<p>I actually run in a very well-lit popular park. It’s just that it was 1 PM on a rainy Sunday and the only people besides him braving the weather were some people walking their dogs.</p>
<p>And anyway, he was completely harmless and I recognized that within about 10 seconds. I took public transportation 1.5 hours each way to middle and high school - my crazy and harmless vs. crazy and dangerous intuition is very good.</p>
<p>Finisher’s medals don’t have calories… EXCEPT- the very first week of our Weight Watchers at Work program in 2008 I ran a small, inaugural 5K in our town. The course wound up being short and there wasn’t a huge crowd, but it was a nice day and for a good charity. I won my age group as did D and her H (fiance at the time) and they walked! The prizes were your choice of a homemade cake or pie made by the Women of the Church! What a disaster for my first week trying to lose some weight. We had THREE big cakes/pies and had to put them in the trunk to get them home.</p>
<p>What a great story, MOfWC! Mmmmm… Homemade pies. H would not let me make one until Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Thank you for the water bottle links. I will order the one that you recommended, because for the longer runs I do need more water than I currently carry.</p>
<p>I tried one of those energy gel packs during my long run - what a disaster it turned out to be, LOL! Since there were no trash cans on that stretch of the trail, I had to carry the empty (or so I thought) pack in my hand. The residual gel melted and oozed all over my hand, and created a sticky mess! Yuck. But Woodsy Owl would be very prowd of me.</p>
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<p>That sounds like my kind of 5k! Maybe me, the ol’ (formerly) fat guy and a bunch of geezers with canes and walkers. :)</p>
<p>Speaking of calories, my wife bought some Fat Free Half and Half. The two major ingredients are </p>
<p>1) Skim Milk
2) Corn Syrup (i.e. sugar)</p>
<p>Can somebody tell me how this is supposed to be better? I guess it saves you the hassle of having to dirty a spoon putting sugar in your coffee. Classic trade off, substituting simple carbs/sugar for fat in a product.</p>
<p>idad, if all she wants to do is to cut calories, she can try plain milk! I do it when we are out of half and half (the real deal). Both half and halves have 20 calories per serving, according to the info on the web, so there is no caloric advantage in using the fakery.</p>
<p>The fat free does have fewer calories I think: 20 for a 2 TBS serving versus 40. But, skim milk and a spoon of sugar appears to be the same thing! Of course that would be “fattening” while skim milk an sugar in “fat free half 'n half” is presumably not fattening!</p>
<p>BTW, my wife is doing well on her no-calorie diet. She is doing the low carb, low fat, and low protein diet and has lost 15 pounds so far.</p>
<p>I suspect you mean that she’s starving herself, idad.</p>
<p>Hey, it’s working for her. She’s losing a steady couple pounds a week and that’s fantastic.</p>
<hr>
<p>I sure can’t talk. We are having a little pizza and a monster salad for dinner. First time I’ve had pizza in more than six months, I think. I spent all afternoon making my giganitic recipe of Paul Prudhomme’s Texas Red Chili, starting with roasting dried ancho chiles and grinding them up to make the chili powder. It’s not nearly done.</p>
<p>I haven’t had pizza in a while either but it hasn’t been six months. We have free pizza in the office on Fridays so I try to leave the building before it arrives. The nice thing about a regular 1,000 calorie deficit is that you can eat three slices if you want to above your normal intake - and you know that you will tread water. For one day. In the grand context, it’s not a huge deal.</p>
<p>I keep getting links to sweetsurprise.com in gmail related to this thread. They’ve put out quite a bit more research showing that there’s no difference between HFCS and sugar. Well, that’s fine with me except that I’ve gotten rid of both so they would need to do studies on weather sugar is safe or not to convince me. My guess is that the average person will believe the industry in HFCS being as safe as sugar and just keep eating and drinking it.</p>
