Good morning. judi, I hope you enjoy your day w/ DH. Hang in there w/ DD, I know it's tough but maybe Alice is right. Give her some space.
My camping trip was fun. The foliage is really pretty here too. The temps a little warmer, but still nice. I enjoyed camping solo. It was my first time to try it and I managed just fine. Had some great paddling and I saw a river otter and a flock of wild turkeys.
I am going to see Under the Tuscan Sun this afternoon with a friend.
Hope you both had a good weekend. We noticed that some trees have vibrant color while other trees are still green. We had rain on Sun. night, then wind on Mon. I can't believe how many leaves have fallen in just 1 day! We have had such delightful weather, but now it's turning cooler and it does feel more like fall. I heard the "s" word for further north on Sat.
Glad you had a nice time on your camping trip, ledom. Did you take any photos of the wildlife you saw? How was Under the Tuscan Sun? I would like to see Mystic River. I read the book a few months ago and thought it was very good.
judi, hope you had a good Thanksgiving. How was the sushi?
Yes, you are both right...she needs space. I was reading somewhere the closer a kid is a child the further they need to go as an adult to get some differentation from "mom". It 's rough when you are mom though.
Yup, Alice the mass was said by my favourite priest. I ended up making Neat balls (veg. version of meatballs) and spaghetti. Christmas and Thanksgiving are times that I DO miss turkey ... there are no good substitutes. One year for Christmas we had a tofu-rky, honestly it was it was just like trying to eat a big earaser.
What was the Tuscan Sun like? That is one movie I would like to see.
Tomorrow we are going to California until the end of the month. I am going with the DH. I haven't gone on a trip with him since early June so I am looking forward to it.
Your trip sounded so nice Ledom. It must have been so wonderfully peaceful.
I am in a holding pattern with dieting...not losing, not gaining. Alas, I won't make our goal Ledom I am ashamed but it is easier to be ashamed then to lose the weight
Judi--don't give up! Tofu-rky? ROFLMAO.......That sounds like something I don't want to try! So, are you meatless again? I must have missed that.
Alice--how ya doin, chick? Snow already? Wow--I hope we're a long way from that here!
Hey Ledom! Still doin BFL? How're things going for you? Under the Tuscan Sun looks interesting to me, also.
My new job is going well. All the ladies I work with seem really nice so far. Not sure how to take my boss yet. She's already asked me if I'd mind "taking the heat" for something. Not anything "big," mind you, just a mixed up appointment. But I've only been here a week-and-a-half, and I don't know if that's a precedent I want to set. I'm a full-on believer of watching out for the folks I work for, and I believe if I have a great boss, that watching out is justifiable--I don't know her well enough yet to make that decision.
Tuscan Sun is good - a chick flick so don't go dragging your men to it unless they enjoy that sort of thing. It is light and enjoyable.
judi - have fun on your trip. Sounds like good timing all around for getting out and doing some traveling. This is the time of year I would choose to travel if I had the option.
Cheryl, sounds like you are on top of things. I'd bide my time, as you seem to be doing, on understanding your boss. I have had more "personal trauma" this year w/ co-workers than since I started my job. All resulting from this silly team teaching class. I have found that at least half of the problem is me jumping to conclusions when I really don't know them that well. That said, I really think we have bad chemistry as a team. The happy thing is I never have to do it again.
I'm a bit stalled on weight loss as well. I have a major mental block to going lower I believe. Or physical. I am not sure which, but I am at the point where I always start back up the scale. I plan to work through this, but things have slowed down for me. I have not been exercising this week after doing good last week, not so good the week before. I am needing more rest lately and just have been sleeping in. Maybe it's the change in the weather? I am not going to beat myself up over it. I think will move beyond it.
We had a good rain and wind storm overnight which took care of a lot of our leaves. There are a few bare trees out in our front yard this morning. I was supposed to meet a friend early this morning for a trip to the southern part of NH, but thankfully she postponed it until tomorrow because I was not looking forward to driving in the heavy rain we were having. It has finally cleared but we are to have the wind for at least a couple of days and it is supposed to start getting colder.
Cheryl, glad that you like your new job so far. I agree with ledom to just hold back until you can assess the situation. Do you think she might have been testing you in some way to see if you were going to be a team player or not? No snow yet, but it's not very far away. I heard that in the mountain areas farther north might see some Sat.
judi, have fun on your trip. It seems like a good way to keep some distance from your D for a while.
ledom, glad you like Tuscan Sun. DH doesn't like "chick-flicks", so I usually go to the movies with a friend. I think the way you are feeling is due to the change of seasons. I find once the temps start getting cooler I have the urge to burrow down. I also seem to want to exercise more because the air is so invigorating and it feels so nice coming into a warm house after being out in the chilly air.
