Last night I played tennis with a 15-year-old girl (my wife's cousin), and was beaten pretty soundly. In all fairness, she's on her high school team and I've never played tennis outside of gym class, some 15 years ago. We started playing occasionally last summer, and I'm hoping to get in a game a week or so this summer. By the end of the summer, hopefully I'll be competitive. That doesn't really matter, of course, I just like getting out and doing something active - something that counts as exercise - other than running. I feel like I don't take enough advantage of opportunities to find fun ways to be active. We take lots of walks with the kids, and play at the park, but otherwise, I don't really do many active things unless I'm going for a jog. I'm sure that'll change as the kids get older and I get into coaching their teams and such. So I've been making a concerted effort to find other things. Tennis isn't the most intense exercise, but it's something (and last night I was pretty beat afterward, but it had already been a long day). I also recently bought a real nice Frisbee and fixed up an old bike. I haven't taken either of those out yet, but I've enjoyed both in the past, so hopefully they'll be good alternatives to keep me active.
In other news... I must have hurt my foot playing tennis last night. The ball of my foot/front of my arch is killing me. Definitely time for orthotics. And a day of rest (maybe I'll see if I can take the bike out? It's probably going to be a "walk in the park" night, as there's a band concert that we're taking the kids to.).
I'm at 4 days of working out and 1 day >2000 calories since I made my goal. Plenty of days right around 1700. A handful that have jumped from 1700 to 1900 because I was giving myself leeway so long as I was under 2000. I'm down about a pound, but getting rid of those 1900 calorie days will help. That's my next focus.
Very good Philo.
I ran a 4.2 mile obstacle course race on Saturday that included jumping over many walls, running through plenty of mud and water, with a copious dish of crawling under nets/wires/platforms. I was able to complete every obstacle except one... the monkey bars. It was about 3/4 of the way through and completely slick. I would say that in the time period I spent in the "penalty" area for falling, only about 10% successfully made it across. I finished in around 54 minutes and I was wiped out. It was an absolute blast and I already signed up for next year.
I weighed in at 196.4 last night, a new low for me. I ended last week at 688 calories under my net calorie goal according to myfitnesspal. I didn't eat great, but not horrible either. All in all I made a bit more progress which is a good thing.
I've gotten much more particular in my serving sizes recently and I find myself measuring and counting to most accurately record my intake. FWIW, 9 tortilla chips is not very many. The self-education is interesting in that I had no idea what a "serving" was in the past and I would bet that most meals I was having 2-3 servings of each item in a sitting. I don't believe that reducing my food intake has made me any "hungrier" per se, although I have planned snacks to get me from meal to meal. Greek yogurt at 10 am and usually a banana between 2-3 pm.
I am a bit scared of next week since I will be vacationing with the family from Friday to Monday then flying out to be on the road for work through next Friday. I need to make a plan on how not to eat McDonalds and gas station pizza for every meal (which has been status quo in the past) while working 16 hour days...
Color me impressed.
Philo, check out this rating system and tell me where you're at. I'm at a 4.0 and have been looking for a tennis partner.
I'm probably somewhere around 3. Maybe a little under. I have no real training at all, of course, but I'm reasonably mobile. I end up hitting the net/going long far too often, but I was really out of practice last night too, so hopefully that improves soon.
I'm not Philo, but I checked it out too. I'd say I'm also a 4 - I play(ed) quite a bit of raquetball, but only occasionally play tennis.
Philo I know you don't live in the Twin Cities, otherwise I'd challenge you to a tennis match. The offer is open to other
Citizens however.
Oh my, I'm something like a 1.5-2. I play a lot of racquetball, but my style involves a combination of getting to a lot of balls most people wouldn't to keep the rally alive, then overpowering my opponent when the opportunity arises. I'm far from a technical player, just tall with long arms and quick feet. I've never been able to get enough top spin on the ball to get it over the net w/o going long in tennis.
This boyo would be a 4.0. But I do tend to play 'winner' tennis, i.e. go for shots that may win or miss.
I returned from my week away for work weighing +3 pounds. Recognizing the salt intake leading up to that weighing, I remained guardedly optimistic. This morning I came in only up about 1 pound. That's great and I'll take it!
Back on the train of having some control over what I eat. Excited for what the next couple weeks bring.
So, I'm sure I've given this recipe before, but what the hey. I made it last week again. Cafe Rolle lentil salad, bS'd up.
2 cups green or brown lentils, rinsed well.
4 cups vegetable stock
1 cup red wine
1 tsp herbes de Provence
1 tbs olive oil.
Bring to boil, lower heat and simmer (covered) gently for 30-40 minutes until the lentils are barely tender. Stir and let cool, covered, to absorb most of the rest of the liquid. Chill. Serve with a good squirt of very mustardy vinaigrette (dijon, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, olive oil) and a sprinkling of herbes de Provence.
I served this as a bed for a mesclun salad (dressed with the same vinaigrette) and hot-smoked salmon (cooled to room temp and flaked; I'd first heavily coated the fish with a mix of sugar, salt, herbes de Provence and black pepper for about an hour, then gently rinsed and dried the fish before smoking over medium coals and lots of hickory chips; so it was about a quarter of the way to lox prior to smoking).
today I had leftover lentils with vinaigrette, chopped tomatoes and leftover smoked, chopped mushrooms for lunch. mmmm.
man oh man - you're more than keeping up your end of the bargain round these parts. I just wish you could tag an LTE.
I could probably turn that one into a post....
I think you meant: "I grant wishes and I
could probablywill turn that one into a post…."And come to my home to prepare it for me.
The last few days have been horrible for my diet. Saturday I had a funeral, which means lunch afterward. After that, I went to a retirement party, and then a wedding reception. Sunday was the start of VBS in Onida with a potluck supper. Yesterday was a prayer service with a lunch, and this morning was a funeral with a lunch. I've been trying to keep my eating under reasonable control, but it's pretty hard to make healthy choices when there aren't healthy choices available.
This morning did the Police Triathlon (a sprint-distance triathlon) in Carmel, NY, with the wife.
A well-run, memorial event for an officer killed in the line of duty (John Falcone) - class act with moment of silence for the officer, then bagpipes playing Amazing Grace (tear jerker), and the Star Spangled Banner (no easy feat as bagpipes only have so much range of notes to work with).
On the way down to the transition area, this dude was practicing on his bike, and didn't see a park gate that had been left half-open. Bonk!!#$%!@#*!.
He went down hard and hit his head pretty well on the street. He seemed to be lucid afterwards, but people kept pestering him with questions to see if he was really spot-on to continue with a triathlon... I moved on.
So anyways, I'm into the race in good form on swim and bike, and about 35-40 miles into the ride, there is an ambiguous place on whether to go straight or to turn right. The orange cones are arranged in some ancient Celtic pattern that does not make sense to me. I made the wrong choice, and about 3 minutes onto that stretch, some chick is flying in my direction saying 'no! this is wrong, go the other way'. Natch. I ran into another group of 25 guys who also picked the wrong turn, swearing profusely.
I prolly lost 3-4 minutes on that mistake, and also went anaerobic to try to catch back up, which I think also impacted my run.
I'm over it. Hey, if you show up, you win 🙂
Ran the Garry Bjorkland half marathon yesterday morning. Duluth is beautiful when you can see it...we couldn't. Ran my race and my pace: finished at 2 hrs 11 min - well within my predicted, though conservative, estimate. Had a good time despite the weather and temps at the finish (cold). I'll also admit that my legs are a bit wonky today.