<p>I think it looks like a blast. :-)</p>
<p>Bromfield, glad to hear you’re up and about again.</p>
<p>Ha. I promise to try it just as soon as I look like Mario the Trainer in the video… :)</p>
<p>WOD</p>
<p>3 x 8 Box Squats</p>
<p>5 rounds of…
5 pistols (ea leg) using ring for balance and a bit of help
15 barbell situps
200 m sprint</p>
<p>Cals 1938
Fat 134 g
Carbs 78 g
Fiber 25 g
Protein 108 g
Sugars 26 g</p>
<p>62% fat
22% protein
16% carbs</p>
<p>Did some random exercise at home - squats, core, pushups, kettlebells etc. Meant to go for a walk, but ran out of time. Will get a walk tomorrow in NYC from Grand Central to meet a friend from Caltech for dinner! </p>
<p>Today I went about 250 over due to having dinner at an Indian restaurant - rice, naan and a beer are too blame! Carb percentage still surprisingly low!</p>
<p>Cal 1709
Fat 94 g
Carb 106 g
Fiber 5 g
Protein 78 g
Sugar 25 g</p>
<p>54% fat
20% protein
26% carb</p>
<p>Our dinner was seasoned with cayenne pepper. Could have used some of that naan.</p>
<p>Ran 3.6 miles… Glad that it is over - I’m somewhat lifeless and anemic today. I have to get back to my kettlebell swing chalenge at some point, but not today. :(</p>
<p>Back in the saddle again! Rode the recumbent today…5 minute warm up, 20 minutes of intervals (thought I would never make it out alive!), 5 minute cool down as I gasped for air. Then I walked for 40 minutes on the dreadmill. I am exhausted! I have a little tightness across my back so heading to do some stretching. Overall a good workout! 
I think I will start back with the weights next week as I acclimate to the new activity level.</p>
<p>NMinn- glad you are back into your routine! BB-good for you for getting it done!</p>
<p>Nice morning and I got myself out the door for 5 miles including my big hill which I generally try to avoid. I call it going “over the pass”. I wore a new pair of Brooks Flows and could REALLY tell a difference from the Flows I retired at 250 miles after Saturday’s run. They really do lose their cushioning.</p>
<p>I am loving some shoes (don’t tell Brooks) by Altra called Intuition (men’s model has a different name). it is zero drog, but cushioned, so it isn’t like the Vibrams. It has a wide toe box which makes the shoe not particularly sleek looking, but, boy, is it a great shoe. For anyone who wants to try a zero drop shoe but still wants cushioning, I would try this. It is on sale now because the Intuition 1.5 just came out.</p>
<p>Any one have shoe suggestions for me? I have a very high arch and for some strange reason I haven’t figured out yet I wear a hole through the heel lining of most athletic shoes. I like Asics but I am tired of the inside heel area getting those holes. I just need them for walking inside on dreadmill and recumbent bike.</p>
<p>I don’t think Asics is making great shoes right now (and I used to like them). For what you are doing I would try Brooks Ghost (5 came out recently and is the best version so far) or Nike Vomero.</p>
<p>It’s pretty much useless these days for me to pay attention to my daily weight, because day to day fluctuations swamp the trend line. It’s not unusual for me to see a 2 or 3 pound swing from one day to the next. So, I tend to pay more attention to a 7-day running average that smooths out the noise.</p>
<p>For most of this year, my running 7-day average has been hovering between 160 and 162.5. I had gotten down below 160 last fall, but I’ve put on noticeable muscle from a weightlifting focus last winter and spring. I got down to 160.4 at the time of my move in late May, probably because I was doing so much physical activity with the move itself. In the last month I’ve seen a gradual rise. I don’t pay much attention to it, because it usually goes back down. A few weeks ago, my average hit 162.9 which was enough over my self-imposed limit of 162.5 to get my attention. That’s when I started daily tracking again, cutting out some snacks, and generally trying to tighten up. I expected to see a gradual drift downwards and that appears to be the case. Today’s 7-day average is back down below 162 (161.8 to be exact). So, I guess that qualifies for a 1 pound party! :)</p>
<p>My lighter days and my heavier days are lower, so I expect that trendline to continue downwards. I’d love to see a couple more 1 pound parties and lock in being happy with a little less snacking. I had slipped to eating three apples a day plus several handfuls of nuts, etc. Tracking really helps cut that back a little.</p>
<p>4x6 Single Leg Deadlift (each leg)
4x6 KB Swings
4x50 feet Farmers Walk</p>
<p>3x30seconds in a squat position on the PowerPlate</p>
<p>Bromfield, give one of these a try! Take a look and see if you find one you think you can do…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.trxtraining.com/train/challenges[/url]”>http://www.trxtraining.com/train/challenges</a></p>
<p>Congrats, idad, for nipping it in the bud. It sounds like you have the perfect handle on this, of watching and watching but not getting alarmed until the trend is undeniable. I’m with you.</p>
<p>From the fat-loss for non-dummies department:</p>
<p>This is a fantastic new article from Dr. Michael Eades, author of [Protein</a> Power](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Power-High-Protein-Carbohydrate-Health/dp/0553574752]Protein”>http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Power-High-Protein-Carbohydrate-Health/dp/0553574752), one of the classic low-carb diet books.</p>
