Low fat and sugar free foods

I went grocery shopping yesterday (after lunch, so I wasn't hungry. Never go grocery shopping when you're hungry!)

I always have to be very careful when I shop - reading the labels to make sure I get the food I want.... which is food with its normal fat quantity and quantity of sugar!

It's harder than ever to do that nowadays, it seems, as stores are stocking several brads of low-fat crap, and only one brand of "the real deal" as I call it...and of course it's only going to get worse as the government and stores "partner" together to ensure a "healthy America."

Let me take care of my own health, is how I look at it. If I want to have a bowl of salty Ruffles with Ridges and some French onion dip, that's my business!

Having said that, I leave it up to you if you want to try low fat, and sugar free foods. They taste terrible to me...but your tastebuds may be different.

But really, there are foods your body must have to work at its optimum capability. Your body must have carbohydrates, it must have fat, it must have sugars! (Unless you have some kind of medical condition that prohibits things, such as salt, etc.) But a normal, healthy body needs these things. They all contribute to the bodily functions.

You don't have to cut out all the stuff you love. It's simply as I keep harping on it over and over - everything in moderation.

Tips on how to do that moderating...

1) Drink a lot of water after meals. This keeps you feeling full, which will help prevent snacking.
2) If you do snack, snack on carrots or hard boiled eggs (yes, you heard me, eggs!). Keep chocolate or other treats as treats - for dessert only.
3) Work on breaking your habits of eating while watching TV, or while you're on the computer, and so on. If you feel hungry, get a glass of water. Start thinking about something else, and after half an hour, your hunger pains may well have disappeared.
4) Bear in mind that your willpower is a muscle, and needs to be exercised to become strong. If you "fail" - that's only a failure on one day. It doesn't invalidate your whole weight loss/weight maintenance program. Acknowledge that you ate too much food on a partcilar day, examine why you did it, and start fixing the problem by cutting back a little bit less each day, if necessary.

Losing weight - and maintaining weight - is a process. It will get easier as time goes by, if you give it time.

Snowed In

What do you do if you live in a part of the country that has had a snow-storm, and you can't get out of your house or apartment because the snow is up to your door and your city/town hasn't cleared the streets yet?

Well, you sit in your house and hope that you have enough food and water to last for at least a couple of days, and hopefully more. (Apparently, there are people who live in these snow-prone areas who don't stock up on food, and so if they're stuck in their homes they just go hungry, or brave the snow and get stranded somewhere.)

I used to live in Minnesota - first in a lil ol' town called Frazee and then in the big city...and I always had plenty of food on hand in case nature dumpbed a foot or so of snow all in one day.

And I also got plenty of exercise, at least in Minneapolis, because I lived on a corner lot and so had two long sidewalks to shovel. Yes, I could have got a snow blower...but shoveling gives more exercise.

But to get to the nub of this post...what do you do if you're in your home and you can't leave it for a couple of days...whether because of snow or because you have the flu or something.... so you sit and you sit and you get more bored and bored... does the food in your cupboards beckon you?

It's difficult not to eat alot when you're sick - assuming you have an appetite at all, of course. Nothing's better for soothing a sore throat than some nice hot soup...but after you've had the soup and the sore throat comes back, what's better than adding a nice coating of chocolate...

Well, sometimes you just have to pamper yourself. No need to feel guilty about it. Just make it clear in your own mind that you're wading through all that chocolate for medicinal purposes, and once you feel better, you'll return to your more appropriate small-portions food routine. You're not "breaking" your diet on these days - intermittent days - when you are pampering yourself, you're simply stoking the mental fires.

The Long Hours of the Night

When you weigh yourself before you go to bed at night - assuming you don't get up and snarf down a few candy bars afterwards - you will weigh the heaviest that you have that day.

And when you get up in the morning, and go the bathroom, you will way the lightest that you will, for that day.

So the night time is very important.

Most people can go to bed, and sleep straight through til morning. If they have to get up, it's only to visit the bathroom, and then they fall right back asleep again.

But what about you people out there with insomnia?

You're tired, you try to go to sleep, as soon as your head hits the pillow you're wide awake again. You get up, intending to read a book to find you're too tired to concentrate, so you try to go to bed again, only to feel wide awake again as soon as your head hits the pillow.

