Fit36.com

Well, it’s official… According to a recent report from the CDC, the obesity rate (i.e., the fraction of population with a BMI of 30 or more) in the United States has increased to 25.6%. This report makes the nationwide push to reduce obesity rates to less than 15% by 2010 almost laughable.

Overall, 45 states saw an increase over two years ago. This fittest state in the country is currently Colorado, though even their 19% obesity rate represents an increase since the previous survey. Three southern states (Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee) led the way with adult obesity rates in excess of 30%.

For the record, I currently fall into the “overweight” category, though I’m well on my way back into the normal range, and don’t have too much further to go.

[Source: newsday.com]

The other day I ran across the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), which is a test that all soldiers in the Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard have to pass twice a year. The APFT is made up of three components (pushups, situps, and running) and performance standards vary by sex, age, and enlistment status (new recruits vs. active duty).

Here’s how it works:

The test sequence is the push-up, sit-up, and 2-mile run (or alternate, aerobic event). The order of events cannot be changed. There are no exceptions to this sequence. Soldiers are allowed no less than 10 minutes, but ideally no more than 20 minutes, to recover between each event. Under no circumstances is the APFT valid if a soldier cannot begin and end all three events in two hours or less.

Performance on pushups and situps are both based on the maximum number of reps that you can pump out in two minutes, whereas the 2 mile run is simply a timed event. Your performance in each area then gets converted into a score, with a minimum score of 50 on each event required to graduate basic training, and a minimum score of 60 per event required for active duty personnel.

Standards for a guy like me

Here’s what a 37 year old guy like me would have to pass the test…

Pushups: 24 for basic training, 34 for active duty (chart)

Situps: 29 for basic training, 38 for active duty (chart)

2 Mile Run: 19:30 for basic training, 18:18 for active duty (chart)

Hmmm… Looks like I’d be able to serve. These aren’t exactly high standards.

Height and weight requirements for new recruits

In addition to the above fitness requirements, they also have weight restrictions based on your height, as well as percentage body fat requirements for all new recruits. In this case, the requirements differ slightly for those that have or have not previously served in the armed forces.

In my case (6′5″ with no prior service) I’m limited a max of 236 pounds, which is right about where I am. As far as % body fat goes, my limit is 28%. Again, not exactly high standards.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started doing my pushups at work. The benefits are twofold. First, doing this provides me with a nice break during the day to clear my mind and get my heart pumping. Second, it allows me to squeeze in my pushups earlier in the day such that I have more time for the balance of my exercise regimen during the evening — this typically involves rowing (or elliptical) and/or dumbbell work.

While I realize that I’m fortunate in that I don’t have to dress up for work, and I have an office door that I can close when I need privacy, I’m sure that I’m not the only one that squeezes in a bit of exercise at work. What about you? Do you plop down for some pushups (or situps) in the middle of the day? Or do you sneak out and go for a run at lunch time? Any other tips for squeezing in some exercise will on the job?

Over the weekend, I got to thinking about what my biggest vices are when it comes to staying healthy. All in all, I’d have to say that my number one weakness is eating out at lunch time. For whatever reason, I really enjoy escaping the office and grabbing some lunch. Unfortunately, this often translates into less healthy meals than if I simply packed my lunch (not to mention the additional cost). On top of this, we tend to eat out as a family once or twice on weekends.

My other vice (at least in terms of calorie consumption) is that I enjoy high-end (100% agave) tequila, and I actually drink it relatively frequently. While tequila is purported to have a number of health benefits, it’s also packed with calories. And if you mix it? Even more calories.

What about you? What are your vices?

In the interest of generating some participation, I’m going to turn this into a meme. Here are the rules:

1. If tagged, write up a short article detailing your biggest health/fitness vice(s).
2. Link back to whoever tagged you from somewhere within your article.
3. Tag 4-6 more people by linking to them at the end of your article (and be sure to let them know that they’ve been tagged).

