<p>I am really sorry that you have to deal with injury and that it is driving you up the wall. Props to yout for even thinking about the anti-breathing mask and the inflatable treadmill thingie. I’m afraid both of those are more than I could contemplate. If you made me exercise with a mask that restricts my breathing, I would TURN INTO Hannibel Lechter. I already feel like I’m wearing a mask like that when I hop off the Airdyne. Try smoking for 38 years and doing intervals… :)</p>
<p>Ohio- Do sorry. AlterG is supposed to be great, though. Injuries are tough.</p>
<p>CountingDown, kudos on your accomplishment! I have no doubt that the greatest wedding day gift for your son is to have you THERE but I get that whole “adjusted goals” thing.
(I started out with the goal of losing 30 in a year, and I’m down 35 in 5 months…but now that I’ve gotten used to looking more “right sized” for my frame, it occurs to me I’m objectively still kind of “miniature fat” now…eg still quite a few inches to pinch 
of course, I don’t yet have the “idad-Rachel-Cosgrove-down2-dress-sizes” type of routine going on yet to supplement airdyne and Nordic walking, so there’s not much extra sculpting going on at the moment! I am pretty clear I will have to kick it up a notch.</p>
<p>Still, no harm in resting on your laurels for a spell and letting your body lead you to the next phase! (Except in my case, of course, it leads me astray…)</p>
<p>Finally ordered my aquajogger yesterday after a week-long debate about whether I’m “short-waisted” or not. They just didn’t have a version for “sorta” petite, “sorta” short-waisted and “sorta-but-not-really-fit.” The kind you get is supposed to make a difference on whether it rides up or not. So the proof will be in the pool :)</p>
<p>As one of the folks with pretty big weight loss, I’ve gone more into the mode of losing it slowly; but that’s after losing a lot of it. We’ve all raised children through college and that’s a really long-term project - even longer-term than losing weight. In many cases, the weight comes off when you don’t think about it so much.</p>
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<p>I think that getting to the point where you’re thinking about small details like sculpting specific parts means that a lot of progress has been made. I’ve been thinking about those little details a bit too.</p>
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<p>I agree there. Doing too much can get you frazzled or result in injuries.</p>
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<p>Put on my size 34 jeans today. They fall off now without a belt. I’m thinking of working from home one day a week as it will save me an hour of preparation, driving to and from, getting into the building and setting up for the day. This would give me extra time during the day for running (along with cutting travel expenses slightly). I like coming in to work everyday but there are more and more that are in the office from 0 days a week to 4 days a week.</p>
<p>Rest day for me. Is that sun I’m seeing peeking through the clouds? Yay!</p>
<p>idad–I don’t eat bacon, so I occasionally get a egg n cheese on a biscuit, then only eat half the biscuit. That’s plenty!</p>
<p>OK, on the pushup front, I got over my fear of face-planting and got my nose within 3 inches of the floor…the next day, I had sore chest muscles! And that was only on the knee position. Man, getting old is a pain.</p>
<p>Chin-ups…I can do ONE, but after I get up there I sort of drop down. Is there a rule about slowly lowering yourself as well? Or is it just better form? :D</p>
<p>It’s not so much body sculpting – all my weight is around my middle, which is bad, bad, bad from a cardio POV. My goal is healthy, not skinny! </p>
<p>I’ve found that unless I am totally deliberate and vigilant, I will put on five lbs. in two or three days, and that’s not even pigging out. 1400 calories seems to be a very bright line between maintenance and gaining. </p>
<p>It has taken two years to get to this point, and I am coming to the conclusion that the last 25 will take a year. Each pound is now a larger proportion of weight to be lost than it used to be (and they are all stubborn little cusses ;)).</p>
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<p>This stuff is going away on me; mostly just the last few weeks. There’s more work to do and there’s some stretchy stuff that I don’t expect to go away but it can happen. I’m a bit more relaxed about it these days and am willing to let it happen.</p>
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<p>We all have our own lines and I think that maintaining or losing means that we have to be careful with those lines. That’s probably why tracking works.</p>
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<p>Yup, I like to think in terms of longer periods of time because there are things that interrupt your progress like graduation season.</p>
<p>CD, to life! Kudos to you.</p>
<p>"Successful aging traces its roots back to the concept of “morbidity compression.” Introduced more than 30 years ago by Dr. James Fries, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, the hypothesis states that if a person develops his first chronic illness at a later age, then his period of infirmity will be squeezed into a shorter period closer to death (assuming that his longevity doesn’t increase by long enough to erase the advantage). The results, ideally, would include less time spent suffering, and less money spent treating one’s medical problems. "</p>
<p>[?Successful</a> aging? protects health and wealth - Elizabeth O’Brien’s Retire Well - MarketWatch](<a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/story/successful-aging-protects-health-and-wealth-2013-05-31]?Successful”>‘Successful aging’ protects health and wealth - MarketWatch)</p>
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<p>That’s almost certainly water weight when you see those kinds of swings. Especially if you have been severely restricting salt in your diet, you are probably running in a fairly dehydrated normal state. It wouldn’t take much to bump your fluid levels up and you’d see it immediately on the scale.</p>
<p>I think exercise can change your hydration levels. Food can change it. Who knows? I swing up and down in a 2 pound window on weekly basis – like gaining 2 or losing 2 overnight. Makes no sense, but the body can’t store or lose 2 pounds of fat (or muscle) in a day.</p>
