<p>Well, it rained on my parade… So much for my weeding workout, I accomplished only 1/10th of what I planned before it started to pour.</p>
<p>Just popping in to check on MOWC:</p>
<p>Aw…yeah…
Love it!</p>
<p>Well, that was a surprise…</p>
<p>I headed to the basement to do a quick 20 minute Rachel Cosgrove metabolic circuit. </p>
<p>I’ve got it set up on the Garmin as four sets. Each set is five exercises, 30 sec work/30 sec rest. At the end of each set, I get extra rest to catch my breath – until my heart falls to 60% of my max. Then, I start the next set.</p>
<p>Well, bit whoop on the extra rest. Before the second set, the heart rate monitor gave me 2 seconds of extra rest. Before the third set, it gave me 7 seconds of extra rest. Before the fourth set, it gave me 12 seconds of extra rest. </p>
<p>So basically, 20 minutes, four sets of non-stop 30:30s. I guess that’s good, but sheesh… I guess I need harder exercises…</p>
<p>Played 90 minutes of doubles this morning and ran four miles in the new rainbow-running-shoes this afternoon. That’s enough for today outside of some stretching later on - I keep meaning to try the new videos I found on YouTube.</p>
<p>I spoke to my mother about her workout group and she told me that they have an exercise (the people in her workout group are in their 80s and 90s). Sit in a chair, cross your arms over your front and grab the opposite shoulder. Stand up. Sit down. Repeat 20 times. She told me that a lot of her workout group members can’t do this - not even one of them. I figure that this relatively simple exercise is almost all core and maybe some of the front legs. Also, some balancing with the ankles.</p>
<p>She told me about some of the other exercises which they do with ankle weights which are essentially core strength-training.</p>
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<p>That’s a bodyweight box squat. Squatting to a box and back up, only using the chair instead a box. Being able to do that at age 80 or 90 is the reason why it’s so important to do squats at age 50 and 60.</p>
<p>Cardio Dance Class</p>
<p>Cals 1619
Fat 116 g
Carbs 39 g
Fiber 2 g
Protein 110 g
Sugars 10 g</p>
<p>Gym day, I got an 20 extra minutes of cardio, because I forgot to bring a change of clothes so I kept going while dh showered. </p>
<p>Had dinner with an old college roommate and had bouillabaisse (pretty darn healthy) and creme brulee (not so much) and a glass of wine. </p>
<p>Way to go MOWC!</p>
<p>This is interesting. I did a mostly accurate nutrition count on my splurge meal:</p>
<p>beer batter cod
beer batter onion rings</p>
<p>I couldn’t get a precise count on the lard, but from previous frying experiments, it’s surprisingly small. I’m figuring that an ounce actually stayed in the food.</p>
<p>I weighed the beer batter before and after dunking all the food. The net that ended up fried on the food (huge portion of fish and half an onion in rings) was 4 ounces.</p>
<p>Not counting the ketchup on the onion rings:</p>
<p>Cals 677
Fat 39 g
Carbs 29 g
Fiber 2 g
Protein 52 g
Sugars 1 g</p>
<p>Kind of shocking actually. Three big pieces of battered fish and a pile of vidalia onion rings… The good news: I can do my tempura shrimp sometime!</p>
<p>I should try it with whole grain flour sometime. Then I could call it, “heart healthy” beer-batter fish fried in lard! :)</p>
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<p>Ketchup!</p>
<p>I gave that and mustard up!</p>
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<p>I’ll have to do some squats after that explanation. I’m going to go back to 65 pounds.</p>
<p>I did barbell squats at 65 pounds several years ago but it caused me back problems so I dropped the weight. The barbell is at 62.5 pounds right now (with those dinky little 1 1/4s) and I think I bump it to 65 for a set of squats. I don’t seem to have the back issues anymore doing the squats.</p>
<p>It might be losing the weight - I guess doing squats with a lot more body weight can put more stress on the back.</p>
<p>My Google Reader popped up a new study just published last week on fat burning in post-menopausal women that will probably be a little depressing:</p>
<p>[Study:</a> Postmenopausal Women Burn Less Fat | Runner’s World & Running Times](<a href=“http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/study-postmenopausal-women-burn-less-fat]Study:”>Study: Postmenopausal Women Burn Less Fat | Runner's World)</p>