Just a quick Monday morning hello. How was everyone's weekend. Mine was nice. It is summer again here, only the leaves are turning. It was so beautiful yesterday that I had to get out in the kayak. Had a wonderful time. Read a new diet book over the weekend that has me revved up again. I have written out some new goals and will start documenting diet and scale weight again this week. Working out too.
We had frost for a couple of mornings. Farther from the lake the frost is worse. It has warmed up, it's about 20 deg. warmer this morning that it was yesterday morning.
Glad that you're revved up again about a new diet, ledom. Which diet book did you read? I think one gets bored doing the same eating plan for a long period of time. It makes it interesting trying new eating plans. Good luck with your new plan and keep us posted on how everything is going.
Hey Alice, It's good to hear from you. Frost - wow! Like I said, it decided to be summer here again. It was 88 yesterday, lows are in the 50's. It is beautiful though. The bright sun on the brilliantly colored trees made it really hard for me to go to work yesterday. I wanted to play instead.
The book is Burn The Fat Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto. Here is his website http://fitren.com/
Many things to do on this busy day so I need to get moving. Hope you have a great day Alice.
We had some snow overnight. Last night they said we were to get 1"-3", but there is barely a dusting. I heard this morning that some towns farther north had their plows out this morning. We were very lucky.
I may or may not be around tomorrow to post so I wanted to pop in to wish you all a great weekend.
How is the new diet & exercise program coming along, ledom?
Cheryl, how are things going at work? Did your problem with your boss work itself out?
judi, hope you're having a grand time on your trip.
Hey Miss Alice! Snow! Oh my goodness. If we could take our 2 climates and have a happy a medium! It's hot here. Another day of near 90 today and then we are supposed to have a drastic cool down. We need rain very badly and that is predicted as well.
Yes! I am having a great diet and exercise week. I have been forcing myself to exercise because I have a bad case of don't want tos. BUT, the scale is responding and I am being very good. I have recently written out some goals. A 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 9 month, and 1 year goal and that is exciting to think about for the moment. I am also graphing my weight again which seems to help.
Hope all is well with everyone. Cheryl let us know how things are going. Judi, check in when you can.
Hey girls, I just want to share this article with you. This is the new author I have been reading and he makes SO MUCH SENSE.
Article by Tom Venuto a personal trainer and author for the fitness industry.
(1) LOSE FAT SLOWLY. Here’s where most of the problems begin: Most people have no patience. How many times have you been told to lose no more than two pounds per week? How many times have you ignored that advice? All the time, right? The American College of Sports Medicine told you this, your trainer told you this, your dietician told you this, your doctor told you this, etc. Almost everyone agrees: 2.0 pounds per week is usually the maximum rate for safe, permanent weight (fat) loss. But few people want to listen – they’re ecstatic when the scale registers a 5 or 7 pound weekly loss.
I advise my clients to lose 1-2 lbs per week. Naturally, most go for the two pounds (and often ask if three is okay). Personally, I go for one pound per week before competitions. If I lose more than one pound per week, I eat more. Losing too much weight too quickly always causes muscle loss, which in turn causes metabolic slowdown.
Don’t ever confuse weight loss with fat loss. You can lose weight quickly, but you can’t lose fat quickly. If you think you can outwit Mother Nature and you’re dead set on losing 4, 5, 10 pounds a week, you’re going to lose fat in the beginning, but not all of it – you will plateau before the last “fat pockets” are gone. Set your goal to lose one or two pounds per week, but also set your goal to lose this fat weight consistently every week. When there aren‘t any plateaus, this really adds up over time.
2) REFEED REGULARLY– DON’T STAY ON LOW CALORIES ALL THE TIME. I guarantee you are going to hear a LOT more about the refeeding concept in the near future. It’s not it’s not a new idea, however. Fred “Dr. Squat” Hatfield was writing about this in the late 1980’s! He called it “Zig Zag” Dieting.
“Carbing up”, “Cyclical Dieting,” “zig-zag” dieting, “re-feeding”, call it whatever you want; to me, it’s so obvious that increasing calories for a short periods while you’re dieting is the best way to avoid metabolic downgrade, that I can’t see how anyone would dispute it. But of course, die hard academics often demand concrete undisputable scientific evidence before anything is deemed true.
I would suggest you don’t wait for such “evidence” and you begin using this technique immediately! All you really need to understand is this basic principle: If staying on very low calories for a long time is what causes your metabolism to slow down… and if the metabolic slowdown is the reason you have a difficult time losing that last bit of “stubborn” localized fat, then it’s only logical that the way to lose the “stubborn fat” is to avoid metabolic slowdown by not staying on low calories all the time!
The re-feeding concept can all be boiled down to this simple advice; just raise your calories every few days instead of staying on low calories all the time. This is the method smart bodybuilders use to diet all the way down to low single digit body fat and lose the last fat pocket without hitting a single plateau.
