The Fit Nation

https://ift.tt/hq5nFZY Me, Bill, and Tommie. What’s Cool About This (Apart from the handsome subjects) is it is AI-assisted. Bill took Tommie’s and My Picture, I took Bill and Tommie, and I asked Gemini to combine into one pic with all 3. I’m just back from visiting my Brother Bill and Nephew Tommie in Phoenix for five days. The weather was delightful this time of the year, which is why snowbirds like to visit. I don’t usually qualify as a snowbird, more of a cold-and-rainy-bird, but this year I actually did leave when there was snow on the mountains as I showed in my last post. We had a great time. It was delightful for me just going on walks with the desert scenery, and one day we went on a desert hike in South Mountain Park and saw wildflowers. Not too spectacular yet, they are not at their peak, but still pretty. We also enjoyed 3 separate museums. The first was Butterfly Wonderland in Scottsdale, part of the Arizona Boardwalk. Tommie volunteers there but this was his day off...

https://ift.tt/oM9Yl1V …So I’ve been dodging raindrops or sneaking rides in between storms. More is coming next week, which will get us near our normal rainfall yearly total, which is great. Due to the rain I’ve done shorter rides this week but I’ve made sure I did my more intense intervals and my strength training, which is good for maintaining fitness. Next week I’ll be visiting my brother in Phoenix and I’ll be walking and hiking but not biking. Little fitness will have been lost in these two easy weeks, then I’ll get back to my normal schedule. If I post from Phoenix, it will be short because I won’t have my computer and am not good at typing on the phone. I’ll be back next Friday. First rainy ride of many, on the streets near home, not too heavy yet. The recent rainstorms have been rare ones where it is cold enough for snow in our area. This is looking northeast towards Mount Hamilton.That means the snow line is below 4000′ (1200 meters) so there will be lots of snow in the...

https://ift.tt/b5iBjep This is an infographic created by Notebook LM from the Gemini Deep research report I generated The default mode network (DFN) is the neuroscience term about the parts of your brain that are active when you are not performing a task, so the brain is “resting”. The problem is that our brains don’t rest in this state, they become active in “rumination” mode which can be unpleasant. So most people are not comfortable just sitting there, they prefer some sort of stimulus like music, video games, social media, etc. I described all this and remedies for it in the previous post Calm Your “Default Mode”. I wanted to learn more about this so I had a chat about it with Gemini. This was with Gemini 3.0 in “thinking mode”, with the deep research tool activated, so it doesn’t just use it’s own training data but does a thorough search for relevant sources on the web. I was specifically interested in many areas of overlap between descriptions of the DFN and what is cal...

https://ift.tt/6XKZ74R We’ve had some really good weather for riding lately, plenty of sun and not too cold. I feel bad because my friends and relatives back East are getting clobbered by cold and snow. But that didn’t stop me from getting in good rides. Jan 30th I did a recumbent ride to the East and North of Morgan Hill: East on Main Towards the Green Foothills Coyote Creek Trail Near US 101 Heading West With The Santa Cruz Mountains in the Distance Heading Back Toward Town With El Toro Up Ahead On Feb 1st, I took my upright out to Coyote Valley Open Space, catching lots of gravel and dirt along the way. Dougherty Road, a nice rural road near town Dirt Trail in The Open Space On Feb 3rd, my group did It’s Monthly “Taco Tuesday” Ride, a beautiful cruise Southeast and Northeast of Town. East Toward The Foothills on Middle Ave I had rides the next four days also, but had misplaced my camera so didn’t document them. Yesterday was the first “sun-challenged” day in...

https://ift.tt/byA1KSq http://www.Amazon.com/books The book Growing Better Not Older by Dr. Sean O’Mara caught my eye, given my interests on this blog. He is an M.D. who in his late 40s was himself sedentary and not very healthy. He found out about the importance of visceral fat, which is the fat packed around our organs, as opposed to subcutaneous fat (“under the skin”). Cosmetically we normally worry about subcutaneous, as in trying to lose your “love handles” or “beer belly”, but it is the visceral that has worse health consequences. Dr. O’Mara found that this is often routinely seen in MRI scans, but not often noted by physicians, because the scan is usually taken to diagnose something else. In his case is was for back issues. After finding out he had excess visceral fat and learning about the importance, he modified his own lifestyle, including getting active and cleaning up his diet. This led to a large decrease in visceral fat and becoming healthier. Dr. O’Mara was so exci...