<p>sewhappy, it is really immportant to have the right running bra that not only wicks away sweat but also provides adequate support. Any wiggle and jiggle during running will result in microtears in the muscle tissue that provides natural support, and the result will be saggy, sad-looking parts of the female anatomy.</p>
<p>Over 60 degrees for my run today! Strong wind, though. It’s supposed to get rainy and nasty by tomorrow, though. WildChild and H rode 60 miles. Daughter and son in law ran 6. After all that we went out for Cajun food. (ready to get back to normalcy…)</p>
<p>Have fun at the concert, iDad.</p>
<p>Got that extra 1.25 miles in this afternoon so 25 for the week. Going to run to my mother’s house (visiting nephew) after a shower. I might have tennis again tomorrow and I’ll bring my running stuff to get in a little running afterwards.</p>
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<p>The first of two fantastic acoustic concerts in eight days, both in really nice sit-down theaters. Next Sunday is Ryan Adams in Baltimore. He popped up on a breathtaking BBC broadcast, Live from Abbey Road Studios, Thursday night. Snippets have made it to YouTube, but the whole show in high def is spectacular.</p>
<p>[Ryan</a> Adams - New York, New York - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMcEL48CHAY]Ryan”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMcEL48CHAY)
[Laura</a> Marling Ryan Adams Oh My Sweet Carolina Abbey Road 2011 - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix9g-yW7sCo]Laura”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix9g-yW7sCo)</p>
<p>Well, the rest of the turkey is going in homemade turkey soup today. I’ve had three nights of turkey dinner – massive piles of yummy turkey, carb-load stuffing, gravy, and veggies. And, I’ve lost two pounds since Thursday morning. Go figure. I’ve been on upswing for a few weeks (maintenance for me seems to swing up and down through a 3 pound window, so I’ve been expecting to see a drop.</p>
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<p>Concert last night was an exquisite evening of slow, sad, pitiful songs. David Rawlings put it best:</p>
<p>“We just flew back on Thanksgiving from among of shows in Europe. On a global basis, we seem to sell the most tickets in places where it’s cloudy. And the people are sad. Scandinavia is good. Glascow…”</p>
<p>Actually, this about as pleasant a concert experience as I’ve ever had. 30 minutes from my driveway to the parking lot, where I sat and and a wee nip of single malt scotch wiskey until walking one block to the theater. Old [900</a> seat theater](<a href=“http://www.themusichall.org/assets/uploads/images/support_us_campaign_support_landing_650_3752.jpg]900”>http://www.themusichall.org/assets/uploads/images/support_us_campaign_support_landing_650_3752.jpg). Second row of the balcony, about 12 rows back if I had been on the floor. Unobstructed view of the stage. No milling around and constant talking in the audience as is the annoying norm these days. You could hear a pin drop.</p>
![http://www.themusichall.org/assets/uploads/images/support_us_campaign_support_landing_650_3752.jpg]900](http://www.themusichall.org/assets/uploads/images/support_us_campaign_support_landing_650_3752.jpg%5D900){kind=link}
<p>3 sets, 1 hour 50 minutes, won all three though the teams were slightly lopsided. Ran 1.5 miles afterwards.</p>
<p>I can definitely run after double - I don’t think that I can run after two hours of singles but maybe later in the day. It would be nice to run every day, even if only for a mile or two.</p>
<p>Abs were a bit sore this morning in an asymmetrical way that comes from not hitting a serve in a week. The serve is a fairly violent act and puts a lot of stress on abs muscles over a very short period of time.</p>
<p>The holiday season plays havoc with workout and diet routines but at least there’s always running where you don’t need to schedule with other people.</p>
<p>My turkey soup is going to be awesome. Looks like I’m probably going to end up with about 10 quarts – dinner with a salad tonight and enough to stock the freezer for a while. With no big family dinner this year, I finally had a ton of turkey left to make soup. I refuse to go buy deli turkey just to make post-Thanksgiving soup!</p>
<p>It’s not totally carb-free soup as I did put 1.5 cups (uncooked) of Jasmine rice in the pot. Otherwise, it’s straight turkey and vegetables.</p>
<p>You must have started with a pretty big bird already. In our house, the turkey’s gone, the stuffing’s, gone, etc. We do have several quarts of turkey stock and a little cranberry sauce left.</p>
<p>I just got back from grocery shopping. I’m seeing an interesting trend in cereals towards more fiber and less sugar. I picked something up with 18 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar in 70 calories. There’s also 4 grams (I think) of protein and some fat in there.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading a bit more about the Mediterranean Diet and am leaning towards a few ideas there - fish twice a week, poultry and eggs regularly, and red meat only a few times a month. I’m already reasonably in line in their other areas.</p>
<p>Moved some more XL clothes from the bedroom to the basement. I’m thinking of picking up a few pairs of Champion Tech Shorts (they’re basic and cheap). I did buy two pairs of running shorts before (no pockets except for an iPod/key) but I think that I’m fine with regular shorts with the two front slash pockets.</p>
<p>BC, of all the diets out there the Mediterranean one makes the most sense to me.</p>
<p>I ventured out because I had to get a dress for an upcoming formal event (I thought I could get away with shopping in my closet, but black is a no-no colot for this one), and salespeople in one store admired my “buff arms”. LOL. Did not get anything. I’m definitely doing more free weights exercises since getting this knee out of whack. I finally caved in and made an appointment with a doc, because the problem is not going away. Or at least when I think it is going away, I do something to make the knee worse again. Arrrggghhh.</p>
<p>Running now seems more comfortable than walking. It’s weird.</p>
<p>My worst knee problems were in my late 30s due to running + tennis. I finally had to take an extended break from both as I got into the cycle of going back to workouts when it felt a little better until I could barely walk. I used a pair of crutches to get around. The rest eventually took care of the knee problems but I had then fallen out of doing regular exercise and started putting on weight. The aftermarket insoles that I discovered later do help in the knee department.</p>
<p>I was quite sore this morning in the usual tennis spots but they’re feeling okay now. I’m warming up with steel-cut oats and I have two cups of kidney beans for the afternoon with a little olive oil, garlic and parsley. My wife is back to making a pound of beans on Sundays and she took some and I took some.</p>
<p>The Mediterranean seems to be a diet for longevity - I don’t think that it’s really geared towards weight-loss. I think that you still need a healthy fitness routine to get the weight off with a Mediterranean diet - or you need to have pretty strong self-control or calorie tracking.</p>
I don’t have any of their shorts, but I have been very pleased with the quality of the Champion C9 (Target’s brand) short and long-sleeve tech shirts. I’ve had quite a few of them now, in long and short sleeve, and they wash and wear and fit as well as anything out there. I believe that Champion is the premium brand of the Hanes underwear company.
