<p>san-dee. I agree. Right now I can eat those kinds of foods occasionally but I keep a close eye on things and have to be careful to not ramp right back up into an unhealthy eating pattern. It’s easy to do with meals out, business trips, vacations, etc. Once I got to the weight I wanted, with my exercise patterns I don’t have much trouble staying there, but it does take monitoring.<br>
Off to bike in the country and stop for some breakfast. Did a short shake-out run.</p>
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<p>My wife dropped a quick 15 pounds out of the gate, then stalled for a month and stopped tracking her calories. She started working out a couple times a week with a trainer who is doing her group diabetes lifestyle class. She weighed in for the first time in several weeks and and dropped 8 pounds (for a total of 23 so far). Plus, her trainer has her doing all the same stuff she’s seen me doing (there’s a shock, huh?). It’s easy to see how happy she is with her progress, which in turn lets her be less resentful of mine. At least now when she hears me grunting away doing a workout in the cellar, it’s “I can’t believe you can work so hard…” instead of “you are just showing off…” She has stopped asking why I keep work working out even though I’ve lost the weight.</p>
<p>Daughter and I don’t really talk about it. I did mention in an e-mail the day I hit the 90 pound mark and she congratulated me, but people don’t want to hear about people who have lost weight, even if they are family! I understand. I didn’t like hearing when another family member had quit smoking.</p>
<p>idad–I would totally want to hear about your weight loss/exercise if you were in MY family!!! My DH thinks he is exempt from exercising or weight loss, apparently. The meds the doc has him on control his BP, cholesterol, & blood sugar problems so there’s no incentive. </p>
<p>I have stopped being a nag since it didn’t work. I am ready with the praise for any progress at all, but still waiting…</p>
<p>:/</p>
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<p>The crazy thing is that a lot of people could get off all those medications and achieve the same results with diet, exercise, and fitness. No side effects, look better, feel better. Not everyone, of course, but all would benefit and many could stop the medications completely.</p>
<p>Glad your wife is coming around to a better way of thinking, iDad. Makes life better!</p>
<p>My sister got off of a LOT of her medications now that she has lost 30 pounds or so on WW. I hope she can keep it off. She looks and feels SO much better.</p>
<p>Rode 35 miles with a nice breakfast stop in the middle. Some hills but lots of nice countryside, too. No dogs bothered me and I didn’t feel like death at the end. This summer’s riding is going better, even though I’m doing much less since I’m able to run. I think having a working left leg (as a result of those epidural steroid injections) is a big help.</p>
<p>Just a quick dance fitness class today - 40 minutes of cardio to get the HR up, which it did and was fun.
Still could feel the fatigue in my legs from yesterday’s workout.
I may do a Gallowalk later today, or I’ll just work on my tan…</p>
<p>35 mile bike ride is a big deal for me, MOWC. nice!</p>
<p>I am really glad idad’s wife is making her own progress. It can be difficult when you are struggling to watch somebody else’s success, that you know does not diminish you, but does seem to make you feel even worse about yourself. Only to then feel like a doubly horrible person, because you can’t even be happy for them. It sounds like things are definitely win-win now.</p>
<p>I do have friends who feel very threatened by my exercise routine or any changes I make in my diet, even though, I am far from evangelizing in my approach. Nevertheless, there are the ones that are so defensive that they feel compelled to tell me how they could never do it because of this or that, even though I never would begin to suggest anything for them. I guess that is true for all kinds of life choices though. Including the topic of this board. The unsolicited responses on educational choices like college and major selections are often similar to the defensive comments about exercise and diet.</p>
<p>worknprogress2, I am really intrigued by race walking. I have always been a fast walker (often joke that my walk pace is almost the same as my run), but I suspect that is not necessarily relevant to learning good race walking techique or translate to success there. How does one learn the proper form, how did you get into the sport?</p>
<p>CJane- I think your workouts sound really intense! That’s what’s neat about this thread. There are so many different ways to “get there”.</p>
<p>Just to give you an idea of the crazies to whom I compare myself… One of my co-workers/cycling friends (a large black man, which he jokes about since cycling doesn’t attract as many black guys) is heading to Indiana today to do this “stunt” called RAINSTORM. [Touring</a> Ride in Rural Indiana®: RAINSTORM Ultra-Marathon Cycling](<a href=“http://www.triri.org/storm.html]Touring”>Touring Ride in Rural Indiana®: RAINSTORM™ Ultra-Marathon Cycling)
They ride 100 miles each day all week and finish it up with RAIN (Ride Across Indiana) which is 160 miles next Saturday. He’s done RAIN twice (and his wife did it last year) but this is his first RAINSTORM. I think it sounds insane. He does a LOT of his training on his trainer in his house, which I don’t think is good enough preparation, so we’ll see. Anyway- my 35 miles doesn’t seem like very much to me…</p>
<p>And a few of my running friends are setting out to run 500 miles across the state or something. I can’t even read about it without freaking out. (They also aren’t 58 years old…) </p>
<p>I just finished 2 back to back 40 mile weeks (well, 40.1, 40.2) plus the bike ride, so I’m good!</p>
