Our Split Week(End) in Pics

This past week, Fit went to Iowa to celebrate her Grandpa’s 90th birthday (yes, wow!) and Hungry stayed home, being a single dad.

Hungry’s Pics

Some workouts with friends

Jan122016

Execute, Don’t Just Dream!

This was an article that I started drafting back on August 25, 2015, at 11:30 am after reading the article that I mention below. Unfortunately, I never completed it. Fortunately, as I was looking at the draft I realized that this might be the best time to publish it. Since this is the beginning of the year and we’re all so busy focusing on what we did and didn’t do in 2015 and what we will do in 2016, I want to encourage you to pursue your dream… or any other ridiculous ideas that might actually work.

Aug072015

Wellness in the Workplace

Working at a desk for hours, let alone a full day, can be more exhausting than a hard training session. It’s mentally draining as feelings of stiffness and soreness creep through your body. Movement is life. You think of water and air, two of the most essential components for life and how they effortlessly move through the most difficult and dangerous locations.

Jun262014

Hungry, Fit & Co are Moving!

The whole family is packing everything up again and moving to the West Coast! Los Angeles here we come. At first, we’re going to be staying in Santa Monica but our goal is to eventually move to Korea Town as soon as possible. We would love to stay in Santa Monica or another beach part of LA, but with Alana certainly going back to school, and Chris possibly going back to school, it’s just not going to be affordable!

The chances are Alana will be going to school part-time and maybe eventually full-time for nursing and Chris will start to take part-time classes working towards a Masters in Physiological Science. Therefore, Alana could be working part-time, full-time or just managing Hungry & Fit, while Chris probably works full-time. You, or we, never know until we’ve made the change and hopefully we have good like in finding a place to live and good jobs! All those things could change! A huge part of the excitement of moving is the adventure; we love adventures… like hobbits… well Bilbo, and Frodo. We will be sure to keep you all updated on what we choose to do.

We will be leaving Boulder August 1st and should get to Los Angeles August 2nd. It is two days of driving and we’ve done the trip before but not with all these animals in the car. We will have to take extra care and make sure to control the climate in the car. Again, it should be exciting and build character! Once we get there, we’ll figure out all the necessary evils such as where to live and how to pay the bills. Chris will probably try to be beach lifeguard, walk dogs, and do personal training… all things he has a lot of experience doing and enjoys. Alana will figure out a school and work schedule that is reasonable.

There is not a whole lot more to tell you other than this is the big announcement and we better get in high gear to start preparing for the move. Lots of items are being sold on Craigslist and we will be having a garage sale soon. Let us know if you are in the market for anything! We are really trying to be minimalists for this move and prevent Chris from hoarding and collecting things he never uses. He promised to change this time so we’ll see!

Hopefully, we get to see even more friends and family as a result of this move. We get to spend more time at the beach and although Chris will miss his whiter winters, we will hopefully be travelling to the East Coast more than when we were in Colorado. We like LAX a lot more than DIA. So if you’re living in LA and want to meet up at some point, let us know. We have friends there but building a new network is going to be a challenge. You make something out of yourself in one place and then decide to pick up and start from scratch again. I hope it all works out well for us! Thanks for all your support and look forward to an even better Hungry & Fit in LA!

Mar062014

HabitRPG: A Quest for Productivity

This is for you gamers out there or people who are looking for a new way to encourage productivity. I happen to be both. This is not necessarily just an app, it is so much more! Similar to CARROT, it makes productivity more into a game, which is brilliant (for me, at least). You level up in CARROT, but HabitRPG takes it to a whole different level.

It originated as just a website, but it seems more like a program or an online game. You make an account with HabitRPG and make your “avatar” aka your character or “you.” We’re talking about old-school pixelated graphics. It has the old-time feel to it, I like it. After all, this is a free service (there’s a subscribe option to support the developers), and these people are putting their own time into it. Once you are all set up with your Level 1 character, you are guided through a little tutorial. This just explains the basic functions and whatnot for you to be able to “play.”

