<p>^^^
I’m thrilled for you. I wish everyone the best of health. Me? I’m just an ol’ (formerly) fat guy who has been trying to scratch and claw my way out of a health and fitness train wreck anyway I can.</p>
<p>That is quite a study you two’ve got going, the group on a high fat diet vs the group on a low fat diet, and in both groups n = 1! :p</p>
<p>I’m resting today and picking whatever is left of my alpine strawberries crop.</p>
<p>I’d have a really hard time believing that most medical professionals wouldn’t believe that idad is far, far healthier having lost so much weight and increased his fitness level so substantially even with the LDL numbers. </p>
<p>And, as a (gack) 40 year participant in a major longitudinal community-based heart research study, virtually everything we were told about cholesterol and food choices back in the 70s has turned out to be wrong. When I think of all the sticks of margarine and bottles of canola or corn oil I used rather than demon butter, avoiding shrimp, and greatly reducing eggs, I just roll my eyes. About the ONLY constant that has been true (and useful) was a better understanding of portion sizes from the fake food you’d choose from for the “what I ate yesterday” interview with the dietician. (Did that bowl of oatmeal look like this plastic bowl of oatmeal, or that larger one?)</p>
<p>The heat and humidity have been so high here it has just been a bear to even think about exercising. But tonight we had a repeat of H’s favorite meal (yes, rotisserie chicken and salad) then we both headed out for our walk. After his time off, one of his coworkers observed that he is noticeably thinner and I think that gave him encouragement. While I haven’t been aiming for a particularly high fat diet, I have been lowering my carbs, primarily by eliminating bread products even more than before. </p>
<p>D has been going to yoga and has threatened to make me go during parents weekend. I think my fear of total humiliation is what’s keeping me going at this point.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ahh… but there’s a medication he should be taking for those numbers 
I like to remind people of the ACSM’s stance on fitness: Exercise is Medicine. Unfortunately not many doctors are actually interested…</p>
<p>As for me today, I’m eating dinner right now. Kabobs again tonight with mainly meat and a protein smoothie with lots of frozen fruits! :)</p>
<p>Workout:
4x5 Snatch
4x10 (per leg) TRX Single Leg Squat
4x10 TRX Inverted Rows</p>
<p>WOD:
3 rounds for time:
6 Front Squats
6 (per arm) KB Single Arm Swing
20 foot Walking Lunge with medicine ball down and back
50 foot Farmers Walk with 50# KB in one and 30# KB in other hand</p>
<p>6:47 for my time tonight. My quads are SHOT! :)</p>
<p>Solid workout…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t have a baseline (ol’ fat guy smokers avoid such things as much as possible), but – from everything I know, I can only surmise that my cholersterol numbers must have been a nightmare two years ago. Losing weight drives them down. The amount of carbs I was eating had to result in high Triglycerides. HDL might have been pretty good because I’ve always eaten a lot of olive oil and nuts.</p>
<p>I fully expect my doctor to start trying to sell me statins if another round or two of thyroid adjustments don’t bring my LDL down. My question to him will be if he can show me any evidence that, with no major coronary risk factors, does taking statins improve my odds one iota? I don’t believe there are any studies that demonstrate improved mortality in low-risk people (i.e. people who have had no cornonary issues). One of the big side effects of statins is muscle soreness after exercise, sometimes quite serious. So, I have to factor in that statins could mean a reduction in exercise and strength training. Everything is a tradeoff. To his credit, he’s not in any big hurry to do anything. He didn’t even schedule follow-up bloodwork to adjust the thyroid dose for six months and he told me that he fully expects the initial dose to be too low. </p>