Now you're fed up and a bit angry, and you think since you can't sleep, you may as well have some chocolate cake, or the chicken you were saving for next day's lunch, or whatever.

You eat, you feel tired, you go to bed and perhaps this time you sleep...with that extra meal digesting in your tum.

Insomnia afflicts people in different ways, of course. Some insomniacs are wide awake all the time, and can read until they feel sleepy enough to go to bed. Others - perhaps stress-born insomniacs - feel wide awake when they are laying down, but too tired to do anything when they sitting up.

I don't really recommend taking a sleeping aid - although I admit that isn't my area of expertise. I know the basic facts, though -- all drugs will have some side effects, and some have the capability of being addictive.

On the other hand - you must get sleep. If you don't get at least 6 to 8 hours of restorative sleep, complications can ensue. So I leave that to discuss with your doctor, if you're finding it impossible to sleep.

But if you're a person who just suffers from bouts of insomnia and not the medically dehibilitating kind - which again needs the assistant of a doctor who specializes in that kind of thing - well, I have advice for you!

First, of course, is to refer to your journal, which you have been keeping since the day you started my program. (I hope.)

In that journal, you record everything - or at least everything pertinent. What you ate and when you ate it. How you felt afterwards. When you exercised and for how long. How you felt afterwards. And so on.

Once you've got a long history to study, you can go back and check to see if your current insomnia has any cause. On those days when you can't sleep - was there some particular food you ate that you ate this time? Did you exercise earlier or later than normal, and so on.

Usually most people have more energy in the mornings, so that's when they exercise. Perhaps you should try exercising at night, before going to bed. Try a little yoga to clear your mind if you're having stress at work or at home.

In these days of economic crisis, lots of people try to sleep at night and find their brains are racing like hamsters in a cage as they try to figure out if they're going to lose their job in the next day or not...and that's never a good thing. There, all I can advise you is to try to set up multiple income streams - turn a hobby of yours into a business from home, for example, to help cushion the blow of losing your primary job.

Although we must hope that our politicians will finally get the economy turned around and start making jobs instead of destroying them. (But that's a rant for a different blog!)

Become a Creature of (Good) Habit

If you watch golf, basketball or baseball, you'll notice that the players have a certain ritual they follow. Before a golfer tees off, he or she always has the same routine. Before a basketball player takes a foul shot, he or she always has the same routine. Before a baseball - or softball - player is ready for the pitcher to throw the ball, they have a certain routine they go through - Nomar Garcia Parra used to tighten his gloves over and over again, Ichrio Suzuki holds the bat out toward the pitcher, then tugs up his sleeve and gets into his stance, and on and on.

If they ever once get out of that rhythm, or routine...disaster follows. Take for example Tiger Woods, who has been working on a new golf swing for the last year and still hasn't gotten it down right. (Though with him his woes may be all psychological rather than physical.)

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, as I watch the 51-year-old Fred Couples falling apart on this last day at the Northern Trust Open! is that you also must become a creature of habit - and break any bad habits that you have.

Until I hit 40, I could eat, and more importantly drink, anything I wanted, and what I drank was Pepsi. A lot of it. And I did this out of habit. I couldn't get started in the morning at the computer unless I had a Pepsi, and every time I took a break to go out for a bike ride (the joys of self-employment) I had to have a Pepsi when I returned to the computer.

Then came age 40 and the changing of my metabolism. I knew it was coming - it happens to 990% of the people in the world - but I still resent it and think it unfair. But, you've got to deal with it. So I had to break my habit, and it was hard, I don't deny it. Because psychologically I was angry that I had to give up something I loved, despte the fact that I knew that that's "just the way it was."

So I had to break one habit, and to do that I replaced it with another habit. Now - although I still have a couple of Pepsis a day, I sit down that the computer with a glass of water. Not quite the same, but the weight stays off....

You Are Responsbile For Your Health

A few months ago, I read an article that said that 70% of Americans have no idea of what the prescription medications they take, do.

You go to a doctor for a problem you're having, and more often than not the doctor says either, a) Take two of these and call me in the morning

or

b) Take two of these for the rest of your life.

And you start taking the pills and have some side effects. Do you go to the doctor and say, "Am I supposed to feel like this aftr I take these pills?" Too many people don't. They just keep taking them and taking them, regardless of how they make a person feel, or long after they dont' need to take them anymore.

