<p>Hi chintzy! Good to hear from you! Have missed you! Thanks for the link! :)</p>
<p>Not sore this morning as I expected. Guess I really needed to add more weights! No gym workout today. Going for a walk outside! Trying to do different things to move out of this plateau.</p>
<p>Whoa! I just tried the single leg balance thing…I really need some work there! Yikes!</p>
<p>I got in early so I gave it a try. Balancing with eyes open is much easier than with eyes closed.</p>
<p>I think that balance perception declines with age unless you exercise it. I’ve certainly noticed this while driving. Perhaps we use our eyes to compute balance as the things in the ears lose sensitivity.</p>
<p>One old tennis exercise is to practice serving with your eyes closed. The serve is one of the hardest strokes to master because it is a complex chain of events starting with the ball toss. A bad ball toss usually means a bad serve. You should be able to toss it (it’s really a push) to the same place everytime which is why you should be able to serve with your eyes closed.</p>
<p>I need to get a new belt. The current one is 36 or 35 at the smallest notch and it now fits comfortably. It’s amazing to see how long my old belts are compared to my newer ones. I hang them up on a coat hook in the closet so they are easy to compare. I should toss out the longer ones.</p>
<p>Single leg balance with eyes open - no problem. Closing my eyes is another story. </p>
<p>I listened to the lengthy sugar lecture last night. Compelling arguments to reduce sugar in our diets. I found the comparisons between alcohol and fructose to be very interesting. I don’t think people realize how much sugar they are consuming. </p>
<p>Last night’s dinner was a huge salad and rotiserrie chicken. I realize that’s probably not the best thing to have, but I suspect it was better than pizza or subs (H’s usual fallback foods).</p>
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<p>I think that’s in the ideal area for dinner.</p>
<p>One of my favorite dinners is a Panera Asian Sesame Chicken salad. Good blend of carbs, fats and protein. Probably fewer calories than most people would guess.</p>
<p>On single leg balance:</p>
<p>Good lord, I’m lika hippo with a bad leg trying to do this stuff and these various drills really drive home how bad it is!</p>
<p>Here’s another set of single-leg balance drills (these intended to prevent recurring ankle sprains) from the New York Times:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Health: Ankles: A Balancing Act - nytimes.com/video](<a href=“Health: Ankles: A Balancing Act - nytimes.com/video - YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcofnhTWa1s)</p>
<p>These have the eyes-closed progression and also a progression from the solid floor to an Airex balance pad.</p>
<p>I got serious about working on this after months of doing the NROL4A warmups. It has three hopping drills: one hopping backwards and forewards on two legs, one hopping side to side on two legs, and one hopping back and forth on a single leg. I’ve seen huge improvent in the two leg stuf, but --even after five months – I’m hopeless on the single leg hopping. I finally decided last week to back up and just hop straight up and down on one leg until I can do that and, at the same time, to focus a little more work on this single leg balance stuff.</p>
<p>I really like Panera just because when you walk in you can see exactly how many calories something has on their menu board. And their other nutritional information is easy to find and fairly transparent. H still needs guidance there - if he had his way he’d still be getting chips with his salad. Thankfully, I am not a chip eater. </p>
<p>I always worry with prepared foods about sodium, additives, etc.; I prefer to buy meat that is free of antibiotics, etc. and I doubt grocery store rotisserie chicken is. Still, in the big scheme of things it’s better than some other alternatives.</p>
<p>nminn:</p>
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<p>Good for you! I think variety is big plus. It’s amazing how doing something just a little different challenges the body. We adapt so quickly to a particular exercise or workout when we do it a lot. You’ll probably break out of the plateau about when it starts to seem like it will never end.</p>
<p>sabaray:</p>
<p>I’m having a hard time thinking of a healthier dinner than a rotisserie chicken and a salad. Speaking of healthy eating, my wife made two huge batches of brownies last night for a work function. I smelled those damn things in the oven and cooling in the kitchen for hours – and never even had a crumb. Thank you, Dr. Lustig! </p>
<p>I had a bowl of fresh fruit, instead, which was probably the same number of calories, but tasted better.</p>
<p>fruit > brownies? I confess I am not there yet.</p>
<p>Well, I guess the rotisserie chicken will be making a regular appearance given the endorsement of BCEagle and iDad. </p>
<p>Sunday was my son’s birthday and I had a cupcake (my mother brought them). Then the remainder of the cupcakes sat on the dining room table while son ate them and took them to work in his lunch. H and I didn’t touch them. Fruit sounds better to me as well. </p>
