Wednesday, July 27, 2011

5 days of burpees and counting


Elizabeth Templin McCamic

I have finally made it to the last few days of the 100-day burpee challenge.

The last few weeks have been tough, and I'm looking forward to getting through these last few days.

This challenge hasn't always been fun, but it has made me work hard and use muscles I wasn't regularly working out. After all these weeks, my core is saying thank you.

I'll let you know how day 100 feels next week. It falls on my birthday, so I know it will be memorable.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Bad news/good news

Lawrence Toppman

The bad news: My treadmill's broken. The walking belt became misaligned and started to run into the left-hand side of the machine, making it grind to a stop. A preliminary look suggested I MIGHT be able to fix it, although I have the mechanical skills of a baby mandrill.

I could call a repairman for a 10-year-old piece of machinery at, I would guess, $75 an hour to make the repair if I cannot. I could buy another treadmill -- probably a simpler one, as I'll never have a complex exercise regimen -- for $600 or so. Or I could try exercise of a different sort: walking in the fresh air, bicycling, going to a gym (all of which are anathema to a lazy misanthrope such as myself).

So this is a test. Do I redouble my efforts to eat well and content myself with morning sit-ups on a mat to save money, or do I make the financial investment in another piece of equipment if this can't be fixed? I'll ponder this over a lazy, exercise-free weekend while I try to put the old warhorse back together.

The good news: I lost a few ounces cursing it, kicking at it, cutting my hand while taking it apart and sweating through a preliminary repair session that got nowhere this morning. That has to count for something.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Just a fruit, not a fruitcake


Ellyn Ritterskamp

I finally committed, and made an appointment with a dietician. I'd seen one four years ago when I was diagnosed with diabetes, but it's time for a reboot.

One of you lovely readers gave me the name of her specialist. I'll report in a few weeks when we get together (I'm off this week to Minneapolis to see a Twins game - only six more teams to go after that).

Like many people, I struggle with scheduling exercise and making it happen. For now, I'm mostly looking for guidance on food choices and calorie goals. I kind of know what to do with exercise; with food, a little less so.

My favorite food groups is fruit, and it's sometimes hard to know which fruits are still OK (though I do like the guideline that if it has the peel still on, it's better than not).

More as it develops.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Taking time to make good choices


Elizabeth Templin McCamic

One thing I'd like to work on over the next few months is making better choices about what I eat.

I've worked hard this year to make time for workouts. My running has improved and I've pushed myself to work harder than I ever have before. I've taken on new challenges and tried new ways of working out (something I'd like to do more of in the coming months).

But I know in order for all that hard work to pay off, I need to do a little better about what I eat (in fact, this was one of my goals when I started blogging in January. Time to keep myself accountable).

Like many people, my pitfall usually occurs over the weekend. I'm pretty good about eating fruits and vegetables during the week and not snacking or splurging. But during the weekend, I'm visiting friends and family or going out of town or just looking to kick back - and not really paying attention to what I eat. Some of the problem is being in situations where I'm not planning the meals I eat. Some of it is just wanting to enjoy the weekend.

I've been keeping track a little better the last couple of weeks, and it's making a difference. I've lost two pounds and hope to lose more. I also want to be in the habit of eating well all the time and to have a plan when there aren't a lot of healthy options. I need to learn to find balance (any tips out there?).

One thing I've been enjoying a lot of lately is summer fruit. I've been slicing nectarines and adding berries. I've enjoyed watermelon, cherries and plums. This time of year, when so many fruits and vegetables are abundant, it's easy to choose well.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Few fat French folks

Lawrence Toppman: 

I hope you celebrated Bastille Day Thursday. I forgot to take the baguette I'd bought out of the freezer, but I had French fries that afternoon. (That's a joke -- I say, that's a joke, son. I realize the Belgians lay claim to pommes frites.)

But I did recall how few overweight French people my wife and I saw on two trips to Paris and surrounding towns. We met little old ladies scurrying up the hills of Montmartre with freshly bought sacks of vegetables and bread, and we always wondered why so few were stout. After all, the French do not skimp on butter, cheese and chocolate in their recipes.

Part of the calorie containment may be related to exercise. I saw residents of Paris walking everywhere, especially up those steep hills. But the main reason is that the French consume rich food and know when to stop consuming it.

At Berthillion, the greatest ice cream shop in the world, American tourists ate three or four boules (as the golf ball-sized scoops are called); the French stopped at two. Americans ate a crepe and a small green salad for lunch and wondered what came next; the French knew that what came next were a glass of wine and a long chat. They don't take food home from restaurants, because restaurants serve smaller portions, and people don't stuff themselves.

Eat well, eat slowly, eat in moderation. Taste the food, savor the beauty, keep the waistline down. How seldom we think about that over here.

Friday, July 15, 2011

How to feel like an astronaut

Ellyn Ritterskamp

I started using the Airborne tablets a few years ago, anytime I get a tickle in my throat, or, as with this time, the nodes next to my jaw puff up at all (only a tiny bit, right now).

