Matt's Musings

School Prayer: David Barton is an idiot

2010-06-25T15:51:00.001-07:00

Who is David Barton?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barton_(author)

David Barton is…

an American evangelical minister
a Republican political activist
one of Time magazine’s 25 Most Influential Evangelicals
"a major voice in the debate over church-state separation."
the author of America: To Pray or Not to Pray
an idiot

In his book, America: To Pray or Not to Pray, Barton makes the claim that the removal of mandatory prayer from schools in 1962 has destroyed America. This is utter bullshit. The statistics and graphs he uses are deceptive and present only a narrow snapshot of the data. When we look at MORE of the data, it becomes clear that the real cause for spikes in the graph is not prayer, but WAR. We will also have a look at Canada. You see, in 1982 Canada also stopped forcing children to pray in school. What happened? Stay tuned.

Why do I care about this?

Before I get into the data, I want to tell you why I’m writing this. It’s because I care about what’s true. David Barton is influencing people with his misinformation. Good people like Robin @ Heart of Wisdom Blog, Carol Brooks @ inplainsite.org (follow these links to see Barton’s deceptive graphs and statistics), and many others believe this man’s twisted lies. And belief leads to action, so then we have people who are fighting to save the world by trying to forcing children to recite prayers again, and it’s all based on a lie.

On to the data…

First Question: Could you guess the year forced prayer was taken out of schools based only on this graph? Of course not.

There are 3 green spikes of war I’d like you to note:

WW1 1917-1919
WW2 1939-1945
Vietnam 1965-1975

Now see if you notice those dates below in the Divorce Rates Graph.

That’s right. They match up pretty much exactly. Eliminating forced prayer doesn’t increase divorce rates, WAR does. Furthermore, in most cases religion has been shown to actually INCREASE divorce rates.

Now we look at STDs. Specifically Gonorrhea, because that’s the only graph I could find with this many data points. Again notice the spikes surround the WARS.

Canada

Canada stopped forcing children to pray in schools in 1982. Why didn’t they receive a spike in Gonorrhea like the United States did? Because WAR caused the spike, not lack of forced prayer.

There are more graphs and more data, but I think I’ve made my point. David Barton, please stop spreading your lies.

Religion is Fiction: Divorce Rates are Proof

2010-05-20T13:20:00.001-07:00

^8"and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." – Mark 10:8-9

I’m sure we’ve all heard this scripture. Given that religious people get the benefit of prayer, angels, and miracles, one would assume that they would have lower divorce rates. After all they have an all powerful god looking after them.

Yet what we find is the opposite when we examine the data.
(collected by the Barna Research Group)

Variation in divorce rates by religion:

source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

Average religious divorce rates vs. nonreligious:

(based on the above data)

Average religious:	27%
Average nonreligious:	21%

More detail and graphed:

Kudos to Catholics and Lutherans for not exceeding the baseline divorce rate. Congratulations, your religion isn’t tearing your family apart… but it isn’t helping either. All that prayer and divine moral teachings had no effect on strength of your marriage? That isn’t saying much for religion.

Ron Barrier, Spokesperson for American Atheists remarked on these findings with some rather caustic comments against organized religion. He said:

"These findings confirm what I have been saying these last five years. Since Atheist ethics are of a higher caliber than religious morals, it stands to reason that our families would be dedicated more to each other than to some invisible monitor in the sky. With Atheism, women and men are equally responsible for a healthy marriage. There is no room in Atheist ethics for the type of 'submissive' nonsense preached by Baptists and other Christian and/or Jewish groups. Atheists reject, and rightly so, the primitive patriarchal attitudes so prevalent in many religions with respect to marriage."

