Numbers Don't Mean A Thing

Today is the last day my son gets to sleep in until past noon, not counting weekends. Summer is officially over. And the moon looks a good 15% bigger than it has in the past few years. Maybe because it's so low in the horizon. And my eyes are freaking me out because the big golden moon hasn't looked round to me for a few weeks now. Instead, it looks long and oval, like someone's trimmed off slivers on both left and right side. My son and hubs tell me that the moon is perfectly round, so it's me. Nothing else looks distorted to me though. Ugh. I see my eye doc in a few weeks and I'll have to remember to bring this up.

Two days ago I walked the dog wearing flannel because it was 48°F outside. Now temps are hovering in the 80s. Hurricane Harvey is just a rain storm here. But everyone's freaking out about category 5 Hurricane Irma. It's always something...

I finished reading Carl Hiaasen's book Flush over the weekend. I love his stuff because it's always exciting, humorous and an easy read. He's more famous for Hoot because it's been made into a movie, but he's got tons more fun reads. I've got Chomp and Scat on my Amazon list. Of course, after I read the book, my eyes weren't very happy. I'm not really used to wearing reading glasses for long stretches. But the print quality of the paperback was less than stellar, and glasses help when the ink is faint on the page. I've read some of his other books, like Sick Puppy and Skink: No Surrender. Those had better print quality. 

Waiting in the doctor's office today with my son for his dermatology appointment and I pull out Christopher Buckley's The Relic Master. I can read this paperback without my glasses. However, I do need to keep my phone handy so I can whip out the Dictionary app because I'm not familiar with words like sudarium and monstrance. Seriously.

My right shoulder bothered me the entire weekend. Probably because I didn't do anything vaguely resembling a workout, unless you count walking a few miles at the NY Renaissance Faire. Otherwise, today's my first day back at the gym after the last long weekend holiday of summer. I get there late enough to claim the cross-trainer I like. From my perch I can see various regulars on the main gym floor. Marine is chatting with Gym Owner. I also see WTC and pals. Creepy PJ Pants is just leaving. I'm surprised at how my mileage today so that's good. The pull ups don't feel great though. Not my shoulder, but the left forearm and elbow. Yep, that golfer's elbow tendonitis has been bothering me a lot lately. Push ups feel okay, and I do my crunches, but skip planks.

The Smith is free and both the short flat bench and the bigger adjustable inclined bench are parked nearby. Because I don't want to antagonize the shoulder, I opt for high rep inclined presses today. Then my standard DB laterals superset with Reverse Inclined Flyes. I'd like to finish with cable V-bar press downs, but The Mayor has planted himself at that particular cable station. There are two stations, but the other one's bar is attached so far over my head, I have no hope of grabbing it even if I stand on tippy toe. Ugh. There's nothing more distracting than a loud whiny voice that squeaks through the highest iPod setting. I'd rather do Rip Skulls and suffer having the bluetooth collar roll into my jaw as I pull the bar over my head.

The gym scale is not kind, but 111.0 lbs doesn't really surprise me. What surprises me is that my son has dropped 5-7 lbs since his last doc appointment. He's now almost 3 inches taller than me. I make him get on the scale at home to confirm. Yes, he's definitely lighter. I get on the scale afterwards. My weight is a tad higher than last I checked at home, but my body fat is slightly lower? 109.2 lbs and 15.2% isn't statistically significant. I look in the mirror and feel pretty big. Not fat, but big. I try to keep up with all the latest nutritional and health news, but sometimes I think people just have no idea what they're talking about.

For a while, BMI (body mass index) was the magic number that made me crazy. I have a normal BMI at about 22, but weight lifters and bodybuilders in general, because they're so dense, have much higher BMIs and get classified as overweight or obese. That's what happened to my son when he was little. He's never been fat. But he weighs a lot more than he looks. Now "health experts", and I use that term loosely, claim that the waist to hip ratio is a much better indicator of health and especially internal body fat. This is all to avoid making generalizations like pear-shape bodies have less chance of storing deep abdominal fat (the apple bod) which is apparently different than subcutaneous (just under the skin) fat. Deep fat puts you at risk for a bevy of ailments. Well, duh. We all knew that already. But to say that someone with a bigger hip to waist ratio is healthier than someone who, is perhaps like me and not very curvy, is ridiculous. The damn numbers don't really mean a thing.

My other gripe is with scare-mongering headlines that are so completely off-base as to be the complete antithesis of what the article actually states. But then, you'd actually have to read the entire article. Like the one that tells you microwaving your stinky sponge just breeds hardier, deadlier bacteria. Uh, how about you clean or replace your sponge before it gets to the point where it actually stinks? Or the study that shows vitamin B12 and B6 increase lung cancer risks. Uh, but only in men who used to smoke or are still smoking. Ugh...

Tuesday

35 xtrainer
Calories 166
Miles 4.47
Average Heart Rate 155

HGPU 26
Push Ups 50
Scissors 50
Bicycle 50
Crunches 50

Smith Inclined Bench
Bar (30) x 15
50 x 12
70 x 13
80 x 12
60 x 25
50 x 25

DB Laterals s/s Rev Incl Flyes
20/25lbs x 12/15reps x 3sets

Rip Skulls
40lbs x 12reps x 3sets