<p>I actually like doing plank and side plank – it’s part of my yoga routine. Actually, the burpees are part of my yoga routine too, but it’s called a sun salutation, Ashtanga style. Except instead of jumping, you’re supposed to “float”, literally, using your core muscles and keeping your legs straight! Now, that’s a core exercise! (I’ve never managed this myself being a mortal.)</p>
<p>chintzy – read all about your Turkey Day race in the paper. Were you and your sister in costume like so many others who ran? Loved the front page photo of the group who dressed up as an entire Thanksgiving dinner.</p>
<p>CBBBlinker–I have enough trouble dragging my body along the course without a chicken suit! I saw one young woman dressed as Velma from Scooby Doo and wearing a “Mystery Machine” made from a cardboard box–she was really moving! In the holding area before the race I was jammed up against three young men wearing nothing but kilts and some blue body paint. In some countries I think we would be legally married now.</p>
<p>iPod nazi should be brought up on war crimes charges for what he did to me today.</p>
<p>New week of supersets (Phase 3, Week 3) and he threw some curveballs at me.</p>
<p>**One-arm stability ball bench press. **OK, this one doesn’t sound that tough. Lie on the stability ball with your shouders, form a weight bench with your body, and do dumbbell bench presses. No sweat, but this week it is just pressing one weight with one arm at a time. This adds a whole new level of challenge, requiring a very stiff core just to stay on the ball and keep everything from flopping all over the place. I can do it.</p>
<p>**Plank on the stability ball. **My ol’ familiar friend. Say what? Plank on the stability ball lifting one leg off the floor. Woah, wait a minute. This is pretty shakey. I fell the first time, then managed just little cheater leg lifts – up and back real quick before the ball started rolling. By the second set, I started to get the hang of it. Third set, I could do it, but it is absolutely brutal on the glutes (butt muscles) and abs. Wow. This is gonna take some work.</p>
<p>**Stability ball pushups. **Hands on floor, feet on stability ball. Do push ups. No sweat. I’ve been doing these. Oh, yeah. Well take this, big fella. Lift one leg off the stability ball and now do a pushup. That’s right. One legged stability ball pushups. I fell off the ball on the first set. I collapsed after one on each leg in the second set. And, managed a few half baked one-leg stability ball pushups in the third set. I’d call this one an epic fail for today. Not only is the balance thing just about impossible, but it’s hard to even do a pushup in that position. This one looks like a long-term project.</p>
<p>PMK: I do have some exercise books that describe some exercises like you are talking about, but I just cannot wrap my brain around doing them. I think it comes down to needing someone else to impose some structure. I am in awe of idad and others who can just jump in and figure this out on their own. And I am sure that part of it is that I am not yet thrilled about doing it. </p>
<p>I have managed to change my food intake pretty substantially in the last three months. Once I started really paying attention, I was appalled to find out just what I had been eating. Lots of empty carbs and way too much sugar, not to mention 25-syllable ingredients that probably are not “food” at all.</p>
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<p>Not on my own. I just got lucky. I stumbled across a 12 week iPod workout program that looked like it would work for me. I just hit play on the iPod and follow along. As it turns out, the guy is a huge proponent of body weight circuits and interval training, so that stuff was pounded into me when I was at a very impressionable stage (66 pounds ago, big ol’ fat guy, sweatin’ like a pig on the old yardsale exercise bike). It turns out that those approaches are widespread, so it wasn’t too hard to discover the leading guys: Alwyn Cosgrove, Rachel Cosgrove, Mike Boyle, and so forth. References pop up everywhere. This stuff is pretty much the standard in fitness training these days, although the commercial gyms are still filled with weight machines and treadmills with TVs. </p>
<p>I’ve just about finished that initial 12 week program, 30-some weeks after I started, so I’ve started collecting other similar workouts (like Spartacus) and mixing those in. It’s kind of like making vinaigrette salad dressings: once you get the hang of making several variations from recipes, it’s pretty easy to start substituting. So I could take something like the workout I did today and just pop in different pairs of exercises. It’s really easy to find circuit training workouts and most of them can be made more or less intense to suit your current fitness level.</p>
