<p>I weighed in today at Curves. I lost 3 1/2 pounds last month and I think I’ve lost about 7-8 pounds in the last few months (from the heaviest I was when I returned from a trip in March). Just being very careful about what I eat and trying to exercise every day. I’m not in the Olympic category of some of the posters here, but I’m burning calories almost every day.</p>
<p>Yesterday was the Flying Pig marathon in Cinti. I know a few people who ran all 26 hilly miles of it, and some who did the half-marathon & the relay. The male winner was only running his 2nd marathon, and the female winner is legally blind! </p>
<p>So there.</p>
<p>MoWC - next time you are going to be in your old stomping grounds, contact me and I will give you a lesson on Racewalking - good substitute activity & who knows I might get you hooked!</p>
<p>Thanks! I will do that.
The Flying Pig is (was?) on my list of races I want to do. In fact, it is the meet-up next year (tentative) for my women’s online running group and my daughter mentioned it as a possible first marathon for her.</p>
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<p>I would say that losing nearly a pound a week qualifies for some kind of medal! That’s good, solid weight loss. Keep that up for a few months and, pretty soon, you are looking at real weight and having to buy smaller pants!</p>
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<p>The key to this exercise thing is to keep ramping it up, just a little bit, as your body adapts and you get more fit. I thought I was going to keep over after my first half mile walk. Legs hurt. Lungs hurt. Everything hurt. Every time I work out, I look go over the exercises in my mind and consider if there is one (or two) where I can bump the weights up or make it more challenging in some way. Sometimes I feel like I’m max’d out. Other times I feel solid on an exercise and decide to kick it up. If you were to crank up one or two of the stations at Curves a notch or two every week, you’d made some significant gains. It really doesn’t matter where you are on the fitness scale, it’s all about trying to become a little more fit this week than last and even a little more fit next week.</p>
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<p>You and me, both. That’s why I specialize in collecting odd-ball 20 minute interval workouts. 20 minutes is interesting. Always doing some new variation is fun. But, slogging away for 45 minutes on an exercise bike or whatever? No thanks.</p>
<p>I can go an hour in my workouts because they are ten minutes of this, ten minutes of that. I can handle an hour walk, because I’m outdoors, enjoying the scenery. But, indoors, grinding out an hour? No way. If I had, to I would probably come up with some circuit jumping between 15 minutes on a machine and 15 minutes lifting weigths or something.</p>
<p>Changed up the schedule again to take advantage of the gorgeous day. 5k walk in the park today, workout tomorrow when it’s raining.</p>
<p>Six jogging intervals on Friday. Eight today. The first seven for 1 minute each, the last one about 45 seconds to my garage to show off for the neighbors. :)</p>
<p>[SlowGeek</a>! Runs for 743523633](<a href=“http://slowgeek.com/ru/743523633/92440393?unit=miles]SlowGeek”>http://slowgeek.com/ru/743523633/92440393?unit=miles)</p>
<p>Took 24 seconds per mile off my fastest time on this route. 14:42 per mile.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about this approach. Now, I’m walking up the steep hills and then, instead of resting, jogging on the flat bits. It essentially doubles the number of intervals. The ol’ (formerly) fat guy is huffin’ and puffin’.</p>
<p>Thanks Idad. I alternate between walking in the nearby hills when the weather is nice, walking around my neighborhood (also has hills) and going to Curves and sometimes going on the treadmill or doing Wii Fit or an exercise video I have. I try to keep it varied. I sometimes walk up to an hour and try to push myself a little farther. Also, I recently got an iphone and am using the run app (forget the name, it’s free) so that I get an update every five minutes as to how fast I’m going, how far I’ve gone etc. It knows if I’m going on hills because it’s calculating from a GPS system and then it tells me how many calories I’ve burned.</p>
<p>Varied works for me! It keeps it interesting. And, for an ol’ geezer like me, it probably helps avoid injuries, never doing the same thing two days in a row, if I can help it.</p>
<p>Yoga. Many different types. Though not necessarily aerobic, some forms of yoga can be a real workout.</p>
<p>5x5 Back Squat
5x5 Bench Press
5x10 Dips
5 sets of KB Swings 5,8,10,10,15 reps</p>
<p>Ran three miles today. I mostly took it easy and then sped up near the end. My hip is still sore when I stand a certain way but it’s artificial - I normally don’t stand in that way. Running doesn’t cause pain nor does it seem to make the problem worse. So I guess I’ll keep running.</p>
<p>870 calories today: 44.59% fat, 31.08% protein, 24.32% carbs.</p>
<p>I went over budget on Saturday, almost to replacement calories and went slightly over budget on Sunday. I was too busy to eat for most of today so I didn’t eat very much. I also didn’t have access to food at the office as the goodie kitchen needs to be replenished.</p>
<p>I will do a bit of weights at home bearing in mind the injury.</p>
<p>Yeah. I had a couple of splurge days, myself. Especially yesterday with my pasta dinner – a whopping 37% carbs for the day, only 12% protein. That would almost be considered “healthy”!</p>
<p>I’m getting blood drawn tomorrow for a lipid profile (cholesterol). I hope all these carbs I’ve eaten the last few days don’t screw up my cholesterol!</p>
<p>My biggest problem was that we went to Trader Joes and they had these Easter Malt Balls on sale. I had two handfuls of them, dutifully recorded them and was shocked: where did all of the calories come from? Well, those chocolate malt balls pack a real calorie punch. This was also in the middle of that big sleep day and it may be that my body was recovering from something. At any rate, the calories were below replenishment so that just slows down weight loss.</p>
<p>I do think that it’s a lot easier to control calories on workdays for me than on weekends.</p>
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<p>Oh, that’s the kind of thing I used to just lay into. Eat them by the handful, even though they really aren’t **that **good.</p>
<p>Five of those stupid malted milk eggs are what? 180 calories? And, once you start, no way you are stopping until the bag is gone. Candy is just ridiculous.</p>
<p>That’s where tracking calories is such a great educational tool. You really start to learn where the landmines are.</p>
I loved those malted milk balls
<p>Something about the consistency.</p>
<p>My biggest problem is stuff that the rest of the family buys. My daughter picked these and my wife suggested that they get three boxes because they were so inexpensive. My daughter is skinny as a rail and my wife is quite thin too.</p>
<p>idad, how’s your wife doing with her regimen?</p>
<p>She signed up for some kind of diabetes lifestyle program that includes bootcamp style workout, nutritionist, etc. on top of her weekly water aerobics, water zumba, swimming laps, etc. She’s been keeping a food journal and severely restricting calories – the point where even the nutritionist is telling her to eat more.</p>
<p>She has done fantastic on weight loss. She doesn’t share her weeky weigh ins and I’m not asking every week, but she lost 12 pounds the first month.</p>
<p>The downside: She can barely walk from joint pain in her knees. I guess that this is a common side effect of the statin cholesterol-reducing medications that her doc has had her on. </p>
<p>She’s kind of back-dooring into a low carb diet. At 900 to 1200 calories day, you simply can’t eat a lot of carbs. So, I expect that the various metabolic diabetes markers will probably improve. It would be fantastic for her if she can get off some of the standard array of medication (cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.) as they all seem to have rather unpleasant side effects. The joint pain makes exercise difficult which makes it harder to control weight, etc.</p>
<p>I give her a lot of credit. She’s working pretty hard at it.</p>
<p>It sounds like her approach is working but I’d really hate to have to deal with the side-effects of drugs. If I’m going to have joint pain, I’d rather get it doing something that I enjoy a lot. It’s surprising that she has knee pain from the water exercises.</p>