DEMOCRATIC DEBATE

Wow... what a debate on Tuesday night.
I am a Conservative Republican therefore I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Democratic Mental Midgets yelling at each other and accusing each of other of various wild crimes and indiscretions.
If you are a Democrat - my guess is that the debate may not have been very enjoyable.


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CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT A HOAX

One thing that has been constant over the four+ billion years that Earth has been around. The climate is always changing. Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that the climate change is caused by human events, and that humans can control the climate. Even the hysterical hoaxers dropped the idea of Global Warming when it was seen that the temperatures on Earth were not rising. Just as thirty years ago they dropped the Global Cooling hysterics when they discovered that the earth was not heading into an immediate ice age. It is very difficult to be hysterical about something that is not happening. Global warming may be a hoax but not Local Warming. Local warming is the phenomenon where a specific geographic location experiences warmer weather. Studies have shown that this phenomenon is caused by... summer.  Yesterday I experienced some Local Warming. The temperature was only 91° F, but with the so-called heat index...It felt like 106°F. Toward the end of my urban hike yesterday, it became increasingly obvious that a thunderstorm was going to blanket Chicago. It seemed that within a few seconds that the temperature dropped 20° F just as it started to rain. I took shelter indoors for about 30 minutes before I resumed my trip and completed my ten mile hike.

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This 99 minute session took place in the early morning on Sunday.

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This 99 minute session took place in the early afternoon on Sunday.

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Your Food Diary For:

Sunday, July 24, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Quaker Oatmeal Blueberries & Cream	520	104	8	12	680	44
	520	104	8	12	680	44
L U N C H
Real Foods - Corn Thins Organic	575	100	0	13	325	0
Read 4 Bean Salad	300	65	0	5	1,500	40
Campbell's Manhattan Clam Chowder	240	36	6	10	1,600	6
	1,115	201	6	28	3,425	46
D I N N E R
Smoked Bbq Beef Brisket	400	8	34	18	678	0
Mashed Potatoes	200	28	8	3	452	0
Macaroni and Cheese	200	14	14	6	324	0
	800	50	56	27	1,454	0
S N A C K S
Nestle - Dark Chocolate Bar	220	23	13	3	0	0
	220	23	13	3	0	0
Totals	2,655	378	83	70	5,559	90
Your Daily Goal	5,742	718	191	288	2,300	215
Remaining	3,087	340	108	218	-3,259	125
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 3,812 extra calories from exercise today

If every day were like today...   You'd weigh 185.2 lbs in 5 weeks     

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
STAR TRAC ELLIPTICAL	99	1,163
STAR TRAC ELLIPTICAL	99	1,164
Walking	134	1,910
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-425
Daily Total / Goal	333 / 30	3,812 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	1467 / 210	12,075 / 4,130

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LOOKING FOR A DEFINITION OF STUPID?

By Alyssa Canobbio

Published July 23, 2016

Washington Free Beacon                

Secretary of State John Kerry said in Vienna on Friday that air conditioners and refrigerators are as big of a threat to life as the threat of terrorism posed by groups like the Islamic State. The Washington Examiner reported that Kerry was in Vienna to amend the 1987 Montreal Protocol that would phase out hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, from basic household and commercial appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators, and inhalers.“As we were working together on the challenge of [ISIS] and terrorism,” Kerry said. “It’s hard for some people to grasp it, but what we–you–are doing here right now is of equal importance because it has the ability to literally save life on the planet itself.”

FIRST DAY OF SPRING ONE MONTH EARLY

The actual first day of spring will be March 20. Yesterday in Chicago we were treated to 'coming attractions.'  Apparently those 36 mph winds of Friday blew away the last vestiges of the last polar vortex and brought Chicago some warmer weather from the south. The cloudless sky was deep blue, the temperatures were approaching 60 degrees and it seemed that everyone in the city was out and about. I was out for three hours enjoying what became a 15 mile walk throughout the city. The sidewalks were quite crowded with people enjoying the day. The unseasonably mild spring day was apparently only a one day phenomenon as today, Sunday, the temperatures are dipping into the high 30's. It has been a long time since I took one of my 10+ mile jaunts through the city - it felt great to be outdoors again. I had become quite used to my elliptical machine workouts. And although a 2 hour elliptical machine workout offers a great opportunity to catch up on netflix videos - nothing beats being out and about in a beautiful city.

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 This photo was taken in front of my favorite retail store in Chicago and shows off my recent haircut.