Airborne is essentially a superdose of Vitamin A and suchlike, created by a 2nd-grade teacher to boost our immune systems when we fly. There is so much crud swirling in planes that we can't get away from, is why we get sick more frequently when we fly. Also we tend to not be as vigilant about drinking lots of water then, which is the only way to keep those tissues moist so the crud doesn't lodge in there.

So. Airborne + the Keurig single-serve coffee machine. Yes, indeedy. These tablets are orange flavored and you dissolve them in water. Hot water or cold. So I thought I'd try the hot, and it's way yummier than the cold, for me. Like hot Tang. Like I am an astronaut.

Also, when you put it in the Keurig and let the hot water go in there, it fizzles in a truly cool way. I am very easily impressed.

What are your secrets to not getting sick, or holding it off a day or two when it's coming?

Onward.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Worms

Lawrence Toppman:

A reader e-mailed me to say we in America are too obsessed with body image -- I can't argue with that -- and our national mania for weight loss has become unhealthy, which is certainly true at some level. (The anorexia and bulimia level, if not before.)

He went on to say there's little point in fretting about a few pounds -- even 20, in my case -- when we "are all going to be eaten by worms." I assume he wrote metaphorically, rather than suggesting that giant night crawlers from a B-grade science fiction movie will devour us all.

Eat (copiously), drink and be merry, for tomorrow we take a dirt nap. I've heard that used to justify bad behavior from drug addiction to philandering, though rarely as a reason to double up on potato chips. But if we all felt like that, why would we do anything positive at all?

I'm changing for my own sake, not others'. I didn't much care what people thought about my weight (possibly excepting my physician) before January, and I don't fret about it now. If portion control staves off the ravening vermicelli for a few extra years, I can spend those years listening to Beethoven and reading Agatha Christie and looking out my kitchen window at robins in my back yard -- who are eating worms right this minute.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Ramblin' Rose Report


Ellyn Ritterskamp

My mom and I did our first triathlon on Sunday. It is part of the Ramblin' Rose Tour, for women only (though about half the volunteers were men, and good for them). The atmosphere was so supportive, I encourage anyone who thinks it's too hard to trust me: If we can do this, you can do it.

I swam 225 yards and was not last (but close). Mom rode 9 miles on her bike and was not last (though close-ish). I ran 2 miles and was not last (but nearly). Mom trained at 7+ miles for several weeks; I trained by walking for a couple of weeks. We are sure that with proper preparation next year, we can trim lots of time off our totals. But we just wanted to finish, this time, and we did. Maybe in a few years we'll go solo. But much of the fun was doing it together, so maybe not.

There are other cities on the tour this season, though the Chapel Hill event is full. Huntersville has spots open, though I hear the bike ride part is more hilly than Rock Hill (almost completely flat), so you'd want to be prepared for that.

Next up for me is the Thunder Road half marathon, Nov. 12 in Charlotte. I will spend the next few weeks getting to where I am really running, even if super slowly. Then a 12-week program, then the run.

Last year Thunder Road was Dec. 10 or so; I think the move to early November will be a blessing for those of us who don't like the chill.

Onward.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Burpees becoming more of a challenge


Elizabeth Templin McCamic

We're at day 81 of the burpee challenge, and I am already counting down to day 100.

This challenge has been tough. Doing 70 or more burpees a day has definitely been a challenge for me. On days that I run, it's like doing two full workouts - exhausting!

I've been doing the burpees in sets of 10. The first few sets aren't so bad. My arms and core are feeling stronger since we started.

But after the first 30 or 40 burpees, I am ready to throw in the towel. I'm trying to take the remaining days one at a time and remember all the benefits of this challenging work.

I really want to see this one through, so I guess I better go knock out a few burpees.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Man does not get fat by bread alone....

Lawrence Toppman:

But it helps.

What a sneaky food bread is. First, it's naked, so it has to be clothed with butter or peanut butter of jam. Second, certain tasty types are full of simple carbohydrates which, as my wife likes to remind me, end up having the same effects on me as sugar.

So I felt guilty about eating one-third of a loaf of garlic bread with my eggplant parmigiana Saturday night, then mopping up the sauce with about a third of a loaf of sourdough, then sneaking the unused sourdough out of the restaurant in a napkin and reheating it at home the next night.

Not guilty enough to put down the bread, of course. Just guilty enough to slack off Sunday and eat very little else. And guilty enough not to climb on the scale this morning until after I'd exercised and sweated off some calories.

The result: I'm down to 181.5 pounds, 13 less than my starting weight. Really, this whole process continues to mystify me.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Swim with the fishes. Not.


Ellyn Ritterskamp

Uh oh. I have spent all my energy training for the running portion of Sunday's sprint triathlon in Rock Hill, and none swimming. As in, none. As in, I have not timed myself swimming since I was 13 at summer camp, and even then all we had to do was stay afloat for ten minutes.

