<p>idad and BB, you can consider yourselves certified. idad, sounds like you are making tremendous progress. Consider me duly impressed.</p>
<p>Big stickler for food safety here. MisterPie and I would have many heated arguments I’m afraid. Might even mean separate fridges…lol.</p>
<p>Anyway, very careful about cutting boards and spatulas and plates. But I take it even further. I won’t eat hamburger. Read a NYT article on how it’s produced and decided I didn’t need it.</p>
<p>Ya see, I believe it’s important to spend money on quality food. It can improve your health and therefore save on healthcare costs down the road. I would rather spend my money on good food than on coinsurance for a triple bypass. So, yeah we spend lots of fresh organic veggies, fruit and other whole foods. And we cook rather than buy processed junk. A good investment IMO. </p>
<p>Regarding fitness, I really need to amp it up. I’ve been doing my walking and yoga but avoiding that “pain stuff.” I might have to load up my ipod with an “idad like” routine.</p>
<p>toneranger, I have owned a meat grinder and have been making my hamburger meat from lean cuts of meat for all these years H and I have been married. I do not trust the store stuff. But we do not eat hamburgers, I use the ground meat in much tastier dishes, like stuffed peppers or dumplings. I too tend to spend more on quality food; we just eat less of it. :)</p>
<p>InterestedDad: What do you mean with “I got to dancing on the exercise bike”? The interval training?</p>
<p>TaiTai, there may be certain things we don’t need to know about IDad. I’m content to just use my imagination . . . .</p>
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<p>No, after the intervals and the workout were done. The iPod nazi wants you to cool down on the cardio machine (bike in my case) for five minutes at an easy pace. Just to bring the heartrate back down. I put on some good music and was, you know, waving my arms and singing along. “Dancing” would be a stretch, but it was as much rythmic movement as a 56 year old fat white guy in a Gram Parsons t-shirt can muster while panting like a dog on an exercise bike! I try to exercise while nobody else is home. That way I can cuss at the iPod nazi and stuff without alarming the rest of the family.</p>
<p>Burned 500 calories on the dreadmill tonight. The most in one time. I am beat and will sleep good tonight.</p>
<p>interesteddad, Parliament Funkadelic fan here too! Haven’t tried exercising to them yet though…</p>
<p>eddie, wow! Impressive!!</p>
<p>I exercised during American Idol. Its better than nothing… but I didnt make it to the gym…</p>
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<p>Interesteddad, I’ve seen you refer to this person quite a bit and it really sounds like it’s working great! Keep it up! My question is where can we find these workouts?</p>
<p>“The iPod nazi wants you to cool down on the cardio machine (bike in my case) for five minutes at an easy pace.”</p>
<p>This must be the SOP of all torture exercise devices. My “dreadmill” wants me to cool down by running for 5 minutes at 60% of my 5K speed. The ^%$# thing does not know that I run my 5K so fast is because I want to be done with it sooner! No way I’m going to run for a whopping 5 minutes at such a slow pace. So I just run for 3 more minutes at the 5K pace 
Just kidding. A cooldown is important. When I run outside, I walk for a few minutes doing stretches after my run.</p>
<p>My new holiday dress arrived today, two sizes smaller than I used to buy. It fits like it was custom-made for me! From now until the holidays, it will be displayed in my closed and will serve as a motivational tool for me to stay in shape. LOL!</p>
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<p>I shouldn’t call him the iPod nazi because he’s actually quite friendly and positive in his encouragment. About as much whip cracking as he does is “come on, you’re almost there, five more seconds, you can do it…”</p>
<p>The guy’s name is Yuri Elkaim. He was a U of Toronto soccer player, played professionally for three years after college, then became the fitness and strength coach for the U. of Toronto soccer team as well as a personal fitness trainer. He’s got a ton of stuff on YouTube – just search for Yuri Elkaim. Search for this one: “Core Workout: Ab Exercises for Beginners”. His approach caught my eye because it seemed, right off the bat to be nicely scalable from old fat guy to serious athlete. </p>
<p>Here’s his website with all kinds of information. He has several iPod programs – the basic fitness and fat-burning Fitter U, a treadmill workout program, etc. He also has a more advanced monthy subscription program with video workouts. He has some nutrition stuff, too – but I’m really not into that stuff at all.</p>
<p>[Workout</a> Routines | Fitness Training | Healthy Eating](<a href=“http://www.totalwellnessconsulting.ca/]Workout”>http://www.totalwellnessconsulting.ca/)</p>
<p>Here’s the page on the Fitter U iPod progam. It’s $100 for 12 weeks of workouts – although I’m looking like I’ll double up each week and spend 24 weeks getting through it. </p>
<p>[iPod</a> Workouts | Lose Weight Fast | Get in Shape | Fitter U](<a href=“http://www.myfitteru.com/]iPod”>http://www.myfitteru.com/)</p>
<p>There’s an intro video there that explains it. He really focuses on two things: simple circuits of body-weight exercises (like a push up) that strengthen the core muscles, burn calories, and increase lean body mass alternating with short interval training on a cardio machine (or walking/running). The intervals alternate between a short burst of high intensity followed by a longer period of easy recovery. It’s not a bodybuilding program at all. It’s general fitness, weight loss, etc. </p>
