<p>Back to the basement to workout for me today. Kinda muggy around here, so the fan and the towel definitely saw action.</p>
<p>I bumped the weight up on a couple of exercises: 2 x 35 lbs on the DB front squats and 65 lb on the 3pt row. Good solid punch the clock workout.</p>
<p>PlantMom- I’m afraid I don’t like swimming for exercise, either. I have moments where I get into a rhythm and feel “one with the water” as my former swim coach used to say. It was better when I swam on the master’s team since it was varied and we had a lot of fun. The peers and my coach were motivating. Now it’s just me, the goggles and swim cap and the black line on the bottom. I can’t do breaststroke or butterfly (which would be frightening to small children if I were to try at my current level of conditioning) so it’s mainly freestyle. My backstroke is so bad that the Garmin thinks I have done a whole extra length! </p>
<p>MOfWC, awesome job! </p>
<p>Idad, actually, those fruitless Kind bars make good breakfast donut replacement. 
Oatmeal is lightweight, easy to fix and, as far as morning carbs go, is not that bad, especially with some sliced almonds thrown in for crunchiness. </p>
<p>I ate an apple, a bunch of salted almonds, and a full packet of SuperStarch protein drink for the breakfast on my backpacking overnight. I then had a another full packet of SuperStarch protein, half after 2 hours and the second half after four hours.</p>
<p>I don’t really like oatmeal unless it’s loaded up with sugar. So, I think I’d rather have a muffin. The muffin probably weighs a little more than instant oatmeal, but it can’t be a lot. I would be substituting the muffin for the apple (which is pretty heavy and not very nutritious). I shudder at the thought of trying to clean oatmeal out of my camp stove pot with no water except what I have carried or pumped through the filter. My stove doesn’t simmer. It’s either off or a full boil in 90 seconds.</p>
<p>Actually, I suspect that I’m burning through glycogen so fast backpacking that it really doesn’t much matter what I eat.</p>
<p>I do not doubt you can burn off 5 muffins worth of carbs by carrying that much weight uphill for so long, idad Washing dishes during a hike is a challenge. Personally, I love unsweetened oatmeal - with just salt and, if possible, butter - so much I do not mind washing the pot! </p>
<p>Abasket, mmmmmmmm butter pecan. My fav!</p>
<p>Plant mom…that white flower near the beginning wasn’t a rare ghost orchid, was it? 
lovely video!</p>
<p>Idad, if you don’t like oatmeal, what about couscous? It’s lightweight, fluffs up a lot, and tastes good with dried fruit and nuts or with fish (if you fish when you back-camp) or just about anything you put with it. Carb ish but filling. A box weighs nearly nothing…just a thought.</p>
<p>Notrichenough, clearly you were a scoutmaster As such, maybe you could explain to me the magic tricks of portaging…I have never been able to work out how folks manage that! I have an uber-lightweight kayak and while at 38 lbs I can indeed walk a spell with it balanced on my shoulder I can’t quite imagine doing that with a backpack too. Or is that just something most short women don’t do solo? ;)</p>
<p>I should add that this is likely a moot point as I do not seem destined to get away at all this summer given that my lead employee is off, but I’ve had a notion that one day I might like to do a solo Susannah-moody-roughing-it-style-adventure but I can’t wrap my head around the portage part :)</p>
<p>kmcmom - I was never a scoutmaster (could not get my kid interested), but my troop when I was a kid was seriously into camping and especially canoeing. We owned our own canoes bought with money raised from recycling newspaper (you could sell old newspapers for decent money back then), and we went everywhere - Quetico, La Verendrye, the Boundary Waters, the Allagash, rivers up and down the mid-Atlantic. The summer after I graduated college, some buddies and I went to the Yukon and canoed the Ogilvie and Peel Rivers. Got as far north as Fort MacPherson in the Northwest Territory, which is above the Arctic Circle. It’s really odd when the sun never goes down… it was a 5000+ mile drive each direction to get there, I don’t think I could do that today. :)</p>
<p>We had 17 foot Grumman aluminum canoes. These weighed about 75 or 80 pounds, and we replaced the middle thwart with one that had shoulder pads and an indentation for your neck. There’s a little bit of technique to roll it up on your shoulders, and when you got tired you found a low tree branch or notch to rest it on so you didn’t have to put it down. With gear the load was 100+ pounds, it requires a lot of upper body strength and frequent breaks.</p>
<p>I’ve never portaged with a kayak, but I’ve seen people carry them on one shoulder (arm inside the kayak) and I’ve seen yokes that allow you to carry it on both shoulders and still be able to see where you are going. That might be worth looking into. One thing to remember is that there’s no shame in making multiple trips. Even though it is triple the distance to do a portage in two trips instead of one, it may not be all that much longer time-wise because you can go a lot faster when not so heavily weighed down. Sometimes we would start off carrying everything in one trip, and then if we got too tired we would drop the backpacks and come back for them, that way we didn’t have to go all the way back. </p>
<p>Watching the CEO of General Mills talking on CNBC while eating my egg breakfast. He say they are going to introduce more protein-rich foods in the upcoming year, such as protein enhanced Cheerios. Wow, that sounds disgusting. </p>
<p>^ I googled it, apparently they are raising the protein from 3 grams per serving to 7 grams (not counting the milk).</p>
<p>And it will only be available in the high-sugar varieties of Cheerios - Oat and Honey, and Cinnamon and Almond - so to get that extra 4 grams of protein you will have to eat 16 grams of sugar.</p>
<p>It will say “protein” in giant letters on the box, so I am sure people will think it is good for them.</p>
<p>“watching the CEO of General Mills talking…while eating my egg breakfast” - LOVE this!!! Haha!!!</p>
