Wednesday, March 23, 2011

2 Ways to go on a Deployment

If you have ever been on a deployment, especially a deployment at sea, you know that people either come back in shape or fatter than they have ever been. The reasons for this a are a little different for each.
First for the the fat. 1) You are completely thrown off your routine of working out and eating right (but lets be honest it shouldn't be that hard to get back on a routine. I mean especially if you are on a ship. When you are out there you do the same freaking thing every single day so it should be easy to get on a different schedule). 2) The food! On the ship they would have healthy choices (kinda!) but they would always be quick to offer up cookies, cheese cake, brownies, and on and on. Oh yeah don't forget about the weekly ice cream social for the whole crew (we had an officer on USS Churchill that would eat like 7 bowls of ice cream each week. No joke we all thought he was going to die). 3) Stress. Deployments are stressful. You start working some crazy hours, you forget to go topside for days at a time and begin to forget what the Sun looks like. Your home life is all messed up because you aren't there, so the stress piles up.
Now for the in shape. 1) You can finally get into a routine. For all the great things about being home one of the bad things is that there are 47 things pulling you in 47 different directions (I don't know why I typed 47). 2) No family! I know this is kinda the same thing as #1 but it is more helpful. I love my family and I always want to be with them, so if I'm not at work I am racing home to hang out with them. What suffers? The workout then its "lets go out to eat" and there goes the diet. When you are a deployment and you have some free time all there is to do is work out. 3) Sometimes the food is terrible!!!!!!!! It is really easy to lose weight when you don't eat the food. On the table in the Wardroom (where the officers eat and hang out) there is always hot sauce and Texas Pete because the food is so bland that you have to pour hot sauce on it so that it has some kind of taste.
On deployment I became close friends with LTjg Bryce Lee and he turned me on to a new eating plan and a new work out plan and I am going to share that with you here.
For my eating I follow what is called the Paleo Diet or the Caveman Diet. Basically the idea is that your diet should consist of Fruit, Veggies, alot of meat (all different kinds), and a few nuts and seeds. Your diet should stay away from sugars, carbs in large amounts, and grains. Yep that's right no grains, no whole wheat, no cereals, no pasta, no nothing. And I know what you are about to say and I have heard it all, but it is working for me.
For my workout I follow a Paleo Diet, Caveman Diet as well. What does this mean for a workout? Well it means that I walk everyday (the idea here is to stay active and get your blood flowing). Then about twice a week I sprint or specifically I do row intervals (for this I do a concentrated all out row interval. I do 20 sec flat out and then rest for 40 sec and I do this for 5 rotations) Yep my cardio is 10 minutes a week. For weights I do a twice a week workout where I have three exercises that I do on a slow 10 count for a minute and a half. Yes again, my weight workouts total about 15 minutes a week.
That is the way I took the in shape route on the deployment. The pics are before and after the deployment.

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