<p>alias- I’ve shared this before, but the breakfast that works well for me and sticks with me is ONE round whole grain toaster waffle with some peanut butter (not huge globs) and a huge glob of Greek nonfat plain yogurt. Really good and filling.</p>
<p>Yes to music, especially on the cardio machines. I usually keep the iPod on when I do weight machines, too. The last couple of weight sessions I’ve listened to Christmas Carols… hey, works for me!</p>
<p>aliasforparent, foods that you can’t limit I think you need to ban from the house. You can overindulge in nuts when you go to a party. I had to ban cookies from the house because I can’t eat one a day. I didn’t have to ban chocolate because I can eat just one a day. Unfortunately I do need to have Christmas cookies in the house, but I am waiting to make them until both boys are home and will help eat them!</p>
<p>Peanut butter and honey is a pretty high calorie low vitamin sandwich. If you love sandwiches - I’d switch to open face or half a sandwich plus salad. See how little mayo you can use, or maybe just mustard works? And switch to tofu spreads, deli meat (salt can be an issue) or leftover chicken, steak, turkey etc.</p>
<p>I am snow/iced in at home today. “Working from home” I know you northerners will laugh, but it is very hilly here and the ice that forms makes driving dangerous. My car can do it, but I don’t want to be hit by the others. Some neighbors couldn’t get home and had to abandon cars and walk in yesterday. </p>
<p>Good news is weight is back down 2 pounds since last week after the Vegas trip. I’m going to try to make it over to the clubhouse gym later (only a mile away) and do a low HR run on the dreadmill. If I can’t do that, I’ll ride the trainer at low HR. I have Yak Traks that I bought at the end of last winter which might work outside, but with the injury I don’t want to try it just yet. (plus- windchill is zero)</p>
<p>Man, everybody is losing weight this week! Must be the turkey rebound or something. </p>
<p>To show you how crazy these plateaus are, a statistical fluke has me losing 4.4 pounds since last Monday morning – my biggest weekly weight loss ever, I think. As chintzy would say, “BOING”. </p>
<p>I like today’s reading better than last Monday’s…</p>
<p>One thing I’ve started doing as my weight loss has slowed and is no longer large enough to mask the day to day ups and downs is tracking a 7-day running average weight. This smooths out the statistical noise and probably gives the most accurate trendline picture. I think this will be a good way to track maintenance mode. </p>
<p>MOWC:</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want to be on the streets of Nashville after a big snowstorm, either. Here in New England, it’s in the 50s. We got ridiculous pounding rain for the last 24 hours. I’m not complaining. It would have been a couple feet of snow if it had been cold…</p>
<p>Temps here -20 with the wind chill. Definitely an indoor exercise day. Dug out of the 18 in snowfall that lead to 4 ft high drifts around my house and went to the gym this morning. Felt very good after 2 days off due to weather. Not as many of H’s work parties this week so I am hoping for some weight loss…please!
I use my Ipod in the gym but listen to the tv if my friend isn’t talking with me. If I am outside I listen to music. Hope I get my HRM for Christmas!</p>
<p>I successfully did 5 miles low heart rate on the dreadmill and it wasn’t unpleasant. I listened to the oldies station on the cardio theater and had to watch my heart rate as I was grooving to Jan and Dean! Ave. HR 131- I deliberately stayed below the 135 target and the treadmill really keeps you honest. I had to keep dialing the pace down (slower) as I got hot and HR wanted to climb. It was horribly slow, but it felt good and it was a good long cardio workout. Streets seem more clear since the sun came out, but there are a lot of stranded cars.</p>
<p>Good luck with the ice/snow MOWC! I grew up in Michigan and live in the Boston area so I was shocked when I lived in DC and saw people just abandoning their cars during a big snowstorm. I realized that even if I could handle driving in ice and snow, most of the people around me couldn’t!! As I-Dad said–it’s 50-something in central MA. I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning out my planters and putting away deck furniture–which I never got around to do earlier. Did a bosu class today. I’m getting only slightly better with some of the balance stuff–I can stand on the ball and do some of the squats and arm exercises, but not much else. I realized today that the kind of shoes/socks I wear makes a difference on how well I can balance. I do better with shoes where I’m not sliding around in them and I can get a bit of a grip on the bosu.</p>
<p>iPod nazi was a bad Santa today. He left me crumple on the floor next to the stabilty ball, panting like a dog. For some reason, this workout just kills me.</p>
<p>Four supersets:</p>
<p>Split squats with opposite arm dumbbell lateral raise
Plank on ball (one foot off floor)
Repeat 3 times, then jog in place</p>
<p>Squats with dumbbells curl/press
One arm dumbbell chest press on stability ball (killer butt exercise)
Repeat 3 times, then burpees</p>
<p>Lunge walks with lateral dumbbell raises
Pushups on stabilty ball (one foot off ball)
Repeat 3 times, then jumping jacks</p>
<p>Reverse flys on stability ball
Ab wheel roll-outs
Repeat 3 times, then mountain climbers</p>
<p>I actually did some of the one leg pushups on the stabilty ball this time, but that is one hard damn exercise. That’s the one that left me crumpled on the floor.</p>
<p>55 minutes, average heart rate 78%. Peak heart rate 94%. Peak would be higher if I had enough gas to actually do anything but mail it in on the jumping jacks. I did manage six good burpees.</p>
<p>Mowc, thanks for sharing. I’d love to eat yogurt. But I’m lactose intolerant. It’d not too bad, but it makes me uncomfortable.
