Welcome to Almost Fit. This is a guest post from Erin at FitBottomedGirls.com. As scandalous as their site name may sound (OK I admit it, I’m talking to my parents here – really – I read it for the articles) their site is great for inspiration, always conveys information with a great sense of humor, and is an excellent resource for all things fitness. After all, any site where the slogan is, “Keeping a lid on the junk in the trunk” can’t be all bad. :)

My dog does yoga all the time. Her favorite poses are Downward Dog and Upward Dog. Predictable, no? It wasn’t until I started practicing yoga regularly that it really struck me as funny: my little pug, doing yoga. She’s much better at yoga than I am. She makes Down Dog look easy, but after all, she “invented” the pose, so you’d expect her to be a natural. Plus, she’s not holding it for minutes like I do. And I assume her hamstrings aren’t as tight as mine. I’m not sure dogs even have hamstrings.

One evening after a stressful day of work, I pulled out my yoga mat to do one of my old faithful Rodney Yee videos, an FBG fave. I gave the pug a bone so I could clear my mind and get my deep stretches without doggie distractions. My Zen didn’t last for long. As I focused on a transition from Staff pose to Cobbler’s pose, I heard a slight retching sound. She’d thrown up all over my yoga mat, destroying my theory about her love for yoga.

Since that episode, she’s never thrown up on my yoga mat again, so I’m assuming her yoga aversion was a one-time occurrence. Nowadays, she’s all up in my yoga business. She camps out under my Downward Dog, licks my leg during Warrior poses, and jumps over my legs during Cobra. She doesn’t discriminate. You name the pose, she’s in on the action.

I’m sure she’d love these new dog yoga classes that seem to be popping up. I’m not so sure that she would stay within the boundaries of the mat to really clear her mind and practice yoga, though. And it wouldn’t be relaxing for me. Instead, I’d probably be in a twisty pose while she ran off to practice Inappropriate Sniffing pose or Stealing Yoga Wedge pose or Running Demon pose. For now, I think we’ll stick to home yoga. At least then, when she pukes on a mat, I know it’s mine. 

Thanks Erin – I think it may be the first time that the word, “pukes,” has appeared on Almost Fit. Good going. In all seriousness, September is National Yoga Month – and worth your consideration. I am not a yoga enthusiast (yogist? Yogameister?) yet, but my wife is, and she loves it. She may convert me yet. But in the mean time while you hold your breath waiting for that to happen, check out FitBottomedGirls.com – it’s well worth the visit. And it’s safe for work.

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit focuses on improving your health by eating real food in moderation. If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing. It’s free, as always. Thanks.

[Ed. UPDATE: For some reason comments were turned off when this posted this morning. My apologies - I've turned them on as I'd love to hear your thoughts. Ah, the meeting of technology and fumbling digits...]

In my evening travels from one blog to the next, I find myself perpetually returning to Andrew’s blog (AndrewIsGettingFit.com). Andrew describes in vivid, technicolor detail his successes and failures on his quest to change his health, for good. Today Andrew posted a question to his readers. He said:

“For those of you who run, maybe you could share some of the things you love about running in the comments or on your blogs?”

I thought it was an appropriate question, given that today I went for a run when I would have loved to have skipped it. I forced myself out the door, and did it anyway. It was the right choice. Read the rest of this entry »

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It was a tight race. With the help of some old school Oregon-style green sustainable strategy, 100% renewable solar energy on my shoulders, and the inspiration of a recent television bender in the form of an historic Olympiad, I did it – I pulled off the victory of the century for team Almost Fit.

I placed FIRST in the World’s most revered foot race.

You read right. A self-described dorky-looking white guy (alternately described by some as “portly and stout” – to whom I simply say, “racists” -), running with a camera bag, a cell phone, and a trusty moleskin notebook, took the Blue Ribbon in America’s fiercest competition of the season, bar none: The Iowa Avenue Virtual 5K - Portland edition.

To quote that eloquent icon of my youth, Sir D. Duck: MINE. ALL. MINE. Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit is about losing weight and improving your health by eating real food in moderation. If you enjoy this entry, please consider sharing it with StumbleUpon. Thanks.

I am amazed at this, but apparently I have not posted a link roundup in nearly a month. Without further adieu, here are some links to articles that I’ve personally found interesting this week.

[And in case you're wondering, that big fella in the picture in this post is me, running in the Santa Barbara Half Marathon a few years ago. ]

I recently came across this article on MSNBC: French lessons: Eat petite, take your time, which describes some of Paul Rozin’s work on identifying the differences in habits (particularly portion sizes) between the typical American diet and the French, and the correlation to obesity rates. The article is a decent, if lightweight, treatment of Rozin’s incredibly practical findings (as opposed to many University-driven studies that are often reflections of scientifically interesting results, but have little practical value on a daily basis for most of us). Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit is about losing weight and improving your health by eating real food in moderation. If you enjoy this entry, please consider sharing it with StumbleUpon. Thanks. [Photo courtesy of blog.modernmechanix.com.]