I timed myself today, and it was not pretty. First of all, I have to figure out how to warm up before swimming. Lots of people do these events, and I will find tips from some of them.

Before warming up, I tried an overhand stroke and ran out of gas very quickly. 50 yards took 2 and a half minutes. Outrageous.

I waited a bit and counted that as my warmup, and did 50 yards backstroke. A bit better. 2 minutes.

Then I thought it couldn't hurt to try a sidestroke, which I prefer anyway as there is no breathing stuff to think about, but I assumed it would be the slowest. Huh. I did that 50 yards in 1:45, which still sucks, but if I can hold that pace, 250 yards could be done in under 9 minutes. I just wanted to beat ten, so maybe this is not so bad. Mom is doing the hard part - the ten-mile bike ride - and then I will have had quite a while to get changed and run two miles to finish it.

As I was leaving the pool, I watched a young lady getting into it on a special chair that assists folks in from the side. I got over any self-pity I was feeling right then. If she can do laps with whatever her situation is, I can shut up and go down and back five times on Sunday.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

How you know you're too heavy

Lawrence Toppman

A surefire way to realize you need to drop some pounds: You haven't lost an ounce, but people who see you for the first time in months say, "You look good! Have you taken off weight?"

That means they've perceived you as a fat person -- in fact, one who grows in memory, so to speak, until they remember you as fatter than you actually are. When they see you after a long hiatus, they're surprised to see that the real you looks slimmer than the one they've stored in memory.

I used to hear this all the time when I had done nothing about my weight. The polite answer always was, "Uhhhh...yeah, I've been working on that. Thanks for noticing." Now that I actually HAVE lost weight, I can say so enthusiastically and try to stop short of boring others to insensibility.

The upshot of this is that I never ask now if anyone has lost weight, unless they've obviously shed 50 pounds or more. If I think they have, I ask, "There's something different about you, isn't there?" Much safer.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Going nuts over almonds

Ellyn Ritterskamp

New snack I love: Emerald Dark Chocolate Cocoa Roast Almonds, 100 calorie pack. My Bloom grocery store is switching to Food Lion, so they keep having neat stuff on closeout prices.

I am not a big fan of most nuts, and especially almonds, but these don't taste almondy. They have baked in the dark cocoa somehow, and a whole pack is only 100 calories, and is very filling for a couple of hours or longer.

They have a smoked almond brand that I will love, but I'll check the sodium content first. Huh. I just did, and it does not look outrageous: 160 mg per serving, about 6% of daily recommended allowance.

This nut thing has more going for it than I knew.

Onward.

Monday, July 4, 2011

My fear wardrobe

Lawrence Toppman:

It would be easy to write some cornball blog on July 4 about "independence from a big belly." (Though I never was as fat as King George III.) Instead, I'll just say I'm holding fast at 183.5, with 11 pounds gone since the start of the year and apparently staying off. The big push to get down to 175 begins in the second half of the year. That doesn't sound like much to you fit folks, but it won't be easy.

I'm in that weird place between sizes, where my shirts are large at the neck, and my belted jeans bag at the back and slip down like a rapper's pants. I don't dare convert my wardrobe yet, so I'm waiting until I get all the way back down to the next size to tap my credit card.

I'll probably keep the larger sizes -- what a friend of mine calls his "fear wardrobe" -- in the closet for years, just in case I backslide. But it would be lovely to fit into new clothes for the first time in decades.

By the way, a kindly neighbor brought his chain saw to chop up the fallen pieces of box elder, saving me many hours of labor. I didn't sweat off excess calories with my hand saw, so I've had to be discreet when opening the ice cream shelf of the freezer. Yeah, there's a shelf filled with those 3.5-ounce single servings, but I don't visit every day.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Mustard Chicken


Ellyn Ritterskamp

I get a recipe everyday from Allrecipes, a really neat site where people post recipes and other review them with changes they made or didn't. This one came a few days ago, and I made it last night. Very simple and very good.

It called for four chicken breasts, but they are huge and there are only two of us at my house, so I made two. So a little less of the other ingredients as well.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup mustard
1 6-oz. can french-fried onions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place mustard in a shallow dish/bowl; place onions in a second shallow dish/bowl. Dredge chicken in mustard to coat both sides, then dredge in onions. Place coated chicken in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan.
3. Bake at 375 for 50-60 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

Notes for rookies (meaning, me, but maybe some others, too):

Dredge just means drag it through the stuff. They are serious about putting something on the pan so the food doesn't cook to it. 50 minutes was perfect for two chicken breasts. Baking time is about how long it takes for the heat to get to the middle of the meat, so that fact that there were two instead of four doesn't so much affect the baking time.

It all looked kinds of dark when I took it out, but it was just the crispy onions. The chicken was very good except for one corner of one piece that was a little dry. I used Jack Daniel's hickory smoke mustard (on closeout price at Bloom while they switch to Food Lion) and it was awesome.

The chicken breasts came in packs of three, so now I have one left over and am ready to use your suggestions for a good way to fix it.