Sunday, February 18, 2007

Photos of my weekend

Calories eaten Thursday: 1744
Fat: 82g (43%)
Carbs: 46g (11%)
Protein: 114g (27%)

Calories eaten Friday: 1778
Fat: 86g (47%)
Carbs: 47g (11%)
Protein: 113g (27%)

Calories burned in exercise Friday: 329 (walked around lake twice)
Calories burned in exercise today: 271

Settle in. This is a long post.

Did some more research on BCAA and learned more. First, a recap of what I wrote in an eariler post:

The same article says BCAAs are easily converted to glucose, so I think I won't take that.

But then I found this information on it.

What Are Branch-Chained Amino Acids?

The BCAA Are A Group Of Three Essential Amino Acids:
1) Leucine
2) Isoleucine
3) Valine

Point blank, exercise promotes increased BCAA oxidation (Shirmomura et al., 2004). This increased degradation of BCAA helps maintain energy homeostasis by providing carbon as a direct energy source and glucose homeostasis by providing substrates for the citric-acid cycle and gluconeogenesis.

Amino acids are categorized as glucogenic, ketogenic, or a combination of glucogenic and ketogenic. A glucogenic amino acid when metabolized gives rise to pyruvate or other TCA cycle intermediates that can be used for the production of glucose through gluconeogenesis.

A ketogenic amino acid is metabolized via the fatty acid pathway and gives rise to actyl-CoA, a fatty acid precursor. Leucine is completely ketogenic, valine is completely glucogenic, and isoleucine is both glucogenic and ketogenic. Valine and isoleucine can both be used to produce intermediates for glucose production via gluconeogenesis.


The problem is, I can't make heads nor tails of these three paragraphs. The rest of the article is equally obtuse. I also found this post helpful, especially the last several paragraphs.

I found ZMA this weekend and bought it. GNC didn't have it, but a health food store that Brad likes to go to did. I started taking that last night. The magazine also said to have decaf green tea before bed (along with cottage cheese or plain yogurt) as the L-theanine in it helps to relax you and fall asleep. I picked up some at WalMart on my way to work.

Ok...whew. Now for a recap of the weekend.

First, Thursday night. I baked a sugar-free chocolate chocolate chip cheesecake with blueberries. This is the usual cheesecake I make, only with blueberries on top. The berries definetly made it better.

sugar-free chocolate chocolate chip cheesecake with blueberries

Friday Brad came over after work and we hauled Xena off to the vet to get her claws clipped. I also had them weigh her - 9 lbs., 2 oz., on the low side for her.

Then we took Xena home and walked around the lake twice. From there Brad got something to eat at Safeway and then we went to the Creation conference in Castro Valley sponsored by Neighborhood Church and Answers in Genesis.

Here's some photos from that. Click to enlarge them.

pamphlet for the conference
pamphlet for the Creation conference

book and DVD tables
book tables at Creation conference

me
me

me showing off my purchase of 6 DVDs
me showing off my purchase from the Creation conference - 6 DVDs

Then Brad drove me home and we had some dinner and he went home.

Saturday morning I went to church. At the break I had my usual carb fare - Cheese-Its, etc., but also three pieces of See's candy someone brought. Big mistake. The blood sugar spike and crash left me nearly falling asleep during Sabbath School. Only 6 hours of sleep the night before didn't help either. Lesson: stay away from the high GI stuff; it's evil.

Brad came at 1 and we had lunch at church and then headed for the last Saturday session of the creation conference. We never made it because traffic was so heavy. That's when we hunted down the ZMA. Here's a couple of random pics of our drive on Highway 80. Click to enlarge.

random photo along Highway 80

random photo of cars along Highway 80

Then we went to Quinn's Lighthouse for dinner. Here's pics from our dinner. Click to enlarge the photos.

Brad with a Fat Tire beer
Brad with a Fat Tire beer

me with Merlot (of course)
me drinking Merlot

After dinner, still drinking Merlot, but now with coffee, too.
coffee & Merlot

While we're all it, here's a random picture of Xena I took on Friday. I wanted to pick her up and she ran away and hid behind the curtain in the bathtub.

Xena in the tub

exercise ballMade it to the gym today and did an hour of weight training and a half hour of cardio. I heard a trainer talking to a client while in the stretching area and he said that it was good to sit on an exercise ball while on the computer as a way of strengthening your core. I thought that sounded like a good idea so I bought a large (65cm) exercise ball. It comes with a pump, but in order to not overinflate it I need a tape measure, so I'll do that when I get home.

The 65cm ball is for people taller than me, but it should be a good height to sit on, and I can do other exercises, too, even if my height of 5'7" dictates the 55cm ball.

I'm getting good at girl's push-ups. I can do 10 fairly easily. Now I am working on the men's push-ups - much harder - but I will get there!

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Photo of exercise ball courtest 24 Hour Fitness store.

1 comment:

Arthur_of_Old said...

So, when you are feeling low you can sit on your ball and bounce back quickly. Maybe, you can put the bounce back in your day!=-)