Body For Life

Day 67: The gym at the Westin

March 15, 2012 by Ben Hepworth

Check out the gym at the Westin that I stayed at this week while on a business trip. The gym was awesome for a hotel gym. I’m not sure if all Westins are this way, but this one really made it easy for me to ensure I got my workouts in this week while I was on the road. Check it out…

Free weights:

Plenty of treadmills:

Quads:

Triceps:

Chest Press:

Shoulder Press:

Oh, and also a Lat Pulldown that I didn’t get a picture of for some reason. You can kind of see it in the picture from outside the Westin Workout door:

They also had some elliptical machines and exercise bikes for those who like to use them. Kudos to Westin for putting such a nice gym in a hotel. Most hotel gyms don’t have very much in them at all.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Workouts

Day 66: Fourth Interval Running Increase

March 14, 2012 by Ben Hepworth

This will be a short blog post, as I am out of town on business in DC. Yesterday I increased my interval running again by .1 to 1.4 inbetween each interval. I am now doing four reps of one minute each on 5 — 6.4 — 7.8 — 9.2 with 10.0 power burn on the final rep after then last 9.2 . I’ll do this for two weeks, then I’ll do my final increase and will be at my goal.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Workouts Tagged With: running

Day 64: Packing to Eat Healthy While Out of Town

March 12, 2012 by Ben Hepworth

While preparing to take a business trip, I went to the grocery store and picked up a few items to pack with me in my suitcase. This will help make it easier to eat healthy while on the road.

If you haven’t tried the Emerald Cocoa Roast Almonds, they are excellent. Next – a couple of apples – packed in a tupperware dish to keep them from getting bruised.

And two pears – also packed in tupperware to prevent them from getting smashed. But, a mushy pear is better than a mushy apple. Apples need to be crips. Mushy apple = yuck. In any case, I’d rather neither of them get smushed 😉

Filed Under: Body For Life, Health, Nutrition Tagged With: travel

Day 62: Week 9 Weigh-in

March 10, 2012 by Ben Hepworth

I’m really excited for this week’s pictures. Before we get to that, though, I gained a pound this week – woohoo!

I gained a pound – woohoo? Yeah, that’s right – I’m excited. I’m actually trying to gain weight now. I really don’t need to lose any more weight. I started at 170, lost down to 157, then over the last 2 weeks have gained 2 pounds. Overall I’ve probably burned off 15 pounds of fat and am replacing it with muscle. The last two weeks I still followed the Body For Life meal plan, but I ate slightly larger portions at each meal. Now that I’ve trimmed most of the fat off, I want to start gaining weight now — but have it be muscle weight. Check out this guy’s before and after pictures from Body For Life:

He went from 165 to 200 pounds and gained 35 pounds of muscle. Good thing he shaved that beard off too…heh heh. He seriously looks like a different person. You can read his story here if you want to.

Crazy, huh? My guess is that was over more than just the initial 90 days. The Body For Life challenge says in “as little as 90 days”. Still, though, to gain 35 pounds and go from that to that? Motivating, right?

For my pictures this week, I went outside to get some better lighting. You can really see the definition in my muscles in the better light. Seeing the pictures this week really helped me feel like all of my hard work is paying off. I didn’t get a good one from the back, so you just get one from the front this week.

On Week 3 I posted a flex picture:

Check out the difference now just 6 weeks later:

And my day off wouldn’t be complete without enjoying something….like a brisket that my dad made in his smoker….mmmmmmmm.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Pictures Tagged With: pics

Day 60: Updated Healthy Turkey Chili

March 8, 2012 by Ben Hepworth

I’m 2/3 the way through Body For Life. Man, time sure flies. A while back I did a post with a recipe for healthy turkey chili. I was at the grocery store the other day and noticed that they started carrying an even leaner cut of ground turkey – 99/1!

Last time I used 93/7 ground turkey. I had to try out the new 99/1 ground turkey, which has only 1% fat. Instead of 8g of fat per serving, it only has 1.5g of fat. On a side note, if you get the extra lean hamburger – either 96/4 or 97/3, it will have around 4 or 5g of fat. My dad made the chili with that and said it was really good. If you prefer the taste of hamburger, that is a great option as well.

So, how was the 99/1 turkey chili? Allison said she liked it even better than the first batch I made with the 93/7 meat. The leaner cut of meat was quite good. I followed the recipe the same as before, but bought 2 of the 20 oz packages of ground turkey (that’s all they came in). So, instead of 3 pounds of meat in the pot, it was 2.5. It still was plenty for the batch. 1 cup of chili went from 272 calories and just under 6.85g of fat to 208 calories and, as Barney would say…wait for it…only 1.2g of fat! And, Allison and I agree the leaner cut of meat tastes better. Winning!