<p>I know H has been tired but he has still managed to get out for some walking with me. This has been a big change/adjustment for him. I know he misses cheese and crackers and wine, but I don’t see how alcohol fits in with weight loss. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d rather have calories from food. If it’s not in the house, he’s not eating or drinking it that I know of. Tomorrow will be another weigh-in day and I think that keeps him honest. He likes the feeling of losing.</p>
<p>Generic brownie ingredients:</p>
<pre><code>3/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
</code></pre>
<p>I think that I’m going to ask my daughter to make a batch substituting flaxseed meal for all-purpose flour and coconut flakes for white sugar and tossing the vanilla extract. My guess is that the result wouldn’t be all that bad in a low-carb, low-sugar way. I think that we have the ingredients for this at home.</p>
<p>The one downside: I’d have to eat it all if it doesn’t turn out good.</p>
<p>Wine or whiskey are not horrible diet killers. I posted the calorie counts in the other thread. Basically, 100 to 120 calories per serving. No fat. Minimal carbs. Beer is probably not a great idea. </p>
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<p>That is such a fundamental key to successful fat loss, IMO. You’ve got to maneuver yourself into a mindset where the frequent victories of losing weight and feeling more fit are satisfying enough to get you through the several months of retraining yourself to not pig out morning, noon, and night. That was the whole point of my “just lose five pounds” schtick. It kept me focused on easily achievable goals and a steady succession of “wins” to keep motivated.</p>
<p>Conversely, the worst case is a diet that isn’t producing results. That is so demoralizing and so many people are caught up in it. That, to me, is why the whole high-carb low fat nutrition thing can be so counter-productive. If someone has a low threshold of carb tolerance, they can practically starve themselves eating every low-fat product in the grocery store and still not lose weight if they are eating carbs and more carbs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I do think guys have an advantage here in that, if we really do stop eating like morons, we probably will lose weight. That’s not always the case with women, due to size, metabolism, hormonal issues, etc.</p>
<p>For H, the amounts of wine he was consuming definitely contributed to his poor health. Given the choice, he’d rather have real blue cheese and walnuts in his salad. :)</p>
<p>Slow and steady. I told him we can have wine for our anniversary in August. If he still wants it.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with bleu cheese or walnuts. Bleu cheese has almost no carbs and about the same weight in protein as fat.</p>
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<p>My problem with the brownie is that a brownie from storebought brownie mix, with the flour and the sugar and the canola oil is just do disgusting from a nutritional standpoint that it loses it’s appeal. I mean there is simply no socially redeeming value in a brownie mix brownie and, unlike some really good bakery treat, it really doesn’t even taste that good.</p>
<p>I would eat 'em. Hell, I’d probably stand there at the kitchen counter and eat six of them if I got started, but it’s pure junk. I’d rather have some good country-style pan fried pork cutlets. At least that’s real food and really good food, too.</p>
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<p>Now you’re talkin! That’s my kind of salad. I make the most ridiculously good salads. There isn’t anything low-cal about them except that eating a 750 calorie salad is more filling and more nutritious across the board than eating 750 calories of pizza.</p>
<p>Tonight’s salad will include roasted beets, goat cheese and walnuts. Not sure about the rest of the meal, but at least I’ve got part of it figured out. My salads aren’t the wedge of iceberg you always think of a dieter eating (at least back in the dark ages). If I get home early enough it will be poached sea bass.</p>
<p>[Bikram</a> Yoga Portsmouth - Standing Head to Knee Pose | DANDAYAMANA JANUSHIRASANA](<a href=“http://www.bikramyogaportsmouth.com/byp/26-postures/standing-head-to-knee-pose-|-dandayamana-janushirasana.html]Bikram”>http://www.bikramyogaportsmouth.com/byp/26-postures/standing-head-to-knee-pose-|-dandayamana-janushirasana.html)</p>
<p>This is a balance (and strength) pose that I have particular difficulty doing in hot yoga. You are supposed to lock your knee. I can grab under my foot, but I can NOT even begin to extend my leg. The important thing is to keep the standing leg locked and engage the quad. We hold it for about an hour it seems.</p>
<p>I can’t even imagine doing that yoga pose. I would definitely fall over. </p>
<p>I see a lot of rounded lumbar spines in those photos. Dr. Stuart McGill would not be finding back guru nirvana looking at those!</p>
<p>I’m also good with salads. Last week, at Costco, I discovered a Feast from the East dressing for Chinese Chicken salad. I played with their recipe a bit – romaine lettuce, shredded white-meat chicken (I just boil the TJ flash-frozen breasts and shred and keep in fridge), scallions, toasted almonds, and tangerine sections from our tree. I added a little avocado. I tried the wonton strips, but will buy the little noodles next time I’m at the store. It was delicious. If you make chicken ahead of time, you can assemble the salad in no time at all. Even less time if you pre-shredded the lettuce.</p>