<p>The whole thing can be scaled up by using heavier dumbells and increasing the speed of the exercises and the cardio. For example, a conditioned athlete could do the same intervals on the bike as I do, they would just have a more intense burst and a higher speed recovery. You do what you can do. He’s got variations on the tough exercises for beginners – like doing the side planks from your knees rather than your feet. The workouts can be done at home or at the gym. I have a stability ball and some dumbells from Walmart and an old rickety yard sale exercise bike. I use the bottom step of my stairs for the step exercises. That’s it. You do three iPod workouts each week and then one or two “cardio” days – starting at 25 minutes and increasing to 45 minutes each later on. I ride the exercise bike if it’s snowing or walk when it’s nice out. He just wants you to elevate your breathing a bit, but still be able to carry on a conversation – pretty easy cardio. The three workouts each week are more intense.</p>
<p>My sense is that he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to exercise and that he appreciates the need to start easy and ramp it up. I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be able to complete the final month – it looks extremely demanding. I’ll do what I can do and keep chipping away at it. I’m not ashamed of needing to throw in 2 minute breaks during the exercise circuit, but I also see real progress, even in just three weeks.</p>
<p>I’d be curious to hear of other programs people have tried.</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, is this a holiday dress for Christmas and New Years?? You’ve got a long way to go to keep that dress on display!!</p>
<p>And who knows — nine months is a long time! You might even need the dress taken in by the holidays!</p>
<p>BunsenBurner - I bet you are happy. That is wonderful.</p>
<p>I think I said this early in the thread, but now it’s bare legs season. The trick is just baring your legs and pretending that they’re fabulous…don’t wear skirts down to your knees or opaque black tights just because you think your legs look bad. Almost no one has truly fabulous legs and almost no one has truly horrendous legs. Just keep them shaved and moisturized and show what you’ve got!</p>
<p>idad, this guy looks very interesting. How long do you spend on a workout each time?</p>
<p>Are they any FREE ipod workouts? $100 seems steep to me. </p>
<p>Missypie…we all have to do what we’re comfortable with. My legs aren’t horrible but I most certainly would not wear a shorter skirt to work without hose. Just like I won’t wear a two piece bathing suit in public. My tummy has seen better days. My legs USED to look great, and now they’re bright white, and a bit chunky, with little spider veins and age spots. And yes, when my neck starts having that “chicken” look, I’ll be turning to scarves and turtlenecks. I’m proud of my blue eyes so THAT’s where I want people to look. You go with your strengths.</p>
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<p>45 minutes to an hour.</p>
<p>A typical Week 2 workout is:</p>
<p>5 minutes warmup
6 minutes: circuit of six exercises
5 minutes: interval on the bike
6 minutes: circuit of six exercises
5 minutes: interval on the bike
6 minutes: circuit of six exercises
5 minutes: cool down</p>
<p>That’s 38 minutes, plus There are another 6 to 10 minutes for breaks to get air and water. I take ten minutes longer than the MP3 allows.</p>
<p>There’s a link to download 2 free lessons here:</p>
<p>[Workout</a> Routines | Fitness Training | Healthy Eating](<a href=“http://www.totalwellnessconsulting.ca/]Workout”>http://www.totalwellnessconsulting.ca/)</p>
<p>One of the lessons is day 2 of the first week, so it’s very basic. The only cost to the free download is that you’ll start getting e-mails with links to You Tube workouts and prompting you to buy the package. You can unsubscribe, although I find the e-mails mildly motivating to stay on track.</p>
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<p>I was on the fence. If you were properly motivated, you could put together your own workouts drawing from all the free stuff on YouTube.</p>
<p>The value of the $100 is really the whole three month program with the booklet laying out what days to excercise or do cardio or rest each week, and then a gradually building set of workouts. It really is like having your own personal trainer without actually having to go to the gym and deal with your own personal trainer. We’ll see. I think it’s good value so far, to the extent that education and support seem to be critical to getting up and running with a life changing program (like quitting smoking or beginning an exercise program). In other words, just the fact that the book says today is cardio makes me motivated to get on the bike than complete another day.</p>
<p>Three months (or I suspect six months for me as I move along repeating weeks) is long enough to imprint new lifestyle behaviors. If that happens, then $100 is really good value. At the very least, I’ll have a library of excercises and a good sense of the struture of proper workouts and a proper schedule of workouts.</p>
<p>One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the stuff on YouTube is just ridiculous for a beginner to even consider with intervals that are far too demanding. 10 seconds fast and 50 second recovery kicks my butt. A lot of the interval training you see is 30 seconds fast/30 seconds recovery which is like professional athlete levels of cardio. It also seems like you get a lot of bodybuilders, which isn’t really what most of us are looking for in a general fitness program.</p>
<p>I think my roommate and I are going to start P90X when we get back from spring break. He said he just bought it off ebay and it was at his house. So I’m hoping we can get started on it and get in shape before summer…</p>