My daughter is almost two weeks old now and I’m about to have to return to the real world. I’ve had two weeks of long nights, and twice the diaper changes I’m used to, but I’ve also had two weeks of awesome as I’ve been getting to know the new member of our family.

A few things I’ve learned:

-Staying at home all day is disastrous to productivity. I haven’t blogged, coded, or even done any yard work the whole time I’ve been off of work.  This is probably due to being incredibly tired and busy with a newborn but sometimes all I want to do is lay around and watch Law and Order reruns.

-Having a home gym is crucial. Even if you don’t have a full set of weights or a squat rack, I think it is very important to have something set up in your home that will allow you to just get away for a few minutes and stay active. My IronGym pullup bar has definitely gotten a lot of use these past two weeks. I’ve also been working on gathering other components for my home gym that I’ll post about soon.

-Get out whenever possible. I’ve bargained with my wife to let me get a few miles in throughout the last few days. Getting time to myself on the jogging trail has been great. I love being with family but burning through an hour in my running shoes is important for my sanity.

How do you keep sane or focused on fitness when life is otherwise out of whack?

Wow. Lots. Going. On.

First, some personal matters to attend to. This weekend marked the birth of our first daughter, Caroline! She was born early Friday morning which means that we have spent almost 4 straight days in the hospital. Actually, as I’m writing this post now we are still waiting to be discharged. We are all exhausted, unkempt, and insanely tired of eating hospital food, but we’re immensely grateful to have mom and baby healthy and doing well.  Obligatory baby photo in 3…2…1…

During our incredibly long 4-day hospital stay, I learned that maintaining a healthy diet and active workouts is next to impossible without access to anything more than the cafeteria and vending machines. Also, with only getting 2-3 hours of sleep at a time, you generally don’t really feel up to doing sprints down the maternity ward or stair sets in the hospital stairwells. Praise God that we are finally getting discharged today.

This week, as part of adjusting to my new life as a father to a little girl, I’m going to be trying super hard to reincorporate sprinting, long runs, and strength training back into my life.

Now, on to the important stuff. Some of you may remember that last week we held a little contest for the Sony W-Series Walkman. Well, all the submissions have been accepted and the random winner has been selected. Without further ado, the owner of the brand new MP3 player is…

Chris Denbow!

Congrats, Chris and thanks to everyone who participated. Hopefully, I’ll be able to host more of these giveaways in the following weeks. The articles may be coming a little slower than usual this week but I promise, I’m still here… somewhere… under mounds of dirty diapers.

(Warning: a vanity article…)

A key component of fitness is continual improvement. Progress doesn’t have to be immediate or drastic, but on the whole I like to see a trend of progression across the board. Strength, speed, endurance and *vainfully* appearance are all areas that I desire to see improvements in. Lately, I’ve seen some progress in each category but in a lot of ways I feel like I still have so much to improve upon.

My list of items to improve on:

squats & deadlifts – I’ve really come to believe that these are two of the most important exercises that everyone who is capable should be doing. They work not only the legs but also the back, arms, glutes as well as core. However, just because I really believe in them doesn’t mean that I’m very good at them. The weight I am currently doing would make most gym rats scoff. Plus, I’m not totally content with my form. After a few sets I sometimes feel sore in places where I shouldn’t be (meaning I need to work on doing these routines better to enhance their effectiveness and avoid injury). Anyone care to join me at the gym for a critique of my form?

lower body fat percentage (get a six pack) - yeah, I know that there is no physiological benefit of having a six pack. I know that performance wise, a six pack won’t help me play sports better or run faster. I know that largely, six packs are pretty unsustainable. However, this doesn’t negate the fact that I still want one :] After 25 years of wondering if I even had abdominal muscles, I still think it would be nice to have some definition if for no other reason than to further impress my wife. Note: we have recently discussed this and she says that she couldn’t care less (so she says). The hard and simple rule of getting abdominal definition: lower your body fat percentage.

sprinting (High Intensity Interval Training) - Sprinting is a very beneficial exercise for almost anything. I’m currently working on a regular routine to emphasize speed and prolonged endurance at higher intensities (look for a post coming soon). This is helpful for sport performance, races, metabolism, and the a fore mentioned lower body fat percentage.

supplements – Shamefully, I must admit that I currently know almost nothing about dietary supplements. When I was in heavy weight loss mode I watched everything I ate very closely and I still didn’t get into the wild world of supplements. From some of the resources I’ve currently been reading, however, I’m learning that there can be some extreme benefits from adding the proper nutrients in your diet. Again, I hope to write about some of my findings in a future post. But in the meantime, I’m currently looking into the magical properties of Omega 3 fish oil capsules. Anyone have some advice?

