<p>Ammonia smell means that you are metabolizing muscle.</p>
<p>You need air and water to metabolize fat; if you’re not getting enough air and/or water or you are working too hard, then your body will go after your muscle. Make sure that you are hydrated and not working too hard.</p>
<p>Thanks, iDad – I never thought to search for “anchor”.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: After you get this “milky lung” feeling, do you start to cough for a while? If so, you might want to get tested for exercise induced asthma.</p>
<p>Is it like fluid in your lungs? I’ve had the burning throat feeling - probably due to breathing a lot in 1-mile sprints but I don’t recall fluid in my lungs from running. Maybe from a really bad flu or cold. Does it feel like that?</p>
<p>No, no fluid, no coughing, no gasping for breath - it’s just a very occasional feeling where it feels / smells as if I’m inhaling milk.</p>
<p>Anyway, who am I kidding - I need to work out more, not try to convince myself that these odd little ailments are deal-breakers!</p>
<p>New Rules of Lifting for Abs today. I’m afraid this will be the final week on Phase I before moving on. I’ve reached the point where I’m pretty solid on all these exercises and getting great workouts with a lot of reps: 3 sets times 12 reps (or 12 per side) on everything but the assisted chinups (I can do 9 good strong ones).</p>
<p>Despite having my lightest workout week in ages last week and my highest calorie/carb day this year (thanks to the Lindt chocolate truffles in my race goodie bag), I stepped on the scale this morning to be greeted with a smaller number than I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been bouncing around between 159 and 161 for three months now, but today was at 158 on the nose. It’s been trending down for a few weeks now and I’ve been seeing the same kind of results as the first time around with New Rules workouts – definitely feeling more ripped in the abs and trim in the waistband. I guess it’s possible that a heavy dose of walk/jog intervals over the last two weeks has contributed. Those have been pretty good workouts for me. It’ll be interesting to see if I stay here or bounce back up to 160.</p>
<p>The only change in my diet lately is that I’ve stopped buying roasted in the shell peanuts. That had become my go-to snack and, even though I was staying within my calorie targets, I’m not so sure that peanuts don’t have some other issues. I’ve switched to pistachios.</p>
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<p>Do you mean the peanuts-are-legumes issue? I don’t really understand the whole thing but I am contemplating exchanging the jar of peanut butter I keep in my office desk as emergency food for almond butter.</p>
<p>Yeah. I don’t know anything about the peanuts=legumes arguments and really don’t care enough to investigate. I’m just trying to watch how various things might impact my weight in maintenance mode. All I know is that my weight trended up a little bit with the bag of peanuts in the house and has trended down a bit with a bag of pistachios instead.</p>
<p>Punched the clock - 3.4 miles, done. Had to run on the treadmill because someone wanted to watch the Discovery channel while exercising</p>
<p>idad, I know what you mean about peanuts. Go easy on the pistachios, they can have the same effect :)</p>
<p>My latest guilty pleasure is a Fuji apple every night for late night snack. I slice it thin and it’s like eating two candy bars. At this point, I eat so little sugar that an apple is intensely sweet.</p>
<p>So far, I seem to tolerate that amount of daily fructose just fine.</p>
<p>I’d like to get to that point. I have a sweet tooth. What are opinions re using low cal sweeteners vs just going cold turkey on sweet tastes? I use them in coffee, etc but wonder if just still telling my body to crave sweet.</p>
<p>Sad about Denmark’s “fat tax.” I can understand taxing junk foods containing a high percentage of sugar or HFCS, but fat? Esp. in a northern country with hard winters!</p>
<p>Reminds me of wartime deprivation.</p>
<p>pizzagirl–I have read that even artificial sweeteners cause your body to release insulin in anticipation of carbs. Plus they don’t allow you to get used to foods without so much sugar. (And I never liked the way any of the artificial sweeteners taste.) I don’t drink much coffee, but I use milk, which “sweetens” it and also gives me calcium & protein, I figure.</p>
<p>pizzagirl–If you ride a tandem bike, that’s exercise! even if you don’t think of it that way. Better that you think of it as…fun.</p>
<p>I used to consume a lot of sugar and I tried weaning myself off but that didn’t really work - cold turkey worked. I don’t really miss the sugar either and anything that I eat with sugars (like an apple) taste very sweet. It may be that your body has some kind of sugar addiction giving you cravings (I know about those because we have a kitchen with tons of sweets at work that I used to indulge in).</p>
<p>I drink diet sodas (I’ve cut back, but do still drink them) and use artificial sweeteners in iced tea. I have never noticed that they lead to an increased craving for sweets. I do like my sweets, but I don’t think I’m out of control with it- at least no more than I am with bread etc.</p>
<p>The amount of food available (and consumed) on the 2 day bike ride was ridiculous. It truly is a case of people (wrongly) saying to themselves “I’m riding 58 (or 75) miles! I can eat ALL this stuff!” Wrong. Every 15 miles or less there was an aid stop with PB&J sandwiches, cookies, candy, apples, oranges, bananas, pickles, pretzels, trail mix, Gatorade, ice cream bars, Gu- I’m sure I’m missing something. At about 10:30 the lunch stop had pasta AND PB&J. (I had both) When you finished (at about 1pm for me) there was another lunch of burgers, hotdogs or veggie burgers (truly the most awful veggie burger ever invented- a globbed together patty of corn kernels and something green). Then the evening party had great TN barbecue (chicken and pork), all the sides and plenty of “Lynchburg Lemonade” (Jack Daniels and lemonade) You only could have 3 drinks and they were small and weak- but tasted really good. So- there was NO weight loss on this weekend!</p>