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<p>I think a lot of us had that moment of horror when we realized the calories we had been wolfing down in a late night snack, day after day after day.</p>
<p>*The Big Book of Exercise *has a really simple diet strategy:</p>
<p>1) Cut out food with added sugar for a month and see if you don’t start losing weight quickly.</p>
<p>2) After a month, if you still aren’t losing weight quickly, cut the grains – breads, pastas, rice, etc… Wait another month and see if you are losing weight fast enough.</p>
<p>3) If not, start tracking your calories and attack portion sizes to get down to your (reasonable) calorie targets to lose weight faster.</p>
<p>Here is a handy weight loss guide that I found in the today’s Times:</p>
<p>[How</a> to lose 17 lb in 60 days](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013545173_potatoguy29m.html]How”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013545173_potatoguy29m.html)</p>
<p>;)</p>
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<p>In honor of his heroic efforts, I made a potato dish for dinner tonight.</p>
<p>Just the thought of trying to eat 20 potatos a day makes me ill. I am, however, going to start adding an occasional baked potato back into my diet. With judicious use of butter, a small baked potato can fit into my calorie goals.</p>
<p>i-dad, a potato is only 110 calories - that’s much less than the calories added with the typical smorgasbord of toppings (bacon bits, sour cream, cheese, butter…). The guy figured out that he needed 20 potatoes to fill his caloric needs, but could only eat 14 at first because potatoes are really filling. He was losing 4 lb/week at the beginning of his spud diet stint.</p>
<p>My first free weights workout after a 5-day break was HARD, but the thought of the fancy dress that I ordered onlne kept me going. :D</p>
<p>If the potato or Twinkie diets aren’t working for you, Weight Watchers just made most fruits and vegetables 0 points:</p>
<p>[The</a> skinny on Weight Watchers’ new Points plan - Healthy Living on Shine](<a href=“http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/the-skinny-on-weight-watchers-new-points-plan-2415260/#photoViewer=1]The”>http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/the-skinny-on-weight-watchers-new-points-plan-2415260/#photoViewer=1)</p>
<p>I just clicked on the suggested recipe idea at Weight Watchers: a grilled turkey burger. I’m not sure I get the whole concept of “diet foods”. Compared to a 93% lean beef hamburger, the 93% lean turkey burger is 140 calories versus 170 calories. Eating the revolting lo-cal hamburger bun saves 65 calories. So, the cost of turning a fantastic grilled hamburger into a turkey burger on cardboard is less than a 100 calorie savings. For 100 calories, if you are in it for the long haul, aren’t you better off eating stuff that is really, really good so you don’t feel like you are “giving up” food and needing to take a break and “live a little 20% of the time”?</p>
<p>Oh, according to LiveStrong, the fat of the beef and turkey burgers is the same. The beef has half the cholesterol of the turkey. So, to me, the only reason to cook a turkey burger would be if you prefer the taste of a turkey hamburger over a beef hamburger. If you like hamburgers, then I’m not sure that it is all that helpful to feel “bad” about having a grilled hamburger instead of a diet-approved turkey burger.</p>
<p>Whadaya bet that half the people who cook that turkey burger slap a piece of cheese on it which makes it higher calorie and higher fat that the orginial grilled beefburger?</p>
<p>Day 2 of back to plain oatmeal for breakfast. Spent 4 days at a resort with H’s family. Ate a lot of carbs. Did play some tennis but not much else in the way of exercise.
I am going to play tennis today but am not looking forward to it. It is cold. At least cold for me 51 degrees this morning with a high today of only 63. For my area this is cold.
I start physical therapy for my back next week. Never had physical therapy so I will be interested to see what they will do.</p>
<p>Thank you. I am going to make baked potatoes for dinner tonight. With Chili. And Broccoli. Easy. Yummy. Comforting. </p>
<p>Could I eat them just plain – with nothing on them? That doesn’t sound very good, but I wonder . . .</p>
<p>I am wanting to get remotivated. I lost about 25 pounds a year ago. Then have stayed the same for about a year. Staying the same isn’t bad. Certainly, it is better than gaining. But I’m still quite a bit heavier than I want to be. </p>
<p>Ha ha, maybe that could be my challenge for tonight. Eat potatoes plain, just plain. Could I do it for one night? Would it be satisfying enough? I’ll have to think about that!</p>
<p>I couldn’t eat a hamurger if you paid me! Yuck! I actually like extra lean turkey burgers, and with no cheese. 
