<p>I think that most of the posters (perhaps all) do some strength training here so the average reader here probably has a better lean muscle to fat balance than the average person.</p>
<p>CBBlinker,
That WAS well said. Thank you. I agree that all information is positive. When I started the thread, it was in response to a conversation that happened on yet another thread in which some posters were expressing that this thread (the fitness thread) was intimidating to them and many of the posts were too long to read and gain anything from. These were just feelings. Right or wrong, some people felt this way. I started the dummies thread with the intent of helping people (including myself) get started by making it user friendly for the beginners. Anyone, of course, was welcome to post. I politely asked (never ordered) that people keep their comments short and simple. It was a request and since this thread is available for the people who want more details and more advanced interactions, I didn’t feel that I was depriving anybody of their opportunity to share whatever they felt compelled to.</p>
<p>I want you to know that I never asked anyone to stop posting. I did remind people of the premise of the thread. It seemed important to me to do that in order to maintain the integrity of the thread’s purpose.</p>
<p>Thanks for the congratulations on my weight loss. I feel better every day!</p>
<p>Great workout today. Actually went in early and remembered how much I enjoyed being there at that time. My workout buddy was the reason I switched and she has dropped out of the daily gym routine. I miss her but like being done earlier. Did my biking and then the dreadmill. Heading out to lunch with friends, shopping and then a walk around Lake Harriet. Finally a beautiful day here in MN!!!</p>
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<p>That’s OK. I write those for me!</p>
<p>I learned a valuable lesson from smoking cessation. We are talking about changing lifelong learned behaviors here, whether it’s not smoking or not eating like a moron or making exercise a part of daily life. In smoking cessation circles, people who think they have it beat after a month or two and stop actively working every day to reinforce their new behaviors typically relapse. People who continue taking active steps to reinforce new behaviors and mental outlooks continue to find the new behaviors easier and easier and more and more automatic. I think that process of active behaviorial change continues for a year or two or three.</p>
<p>Posting a message about each day’s workout in a community of people seeking the same goals is a very powerful reinforcement of that new behavior. It’s an “accomplishment” and chronicling that “accomplishment” is a like a little mental doggie treat – a reward that, over time, makes it more likely that I’ll work out again tomorrow. I know that the same process is working for BC Eagle, MOWC, NMinn, hops, bunsen, CJane, and everyone else who posts about daily runs or workouts. Whether anyone reads them is kind of irrelevant. I skim them all because, seeing that they have exercised that day reinforces MY new daily exercise behavior.</p>
<p>With smoking, actively working to change my mindset eventually led to the point where smoking is totally foreign to me. I can’t even picture myself smoking a cigarette now. I am mentally a non-smoker. I’m on my way to permanently thinking of myself as a fit person who doesn’t eat like a moron and who exercises most days, just as a matter of lifestyle, but I have no problem continuing to reinforce that lifestyle and behavioral change.</p>
<p>I’m probably a bit selfish, but my attitude is that, if somebody doesn’t like me posting daily workout recaps, that’s their problem. They can bellyache about it when **they **are exercising every day, losing weight, and getting in shape because posting about workouts is one way that **I **am actually accomplishing that stuff. The whole point of a diet/fitness thread is to have a place to talk about that stuff, because – as we all a know – all the fatties in the real world don’t want to hear about it. If you can’t talk about your workouts in a diet/fitness thread, where can you talk about it?</p>
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<p>Spend all day running around hunting and chasing your meat, and all day walking around gathering and carrying your vegetables. And then prepare the food by hand with primitive tools before eating it.</p>
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<p>These little affirmations are seen in many sports. In tennis, it is the small fist pump after winning a tough point or making a spectacular shot. Even pros like Federer, Nadal and Djokovich, who should have all the confidence in the world, do it on big points won. In some professional sports, the players have the skills and the fitness levels - the mental game is what separates the top from the near-top.</p>
