^^ That’s why you wear a RoadID. Then bystanders don’t have to reach down your shorts!
<p>Maybe I should fill them out with a Sharpie then.</p>
<p>Went to the YMCA and did some weights. I spotted someone using a Kettleball and looked around but I couldn’t find them. I asked one of the staff members and he pointed to an area of the gym which I hadn’t looked at before and they had kettleballs going up to 25 pounds so I had to try the only exercise that I remembered. They have body bars, a very tall step and a big ball there. They want to see some demand for heavier kettleballs before buying them.</p>
<p>These shorts have external slash pockets so you don’t have to reach inside.</p>
<p>My name is in my iPod - I don’t recall a menu item for contact information though.</p>
<p>cjane:</p>
<p>If you only need to lose 10 lbs to be “awesome”, then accept that those final few pounds are slow going. I have the luxury of looking at an 18 month/90 pound weight loss curve and it’s plain as day that the rate of weight loss slows as you near the target and will always slow, even if you are continuing to do everything perfectly. Once you get within 10 pounds, I think the best you can hope for is a slow drift. At that point, there just isn’t much in the way of fat stores to shed and the body is going to hang onto those final bits with a vengeance.</p>
<p>I hit 160 pounds and my body just stopped losing pounds. If I wanted to go lower than that, I would have to reduce calories to a level that just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve found my equlibrium point. I am never going to be the skinniest guy around. There is an element of genetics here!</p>
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<p>As for soreness, the conditioning coaches I read believe that soreness is a sign they’ve done a poor job in their workout design. It would be almost impossible to avoid overuse soreness with a very high number of reps. The current thinking is to do perhaps 24 to 36 reps per exericise in a workout, split into three or four sets. Doing 200 pushups is guaranteed to make you sore, with diminishing returns in terms of fitness gains.</p>
<p>I suspect you’re right on both counts, idad. </p>
<p>Although, I am actually 15 lbs. away from “awesome”. </p>
<p>I can accept that the final 10 will be difficult/perhaps not even fully realistic, but it is these next 5 that are taking too darn long for my taste. If I lose 5 pounds from where I am now, I will be back to where I was about 3 years ago, so I know it is realistic — and I will be able to wear almost all of my clothes again. Also, I have seen the scale fluctuate up and down on the same 2 pounds for about 2 weeks or so and it is annoying. Yes, I know, water retention, sodium, etc. but I would really, really like it to settle down to the lower number and start moving from there.</p>
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<p>I hear ya. The hardest adjustment I’ve had is dealing with the fluctuations in weight maintenance. Monday morning, I weighed 159.4 pounds. Wed morning, I had gained 2.4 pounds and weighed in at 161.8 pounds. Thursday morning, I was back to 159.4. That’s almost enough to get whiplash. All this from no change in diet or exercise. Clearly, just water weight, for whatever reason. That’s all part of why those last few pounds are so darn tough.</p>
<p>I was around 187-188 for three weeks and then dropped down to 182-183 fairly quickly and have been stuck around here for a while (I don’t mind). I’ve been cranking up the weight training and I definitely feel better and bigger in some areas and smaller in others. It seems that the weight loss for me is more in spurts every few weeks rather than steady loss.</p>
<p>There was a combination of things for dropping five pounds but part of it was something that I do a few times a year - near zero calories for a day and then gradually work up to back to normal over a week. I usually cut down on the exercise (in this case it was due to a back injury from tennis). It’s not something that I’d recommend for others unless you fast regularly.</p>
<p>I did my weights, stretching and abs routine this morning adding a little to my abs workout. I brought in my running stuff and I plan to do that in the afternoon. I only have four running shirts and four pairs of running shorts and today is Friday so I have to make do with a pair of tennis shorts and a tennis shirt.</p>
<p>I am giving some thought to archiving my treasured collection of XL tech company t-shirts as I don’t seem to be wearing them very often. I’m either wearing tech shirts or dress shirts and the cotton stuff just sits there taking up a lot of space.</p>
<p>I also freed up a little more space in the basement near the weights by stacking some storage containers against a wall. That will make it a little more convenient to lift down there. Half of the basement is shorter than the other half so I am somewhat constrained in where I can do the military press and having a little more room is nice. I have additional cleaning to do in the basement which should provide moderately more open space. I do some floor exercises in the basement but would like a bit more open space.</p>
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<p>That’s awesome, BC. It seems that backing off on the carbs has really worked for you this year. You’ve been dropping weight pretty quickly. </p>
<p>You are now at the stage where it must be a pretty dramatic change in body shape.</p>
<p>No run today - too busy at the office. I will do a video tonight though I’m not sure what it will be. Probably stretching and floor work and maybe some light weights.</p>
<p>Something nice came in the basket of junk mail yesterday - a Sports Authority flyer. They have Adidas Galaxy Running shirts and shorts for $16.99. I was looking at these the other day and they were $25. There’s also a 1/3rd off coupon with the flyer so that’s $11.22 cents for a style that I like - at least in the shirt. I think that the pants have pockets. They have a few other things on sale (30% off) that I’m interested in too.</p>
<p>As suspected, super sore quads today.
