Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
13461

<p>BC:</p>

<p>You can do the VAP cholesterol panel at a place on 101A in Merrimac, NH. $79 and there’s a $10 off coupon at their website:</p>

<p>[Local</a> Lab Testing Center - ANY LAB TEST NOW® (603) 943-5360](<a href=“http://www.anylabtest-merrimack.com/]Local”>http://www.anylabtest-merrimack.com/)</p>

<p>These places are walk-in, no appointment, for drawing the blood. They overnight the sample to the lab. I’m willing to bet that my doctor is billing my insurance company a heck of a lot more that $69 for a cholesterol panel!</p>

13462

<p>interesteddad…he may bill the insurance company more…doesnt mean he will get paid more…if he is a provider for your insurance…THEY mandate what he will be paid…he writes off the rest (except for copay or deductible)</p>

13463

<p>No exercise today and not much eating – DD and I seem to have a stomach flu . . .</p>

13464

<p>I live next door to our local health services provider (it’s less than a five minute walk from my door) so I will likely go there for the labwork. I don’t think that I’ve been there for a few years.</p>

<p>5 miles, 9:03 pace. I did weights at home this morning and didn’t do the Smith Machine workout - there’s a guy that comes to the gym and he smells like moldy sneakers and I clear out of the gym when he shows up. I had about 106 grams of carbs before running so that appears to be enough for five miles. I figure that I get two miles on existing blood sugar (from whatever is floating around), and then four miles from the consumed carbs (100 calories per mile) so (X - 2 miles) * 100 carb calories at a minimum. It’s nice to have plenty in the tank for a strong finish. So it is possible to do low carb and running - it’s just about the timing of when to eat the carbs.</p>

13465

<p>New Rules of Lifting for Abs today. The harder of the two workouts in this phase. Good solid workout, but it kicked my butt. Interesting, I couldn’t complete the 8th rep of the alternating chest press in the second set (or couldn’t complete it without undue concern of dropping a 35 lb DB on my head!), but knocked out 8 good reps in the third set. That’s just the way it goes, I guess.</p>

<hr>

<p>CJ: On the motivation for home workouts, I really think the key is to find a level of intensity that is sufficiently challenging to produce results, but not so crazy that workouts are dreaded. That level has changed for me. Early on, all my workouts just killed me. I mean, bent over on hands and knees panting and sweating. I was so out of shape that it was impossble to avoid. But, as I’ve gotten in better shape, I haven’t tried to ratchet up to maintain that level of intensity. I workout steadily on these NROL workouts, but I take 60 seconds between sets and I generally don’t try to make them metabolically demanding. I do short intervals on my off days for that kind of conditioning. I just can’t do those kinds of workouts day in and day out if I have any prayer of actually working out on a regular schedule every week. It just grinds you down. For example, I could not do Spartacus every day – fast paced with little or no rest between sets. When you occasionally write about wanting to cry during a workout, I feel bad for you because workouts don’t have to break you down like that, especially for someone such as yourself who is already pretty darn fit.</p>

<p>I know that if I go to the basement and start the first exercise of my standard warmup, I’ll ease into it by the end of the 15 minute warmup and then the set of core exercises and two supersets of strength exercises will happen on auto-pilot. I just follow the list spiked on a nail in the wall, hitting the GYMBOSS timer after each set to start 60 seconds of rest.</p>

13466

<p>Kids’ Heart Health Is Faulted
Analysis of Federal Data Finds Shortcomings in Diet, Exercise, Cholesterol Levels</p>

<p>ORLANDO, Fla.—A new analysis of federal data provides a dismal picture of children’s cardiovascular health that suggests the current generation of teenagers could be at risk of increased heart disease.</p>

<p>The study, which examined children between 12 and 19 years old in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that the adolescents performed poorly overall on a set of seven criteria set by the American Heart Association for ideal cardiovascular health.</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>Researchers found that kids performed best on blood pressure, with more than 90% in the ideal range, and in smoking, where about 80% of those 17 and under had never smoked. (The performance fell to 60% to 70% for those 18 and 19, possibly reflecting legalized sales of tobacco for people 18 and older.)</p>

