Saturday, September 14, 2013 – The Third of the Zumba Trilogy
This is the last of my Zumba saturated stories, for a little while anyway.
I woke up this morning, the morning after my Zumba Basic Instructor Training, and nothing hurt! I actually craved doing another Zumba workout. Not available so I did my usual Saturday morning one-hour fast walk. It was a cool sunny day, hard not to like that.
We went out for groceries at Food Basics – a cartful of food for only $55! But then we saw the beckoning façade of Fionn MacCools – it shares a common parking lot. And our work ethic went downhill and our caloric count skyrocketed! MacCools provides huge amounts of food on their platters – and tasty food too. And therein lies the problem for us. We eat until the food is gone.
We go out to eat with friends on a regular basis and they regularly don’t lick their plates clean. Even after we’ve finished eating, and we walk past uncleared tables, both of us are wondering if there is any way we could discreetly take this food home with us.
There is no excuse for me. I was raised in a household where there was always enough to eat and my Mom didn’t believe in making her kids “clean their plates.” She didn’t want anyone to get sick from overeating. Even still, I always cleaned my plate. I can distinctly remember taking a piece of white bread or two (with butter) and mopping up ever particle of food or gravy on my plate.
Laur, I could understand. He was one of five boys in a family living on a rural minister’s salary. You would never turn down food because there were rarely seconds. They didn’t go hungry but they filled up with pounds of potatoes and loaves of bread (back when local spuds and Wonder bread were wonderfully cheap.)
*****
Is this leading back to Zumba, as promised? Yes, here we go.
It was interesting to hear why people at the Zumba Instructor Training program loved Zumba so much. The Instructor, well, Ricardo Marmitte was born with more energy than Tigger and he makes a good income doing what he loves. Most of rest of the class – young women – loved the number of calories they burned off. My answer was the least sexy – maintain bone density and fight off Alzheimers. Oh yeah, and help middle aged and older women to be well and stay well.
But the young women may be on to something. Thus far, Laur’s and my bodies have been very forgiving about the amount of food we take in, but this is about to change. Seniors have a hard time keeping their weight down because their metabolism slows down – they just burn fewer calories. Their muscle mass diminishes, and muscle burns more calories. And in general, older folks tend to move around less AND, this is huge (and makes them huge,) they like to eat out more.
So, doing the math, according to Seniors Health websites, I only need 1600 calories and Laur only needs 1800 calories per day. I easily eat 500 calories at breakfast; the restaurant meal I had today was easily 1000. So in theory, I don’t get to eat again today. Laur has a little less breakfast, so would be allowed a few hundred calories at supper. As wonderful as Zumba is, an hour of it at my pace only burns 350 calories. I’d have to do three hours of it to burn off my lunch – never going to happen.
I am particularly concerned about this for us when we are in Arizona for half the year. Not only are there many restaurants calling out to us, there are also many potlucks. Even if I did only one meal out and one potluck, one take-home and one sticky bun breakfast – that’s 4,000 calories. I could gain a pound a week!
Ah but Jan, you’re allowed 500 calories per meal in the seniors waistland, so that’s really only 2,000 extra calories. One Zumba would be 350; one hike of three hours would be 600. Repeat twice weekly, and you’re good. OK, so I’ll have to skip a sticky bun breakfast and the takeout because I know myself too well – I’m not going to work that hard.
But what to do about hubs? He will never pass up food, and he will never knowingly do Zumba. But what if I invited him to the pool and told him Tina Turner would be there… He’d go. And surprise! Aqua Zumba! See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUoIQ0AwjRA&list=PL71666A8E6133C79D
I might have to change the ruse a little every week. Next time I could promise him Indian Moonshine and Crazy Love at the poolside! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R63mBqrAYA
But by then he might start catching on. No worries, I’ve discovered a Charity Hiking website for Arizona. You hike for a good cause (and it inadvertently takes deposits out of the fat bank.) I am loving “Bring Joe Home” because he will hike from Utah through Arizona to Mexico until enough money is raised - http://swaghunter.blogspot.ca/2013/09/bring-joe-home-charity-hike.html - but he’d really like to be home for American Thanksgiving (fourth Sunday of November.) I have to tell you, I do not know a woman who would take this kind of risk! A Zumbathon in a Mall, maybe…
As difficult as I can be, even I don’t have the heart to send my hubs into the hills. I’ll just suggest this project as “Keep Laur in his Lair” – two hikes and two Zumbas a week, and it’s Stay-Home-Sweet-Trailer.
