<p>Here’s today’s core exercise. The side plank with a twist.</p>
<p>[Twisting</a> Plank - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Another iPod nazi torture core challenge. I’m doing it with a 15 pound DB in my hand. Twelve reps per side are kicking my butt. Works the “love handle” muscles like crazy. Start with no weight. It’s a toughie.</p>
<p>a quick silly question about the wedding band. It is too loose now and I have to be extremely careful not to lose it. I know you could resize a ring bigger, how do you deal with a finger that is getting smaller?</p>
<p>Either a ring guard (put inside the ring) or get the jeweler to make is smaller. Wonder how much gold wold be removed… it has to be worth something.</p>
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<p>Yup. I can vouch for that! </p>
<p>Tried on my skinniest dress tonight. Last wore it in Feb. 1990 just before I got pregnant with S1 (and had just lost lots of weight while on fertility drugs, because those drugs helped the hormonal imbalance from the PCOS). I am 19 lbs. away from what I weighed then. Not only could I actually put on the dress, but I could zip it all the way up. Was not expecting that! Am not ready to wear it in public yet – I need lots of exercise and engineering first.</p>
<p>Dad II – I have the same problem. I wear mine on my dominant hand – my fingers are slightly larger on that hand. Even so, my ring is flying off the dominant hand, so I will need to get it resized.</p>
<p>“Engineering” does not work at my age any more. However, what does is weird ability to eat whatever in whatever quantities. Couple days ago I was 2 lbs up because of ton of sashimi (dunking in soy souce) and lots of smoked (very salty) fish later and on top lots of sweets. Well, kind of continue with fish and sweets, but 2 lbs are gone, I do not know how, must be age. However, no engineering is possible, period, I exercise 2 - 3 hrs every day and weight machines are included, with my weights being much heavier than all these very “engineered” ladies who used machine right before me, sometime I am doing 2 times heavier, but I am not “engineered” and never will. In regard to weight, I believe that I weigh less than in my teenage years, I was overweight only 2 times in my life, after birth of my 2 kids.</p>
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<p>Count your lucky stars! While diet and exercise definitely play a role, there is a huge genetic factor in all of this. Some of us are just plain more likely to store fat. Or build muscle. Or find it easy or hard to take off extra weight.</p>
<p>In my case, I would say that I am genetically predisposed to some degree of insulin resistance and gaining weight when I over eat sugar and carbs. On the other hand, I’m fortunate to be genetically predisposed to be able to lose weight relatively easily whenever I get the junk out of my diet. I would say that I also build muscle relatively easily when I do resistance strength training.</p>
<p>I think I’m genetically predisposed to doing stupid things that cause injuries (as I head back to the doctor tomorrow :))</p>
<p>Interesteddad,</p>
<p>" I would say that I also build muscle relatively easily when I do resistance strength training."</p>
<p>Nice.</p>
<p>Are you pre-diabetic?</p>
<p>“While diet and exercise definitely play a role, there is a huge genetic factor in all of this”
-Genetics by far is NOT on my side. Everybody in mother’s family has died of type 2 Diabetese and I know exactly why, our fat gets accumulated in stomach area. The same here. No matter what is my weight, all my fat is in a upper body, not good genetics at all. I guess, I just do not have enough of fat to get desease…yet. I believe it is inevitable though. My younger bro already has it.</p>
<p>Interesteddad,</p>
<p>Correct me if I am wrong, you are male. In addition, you are definitely younger than me as I am one of the closest to dinosours here. These 2 factors, in particular the first one explain the diff.in ability to build muscles. C’mon, testosterone is what you need, well, mine is close to zero at this age (the wild guess)</p>
<p>Miami- I know you don’t read my posts, but you have no idea what CD means by “engineering”. Aren’t you lucky that you are ready to be on the cover of Vogue, despite eating all your sweets and salty fish!</p>
<p>Thanks, MOWC! I am definitely a bionic woman these days with all these shiny new parts. Left shoulder is next. We’ll see what they can do without an MRI, ultrasound or stim therapy.</p>
<p>Just have to hope that the rehab, weight loss, cardio meds, change in chemo and careful counting of calories/carbs/sodium/cholesterol/fat/Vitamin K buys me time to appreciate being healthier.</p>
<p>The closest I’ll get to engineering in terms of body sculpting after serious weight loss is Spanx!</p>
<p>Today was one of my best days since I started trying to lose weight.</p>
<p>I am still losing weight. I am down to 153. I was happy at 155, but if I lose a little more, great. If I am going to keep losing weight, I guess I will go with it. My wife said, “You look like you did at our wedding.” I am 6 pounds from my weight at my wedding. </p>
<p>My 34" pants fall off now. I don’t have any pants now. 
