RAIN DELAY

I have hiked, walked, marched, stepped, traipsed, strolled, rambled, sauntered, and schlepped on  trails, beaches, hills, mountains, valleys and roads for the past many weeks and months. Mostly I have been lucky and avoided rain. Remarkably, during my epic Half Dome Hike in Yosemite last October, our group actually did manage to catch rain, which was no small accomplishment since it more or less, 'never' rains in California and rains even less during droughts. On that hike we beat the odds. On my hikes closer to home I have been very lucky and mostly avoided getting wet other than from own sweat which is not inconsequential on days when the temperatures are north of 90°F.  I was caught in real thunderstorm during a recent hike in Wisconsin, but that was memorable as it was so rare for that to happen to me. So, is there a point to any of this preamble? Yesterday when I woke up, the skies somehow managed to look darker after the dawn than they had during the actual night. This is an optical illusion of course, but it is still very unsettling to see such darkness when a new day is first unwrapping itself. Still, I thought I might take a little walk. Sometimes, dark skies, are blown away and rains don't come. Yesterday was not one of those days. An early morning hike was curtailed when the rains started when I was only 1 mile from home. I took refuge in a grocery store thinking I could wait out the storm, but the forecast was for a few hours of continuous rain - so I simply walked back the one mile in the pouring rain.  In the late afternoon, the rains had completely dissipated, although the threat for more had not. Still I ventured out, managed an eight mile hike which was marred only by a mild drizzle towards the end. When the day was done, I still had managed to walk ten miles. Always an accomplishment, no matter how dubious. 

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rain-shortened early morning walk, not even three miles.

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Your Food Diary For:

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bar	380	58	14	6	270	22
Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal	600	108	10	16	0	4
	980	166	24	22	270	26
L U N C H
Home Made - Garden Salad, 1 bowl	100	6	0	4	400	4
Fried Chicken Tenders	300	17	20	14	766	2
Hash browns - Hash Browns	200	46	0	6	86	3
Quaker Chewy - Chocolate Chunk	180	38	4	2	160	14
	780	107	24	26	1,412	23
D I N N E R
Curry Chicken With Rice	800	233	23	46	1,740	9
	800	233	23	46	1,740	9
S N A C K S
Generic - Hersheys Dark Chocolate	500	28	38	9	100	11
Roundy's - Honey Nut Tasteeos, 3 cup	440	88	6	8	560	36
	940	116	44	17	660	47
Totals	3,500	622	115	111	4,082	105
Your Daily Goal	4,298	537	143	215	2,300	161
Remaining	798	-85	28	104	-1,782	56
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 2,368 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
2.6 mile rain-shortened hike	34	512
EIGHT MILE afternoon hike	96	1,770
Add Exercise Quick Tools
Daily Total / Goal	130 / 30	2,282 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	400 / 210	6,436 / 4,130

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BENEFIT OF LATE NIGHT DRINKING

Today is a completely tongue-in-cheek look at the benefits of late night drinking.  Yesterday, I spent too much time with the dentist getting a temporary tooth which will eventually become a permanent implant.  By the time 5:00PM came around, I noticed that my fitbit had only recorded something in the neighborhood of 4000 steps.  Last week, after spending one night drinking and socializing until 2:00AM, I woke up the next day with nearly 5000 steps!  The silly lesson to be learned here is that when one is active, steps accumulate.  And the steps one takes in a bar late at night still count.  The steps one takes walking in the early hours of the day back to your hotel, or walking home still count.  There is something invigorating about waking up and realizing before you shave, that you already have 5000 steps 'in the bank.'   Likewise, it is 'alarming' to glance at one's fitbit at 5:00 PM in the afternoon and discover that one only has 4000 steps.  I suppose that the only reason that this is important to me is that I have vowed to myself to try to never let a day pass with less than 10000 steps.  I noticed too, today, that a step earned on an elliptical machine set to the highest resistance is a lot tougher to earn than a simple step walking outside, even at a 4.5mph pace.  Obviously a step earned on the elliptical machine is harder to earn by several orders of magnitude, the steps earned just shuffling back and forth from the refrigerator.  The best gauge of measuring physical activity still comes from stepping on the scale.  The scale does not lie. Although sometimes it does appear to be fibbing...

Your Food Diary For:

Thursday, October 29, 2015

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Whole Foods 365 - Seaweed Rice Crackers, 52.5 Crackers	420	88	5	7	210	4
Clif Bar - Mint Chocolate , 68 g	250	43	5	10	170	22
	670	131	10	17	380	26
L U N C H
FRESH THYME - JOYVA. SESAME CRUNCH, 30 g (3 pieces)	160	14	8	2	50	14
Generic - Fresh Homemade Fruit Salad, 2 cup	480	88	18	0	420	56
WHOLE FOODS 5938 - UNSWEETENED BANANA CHIPS, 120 g (1/4 cup)	680	64	40	8	20	4
	1,320	166	66	10	490	74
D I N N E R
Campbell's Chunky - Manhattan Clam Chowder, 2 cup	240	36	6	10	1,600	6
Nabisco - Oyster Crackers, 66 crackers	180	30	6	3	420	0
	420	66	12	13	2,020	6
S N A C K S
Totals	2,410	363	88	40	2,890	106
Your Daily Goal	3,923	490	130	197	2,300	147
Remaining	1,513	127	41	157	-590	41
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 1,993 extra calories from exercise today