I woke up this morning, the morning after my Zumba Basic Instructor Training, and nothing hurt! I actually craved doing another Zumba workout. Not available so I did my usual Saturday morning one-hour fast walk. It was a cool sunny day, hard not to like that.
We went out for groceries at Food Basics – a cartful of food for only $55! But then we saw the beckoning façade of Fionn MacCools – it shares a common parking lot. And our work ethic went downhill and our caloric count skyrocketed! MacCools provides huge amounts of food on their platters – and tasty food too. And therein lies the problem for us. We eat until the food is gone.
We go out to eat with friends on a regular basis and they regularly don’t lick their plates clean. Even after we’ve finished eating, and we walk past uncleared tables, both of us are wondering if there is any way we could discreetly take this food home with us.
There is no excuse for me. I was raised in a household where there was always enough to eat and my Mom didn’t believe in making her kids “clean their plates.” She didn’t want anyone to get sick from overeating. Even still, I always cleaned my plate. I can distinctly remember taking a piece of white bread or two (with butter) and mopping up ever particle of food or gravy on my plate.
Laur, I could understand. He was one of five boys in a family living on a rural minister’s salary. You would never turn down food because there were rarely seconds. They didn’t go hungry but they filled up with pounds of potatoes and loaves of bread (back when local spuds and Wonder bread were wonderfully cheap.)
*****
Is this leading back to Zumba, as promised? Yes, here we go.
It was interesting to hear why people at the Zumba Instructor Training program loved Zumba so much. The Instructor, well, Ricardo Marmitte was born with more energy than Tigger and he makes a good income doing what he loves. Most of rest of the class – young women – loved the number of calories they burned off. My answer was the least sexy – maintain bone density and fight off Alzheimers. Oh yeah, and help middle aged and older women to be well and stay well.
But the young women may be on to something. Thus far, Laur’s and my bodies have been very forgiving about the amount of food we take in, but this is about to change. Seniors have a hard time keeping their weight down because their metabolism slows down – they just burn fewer calories. Their muscle mass diminishes, and muscle burns more calories. And in general, older folks tend to move around less AND, this is huge (and makes them huge,) they like to eat out more.
So, doing the math, according to Seniors Health websites, I only need 1600 calories and Laur only needs 1800 calories per day. I easily eat 500 calories at breakfast; the restaurant meal I had today was easily 1000. So in theory, I don’t get to eat again today. Laur has a little less breakfast, so would be allowed a few hundred calories at supper. As wonderful as Zumba is, an hour of it at my pace only burns 350 calories. I’d have to do three hours of it to burn off my lunch – never going to happen.
I am particularly concerned about this for us when we are in Arizona for half the year. Not only are there many restaurants calling out to us, there are also many potlucks. Even if I did only one meal out and one potluck, one take-home and one sticky bun breakfast – that’s 4,000 calories. I could gain a pound a week!
Ah but Jan, you’re allowed 500 calories per meal in the seniors waistland, so that’s really only 2,000 extra calories. One Zumba would be 350; one hike of three hours would be 600. Repeat twice weekly, and you’re good. OK, so I’ll have to skip a sticky bun breakfast and the takeout because I know myself too well – I’m not going to work that hard.
But what to do about hubs? He will never pass up food, and he will never knowingly do Zumba. But what if I invited him to the pool and told him Tina Turner would be there… He’d go. And surprise! Aqua Zumba! See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUoIQ0AwjRA&list=PL71666A8E6133C79D
I might have to change the ruse a little every week. Next time I could promise him Indian Moonshine and Crazy Love at the poolside! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R63mBqrAYA
But by then he might start catching on. No worries, I’ve discovered a Charity Hiking website for Arizona. You hike for a good cause (and it inadvertently takes deposits out of the fat bank.) I am loving “Bring Joe Home” because he will hike from Utah through Arizona to Mexico until enough money is raised - http://swaghunter.blogspot.ca/2013/09/bring-joe-home-charity-hike.html - but he’d really like to be home for American Thanksgiving (fourth Sunday of November.) I have to tell you, I do not know a woman who would take this kind of risk! A Zumbathon in a Mall, maybe…
As difficult as I can be, even I don’t have the heart to send my hubs into the hills. I’ll just suggest this project as “Keep Laur in his Lair” – two hikes and two Zumbas a week, and it’s Stay-Home-Sweet-Trailer.