Maybe, I can catch Dad II. :)</p>
<p>CountingDown…</p>
<p>"Tried on my skinniest dress tonight. Last wore it in Feb. 1990 just before I got pregnant with S1 (and had just lost lots of weight while on fertility drugs, "…</p>
<p>Very nice.</p>
<p>Morning walk/run with neighbors then late morning swim lesson. I’m tired! Oddly, our swim teacher tells us that as we perfect our strokes the less calories we will burn at swimming. He coaches competitive swimmers and he says top swimmers spend three times the amount of time training out of water as in water. If they swam all the time they’d be fatties! (He really said that. He said that one of the big challenges with swimmers was in their teenage years when they have really got great stroke form and stop burning many calories swimming, and then get fat.)</p>
<p>I like adding a little swimming to the mix for me because it seems to work my shoulders well and I truly hate lifting weights.</p>
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<p>I probably was when I was fat. My fasting blood sugar was in the mildly pre-diabetic range after 8 months and 60 pounds of fat loss. I had cut out junk carbs at that point, but I believe it was before I specifically cut carbs. In three subsequent blood tests, it’s been well within the normal range.</p>
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<p>A commonly used proxy for insulin resistance is the ratio of TRIGLYCERIDES to HDL CHOLESTEROL. High triglycerides and low HDL are markers of insulin resistance and a ratio of 3:1 is the threshold. Above that and you are probably insulin resistant (in reality, it’s probably more like 2:1 or even 1:1). My TRIGLYCERIDES the last time this summer were 31 and my HDL was 92 for a ratio of 0.34:1. Definitely NOT insulin resistant.</p>
<p>TRIGLYCERIDES are fat molecules, either in the bloodstream or stored in fat cells. The primary source of them in the body is the liver converting excessive sugar into triglycerides to get rid of it. So cutting sugar (specifically) and carbs (in general) will almost always lower triglycerides. Insulin does its part by telling the body to stop releasing tryglyercides from fat cells and to burn glucuse for fuel instead until the blood sugar is lowered. Insulin resistance means that you produce extra insulin all the time. That means that you are more prone to storing body fat rather than burning it, hence the connection to obesity (which is excessive fat storage).</p>
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<p>I think that’s true of training for any endurance exercise – running, biking, swimming, walking. The end result of the training is to burn less energy while doing the exercise with changes to actual muscle fibers and cells. That’s how the women in the PBS NOVA show could spend 10 months training, run the Boston Marathon, and not lose any body fat. That’s how Rachel Cosgrove could get soft and flabby training for her Ironman, despite exercising ridiculous hours every day. It really slams you if you stop running or swimming or biking high mileage when your body is programmed like that (like when a knee injury lays you up for six months).</p>
<p>Short intense activity, like lifting a heavy weight, or doing a sprint interval, results in completely different changes to the muscle cells. It apparently tends to increase human growth hormone and decrease insulin resistance.</p>
<p>Good exercise week–TRX workout (M), 3.0 mi walk on Tu, power class on Wed. and 90 minute spinning class today. Traveling for the next two days–will make an effort to do some fast walking. Weather has been great. Hard to believe it’s December and we haven’t had snow in my neck of the woods (MA).</p>
<p>4.25 miles. I was going to do two but felt good at two, so try for three, good at three, try for four, get to four and still feel good. But I have to get back to work. Goal for the year is still 550 miles. I’m at 525 right now so 17 days to do another 25. The plan is 15 miles a week for the next two weeks. I didn’t get any calls for tennis this week which makes things easier on running. Getting in another 25 should be straightforward unless I get invitations to play tennis. The knees are feeling quite a bit better - basically the body is recovering by running instead of playing tennis. My racquets are at the stringers at the moment and I could use that as an excuse for declining an invitation. It’s not the greatest excuse because the guys that I play with all have plenty of extra backup racquets.</p>
<p>These new earbuds have a ton of additional functionality. I figured out how to do prev/next song and pause. I also accidentally activate Siri. Apparently you can activate Siri, ask it a question and it will read out an answer to you. I guess that’s how you would call someone without touching your iPhone.</p>
<p>This afternoon, I was in the mens room and heard a mechanical sound at the sink. Someone was using a waterpik. I had never seen one of these before. It’s a hand-held device that has a tank that looked like it would hold a cup of water and there’s a nozzle at the top and you shoot water through it to dislodge food from your teeth. I’m partial to Sonicaire myself but it looked like an interesting, though potentially messy, device.</p>
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<p>I love my waterpik–it can be messy, but I only use mine at home. It does a good job, but doesn’t take the place of flossing IMO. That being said, I think it’s a nice toy to have. I had a dentist who recommended them to everyone. I wonder if he got a kick back??</p>
<p>From an interesting article:</p>
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<p>[A</a> sick world: We live longer, with more pain and illness - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/sick-world-live-longer-more-pain-illness-170119642.html]A”>http://news.yahoo.com/sick-world-live-longer-more-pain-illness-170119642.html)</p>