StopTheReligiousRight.org had some scathing comments as well:

"We hear an awful lot from conservatives in the Bible Belt and on the TV about how we all should be living. Certainly a culture that teaches the conservative religious values of the Christian right must have clean living written all over it. And lots of ripe fruit from their morally superior lives abounding."
"It doesn't. Far from it. People that talk the loudest may be the ones walking the slowest. Joining its history of Biblically correct bigotry and discrimination, it is an area with the highest divorce, murder, STD/HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, single parent homes, infant mortality, and obesity rates in the nation. As a region, the Bible Belt has the poorest health care systems and the lowest rates of high school graduation."

U.S. Census Bureau data has confirmed the the Barna Group’s research pointing out that the ‘Bible Belt’ has the highest divorce rates in the country (after Nevada of course).

source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

Lets not forget about the Muslims – 31%

An article in InFocus News says the Muslim divorce rate is at 31%.

“According to a study conducted by Dr. Ilyas Ba-Yunus, a sociology professor at State University of New York, the overall divorce rate among Muslims in North America is at an astounding 31%” - http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/986/135/

If religion were real and prayer worked, this number would be lower than our control group (atheists/agnostics).

Hinduism must be the one true religion – 5%

Finally! Results you would expect from a religion. The Hindu divorce rate is only 5%! Holy Cow that’s low! (pun intended) :D

“The study, titled the US Religious Landscape Survey, released on Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, also found that Hindus also have the lowest divorce rate of any group --only 5 percent have been divorced.” - http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/4133.html

Hinduism must be the one true religion! Based on this data, I don’t see any other religion that can claim such a thing. If this religion were real and prayer worked, their divorce rate would be lower than our control group… and it is. Wow… maybe I’m on to something. :P

Factor in the Muslim and Hindu divorce rates to the average and you get

Average religious divorce rate (with Muslim & Hindu added):	23.4%
Average nonreligious divorce rate:	21%

Religious still cant beat nonreligious, and no one can beat the Hindus.

Religion Must be Sacrificed for a Better Humanity

2010-03-01T16:16:00.001-08:00

The very fact that religious differences can separate us from our family and friends is why I don't like it. Even as a non-believer, I still go to church for the music and the people. I still have all the same religious friends. But my strongly christian girlfriend struggles with my non-belief sometimes and it nearly ended our relationship.

While religion can seem innocent and make the average person happy as long as they remain in their bubble, in the bigger picture it is still contributing to worldwide religiousness which contains at least two scoops of crazy. And maybe your children or children's children will bite into some of that crazy. Because of this, I can't see the belief in any religion as a good thing for humanity as a whole. We should study religion only as mythologies. Take the good moral teachings from them, and just be... people.

Religion can be beautiful and romantic or sick and twisted depending on how you look at it. I can see both, but I cant accept the good with the bad. Religion must be sacrificed for a better humanity.

Santa Claus is the BEST metaphor for Jesus

2010-03-01T12:06:00.001-08:00

I was just giving some thought to the similarities between belief in Jesus and belief in Santa. Consider the following quote:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Edward Gibbon

Now lets apply that to Santa: "The Santa myth is regarded by common children as true, by wise children as false, and by their parents as useful."

Jesus and Santa's Similarities

Both employ 'carrot and stick' reward/punishment motivation (heaven/hell, toys/coal) to encourage morality as well as submissiveness to authorities.
Both were real people with historical and mythological versions of their lives.
Both have magical powers.
Both give you free gifts (toys, fruits & nuts, miracles, eternal life) which guilts us into wanting to give back according to the social rule of reciprocity.
Both receive lots of one way messages (prayers, letters to the north pole).
Both have mythological armies of helpers (angels, elves).
Both can bring us joy.
Neither mythology can be proved or disproved without a doubt, however given the proper scrutiny, both can be seen for what they are: very unlikely.

What does this mean?