<p>As far as diet, my options are pretty limitied. I can’t cut calories, so anything I take out of my diet (like “lower fat”) must be replaced by something else. Eating more meat isn’t going to lower my LDL. I can’t eat more vegetables. I have between one and three cups of veggies with virtually every meal. I eat fruit once a day – like an apple or a half pound of strawberries. So the only things left would be to increase sugars, grains, and starches. I don’t think eating sweets, breads, cereals, or potatoes would be a net benefit. When you’ve lost 90 pounds, you really don’t want to mess with a winning hand.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think this (with lighter weights) looms in my future - it does not sound fun!</p>
CJane, you can thank Idad for that one 
<p>I just about had a major farmer’s walk disaster yesterday. I needed to return the two 45 DBs to the basement for my ghetto deadlifts. So I picked them up and was farmer’s walking them down the basement steps when I tripped and lost my balance three steps down. I was “this” close to falling down the flight of stairs with two 45 pound dumbbells in my hands. I’m guessing that would not have been pretty.</p>
<p>Fortunately, I recovered my balance and saved it, but it was a very close call.</p>
<p>hops:</p>
<p>I hate walking lunges with a passion.</p>
<p>You know idad, that probably wouldn’t have happened if your LDL pattern size was more favorable.</p>
<p>Rosanne Rosannadanna was right all along…</p>
<p>It’s always something.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That will be some p value.</p>
<p>Warm Up
Run 1 lap
15 air squats
Hip mobility
Pass throughs
shoulder mobility
20 lunges</p>
<p>5 sets of 5 shoulder press with 45 lb. bar</p>
<p>Workout
4 rounds</p>
<p>Run 1 lap
20 dead lifts (95 lb.)
20 push ups
10 deadlifts
10 push ups</p>
<p>time: 24:00</p>
<p>Idad,</p>
<p>Your diet sounds very good. How about fatty fish though – salmon and mackerel. Also, oatmeal. Just saying.</p>
<p>I eat quite a bit of fresh salmon. Almost every week, at least once for dinner. I had plain grilled salmon (salt, pepper, lemon juice) last night. I also eat tuna for lunch from time to time and take fish oil capsules, 4000 to 5000 mg per day.</p>
<p>I don’t eat any oatmeal or other cereal. I believe the benefit of oatmeal is the fiber and I drink powdered psyllium husk fiber. With the large quantities of veggies I eat, including beans and peas, I generally get between 20 and 25 grams of fiber per day.</p>
<p>Starting them young with core training. From Ben Bruno’s videos of the week blog, trainer Dewey Nielson has his 7 year old neice doing ValSlide alligator crawls. She’s better at them than I am, that’s for sure:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - 7 Year Old Core Stability](<a href=“7 Year Old Core Stability - YouTube”>7 Year Old Core Stability - YouTube)</p>
<p>Ah, to be as strong as a 7 year old again! :)</p>
<p>^^ and we won’t feed you Happy Meals!</p>
<p>^Many start competitive teams (I am talking about teams that are judged by Olympic set of rules) at 4-5. My D. did. Kids enjoy it a lot. Looking forward to go to each practice…if they happen to like the sport. It is also huge social event. They also learned whole lot and it lasts for the rest of their lives, long after they quit competitive sport.</p>
<p>Speaking of core exercises, wish me luck. I’m going “all in” for today’s workout and substituting the ab wheel for stabilty ball rollouts. Three sets of ten. So if you don’t hear from me later, it’s because I ripped an abdomimal muscle. This could be ugly – ab wheel and stabilty ball mountain climbers in the same workout…</p>
<p>What we do to wear those thermometer jeans, huh? :)</p>
<p>Speaking of which, I was doing some painting and grabbed one of the pair of circa 1985 jeans from my closet. A pair of Columbia black jeans, 34 waist, faded to nearly white from wear over the years before being retired in favor of fatty jeans. They were fallling off me.</p>
<p>One of these days - I’m going to go looking for old stuff in the basement.</p>
<p>We have an ab roller in the fitness center. I noticed someone using it today - I think he’s the only person that I’ve ever seen use it. It’s an oval thing with a bunch of handles and it has small wheels under it. I’ll have to give it a try someday. I imagine that it could be useful for moving furniture too.</p>