How do you level up? Well, by being productive, of course! Let’s move on to the most important aspect of the program: the tasks. This where the productivity and efficiency come in, alongside the fun and questing. In order to gain levels, to gain gold, or cool items, you have to get stuff done! There are three types of productivity: habits, dailies, and to-dos.

I’m the character on the left, my brother, who is in my party is shown on the right

Habits are every day things, as you would expect habits to be. These are things you can tick off multiple times a day. You might have “drink water” or “eat junk food” (which would drain your hitpoints). Dailies are a once-a-day tick-off like “exercise” or “take vitamins.” And finally, to-dos is obviously a to-do list. Each can have different difficulties which gains you more or less experience, gold, and items.

Those of you familiar with MMORPGs know about dailies. In this program, if you don’t complete all your “dailies” (things you should be doing every day OR every certain day that you set), then you lose hitpoints in your character. Nobody likes losing health! It really motivates me and drives me to do all those daily tasks and set the bar higher and higher. I love it! And as you level up, more and more becomes available to you like pets, mounts, and other items like equipment to give you buffs. Just like a real RPG!

Equipment

There’s also a big “Social” aspect to the game. You can join several guilds (some that I am in include “Health Nuts,” “Mastering Buddha,” and “Pet Owners”), create challenges (that other people can join and get the tasks and dailies specific to that challenge such as learning languages, meditating, and so forth), and start your own party (aka a group). Right now I’m in a party with my brother, who is the one who introduced me to this awesome program.

Finally there are Rewards (which you see on the “Tasks” page) which are basically things you “purchase” with the gold that you have earned. Rewards can range from whatever you want. There are some pre-set ones like equipment you can buy and such like shield, sword, etc. Then there are also ones you create. So on mine, you can see “1 hr video games,” “buy something for yourself,” “take a bath” and so forth. Make the price sensible so that it makes sense with the reward you are receiving. So if I really want to play those video games, I better get some stuff done!

I would love for more of you to join us! It’s also a great support network if not a fun and motivating way of being productive. My user is “hungryandfit” and I encourage you to join HabitRPG! I give it a huge thumbs up so far, it’s made me floss every day and we know that’s a win! And as always…stay hungry and fit!

Dec162013

Motivation Monday: Just Keep Swimming!

It’s Monday. Yes, I hear the moans and groans. But it is the start to a new week of goals and achievements! Time to get back on track with our fitness and willpower, more importantly. There are often times where the couch beckons you much louder than the squat rack or the treadmill in the gym. This happens to me as well. Resist the evil couch! Pick yourself up, no matter how unmotivated you are and just go. That’s the theme for this week: just keep going, just keep swimming. Because you will always be happy you went. One never regrets a workout unless there is an injury involved.

If you have a headache or feeling tired, go workout! I find that when these symptoms occur, a bout of exercise is the best thing to cure it! Keep the mantra in your head… just keep swimming. Here are some inspirations that I have been using lately:

The Lions vs Eagles game: it was literally blizzarding and they fought through, played through. They had to wade through half a foot of snow but they kept playing. Their skin was probably burning from the cold and they could barely see, but they went on.

It’s about to get nerdy up in here, but the quest in the Hobbit! Dwarves and Hobbits have damn short legs and they were able to get through all that terrain, climb all those mountains with bands of orcs behind them. Think about going to the gym as a quest. You must make it no matter what stands in your way–laziness or sleepiness! Fight on!!

Lastly, look to those around you for strength and motivation. I have a client who is in her later 20s, has a 6-year-old daughter, is a full-time nurse, going to school for her Master’s, oh and training for a half-marathon. She is in the gym every chance she can get. She gives me inspiration to get my butt up when I’m simply feeling lazy because that girl has her priorities straight and she is damn fit.

Never give up, never surrender! Fight past any laziness, sleepiness, or grumpiness and make your way into your workout, whatever it is. Fight hard and stay hungry and fit!