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Your Food Diary For:

Saturday, February 20, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Quaker - Grits - Instant - Original, 5 packet (28 g)	500	110	0	10	1,550	0
Roundy's - Honey Nut Tasteeos, 2 1/4 cup	330	66	5	6	420	27
	830	176	5	16	1,970	27
L U N C H
Whole Foods - Banana Chips, 0.25 cup	150	17	10	1	0	10
WHOLE FOODS. 8497 - CHERRY VANILLA GRANOLA, 110 g (3/4 cup)	480	80	14	10	120	30
	630	97	24	11	120	40
D I N N E R
EARTHBOUND FARM - ORGANIC BABY SPINACH, 85 g (approx 3 oz, two cups)	20	0	0	2	65	0
365 - Hearts of Palm: Salad Cut, 1 cup	50	10	0	4	580	0
Louis Kemp - Crab Delights Leg Style, 3 legs (85g)	70	11	0	6	430	1
Eggs - Hard Boiled - Large, 1 egg	78	1	5	6	62	1
	218	22	5	18	1,137	2
S N A C K S
WHOLE FOODS 7700 - ORGANIC DATE PIECES w/OAT FLOWER, 60 g (2 TBSP)	180	45	0	2	15	33
	180	45	0	2	15	33
Totals	1,858	340	34	47	3,242	102
Your Daily Goal	5,051	631	168	253	2,300	189
Remaining	3,193	291	134	206	-942	87
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 3,121 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
Walking, 5.0 mph	183	3,238
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-117
Daily Total / Goal	184 / 30	3,121 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	839 / 210	13,445 / 4,130

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total calories consumed 1858 calories

total calories burned (fifteen mile walk) 3238 calories

total net 1380 calorie defecit

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fitbit day 171

26061 steps  

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This is the 'panoramic' view taken with my phone of the Chicago skyline. Taken from the Adler Planetarium waterfront

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THE 3500 CALORIE MYTH

This was part of an interesting article that I found on WebMD.com.  I actually had thought that the 3500 calorie rule was 'settled science'  (you know, like global warming....)

OK, I am absolutely not being serious here.... THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SETTLED SCIENCE.  Unless, your scientific beliefs are based on some kind of quasi religion, science is never settled. (If you think science can be settled, go back to your 9th grade general science textbook and look up how many planets there were back in the old days - a book published today will give a different answer.  SPOILER ALERT: Although the new settled science will list one planet less, no planets were destroyed by the Borg or Darth Vader's Death Star.) As new discoveries, are made, so-called settled science can become quite unsettled.  If anyone argues a scientific point and uses as their argument that the science is settled - you can be sure that you are talking to Al Gore or a left-wing college professor or someone equally ignorant. The most agreed upon scientific theories are born from research not self-important guru politicians or polls. The next time someone tries to prove a point advising you that 97% of scientists agree on anything - just know that you are talking to someone who does not know the first thing about science. Science is determined by hypothesis, and experimentation - not the editorial page of the New York Times. That is way more pontificating than necessary for today... Today, I am going to discuss something that I admit I did think was settled science - and like much of settled science - research has unsettled it.

NEWS FLASH....FROM WebMD (I have reproduced just the beginning of the article from their website)
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Do You Have to Cut 3,500 Calories to Lose a Pound?
The idea that dieters need to cut this many calories -- with diet, exercise or both -- to lose 1 pound of weight comes from an influential scientific paper published in 1958. Max Wishnofsky, MD, a doctor who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., tried to sum up everything we knew about how calories are stored by the body. He concluded that when the body is in a steady caloric state -- meaning it isn’t fasting or starving -- extra calories will be stored as fat, and it would take 3,500 extra calories to create a pound of fat. In that same steady state, he also said it would take a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound of weight. For decades, the “Wishnofsky Rule” has been math that determined dieters live by.

The trouble is that it’s wrong.

The 3,500-calorie rule doesn’t work because the body adjusts to weight loss. It quickly decreases the number of calories it needs to maintain its new, lighter size, says Corby Martin, PhD, director of the Ingestive Behavior Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. That means weight loss slows down over time. People who expect to drop a pound for every 3,500 calories they cut will soon become frustrated when the scale doesn’t cooperate.

Let’s say a dieter knows they need to eat 2,500 calories a day to maintain their current weight. But they want to slim down. So they decide to shave 500 calories off their daily intake. According to the Wishnofsky Rule, after about a week of doing that, they should lose a pound.

