Junk Drawer

As you can tell, I'm somewhat captive from my procedure Friday, so it's another day of laying low, and in my obvious case, burning up time in front of the monitor (How I'm ready for a ride, perhaps Tuesday or Wednesday).

Health

• After my first visit to the electrician (good blog found here- Dr. John M), I started curbing the junk and trying to slim up, knowing that this all wasn't going in a good direction. A side I started using regularly is MyPlate out of the Livestrong platform. I really like the site because it has a substantial database of foods. You enter your food (brand or fresh), doctor the quantity as needed, and post to meal. It maintains total calories, macronutrients, fluids, exercise calorie-burned totals and gives you a ballpark "how much under/over" in a given day. I really, really like that going into dinner, you can see how much excess or not you're willing tolerate by the end of the day. I'm down about 10lbs in two weeks- yes, too much too quickly- ,but it will level off to a good rate. For life.
• Another site I've taken a look at is the Dr.Oz phenom. He who was lauded by O now has his own show, which I've never watched, but what he does have is a "Just 10 Challenge". I think it's great that instead of focusing on LIFE-LONG CHANGES!!!!!, you have an attainable goal for someone struggling. It's like in a teacher situation. You always encourage students to organize their studies into more bite-sized chunks instead of in all 20 chapters; too much is overwhelming.  "Just 10" also have some simple tenets to live by.

**Cut out Soda

**Don't eat after 8.00 p.m. (or 3 hours before bedtime)

**Move 10min a day

**Don't eat snacks larger than your fist

**Track your weight every day

It's interesting because some of these are obvious, but for me, the snack issue is the strongest. I binge. I'll eat well for lunch, get hungry, and dive into something at 3.00 that I know isn't good. Interesting too is the lack of mention of portion control. We went to a pizza place before my test Friday so I could have a "last meal" and so Z could carbo load for his race Saturday. I swear the serving of pasta and breaksticks would feed you 3x. What did I do? I ate it all. Somewhere in these 5 I would have to add portion control. Also is the mention of daily weight. I rarely see this. Usually it's "once a week" or something.

Camera

Through a generous benefactor, I picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS6. It's only available through Costco and other big box stores. After drowning my Canon S90, I've been looking for something new like the Panasonic LX5. I wanted something point-and-shoot, something of quality, and something relatively easy to use. I'm not a camera nerd. I don't know what all the settings are for and prolly won't learn them all just yet. But I do like imagine quality and I do use them, obviously, for bike rides and al aire libre. Reviews suggest that this is a solid camera with a good zoom and good imaging. The complaint I've seen is that it's not too good in indoor or low light situations, but I usually use them outside, so that's good enough for me. I'll give it a thorough work up and report in the future, hopefully mated with a nice 2-wheel adventure.