Nov222013

My Future Plans (Being Organized, Be Ambitious)

This might not be so inspiring for some people. This definitely won’t be so interesting for most. However, I want you to NOT take this as me talking about myself. I hope that readers get something more out of this post. It will be a quick one that lacks depth and details (about me) so don’t worry about it being painful to read. What I am trying to do is motivate others to keep going, keep pushing and continue to grow. No one is perfect and no one can be perfect. However, there is always an opportunity to increase your abilities and learn more. I could say I am the best swim teacher in the world. I can say that my body is an ancient Grecian sculpture. But that isn’t true and the most important thing (what a great word, right?) is that I know that. ME!

Rawr from H&F

Once upon a time in the great land of fire, Uchiha Itachi told Yakushi Kabuto that “those who can’t acknowledge their real selves are bound to fail.” (My translation. And, yes, I am quoting the manga, Naruto. Uchiha Itachi is my hero! All rights to Kishimoto.) It is important that we know who we are, what we are capable of and that of which we are incapable. Once we can honestly assess this, it is our responsibility to decide whether we want to improve, regress or maintain ourselves. I personally have an obsession with continuing education. I am not a perfectionist, it is too lofty to be called ambitious, I believe. Nevertheless, I strive to improve. For example, I do not “do CrossFit” nor do I have much interest in doing CrossFit. However, as a professional and passionate member of the “fitness community” I want to become a Level 1 CrossFit Coach so I can give a better recommendation, or lack there of, of the program. That’s just an example.

Alana as Lara Croft from Tomb Raider for Halloween…always trying to improve for strength and agility!

With that being said, I am going to do myself a favor and outline my future plans. I will be focusing on remainder of 2013 and 2014, without releasing any confidential information. (There may be a lot of… secrets.) I hope that this will urge to do the same. Evaluate where you are and where you want to be. Highlight your strengths and weaknesses, then use those to make plans for yourself! This is an awesome way of staying honest, organized and motivated. So here we go… try to do something like this!

I want to focus on two areas… physical goals and educational goals. I have my college degree and plenty of certifications but I want to be capable of doing more and helping more people. I have a body that I am content with in many ways but I get bored if I don’t push myself. Those are my two categories and I will break those down. (I am very happy with my “family” and I have no desire to change it aside from the addition of another four-legged friend a few months into 2014.)

But ummm look how cute I am

Physically, I want to push my body despite a significant labral tear in my left shoulder. I want to actually try counting macronutrients and prepping meals, even if it is only for a few weeks or months. I want to increase strength in my legs and back. I want to hold my human flags for longer and perform muscle ups without using any momentum. I want to exercise my core more and start to improve my cardiovascular system by swimming and biking more. I want to return to the rock gym and really improve my grip strength and relative strength. I also want to increase the size of my upper and lower arms, and my chest. Last but not least, I want to maintain stability and prevent injuries (further injuries) in my shoulders. I’ll experiment with different exercise splits and regiments to achieve these goals. I want to also become a more active ISAFIT coach for iSatori and help Hungry & Fit grow so that it reaches more people.

For educational goals, I want to continue my education in scuba diving, swim instruction, and personal training. I hope to become a Level II ASCA Coach. I aim to become a Swim Schools International Teacher Trainer as soon as possible. I want to start diving more and eventually, maybe even in 2014, become a Scuba Schools International Dive Instructor. (I need more specialties and to… dive MORE!) I also am interested in becoming a CPR/First Aid/AED instructor! I love teaching. I know they say those who cannot do, teach. I disagree. And that’s the end of that. Those who can do and want others to do well also… teach. Finally I want to expand on my personal training skills and become a USA Weightlifting Coach, at the very least. I know it is a lot on my plate for 2013/2014 but if I focus and allocate my time and money properly, it is possible. I also want to get my motorcycle license; my permit is covered in dust. That might happen as early as next month.

Learning from a master triathlete swimmer!

In terms of work, I want to make the Swim School of Boulder the cornerstone of the greatest aquatic training center ever! I also want to help the Longmont YMCA grow into an even more necessary part of the community. Obviously, Hungry & Fit is a given. I want to create a Hungry & Fit team that can spread amazing knowledge and motivation to EVERYONE.

