Here was the literal break-fast last night, after a very nearly 36 hours fast. Very simple, and no, it's not lettuce that's gone brown; it's balsamic. Pretty much, the only salad dressing I do now is home made with quality cold pressed extra-virgin olive oil. This one is simply olive oil and balsamic. Another one I do is a French vinaigrette that's a bit more complex. I'll have to remember to provide the recipe next time. You'll love.

Yep, those are potatoes — fingerling — initially sautéed just a minute or two on the stove in butter, garlic, and lots of paprika. Then, onto a cookie sheet at 350 for 20. Then 3-5 under the broiler. While I eat almost no grain, grain product, rice, pasta, legumes…I do take in some potato, usually a couple of times per week. Oh, almost forgot: 16 oz ribeye, grilled at five-hunerd.

This morning:

The omelet begins with a good sized pat of butter on medium, then several slices of yellow onion sliced very thin, like a 16th. Onion in the butter until brown and carmelized. In the meantime, beat the two eggs; and I took one of the three strips of bacon and chopped it up. All goes into the pan with the onion and butter. For years I have faced the issue of having a difficult time getting the cheese (pepper jack, in this case) fully hot & melted without overcooking the egg. Grating helps, but even better is to just slice up what you need, into a bowl, and nuke it for 30-45 seconds. It makes a nice goo, which you can then easily spread onto the omelet and fold over. And check out how little rind there is on the Trader Joe's mini watermelons.

Here's a couple of interesting things I read yesterday on the subject of longevity.

IF Life: The Longevity Gene SIRT1 Part I – CR, Fasting and Aging Diseases

Clarence Bass: Weight Training Reverses Almost 40 years of Aging — in Six Months; Restores Youthful Genetic Footprint to Mitichondria

The researchers summarized their findings: “We report here that healthy older adults show a gene expression profile in skeletal muscle consistent with mitochondrial dysfunction and associated processes such as cell death, as compared with young individuals. Moreover, following a period of resistance exercise training in older adults, we found that age-associated transcriptome expression changes were reversed, implying a restoration of a youthful expression profile.” (Emphasis added.)

“The main, novel finding,” Co-author Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky told CS (Canadian Press) writer Sheryl Ubelacker, “is that we could bring that aging mitochondria pattern back towards a younger person, almost reversing the aging signature, pretty much by 40, 45 years with six months of weight training.”

Full Study

(linked via the new Fitness Spotlight aggregator)

The older you are, the absolutely more essential it is to get exercise in the form of weight training. If you can possibly afford it, which is probably more a matter of priority, get a personal trainer and tell him you'll only hire him if he can squeeze an hour workout into 30 minutes, and do it twice per week. I have worked out on, mostly off, for many years. Never did I make it more than about 2 months without dropping off (sometimes for years), with a single exception where I had a workout partner, but then it lasted only six months. I am just about at the one year point, and I have missed exactly one workout where I didn't reschedule to the next day or so. That's the difference a trainer makes.

If you have injuries, just work around them. You have lots of muscle groups.