<p>CJaneRead: “…there are the ones that are so defensive that they feel compelled to tell me how they could never do it because of this or that,…”</p>
<p>Re excuses: I don’t understand the people who say they don’t have “time” to go on a diet. If I’m pressed for time, I eat less!</p>
<p>I think they’re thinking Diet=Total Lifestyle Change and they don’t have time to figure all that out. If they’d just adjust a couple of things…spend LESS time at the table, eating fewer carbs or at least no dessert, they could make a noticeable difference.</p>
<p>Yesterday we (S and H) kayaked on a local park lake, then hiked around a part of it to see it from another perspective (and dry out our shorts!). I suggested we could do something else and call it a triathlon, but nobody wanted to take me up on it. :D</p>
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<p>I’m just happy for her.</p>
<p>The bike rides sound really tempting. It’s gorgeous here again today and I am sorely tempted to pump up the tires and go for a spin. But, I did six days in a row this week and I’ve learned that I have to take a day completely off once a week or I start grinding down. Even more so now that my “easy” walk in the park days aren’t so easy. My heart rate peaks for the five intervals yesterday were: </p>
<p>90%
100%
100%
99%
99%</p>
<p>On July 1, my sister and her boyfriend started a walking journey. They are walking an average of 6 miles a day between now and February 29. That is supposed to cover the distance it would take to walk from Tampa, FL to San Francisco, CA. If they meet that goal, then they are going to San Fran for vacation next summer… That’s 6 miles a day each…</p>
<p>Speaking of people who are not happy with other people because the other people eat right, work out, and are generally fit –</p>
<p>At a dinner party a few weeks ago, after eating a piece of chocolate cake that I didn’t really want, I said something along the lines of, “Oooooff – I shouldn’t have eaten all that.” Another woman said, with a wave of her hand, “Oh, you don’t have to worry!”</p>
<p>Like therefore I can eat anything and everything? It was meant as a compliment, I’m sure, but it sounded – stupid.</p>
<p>Yeah. You can eat that, you’re skinny. Or, you don’t have to work out, you’re skinny.</p>
<p>The thing they don’t fully understand is that it is the fact that making “not eating that” and “working out” a part of my day to day life is the way I lost the weight and the only way I’ll keep from putting it back on.</p>
<p>Right. And when I (a slender person) am having a small piece of cake, I do point out to them that I don’t have LARGE pieces, or seldom eat cake. </p>
<p>They don’t really hear me, and they can’t resist having the large piece that they then complain will go “straight to their hips.” I don’t get it…</p>
<p>people are defensive, when it comes to exercise/weight/lifestyle changes because deep down they know it takes effort. Most people if pressed understand the basic premise to eat less and move more. But, effort? Its easier to sit around, eat and complain, and take medication for every issue (and hey i take some medication so I am NOT against medication)!</p>
<p>I am not talking about people who have real medical issues around losing weight, obviously.</p>
<p>When people say they “don’t have time to exercise”, I always think “You don’t have time NOT to exercise!” See what they think when they have a heart attack or other health issues!</p>
<p>I dunno. Have worked closely with some very overweight people who really don’t seem to eat much. Over time, I did come to believe that they have a slower metabolism. Others who were overweight honestly seemed hungrier than me a lot of the time.</p>
<p>I’m not comfortable when this becomes about “will power” or “character.” No one really knows what it is to live within another person’s body. Or to live within the psychological composition of their life.</p>
<p>sewhappy - you are right, there are extenuating circumstances for some people (messed up metabolism, medications, other genetic issues, illness, lifetime exposure to poor nutrition, lack of money/resources to buy healthier food,lack of education about nutrition and disease, etc etc). That said, for many many “average” people nowadays, the issue is individual decisions about what we choose to put into our bodies, and lifestyle choices. </p>
<p>The fact that society gives us so many mixed messages (eat those giant ice cream shakes and supersize fries, but don’t be larger than a skinny model) does not help. If we had active lifestyles and easier access to natural, local, non chemically enhanced and additive filled “food”, it would be easier to make better choices. Now, its an uphill battle I am sympathetic to; but on some level we have to accept responsibility, if we do not have one of the extenuating circumstances l tried to list.</p>
<p>I think the whole issue of obesity is extremely complex. It varies from culture to culture, country to country, male to female, and – perhaps most importantly – income class to income class.</p>
<p>Basically, the wealthier you are in America, especially if you are female, the thinner you will be.</p>
<p>That is a prevailing finding that has held firm for about two decades.</p>
<p>What might that mean?</p>
<p>Personally, I think if your life is relatively secure then you have the reserves to deprive yourself of food that you feel hungrier for. If you are in a struggle to hack out a living and bombarded by constant stress . . . it’s much more difficult to turn down the Twinkie.</p>
<p>I just say this because I don’t think we’re helping anyone by getting too judgmental about controlling weight.</p>
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<p>Typically their “slower metabolism” is due to the lack of muscle on the body. And you only gain muscle by using it! So to “speed up metabolism” you’ve got to do some sort of exercise or heavy lifting, etc!</p>