<p>Study of low intensity exercise bike cardio – 45 minutes at 50% VO2max. Described as being equivalent to “a refreshing jog” by the Runner’s World’ author.</p>
<p>Post menopausal women burned 19% fewer calories than pre menopausal women and 33% less body fat oxidation. The calorie difference was totally accounted for by adjusting for the lower lean body mass of post-menopausal women, but the fat burning difference largely remained.</p>
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<p>From reading the abstract of the study, they also measured insulin resistance (before and after exercise?), so there’s probably some interesting stuff that is not in the article or the abstract. Once you adjust for lean body mass, the difference in fat burning points squarely at hormonal regulation of fat metabolism. I’m guessing that they found higher insulin resistance in the postmenopausal group.</p>
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<p>Barbell squats are notoriously rough on backs. Try front squats with the barbell in the rack position on the front of the shoulder or goblet squats or DB front squats (DBs at the shoulders). All are safer for the low back. The center of gravity keeps you more upright as opposed to the bar on the back of the shoulders which forces you to lean forward.</p>
<p>When I do goblet squats, i stand a DB up on the end of the weight bench, squat down to get it, do my set, and then put it back on the weight bench. I’ll do it next time with the kettlebell.</p>
<p>I find that barbell front squats are crazy hard. I did them with 55 pounds and that was tough. It’s just so uncomfortable to hold the bar in that position. I did DB front squats with two 40 lb DBs last week. Sets of six weren’t too bad.</p>
<p>I guess the take-away is to try to keep the fat off before menopause so that you don’t have to work a lot harder to take it off down the road.</p>
<p>I think that the regular barbell squats are fine. I think that I’d need my son around to do the front ones. It’s nice to have him around for spotting but he’s not around most of the time. I only really do two exercises with the barbell - squats and the military press. I guess I might include the deadlift because that’s how I get it into position for squats. My other option is to use the dumbbells. He has two set at 37.5 pounds and he does all of his weight things at that weight. I can do squats with those in a low position.</p>
<p>I did a set of ten at 65 and it actually felt pretty easy.</p>
<p>The front squats with barbell would probably be a lot simpler on the Smith Machine.</p>
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That seems really light for that amount of food.</p>
<p>Although even if it was 2 ounces, it is still only around 900 calories, which is not bad for a fried meal.</p>
<p>It could be 2 ounces of lard. I actually measured how much oil was misslng with pan fried breaded pork chops recently. It worked out to about 1 TBSP of missing oil for an 8 ounce pork chop. The batter might absorb a bit more than a breaded pork chop, but on the other hand, deep frying is higher temp and a much faster crisping of the coating.</p>
<p>In any case, I’m not too worried about the fat. It’s the white flour that I don’t like in this recipe. My target is to stay at or under 1000 calories for dinner and I probably managed that.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. I’ll do a better report when I have more time. Getting ready to sleep so I can survive tomorrow’s race. Wind seems bad but is supposed to die down. </p>
<p>I wound up having a pacer today- the woman who is doing the full marathon here in St. Louis tomorrow. I’ve run with her before on some PA training runs. She ran “my pace” but was motivation for me not to stop and walk when I wanted to. It really helped me nail that time. 4:37 was my secret number for today- if everything went really well- so it was cool to hit it!</p>
<p>You are remarkable! Get some quality rest, wake up, and go get it!!</p>
<p>Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, I had to cut my run short today – 24 mins. Oops!</p>
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<p>iDad, is that Rachel Cosgrove’s super advanced circuit?</p>
<p>BCEagle–that sitting up-sitting down exercise is also hard on the knees, which may be why some older people can’t do them at all. But it’s an important skill to maintain!</p>