<p>Ran 7.75 miles yesterday and I have tennis this afternoon. My regular weekly match is at the Cape so I may have to line something else up or just do a little more running this week. I was thinking of trying to run one mile as fast as I can (which isn’t too fast).</p>
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<p>We just had a very big wild turkey hunting season - the biggest was about 27 pounds which is huge for a turkey. I recall hitting on on the highway a few years ago - car was okay but the turkey didn’t survive.</p>
<p>Do you have to also start your own fire with two twigs?</p>
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<p>Wow. Even on Google Maps, that looks so nice. About three miles around a gorgeous lake on a beautiful summer day. Doesn’t get much better than that.</p>
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<p>Just make sure you warm up first so you don’t get hurt. It is going to be faster than you normally run!</p>
<p>Lake Harriet is wonderful. I got to walk/run there in October when we were in MSP for a wedding. It is a great resource. I also ran near it (I think) in 1997 when I ran the Twin Cities Marathon. It’s all a blur.</p>
<p>Agree completely with your post #10544, idad!</p>
<p>Today’s exercise is more packing/sorting/tossing here in CT. I’m on my way now to donate lots of clothes to Goodwill. Most of these are things that are TOO BIG for me!!! Yay!</p>
<p>Did a new exercise yesterday, and man are my glutes feeling it today. Sit on an exercise ball, and roll down until just your head, neck and shoulders are supported by the ball – the rest of your body is in a bridge, with feet solidly under your knees. Without letting the ball move (keeping abs very tight) let your back slump along the ball towards the floor. Then squeeze the glutes hard to raise yourself back into the bridge without letting the ball move. I did three sets of 12 of these interspersed with some other exercises, and I’m thinking that this did more on the glute activation front than anything else I’ve done. (OTOH, I don’t think I could have done these a month or two ago – I don’t think that either my abs or glutes were strong enough.)</p>
<p>I am really liking the trainer I’m working with. She’s good at adaptation (which I need due to some orthopedic constraints) but she also has been incredible at helping me feel WHERE a given exercise should have the power come from. I’m feeling ab muscles I never knew I had – some really deep ones. She says that lots of women who had c-sections have similar problems, and we’re doing some other exercises that selectively require you to use some really deep ab muscles. One is on your back, with a medium exercise ball under your legs. Let your legs gradually roll to the side, keeping your back firmly against the mat. You might not roll very far, at least at first. Now tighten your abs - the deep, low ones, and use that ab contraction to roll the ball back to center, and then go in the other direction. Don’t roll the ball any further than you can get it back without using back muscles. </p>
<p>I’m noticing a marked improvement in my stability in varying terrain with the glute, ab and hip stabilization exercises. This is fabulous given that I was having to think through stepping off the treadmill when I started. Now if I’m out walking an there’s an uneven step, or I’m on a slope, my body seems to handle it tremendously better, which I think bodes well for my ankles and back.</p>
<p>idad and CBBBlinker: great posts.</p>
<p>A friend stopped by my house last night, so my running plans were derailed, which was probably a good thing, because I was still sore from running with a wheelbarrow all day long Sunday (Farmer’s Workout, lol!).</p>
<p>My workout is breaking apart and hauling a 20 year old Weber grill to the dump.</p>
<p>It’s like a member of the family. I rebuilt it, top to bottom ten years ago, replacing every part except the frame. Two of the frame supports had rusted and, when painters went to move it, I cautioned them to pick it up gently and not try to roll it once it was off the smooth deck. They put it down in the leaves and immediately tried to roll it across uneven ground and collapsed the legs Aargh. </p>
<p>When I rebuilt it the last time, I realized that it probably would have been cheaper to just buy a new one by the time I added up all the bits and pieces. This time, with the cost of a new frame, it wasn’t even a close call – although I was tempted, since the old ones are much more substantial than the newer models. Any way, I’ve got a shiny new Weber under a shiny new cover on the deck (with a few choice parts transfered from the old one – like a very well seaoned cast iron cooking grate) and I’ve got to get rid of the old one. Might take a couple trips.</p>
