Getting stronger

For years, I have done push-ups and other body-weight exercises as a daily fitness routine. The latest schedule was:

Day 1

Burpees, crossfit-style. 10 sets of 11, starting on 1 minute. That's about 30 seconds on, 30 seconds recovery. Exhausting, but a full-body workout all in 10 minutes.

Day 2

Standing horizontal rowing using elastic bands. 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off for 7 sets. Then 3 minutes of slalom squats: squat over right leg, center, left leg, center, repeat, and every eighth squat, hold the down position for a count of 6.

Day 3

Push-ups for 20 seconds, hop up to standing, rest for the remainder of the minute, repeat for 7 sets. Then stationary lunges: step out with right foot, 7 lunges (or split-squats), hold the down position for count of 6, 5 more lunges; do left foot; continue through four sets.

Days 4-6: repeat days 1-3.

Day 7: rest

This has been a good routine. I am thin, fit, and balanced, but not particularly strong. I haven't worked out with weights regularly since college, when I weighed 15 pounds more than I do now. But we got a Tonal home gym, so my whole routine is changing.

Tonal offers many workout programs, delivered as videos on the machine itself. I am on a strength training program, which comprises 4 half-hour-ish workouts a week. On off days, I do my Burpees routine, or find another workout to do.

Tonal gamifies working out in several ways, which provides motivation to push yourself. My initial assessment gave me a "strength score" of 376 on December 19. As of today, it is 467. I think the former is higher than 27% of male Tonal users; the latter is higher than 44%. Am I really that much stronger in 12 days? Probably not, but likely some. Some of it is just getting used to the machine, I think. Still, I'm on my way.

Shelly is also on her way. A big part of the reason we got the Tonal is that it has a "smart spotter" feature that detects when you're struggling and can reduce the weight on the fly. Since she's prone to injury, we want to minimize the chances of that.

We'll be taking photos and measurements each month to see how we're changing. Maybe by this time next year I'll be in or near the "comma club", with strength score of 1,000 or more.

Making pickles

I don't like pickles, but Shelly does, so this year I've made two types of refrigerator pickles for her. The first ones are dills, for which I simply followed this online recipe. Shelly proclaimed them the Best Ever, which is also what the web page calls them.

Next, I went for bread and butter pickles. I wanted to put cooled (rather than hot) brine over the cucumbers, as that preserves crunchiness better. Some of what I was using were slicing (not pickling) cucumbers, which are more prone to going soft.

I mostly followed this recipe, but wanted to salt the cucumbers first, rather than just having salty brine.

About pound of cucumbers
1T kosher salt
3/4 c white vinegar
1 c cider vinegar
3/4 c granulated sugar (maybe cut this by 2 T)
1/4 c water
1 t celery seed
1/2 t brown mustard seed
1/2 t white mustard seed
1/2 t ground turmeric

1/2 onion, sliced

Slice cucumbers about 1/4 inch thick. It should be enough to nicely fill a quart jar.

Put the slices in a large bowl and sprinkle with the salt. Mix it up well with your hands, then stuff them into the jar, and put the jar in the fridge for an hour or so. (A jar is easier to fit in the fridge than a big bowl is, but you could do that if you wanted.)

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat and add the onion to the pan. That will lightly cook the onion. Let the brine cool for the remainder of the pickles' hour in salt. Should be about 40 more minutes.

Take the cucumbers out of the fridge and rinse off the salt, and put them back in the big bowl. Fill the jar by alternately adding some brine to the jar, then stuffing cucumbers into the jar. If you have a weight to put on top of the cucumbers to hold them down in the brine, that's good.

Cap the jar and refrigerate for at least a day.