<p>The toughest measure to hit was healthy diet, said Christina Shay, a researcher at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, and first author of the study. Not one adolescent reported meeting recommended targets on five different nutrition categories: at least 4½ servings of fruits and vegetables a day; three whole-grain servings a day; two or more servings of fish a week; less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium daily; and less than 36 ounces of sugar-sweetened drinks a week.</p>

<p>Indeed, only about 20% of the adolescents met recommendations on two or three of the nutrition factors—considered an intermediate score.</p>

<p>For exercise, 50% of boys and 60% of girls didn’t regularly exercise for more than 60 minutes a day, the optimal target. Between 10% and 20% reported getting no exercise. About 30% to 45% had less-than-ideal cholesterol, while about one-third were either overweight or obese. </p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. Kids Get Low Scores in Heart Health - WSJ.com](<a href=“U.S. Kids Get Low Scores in Heart Health - WSJ”>U.S. Kids Get Low Scores in Heart Health - WSJ)</p>

<p>Those standards seem pretty tough to me.</p>

<hr>

<p>Teenagers who eat a lot of fiber-rich foods, such as vegetables and whole grains, are less likely to have risk factors for diabetes and heart disease, a new study shows.</p>

<p>But there was no link between those risk factors – known collectively as metabolic syndrome – and how much saturated fat or cholesterol kids ate.</p>

<p>That doesn’t give teens the green light to chow down on fatty foods, however, said Joe Carlson, who heads the Division of Sports and Cardiovascular Nutrition at Michigan State University in East Lansing.</p>

<p>[Fiber-loving</a> teens have lower heart, diabetes risks | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/11/us-fiber-loving-teens-have-lower-heart-d-idUSTRE7AA03520111111]Fiber-loving”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/11/us-fiber-loving-teens-have-lower-heart-d-idUSTRE7AA03520111111)</p>

<p>A fair amount of loosy-goosy stuff in this article.</p>

13467

<p>Raining this morning so postponed run until after work. It was raining lightly and I barely had warm enough stuff with me. Wasn’t sure I could make the planned 6 miles without being too cold. 46 degrees. I got OK after a mile or so and made the 6- with a flashlight.</p>

13468

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</p>

<p>Just stop and let that sink in for a minute. No link between eating saturated fat or cholesterol and risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. That presumed link was the whole reason the US government just spent the last 40 years telling us to eat less fat and to replace that fat with higher intakes of carbohydrates (which, BTW, do have link to risk factors for heart disease and diabetes).</p>

13469

<p>Six miles in the rain, 46 degrees, with a flashlight. MOWC, you are an animal! :)</p>

13470

<p>At least thy admitted it. Most articles assume that fat is bad.</p>

13471

<p>Costco has some nifty Head “Multi-Sport” gloves with “Sensatec” on the thumb and forefinger of each hand that allow you to work touch-screen devices like iPods with the gloves on. Of course it is going to be reasonably warm tomorrow, but I’m going to find a day very soon to go try these out and see – might get a pair for D for Christmas. I’m always taking off a glove to find a new playlist when I’m out in cold weather.</p>

13472

<p>46 degrees and rain - I can handle that. Add the flashlight into the mix - yikes, I think I got too old for it. MOfWC, I’m in total awe. </p>

<p>I got a text from D saying that she was mad at her ex-BF. I texted her back and did not get a reply for more than an hour. Then a text arrived saying that she played tennis and it made her feel much better. Ah, the power of exercise! :)</p>

<p>My knee is gradually getting better. I will take it easy today and do some backwards and then uphill walking, as soon as this bus gets past the pile of smashed cars and reaches my destination.</p>

13473

<p>The last two generations of iPods have circuitry built in so that you can control the iPod with control in the headset or earphones. I have two sets of Sennheisers - one bar-style and the other earbuds and they have controls on a piece of soft plastic on the wires.</p>

<p>Tennis has many ways of making you feel good in terms of the kinds of feedback to your body.</p>

13474

<p>Well, the rain stopped after a mile or so and the flashlight was mainly for safety and for the stretches between street lights. I just couldn’t face 6 miles on the treadmill.</p>

<p>Glad your knee is doing better, BB.</p>

<p>Good workout, iDad. Sounds very hard to me.</p>

13475

<p>The hardest part of this workout is the core section. Back to back sets of Valslide Painful Pushaways (12 on each arm) and swiss ball mountain climbers (12 on each leg). I’m strong enough to actually do all 12 now (months ago I had to do six, rest, and six more). I even have pretty decent form, but my abs were absolutely on fire. The swiss ball mountain climbers are just brutal.</p>