I’m about to break a deal. And I hate breaking deals.

In preparation for the coming months of gloom in the Pacific Northwest, I have been seriously considering whether or not to start looking for some kind of home exercise equipment. My problem is I have made a deal with myself that basically goes like this:

I won’t buy exercise equipment until I can demonstrate that I can exercise regularly without it. If I can’t get myself to work out without equipment, buying equipment is just throwing money at a problem.

But, I’ve recently considered this deal from another angle: What if it is easier to exercise because the equipment makes it more enjoyable? I think it is a valid possibility, particularly in a place like the Pacific Northwest, where inclement weather can be a convenient excuse to skip a workout.

Believe me, it is convenient. Easy, even. Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit is my personal record of losing weight by doing one thing: Eating real food in moderation. If you enjoy this entry, please consider sharing it with StumbleUpon. Thanks.

Last night was the first night in a couple of months that I actually got a good night’s sleep, and WOW, what a difference it makes in my perspective.

The last couple of months of transition have been tough for me in many respects. Although I’ve made a lot of really positive changes this year, I’ve struggled lately with unusually pronounced mood swings throughout the day, going from feelings of contentment and happiness to strong feelings of self-doubt and worry. On one day I am ready to conquer the world, and the next I’m feeling as though I’ve been run over by it.

I know for me that this has a lot to do with my sleep patterns. As I’ve been losing weight, one benefit is my snoring is much less pronounced, which usually improves the quality of my sleep. However, lately my mind has been overly full, which means that even when I’m somewhat asleep the wheels are still turning. My sleep is generally of the restless kind, where I’ll spend much of the night tossing and turning until I find an hour here and there where I fall off into a dream state. That is generally just about the time when the kids wake up. Read the rest of this entry »

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Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you are one step behind in everything you’re doing?

That was my week last week. Actually, maybe the entire month of July.

My biggest immediate challenge is to get my business plan in order – and believe it or not, fitness is part of it. I’ve been more or less in vacation mode this month, trying to adjust to my new situation pursuing writing and blogging projects fulltime, and the looseness of my schedule has been a detriment to getting things done. Fortunately I had nearly a month of vacation time built up before I left my job, so I’ve been floating on that income. That is about to change however, since the month is ending and as expected, there is no paycheck coming from the old steady corporate source. Looks like I’m winging it from here on out. I had better get my act together. Read the rest of this entry »

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- Or, “Forgive me blogger, for I have sinned”

On the exercise front, last week was honestly a wash. I ran exactly once at the beginning of the week, and the rest of the week really did slip by. My knees have been giving me a little trouble, but not enough to justify my lack of exercise. The real problem has been my sleep schedule – I’ve been staying up too late, and getting up too late, mostly because I don’t have a set work schedule in place.

For me, my most natural, comfortable schedule is sleeping from 2AM until 10AM – I was able to do this when we were working solely as artists and had no kids or significant responsibilities. We set our own schedule, and it was bliss – and both the art and software engineering worlds in my experience are rarely driven by a 9 to 5 workday. However, with kids that rise at 7AM – going to bed at 2AM does not work very well for more than a few nights in a row. I’m much better off getting up early. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ed. Note: This post is a personal checkin on my weight loss progress using the simple technique of eating real food in moderation. If you’re interested in how I’ve lost 26 lbs. so far without dieting, surgery, or supplements, read Food, Drink, and Decadence: How the French stay thin, which sums it up nicely. Thanks for reading.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
- Picasso

Since the beginning of the year I’ve made some big changes in my life. At the top of the list are the following:

1. I have fundamentally adjusted my dietary habits away from packaged and fast food to eating real food in moderation. Goodbye, old Twinkie friend. Au revoir, Coca Cola and Mountain Dew – we made a great team for a while, but our relationship was clearly becoming destructive. Sayonara, my happy-go-lucky Cheetoh buddy – how I will miss your humor and salty witticisms, but your services are no longer required.
2. I left my corporate job behind a few weeks ago in pursuit of my own projects, including Almost Fit of course, as well as several others that are in the works. I’ve also started picking up freelance writing work already, though I really haven’t started pursuing it much yet. I am trying to launch at least one more site by the end of next week and then yet another in August. More details to come, but I can tell you that the second site is related to Almost Fit, and the third is focused on my technology background. And those are just the projects I’m talking about here…Fascinating, ain’t it? Read the rest of this entry »

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Ed. Note: This article focuses on the benefits of eating together for families with children. I believe that families come in all shapes and sizes; I just chose families with kids for today’s article. Thanks for reading Almost Fit – I really do appreciate it.

With the pace of life building at an ever increasing rate, for many of us, sharing meals at the dinner table is becoming a lost art. Often times if families eat together at all, it is in the car after having placed an order in front of an illuminated board of “value” options, yelling through a cheap microphone, trying to make it to the next activity only a few minutes late for once.

For a while we were sucked into this vortex of squeezing meals in between the “more important” things (as if meals were not critical to life!). Here’s an example. Read the rest of this entry »

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