(Then of course, a lot of people leave these old prescriptions around where their kids can get at them. Why kids would think they could get high on some unknown pill from their parent's medicine cabinet is beyond me, but apparently it happens all the time. SO trash all those pills you no longer need, regardless of how smart and responsible you think your kid might be! They have friends, don't they? You never know!)

Anyway, to come to the nub of my post, while it is important that you trust your doctor and follow his or her instructions...that doctor has to earn your trust first.

And the only way for him or her to do that is for you to educate yourself on whatever illness or condition your doctor says you have. Research the medicines you're being told to take - and if you are having side effects, ask your doctor about them.

(My mom, who has congestive heart failure, could walk along slow, but fine. One of her medications was doubled in strength, and within a week she had to start walking with a cane because her balance was going. The timing was too soon to be a coincidence, so I told her doctor and her medication was adjusted, and now she's fine again. Well, as fine as she can be. If you are diagnosed with high blood pressure, take your medication every damn day and don't even think about "curing" yourself with natural remedies - lest you end up with congestive heart failure, too.!)

Many medical books are written in language that the layperson can't understand, but there are also books out there written for the layperson, and you need to read those and educate yourself about your health.

No Gadgets Needed - Don't Waste Your Money!

I'm watching the first round of the Northern Trust Open, and one of the advertisements being shown is for the "Perfect Situp." A plastic cradle type of thing that is supposed to make sure you do your situps correctly.

Please.

You don't need the "Perfect Situp." You don't need the "Perfect Pushup." You don't need the "Shaker Weight."

Even machines like the Bowflex...you don't really need it...although that admittedly would be nice to have...

But you need no equipment to do a situp. You just do it. You need no equipment to do a pushup. Paying 50 to a hundred dollars, whatever it is they are asking for it, is just a waste of money.

Here's the question - I've advised you to pick up 50 pounds worth of free weights and a bench with a leg exercise add on. Have you done so?

Good.

Now, are you using it every other day?

If you are not, then buying new toys like the shaker weight or the perfect situp are not going to magically cause you to want to start exercising. They will gather dust in your closet, also.

But you must exercise. Well, unless you have a physical job to begin with, so that you're just naturally getting weight training - if you're a farmer and carry heavy bags of seed around, or something of that nature. But if you have a desk job, or work from home, as I do, you must exercise.

"Yeah, but how?" you say in annoyed tones.

The solution is many-fold.

1. If you've exercised a few times, than missed every day for a month or even two or more, do not despair. Shrug your shoulders and say, "Okay, time to get on the stick."

2. You must exercise your willpower as well as your muscles. You can strengthen your willpower - but that takes effort, too.

3. Make exercising a habit. What part of the day do you have the most energy? In the morning when you first get up. During lunch. After you get home from work. At night? Choose one time - you must exercise at that time every other day. And when I say exercise, I mean lift weights.

4. It does not take 30 minutes a day to lift weights, For our purposes - which is to strengthen and tone, not pack on muscle - 15 minutes is adequate. You go through your reps once - for both arm and leg exercises, rest, then go through them again. It won't take more than 15 minutes.

Then drink some water as you move on to other things - no high calorie or caffeine laden drinks.

5. Realize that it's all a process. Try to analyze your feelings as you exercise - don't you feel good? When you can add an extra 5 reps to one set, or an extra 5 pounds...doesn't that give you a feeling of accomplishment?

Exercising is actually kind of fun. Do it for the sake of having fun, and you'll find out what I mean.

Move It Or Lose It

Yesterday was the first time in 3 months that the weather was good enough for me to take my bike out for a ride, here in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Temp was in the 50s and the wind had died down. (That's an event in itself.)

I live on a small hill in the middle of a bowl - so in order to get out of this bowl I have to climb another small hill, and then in order to get back to my house, I have to go up that hill.

Basically, a lot of hills. But hills with slight grades, nothing onerous.

So I was a bit surprised to find that by the time I returned to the hill to get to my house, I huffed and puffed on the way up, and really felt it in my legs.

After 3 months of being indoors and taking no exercise but a daily run up and down my staircase (repeated 5 times) I had certainly lost some fitness. So if the weather gets bad again...I'll be doing the staircase run 10 times instead of just 5.