Jesus is the grown person's Santa. If we can all grow out of Santa, why cant we all grow out of religion? We all know the mythological Santa is fiction, but we still appreciate the idea of Santa. We still love the movies. We take with us all the good things that Santa preaches. Why cant we do this with our religions? Why does it have to feel so horrible to consider your religion is fiction? Why cant we take all the good teachings, reject the bad, and grow from there? Imagine how much better everyone would get along if we all took the good morals and teachings from our religions but allowed ourselves to grow out of the belief like we grew out of Santa. Imagine never again having to argue or fight over religion. No more evangelists trying to convince you that they have the RIGHT religion. No more 'gods chosen people' or fighting over 'holy' lands. The world needs to progress toward this.

Read Your Bible Kids

2010-02-04T15:01:00.001-08:00

Religion is a powerful force... for anything you want. Give me any bible verse to support a claim and I will give you 2 bible verses that support the opposite claim.

Faith in Man

What evidence is there for the divinity of any holy book or the truth of any religion? Let us remember that our faith is always in man first before it can be in the object of his stories. So if you say, "I have faith in Jesus," you must first say, "I have faith in the stories of man," because that is how we learn of Jesus. Any and all stories of a spiritual world comes from man. Every religion was started by man. Plenty of great men in history were claimed to be fathered by gods. Prophets are men. Holy books are written and edited by man. If you have no faith in the unsubstantiated stories of man, then suddenly there is no religion.

Why Would Man Lie About Religion?

It is possible man never lied, but truly believes all the things he says. I know I did when I was blindly religious. But how/why did it begin? Consider primitive man looking in awe at the billions of stars in the night sky, rejoicing in the warmth of the sun as it magically rises yet again, and cowering from the trauma of storms, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. How does primitive man explain all this before science has learned the truth? Gods. And from there it grew.

More Bible Study!

I encourage you to continue studying this imperfect bible and you will soon find all its many contradictions, its mythological things like talking snakes, talking donkeys, unicorns, satyrs (men with goat legs), dragons (dinosaurs?), 7 headed dragons, 7 headed leopards, leviathans (dinosaurs?), giants (angel/human hybrids), animals covered with eyes, behemoths (with a 'tail like a cedar', dinosaurs?), cockatrices (serpent/cock hybrids, dinosaurs?), sorcerers, witches, fortune tellers, mediums, and magicians all with real power (not like the fake ones we have today), an impossible global flood, unfulfilled prophecies, unfulfilled/broken promises by God, a schizophrenic insane jealous humble hateful loving god, and testable new testament claims (ie. ask Jesus for anything and you get it, and drinking poison wont harm believers). I recommend http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html and http://thebricktestament.com (the largest illustrated bible in the world).

"Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course, but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is therefore at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie." - Thomas Paine

Pizza Value Calculator Updated

2009-12-02T03:25:00.001-08:00

Enjoy its value-ee goodness.

Pizza Value Calculator

Christianity: The Evidence people give For and Against it.

2009-10-10T12:02:00.001-07:00

The table is below.

Please leave a comment to let me know if I’ve left something out.

Keep seeking the truth.

Evidence FOR Christianity	Evidence AGAINST Christianity
it feels real	every other religion also feels real. books, movies, and dreams also feel real. your mind makes it real, but that doesn’t make it objective reality.
if feels good	it does feel good, and it makes you feel special, but so does every other religion. feeling good doesn’t make it real. we all want to feel like we are infinitely important and infinitely loved.
There really was a charismatic guy named Jesus	there is no evidence Jesus was anything more than a man who was killed for Jewish heresy.
smart people believe it	smart people reject it
lots of people believe it	lots of people reject it
it promotes charity/love/good/tolerance	it promotes killing/hate/evil/intolerance
the bible is perfect	the bible is not perfect and has many internal contradictions. it also contains absurd mythological fairytale like things
answered prayers	god only "answers" prayers that already have a statistical chance of happening. answered prayers can easily be explained away as coincidence.
miracles (incorruptible saints, stigmata, speaking in tongues, healing by laying on hands, drinking poison without harm, driving out demons)	impossible things remain impossible. the laws of nature and the physical universe do not change. they do not make exceptions. claimed miracles have not been given the scientific scrutiny they need to be understood.
	God breaks his promises/lies to his people in the the old testament
	Jesus makes clear claims in the new testament that are testable and false.
	looks like every other religion including mythological ones (ie. no proof, requires faith)
	* EVOLUTION * - human male nipples, tailbone, goosebumps, wisdom teeth, appendix. - Wings on flightless birds - hind leg bones in whales - the Astyanax Mexicanus fish live in total darkness in caves and are born blind. the same species is also found near the surface where there is light and they are born with fully functioning eyes. - Dandelions have sex organs (stamen, pistil) but dont use them to reproduce. instead it clones itself. - Whiptail Lizards are all female and grow clones from their eggs, but sometimes a lizard will act like a male and try to mate with another female.