I loaded up on Marshalls/TJMAXX Nike running and Nike tennis shorts last summer, all of which are basic all-purpose shorts with front slash pockets. The running versions are a bit lighter material with an inner liner. The tennis version is slightly heavier material, no liner, and a zipper pocket on the back hip for a wallet. Both are suitable for working out or just general lounging around in shorts.
Sewhappy:
Hah. For me the running feels OK until my thighs start burning and I start panting like a dog! What feels great now is walking up hills.
I plan to walk a lap of the the Mall in Washington, DC next Saturday – from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and back with detour to the White House. Not many hills, but it looks like it’s about a 5 mile hike to do a complete lap. I haven’t done a long walk without jogging for several months now. It’ll be a leisurely sightseeing type walk. Long range forecast looks like sunny and 50 degrees, which will make packing easy. That’s just about perfect jeans weather.
<p>Hi all, Just skimmed everyone’s posts for the past several days. I finally had my “Fitness Assessment” on Friday. It wasn’t really any big deal – the Personal Trainer showed me how to use some equipment I wasn’t familiar with, and did a BMI test with this thing that looked like S’s xbox 360 controller. He plugged in my age, height, & weight – which was higher due to Thanksgiving eating the day before – and then I had to hold both sides of the unit while it sent a pulse through me. I relayed all this to D (who is a Personal Trainer) and she asked if he told me that BMI unit can be off by as much as 12%? (No, he didn’t.) Oh well, it still gives me a starting point for comparisons. Anyway, on Wednesday he’s supposed to set me up with a whole routine. We’ll see how that goes.</p>
<p>H found a recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake in a magazine and convinced me to make it for the dessert table at Thanksgiving. (We travel to his B & SIL’s.) Well, if I do say so myself, it was outstanding! Not anything remotely considered to be low cal, but it was incredibly good. Fortunately everyone else liked it too and it’s mostly gone.</p>
<p>iDad- That mall area in DC is a great place for running/walking. I’ve done a lot of runs there. You can wind all over the place. I always run up the Lincoln Memorial steps to say hi to Abe. Give him my regards, please!</p>
<p>We are having cold November rain. It is REALLY nasty. I took today as an “off” day, which meant 2 miles on the dreadmill just to keep the streak going. The guy next to me had it cranked up to 9.7 mph. I hope he didn’t look over at MY dial!</p>
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<p>I’ll be with my daughter and wearing “civiian clothes”, so I don’t think I’ll be doing any running. I’m hot mess when I run! I will probably take the Garmin just to record the route, but I’ll probably leave the heart rate monitor at home. </p>
<p>I’ll run up the steps for you and I’ll probably have to do a burpee for Zuzanna!</p>
<p>CBB:</p>
<p>That hand-held gizmo is similar to the body fat feature on the Tanita scale I have. You are right, it does at least give you a starting point to note changes. </p>
<p>It’ll be interesting to see what your fitness guy recommends for a program. </p>
<p>Tell him/her to show you how to adjust the bar in the Smith Machine to do elevated push-ups and inverted rows. Those would be the first two exercises I’d want to be able to do in a commercial gym and a Smith machine is perfect for doing both of them because you and adjust the bar up or down in small increments to make them infinitely easier or infinitely harder to suit your fitness at any point in time.</p>
<p>I would also want to learn how to use the cable columns to do all the great core stability exercise: Pallof Press, cable chops, and cable lifts. They are all really simple.</p>
<p>Not all gyms have Smith Machines - I think that cable/pulley machines are more common than Smith Machines. The gyms at my 2 YMCAs don’t have Smith Machines - we have one at the office because the VP of the building wanted one - our gym is tiny compared to the gyms at the Ys. The Ys have typical barbell setups and the folks that want to build big muscles typically use a standard bench - it’s a lot cheaper to have a bunch of those than a bunch of Smith Machines.</p>
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<p>BMI is really not accurate anyway so don’t be too considered about it. 12%? BMI has no percentage really associated with it. The unit was likely giving you a body fat percentage…The two most accurate ways to test Body Fat Percentage are hydrostatic weighing and a thing called a “BodPod.” Unfortunately both are highly underused because of the expense and expertise required…</p>
<p>Hi Everyone! Back home and my cold is gone! Yay!!! Did some walking while I was OOS and then hit the gym on Saturday and again this morning for a long workout. Was a little sore after using the weight machines on Saturday but did the routine again today. Biked doing intervals this morning and got my HR soaring. Thought I would cool down on the dreadmill but ended up walking a 5K while I watched a show on TV. I need to really watch what I am eating and continue the exercise as another one of my siblings has been diagnosed with diabetes. All of my grandparents, my parents and now three of my siblings have it. Scary!</p>