But that's the thing. If you spend two weeks exercising, you'll start to be fit. If you take off a week, you'll lose some of that fitness. How much you lose depends on how fit you were to begin with. And of course your body helps too. If you are not overweight, just lost a little tone, it is easy to get back in shape. If you've not only not exercised but also gained weight, then you have to work a little harder.

Don't be afraid of hills, by the way, if you're a biker or even a walker. There is no quicker way to get in shape than to attaack that hill. Or get in shape gradually.

Basically, all you do is choose a hill, preferably a steep one but any one will do. Then ride your bike all the way up it as fast as you can. When you get where you absolutely can't pedal anymore, return to the bottom of the hill, rest for about 5 minutes, then try it again. You probably won't be able to get up as far as you had the first time. No problem. Return to the bottom and rest. Then try it one more time.

And that's your workout. Wait a day, to give your legs time to recover, and then go to the hill and repeat. After a month, I guarantee you'll be soaring to the top of that hill as if it wasn't there.

The Media Strikes Again

It's hard for women, let alone girls, to have a sensible attititude towards their appearance when the media constantly bombards us with what we should look like, and the consequences of not looking as we should.

Just saw this on a site called The Chart.

FitFriday: 'Skinny Can' Diet Pepsi angers eating disorder activists
It's all about liquid diets this week. A new Pepsi can is taking heat and a diet memoir by a pop star's boyfriend about losing 40 pounds while drinking every day is causing a stir. Has the dieting message gone too far? Comment below.

Skinny can causes fat debate
Diet soda is getting a bad rap this week in health headlines.

But, there’s a different kind of controversy about the new Diet Pepsi, marketed in a slender, cylindrical can, which will make its debut at New York's Mercedes-Benz Fall Fashion Week, which began Thursday

This venue is “rife with eating disorders” said the National Eating Disorders association in a press release.

Pepsi refers to its new Skinny Can can as “taller,” “attractive,” and “stylish.”

“PepsiCo’s comments are both thoughtless and irresponsible,” said Lynn Grefe, the association’s president. “Their shameful misdirection is further exemplified by tying the launch of this offensive marketing campaign to Fashion Week, where women’s body types are atypical at best … and unhealthy as to be fatal at worst.”

Is its campaign offensive to you?

The Drunk Diet
Lady Gaga’s boyfriend has landed a dieting book deal, according to the New York Post. Lüc Carl will write about how he lost 40 pounds while drinking every day, based on his blog The Drunk Diet.

Don’t expect a how-to book, Carl, a bar owner, warns on his blog.

“After reading countless books and being told time after time that it’s impossible to lose weight while drinking alcohol heavily, Lüc Carl decided to take matters into his own hands. Join him on his journey to lose 40 pounds, without giving up his principles of being a hard drinking party maker,” according to his blog.

Exercise improves overweight kids’ math skills
Overweight children put on regular physical activity improved their math scores, according to a study published in Health Psychology.

A group of 171 overweight, sedentary kids were split into activity and non-activity groups. Those who began to exercise scored higher on cognitive tests that measured planning and academic skills such as math and reading.

The magnetic resonance imaging also showed that the kids who exercised had increased brain activity in the area of the brain associated with complex thinking and decision making.

The more they exercised, the better the result, researchers at Georgia Health Sciences University found. The kids’ intelligence scores increased an average 3.8 points in those exercising 40 minutes per day after school for three months.

Trust your scale, not your mirror

When people first start altering their eating habits (even subtly), and exercising, in an effort to lose weight, I always advise them not to step on the scale for the first two weeks - because it takes at least two weeks before that first pound disappears.

However, after that, using a scale is acceptable, because you want to monitor your weight loss progress, and you want to know when you can stop "losing weight" and start "maintaining weight." (Which also must be done gradually.)

And that's where the scale comes in, because the mirror is unreliable. According to studies, a thin woman can look in a mirror and see herself weighing 10 pounds more than she really does, whereas a morbidly obese person can look in a mirror and think he weighs 10 pounds or more less than he really does. (I use the pronouns advisedly. I doubt if a woman ever thinks she looks too thin, really, and I doubt if a guy ever thinks he looks too fat.)

The point is, there's psychology involved. The eyes transmit images to the brain, and sometimes the brain lies.

The scale never lies.