Beliefs

2009-07-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

"You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant." - Dogma (1999)

What are your religious beliefs? Do you believe some people are born gay? Do you believe conspiracy theories? 9/11? Did we land on the moon? When does life begin? Is there life after death? Is there a personal God who answers prayers? Does everything happen for a reason? Do you believe in childish things? Santa Clause, the easter bunny, unicorns, fairy tales?

I ask these questions not to offend you, but to get you to think about all your beliefs... now lets attack religion:

"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." -Thomas Edison

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectively on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it." - Benjamin Franklin

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythologies." - Thomas Jefferson

A person's belief is what's real to them. If we believe what isn't true, then we have deceived ourselves. And this deception feels real because we believe it. Its circular. This is how religion works. Why believe anything we cannot prove? Instead, have an idea. You can change an idea.

Sex, Friendship, Love, Like, and Lust Demystified

2009-04-16T16:18:00.001-07:00

Today a friend of mine asked my views on relationships. Without thinking, I regurgitated an old response I'd been using for years, "Men and women can never be 'just friends'." Then with a quick glance at my life we found that I currently have several female friends! I am my own proof that men and women CAN be friends. So it's time to reorganize my thoughts...

Side Note:
While struggling to accurately write the info below, I realized that the English language is limiting me. Proper words just don't exist for some things. It is also confusing. The word "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" suggests that all other friends are not of that gender. "This is my girlfriend," sounds like, "I have only guy friends, except for this one girl friend." And "girlfriend" and "girl friend" mean different things. It's too confusing. Stupid language needs better words.

First, Lets Define Some Terms

Like - a feeling of enjoyment, approval, admiration, or esteem
Lust - a feeling of sexual attraction (ie. wanting sex)
Friend - a person you like, and who also likes you
Lustbuddy - a person you lust, and who also lusts you (ie. boyfriend/girlfriend)
Flirt - playful sexually suggestive dialog

Observations

people like some people
people lust some people
like and lust are not like light switches (on/off). they are scales. like is balanced with dislike, and lust with disgust or repulsion. they each vary in intensity.
people flirt with some people
flirting increases lust or like
touching also increases lust or like

The Like/Lust Chart

If person A	and person B	then
likes	likes	Friends
likes	-	-
lusts	lusts	Lustbuddies
lusts	-	-
likes	lusts	Much frustration? Probably unhealthy.
likes and lusts	-	-
likes and lusts	likes	Friends (unless affected by lust). Probably unhealthy/unstable.
likes and lusts	lusts	Lustbuddies (unless affected by like). Probably unhealthy/unstable.
likes and lusts	likes and lusts	Friends and Lustbuddies

Love

What's love? Where does love come into all of this? I didn't define it it my list of terms because love is complicated enough to deserve its own section and again I am limited by the lack of proper English words.

Love - is charity. it is giving and good, selfless and unrequited.

Love can be broken down into 2 components (emotional and physical):

Emotional Love - a feeling of wanting to Love. (ie. "I want to feed those poor starving African children" or "She is so beautiful and amazing, I want to give her the world"). There is also a component of brain/body chemistry here that makes us feel good when we love and when we are loved. It can take our breath away, quicken our pulse, make us happy, and make us cry. But emotions are temporary. They always are. They fade.

