The Knitting Fiend/ Diet Diary

This is my brining recipe. Most brining recipes use kosher salt, but I prefer iodized because if my food is salted, I want to add iodine. When using iodized salt, you need to use less salt otherwise the chicken will be much too salty. I also add less sugar if I am high temperature roasting and my basic recipe for baking involves add less than most recipes I’ve read.

• 6 cups water + 3 T table salt. (Yes. I use iodized salt.)
• Sugar: 1T for roasting. 2T for oven.
• Spices of your choice. ( I like a bay leaf and rosemary or lemon pepper. )

Mix water salt and sugar. Heat in microwave to dissolve salt and sugar. Add spices; allow to cool to 40F in the refrigerator. Place a 1 qt bag in a a bowl. Clean chicken, place in the bag in the bowl. Pour cold brine over chicken. Seal with twist tie and place in refrigerator for at least 1 hour per pound or up to 8 hours.

For Thanksgiving Turkeys, you’ll want to find a recipe for brined turkey involving yummy things like maple syrup and spices. Pick a relatively small turkey (not 20 lbs) and scale up the amount of brine. Place the turkey and brine in a bucket, and put that in a cooler. Surround the bucket with ice and keep the cooler in a cool or cold out of the way place. We often place it in the garage which is usually just above freezing. Keeping the brinenearly freezing, I brine for a bit longer than 8 hours, the maximum recommended brining time. (I don’t know if brining longer than 8 hours is technically from a food health point of view– I guess you can consult food safety experts.)

At least one hour before cooking, remove chicken (or turkey) from brine. Rinse, pat skin dry and elevate chicken on some sort of rack placed on a platter. Allow surface to air dry in the refrigerator for at least an hour to overnight ; (drying makes the skin crispier.) Then roast or bake following your favorite recipe. After brining, I never add any more salt to any rubs.

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During June, I tried “interval training” because the Chicago Tribune had recommended that for building some speed. I recently learned what I was doing was not “HIGH intensity interval training”, which has been studied and shown to improve maximum cardio-vascular levels and speed with at reduced training times relative to steady-state aerobic training. It also appear to increase resting metabolic rate and improves fat burning and weight loss. All this for less training time? I’m for giving that a try.

Three methods of implementing HIIT are discussed at Wikipedia. These are the “Tabata”, “Little” and “Men’s Health Magazine” methods. Given the equipment at my disposal, and my preferences I’ve decided to try this following the “Little” protocol as closely as practical using the elliptic machine at my gym. What I’m specifically doing is as follows:

Program the elliptic machine for 34 minutes. On our machine, this shows 15 vertical bars corresponding to 15 intervals of 136 seconds each. This corresponds to 60 s of high intensity plus 76 seconds for light effort. (The Little protocol calls for 60s high intensity and 75s light effort.)

During the first 3 vertical bars (6.8 minutes), I will warm up going fairly slowly. During the next 8 vertical bars, I will set the machine to display the “count left in interval”. At the beginning of the interval, the count will read 136 s. For the first 60 seconds, I’ll ‘sprint’ as fast as I possibly can with the resistance set to “4″; I’ll work slowly for the remaining 76 seconds. At the end of these intervals, the machine will show 4 more bars. I’ll cool down, possibly by turning the steps backwards during those final bars.

This will be 34 minutes on a “cardio” machine three times a week, which is less total time than I’ve been devoting to aerobic exercise. The elliptic machine will tell me I am burning fewer calories, but evidently, I’ll burn more the rest of the day. I plan to do this 2 times a week for the next two weeks. I’ll ramp up to 3 times a week the third week. Eventually, I may ramp up to doing 12 high intensity intervals– the maximum in the Little protocol.

Because I do want the extra calorie burn from steady state cardio, I’ll probably walk or do cardio at the “fat burn” heart rate the remaining 3 days a week.

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I read an press-release announcing Sensa weight loss system. The press-release which sent me to a web page that linked to an offer to try Sensa for “free”: Only $4.95 for shipping and handling.

Well, honestly, if it really was only $4.95 for shipping and handling and no risk of spending a lot more, I’d order the stuff, I’d try it. But look at this:

You have a full 30 days to try your SENSA 2-Month Starter Kit. If you enjoy SENSA, do nothing and you will be billed for the 2-Month Starter Kit one low payment of $89.95 at the end of the free trial on 10/1/2010. That’s a 35% SAVINGS off the retail price! If you decide to keep your 2-Month Starter Kit, you will be automatically enrolled in our SENSA AutoShip Delivery Service. As part of the SENSA AutoShip Delivery Service, you will receive a fresh 2-month supply of SENSA every 60 days at the low price of only $89.95 so you never run out. You will be charged this price every 60 days, billed to your credit card, plus $0.00 shipping and handling.

If for any reason during the 30-day trial period you are dissatisfied with your SENSA product, simply log in to your account at trysensa.com or call Customer Care at (866) 514-2554 to cancel. You will need to generate a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) number and return your unused product.

CA, NJ, and MN residents will be charged sales tax at time of purchase. Customer is responsible for return postage.

Questions? Contact a SENSA Customer Care Representative toll-free at (866) 514-2554

So, when ordering, you aren’t only requesting a free sample, you are signing up for an $89.95 per two month subscription. That’s fine if you realize you are doing it. But, I’ll also like to point out that today is September 1 and the text says my card will be billed on Oct 1. So, my card would be billed at the end of 30 days (not 60 days) unless I cancel, fill out a form and go to the trouble of returning the unused product. Presumably, I will have to pay shipping to send the remaining 30 days of Sensa back to Sensa.

Quite honestly, I’d rather they just sent me 30 days worth of the stuff, and– having confidence in the product– sent me an email asking me to consider subscribing to a plan.

I also wonder if returning the remaining Sensa is going to be more of a hassle than I prefer. I clicked “terms and conditions” which read:

Please note that we cannot process packages marked “Return to Sender”. Returned packages require a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) number to ensure accurate processing. RMA numbers can be obtained by calling Sensa Customer Care at (866) 514-2554.

So, the dissatisfied will be required to get this RMA number— maybe that will be easy to get instantly or not. Maybe I’ll be put on hold an hour. Maybe I’ll be asked a zillion questions like I was when I canceled Comcast internet. Who knows? Some customers are complaining of poor service at this bodybuilding forum.

Of course, my main concern is that to find out if the stuff helps with weight loss, I really would need to use it for close to 30 days. I’ll only discover I’m dissatisfied in late September. By that time, knowing myself, I suspect I’ll forget to cancel on Sept. 30 as required to avoid being charged the $89.99 for the following two months worth of diet-aid I had already decided didn’t work.

If that happened (and I suspect it would) I’d be kicking myself for being a fool and having gotten scammed– and I’d also be out $89.99. Not good. (Note: A customer was complaining about exactly this at health hound.org)

But maybe I could recoup my loss by selling the dis-satisfying to me product on ebay? I went to ebay– It looks suspiciously like some inexpensive supplies are appearing with titles like “2 NEW SEALED MONTH 2 SENSA WEIGHT LOSS TASTANTS SHAKER”. Current bid? $4.24. Selling stuff I bought for over $89.99 for $4.24 wouldn’t make me feel very good.

So, am I going to try Sensa? Not unless someone sends me some for free. And I mean really free. Not “free provided you don’t screw up, forget to cancel your subscription, which you probably will, otherwise, we’ll charge you $89.99. ” I advise you skip this “free” offer too.

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