So find out what your appropriate weight to height ratio is for your body frame. That is your goal. It does't matter how heavy you think you look, if your scale says you've reached that weight, then that's the weight you want to stay at. (I'm talking about normal people. Professional athletes have different criteria.)

I say this because, pace the obesity epidemic, more girls and women are anoreix than overweight, and that's the epidemic I'm concerned about.

Food, food, glorious food

Although I've said - and will say again and again - that you don't need to cut out any foods, just eat smaller portions - that isn't exactly true.

There are some things you just shouldn't eat, some things you just shouldnt' drink.

Fruit rollups, for example. I dont think adults eat this stuff, it's mostly a kid's snack - but they're all sugar and they're all ridiculous. Give your kid an actual apple, orange or other fruit, not this processed garbage.

The same goes for juice boxes. They are nothing but sugar. If you want your kid to drink juice - give them real juice, with no extra sugar. Orange juice, or better still, grape juice. Start them young, before they acquire a sugar tooth, and they'll love it as they grow older.

And you should wean yourself off pop and on to this type of juice, too. OF course - diet pop is a no no. Drink real pop if you're going to drink pop. (There's been a few studies that say that diet pop is bad for you, the artificial sweetener is, well...artifial!)

Then there's your cookies. Fresh baked cookies come out of the oven nice and soft...and if they last more than a day they'll become a bit crunchy. (But still delicious.)

But store bought cookies are already crunchy. If you buy "soft" cookies, be aware that there's some kind of chemical in them to make them soft, and the less chemicals you consume, the better! If you want soft cookies - and hwo doesn't - make fresh baked ones.

Do pay attention to the labels on the food you buy. Not necessarily for the amount of calories they contain - although you should pay a bit of attention to them - but to the amount of chemicals in them.

In future posts I'll dissect the chemicals that are standard in processed food. Why are they in our food and what do they do?

Keep your eyes on the journey, not the prize

It doesn't take a long time to lose weight, it does take a long time to lose it.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be patient during the weight loss process. Your goal is to lose a pound a week, or at the most 2 pounds - that is the only healthy speed at which to lose weight.

And as you lose weight, it's only natural that you look to the future, and think, in 20 more weeks I'll have reached my goal...I can celebrate! And even if you don't think that consciously, you'll be thinking that subconsciously. There's an end to your quest...and at that end you can resume your lifestyle before you started on that quest.

Not so.

Your change in lifestyle must be permanent - if you want to permanently be at your healthy weight.

Which means that, even subsconsciously, you musn't obsess on the "end date" of the weight loss portion of your new lifestyle. Once you do achieve the weight that you desire, you can only verrrrrrrrrry gradualy start adding an extra portion or so to your diet. You must allow your body time to get used to its new weight. At the beginning, your body (and I'm anthropomorphizing) will want to return to its old weight...the weight it was used to being at. You have to give it time to get used to being at your new weight.

If you start adding two extra portions instead of just one, if you stop exercising, your body's metabolism will do all it can to return to the normality of that old weight.

Maintaining a healthy weight is a lifelong journey, but it should not be an onerous one, since you do not have to give up any of your favorite foods. You simply must consume them in moderation.

Book: Beyond the Limits: A Woman's Triumph on Everest, by Stacy Allison

A new feature, I'll share information on books that feature "adventurous" women: athletes, mountain climbers, scuba divers, explorers, etc. There will be one or two of these posts a week.

Beyond the Limits: A Woman's Triumph on Everest, by Stacy Allison with Peter Carlin
Little, Brown and Compaby, 1993
282 pages plus 8 pages of b&w photos, no index

Description
At 29,028 feet, Mount Everest is the world's highest, most challenging mountain, looming in our imagination as a monument to the impossible; for every three climbers who reach its elusive summit, one dies trying. But for one moment in 1988, Stacy Allison stood alone on this mythic peak - the only spot on Earth where she couldn't climb any higher. At that moment, Allison became the first American woman ever to reach the summit of Everest.

Stacy Allison is America's premier female climber, a woman on many triumphs, both on the mountain and off. Beyond the Limits is the tale of her journey upward. It is a thrilling account about breaking through the barriers of a traditional male domain, and a moving personal story about the struggle out of the trap of domestic violence - of how she summoned the same spirit and courage that brought her to the top of the world to finally walk out of her abusive marriage. It is, ultimately, her testimony to the power of a vision and a purpose in the midst of despair and uncertainty.

