Got back on the exercise path this past week. Besides all the walking at work, I also started walking in the evening. I found a nice pond with a 1/2 mile sidewalk circling it on some … ahem… ‘private’ property. There’s an industrial park near my hotel, so it’s pretty empty when I get there in the evening.

Oh well, all they’ll do is tell me to leave. Anything else would mean paperwork for someone. I count on the world’s laziness when making marginal decisions.

I picked up a lot of meat and not much in the way of carbs at the store this week. Probably 80% of the dollars were spent on protein. It remains to be seen if it goes into my body in the same proportion.

I’m moving to an apartment from my extended-stay hotel this week. So, I’ll have a fitness center. Hopefully I can be more consistent and get some kind of exercise on those evenings when the legs are too tired from work to go walking.

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Well, I’m back, none the worse for wear.

I started my new job in Huntsville last week. I’m pretty homesick and missing my family, and yes, there has been some emotional eating. Luckily, this has been offset by a huge increase in physical activity due simply to the size of the plant. The walk from the parking lot to my office takes about 6 minutes, around a 1/4 mile. The cafeteria is on the opposite side of the plant and takes about 5 minutes to reach. Along with normal pit stops and chasing people down for face time, it has all added up to some pretty sore legs and feet. I’m going to need to evaluate getting some new shoes for work soon.

I actually put my gps on some of these walks to get some accurate measurements, and it looks like I get between two and three miles of walking in each day at work. One of my coworkers estimates she gets in 4-5 miles a day. That will probably increase and be more consistent as I ramp up my responsibilities.

I’m also exercising when I get back to my hotel each night. It’s a cheap-o extended-stay place so there’s no fitness center, unless you count holding your breath and sprinting in the hallways to reduce your exposure to the fumes from the meth labs.

Ahem. I keed, I keed..

But, I found a nice pond with a sidewalk circling it, nearby. And I’m doing my core exercises a couple times per week. Unfotunately, I left the scale at home, so it will be a few weeks before I get an update on the weight.

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So, with this move to Huntsville, AL coming up, I’ve been giving the diet and exercise a good hard thought. As opposed to a soft thought, I guess.

Anyway, I’m going up about 4 months before my family so the kids can finish school. Sucks for me. But for my diet and exercise, it could be the best thing to happen in a long time, or the worst. It’s been mroe than 10 years since I lived on my own, and I did a decent job of maintaining my weight back then, but things change. Here’s where I see my opportunities and my challenges:

Pros:

• No competition for my time when I get home from work.
• No one asking to go out to a “bad” restaurant.
• No one bringing food into the house that will tempt me.

Cons:

• No one there to hold me accountable.
• No support, no one to cheer the good days.
• No one to remind me about my diet when I try to eat ribs instead of a tomato and mozzarella cheese, dipped in a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

So, yeah, this can swing either way. I’m being honest with myself and acknowledging that there WILL be a change, but it is going to be up to me to work it out.

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I’ve written about how I really like the Wii for a substitute exercise from time to time. Yesterday, Diet-Blog posted about the upcoming WiiFit, which promises to extend the exercise and fitness options to Wii owners.

The base games provided with the Wii is the WiiSports package, which includes tennis, boxing, baseball, golf, and bowling. Most are just fun, but boxing will kick your butt, assuming you do it right - actually ‘throw’ punches, bounce, and duck. It’s something I’ll do on a rainy day, or if I get home late and don’t want to go for a walk in the dark. Plus, it’s just different, which helps body and mind.

I wouldn’t want a video game to replace the exercise options for myself or my kids, but having a tool like this to substitute and shake things up from time to time is a big help. Having more options in WiiFit will help even more. Can’t wait for May to get here!

So what was stressing me out earlier this week?

A frustrating negotiation around the terms of a relocation agreement. But, it’s all wrapped up now, better than I expected, and we’ll be moving. We’re in Jacksonville, Florida, home of the Jaguars, and we’re moving to Huntsville, AL, home of… something, I’m sure.

So, it will be a different kind of stress in the coming months, along with personal and professional opportunities. On the personal front, my family will not join me until school gets out this summer. But, there’s an opportunity in this arrangement that will allow me to spend my alone-time getting plenty of exercise without the competition for time from my family, to whom I can never say “No” when it comes to my time.

I’m under a huge amount of stress thanks to a life decision that will change everything for me and my family.

How’s that for an introductory sentence that grabs attention?

God willing and if the creeks don’t rise, I might actually be comfortable talking about it later. There’s one last “T” to cross though.

But, dealing with the stress - if you visit the site regularly, you may have noticed that the weight loss number hasn’t changed since late last week. That’s probably a good thing because I’m not putting weight back on, but it’s been a real struggle and I need to get past this decision to get back on track as fast as possible. I’m definitely an emotional eater, and when first faced with this possibility a few days ago, I literally got nauseous and started eating.