Like I said earlier, I will avoid major details and will not even think twice about what I forgot. I could just be content with what I do, but that’s not like me. Life is relatively short and everyone has their own path they want to follow but mine involves learning and spreading that knowledge… always. I will keep you updated on my goals and how I am doing in achieving them but I hope you do too! List some of your goals in the comment section. Let us know areas that you are good at but still want to improve. I respect that. No egos around here. Much love and stay hungry and fit!

Supplements/protein for us to get ready for beast mode

Packing on the weight

Using Olympians as motivation for my own swimming

BONUS KITTY PIC

Aug152013

Happy 1st Birthday, Hungry and Fit!

Happy Birthday to us! Happy Birthday to us! Wow! We made it one whole year of posting and you actually listened to us that whole time! Starting and continuing this blog has been an absolutely treasure for us and we appreciate our followers so much for their support and willingness to try new things. I can’t believe a whole year of blogging has gone by already! Time flies when you’re busy and having fun.

We originally started this blog to share our food and fitness knowledge and to discuss our journey–all which we’ve done with flying colors I believe. When we first started this blog, we were broke and jobless–using the public library to get our blogging needs done. Now we’ve moved to a new apartment (bigger and nicer than previous), gotten several jobs and moved up the chain in those jobs, becoming directors and coordinators of departments.

Chris has Bell’s Palsy here…

Hungry and Fit! Our pose

We’ve been through some rough times and some great times and we’ve both grown in our first year here in Colorado. We’ve achieved great fitness goals and killer recipes. There was the point when we hit 1k followers, and now we’re up to 1,500! We’ve expanded a great deal with different social medias in our Hungry & Fit Nation. We’ve extended our services as personal trainers and become friends with other businesses. We get 400 views a day! Pretty good first year I’d say. And tons of “bonus kitty pics” (obviously the best part of our posts).

And let’s look at the very first post we wrote…”Welcome to Boulder“. Awww, isn’t that cute! It’s fun to look back and see our journey from Day 1 to where we are. Fresh out from college (me anyhow–Chris was one year out), living on our own, and creating a life together. Pretty exciting stuff to think about. We’ve now surpassed a half million views and we are ecstatic about how well our blog has taken off. We’ve gotten some attention from sponsors and ad agencies, but we do this for the love of creation and helping others. And we plan to keep it that way.

It’s a lot of work to blog every day (or so we try), but it’s something we think worth doing and we truly do enjoy it. You gotta do what you love and love what you do. But YOU guys help us keep going. So thank you so much for supporting us! And as always…stay hungry and fit!

You might also like…

BONUS KITTY PIC

Sajah has become such a cuddle bug

Mar142013

3 Ways to Cut Bad Energy from Your Life

We all have times where we get down, stressed, or angry. It happens, it’s part of life. Bad energy is all around us and can consume us. But there is a way to control the bad energy that is around us. We do have control over our lives and mostly who surrounds us. Can you think of that one person or place that seems to simply drown you in that negative energy? Is it really necessary? Let’s look it over.

Maybe you’re someone who doesn’t want to be rude in cutting someone out of your life. Or you just think it’s all in your head. Believe yourself–it isn’t. The feeling of being overwhelmed with negative energy is awful and it sucks the life out of you. Why is that ever worth it? No matter what your situation–working, retired, in school–you don’t deserve to be plagued with that bad energy. The kind that drains you, makes you tired, gets you grumpy, makes you unproductive, and changes you into a person you dislike. It makes you feel choked, cramped, and tied down. It even drives the hope out of you.

energy (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Look back at that list. That is not how you want to live your life, even if it’s only part of the time. If you can immediately picture that person who drains the life out of you and smothers you with bad energy, think about if you really need them in your life. This may sound selfish, but sometimes to be truly happy and feel free, we need to be selfish and take the time to re-examine all components of our life. I have done this a few times and there are different ways to cut these people out:

1. Slowly release them from your life. Maybe it’s that one friend who complains about everything and makes you want to tear your hair out. Or that co-worker that nitpicks your everyday activities. You know that they aren’t necessarily trying to drag you down and throw bad energy at you, but–bottom line–they are. And because you know they aren’t evil people, you don’t want to straight-up shut them out immediately. So let’s be diplomatic and slowly cut the line. Maybe start declining outings they ask you on, spend less time near their cubicle, or make yourself busy and not available to chat. Don’t do all this immediately, do it nice and slow and before you know it, that connection will be dusty and you will feel clean and renewed.

