<p>
</p>
<p>Deadlift!</p>
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</p>
<p>Farmer’s walk!</p>
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</p>
<p>Med ball slam!</p>
<p>I was very glad I’ve been working out!</p>
<p>Decided to postpone today’s scheduled gym time until tomorrow.</p>
<p>Sometimes the bear gets you. And sometimes you get the bear. I got the bear, but barely. Three 1-mile intervals on the Schwinn Airdyne Torture Machine. Mile intervals are brutal. The take just under three minutes and it’s serious distress from about the halfway point. I’ve only managed to complete three of these a few times. I almost quit after the first one tonight, but hung in there for the rest period (til my heart rate fell to 65%) and did a second one. Once two were in the bag, I had to go for the third, but I don’t remember much from the third one. was barely hanging on.</p>
<p>Heart rates: 88%, 94%, and 97%. I kicked my average pedal speed up from 64 rpms the last time to 65.9. Not bad, but as you can see from [the</a> graph](<a href=“http://i218.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/Airdyneintervals1milex33-15-2012.jpg]the”>http://i218.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/Airdyneintervals1milex33-15-2012.jpg), I was fading fast at the end of each interval. Legs and lungs burning, head hanging, just trying to finish the mile.</p>
![http://i218.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/Airdyneintervals1milex33-15-2012.jpg]the](http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/Airdyneintervals1milex33-15-2012.jpg%5Dthe){kind=link}
<p>It wasn’t pretty, but at my age, what is? :)</p>
<p>Good workout, iDad. As usual.</p>
<p>Tough one for me. Had an early morning legal seminar, so ran at lunch. It was 80 and humid and I have not had time to adjust to that weather. Heart rate was too high, even though I tried to take it easy. Just takes some time. 4.7 done. Then I had to help Vanderbilt win by watching the game on my office computer and trying not to yell.</p>
<p>In the gym</p>
<p>dynamic stretches</p>
<p>Planks
mountain climbers</p>
<p>3 rounds
push ups
v ups
body weight rows
squats</p>
<p>all felt pretty good. Decided to do 10 minutes of intervals on the treadmill after class and a bunch of stretching. Finish it all off with 20 minutes in the sauna doing my meditation iphone app.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s what I needed after Airdyne intervals: iPhone meditation! I wonder if there is an iPhone meditiation nazi? I think that would help me find my inner calm… :)</p>
<hr>
<p>I’m still laughing at MOWC falling out of a yoga pose, rolling into someone else, and destroying their karma!</p>
<p>May I join the fun here? I need to lose 25 pounds and get fitter. I have let food be my “reward” for hard work and my “comfort” for some stress/unhappiness in my life. I KNOW BETTER and am so mad at myself for getting here. I tried to play squash last night, a sport that I used to love and excel in (DI athlete followed by years of league play) and I was huffing and puffing after 15 minutes. </p>
<p>I have been exercising 3-4 times a week for months - elliptical and cable weights, but I must be in a rut. And the weight makes squash impossible. I will add some interval cardio and see if that helps. </p>
<p>I start Weight Watchers tomorrow and I an dreading it. The old WW worked for me in the past, but then I strayed from my good habits. I need the accountability and reinforcement of the WW meetings. I love one pop a day and have sweet tooth. I will wean off the pop gradually and cut way back on the treats. I need to do it. I would rather cut this stuff out than be overweight and winded after 15 minutes of my sport. I know it will be hard!</p>
<p>Sounds like you’re using a multimodal approach - I’d only add the suggestion to use a calorie tracker and consider watching your carbs. I’d also drop the pop cold-turkey (that’s what I did). Soda is somewhat addictive and dropping it slowly can be difficult.</p>
<p>When I decide to loose, I just eat a bit less. Nobody can stick to diet of food that is outside of their comfort zone, got to eat what you are used to. 25 lbs is NOT a major loss, so if you just consume a bit less of what you are eating now, you should accoumplish your goal.