Ended up just hitting balls for 45 minutes until the folks waiting just couldn’t be ignored anymore.</p>
<p>I hate the night before races. I am sorry I signed up. It doesn’t matter, but I’m still freaking out. I know it will hurt and will take a long time and I will be happy after I cross the finish line, but… It will be 50 to start and warm up quickly. I hate being cold. Throw away shirt? Arm warmers? Too many decisions. Ugh.</p>
<p>My DH and his running buddies bring/wear big plastic trashbags to cover their torso when they are cold. The plastic keeps them warm and holds in body heat (and moisture). As soon as they get ready to run, or when they start and get warm, they throw away the bag.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip on the Taubes books: Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Are Fat.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage) (9781400033461): Gary Taubes: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2)
[Amazon.com:</a> Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (9780307272706): Gary Taubes: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1)</p>
<p>Fascinating stuff.</p>
<p>Aside from his science writing which I have appreciated on other topics, and how he shows which research gets ignored and why, the parts I couldn’t help but find most interesting was all the validation of my own experiences and observations, which stood in contrast to conventional wisdom and health and fitness journalism.</p>
<p>I never could relate to the advice around “emotional eating” or that my “overeating” was some kind of eating disorder – it just didn’t ring true for me, especially since I ate less than my very trim mother and sisters and really could not find a correlation to eating and any kind of emotional distress or repression. Instead, I identified “trigger foods” early on – foods that I could eat large quantitities of, never get full on and yet seemed to always want to eat - a perfect example, being cereal. What I did not possess was a scientific explanation of how it was the food itself that was “making” me eat it.</p>
<p>Ditto the validation on the aspect of exercise (even marathon training) not leading to weight loss and the lack of weight loss on a low calorie, low fat diet.</p>
<p>I have actually used the phrase" “I am a violation of the laws of thermodynamics” when referring to my lack of weight loss despite vigorous exercise and controlled eating and was a subscriber to the “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie” school of thought as well as the calories in/ calories out theory. I now know why that is erroneous, very helpful indeed!</p>
<p>MOfWC, good luck! My marathoner friend also runs in garbage bags and tosses them away when it gets warm. 50 would be perfect for me - I warm up really quickly when I run, but otherwise I prefer much warmer temperatures.</p>
<p>Cjane:</p>
<p>Yes. The Taubes books have been massive eye-openers for me. I think the most troubling thing is that everything he writes about was accepted fact in the medical community until the 1970s. At a time when breakthrough discoveries in hormones and metabolism should have been producing a tremendous leap forward, it was all locked away in a closet in favor of the campaign against dietary fat and the insistence that obesity is a psychological failing. Like any learned, habitual behavior, there is certainly a behavioral aspect to it, but I’m convinced it’s driven by physiological factors, just as that the learned behavior of smoking is driven by nicotine addition.</p>
<p>It rings true for me. My dad was a graduate of one of the research medical schools frequently mentioned in nutrition science circles. When I was a kid in the 1960s, he was quite clear that it was a known medical fact that sugars and starches made you fat and that, to lose weight, skip the bread, potatoes, and pasta. That’s why I never understood when, suddenly, pasta primavera was being touted as a healthy, weight-consicous type of meal.</p>
<p>I don’t think Taubes has it completely figured out, but he’s barking up the right tree, IMO. The kicker for me is not that I successfully lost weight, but that I stopped craving the foods that had made me fat. Like a light switch turning off. I believe that there had to be physiological reasons for that. It makes perfect sense to me that forcing my body to release and burn several hundred calories a day of stored fat would reduce my appetite.</p>
<p>I am not quite as dismissive of the role of exercise. I think exercise makes a big difference, but probably not from the calories being burned. I think that it, too, probably has some impact on hormonal balance, insulin resistance, etc. and researchers just haven’t been asking the right questions. For example, most exercise research involves low intensity cardio, which has not proven to be all that great for fat loss in the real world.</p>
<p>Good luck MOWC. I know you’ll do fine as soon as you start cranking out the miles tomorrow. Can’t wait to hear all about it!</p>
<p>Good luck MOWC on the race.</p>
<p>Went to play doubles this morning. About 45 minutes in, one guy (coach of a large local high-school team) popped or tore something in his arm and that was the end of doubles. He had an arm cuff on so it looks like he already had an injury. I just looked up the specs of his racquet and it’s light, stiff and near even-balance. Not the configuration to use if you have arm issues. I played a set of singles afterwards and won that 6-0. It was very humid out and I had much higher energy levels than the other guy. If you’re that close to an injury, you should rest. I sometimes go near the edge but seldom go over it - the recovery time is too painful.</p>
<p>Waiting for the race results with everyone else.</p>
<p>Ran to a PR for my daughter. 2:07:28, which is all I could manage and a huge PR for her. She was really excited. We thought we wouldn’t run that fast, because she is the official blogger for the race (a huge national race series) and had her camera for pictures along the course. We sort of clipped along, and I told her a couple of times to go ahead, but then I always hung with her. I just don’t have it right now- 2 years ago I ran sub 1:55 and have a long ago PR of 1:29 (how I ever did that is beyond me)- and I was happy with the time. It is a tough course with constant rolling hills, including a bad one in the last mile over a bridge over the Cumberland River. This is a fun event which caters to first-timers, walkers and hobby-joggers, but also provides a great event for serious runners. There were tutus, sparkly skirts, wigs etc. I wore a short sleeved tech shirt (would have been fine in a singlet but was cold at the start), long compression socks and a new print skirt. My D wore a singlet and shorts. I talked her through a couple of rough patches (including the last hill where she wanted to walk a little), but this was NOT an easy run for me by any means. I gave it my all. Our fastest mile was the last one, even with the bad hill. I told her “You have this. Shorten your stride and don’t fight the hill. We’ll float down the other side.” I didn’t really think I could make it up the stupid hill, but we did! She outkicked me at the end and beat me by 1 second. That’s how our family rolls- none of this crossing holding hands stuff! 
So- we got gorgeous finisher’s medals. I was 14 out of 110 in the age group, which isn’t bad for being at the old end of it!<br>
Done!!!</p>
<p>Fantastic!</p>