Giada or Ina?

Oops, I was supposed to post yesterday after my workout. Well, I was tired and had to fix dinner, so sorry. It was a good 40 minutes on the treadmill. For some reason, I like the one that is directly in front of the Food Channel and I'm usually watching either Giada or Ina. Both of them do good food, but are opposites in the body composition department.

Which one would I rather be more like? I'm going to go with Ina here. Let's face it, I'll never be a Giada type. She's too short and has a really big head. OK, I have a big head, but I think it's a little more proportional to the rest of me. Also, I would rather cook while listening to NPR; Giada seems to have 80's porn music piped into her home kitchen which is kind of creepy.

Also, Giada's husband seems to have outkicked his coverage. I'm sure he earns money good and stuff, but there's no real appeal to the guy. Ina and her husband, on the other hand, have a relationship I really like. They've been together forever, and they have both had brilliant and opposite career. Plus, I guess I'd rather live in the Hamptons than L.A. Call it my East Coast bias, I'm sure I've got one.

I married rather late in life and find this to be the happiest I have ever been in my life. Shortly before we got married I saw an episode of Barefoot Contessa where Ina was making a meal for a bridal shower or something else delightfully Hamptons-y. She gave the best advice on marriage that I've ever heard. She said that her priority was to make Jeffrey happy and she knew that Jeffrey's priority was to make her happy. Then she shrugged her shoulders and went on making mayonnaise or bechamel or margaritas or something. Giada's husband always appears mildly afraid of her. Ina and Jeffrey always look like they want to get to the next course and then settle down with a couple of good books and a couple of bottles of wine and snuggle for a while.

No musical selection today. Just Ina making meatloaf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebUYxwd3x1A

Running on Empty (C25K version)

Were you ever in a class in school where you came to class everyday and did all of the homework and almost all of the reading and studied really hard but still sucked when it came to test time? Well, that's the way I feel about the Couch to 5K program, also known as C25K. 

This is one of those programs that takes you from total inactivity to running a 5-kilometer race (or 5K) in like 10 weeks or so. So one year I decided to get into shape and this sounded like a really good idea. I downloaded a bunch of stuff to my iPod and arranged my schedule so that I could get to the Employer Subsidized Workout Facility (ESWF) three times a week to follow the program.  

And I did. I was damn near religious. I would walk for two minutes to warm up, I would stretch my half-century old body parts so as to minimize damage, and then I would launch into the podcast of the designated day and achieve my immediate term goal. I did EVERYTHING I was supposed to do, exactly as planned. 

I even signed up for a friendly-neighborhood 5K. Some sort of civic thing, all praise to the mayor, cruise by many important sights in town sort of thing. I was following my training regimen and it was all going to be good. 

This is the embarrassing part - I mean, I took enough statistics to get a PhD, how could this have escaped me? - it wasn't until two weeks before the big race that I figured out that the whole C25frickingK concept is based on the premise that one can run a 10-minute mile. Here's some news: not all of us can run a 10-minute mile. Some of us need more like 15 minutes. 

It really sucked to get on a treadmill instead of just schlogging around the neighborhood or the indoor track and find out that although you can run for 28 minutes straight, it ain't nowhere nears 3.1 miles. It's more like maybe almost two miles. 

For some reason, I took this intensely personally. How could I have been duped? Why did I mentally buy into a program that could not deliver for me? 

I ran the damned race anyway. That's a story for another day. Kind of wondering if I should try for another 5K someday. 

Oh yeah, Jackson Browne says "hey". 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJYRtOPUonA

Wouldn't it be nice?

OK, the weight is out of control again and we feel uncomfortable with our person. Therefore, reduction measures are in order. Current poundage ranks as follows:

-22 to all-time maximum

-11 to Modern Era North American maximum

+ 9 over marital weight

+23 to long-term sustainable weight

+33 to (cue the Beach Boys)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L--cqAI3IUI

 I'm taking a three pronged approach to this.

1. Cardio
2. Muscle building
3. Consumption control

There will be more on each of this in the coming days. In the meantime, enjoy some of the finest music ever put together on American shores.