Mathmom, thanks x the suggestions. I don’t really like sandwiches that much, but it’s a quick and easy to make them. Im going to change my menu for bkfast, lunch, and snacks. I need to cut calories and my diet has too many of them:(</p>
<p>(hope I
Making sense since I’m writing from my iPhone - excuse my typos)</p>
<p>19 yr. old D is home on break. She hasn’t worked out all semester (former swimmer/track athlete) so she decided to go to the gym with me this morning and workout with me and my trainer. I think she has a new found respect for her old mom today.</p>
<p>That’s great, chintzy! Let’s show these young whipper-snappers a thing or two!</p>
<p>Good for you chintzy! She must be so proud of you!</p>
<p>I hope your trainer threw some burpees at the young lady…</p>
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<p>I hope so, too. My daughter has been encouraging, but I’ve been unable to get her to join me on a fitness kick. </p>
<p>My wife has actually been negative towards my exercise. She asked me a couple weeks ago when I was going to stop working out. I said, “Why would I want to stop working out?” She has never said one encouraging word to me about losing 70 pounds or getting in better shape. In the early going, I would tell her what exercises I was doing (she’s the one who goes to the gym) and her response was “that’s nothing, you should be doing “x” number of reps” or whatever. Now, if I exercise when she’s around, she says I’m “showing off”.</p>
<p>Oh idad! I am so sorry. 
I have heard that some spouses/family have a hard time with the changes that happen when a loved one moves on to a healhy lifestyle. We are very proud of you here and you have certainly inspired so many of us. My H is supportive but we don’t exercise together. He doesn’t eat as strictly as I do but he tries…except when he wants me to have a glass of wine with him more often than I want! One of my D’s is in the gym all of the time and another NEEDS to work on her fitness and better eating habits. She refuses to acknowledge my weight loss or accept any help I try to offer. Now I just don’t say anything to her about it. sigh… Wishing all of us more support and dedication to staying healthy. Stay strong!</p>
<p>iDad- That’s terrible. I just don’t understand that. I’m glad we are all here for you and I brag about you to other people. I really do. I’m proud of ALL of us for keeping up the posts- even if we have some lapses- and being here to encourage each other and learn new exercises and food tricks.</p>
<p>I think these kinds of internet cheering squads are fantastic for staying motivated and on track, maybe even the nudge we need to workout or skip a snack. Just writing about workouts reinforces the whole routine – speaking of which, I did a nice easy 30 minute Airdyne session this evening. Eight intervals, one minute hard, two minutes easy, plus a warm up and cool down. Good little workout, but not brutal.</p>
<p>I think the lack of family support is very common for weight loss and, certainly, for nicotine addiction issues, where one spouse quitting smoking is threatening to a smoking spouse. My wife certainly knows that I have lost a great deal of weight – although she has no idea how much. I’ve learned to just shut up about hitting weight milestones or fitting in smaller thermometer jeans or doing a new workout for the first time.</p>
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<p>The thing is- I don’t think you should HAVE to shut up! I think you should be able to share that and get some “atta boys”. I don’t always get the support I would like, but part of it is that my H is not really much of a cheerleader. He was a really good runner (now mainly cycles), so he does “get” my accomplishments and is pretty supportive. Back when we were both really good we (mainly me) were pretty competitive with each other. He was faster, of course, but I seemed to win more stuff (being female helped). When our son turned out to be such an incredible runner at a young age people would come up to us and say to me “Wow! WildChild is so great. He sure has H’s speed!” or come up to H and say “Wow. WildChild is so great! He sure has Mom’s endurance!” People told us how great it was that we were both top runners and H said, “It’s only good if you are both doing really well or you are both doing really badly.” It was sort of true! :)</p>
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<p>It is what it is. I think my wife still thinks I’ve lost 35 pounds. I never told her when I hit the big 50 milestone.</p>
<p>The crazy thing is that she tried, for years, to get me to go to her gym with her, or go for walks with her. So, silly me, when I started this eat less/move more kick, I thought that she would be enthusiastic. I remember when I bought the Airdyne, I picked her brain on what kind of cardio she liked (we had a $10 yard sale exercise bike that was an injury waiting to happen). I was going to get an elliptical, but she said she hated ellipticals and liked bikes better, so I got a bike. She sat on it once, for less than 30 seconds and hasn’t touched it since. I would love to share the Airdyne “misery”. It would be good to have two people egg each other on with that thing.</p>
<p>chintzy - I can’t tell you how many times I tried to get D2 to go to the gym with me last summer and share my session with my trainer. I truthfully believe they know they cannot do what we are doing and would be embarrassed. There’s just absolutely no way my daughter would be able to handle the weights I’ve worked up to for eight months.</p>
<p>When she was home for Thanksgiving, she did go with me to the gym, and the trainer asked her if she wanted to join us and she said no. I’ve also offered the same deal to D1 when she’s been home (which is not as often as D2), and she, too, has declined. So many girls this age think the best way to work out is to hit the cardio for an hour, maybe do some ab work and that’s it. I just very rarely see any college-aged girls lifting weights; I think a big part of it is that they are intimidated. </p>
<p>Am off to Hawai’i in the morning. Have already gotten info on the equipment that is available at the fitness center when we get to Maui on Monday - it’s called Kinesis:
[Kinesis</a> Circuit - Kinesis - Kinesis - Commercial Fitness - Technogym](<a href=“http://www.technogym.com/us/viewdoc.asp?co_id=2268&target=commercial]Kinesis”>http://www.technogym.com/us/viewdoc.asp?co_id=2268&target=commercial)</p>
<p>It looks similar to what I use at my gym, except the one I use was designed and made personally by a trainer. </p>
<p>Activities planned so far: 28-mile bike ride down Haleakala Volcano, zipline, horseback riding, and snorkeling. We’ve also rented three bikes as there are many miles of trails easily accessible from our resort. </p>
<p>And hopefully a meet up with BunsenBurner!</p>