<p>pizzagirl:</p>
<p>I’ve never seen anything definitive on the artificial sweetener issue. Some people seem to do better not drinking it. Others are fine. In the big scheme of things, it’s probably the least of the dietary issues when it comes to fat loss.</p>
<p>I personally don’t eat or drink anything with artificial sweeteners, because I can’t stand the taste, but that doesn’t have anything to do with whether they can be part of a healthy diet.</p>
<p>In general, I think that going to a range of “low this” and “low that” substitute products is not a mind set that would work for me. Most of the “low fat” stuff is counterproductive because it replaces fat with even more carbohydrates, which is that last thing most people who need to lose a few pounds should be doing. I need to teach myself permanent changest to my diet, not spend every meal craving real bread every time I eat a piece of nasty low-carb bread. Same with thing like flaxseed pancakes and all that stuff. It’s been better for me to just learn that bread or pasta or potatoes don’t have to be a part of my regular diet. Instead, I buy a loaf of bread about once a month as a change of pace treat for lunches and have pasta about once a month.</p>
<p>The general approach that has worked for me is to severely cut the my calories and carbohydrate intake, but to make sure that everything I do eat is really good, really filling, and not skimping on the portions. When I first started this new diet thing, my wife drove me crazy with 6 ounce portions of fish for poached haddock. I mean, if I’m having haddock and fresh brocolli for dinner, what’s the point in cutting the portions? Those things are what you want to eat more of!</p>
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<p>I get that. I have participated in 2 of the 60-mile breast cancer walks and they push tons of food at you. Really, aside from water and maybe the occasional half of an orange, you just didn’t need all of that when you were actively walking for most of the day. But I’ve got issues with portion control, sweet tooth AND not liking to exercise, so it’s kind of the one-two-three punch here! I mean, it is a wonder that I am normal sized with just a little of that middle-aged thing going on. By rights, I should be way bigger!</p>
<p>[The</a> 4 Best, and 3 Worst, Sweeteners to Have in Your Kitchen - 1 - MSN Health - Nutrition Slide Show](<a href=“MSN”>MSN)</p>
<p>Here’s an article for you. I haven’t read it, but it was posted on our CrossFit affiliate’s website a few weeks ago…</p>
<p>Wow! Lots to catch up on!
idad!!! Congratulations! So very happy for you! Glad you did the 5K. You look fit and fantastic! ;)</p>
<p>Welcome Pizzagirl! Glad you are dropping in! :)</p>
<p>Same old for me after being away at the cabin and enjoying the fall foliage. Hit the gym and just did dreadmill and weights today. Supposed to be in the mid 80’s this afternoon so will proably get outside this afternoon for another walk. Haven’t worked out as hard since the wedding has passed. I really do better with a deadline goal.</p>
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<p>That’s OK, isn’t it? I don’t think you can kill yourself with intense workouts all the time. I suspect there has to be some ebb and flow to it. For example, if it were to ever quit raining here, I’m looking forward to some 5K walk/jogs that are little less demaning than the ones I’ve been doing for the last few weeks.</p>
<p>I find that it helps me stay focused to do specific programs for several months and then freelance it as a change of pace in between. The good thing about getting older is that it is unlikely that any of the workout programs I do will ever get “too easy”. :)</p>
<p>iDad is the posterchild for our forum. I really love that picture. One thing- you need to lose the “formerly fat guy” handle because NO ONE will believe it! </p>
<p>One benefit of losing the day job is that I get to run mid-morning instead of in the early morning dark. I actually got a little warm- got up to 73 with strong sun. 6.3 done. Have a pub get-together with a bunch of the runners tonight (some internet friends are passing through on a coast to coast move) so we can all complain about our injuries and performance! Should be fun.</p>
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<p>Talk about disbelief. Imagine how I feel! Ninety pounds is a lot of weight to lose. I still find it all rather hard to believe.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’ll ever lose the ol’ (formerly) fat guy moniker. It’s all about patience. When, I started out huffin’ and puffin’ to walk a quarter mile and back, it would have been easy to think that I was just too fat or too out of shape from smoking to ever be able to actually workout or do any real exercises. There were days on my early hilly walks when I was literally bent over just trying to catch a breath – from walking. The only way to approach it was to embrace the fact that I was a fat guy just trying to make a little improvement and that, of course, I wasn’t going to be able to do a squat or walk up that hill without stopping. It was a way of being patient, along the same lines of “just trying to lose 5 pounds”.</p>
<p>I don’t want to lose that attitude. When I read about you guys running marathons, I don’t want to have a pity party because I have to walk half of a 5K. Heck, as an ol’ (formerly) fat guy, I’m just thrilled that I can even go 5K, walking, jogging, or whatever. I don’t remember if I’ve told this story, but I will never forget the morning of my fifth day as an ex-smoker. Quitting smoking just hammers your abilty to breath for a few weeks and the first flu bug after quitting is almost like pneumonia. I was quitting cold turkey on top of a bad flu bug and in pretty rough shape as far as breathing. On the fifth morning, I was outside at 7:00 am, 20 degrees, windy, pushing the snow blower. At the end of every lap down and up the driveway, I had to stop and literally gasp to try to get some air. It was the only time in my life that I felt like I couldn’t catch a breath. I don’t ever want to forget how that felt or what it was like being an ol’ fat guy. It makes me appreciate how far I’ve come.</p>