Diets

My Mom struggled with her weight through most of her years. My Dad seemed to eat whatever he wanted and stay thin. In many ways I regard myself as a nice mix of the best genes of both my parents but when it comes to weight, I’m my Mom’s son. There were about eight years during which I was running marathons and doing triathlons and I needed to eat extra to keep my weight up. The rest of the time I’ve been dieting or watching my waistline grow. My first crash diet was after we’d moved to California in 1971. Looking at a photo of me in a purple T-shirt taken in the middle of the desert on the drive, I observed that I looked like a big fat grape. The diet I chose was the Atkins Diet, a very low carb regimen that is intended to get you into a state called ketosis in which your body burns fats instead of sugars. Sound familiar? Yep, that is the basis for the trendy Keto diet which includes even higher fat content and goodies like Bulletproof Coffee. Coffee with butter in it. Oh, yum. The things we do to lose weight. We count points. We count carbs. We eat like cavemen. We fast. We eat according to our ancestry or blood type. We spend $3 billion a year on supplements like raspberry ketones and garcinia cambogia (thank you Dr. Oz) that are supposed to boost our weight loss. And IF we lose weight … we gain it back so we can continue to feed the weight loss industry. Are we happy yet?

Walking Music

As micro-SD cards have grown in capacity and come down in price, I have gradually moved almost my entire digital music collection to my smartphone.  That includes music purchased in the mp3 format, mostly from Amazon music, about 75% of my CD collection that I ripped to mp3 files on my computer, and even some mp3s recorded from vinyl.  That means that there are something north of 6000 music files traveling with me every day.  I have very eclectic musical tastes ranging from what we used to call hard rock to jazz to the most delicate of chamber pieces and sting quartets.  I also like my music loud.  My wife, Muri, does not, not like her music loud or share my broad tastes.  As a result, I listen to music my way mostly when I am alone in the car or on headphones.   My Bose Quiet Comfort headphones are my favorite when I’m working or napping in my recliner.  Yes, I like my music loud when I nap  But in the park, particularly when I’m walking I prefer earbuds.  Therefore, walking is when I explore old … mostly forgotten … favorites in my collection.  One way to do this is to put my music player app, PowerAmp, into its Shuffle All mode, giving a random assortment of 6,000 plus songs.  Yes, that sometimes means listening to Diana Krall singing Jingle Bells in June or putting up with with that one clunker on the Electric Light Orchestra’s Greatest Hits.  But I also get to hear forgotten favorites like Sting’s When We Dance.

Monday Smiles – 5/16/2011

The Santa Ana River Bike Trail runs, as you’d expect, along the Santa Ana River, from my park to the beach 20 miles to the south.  Back in my serious cycling days, the 40 mile ride to the beach and back was my Saturday morning workout and it was also a great place to run, since it had mile markers all the way to the beach.    Lately, my excursions on the trail rarely go farther than five miles from the park.   If you’ve never been to Orange County, California, your mental picture of a quiet bike path meandering along a scenic river may be somewhat skewed.  As part of the Santa Ana River Mainstem Project, the lower 30 miles of the river were concreted by the Army Corps of Engineers, so that it flows within a not so beautiful concrete channel.  Within the last few years, however, the Corp has begun landscaping along the trail using native, drought tolerant plants.  That makes the trail more pleasing visually but does nothing to reduce the noise of the nearby Riverside Freeway.

Monday Smiles – 1/10/2011

When I was in my forties, the arrival of the New Year meant getting serious about training for the Long Beach Marathon, getting my Saturday run along the Santa Ana River trail up over twenty miles.   Back then, I was insulted if someone called me a jogger instead of a runner, and although I sometimes ended up walking during the final miles of a marathon, as regular exercise, I thought walking was for old people.  It turns out I was right.  For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to keep the Great Unspoken Resolution that so many of us make but don’t tell … you, know – eat better, exercise, lose weight.  I’ve started The 10-Minute Total Body Breakthrough

In the Long Run

I began running at the height of the running boom when Jim Fixx’s The Complete Book of Running** was a fixture on the best seller list.  I started slowly, running two or three miles at a time but was eventually seduced into a 10K race by tales of the joys of competition in Runner’s World and books by Dr. George Sheehan, the running guru.  I joined a group of lunchtime runners at work and began to hear about running marathons.   The Long Beach Marathon is a good first marathon, Frank, my friend Fred told me, using my work-name.  I’ll run it with you.  He did … for the

Having a Ball

Back in March in my post, Feeling Older … Again, I mentioned that I had started doing The 10-Minute Total Body Breakthrough, a ten minute daily workout that promised you’d Get in the Best Shape of Your Life with 4-3-2-1 Interval Training! In my forties, I used to do several marathons and triathlons a years, so I never believed the Best Shape of Your Life hype … and I haven’t had anything that resembles a Total Body Breakthrough (I still resemble the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters more than I do the guy on the cover of the book).   But as a person who could never stick to exercise (as opposed to running or swimming), amazingly, I’m still at it without a Total Body Breakdown.   In fact, I’m feeling better.  Low back pain and some night