A 2nd definition of Emotional Love - intense like. This emotion is balanced by hate, or intense dislike. I don't like this usage of the word love because it muddies it's other definition. Basically, when you share proper giving love with someone, you are going to like them more intensely and that's why love is often used to describe intense like.

So the phrase "I love you" can mean either "I intensely like you" or "I want to selflessly give to you". Likewise, when you are "in love" you are either "in intense like" or "in a state of selfless giving".
Physical Love (Love as an action) - this is how we express love, through acts of charity/giving. This is always a choice whether you feel the emotional love or not. Expressing love to family and friends is the same. Expressing love to a lover is also the same except that it has an additional sexual component. Sexual love is the giving (and not necessarily receiving) of sexual pleasure.

Observation #7. Love exists separate from like and lust. Each has their own scale.

Conclusion

What have we learned? Men and women can be friends. More than that, any person can have any degree of love, like, and lust for another person. Relationships are formed when we find another person who's love/like/lust for us matches or partially matches our love/like/lust for them. We then make decisions on how we want the relationship to proceed based on logic, emotions, social norms, alcohol, etc. Maybe it's a lust filled one night stand, or a like filled friendship. Maybe we limit ourselves to 1 active lustbuddy at a time, and demand everyone else be 'just friends'. Whatever our reasons for defining our relationships, we still tend to surround ourselves with people we like.

Observation #8. Love is a gift. It cannot be earned.
Observation #9. Like and lust can be earned.

Surround yourself with people you like, flirt often, and love and lust will work themselves out.

Six pack abs: Week 13, Day 1

2008-11-10T13:25:00.001-08:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

Weekly Weigh-ins
Week 1, Day 1: 162 lbs (starting weight)
Week 2, Day 1: 161 lbs
Week 3, Day 1: 159.5 lbs
Week 4, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 5, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 6, Day 1: 155.5 lbs
Week 6 repeat: 153 lbs
-Missed 2 Weeks-
Week 7, Day 1: 155 lbs
Week 8, Day 1: 155 lbs
Week 9, Day 1: 154.5 lbs
-Missed 2 Months to recover from surgery-
Week 10, Day 1: 151 lbs
Week 11, Day 1: 151 lbs
Week 12, Day 1: 153.5 .lbs
Week 13, Day 1: 157 lbs

Yikes. Weight is up even more. Still not doing cardio. Poor eating habits. And kind of a lot of beer... and other alcohol. Clearly the workout alone is not enough. I can grab the fat covering my abs and see that it's a lot thicker than on other parts of my body. I wish I had a way of accurately measuring my body fat %.

Six pack abs: Week 12, Day 1

2008-11-03T17:37:00.001-08:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

Last weeks workout actually took only 1 hour to complete after I got better at it. I still have an unattractive layer of gut fat. I gained weight this week. Muscle? More likely it's all the sugar I've been eating. I haven't been sticking to the eating tips very well. I'll have to improve on that.

Six pack abs: Week 11, Day 1

2008-10-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

These workouts are getting pretty tough and they are taking me about 2 hours to complete.

Six pack abs: Week 10, Day 1

2008-10-20T16:39:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

Weekly Weigh-ins
Week 1, Day 1: 162 lbs (starting weight)
Week 2, Day 1: 161 lbs
Week 3, Day 1: 159.5 lbs
Week 4, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 5, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 6, Day 1: 155.5 lbs
Week 6 repeat: 153 lbs
Missed a week: ? lbs
Missed a week: ? lbs
Week 7, Day 1: 155 lbs
Week 8, Day 1: 155 lbs
Week 9, Day 1: 154.5 lbs
-Missed 2 Months to recover from surgery-
Week 10, Day 1: 151 lbs

Sweet, 2 months are up. I've been wanting to get back into this. I felt sick after 3 rounds of the first superset. This reminds me of how I felt in week 1. Maybe I'm pushing too hard? I slowed way down and finished it out. I'm surprised my weight is down from over the break cuz i pigged out from time to time.