“For the first week or two, the 3,500 calorie-per-pound rule kind of works, roughly, but after the first couple of weeks it doesn’t work,” Martin says.

Here’s why: In 3 or 4 weeks, you need less food to maintain that new, svelter shape.

The good news is that researchers have been working hard to update Wishnofsky’s formula. There are new calculators, like the Body Weight Planner available from the NIH and the Weight Loss Predictor from Pennington. Give them a few key details, like your sex, age, weight, height, activity level, and the date you want to hit your goal, and they’ll give you a more realistic daily calorie goal to get you there.

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In the next couple of days we are going to explore the BODY WEIGHT PLANNER from NIH as well as the WEIGHT LOSS PREDICTOR from Pennington.
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The studies that prove that 3500 calories do not always result in a net gain or loss remind me of a comment that I have heard Dennis Prager, radio host, columnist and book author, say many times on the radio.  "Ever since I attended college, I have been convinced that either “studies” confirm what common sense suggests or that they are mistaken."  Most of us already knew that the 3500 calorie rule could not have been exactly right.  Common sense should have told us, as so many of us already knew from our own experiences, that the 3500 calorie rule was simply was not completely true.
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Your Food Diary For:

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Safeway Eating Right - Granola Cereal, 1.0 cup	330	66	4	8	300	21
Malt O Meal - Honey Nut Scooters, 150 g	600	120	8	15	1,050	45
	930	186	11	23	1,350	66
L U N C H
American Cheese - Kraft Single Milk..mine, 2 slice (21g)	140	4	9	8	440	2
Eggs - Grade A Large, 3 egg (50g)	210	0	15	18	210	0
Kroger - Deli Sliced Ham, 3 slices	45	2	2	8	488	2
S. Rosen's - 100% Whole Wheat Bread, 1 slice	100	19	1	5	190	3
	495	25	27	39	1,328	7
D I N N E R
Doctor Kracker - Pumpkin Seed Cheddar Crisp Bread, 8 Piece	800	104	36	32	1,200	0
Campbells Home Style Soup - Italian Wedding Soup, 2.5 cup	250	33	6	15	1,025	10
	1,050	137	42	47	2,225	10
S N A C K S
ROBERTO - GRISSINI TORINESI (BREADSTICKS), 16 BREADSTICKS	140	22	3	4	280	0
the Fresh Market - Cranberry Oat Sweet & Savory Crisps, 40 -10 crisp	400	80	8	10	575	30
	540	102	11	14	855	30
Totals	3,015	450	91	122	5,758	113
Your Daily Goal	2,564	320	85	129	2,300	96
Remaining	-451	-129	-5	7	-3,457	-17
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 634 extra calories from exercise today

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Your Exercise Diary for:

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
MATRIX TREADMILL	75	730
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-96
Daily Total / Goal	76 / 30	634 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	261 / 210	4,739 / 4,130

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total calories consumed 3015 calories

total calories (75 minutes treadmill) 730 calories

total net calories 2285 calories

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fitbit day 124

14747 steps
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CROP CIRCLES

I found this explanation of CROP CIRCLES at the wikipedia.com website

A crop circle or crop formation is a pattern created by flattening a crop, usually a cereal but incidents have been recorded for rapeseed, grass or vegetation such as fields of thistle, blackberries and reeds. A commentary in The Guardian noted that "it is still open to dispute whether some are caused by natural phenomena or all created by human hand," but crop circles, as Taner Edis, professor of physics at Truman State University puts it, "all fall within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes." Although obscure natural causes or alien origins of crop circles are suggested by fringe theorists,^[there is no scientific evidence for such explanations, and human causes are consistent for all crop circles.

The number of crop circles has substantially increased from the 1970s to current times. There has been almost no serious scientific study of them. Circles in the United Kingdom are not spread randomly across the landscape but appear near roads, areas of medium to dense population, and cultural heritage monuments, such as Stonehenge or Avebury, and always in areas of easy access. In 1991, two hoaxers, Bower and Chorley, admitted to creating many circles throughout England after one of their circles was publicly certified by a notable circle investigator, as impossible to be made by human hand.

Formations are usually created overnight, although some are reported to have appeared during the day. In contrast to crop circles or crop formations, archeological remains can cause cropmarks in the fields in the shapes of circles and squares, but they do not appear overnight, and they are always in the same places every year.