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<p>On chinups, a lot of the trainers say that a good way to work on them is to jump up for step up to the bar and then try to lower yourself as slowly as you can (reverse chinups). This “eccentric” motion builds muscle, but – a warning – it will also make you sore, sore, sore.</p>
<p>On pushups, one trick that Mike Boyle has been talking about is to try to rotate your hands outwards. Not actually rotate them, but when you get in the pushup position, feel like you are trying to twist the floor under your right hand clockwise and twist the floor under your left hand counter-clockwise. This tension is supposed to better engage the lats and pull the shoulders down away from the ears better. The other one is to visualize pushing the floor away from you rather than pushing your body up.</p>
<p>I have found that pushups are as much about core strength as upper body strength. Really engaging the abs and glutes makes them feel a little easier, although it’s still my arm/shoulder strength that is the limiting factor for me. When I can’t do another one, I get halfway up and can’t push myself up any further.</p>
<p>“Really engaging the abs and glutes makes them feel a little easier…”</p>
<p>This CC pushup junkie says that you are doing your push-ups the correct way! :)</p>
<p>iDad, do you happen to know if he’s recommending rotating the pushup hand position outward for men, women, or both? I ask because of the difference in arm angle between men and women. By this I mean if you’re standing up and you put your arm straight out in front of you, palm up, with a man the arm is pretty much straight, but with a woman the arm angles out some. I think I’ve got that right anyway. I’m wondering whether that would affect the recommended position of hands or arms for pushups.</p>
<p>Had the day off and so I cranked …</p>
<p>1) 1 hour Pilates (private teacher - I do this twice a week)
2) Ran 3.1 miles on treadmill – with warm up and cool down, this was about 45 min
3) 1 hour Hot / Bikram yoga class
4) Walked outside on trail for 1.5 hours</p>
<p>Work has been slower, so I’m really trying to do more than just post on CC :-)</p>
<p>^^^haha!!!</p>
<p>The weather is funky so not sure if I’ll get my scheduled run in. Just finished an hour of mowing and weed pulling at least before it started to rain…</p>
<p>Ran 4.01 miles outside. 94 degrees and sunny except for this one, big, friendly cloud formation near the end. I took several breaks in the shade of trees. One person got out of his car, came over to me and asked me if I was alright. Another person drove her car up to me to ask for directions (I don’t know the streets in the area).</p>
<p>I didn’t wear my HRM strap but I will in the future. Running in the heat can really get the HR up there and I might not notice it while running. I took my pulse from time to time and could tell when it was high. It would be nice to have objective rather than subjective data.</p>
<p>I need another two miles tonight to keep on track for 35 miles for the week.</p>
<p>I also didn’t bring water with me and I didn’t see any fountains. I’d like to do something about that too but I’m not sure what.</p>
<p>I’m over 650 miles for the year so it looks like it won’t be too hard to hit 1,000.</p>
<p>94 degrees? Holy Batman, BC, I hope you will run the rest of your mileage at the air conditioned Y. :)</p>
<p>Deborah, Mr B swears by the “perfect pushup” handle thingies. I guess they are supposed to keep your hands in the correct position all the time. I know why I would not be able to do my pushups with my hands and arms completely straight - need to accommodate the upper body anatomical features so they would not get in the way :D</p>
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<p>Both. Same for all. Boyle currently trains the Boston Red Sox players. The US Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey team. And, his 12 year old daughter’s girls hockey team, so he pretty much covers the gamut!</p>
<p>It’s not actually rotating the hand, it’s the sensation of trying to twist the floor that engages the big muscles of the shoulders/back and (allegedly) makes pushups a little easier. The fingers still stay spread out pointing forward. I’ve been trying it and it probably does work.</p>
<p>The arm angle probably makes a little difference. Arms widened out to the side is probably a little harder than directly under the shoulders, but I kind of go with what’s comfortable on that one.</p>
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<p>Humidity was only about 40%. I think that I was around the limit of what I can do without water though. I find that I prefer warmer temps to cooler temps. I was more comfortable today than I would have been at 50 degrees and windy. The run today was easier than tennis today in almost the same conditions.</p>
<p>The Nike Sublimated shirt that I used was great too. I wore the black shirt to see how it would feel. It felt surprisingly cool, even in direct sunlight. These are absolutely my favorite running shirts - the only downside is the price. But I have a coupon coming in a week or two. I’m thinking of either red or purple. I already have white, black, light blue and dark blue. I wouldn’t mind yellow either but I didn’t see any at the Nike Outlet.</p>
<p>Whew! I will vouch for the 94 degrees and blistering sun. Actually, the weather service at Manchester airport had it at 95 degrees, according to my Garmin. This is about as hard core as summer gets in NH.</p>
<p>I headed out for some Vitamin D therapy. Bright neon yellow shirt (treated to repel flying critters), shorts, no hat, no sunscreen. My legs were whiter than a freshly laundered pair of running socks, so we’ll see how they look later!</p>
<p>5K hilly walk/jog on my usual route, but I took it really easy, only pressing the running intervals to 85% of my max heart rate, although I did hit a max of 90% on the last one when I pressed on to the top of the hill. Still, I’m not acclimated to the heat and I’m not really looking to keel over with heat stroke on what is supposed to be healthy exercise!</p>
<p>50 minutes of sun exposure on some lily-white Yankee tourist head and legs. Bet I’m a little pink tomorrow… But, that probably cranked my vitamin D levels up.</p>