In Beyond the Limits, Stacy Allison provides a rare close-up of the elite mountain-climbing world: the idieosyncratic dedicated individuals who make up the international climbing community; the political and strategic maneuvering before and during an expedition, the grueling training and single-minded ambition; and the constant danger and pressing threat of death.

Stacy describes how life feels at 29,028 feet, when cells don't regenerate and the body literally begins to waste away; what she thinks about while clinging to the side of a granite face by her fingers or when an avalanche comes crashing down on top of her; what it's like to look death in the face but refuse to give up.

Beyond the Limits is a sispenseful, triumphant adventure story, a spirited tribute to the determination of one woman, and an uplifting primer for anyone who has ever faced a mountain - physical or metaphorical - and reached for its summit.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Blown Away
2. Heaven on Earth
3. The Top of America
4. Chasing Dreams
5. Death and Survival
6. The Road to Base Camp
7. Stranded Hopes
8. Because I'm Here
9. Building the Route
10. Nowhere Else to Climb
11. Chasing the Goddess
12. Anything is Possible

Monday is here again

Every day is a new day, every week is a new week...of the rest of your life.

That's a cliche, but it's also true.

It's never too late to make a new year's resolution - the new year starting the day after you make it and lasting 365 days.

So if you have tried my program...eaten too much during the hype leading up to the Super Bowl and feel like you have no willpower, don't despair.

And it may well be that you have no willpower, yet. But willpower is like any other muscle. Exercise it, and it will get stronger.

Today is also weight training day.

Take today as an evaluation day as well. Step on the scale if you must. Don't despair if you've gained a couple of pounds - if you've been weight training three times a week. If you haven't been weight training, and you've gained weight, then you instead of cutting down your portions - ever so gradually - you've been increasing them.

If you've been following the program and you haven't gained or lost weight, don't despair, either. The fact that you haven't gained any weight is a positive! Continue wiht the program, and within another week or so, you will see your weight drop by as couple of pounds.

Patience. Patience. Patience. When it comes to losing weight, and maintaining weight once you've lost it (and I always put the two of those together because they are inseparable) patience is the watchword. With patience, and a plan, everything can be accomplished.

Sexist commercials during the Super Bowl

I'm watching the Super Bowl. Commercials for the Super Bowl cost a million dollars for 30 seconds, so you think we'd get some quality commercials.

But as far as I'm concerned, most of them have been garbage.

If you pay attention to politics, you know that the Dems are calling for "civility" from the Republicans and others. So they know - or at least they believe - that what people in the public eye say, what people in the public eye do - effects other people for good or ill.

So let's assume that's true. What are the Super Bowl commercials telling the impressionable young boys that are watching it? (As well as impressionable young girls?)

Well, we've had Eminem - an animated Eminem - exuding arrogance and disdain for authority - strutting on the TV screen, and shoving someone off a building roof.

Then we've had Teleflora.com, with a young man sending an email to his girlfriend praising her "rack."

And there have been a couple of offensive Pepsi Max commercials. One of them ends with a man looking at a pretty blond female jogger appreciatively. His girlfriend throws a Pepsi can at his head, he ducks, it hits the other woman in the head and she collapses to the ground, writhing in pain. The couple, instead of going to her aid, run away. Obviously it's meant to be funny, but I thought it was revolting. Way to show young people watching the Super Bowl that if you accidently do someone an injury, the way to handle it is to run away and leave them there, suffering.

What's With All the Paunches?

I'm watching the Phoenix Open on TV - it had been on the Golf Channel and is now moving over to CBS for the final few hours...and it will be on again tomorrow morning, since they had some delays due to the frozen course.

Golf is funner to play than to watch, but Phil Mickelson is a favorite of mine and I had wanted to see him do well today. And of course, he's not. Missed a par from 4 feet away, then bogied the same hole from 2 feet away!

But what's really got my ire up is I'm watching these guys walk around the golf course, and every single one of them has got a paunch! (Not to mention wearing really baggy slacks, so annoying for those of us who want a little eye candy. Hey - if the woman golfers oblige with their shorts, why shouldn't men oblige with some tighter pants? Well, of course, they don't have to.)