In regard to exercise, IMO, every single person should exercise every day, no matter how busy, old, thin/thick. I exersice 1.5 - 2 hrs / every day. When I skip it, I physically feel rotten. They say that you get addictive, I say it is true. It does not make me loose / gain weight, but be in better physical condition (according to my Medical student D. having palse consistently in high 50s indicates good physical condition). Nobody and nothing can guarantee health, we can only try our best …
I also would love to lose that much, but I am not ready to commit yet, some day…</p>
<p>MiamiDAP- Your 1 1/2-2 hours a day of exercise is extremely low intensity. From what you describe, you basically float down the pool. As iDad has shown us, higher intensity intervals are much more likely to lead to improved fitness and weight loss. You don’t have to be an Olympian to do this, as he has also shown us, but hours of la-la-la isn’t going to cut it. If it suits you mentally, fine, but don’t push it as the way to health and fitness. </p>
<p>Also, “eat a bit less” is also easier said than done. It just isn’t that simple and there are trigger foods, foods that simply should not be consumed and foods that lead to water retention etc. A low pulse is certainly one sign of fitness (and I’m sure after a semester of medical school, your daughter is an expert) but there is a lot more to health, fitness and weight loss!</p>
<p>25 pounds IS a significant amount to lose and anyone who does so should be very pleased. It IS doable and a great goal. WELCOME, Momof2kids. We are all here to support each other and you will learn a lot!</p>
<p>momof2kids:</p>
<p>Welcome! No point in being mad at yourself for “getting here”. I think we’ve all watched the slow creep on the scales until we’ve finally decided that enough is enough and it’s time to do something about it. Of course, there are “bad habits”, but this weight gain is also driven by metabolism and hormones and is pretty much inevitable in our 40s and 50s if we keep eating the way we did in our 20s and 30s. One of the most common culprits is increasing resistance to insulin as we age. Increasing resistance triggers more insulin production and insulin in the bloodstream tells the body to store fat instead of burning it. At least one of the leading experts in the field believes that long-term chronic consumption of soda pop is a direct cause of insulin resistance. I know that drinking soft drinks, sweet tea, lemonaide, and fruit juices was a major contributor to my weight gain. I just had to stop drinking sugar. I look at it as poison, now. For me, it really is. It literally kills me.</p>
<p>The one piece of advice I would have is to forget the 25 pounds and just set a goal of losing five pounds. To lose the 25, you’ll first have to lose 5, so focus on that. I found it much easier psychologically to think about “giving up” one of my favorite foods (like sour gummy worms!) for just a few weeks 'til I lost five pounds. Then, the celebration at hitting the five pound goal gave me a concrete, palpable motivation to go for another 5. Five pounds here, five pounds there, and pretty soon you are talking about some real weight. I mean, that’s how we got there in the first place! The total amount of weight I wanted to lose was just too overwhelming. It would have been a negative motivation to think about the enormity of that challenge.</p>
<p>MiamiDP:</p>
<p>If 2 hours a day of low intensity cardio exercise were an effective fat loss strategy, there is no way that you could have weight to lose. I mean, 2 hours a day, every day, seven days a week is an incredible commitment of time and effort.</p>
<p>The problem is that that body adapts to the long aerobic exercise sessions and one of the adaptations is to become more “efficient”; i.e. burning fewer calories for each minute of the activity. This makes it ultimately self-defeating as a long-term fat loss strategy because you have to go longer and longer and longer to get the same benefit. Eventually, you run out of time and/or your body starts breaking down. Clearly, there are people here who successfully use distance running as a fitness and weight management tool, but they run very high mileage and are fortunate to be able to do that and stay relatively injury free.</p>
<p>I believe the more productive way to think about exercise for fat loss is not a model of burning calories (because, frankly, exercise doesn’t burn that many calories above and beyond sitting on the couch). Instead, think about the way that exercise can shift our metabolism in ways that are more conducive to fat loss. For example, it has been demonstrated that short high-intensity exercise (such as weight lifting or high intensity interval cardio) increases insulin sensitivity, increases the production of human growth hormone, and increases/maintains lean muscle mass. All those things make the body want to burn stored fat. Make the body start burning calories from stored fat and hunger is reduced, which makes sticking to a diet a lot easier.</p>
<p>So, I would actually have the opposite suggestion. I’d rather see someone give it 30 minutes a day, but make those 30 minutes really sweaty, panting like a dog.</p>
<p>"If 2 hours a day of low intensity cardio exercise were an effective fat loss strategy, there is no way that you could have weight to lose. I mean, 2 hours a day, every day, seven days a week is an incredible commitment of time and effort.</p>
