.  So I jumped over to an old channel I had set up with the intention of posting stupid videos to practice with.  Come to find out vlogging or video blogging is a thing and people actually started watching what I posted.  That channel became SAVY SelfActuate Vlog on YouTube.  Corny but everything on that channel is so it fits.  I have still been uploading videos there that have a little less production time to them.

 I had started my masters program around that time as well so as time was getting short I've made less and less.  I wanted a place to write down ideas I had for videos that were never made so I was trying to track them here.  So the original concept was before the SelfActuate video there is the blog. Hence "Before You Actuate".  However since then it has taken on a bit of a different meaning.  I've always been into fitness but more so recently.  Now the title has come to mean "before you try this be prepared" or for geeks "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this."  So my new goal is to put together what I'm doing fitness wise and share what I find and let you know if it works or not.  Hope your enjoying so far!

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PS: I should have some new videos up soon and they may even be health related!