<p>[Can</a> Your Food Make You Fit?](<a href=“http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/inflammation/can-your-food-make-you-fit/]Can”>http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/inflammation/can-your-food-make-you-fit/)</p>
<p>He starts off with his usual breezy, clear explanations of one of the body’s mechanisms for improving insulin sensitivity, burning fat, etc. This is the increase in a particular enzyme, AMPK. Turns out, this enzyme is increased by intense exercise (depleting energy stores in muscles), by diet restrictions, and by the diabetes drug metformin.</p>
<p>He then goes on to review a bit of the history of research in this area that has shown an increase in this enzyme associate with calorie restricted diets, along with his own suspicions that it may be carb restriction, not calorie restriction that does it – almost any calorie restriction study is also a carb restriction study.</p>
<p>Having set the table (he’s really a terrific writer), he then goes on to present two new studies from researchers at the University of Colorado. They did a couple of tightly controlled feeding studies. One was five days of severely retricted calories (30% of baseline), comparing a high fat (50%)/low carb (30%) version to a low fat (20%)/high carb (60%) version. This study, the low carb group showed an increase in this AMPK enzyme. The high carb group (on exactly the same restricted calorie levels) did not. This runs counter to the prevailing hypothesis that it was calorie restriction that produced higher AMPK levels.</p>
<p>In the second study, they did the same comparison, (high carb versus high fat), except that they overfed the people with 40% more calories than they needed for baseline. In this study, all the subjects did one diet and then returrned later to do the opposite version, so each subject was a control. Again, there were no changed to AMPK levels in the high carb group. But, shockingly, the desirable AMPK levels still INCREASED in the low carb group, even while overeating 40% more calories than necessary. In other words, simply by restricting carbs (to a pretty modest 30%), a key enzyme involved in preventing insulin sensitivity and fat storage improved, despite overeating.</p>
<p>Wow. I saw the side effects my wife experienced on metformin. Decisions. Decisions. Take metformin or restrict carbs to 30% of total calories? I think I’ll skip the bagels. It’s really exciting to see researchers start to connect the dots on some of this stuff. </p>
<p>As a side note, Eades points out that it’s long been observed that it’s difficult for someone (like an athlete) to intentionally gain weight without increasing their carb intake (even if they eat more calories). This study offers an explanation why that could be true.</p>
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</p>
<p>We’ll see! It’s a constant learning experience. And, I suspect the amount we can eat and the amount we can exercise is probably a constantly evolving balance. If I have to track food for a month, once or twice a year, to tighten things up, I can live with that. I am never going to get fat again and, it seems to me, the best way to ensure that is to take action in a fairly narrow window.</p>
<p>It’s amazing to me how just the simple act of tracking food at LiveStrong decreases my desire for snacking. It’s easier to say, “Nah, I’m not really hungry, I’ll wait for dinner…”</p>
<p>As a grazer my life is an ongoing snack…</p>
Yeah! I was so depressed. The little outfit in NC where I had been mail ordering country ham vanished from the web. Everyplace I found sold it like Omaha steaks – gift packages at ridiculous prices. I’m not interested in paying $50 for two pounds of sliced Smithfield ham, thank-you very much.
So I stopped at the Cracker Barrel restaurant (the only one in NH) and they individual one-pound packs (frozen) for $9.99! I also found the ham company in Boone, NC that supplies Bojangles and Hardees. They will mail order a box of twelve 1-pound vacuum packs for $75 including UPS shipping. As long as freezing it isn’t a problem, I might as well buy a years supply and save $45. A 1 pound package is two dinners, two times a month is about right for a five minute easy meal with some frozen spinach or lima beans or something…
This dieting stuff sure is hard! Actually, I could just go eat at Cracker Barrell and order it, but I can’t resist the side of their awesome hash brown casserole (not to mention the corn bread they plop down on the table), so I’m better off having it in the fridge and cooking it myself with a veggie!
<p>We used to have the Green Ridge Turkey Farm in Nashua. It was replaced by a Barnes and Nobles Bookstore many years ago. Turkey, turkey, turkey and turkey and they did a good job of it. There is at least one other Turkey Farm restaurant in New Hampshire that we’ve been to up north but I can’t remember the name or location.</p>
<p>When you mentioned ham, I thought of the Honeybaked Ham store in South Nashua. I had a look at their menu. It’s like the Cheesecake Factory - the have one ham dish and then everything else. You don’t go to the Cheesecake Factory for cheesecake. Well, you could but they mostly serve other stuff.</p>
<p>2.51 miles on a low-80s, sunny day. I ran through a bunch of condos and apartment buildings - less hilly than my routes of late. I’m interested to see my heart rate chart - it should be lower than the previous time because of fewer hills. One of these days I’ll try running to the Pheasant Lane Mall - the hardest part about doing that is the cars zipping buy at 40 MPH and the lack of sidewalks on one side of the road.</p>