Macrobiotics and Other Things "Re-Imagined"

This is a really great link about all the new macrobiotic restaraunts that are sprouting up all over Los Angeles.


https://www.latimes.com/features/food...,7966804.story

It seems "macro" is becoming hip again, but they are calling it "progressive macrobiotics" I wonder if that's macrobiotics "re-imagined" like something else that Dirk was involved in that was "re-imagined" and probably not as good or as healthy as the original. I’ll reserve judgment for now…. In any case it's a good article, if anyone we know might be going to Los Angeles anytime soon....maybe they can eat at some of these places and let us know how macro they are or aren’t

You know skipping rope is being “re-imagined” at 24 hr fitness also as part of their Everlast boxing classes they teach people how to jump rope for fitness... part of this new crazy fitness trend. They do at least 15 minutes of jump rope in this class… all different styles. It’s almost like if I didnt know better, I would say that someone at corporate at 24 hr fitness watched CBB 5 on you tube saw someone jumping rope, and decided we need to team up with a boxing company and teach a more boxing / jump rope fitness class we’ll “re-imagine” the jump rope.

Hey and it’s not even like I have anything against imagination or re-inventing the wheel or trying to make the wheel more hip….. seriously. I mean anything that gets more people actually doing real exercise I'm totally in favor of. I could never get excited about aerobics classes ever because quite frankly, I played hockey, I was not a figure skater and never could quite master a lot of complicated dance moves.

On the other hand I love group exercise classes like the spin classes which are an imaginary bike ride that you take in the dark. If your instructor is good you can follow the cadence of their I-Pod tunes that they have selected and have a pretty good workout even if you don’t know all the lingo at first. And if you aren’t on cadence no one really notices because it’s in the dark. If your form isn’t the best, or you don’t have as tough a gear on the bike as the person next to you no one knows. If you can’t imagine all the hills no one really cares, you can just do the drills. It’s guided yes, but you make your own workout. According to my electronic pulse and calorie monitor I burn about 600-800 calories per hour along with my fellow riders, (mostly because it’s not outdoors so you never stop for traffic and are constantly pedaling)

So I like the bike re-imagined in the spin class. It’s a great workout, you can do it with your friends, it’s non-competitive because everyone stays in the same place and no one wins the race. You don’t have to worry about rain or other yucky weather spoiling the ride. Sometimes the music is a little questionable, but it’s just really to pace everyone, to get you sprinting or doing slow climbs or whatever drills the instructor wants to do that week. . And hey… all the “bike reimagined” has dropped my ass from a size 2 down to a tight lifted size 0 and it gives me a great cardio / core alternative when my knees tell me that I have spent enough time running.

So what’s the message here? Cycling re-imagined in spin class=good,

other things "re-imagined" questionable….. Like my recent decent into "re-imagined" macrobiotics with thermogenic fat burning supplements.


The thermogenic fat burning supplement that I was taking for a 10 week cycle was recently recalled / withdrawn from the market here in the United States. I guess I was lucky in that I don’t seem to have any of the ill effects that were mentioned in news reports. Most of what they are taking it off the shelves for was clearly outlined on the bottle. Did it work in my case?? Well… that’s debatable.

The whole point for me in taking it was really to lower body fat and increase muscle at the same time which is hard at a certain point to do. My body fat at the end of the cycle is down to 13%, which for a female is really quite low. Would I have gotten there at this time in my life without the supplement? That’s a question I’ll never be able to answer. Did I do this all on my own? Was the body fat drop a result of all my hard work? or the thermogenic fat burners blocking me from burning muscle?

Its unfortunate that honestly I can’t answer these questions. I know this. The decision to use these re-imagined diet pills because of my impatience and maybe more importantly at the core, my lack of faith in myself to be able to get my body fat percentage down without them will keep that self-doubt in my mind. I imagine when I go through triathlete lean out again starting in December without thermogenics, I will be able to answer that question more effectively at the end of the cycle and have more faith in my ability to do it on my own, without the assistance, or even the placebo effect of some supplement. I look forward to that day when I have more and stronger faith in my own innate abilities to cut my own path and follow it relentlessly.

I learned from this experience though that you can’t have faith in your own ability if someone or something else is there doing it for you. This is important with my kids too, they need to be doing things independently and learn to have faith in themselves and their abilities. I all ready knew this was true for them, but now I realize it much more clearly. When I run the ironman in a few years after a lot more training is under my belt, I need to have the faith in myself, not in a supplement, or a water, or a performance food, or some “re-imagined” feel good version of some other crap. I need to have faith in my own voice and what I know will work, not some trainer ( no matter who they have trained or how famous they are), not a computerized bike fit, not a computer analyzed running gait analysis, not a commercial, not some chick at the gym whose ass is smaller than mine… although ( never mind not really important). Not that it is a bad thing to listen to others and take in information….
Hank Aaron was a great hitter in part because he never had a hitting coach growing up. He crossed his hands on his bat ( opposite the conventional way) growing up and developed very powerful muscles in his wrists hitting this way, and when he was turned into a conventional grip hitter in the major leagues he still hit better than just about anyone. He also hit off of his front foot in the batters box, not his back foot as all children are taught from the day they start T-Ball these days. Yet he listened to his own voice, because there was no one telling him to do things differently and was quite successful.

In the end I think everyone has their own choice. Do you believe in you and your own ideas???? Do you have enough confidence to stand on your beliefs and ideas and not bend when others or life and circumstances encourage you to cave in and go along??? Or do you place your faith in a pill??? Or someone else’s re-imagined version of some other crap??? It’s an important question…. Where do you place your belief ????

Yours off the belief in the "thermogenic fat burners" physically and spiritually back in the macro kamikaze cowgirl saddle again

In the spirit of
Peace Love Hope Faith Bancha and lots of biking, spin classes, running, swimming and jump rope
SS