Oh yeah, it looks like my mother is going in for gallbladder surgery in the immediate future, and my father is having surgery in a month or so. So there’s that, too.

Wow. Kirstie Alley and Jenny Craig have parted ways, and now Kirstie may develop her own weight loss program.

Um, ok Kirstie, but didn’t you lose 75 lbs on Jenny Craig? So, why should anyone pay you for an unproven weight loss program? Or, will it be so similar to Jenny Craig that price wars break out?

Hmmmm…..

Can’t believe Jenny Craig didn’t have some kind of non-compete clause in that contract…

Remember Billy Bob in Varsity Blues?

Man, I really liked that movie. It reminded me a lot of the town where I went to high school. The atmosphere back home has changed a bunch in the past 25 yrs, but back then, yeah, it was that kind of place.

Anyway, the intarwebs are all abuzz today about Ron Lester, the actor that played Billy Bob, having lost 350 lbs. Gastric Bypass surgery, of course, but you still gotta give him credit - surgery or not, that’s a rough road to travel and he has my respect.

It’s also taken 14 surgeries to tighten the loose skin. Jeez…

Before:

After:

Photos from IMDB

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Came across this one this evening: Taking several bites out of eating

The crux is, skip breakfast, have five bites of something with protein at lunch, five bites at dinner. Pretty simple. But it sure does risk missing a whole bunch of nutrients.

I don’t think it’s for me.

Update:

Wow, seeing a teenager commenting that she’s going to try it really shook me up. I posted this because I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t often recommend against a specific idea (I think Kimkins was the only thing so far), and usually take the passive-aggressive approach like I did above by saying it isn’t for me.

So, let me be clear - it isn’t for YOU, either!

Think about it this way: How many calories can you get into one bite of something moderately healthy - a piece of chicken, maybe? 100, tops? So, 500+500=1000.

That isn’t enough, and isn’t safe for very long! Growing bodies need PROTEIN and VITAMINS and even some CARBS and FAT. Balance it, keep it in moderation, but don’t try this STARVATION diet.

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This one hit my mailbox this morning: Exercise Seen as Priming Pump for Students’ Academic Strides

Seven or eight years ago, studies offered mixed results on the question of whether exercise can boost brain function in children and adolescents. Experts are beginning to contend, however, that the case is getting stronger.

“There’s sort of no question about it now,” said Dr. John J. Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “The exercise itself doesn’t make you smarter, but it puts the brain of the learners in the optimal position for them to learn.”…

I see this in myself. When I’m exercising, I find I focus better. I haven’t studied it, but I probably ought to - I have a hobby that requires intense concentration and decision-making, and I saw immediate improvements in the past two weeks. Thinking back two years to when I was exercising every day, I was participating in this hobby successfully with some of the best participants in the world.

A couple of you know my hobby. I prefer not to get into THAT over here - this is my diet and exercise blog.

Reading on:

With his university colleague Darla M. Castelli, Mr. Hillman assessed the physical-fitness levels of 239 3rd and 5th graders from four Illinois elementary schools. Their findings, published last year in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, show that children who got good marks on two measures of physical fitness—those that gauge aerobic fitness and body-mass index—tended also to have higher scores on state exams in reading and mathematics. That relationship also held true regardless of children’s gender or socieconomic differences….

…Another study published last year, involving 163 overweight children in Augusta, Ga., found, in addition, that the cognitive and academic benefits of exercise seemed to increase with the size of the dose.

For that study, a cross-disciplinary research team randomly assigned children to one of three groups. One group received 20 minutes of physical activity every day after school. Another group got a 40-minute daily workout, and the third group got no special exercise sessions.

After 14 weeks, the children who made the greatest improvement, as measured by both a standardized academic test and a test that measured their level of executive function—thinking processes, in other words, that involve planning, organizing, abstract thought, or self-control—were those who spent 40 minutes a day playing tag and taking part in other active games designed by the researchers. The cognitive and academic gains for the 20-minutes-a-day group were half as large.

“I was frankly bowled over by the results,” said Catherine L. Davis, the lead author of the study, a preliminary version of which was published in December in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. “It’s like a staircase, which is considered strong evidence for causation,” added Ms. Davis, who is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

So, they’re saying that exercise gets the brain ready to learn. What they didn’t say was that exercise made you smarter. Just like buying a pair of dumbbells doesn’t give you big biceps. It just enables those muscles to becoming stronger through consistent work. Sounds like the same is true for the brain - exercise prepares the brain to process information better.

I’m no scientist, but I think they’re on the right track.

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