Anyway, Phil of course has always been a little overweight, but every single one of these guys - who are supposed to be athletes, eh, have their little belly bumps. Some larger than others, of course.

I even seem to remember Tiger, last week, seemed to have a few extra pounds around the middle.

But no one says anything. After all, they're guys. But let women golf players walk around carrying an extra 20 pounds, and oh, my, they'd never hear the end of it.

Strength Training Past 50

Don't be taken aback by this title...I just plucked it off the shelf. It applies to you equally well if you're 16, 20, 40, or 60.

I've given you a list of a few exercises to do, but you might be wary about trying them since I've just described them in the barest possible fashion.

Training with weights must be done right - otherwise you can strain a muscle, or worse, do permanent injury to yourself. (Of course it's hard to do that with the light weights I advocate you use - for dumbbells, 10 pounds, and only up to 50 punds for dummbells.)

Nevertheless, it would behoove you to see photos of these exercises "in action" so that you know you'e doing them right. Also, by browsing through a weight training book, you can also see other exercises that you can use...since doing the same thing day after day can get kind of boring.

So I'm using Strength Training Past 50 as an example, although there are also resources on the web you can try, as for example:
About.com's Weight Training section

http://weighttraining.about.com/od/exercisegallery/ss/benchpress.htm


So, what does Strength Training Past 50: Your Guide to Fitness and Performance, by Wayne Westcott and THomas Baechle have to say?

Why free weights as opposed to machines like Bowflex?
The unrestrained movemnent patterns permitted by free weights equipoment allow your joints to move through their full range, both increasing your flexivbility and improving your overall muscle coordination.

They are also a lot cheaper!

Leg exercises
Leg Extension - for quadricrps (tops of thighs)
Leg Curl - for hamstrings (bottom of thighs, the place where all the flab goes first)
Leg Press (entire leg - need a leg machine to do this)
Hip Adduction - Another machine exercise - but a great exercise if your gym has one
Heel Raise - For your calves. No machine needed
Dummbell squats
Dumbbell step ups
Dumbbell lunge

For your stomach
Sit-ups
Dumbbell side bends

Arm and chest exercises
Very important for women, as this is typically are weakest area. As we get older the breasts tend to sag...keep up upright with chest presses, lateral raises, pullovers and so on.

As I've said before, women - you don't need to worry about developing humongous muscles. This isn't going to happen unless you work out 3 hours a day and take supplements. What you will accomplish is replace your ruler thin arms with a nice, muscular curve, improve your posture and overall fitness, and just generally feel better.

It's All in the Numbers

and in the weight training - remember today is workout day!

When you buy food these days, it's perhaps a habit to look at the label and see how many calories it has. (And, for cerain people, how many carbs, for others, how much sodium)

Lots of people like to know precisely where they're at at all times - they count calories all day, all week, all year. And that's fine if you have that kind of mindset and it doesn't feel like a burden. (As you know, my own philosophy is don't count calories. Start at a baseline where you know you eat too much - a logical conclusion since you're overweight, eh? and start cutting down portions gradually, painlessly.

But knowing the numbers can be helpful.

Let's say you're on a 2,500 calorie a day diet. And let's say that at 10 pm, you've only consumed 2,000 calories. And let's say you typically stay up til midnight, and always get the munchies around 11.

Well...since you've still got 500 carolries to spare, you can eat some kind of food...as long as it has only 500 calories. Heck, that's a bowl of icecream! (But only ice cream - remember if you add hot fudge, or fruit and nuts, or jelly as the British apparently do, that adds to the calorie intake.)

Yet I advise you not to eat after 7 pm, or if you do eat, stifle the cravings with carrots rather than ice cream. Why?

Well, because when you're trying to lose weight, it's better to leave off those extra 500 calories entirely if you possibly can. And although ice cream tastes great, it has a tendency to wake you up, when you want to be able to go to sleep.

And food breaks down differently in your body based on your activity level. That's why, for example, sumo wresters from Japan eat a huge lunch-time meal - then go take a two hour nap.

Of course you're not in that league, and a small bowl of ice cream is not going to transform over night into 5 pounds of fat...butstill, it's something to consider.

While your goal is to lose weight - no sugary snacks after 7 pm. Once you've reached the maintenance level, nothing wrong with a small bowl...