<p>-just having fun, no biggy, got to spend my time somehow, so we go for a walk instead of sitting down for dinner…that is all. No wieght loss, just a way of life, actually significant weight gain lately because of frequent all inclusive vacations. I have to loose, when I commit to it, I know that just cutting down on my food intake will do, done it many times. All inclusives have such an incredibly awesome food and drinks, I usually gain at least 7 lbs. If I go one / year, then lbs are lost automatically, going 2 times did it for me.</p>
<p>I’m easing back into running this week, and decided to experiment with the minimalist shoes I bought a while back. I ran 10 minutes on the treadmill on Wednesday, at a pretty slow pace, just to get the feeling of landing on the forefoot. It felt really easy, but my calves were incredibly sore afterwards. Today I did the treadmill again, and ran 5 minutes at 10:30 pace, walked a bit, ran 5 minutes at 10:00 pace, walked a bit, and then 5 minutes at 9:30 pace. My calves are sore again, but otherwise it feels kind of good, kind of floaty, if that makes any sense.</p>
<p>^I do not know which shoes you are experimenting with, but H. got into trouble wearing shoes with those round soles. His recovery lasted for several months. And we walk 4 miles at high pace every day at around 15 min /mile. So, please, be careful!! His trouble started after walking about 10+ miles, but I did not feel anything after this walk, so it must have been his shoes, we have re-placed them. We never walk on treadmill though, just outside. We do elliptical and stairmaster inside.</p>
<p>Blankmind is not talking about rocker-sole shoes. She is talking about shoes with a very small percentage drop from heel to toe. Minimalist shoes are the opposite of rocker-sole shoes. They are low to the ground, flexible with very thin soles.</p>
<p>The minimalist shoes WILL get your calves! You’ll adjust pretty quickly, though.</p>
Hey, if Miami wants to exercise (Swim, float, whatever) in the pool, good for her. Also, walking 4 fifteen minute miles is good exercise. I also second the idea of eating a bit less of everything; I personally try to stay on the low carb side, but i know if I make any food “forbidden” what I “resist, persists.” Moderation is the key for me. I am able to have one soda, or one or two pieces of chocolate, for example. I also HATE counting calories, or carbs, or anything like that. I try to really eat intuitively; I ask myself what am I really hungry for? I do though try and not go overboard on white carbs, which are essentially sugars.
As for exercise - I try to mix things up. Hot yoga one day, swimming laps the next, weights the next, tai chi, etc . If I do the same thing day after day (like running every single day or weights ), I will a) get bored or 2) get hurt. I have done intense exercise for years and I have overuse injuries to show for it. No more.
MiamiDAP has a different kind of attitude; and I like to hear different perspectives.
Just commit to starting some movement; and just being aware is a first step to changing eating habits. I hate the idea of “forbidden” foods - I immediately want to eat them.
Well, that’s just me.
<p>Well, I don’t buy that Miami is walking 4 15 minute miles. I suspect a short course. </p>
<p>Of course moderation is good. It’s just not the answer for everyone.</p>
<p>My objection is that some posters constantly try to force information that is either incorrect or validated by a sample of 1 down everyone’s collective throats- over and over and over. </p>
<p>This forum is a good place to share ideas and learn by trial and error. Floating in the pool is relaxing for some- salt water would be even better! It is NOT a path to fitness, though. MiamiDAP really has no idea whether she is healthy or not, actually, except for her pulse in the 50s since she has stated that she doesn’t believe in any of the essential diagnostic screenings.</p>
<p>95 minutes of tennis - 6-2, 6-1, 6-0, 4-0 (“I give up”). I was hitting a lot of clean winners and not allowing the other guy to take the initiative often. Maybe it was more muscles or not getting tired from running during the week but I felt like I was in the zone.</p>
<p>MoWC - i will take Miami at her word that she is doing some sort of movement for 2 hrs a day. That in itself is way more than most people, as I am sure you know. I think sometimes the regulars here post intense stuff that scares some people away. Now, in the past, I have exercised even when I should not have - the “no pain, no gain” mentality. So, I am just putting in the word for moderation - the middle path .</p>
<p>Also…I know what you mean about Miami’s “interesting” approach to regular health care screenings like colonoscopy, etc. I do not endorse that, and I go regularly for all those tests. But sometimes, I feel we are on a crazy treadmill of medical tests, tests, tests. Here’s an interesting article on the subject</p>
<p><a href=“Opinion | Overdiagnosis as a Flaw in Health Care - The New York Times”>Opinion | Overdiagnosis as a Flaw in Health Care - The New York Times;
<p>But, believe me, I am still going to go for those screenings, etc. Yet, I wonder about the efficacy of some of them.</p>