<p>The weight lifting is what it is. I’ve got weights for all four exercises pretty much perfectly dialed in: the 8th and final rep in each set is really hard. But, there’s a pace to it that is fairly relaxing. I had a couple of good podcasts.</p>

13476

<p>Speaking of workouts, I’m glad I’m fit because I’ve got three concerts over the next few months: Gillian Welch, Ryan Adams, and I actually had a pleasant experience today on a non-ticketmaster presale for the Cowboy Junkies in Boston. They actually had all the seats available, so I snagged fifth row aisle. I’ve seen them once before and they are magical. Here’s a little sample, doing a Stones cover:</p>

<p>[“Moonlight</a> Mile” Cowboy Junkies - YouTube](<a href=“"Moonlight Mile" Cowboy Junkies - YouTube”>"Moonlight Mile" Cowboy Junkies - YouTube)</p>

13477

BCEagle: Thanks for the note on the more recent iPods. I’m still a Luddite using an iPod mini. (Green, thanks!) which seems to hold more songs than I’m likely to need. For two techies, we seem to have an inordinate comfort with sticking with old technology as long as it still works: the TV is 11 years old, the CD player nearly 20, and I think that iPod is going on eight years with nothing more than a battery replacement. Given the cost of college, that’s undoubtedly a very good thing.

Until I got the iPod mini, I did all my walking with my Sony Discman. Quite literally thousands of miles, with a special fanny pack to hold it.

13478

<p>Thanks for the excellent information on the blood tests. I will be printing the pages out and figuring out what to ask for. I may end up doing what idad did with private testing, if the HMO-like entity I am covered by doesn’t go for the full panel.</p>

<p>It has snowed in the valley where I took up cross country skiing last year! I am psyched to restart that, since this year I will be using my own equipment. No rental boots, yay! I may even head there this weekend if there is enough accumulation. </p>

<p>On the scale front: I had my one day of breaking the eating plan on Sunday. It was my b-day (thanks for all the well wishes here!) and I had the cupcake, 2 cocktails, and a fair amount of sushi. I stayed off the scales until yesterday, but was carrying 2 pounds extra despite having gone straight back to “perfect” eating and exercise the following day. This morning it looks like I am only up .5 pounds. I am not going to get all emotional about it, because I know I can’t have eaten xthousand of extra calories in that one meal, but what the heck? Would one be schlepping around water weight days after that one meal?</p>

13479

<p>CJane:</p>

<p>Despite weighing myself daily for over 20 months now, I have never seen any correlation between particular meals (or cheating) and the scale. I don’t know if there’s a two-week lag that masks the correlation or what, but I sure can’t see it. My eating goes up and down a bit. My weight goes up and down a bit. But, they seem to move completely independently, even though I know there must be some connection.</p>

<p>arabrab:</p>

<p>For exercise music, I use my iPod nano just like a mini. I use the same playlist: one that gives me a random assortment of songs that I have rated 5-stars and that I haven’t played in the last six months. I just start it and let it suprise me. They did update the firmware recently adding a cool skip-track function to the one button (a double press to skip to the next track), but I don’t use that much.</p>

13480

4 miles, 9:22 pace.

I was actually only planning around 4 mile runs this week but felt pretty good yesterday so I cranked up the speed and bumped it up a mile. I didn’t feel as good today though but just ran within my typical time range. It didn’t feel bad but it didn’t feel great. Last week I ran 3 miles/day and, with running, you’re not supposed to increase by more than 10% per week. So I increased 66% yesterday.

Did abbreviated weights at home this morning which I will complete tonight and did the Smith Machine.

Tomorrow is tennis day so one fewer day for running.

I chatted with a coworker in the gym today - he’s a triathlon guy. I see him mostly practicing on the bicycle and he told me that he would crank up the running in the spring. He said that he’s running too much when he’s in the 45 to 55 mile range.

Too many miles for me to think about. His body build is tall and thin.

It looks like I will be doing around 40% carbs. That’s what I did yesterday and that’s where I am today. Something like 40/40/20 appears doable.