Bonus Round:

blogging – I wasn’t a journalism or creative writing major in school. Normally I feel more comfortable with numbers than with words. Again, this is something I’m working on. I’ve been trying to crank up the usefulness and interestingness of the content here. Hopefully one day I can write an artificial intelligence program to write the content for me. In the meantime, I guess I’ll be manning the helm myself with a continual desire to live, work, and write better.

Where are you currently on your personal goals? Are there things you would just like to be better at for no other reason than personal satisfaction?

(photo by Helico)

I just picked up a race packet for the half-marathon I have coming up this Sunday. Am I pumped? Definitely! Am I prepared? Not even close Last year I completed a full marathon and spent 3 months training for it. This year, I kind of signed up for the race on a whim. I have some friends who wanted to run so I volunteered to come along. This probably isn’t the best reason to decide to run a 13.1 mile race but why pass up an opportunity to spend two hours in the freezing rain? I have a goal time of 2 hours. Since I haven’t really been in hardcore training mode, that may or may not be realistic. We’ll just have to see.

In other news, here are few of my favorite fitness articles I’ve discovered this week. If you have any you’d like to add or have found anything on FitHacks.com particularly helpful, interesting, or entertaining lately I’d be happy to discuss that too

NerdFitness.com: What Burns More Calories?

MarksDailyApple.com: 10 Real-Life Reasons Why the Primal Blueprint Works for Me

DumbLittleMan: 6 Ways You Can Eat Like an Olympian

If you are devoted to pursuing your fitness goals and have a passion for exercising and eating right, then perhaps you have, at one time or another, had the unfortunate idea of making your very own fitness blog. If at any point you have considered such a thing, heed this advice: drop your plans immediately and never mention them again to anyone. Pursuing the path of the “fitness blogger” will only lead to a world of pain, frustration and shame.

-Self-Importance: Blogging about your fitness goals and successes will indeed give you a heightened sense of self-importance. As you begin posting your before and after pics people may start congratulating you on your weight-loss. This is only natural. However, once your site has built a slow but steady stream of traffic, these small complimentary comments can quickly lead to an inflated ego and an annoying “rock star” attitude. You may even find yourself saying phrases like “Pain is weakness leaving the body” or “Sweat plus sacrifice equals success”. If you hear these cliches leave you mouth, you’ll know that a line has just been crossed.

-Constantly Plagued by Sudden Post Ideas: This symptom of fitness blogging will worsen the longer that your site remains online. Soon, you will begin noticing the most random things in a different way (e.g. gym water fountains). You may even begin organizing ideas about these random things into posts ranging from mildly informative to totally useless (e.g. Top 10 Infections You Can Catch from the Gym Water Fountain or How To Use the Gym Water Fountain Like a Pro). This affliction is reversible as long as sustained contact with the blog has been minimal.

-Distracts from Real Fitness Goals: If you have spent all night working on your blog or have skipped a run or trip to the gym because you were publishing something that you just had to post, then the blog has become ironically counterproductive and must be killed at once. What good is it for a man to gain fitness credibility if he must forfeit his own fitness?

-Zero Satisfaction: Ultimately, the goal of the “fitness blogger” is to host their own TV show or to sign a 7 figure book deal. This, of course, will never happen. All attempts at monetization will ultimately fail and their branded t-shirts and bottled nutritional supplements will wind up donated to charity. Sometimes, the crash from this lack of validation is so severe that the blogger not only ceases all attempts at personal fitness, but also personal hygiene as well. This can lead to a very ugly and often times smelly situation.

If this post has awakened even one potential fitness blogger to the harsh truths of reality then my job is complete. While it may be too late for this blogger to change his absolutely futile ways, I urge you to live! Live for the both of us…

(photo by Marco Wessel)

I can always feel a sickness coming. A few days before I get a full blown cold my throat is extra dry, my head is stuffed up and I’m overly tired. Sometimes I think that I can intervene and overcome the cold with sheer force of will. I increase my OJ intake, drink tons of water and try to rest more. Usually, this actually does the trick. However, tonight, I’m having no such luck. I started feeling crappy yesterday and continued on my regular workout routine as normal without any bad side effects. Today though I just feel beat. So beat, in fact, that I don’t even feel like being awake right now.

So, if you don’t mind, I was going to ask some readers to finish this post for me in the comments below by answering this question: How do you fight a cold? Do you stand up to it like a man and refuse to let it slow you down, or do you lie down in submission, take a sick day, and watch horrible daytime TV until it passes? The comments are open and FitHacks needs your help : )