There was a time in my life when I was fascinated by crop circles.  When I was in my early teens, back in the 1970's, I think I did used to think that the source of these mysterious formations found all over the world might be the work of aliens.  Please understand that at the time, I was young and much more naive than I might be today.  It was somewhat of a disappointment to learn that these amazing pieces of weird art could be made so easily by simple humans overnight in a farmer's field.  

The reason that I am discussing CROP CIRCLES today is to explain my fascination with the MapMyWalk application on my phone which records the route one takes during a walk, jog or run.  I have been having great fun, walking 5, 10, 15 and so far, once even 20 miles - knowing that this application was dutifully recording my route which I could review at the end.  I discovered that if I went a bit overboard in my route, I could create some interesting images.  Two days ago, I was in a park adjacent to Navy Pier and there were five water fountains. (although the water was turned off for the season)  I made an effort to carefully take my steps around the fountains and this is the pattern that I created:

As part of my 15 mile walk yesterday, was this detour at Milton Lee Olive Park, which is adjacent to Navy Pier in Chicago. I created these digital 'crop circles' which are only visible electronically, and only visible when viewing them on the MapMyWalk application on my phone.  My walks have been fun.  I have seen parts of Chicago that I had never really noticed before.  In fact, this entire park where I made my 'crop circles' is a place that I think I had been to just once before in nearly 20 years.  I think back to the hours and hours and hours I spent walking on a treadmill when I first started to exercise as part of my weight loss program - I was really missing out.  Walking outdoors is great fun.  Sure, you can't bingewatch a netflix TV show - but you can experience life.   When the weather gets to be too cold for outdoors walking, that will be the time to return indoors.  For the time being, netflix can wait.

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 Saturday MENU

breakfast  steel cut oatmeal                                                          600 calories
lunch        granola bar, apples, Luna Brand mini bars (2)           700 calories
dinner       Macintosh apples, banana chips, granola, date pcs    830 calories
SNACK   cacao chocolate chips, Honey Nut Cheerios               722 calories

TOTAL CALORIES CONSUMED 2853 CALORIES

MapMyWalk 16.125 miles, avg 14 minute miles,  3 hours & 45 minutes        3859 calories
The application actually showed 18.25 miles. There were some parts of yesterday's hike
where the application did not quite know where it was.  The same confusion sometimes
happens to my Garmin GPS when surrounded by tall buildings.  Nevertheless, it is easy to 
assumed that I averaged 14 minute miles, and I know that I was walking for 3 hours and 45 minutes straight... The math works out to a minimum of 16.125 miles travelled.

CALORIES BURNED 3859 CALORIES

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Saturday net calories 1006 calorie defecit

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Chicago Skyline on a beautiful blue sky sunny day. 

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fitbit day 38

38161 steps

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Two days ago, on Saturday morning, I weighed myself and I discovered that I weighed 221 lbs.  Two weeks ago, on the Saturday preceding my Tuesday flight to California for the Half Dome hike my weight was 226.8 lbs.  Since my successful summit, I have been a hiking/walking/calorie burning machine.  I have discovered a new joy in life. Simply walking with backpack strapped on me.  Walking fast. Walking anywhere. Walking to discover (and re-discover) new places right in my home town of Chicago. The Half Dome summit was October 1.  The next day was the travel day back from California.  Since October 3, I have walked/hiked nearly 100 miles according to my MapMyWalk Application:

 3 October  6.7 miles

 4 October 16.5 miles

 5 October 10.0 miles

 6 October  5.0 miles

 7 October 20.0 miles

 8 October  5.0 miles

 9 October 15.0 miles

10 October 16.2 miles

Since September 26th, I have watched my weight drop from 226.8 lbs to 221 lbs.  I am fairly certain that I will not be able to keep up this pace of walking at quite this level - but I has certainly been great fun and very rewarding.  

Today is Sunday, 11 October.  This is the day of the Chicago Marathon.  I have no interest  (or ability)  in running this course - but the time may come, perhaps next year, when I sign up for this event to walk the course.  In order to 'qualify' and officially 'finish' a marathon, one has to complete the course in 6.5 hours.  

6.5 hours = 390 minutes

1 marathon = 26.2 miles

390 minutes divided by 26.2 miles = 14.89 minutes per mile

If one can walk 4.03 mph for 6.5 hours, one can finish in under 6.5 hours...

I think I might be capable of this right now.  Of course, there is only one way to know for sure...