It seems like all the personal finance bloggers are talking about fitness and health these days. Must be the bathing-suit weather around the corner.
Maybe the nature of finance bloggers (spend less money than you earn) is consistent with the mindset of getting fit (consuming less calories than you burn). Millionaire Mommy addresses this symmetry in her post about using weight management techniques with your finances. (By the way, she is in the weigh yourself daily camp--suddenly I don't feel so lonely there!)
Lisa at Greener Pastures talks about the Four Things You Need For Retirement; and yes, one of them includes exercise.
Over at Dooce, Heather is doing a 21-day cleanse: no sugar, gluten, caffeine, alcohol, or animal products.
And today, Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme talks about how he keeps his health care costs down by leading a preventative lifestyle. (Although, I'm not sure I could manage to eat only once a day!)
J.D. at Get Rich Slowly (on his Get Fit Slowly Blog) is taking the 100 pushups challenge. I'm inspired; I'm going to do it too. Right now I can do about 2-3 sets of 15-20 pushups (yes on my toes!) It seems impossible to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups by the end of 6 weeks. But I'm intrigued, so will join in trying with J.D.
In addition to the 100 pushups challenge, I want to see if I can develop a love for running like J.D. I love the idea of running (you can do it anywhere, any time, and it's totally free), but so far, it feels very hard. Today I jogged 3.5 miles and walked the remaining 1.5 mile loop from my house. The path is a beautiful road winding through vineyards of the Napa Valley. When I walk it, I don't bring an iPod; I'm perfectly happy to listen to the birds and enjoy the environment. When I jog it, I have to bring music to distract me from how much I do not enjoy this activity.
Lise at Frugal in the Fruitlands has made her exercise goals public. Seems like a good idea. I'm going to give running the same 6 weeks as the 100 pushups challenge and see if I can't learn to love running as much as I love the idea of it.
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All that exercise sounds great. However, be very mindful of your body when you run. Running breaks down your joints very quickly and can cause long-term damage. We are not designed to run long distances. I included a link to an article about running on the Core Performance website. These guys train tons of professional athletes and they really know what they are doing. We (coaches) used their workouts for our collegiate football players and had great results.
http://www.coreperformance.com/article.php?p=1&s=1&id=85
Posted by: Chad @ Sentient Money | June 19, 2008 at 04:55 AM
Chad-Thanks for that link. As a former sufferer of plantar fasciatis (not from running, though), I can identify with the warnings this article mentions. My theory is, many sports injuries are from repetitive training activities. I think if you balance activities (running, walking, biking, weight-training, and whatever else), you run a much lower chance of injury.
(By the way, I don't ever think I will be at risk of running dangerous distances. If I can ever run the whole 5 mile loop, I will consider that to be the epitome of accomplishments!)
Posted by: Retired Syd | June 19, 2008 at 10:33 AM
If you can do 20 it's time to switch to something more challenging, like handstand push-ups or one-armed push ups :-)
Both can be pulled on most 300 lbs bench press beef cakes as in .. "yeah, but can you do this". (They generally can't).
Power endurance like 100 push ups is in my experience most easily achieved with density training e.g. 20x5, 18x6, ......, 10x10, 9x11, 8x12, 7x15x 6x18, 5x20, 4x25, .... 1x100. Keep each set at a fixed time like 1 minute (except the last 1x100). Six weeks seems very reasonable. Train every other day. Incidentally, serious numbers are in the 500 PUs a day and if you can do 20 already, you should aim higher than a 100.
Posted by: Early Retirement Extreme | June 19, 2008 at 06:12 PM
Day one of the program, I did 59 (not consecutively), 12 rest, 12 rest, 10 rest, 10 rest and then max (which turned out to be 15). Off to a good start I think. Let's see how I feel after 100 before I decide to do more than that!
I would LOVE to learn a 1-armed pushup. Maybe after the end of my 100 I'll work on that next.
Handstand pushups just sound like a broken nose in the making . . .
Posted by: Retired Syd | June 19, 2008 at 06:19 PM
Where are you right now with this goal? I tried many times to get to the magical 100--but usually I ended up getting bored after a while. Will try that 100 pushups program and see! Thanks!
Posted by: Ray | September 06, 2008 at 05:42 PM
I'm sorry to say, I tried it twice and kept dropping out during week 3.
Maybe I'll pick it up again in the winter when there's nothing more exciting to do.
Posted by: Retired Syd | September 07, 2008 at 09:36 AM