       Your Exercise Diary for:

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
elliptical	22	473
elliptical	22	508
elliptical	22	535
elliptical	22	545
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-68
Daily Total / Goal	89 / 30	1,993 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	409 / 210	8,449 / 4,130

For some reason, I could not set the timer on the elliptical machine to 60 or 90 minutes.  The workout cut out after 20 minutes, with a 2 minutes cool down.  I simply had four (4) sessions of 22 minutes.  What I found interesting is that although, I felt as if I was getting tired as the nearly 90 minutes session continued.  I increasingly had more endurance with each passing session as the calories burned continued to climb, just a bit from one workout to the next. 

TOTAL CALORIES CONSUMED 2410 CALORIES
TOTAL CALORIES BURNED 1993 CALORIES
TOTAL NET CALORIES 417 CALORIES

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fitbit day 57

13585 steps

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The Tongue-in-cheek figure of speech is used to imply that a statement or other production is humorously or otherwise not seriously intended, and it should not be taken at face value. The facial expression typically indicates that one is joking or making a mental effort.

10,000 STEPS

I have been a 'fitbitter' for just over one week. I know that I am joining a community of hundreds of thousands of people who are each day logging and counting their steps. Before I made my purchase, even I was aware that the fitbit is a device that encourages its users to make 10,000 steps per day.  I was curious where this number came from....

I found this article on the fitbit blog dated June 22, 2010

The Magic of 10,000 steps

When you join Fitbit, the default goal we set for each member is the magical number of 10,000 steps a day (you can also choose to customize your goal).  And while this may not be the first time you’ve heard that goal, it might be more meaningful, and motivating, to understand its origins. 

The Japanese first started using the 10,000 steps a day number, as part of a marketing campaign! (to help sell pedometers).  Since that initial campaign however, medical authorities around the world have agreed that 10,000 is a healthy number to aim for. The American Heart Association uses the 10,000 steps metric as a guideline to follow for improving health and decreasing risk of heart disease, the number one killer of men and women in America. 

10,000 steps a day is a rough equivalent to the Surgeon General’s recommendation to accumulate 30 minutes of activity most days of the week. It should be enough to reduce your risk for disease and help you lead a longer, healthier life. The benefits are many:  lower BMI, reduced waist size, increased energy, and less risk for Type II diabetes and heart disease.  In fact, a recent study of the 10,000 steps a day method reported conclusive health benefits. 

10,000 steps daily is approximately 5 miles.  Unless you have a very active lifestyle or profession, you probably don’t reach 10,000 steps on a given day without putting some effort into your activity.  This could be a lifestyle change such as walking to work, or the addition of an exercise routine to your day. 

Another reason to do it?  For most people, it’s convenient, free and simple to do with just a little change to your daily routine.  Working towards a 10,000 step a day goal?  Good for you!  Get motivated with one of our Fitbit groups, like 5k-6k steps a day.  Already mastered 10,000? Maybe Active Maintainers is for you.

After reading this I was wondering was ACTIVE MAINTAINERS was all about.  It is an online group of 'overachieving' people with fitbit.  Naturally, I joined.... This is what the leaderboard looked like this morning, September 12th.

Steps in September

• Mike K. - 582,197 steps#1
• Jennifer K. - 526,615 steps#2
• Debbie A. - 492,026 steps#3
• Tracy E. - 211,113 steps#122
• Chris E. - 210,583 steps#123
• You - 210,492 steps#124
• Alma R. - 210,107 steps#125Tracey V. - 209,941 steps
• #126

This group has nearly 200,000 members.... so my standing of #124 is fairly respectable.  I do not think that this will ever be a group where I will be number 1.

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226.6 lbs

I weigh 226.6 lbs.

I gained 0.8 lbs this week

I have lost 82.4 lbs in 262 days. Today begins Day 263.

I will always be at the beginning of a journey that never ends.

I weigh 226.8 (262 days ago I weighed 309 lbs)

I have lost 26.6% of my weight since Dec 24.

I have a BMI, body mass index of 30.31 

I had a 42.0 BMI on Dec 24 just 234 days ago (Class III obesity)

I have 4 words of RATIONALIZATION for myself today: IT MUST BE MUSCLE

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 FRIDAY MENU

breakfast   oatmeal, bacon, poached eggs                                         590 calories

lunch         almonds, bacon, apples, dark choice cashew bars         1270 calories
dinner        Mariano's huge spinach salad                                          750 calories
SNACK    mango, cacao goji, Quaker Rice Cakes                         1030 calories

total calories consumed 3641 calories

calories burned

Northfield YMCA PRECOR 100i elliptical machine 
(maximum session length limited to 60 minutes)
session 1 elliptical 60 min, 5 min cooldown, level 20, 1095 cal
session 2 elliptical 60 min, 5 min cooldown, level 20, 1108 cal

TOTAL CALORIES BURNED 2203 calories

Friday net calories 1438 calories
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