That’s it. As for me, I’m tagging the following people:

JD (or Mac) @ Get Fit Slowly
Andrew @ Andrew is Getting Fit
Jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Israel @ Fat Man Unleashed
Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Health
NCN @ No Calories Needed
MBH @ Deflabbify

(If you want to play along and didn’t get tagged, feel free to tag yourself.)

As many of you are aware, we were on vacation last week, returning this past Sunday. Upon our return, I promptly fired up the DSL modem and checked in on things. Unfortunately, an hour or so later my wife reported that our Skype phone, her e-mail, and the web weren’t working. Upon hearing this, I headed upstairs to our office/home gym and was greeted by madly blinking lights on the DSL modem. After calling tech support, I learned that our modem was dead. While they offered to overnight a replacement to us, it was Sunday so it wouldn’t ship until Monday, with an ETA of Tuesday afternoon.

While I have an unlimited data plan on my Palm Centro and can use it as a modem for my laptop, we get crappy cell service throughout our house and I couldn’t handle anything more than an occasional check of my e-mail while standing by the window, so… I ended up getting to bed a heck of a lot earlier than normal. And on Monday night? The same thing happened. I was in bed by 10PM and got a great night’s sleep. And then it happened…

The replacement modem showed up and I promptly returned to my old ways of staying up way too late and getting too little sleep. I was up late Tuesday night and am headed for another late night tonight. In my defense, we lead an extraordinarily busy life. I have a full time job, we have four young kids, and we also run a side business consisting of a number of web sites. Given that my days are taken up by work, and my evenings by the kids (and a bit of exercise), the online stuff is relegated to late nights.

The good news is that an evening workout gives me the juice to make it through ’til bed time. The bad news is that I’m wiped out in the morning and have a hard time getting going.

We just got back from vacation, and boy was it hard to maintain any sort of healthy routine while we were on the road. As I noted previously, just about the only workout “equipment” that I had at my disposal was the floor and the great outdoors. Given that rowing is the centerpiece of my fitness routine, this made it tough to stay in the groove.

I actually anticipated problems with maintaining my exercise regime while we were away. While I went to the trouble of finding a local club that had Concept2 rowers, I knew in the back of my mind that I’d wind up slacking off while we were gone, and I never seriously considered trying to talk my way in to the club to squeeze in a row.

My recent addition of pushups to my workout repertoire did, however, give me a small amount of consistency since pushups can be done pretty much anywhere. But aside from that, all bets were off. My workouts ended up consisting of some hill running one day, a short (flat) run another day, and a couple of brisk three mile walks. I also did my pushups as dictated by the Hundred Pushup Challenge.

Making healthy food choices was also a challenge while we were no the road. We wound up dining out relatively often, and not always at the healthiest restaurants. Moreover, we spent most of the week in a group setting, such that the cooking (and menu planning) duties rotated with other members of our extended family. Thus, our food choices were often dictated by others.

The End Result

While I’m not explicitly trying to lose weight, I do try to keep an eye on the scale. Upon our return, I was pleased to learn that my weight had held steady, and maybe even decreased a bit. I also made reasonable progress in term of pushups, though I had hoped to emerge from the week with a few more reps under my belt.

It remains to be seen what effect the layoff had on my rowing, but I suspect that it will actually be somewhat beneficial. Though I was experiencing a bit of lower back fatigue before we left, I feel pretty good right now. Of course, I’ve fallen back in terms of meters rowed, but my distance goals are really rather arbitrary and not particularly meaningful.

Perhaps the biggest lesson that I learned from all of this is the importance of just doing something to stay on track while you’re on the road. While I gave myself a break, I didn’t throw in the towel entirely. I still tried to eat healthy (most of the time), I kept an eye on my alcohol intake, and I also made sure that I got a bit of exercise.

In the end, I may not have progressed, but I didn’t really slide back, either.