Actually nothing sounds good to me right now. My little cold has become complicated with the stomach flu. I feel like I have been hit by a truck. I have the cold congestion, scratchy throat, cough, stuffy nose, watery eyes and the dreaded upset stomach. I have lost 5 pounds in a day…the terrible, horrible way. I can barely move. Trying to sip water but it makes me have stomach pains. I haven’t been this sick in years! :(</p>
<p>If you live in the greater Seattle area and need some extra motivation to shed a few pounds, check this out:</p>
<p>[Can</a> Vitamin D help you shed those pounds? | KING5.com | Seattle Health News, HealhtLink](<a href=“http://www.king5.com/health/Can-Vitamin-D-help-you-shed-those-pounds-111001284.html]Can”>http://www.king5.com/health/Can-Vitamin-D-help-you-shed-those-pounds-111001284.html)</p>
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<p>And here is the link to the actual trial which is enrolling:</p>
<p>[Vitamin</a> D, Diet and Activity Study - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov](<a href=“http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01240213]Vitamin”>ClinicalTrials.gov)</p>
<p>Too bad that I do not qualify (age, BMI, already take Vit D), or I would have given them a call!</p>
<p>When I was in the pool yesterday I met a woman water jogging. We spoke and she’s been a water jogger/exerciser for almost two years. She began for the same reason I did, our injuries are nearly identical. </p>
<p>She shared some tips with me, advising that I invest in water jogging shoes and to think twice before switching to dry land. She has tried that several times, always winding up hurting her back again. So now she is an avowed water exerciser and she was in great shape. </p>
<p>It was so nice to talk to someone who was farther along down the road than I am. It was a good shot in the arm of positive thinking. If she can do it, so can I!</p>
<p>Vitamin D- Our paper reported today that the recommendations for huge amounts of Vit D are not a good thing and that 600 IUs is pretty much it. No affect on cancer prevention. Changes daily it seems.</p>
<p>Water running- Only way to stand the boredom is to put an iPod in a baggie and tuck it under a baseball cap on your head. Also- get a flotation belt designed for deep water running. I don’t think the kind of water running where you touch bottom is that great for ANY injury, so you want to be in deep water and supported by the belt. Most gyms have them available for use, or you can get your own. It is also helpful to use a running motion instead of cycling.</p>
<p>MOFWC, I saw a blurb in our paper as well. The panel that questioned its benefits wants more direct proof that such benefits exist. The Hutch trial will answer some of these questions, hopefully. For now, I will stick with taking my supplements since my daily exposure to sunlight is 0 minutes during this time of the year.</p>
<p>There are waterproof cases dpecifically designed for iPods and iPhones.</p>
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<p>The first one was the McGill Curl-Up, the officially approved alternative to crunches.</p>
<p>The “stir the pot” is a very advanced plank on the stability ball. IMO, you will have no prayer of doing this one until you are able to do plank on the floor. McGill recommends 10 second holds and more reps to build strength.</p>
<p>Side plank is probably one that he would recommend you start early and do often – probably the beginner version from you knees. McGill’s main thesis is that people with back injuries (and actually all people) benefit from a strong stable “core” (abs in the front, obliques on the sides, the spinal erector muscles on the back of the waist, and the glutes (the butt muscles). Taken as a balanced group, these muscles stabilize the spine and take the load off it. Note that he is talking about exericises to build stability, not motion. He’s looking for exercises that specifically do NOT bend or flex the back. The whole idea is to build a strong core that can hold the back in a stable fixed position instead of bending it.</p>
<p>Here’s an article from McGill:</p>
<p>[McGill:</a> Selecting Back Exercises](<a href=“http://www.backfitpro.com/pdf/selecting_back_exercises.pdf]McGill:”>http://www.backfitpro.com/pdf/selecting_back_exercises.pdf)</p>
<p>And, my very first workout from back in February, that just, by coincidence, happens to be a workout that follows McGill’s teachings:</p>
<p>[Core</a> Workout: Ab Exercises for Beginners](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCwsuPVZeZo]Core”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCwsuPVZeZo)</p>
<p>My guess is that these four exercises will be stuff your physical therapy program has you doing pretty early on. Again, note that none of them involve any movement. They are all building strength to hold a position and resist movement and are all done with a fixed spine.</p>
<p>McGill’s research has swept though the strength and conditioning industry. The leading trainers have completely stopped doing exercises that involve bending the back.</p>