2. Approach them and talk to them about it. This is risky, but worthwhile for both of you if you still want this person in your life. Do not be aggressive or confrontational about it. Have a private setting, maybe a small coffee shop, a lunch date, or simply a walk in the park. Bring up the topic slowly, saying something like, “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I really feel dragged down when you do this, or when you say that [obviously interject your own things]. I want to find a way to make our relationship [whether it be family, friends, or lovers] work so that we can both be happy.” That is a good way to start the conversation. If you find yourself getting quick to anger, maybe it’s just not going to work out as the bad energy spreads.

3. Take yourself out of the situation. So, yes, you can cut people out of your life or you can talk to them and try to make them aware of it so they can change. But what about yourself? Give yourself a good think-over and run over any times where you exude bad energy and where or with whom. And maybe you need to take yourself out of the situation. Out of an apartment, a job, a location. I know those sound like big things, but this is about mental health. Take the time, take the step, take the move.

English: Good Energy logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our mental health affects our physical health–nothing is by itself. If one is altered, then the other will be too. So never ignore your physical or mental health. Cut away the bad energy from your life and live free and happy!

Dec192012

I’ll Need a Bigger Helmet: Biking in Boulder

This will be a quick one, mainly because we had long days and have an early day tomorrow, but also because I don’t have much to say about this, or perhaps I actually do and want to prevent an all out rant.

Essentially, again today on the way home from work I almost got hit by a car… in the sidewalk. I’m a responsible bike rider and good on my bike. I ride it at least 4 days a week, typically more. Some days I only ride it 2-3 miles to and from work but some days, doing multiple jobs, I can ride up to 12 miles a day. These are all commuting miles, on a mix of flat and graded terrain, typically sidewalks and roads. I have an old Trek mountain bike that has been transformed into a commuter bike and I custom fit it to meet my needs.

It has a 17″ frame, and some extra grooved tires for the snow. It has trigger gear shift capabilities that work relatively well and old but reliable brakes. It has a loud bell, a retractable steel grocery basket that fits onto the mountain rack on back, that I use as a makeshift splash guard. I have a decently comfortable seat that is locked to the frame with a wire lock. I keep my heavy duty u-lock attached to the frame and I use a large thick black bell dome helmet. I have all my reflectors in place, plus a flashing or steady rear led red light in addition to my steady or flashing led headlights.

Even with my ability and all these flashing lights, I almost always get hit day or night and it happens in the crosswalks! I come from an area where drivers have a tendency to lack patience and manners, but they are extremely efficient in terms of keeping traffic moving but also very aware of the stop signs, lines, lights and pedestrians.

Many of the drivers in Boulder are the opposite and it’s been tough to get used to it, but that’s not the issue. The issue comes with how bike friendly the actual city of Boulder is! There are crosswalks for pedestrians and bikers that have flashing lights and announce to slow down and stop, and there are bike lanes everywhere.

So every day I happen to be riding in the bike lane, or on the sidewalk if there aren’t any and someone almost hits me in that safe area! It’s because many of the drivers here happen to think that the stop line is for your back tire or the back of your car! Then they usually try to make some apologetic gesture, knowing that if they hit me, they would be in a big trouble, legally. So please, be considerate of pedestrians, be efficient but aware, and recognize the fact that your automobile is a powerful weapon if not handled properly.

Let’s keep our streets and sidewalks safe for everyone! Biking is a physically and mentally rewarding activity and although I may not like the snobby cyclists that wear racing gear and use $5,000 bikes to commute, I enjoy biking to work everyday. It is great for the environment, which I care much about, and it’s a decent leg workout if done correctly. Plus, it always wakes me up before I get to work on the early cold days. I love riding through the snow in the mornings here when the powder is untouched.