3) DIET IN “CYCLES” OR “SEASONS” USING “NUTRITIONAL PERIODIZATION” - CHRONIC DIETING IS DANGEROUS. Everyone knows someone who is ALWAYS on a strict diet. Maybe you’re one of them. As paradoxical as it seems, chronic dieting is a great way to get fatter! You see, everything in life has a certain rhythm or seasonality to it: Winter- Summer. Tide comes in – tide goes out. Sun goes up – sun goes down. To lose fat for good, you have to diet in seasons. “All sunshine makes a desert.”
In sports training, a big buzzword is “periodization.” This refers to a cyclical approach to training, so the athlete peaks at his or her best performance level on the day of an event, or maintains optimal performance for the duration of a season.
In periodization training, there is an off-season and an in-season. Training continues year-round, but the programs are quite different during these two cycles. The long major cycles are called macrocycles. Smaller weekly and monthly cycles within the larger cycles are called mesocycles. There are even tiny day-to-day variations in sets, reps, poundage, intensity, duration and tempo called microcycles.
Nutrition can be periodized too, and this is another topic I predict will become very hot in the near future. Re-feeds are like nutritional mesocycles while the annual seasons are like nutritional macrocycles.
I’ve always claimed that the bodybuilder’s method to fat loss is the superior one, and isn’t cyclical dieting exactly what bodybuilders do? Don’t they diet strictly in a deficit for a period of months, then train for muscle growth for a period of months? Doesn’t a really astute “physique artist” cycle the calorie levels throughout the year? Of course. That’s why bodybuilders who use this strategy are the supreme examples of effective permanent fat loss.
Bulk too long, you gain too much fat and get completely out of fat burning mode. Diet too long, you lose muscle and downgrade metabolism. Cycle the two every year in a seasonal fashion, whether you compete or not, and you have the perfect balance.
Three time Mr. Olympia Frank Zane continued to diet once a year after he retired, exactly as if he were still going to compete. As a personal challenge to himself, each year he continued to attempt to beat his previous best – or at least strive to be the best he could be at any given time of his life. Smart guy. And now in his 60’s, he has a body that would make men half his age green with envy.
Cycle your nutrition and your training. Diet strictly at times and relax your diet at times. Train with everything you’ve got at times, and train to maintain at other times. Don’t listen to “experts” who constantly warn of overtraining and say things like “daily cardio is catabolic and unnecessary.” Daily cardio, as part of a short term fat loss cycle, supported with the proper nutrition and weight training, is the best way in the world to lose body fat. Of course you can do cardio daily! What you can’t do is continue with a high volume of daily training all year round.
There’s no such thing as a “double winter,” so why put your body through severe dieting “weather” two seasons in a row? Diet strictly for a while, then slowly ease back for a while... eat more… relax… then go back at it even harder, pushing this time for an even higher peak. Be like the athlete trying to beat last year’s record. And continue with this approach for the rest of your life.
4) DEVELOP A LONG TERM TIME PERSPECTIVE AND SET LONG TERM GOALS. If you have a lot of fat to lose and you want to lose it permanently, you need to set up some long-term goals for your nutritional “seasons.” Otherwise, your body is going to fight back.
I know dozens of people who did phenomenally well on before and after “transformation programs,” only to quickly gain back all of the fat they lost. Do YOU want to diet for 12 weeks, look great for a week or two then slip right back where you started from, or do you want to get lean and stay lean?
Here’s the reason so many people gain weight back: They only had a 12-week goal... Short-term time perspective... No long-term goals... Failure to develop goal setting as a lifelong continuous discipline... Failure to develop nutritional and training disciplines as habits… All fatal errors.
Every season or "nutritional macrocycle", you must strive to improve on your previous best by setting new goals. Goal setting is not an event; it’s a never-ending process. Isn’t this what any world-class athlete does? Doesn’t the Olympian strive to beat his record at the last Olympics? Run faster, throw farther, jump higher? Doesn’t that require a very long-term time perspective? Can’t you apply this concept in your own training – even if its just for health, fitness and recreation? Wouldn’t this keep you motivated for years at a time instead of just doing ONE “12 week program” and then slipping backwards to square one? Couldn’t this mindset for constant and never ending improvement in a seasonal fashion keep you motivated for LIFE? Of course.
5) RE-SET YOUR SET POINT (AKA, TURN DOWN YOUR “FAT THERMOSTAT”). When I was in college, my body fat usually hovered around 15-16%. (Yes, I confess… I DID drink my share of beer in college). I lost the “beer belly,” of course, dropping my fat down to the mid single digits. However, I always seemed to slide back where I started (16% or so). It seemed like that was a natural “set point” for me…kind of like my “fat thermostat” had the dial locked in at 16%.