<p>My personal analysis (anecdotal) is the rate that the non-diet soft-drink cans get removed from the mini-fridge at the office (it has a glass exterior so it’s easy to see what’s popular). By far, the most popular drink is canned spritzer.</p>
<p>Sugar and HFCS are, metabolically, identical. About half glucose (triggers insulin response, but metabolised by every cell in the body) and half fructose (no insulin response, metabolized only by the liver). Definitely smart to stay away from both when trying to lose weight or keep from putting more on.</p>
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<p>I’ve taken a three day vacation from exercise. After finishing NROL4A and my walk/jog on Thursday, it just seemed like a good time to take a self-imposed short recovery break. I’ve been hitting the exercise pretty hard for several months. Let the ol’ (formerly) fat muscles take a little breather.</p>
<p>I’m thinking Spartacus this week.</p>
<p>Wow. My Paul Prudhomme chili is awesome and I froze enough for an army. This dieting is such a sacrifice!</p>
<p>Ingredients</p>
<p>6 lb Beef Top Round Roast (diced)
20 oz Slab Bacon (diced)
6 cups Vidalia Onion
3 cups Chopped Celery
6 cups Green Bell Pepper
56 oz Red Kidney Beans (2 cans)
29 oz Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes (2 cans)
28 oz Crushed Tomatoes (1 large can)
35 oz Italian Plum Tomatos (1 larbe can)
7 dried Ancho chilis, fresh ground (7 TBS)
Fresh ground spice seasoning mix (7 TBS)
1 TBS fresh ground cumin seed</p>
<hr>
<p>*Nutrition Facts</p>
<p>Serving Size: 2 cup<br>
Calories 629</p>
<p>Total Fat 31.06g
Saturated Fat 10.31g
Cholesterol 129.23mg
Sodium 2401.19mg
Total Carbohydrate 35.13g
Dietary Fiber 11.05g
Sugars 9.03g
54.09g</p>
<p>Est. Percent of Calories from:
Fat 43%
Carbs 22%
Protein 34%*</p>
<p>I am jealous, idad. My freezer is pretty much empty now because we’ll be out of town for a few weeks, but I have a new cookbook of soups/stews (including chilis) that I plan to work my way through when we get back.</p>
<p>Yeah. I love having containers of stew or chili in the fridge. Heat it up and make a salad for an easy dinner.</p>
<p>If the glaciers ever melt here in New England, I want to make Cochinita Pibil – a Mexican Yucatin stew with big chunks of braised pork shoulder, charred tomatos, charred onions, charred peppers, sour orange juice, achiote paste. It simmers in a liquid, but I like to do it outside instead of the oven to give it a little smoky flavor. It’s ideal with Mexican red rice and tortillias, but I’ll have to come up with something a little less carb-y for sides.</p>
<p>It’s another one of those recipes where you make a ton (big pork shoulder) and then freeze it in dinner size portions.</p>
<p>Amesie, I’m jealous - if this weather pattern lasts, I want to get the heck out of town for a few weeks! 
I cannot believe I got sunburned yesterday. It certainly sounds like fiction today.</p>
<p>I drove to a local running store and picked up the boottle recommended by MOfWC’s. It fits in my hand comfortably, so it might work well. The funny thing is that the bottle was designed in Seattle.</p>
<p>I-Dad – Sounds as if you make that, the glaciers will melt of their own accord!</p>
<p>It is so cold here, 48 degrees, gusting northeast wind. Gray, wet, damp. Just ridiculous really.</p>
<p>I haven’t been outside today but will go out soon to take out the trash. I just have shorts and a hoodie on working in the basement. It looks cold and damp outside. Definitely a cool and damp (though not rainy) spring.</p>
<p>Had to bring my hanging baskets in last night. We had the rain, wind and cold over the weekend. Today is Sunny!!!</p>
<p>Went to the gym and biked away for 70 minutes. What a relief for my knee! It intriques me that biking feels so good and walking aggravates the pain and causes swelling. Had a lousy food weekend as it was my birthday and we ate out quite a bit. No cake…just chocolate covered strawberries…my favorite! Back to my regular meals! 90 days before the wedding!</p>
<p>iDad- if it makes you feel any better, it was 49 and grey, drizzly here this morning and I live in the SOUTH!! The weekend was cold and damp, too. Getting REALLY old.</p>