<p>I’m thinking a nice rib eye steak might be a good way to break in the new one, although a couple slabs of baby backs or some pulled pork BBQ shoulder might be in cards later this week!</p>
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<p>I usually finish runs ramping up the speed for the final quarter to half mile and I was hoping to do the run well off the pace of anywhere near max speed. It would be well-slower than running to the net for a drop shot.</p>
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<p>That’s the sweet sound of success.</p>
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<p>Hah. Misery loves company. iPod nazi had me trying to do that one last week! I had trouble just figuring out how to do it. I kept rolling the ball back on the way up, which is cheating and makes it way easier. Once I figured out that the ball had to stay still, it got really hard. I’m not there yet, but I can see where this is headed (and probably how your trainer plans to torture you down the road:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Barbell Hip Thrust](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nFGuY77CE]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nFGuY77CE)</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Hip Lift](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwnpwDnlkxY]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwnpwDnlkxY)</p>
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<p>I hear ya on really starting to feel stronger glutes in day to day activities.</p>
<p>Today’s Workout:</p>
<p>Warm Up</p>
<p>Run 1 lap 270 m
10 push ups
15 air squats
10 back extensions
Run another lap</p>
<p>Workout:
As many reps as possible for 15 minutes
8 renegade rows with 15 lb. dumb bells (pushups and then row from push up position)
10 Dumb bell squat cleans with 15 lb.
20 lunges with weights ^
20 second L holds on the bar</p>
<p>Did 3 and half rounds.
Found this to be a “guy” workout. Very upper body intensive and that was the main limiting factor – arms turned to jelly way too quickly and form wasn’t always what it was supposed to be. I think I need to have lighter weights close by, when the form starts to suffer. </p>
<p>As to the Paleo - hunting etc. I know, I know – the anthropologists hate the “paleo” term, because the Paleo people didn’t eat what we consider a “caveman” diet - apparently in lieu of chasing down big game, I would be grubbing for well, grubs, and eating insects and roots or whatever. Anachronisms aside, I am “gathering” (see what I did there?) that paleo is sort of a shorthand for low carb sans dairy but with fruit. </p>
<p>I will make sure to contribute plenty of long-winded posts containing research, recipes and of course all the minutae of my workouts ;)</p>
<p>CBBBlinker: yay for you! Getting rid of too-big clothes has to be the best feeling ever. Way to go. </p>
<p>NM: I want to be your real life friend. Your life sounds so wonderful! </p>
<p>My brain hurts trying to figure out how some of these exercises work. Abdominals are a particular issue for me thanks to two c-sections. Arabrab, I hope you’ll keep posting exercises. </p>
<p>iDad, our grill sounds as if it’s of similar vintage or possibly older. I vote for the rib eye. Let us know what time to come over.</p>
<p>I’ve been bombarded with Jillian Edwards on the sidebar. Anyone else? I went to her website and took her quiz. Evidently, she recommends that my diet should be 60% carbs. Not sure how much stock I should put into that.</p>
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<p>Renegade rows – even without the push – are really tough and 15 lb DBs are a lot for that, at least for me!</p>
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<p>My dad was an early adaptor of the Weber kettle charcoal grill back in the 1960s, so other than a few years in college, I’ve had a succession of kettle charcoal grills from the time I was a teenager – as did my dad. In fact, my last dinner with my dad was standing outside watching him him cook lamb chops on his rickety old Weber charcoal grill.</p>
<p>When my parents moved to their new home in 1987 complete with gas grill built into the patio, they gave us the Weber kettle they’d been using. We still have it and use it. Dad never grew fond of his gas grill and enjoyed coming over to use “his” Weber. Son keeps hinting he’d like a Weber for his new apartment and that we should buy a new one and sacrifice the old for his benefit, but I figure it’s got quite a few years left. He might be the one receiving a new grill.</p>