One day, I finally got wise and I decided to set a LONG TERM GOAL to get better every year and MAINTAIN a lower off-season body fat every year. First 14%, then 12%, then 10%, and finally, today, I don’t allow myself over 9.9% at any time. I refuse to go to double digits and I'll tighten up my diet or add cardio the second I notice myself slip.
In contest season, I decided that 6-7% wasn’t lean enough, and I strived to beat that, which I did, hitting 6%, 5%, 4% and eventually as low as 3.4%.
Basically, I raised my standards of what was body fat level was acceptable to me during the off season and for competitions. I vowed to improve both.
I disciplined myself and stopped "bulking up." After I made this commitment, then each year it got easier to lose the fat because I wasn’t putting myself under prolonged periods of dieting stress to get there; I was already close, and starting closer every year because what I had done - unbeknownst to me at the time - was re-set my set point.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the “set point” theory before. This is the genetically pre- determined level towards which your body fat tends to naturally gravitate. The good news is, you can lower your set point through nutritional discipline, increasing your lean body mass, dieting in seasons/cycles, setting long term goals, and raising your standards in terms of how much body fat you are willing to carry.
A lowered set point won’t happen over night. It doesn’t happen by the day or week, it happens by the month and year, and is achieved by setting higher standards for how lean you’re willing to stay for prolonged periods of time.
6) WATCH YOUR INTERNAL DIALOGUE: YOU BECOME YOUR “I AM’S”. If you want to lose body fat, then why would you walk around all day long saying over and over again, “I cant, I cant, I cant, I can’t lose this stubborn fat?” Why say, “I’m fat?” Why affirm the negative? Why would you do that to yourself? Over and over the tape plays in your head… programming your subconscious… building your belief systems… forging your paradigms… directing your behavior… creating your own reality.
Why not visualize your ideal and affirm the positive?: “I am getting leaner and leaner every day!” Do not dwell on your present condition. Dwell on your future vision. Refuse to use the term “stubborn fat” again. Never say, “I can’t lose this fat.” Do not
look at localized fat as any different than other fat on your body. Understand that it was the first place on, and will be the last place to come off – but it WILL come off – IF you do it the right way.
CONCLUSION
Usually articles on “stubborn fat” discuss “breakthroughs” in transdermal delivery systems, adrenergic agonists, alpha-2 receptors and lots of other scientific stuff. I’ve read papers on this subject that were so scientific, you'd need a medical dictionary to
translate them. The so-called experts list dozens of references and write overly technical articles for an audience they know damn well has only a seventh grade reading level and couldn’t give a whiff about anything except seeing their abs. However, they do it anyways to make themselves look like almighty, all-knowing “gurus” and to sell worthless products. The reality is, these really aren’t even articles – they're advertisements for “spot reducing” gimmicks
Listen; there is nothing complicated or overly scientific about the process of fat loss – even the last 10 pounds. Sure, there are proven products such as thermogenic supplements, but they don't work miracles, nor are they spot reducers. There’s no such thing as spot reduction. There’s no such thing as stubborn fat – it only appears
that way for lack of understanding about the way the human body and mind work.
To lose fat steadily without plateaus - right down to the very last fat cell - all you have to do is work with your body’s inherent nature, not against it. It may not be easy, but it’s simple and 100% predictable. Embrace the challenge, expect success, use what you've just learned, and in the long run, you’ll agree that the rewards were well worth the effort.
this is a very good article. thanks for sharing it. i enjoyed it and makes alot of sense. getting started on some of the ideas now.. good article.. LaDean
That was a very good article you posted, ledom. Thank you for sharing it with us. The first one, about losing fat slowly, was like he was speaking to me personally. I never realized that you can lose muscle if you lose weight too quickly. I think I will try to be more patient in the future. What he mentions about zig-zag dieting also makes a lot of sense, because your body can get used to a "set" amount of calories. That has happened to me.
Are you enjoying his book? That's great you have set some goals. I know you will succeed. At this point, I just can't get really gung-ho about an eating plan. I am just trying to consume fewer calories. I have set a goal with exercising though.
Our snow is all gone. We raked leaves on Sat. and I got the garden squared away for winter. I could hardly move on Sun. from all the raking and bending over. But, it's better today.
LaDean, a BIG WELCOME How is Tuffy doing?
judi, Cheryl, hope everything is going well with the both of you. Hope you'll pop in sometime.
Hi aleka, we are fine for last few days tuffy has been real playful like his old self. so we are thrilled about that. could be cooler weather to.. I lost 1.25 last week, i was so happy. had been gains for last 3 weeks, just tiny ones but gains. so maybe i am finally with the downward streak now. hope so. trying hard. glad your ok. sounds like a fun time and all. have a good day to all. LaDean
I am ashamed but it is easier to be ashamed then to lose the weight
How is Tuffy doing?
