Jan 14 - Day 5

It been a great day today.  As I sit here I notice that I am less sore from exercises today, although I worked out for about 2+ hours during the day.  The morning started out with a class on "Power foods," foods which are packed with neutrician. The top candidate was blueberries with broccoli coming in second. You wouldn't believe that chocolate, yes good old chocolate came in third.  Though it is packed with calories and fat, the benefits from it  are it decreased LDL, may lower blood pressure, and a couple of other possible benefits.  The ending thought though was to use chocolate in moderation with fruits, vegetables, vegetable oils, and grains. I won't bore you with the other 7.

I went down to the gym and found that we were going to use one of those big inflated balls. I have never been on one of those balls, so it was a quick learning curve. I sat on the ball and then rolled forwards until I was stretched out with only my shoulders on the ball.  From that position, we lifted weights and  did ab crunches for strengthening my stomach muscles.   Toward the end there were a few exercise I found I couldn't do on the floor, so I used a chair. Attended a "Healthy Heart Eating" class. Before lunch I went downstairs and worked out on the weight machines for the first time.  There is a circuit around the machines that you make as you move from machine to machine.  I had a sheet that we made yesterday that indicated all the different settings and weight for each machine.

In the afternoon, I went to a class "controlling overeating", very interesting and I came away with some suggestions.  I then went back to the gym and worked on the Nustep machine for 30 minutes. I didn't eat much for supper as I had signed up for a Chinese cooking class.

  At 6:45 we were driven to a storefront establishment in a mall with a sign which read "Lan Tan's Gourmet Foods, Gifts, and Chinese Cooking School." Lan was a delightful older woman who demonstrated how to make low cal Chinese dishes.  During the demonstration, she made Mu Shu Chicken with Pancakes (The Chinese pancake is very similar to our tortilla,) Peking Dumplings, and a wonderful Hot and Sour Soup. We had a few minutes to wait for the van, so Lan started to talk about life in China and how it has changed. It was a delightful way to end the day.