The Progressing Pilgrim

Insights for developing a healthy body, mind and spirit

  • Home
  • About
  • Fitness
  • Wellness
  • Spirituality
  • Recipes
  • Historical Videos

10 Ways I Protect My Back So I Can Barbell Train At 61 Years Old

December 17, 2018 By John Leave a Comment

Recently, I was speaking with my bank officer, Angelo, and noticed that he had a muscular build that suggested that he lifted weights. I asked if he did, and he replied that he had indeed lifted a lot in college. But then he let out a sigh and said, “Now that I have a bad back I wouldn’t think about lifting anything heavier than my 2-year-old son.”

He went on to tell me about how his back went out, and his wife had to call an ambulance because he couldn’t get off the floor. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fitness, Wellness Tagged With: BACK PAIN, BARBELL TRAINING, FITNESS, HEALTH, PROTECT BACK, wellness

One Scientifically Proven Way To Reverse The Aging Process

August 20, 2018 By John Leave a Comment

I remember when I was 15 years old thinking to myself, “If I live to be 65 years old, that means I’ll be around for 50 more years. Wow, that’s a long time!” When you were 15, 50 years seemed like forever, didn’t it?

We’ve all had these kinds of thoughts when we were young. Our bodies were strong and vital and we thought we’d never grow old. But years sneak up on us, don’t they?

At 40, you start to notice that you don’t recover from exercise like you used to. The aches and pains that disappeared after a few days now linger for months.

At 50, you realize that your body has definitely seen better days. Fifty-five brings a medicine cabinet that is starting to get populated with prescription meds for what our society calls lifestyle diseases. You know what they are: high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and even heart disease.

At 60, aging starts to become a concern. Maybe you notice it’s a little bit of a struggle getting up the stairs, maybe at times you forget where you put your car keys, maybe you hesitate to pick up your grandkids because your back isn’t as strong as it was 20 years ago.

Wow, isn’t this all kind of depressing? Is the best we have to look forward to a continuous descent into ever worsening physical decline? I mean, is a walker or a wheelchair or the assistance from a stranger just to go to the bathroom what we’re destined for?

No! It doesn’t have to be. In this post, I’m going to show you that it’s scientifically and empirically proven that we can delay the aging process or even, possibly, make our bodies young again. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fitness, Wellness Tagged With: ANTI-AGING STRATEGIES, FITNESS, HEALTH, HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING, LONGEVITY, RESISTANCE TRAINING, REVERSE AGING, SARCOPENIA, STARTING STRENGTH, strength training, wellness

How To Use The MyFitnessPal App On Your Mobile Device

June 25, 2018 By John Leave a Comment

how to use myfitnesspal mobile app

Disclosure: We received no compensation from MyFitnessPal or Under Armour for this post.

In a previous post, I showed you how to use the MyFitnessPal app to calculate your daily food consumption for a ketogenic diet. For Barbara and me, this app has been absolutely essential to our keto diet success story.

However, shortly after publishing that post, I realized that most of our friends probably use their mobile devices a lot more than a laptop. Unfortunately, the screenshots I used in that tutorial were from my laptop.

So, in order for you to experience the same keto diet success that Barbara and I have had, I thought it would be helpful if I put together a tutorial on how to use the MyFitnessPal (MFP) app on your handheld device too. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fitness, Wellness Tagged With: DIET, FITNESS, HOW TO CALCULATE MACROS, KETO, KETOGENIC, KETOSIS, LOW CARB, LOW-CARB HEALTHY FAT, MYFITNESSPAL MOBILE APP, Our Keto Journey, WEIGHT LOSS, wellness

Our Keto Journey Part 5: Important Tweaks We Made For Keto Success

June 11, 2018 By John Leave a Comment

In previous posts, Barbara and I have talked about our goals and successes with the ketogenic diet. In my last post, I showed you the simple strategy we use to configure our macros for the diet. 

You’re now familiar with what a keto diet is and how ketosis affects your body. You’ve established why you want to go keto (e.g.. weight loss, help in treating a specific health condition, or enhanced physical performance). And you’ve solved the mystery of macro calculation.

So now you’re ready to dive right into the keto diet, right? Well, not so fast. Slow down a bit.

You’re not going to just jump into a lake without knowing something about the depth of the water or its temperature. So it is with the keto diet. Even after knowing what your daily macronutrients should be, there are still several other important things about the Keto diet that you need to know.

You might have heard some of the horror stories from people who’ve tried keto. Some report that they experienced the dreaded “keto flu”. Others complain that their strength training suffered horribly, some are hungry all the time, and others complain that they just can’t find good keto recipes.

In this post, I’ll show you how Barbara and I avoided most of the problems associated with the ketogenic diet and how we quickly corrected a very annoying unexpected problem. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fitness, Wellness Tagged With: ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE, BRAIN FOG, DIET, EPILEPSY, FITNESS, KETO, KETOGENIC, KETOSIS, LOW CARB, LOW-CARB HEALTHY FAT, Our Keto Journey, PARKINSON'S DISEASE, WEIGHT LOSS, wellness

Our Keto Journey Part 3: Defeating A Skinny Fat Body And Healing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

May 14, 2018 By John Leave a Comment

Our Keto Journey

This is part 3 of our series Our Keto Journey. In our last post, Barbara highlighted how a ketogenic diet helped her shed fat and is helping her guard against Alzheimer’s Disease. However, as I mentioned in this post here, not everyone goes keto for the same reasons. Remember, a keto diet is high in healthy fat, moderate in protein, and very low in carbs (<30 net grams /day).

In my case, I wasn’t overweight, but I did have a metabolically dangerous visceral fat issue that required I go keto. Also, since the keto diet has potent anti-inflammatory effects, I wanted to see if it was possible for the diet to get me over the last hurdle of recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Let’s first take a look at my use of a ketogenic diet for my fat problem.

A recent report found that the obesity epidemic in the United States is continuing to grow to unhealthy proportions. This means that tens of millions of Americans will continue to be at a high risk for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and many types of cancer.

But did you know that there are millions of individuals who don’t look obese, who are technically not overweight, but who are metabolically obese? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fitness, Wellness Tagged With: AIP, BELLY FAT, CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, EXERCISE, FITNESS, KETO, KETOGENIC, LOW CARB, Our Keto Journey, wellness, WIDE WAIST WITH NORMAL WEIGHT

Hi! I’m John. Welcome to the Progressing Pilgrim. I’m 64 years young and I’ve created this blog to share the health, fitness and spiritual strategies that have turned my life around. If you’re looking to become a healthier (physically and spiritually) version of yourself you’ve come to the right place. Eat Well. Lift Heavy. Oh, I also produce historical videos! Soli Deo Gloria! Read more…

SaveSave

Subscribe

Join the mailing list

to  get the latest posts

right in your inbox. 

 

 

Your request has been accepted! Please check your inbox for a verification message.

Your data is collected, used, and protected in accordance with the 

privacy policy. 

Unsubscribe at any time.

Recent Posts

  • How Do We Know If Our Governing Authorities Are Legitimate?
  • We’re 65 Years Old And Still Getting Stronger: This Is How We’re Doing It!
  • If You’re Over 40 Years Old You’re Probably Losing Strength. Deal With It Now!
  • Knowing Your Hand Grip Strength Could Improve Your Odds Of Living Longer
  • The Whiskey Rebellion

Copyright © 2023 John Bianchi · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · Medical Disclaimer