Skydiving Options in San Diego

2008-09-24T23:40:00.001-07:00

There are 5 skydiving companies in San Diego running out of 4 airfields:

Brown Field and Nichols Field are in south/southeast SD
Skylark Field and Perris Valley airport are an hour north of SD (they're also an hour from LA)

Some other stuff:

Some places charge more if you weigh over 200lbs
You cant skydive if you weigh more than 230lbs
Some places also have student, military, senior, and early bird discounts
Other websites appear to be scams

skydiving comparison best cheapest safest parachuting

NinjaVideo.net Review

2008-09-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

Forget NinjaVideo, use http://www.IceFilms.info instead

Well... since the fall of Stage6, high quality streaming video has been pretty hard to come by. My once favorite site, QuickSilverScreen (QSS), lost all of it's HQ content and started linking to crappy quality flash video like all the others. (Note: QSS appears to have some DivX content again, but the streaming speed is WAY too slow... lame.)

NinjaVideo.net has been silently lurking in the shadows for the past couple months (since Feb 08), but video playback on their site was shitty and uncertain and the gods knew it, so they recently released the NINJAVIDEO HELPER. This tiny program controls the video stream and makes all video playback on NinjaVideo awesome, fast, and certain. This helper program has since evolved into a java applet that runs in a new browser window.

Now NinjaVideo is kickass:

+ Only High Quality DivX content
+ Fast working videos (requires ninjavideo helper)
+ Nice library of content
+ New content added several times a day
+ Every video has a download link
+ Videos stay up for a long time and are seldom deleted.
+/- Podcasts. Ninja loves to hear themselves talk... but they tend to ramble
- There are lots of complaints of the arrogance of the staff. Take my advice: Stay away from the forum. Don't try to give back. Save yourself the headache and just leech the vids. You'll be much happier.
- The full page AdBrite ad is annoying... but a clever person can block it...
+ ... there are no popups :)

Six pack abs: Week 9, Day 1 (Photos!)

2008-08-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

Weekly Weigh-ins
Week 1, Day 1: 162 lbs (starting weight)
Week 2, Day 1: 161 lbs
Week 3, Day 1: 159.5 lbs
Week 4, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 5, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 6, Day 1: 155.5 lbs
Week 6 repeat: 153 lbs
Missed a week: ? lbs
Missed a week: ? lbs
Week 7, Day 1: 155 lbs
Week 8, Day 1: 155 lbs
Week 9, Day 1: 154.5 lbs

This is the halfway point, so it's time to reveal some progress photos...

Each photo is labeled with the week # it was taken.

I will be getting some surgery next week so I wont be allowed to exercise for a month or two after. Hopefully my body wont go to shit, and I can continue training where I left off. So after this week Six pack abs training is ON HOLD until I recover from surgery.

Six pack abs: Week 8, Day 1

2008-08-11T15:56:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

The 300 Spartan workout was fun, but I only completed it twice instead of 3x like I was supposed to. Oh well. Movin' on.

Six pack abs: Week 7, Day 1

2008-08-04T11:04:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right (even if you're not already a member)

I just missed 2 weeks because I had family visiting. But I did finish off week 6 last Wed and Friday. My weight has fluctuated a bit. I keep eating unhealthy. I tend to pig out at BBQs or special events where there's a lot of free food instead of eating my usual small meal high in protein and fiber. Occasional surfing or team sports game.

300 Spartan training this week!

Six pack abs: Week 6 repeat

2008-07-14T10:04:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - signup to the email list or click Already a Member in the top right

Cool, I'm down 9 lbs from the start. I have to repeat the week because I just kept slacking off last week--almost no resistance training. I still went surfing one day and I played some Wii Sports.