<p>Great. High protein, high sugar. Shaking head…</p>
<p>I know! He said they discovered that adults liked their Lucky Charms cereal, and therefore they would revisit their marketing of this product. Talk about even more disgusting stuff! He also mentioned that their gluten-free and snack product businesses were doing really well. Gluten-free = “yay, we just found another excuse for sugaring up stuff!” </p>
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</p>
<p>Honey Nut Cheerios is going to be so healthy, they’ll have to make the boxes bigger to fit all the health claims:</p>
<p>**HEART HEALTHY!</p>
<p>WHOLE GRAIN!</p>
<p>HIGH FIBER!</p>
<p>LOW FAT!</p>
<p>NOW, WITH PROTEIN!**</p>
<p>I bet they don’t use big fonts to let you know that all that :“healthy” stuff comes in a cereal that is 32.1% sugar by weight.</p>
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</p>
<p>Heck, you could even sell new newspapers back then! :)</p>
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<p>Remind me not to try carrying a kayak along with my backpack! There has be some limit to even my foolhardyness. :)</p>
<hr>
<p>BTW, the Honey Nut Cheerios is why I try to be vigilant at cutting starchy carbs and grains. It’s not that I couldn’t be perfectly healthy eating a little bit of it, it’s that the stuff is so ubiquitous that, if you don’t make a concerted effort, you end up eating it morning, noon, and night. I didn’t start to notice until I made the concerted effort. Now, I see the challenge of not having a big carb load for breakfast (cereal, bagels, muffins), a big carb load for lunch (sandwiches), a big carb load for dinner (pasta, rice, potatoes), and a big carb load at all points in between (every snack food in the grocery store). All things in moderation, right? How do you get to moderation in carb consumption with the current food supply? Beats me. Carb loading four or five times a day is not moderation and it’s certainly not moderation for us middle-aged non-professional athletes who aren’t walking around glycogen-depleted from two-a-day workouts. The only way to carb load like that is to exercise like a professional athlete.</p>
<p>Just to get to a moderate level requires consciously trying to avoid the stuff. And there are times (grabbing lunch in the car, etc.) where it is simply impossible.</p>
<p>I weighed 90 pounds more than I do today and Honey Nut Cheerios was part of the problem. I feel like making the effort to avoid that stuff is essential for me.</p>
<p>kmc, I think you must be referring to the first flower in the slideshow. If so, that’s tarflower, or Bejaria racemosa. It’s a summer bloomer in scrubby areas of central Florida, with a sticky (tarry) flower–a real beauty. Our local native plant society chapter is named Tarflower, as a salute to this flower. I have never seen a ghost orchid plant in flower–only the leaves. Generally they’re found in south Florida and their whereabouts are well kept secrets because it’s such an attractive target for orchid thieves. Here’s a video of a dancing ghost: <a href=“GHOST ORCHID dancing in the rain in Fakahatchee Strand - YouTube”>GHOST ORCHID dancing in the rain in Fakahatchee Strand - YouTube;
<p>About the swimming, MoWC, I agree with you, lol. But you are doing it, so kudos! And the butterfly…no thanks! </p>
<p>Butter-pecan, maple-pecan, caramel pecan…mmmmmm.</p>
<p>Successfully went to the noon (60 minutes) hot yoga class right near my office. The last time I tried this was right before I found out (later that day) that I had a fracture and the yoga attempt was a disaster. I couldn’t stop sweating enough to really get back ready for work and could barely walk to my car due to the fracture. Anyway- did fine today. I don’t look great, but I sort of have makeup on. I think this will work once or twice a week. I didn’t have to lie down in class this time, which is a victory, although I think the instructor was a little easy on us and might not have held the poses quite as long (not complaining). It’s really a good workout and good mentally.</p>
<p>Here’s the nutrition data for Oats and Honey Cheerios Protein:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cheerios.com/~/media/Images/Product-Images/YB-Cheerios/Oats_and_honey.ashx”>http://www.cheerios.com/~/media/Images/Product-Images/YB-Cheerios/Oats_and_honey.ashx</a></p>
<p>It’s 31% sugar by weight.</p>
<p>They list the sugar under an astonishing nine different names (in order of appearance):</p>
<p>Brown Sugar
Sugar
Corn Syrup
Molasses
Caramel
Caramelized Sugar Syrup
Honey
Refiner’s syrup</p>
<p>Well, in addition to yelling at wrong way bikers and shooing lose dogs, it looks like I will soon have to swat these lovely “creatures” while running on the trail!</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/airdog-worlds-first-auto-follow-action-sports-dron?ref=discovery”>https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/airdog-worlds-first-auto-follow-action-sports-dron?ref=discovery</a></p>
<p>Lol. </p>
<p>Oh, wow. Wear a helmet! </p>
<p>I went to a Hot Airdyne Class. The instructor kicked my butt… :)</p>
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<p>I’m fighting a balky heart rate monitor strap until the new one arrives. I’ve got the Airdyne intervals programmed to let me rest until my heart rate falls to 70% of my max. First interval ended and the watch said my heart rate was 59% of my max, so I continued on to the second interval without a rest. That ended, I’m bent over panting like a dog after a double interval, and the watch says my heart rate has fallen to 39% of my max (67 bpm), so I have to do the third interval without rest. Yeah. right.</p>
<p>I hit the STOP button at that point and did the rest of the workout manually. I put some gel on the HRM strap and it behaved properly after that.</p>
<p>Airdyne in the heat is tough.</p>
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<p>Grilled salmon and squash for dinner.</p>
<p>Enjoyed our simpl(ish) dinner. Sauted chicken - sprinkled with a spice mixture called ras el hanout. Then had a mess of swiss chard (parboiled then sauted in butter and olive oil) with a tahini garlic sauce and some pine nuts sprinkled on top. Salad on the side.</p>