No, I haven’t lost my rocker…at least I don’t think I have. I was curious — what would this do to my neurochemistry after eating clean for quite some time? Since the calories were fairly low (believe it or not, about 400), I was curious if pure sugar without extreme calories would have a detrimental effect on my brain chemistry prior to bed.

There’s a method to my madness…which will be made clear in the days to come.

The result? Well, I slept like a baby, despite some wicked dreams. I was also so bummed out prior to bed and throughout most of today. I’m talking bummed OUT — and not “holiday blues”, either. I know chemical depression when I feel it.

Here’s the trippy thing: only more sugar would bring my serotonin levels back to normal, hence my mood — at least until a few hours ago. After jacking serotonin through the roof, the crash was bound to follow. Low serotonin = high depression. The insulin surge into my system also drained most of my key amino acids (robbing the muscles, of course, and causing food cravings), creating the cycle that began again today.

I nuked it good, though. I felt like Dubya on too much eggnog, but my brown-skin enemy was a white-colored processed devil-worshiper called sugar.

Did I overeat at Christmas dinner? Nope — not at all. Ate very well — a slice of turkey, a few ribs, a large yam, a few tablespoons of potato salad, and about 1/4th a slice of pie. That was it. No seconds — I took my leftovers to a half-way house. Funny thing — they were like, “And…uh…who are you with?”

“Uhhh…myself?”

I guess they don’t get that a lot.

Anyway, I’m back to normal now with a renewed sense of how powerful (and fast) this brain/chemical response thingy is.

I’ll tell you what’s up with all of this later. Basically, it deals with cellular restructuring through mechanisms of thought combined with food systems that shut down certain peptide combinations and…

…oh, hell. It’s about ditchin’ the bitchin’ and shedding the fat.

There. That sounded less hoyty-toyty.

Okay, 15,000 steps — what the hotplace is that all about?

Have you heard the “10,000 steps to health” rule of thumb? There was this Japanese researcher (ironically funded by a pedometer company) that figured out that 10,000 steps per day was necessary in order to achieve reasonably good to excellent physical health. This number was randomly chosen, but it makes sense to me for an across-the-board standpoint. Children need more, and those with disease states may have to take less, but 10K works.

I say 15K.

Naturally. Since when has Bingo agreed with anyone? Jeeeeeeeeezy. Just wait until I toss my nutritional opus, “The Gap”� by you. You’ll really think I’ve lost it, until you try it.

Okay, here’s why I say 15K — and 20K is even better. First, most people who walk anywhere at all in the day, even if it’s to the car and back and around the house, use about 2,000-3,000 steps. I bet you didn’t think you were walking that much, but you are.

Here’s more Bingo honesty — I’m not even ‘close’ to that unless I’m engaged in my bodybuilding routine. I have been for most of the past 7 years of course, with the exception of that lay-off everyone knows about. It freaked me out to count “my” steps in a day during periods of complete inactivity: less than 1,000! I have many disadvantages when it comes to walking. First, I live in hell Dallas, so the weather is only good here about 4 months out of the year. Second, I work from home, so I don’t even have to walk to an office. People bring me almost everything, too.

Mirtha, I sound like a pompus ass, but I’m quite the nice fella. I just don’t walk a lot unless I, you know…WALK.

1,000 steps, man. That’s like way, way, WAY the hell under the radar of health. No wonder I felt like Jacko during those months, eh?

Well, things are not much better now, except for the gym action I’m seeing. I changed that today. I decided to resume my walking program with vigor. I was doing some cardio after workouts, but my walking took a back seat to business and the cold weather. Not anymore — in fact, I just ordered a pedometer from a very cool company called Walk 4 Life. Check ‘em out — I don’t make a buck off of it, so you’ll still have to buy my stuff, too.

I also went for a walk today with mom after lunch, and it was great except for the fact I broke my buddhawaterbreaker bluetooth headset.

Here’s the plan — and this will work for each of you:

First, get a pedometer. They cost about $25, so please — no excuses here.

Second, wear it around for about 7 days and see how many steps you’ve been taking in a normal week.

Third, make a goal to add 10,000 steps to that total. That’s about 5 miles of walking per day, but you don’t have to do that all at once or even all through walking. (By the way, I’m talking about brisk walking when you’re capable, not “strolling”.) You can figure in your workouts, too. Just use this calculation: a moderate workout is about 1,000 steps per 10 minutes of activity, and a butt-kickin’ workout about 2,000 per 10 minutes. If you hit the gym like most people, figure about 1,500 steps for every 10 minutes you’re pumping iron or hitting the glider. That’s almost 5,000 for your average half-hour workout. Even on 7 Minute Muscle, given the extreme intensity, you can clock about 3,500 steps worth of energy in 7 minutes. Wow. That’s a rough estimate, but it still pretty cool.

So, you have:

1. Your steps in the day (say about 2,500);
2. Your added walking steps — say you decide to walk for 45 minutes a day, 5 days per week. That’s about 5,500 steps every day you walk. The longer you walk the better;
3. Your workouts in the gym — assuming three days per week, this is an additional 4,500 steps per day x 3, approximated;
4. Your cardio workouts — assuming three days per week, this is an additional 4,000 to 5,000 steps per day x 3 as well (approximated).

You end up with about 10,250 steps averaged in the week. So, we’re a bit off the ambitious target of 15,000 — but it wasn’t “that” hard to go over that 10K target, right?

All you have to do is add some steps here and there to your normal routine and take an ambitious walk once a week (say, 6 or 7 miles once you’re up to it) and you’ll have it. Do you realize you can do that just by parking further from the office, taking a flight of stairs (double the step count — if you step up 30 stairs, that’s 60 steps), and so-forth?

Don’t worry about hitting 15,000 in the first week, or even the first month. Just make it a goal, and watch what happens to your body fat and your vital signs.

This is reasonable, fun fitness — the only kind that lasts. 10,000 steps is really excellent, so by all means don’t feel bad if you’re hitting 10K regularly. You will be in the top 10% of Americans fitness-wise (or at least activity-wise) if you do so.

Toss in a half hour of relations every night and you may just have the ultimate workout routine — and your 15,000 steps. Not to mention a happy mate.

If that last sentence is the only one people comment on, I’ll shut this blog down…fair warning from Bingo. {10}