Six pack abs: Week 6, Day 1

2008-07-07T12:59:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - this page is mostly a sales pitch & email list signup
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html - this is the meat & potatoes

Played football. Football is great for cardio interval training, and playing a game makes me forget I'm exercising. I feel like I'm losing motivation, but I gotta see this through. This was a lot easier when I didn't have much else going on.

For the circuit training, I've only been doing 3 circuits at about 60 sec per exercise or however many reps I can do.

Six pack abs: Week 5, Day 1

2008-06-30T12:16:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - this page is mostly a sales pitch & email list signup
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html - this is the meat & potatoes

Weekly Weigh-ins
Week 1, Day 1: 162 lbs (starting weight)
Week 2, Day 1: 161 lbs
Week 3, Day 1: 159.5 lbs
Week 4, Day 1: 156 lbs
Week 5, Day 1: 156 lbs

My weight fluctuated a bit this last week. I didn't do ANY cardio and I ate a lot of foods high in fat and sugar.

Six pack abs: Week 4, Day 1

2008-06-23T07:28:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - this page is mostly a sales pitch & email list signup
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html - this is the meat & potatoes

Weekly Weigh-ins
Week 1, Day 1: 162 lbs (starting weight)
Week 2, Day 1: 161 lbs
Week 3, Day 1: 159.5 lbs
Week 4, Day 1: 156 lbs

Last weeks cardio was all surfing (and one brief sprint on the freeway to recover the surfboards after the rack broke off my friends car). Exercising is getting a lot easier. I still sweat a lot. Back in week 1 I was nearly throwing up and had to rest a lot during my workout. Now I'm feeling pretty good--lots of energy--and I don't need as much sleep as I used to. This week I will begin circuit training and will be using a stability ball. Fun.

Six pack abs: Week 3, Day 1

2008-06-16T09:10:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - this page is mostly a sales pitch & email list signup
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html - this is the meat & potatoes

Weekly Weigh-ins
Week 1, Day 1: 162 lbs (original weight)
Week 2, Day 1: 161 lbs
Week 3, Day 1: 159.5 lbs

For weeks 1 and 2 resistance training was body weight only. This week a resistance band is required for added intensity. Last week I mostly went surfing for my cardio training. I also played tennis. I did interval sprinting once in week 1 but then finished the week with tennis. And somewhere in there I went hiking.

Mid last week I discovered www.thedailyplate.com. This site is fantastic for tracking calories. It's got nutrition info for just about any specific food by brand/restaurant or whatever. It has support groups to keep you motivated. You can search a huge list of activities for info on calories burned. And there are still more features. Anyway, I used it for about 3 days before I got tired of logging everything I eat or drink. But it did give me a good snapshot of my eating habits. On average, I consume about 1600 calories a day. And I can still use the site in the future for looking up strange foods.

Six pack abs: Week 2, Day 1

2008-06-09T10:31:00.001-07:00

The website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - this page is mostly a sales pitch & email list signup
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html - this is the meat & potatoes

My starting weight: 162 lbs
My current weigh-in: 161 lbs

I tried measuring my waist, but the measurement changes if I breath or change the pressure or let the tape sit differently, so I said screw it. I have started taking pictures to track my progress--that should be enough. But I don't think I'll post them just yet.

I want a six pack...

2008-06-02T10:48:00.001-07:00

...of beer. Seis cervezas por favor... a hora!

I also wouldn't mind the abs. So I think today should mark the start of my attempt at the free IWantSixPackAbs.com 16 week program.

Here's the website:
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com - this page is mostly a sales pitch & email list signup
http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html - this is the meat & potatoes

My current weigh-in: 162 lbs.

I should probably take pictures to track my progress as well. I haven't decided if I will. I am following the resistance training, the interval cardio training, and the eating tips.

Borat says, "Very nice!"