This little guy kicks some serious ass.  First, he’s just a little guy.  Super light and easy to shove into any pocket or corner of my bag. I try to travel as light as possible on my trips and this one passes the weight test coming in at 7.4 oz.

Second, this thing is easy and quick to pump.  I was sitting next to my buddies as they labored with their older and bigger MSR Miniworks Water Filters. Although the Hyperflow is half the size of the miniworks it was pumping twice the water in the same amout of time and was super easy to handle. Size isn’t always everything, Ladies.

Third, setup for first time use is easy as pie.  The device is designed so that you really only need to the instructions to figure out which is the “in hole” and which is the “out hole” [insert San Francisco joke here].

The one drawback is that the spout that ejects fresh filtered water is designed to fit MSR water bottles or bladders.  For me this has always been annoying about most MSR water filters.  They actually give you an adaptor that will fit perfectly to a MSR waterbottle.  It didn’t fit well with either my bladder or water bottle.  If you’re a backpacker you’re familiar with this scenario.  It leaves you holding your water bottle and one end of the pump with a single hand.  This can be a bit precarious when you’re hanging over some running water holding your camelback with 2 liters of water in it just by your pinky finger.  I’m exaggerating a bit, but I do suggest they spend a bit more design time on the filling process now that they have the pump and filter mechanics pretty solid.

Overall, it’s rare that I’m this pleased with a new piece of gear. I’d suggest it to anyone.  I’m sure next years model will be an upgrade but if you need a water filter right now for backpacking trips go get this one.

Oh and check out Henry Coe SP if you’re in the Bay Area.  Beautiful place very close to the city.

My weigh-ins over the course of the 8 week period are here:

Date	Weight		%
11/7/2011	193.3	0.00%
11/14/2011	191.5	0.93%
11/21/2011	191.4	0.98%
11/28/2011	184.9	4.35%
12/5/2011	190.1	1.66%
12/12/2011	187.5	3.00%
12/19/2011	193.5	-0.10%
12/26/2011	187.5	3.00%
1/2/2012	185	4.29%

My low was actually a 181lb weigh-in which I recorded two weeks in a row before and after Thanksgiving.  Those recordings were taken mid-week and didn’t count as official weigh-ins. I did get cocky half way through and fell off the program with some family in town.  No excuses though – play like a champion.

On the final day, I tried to make a comeback by using this hot bath dehydration method. I last an hour in the bath and lost a bit over 3lbs in that period of time.  It was really hard to stay in the tub as prescribed and I have a whole new respect for guys that are about to shed 15-20 pounds in a single day doing this.  Nuts. This is not fun at all.

In the end, the victor lost almost 20lbs and I send my praise (and money) his way.  I look forward to giving this a shot again next year.

My approach is to first establish a solid program and get my body used to being at a lower weight as quickly as possible. Even though a lot weight can be dropped over a 24 hour period with some intense methods, I first intend to drop my overall bodyweight 10-15 pounds in 3 weeks and get my body used to that going into the final 5 weeks.

My program involves three critical elements:

One: Slow Carb Diet
The slow-carb diet was introduced to me in the book 4HB by Tim Ferriss and on his blog in this article. I used it before to lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks with some slacking off so know I can do the same again easily.

I break it down into these quick rules:
A: Avoid white carbs like bread, tortillas, noodles, rice, potatoes.
B: Eat high-protein breakfast within 30 minutes of waking.
C: Drink a lot of water…and then more.
D: No alcohol save 1-2 glasses of red wine per night.
E: Give yourself a cheat day once a week. Make it the same day.

Two: Cold Exposure

For the 8 weeks I will be purposefully exposing myself to cold and forcing shivers. This includes nothing but freezing cold showers for the next 8 weeks. I’ll tell you more about this in a future post.

Three: Crossfit

I tried Crossfit with a friend of mine years ago and it was by far the most effective exercise methodology resulting in improved overall fitness, weight-loss and bad assery. I recently started this at San Francisco Crossfit and won’t change my plans of going regularly as part of this. Gaining muscle may jeopardize my win but it is a risk I’m willing to take.

Leave any other tips you may have in comments.

Cheers,
Chase

Challenge is taking place from November 7th to January 1st. The winner is the individual that loses the highest % of their total body weight during that time.

Start: 193.3 lbs
Week 1: 191.5 lbs

I plan to dominate in this competition through hard work, discipline, treacherous undermining of my competitors. Stay tuned for details my program, progress and undermining.

Results:
The coach, Carl, gave me some instruction on form and suggested that for the next 8 weeks I focus on super light weight to ensure I’m activating certain muscles that haven’t recovered properly since my knee and ankle surgeries. Therefore, my initial front-squat was just with the bar. I have to tense my muscles so hard through my legs and core to get close to the proper form that even this is very fatiguing.

The front squat test I added 20lbs and completed all sets. This is a killer on your arms but great practice for getting flexibility up top and getting the bar on top of your chest.

Tabata Burpees. Just brutal. Lost count the first round and never got it back. Gotta work on keeping track and logging my baselines.

Awesome workout.

Today’s WOD Review:
21, 18, 15, 12, 9 Thrusters and Toes2Bar (I subbed Knees2Elbows)

Results:
Reached time cap at 20min on the round of 9 which was pretty embarrassing. That said I still kicked my own ass. I need to improve my kipping motion to make that more efficient. My arms are toast in a few minutes just hanging from the pull-up bar and most my time was spent trying to do proper reps of knees2bows. My burning arms and fatigued core brought pukie pretty close. Thrusters (with 20 pound dumbells) were the bright spot. My squat form is getting better as I’m really focusing on my hip flexibility so it is slowly getting easier to get my knees out and into my corners. A long way to go still and need to improve locking out the arms and getting the head through and forward.

The Common Sense of  a Giant

Stealing shamelessly from Marvin Bower once of McKinsey & Co.  I want you all to know what kind of behavior we admire, and what kind of behavior we deplore:

• First, we admire people who work hard.  We dislike passengers who don’t pull their weight in the boat.
• We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great organization without brainy people.
• We admire people who avoid politics — office politics, I mean.
• We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their direct reports.
• We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence.  We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments.
• We admire people who hire people who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior people as their direct reports.
• We admire people who build up and develop their employees, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks.  We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs and look forward to the day when that will never be necessary.
• We admire people who practice delegation.  The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you.  The more you trust others to do their job, the more we all get done.
• We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.  We abhor quarrelsome people.  We abhor people who wage paper warfare.  We abhor buck passers and people who don’t tell the truth.
• We admire well-organized people who deliver their work on time.
• We admire people who are good citizens in their communities — people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, and so on.
• We admire people who accomplish a great deal while having fun.
• We admire you.

I couldn’t find the orignal source for this as I have it in hard-copy. I don’t take credit for the content here but support the sentiment.