Category Archives: Challenges

Frustration

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Dieting is never easy, but some things really complicate our efforts.

We are on the Nutrisystem programs. I’m on the one with most choices for women with too much lard and my husband is on the diabetic men’s program.

We were going along just fine until this past order. The BBQ Pulled Pork that my husband REALLY likes for lunch wasn’t available. He doesn’t handle this well. In fact, when we tried Nutrisystem several years ago, he (and then I) quit because they kept narrowing his choices until he gave up in a huff. This is like an instant replay.

I spent a lot of time on CHAT today trying to find out if and when BBQ Pulled Pork would be available again. Bottom line after lots of time the answer was “it won’t be.” Needless to say, that didn’t go over well with my husband. We explored various options – him huffing and puffing all the while – and finally decided to order an A LA CARTE addition to our next order for him so that he can eat the substituted BBQ Seasoned Chicken that IS available for lunch or dinner as he chooses. (He’s almost to his weight goal so he doesn’t have to worry overmuch about calories, and we’re monitoring his blood sugar on a regular basis.)

I would really like to lose my lard.  An unhappy husband, though, isn’t worth it. I’m hoping that they don’t discontinue the BBQ Seasoned Chicken. If they do, that will be all she wrote. :0(

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Filed under Challenges, Changes, DIET!

Playing in My Art Room

My good friend Marsha suggested that, instead of trying to give myself PERMISSION to play in my art room, I SCHEDULE it at least twice a week as a part of a program to be better to myself. I’ve taken that suggestion and have found my spirits lifting and getting excited about trying to learn something new.

I have a book called Keys to Painting Fur & Feathers, edited by Rachel Rubin Wolf. It gives you hints about how to capture the essence of animals and birds, zeroing in on their most distinctive features in order to try to draw better pictures of them. It also addresses trying to paint realistic fur and feathers.

 

I decided to take a couple of my previous drawings and reproduce them, trying to concentrate on the feathers techniques.  Then I found others I’d like to try, as well. I’m trying to get a bunch of these drawings into a sketch book and then play with them, using all kinds of different media and see what I get.

I have to tell you the time flies as I ‘work’ in my art room. I turn on an mp3 player, listen to some of my favorite music in the comfort of my CLEAN, air-conditioned and ceiling-fanned room, a cup of coffee or a bottle of water beside me at the table.

I’m excited about learning a completely new skill, and I’m very thankful to have this book for examples, suggestions, and inspiration.

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Filed under Challenges, doing what you love, Encouragement, opportunities, quality of life, taking care of yourself

Encouraged

I lost a pound yesterday. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but I’m smiling today, happy that I seem to have broken through the weight loss plateau on which I teetered.

I’ve lost 17 pounds and 17.3 inches – definitely a good start.

My husband is doing well, too. He’s on the diabetic plan for men.  I don’t really see any difference in our plans, since Nutrisystem cuts out salt, fat, and sugar, still making things that taste good. Our choices each month seem to be much the same – all healthy.

My husband is to the point that he’s taking his blood pressure medicine every other day. We take our blood pressure daily, so we’re monitoring that – plus his blood sugar numbers – carefully. Since we’ve been trying to cut his sugar (before, but also continuing now with NS) he’s gone from having double vision for a scary time, shooting pains in his feet, having to have TUMS with him at all times, headaches, and high blood pressure and cholesterol, to good vision, no pain in his feet anymore, no TUMS in about 8 months now, lower blood sugar numbers and much lower blood pressure.  We’re hoping his A1C test will be normal, or very close to it this time.

We have our quarterly appointment with our primary doctor in August, so we’re hoping that our tests will show good improvement in all areas. I’m hoping that our doc will confirm that we’re on the road to better health now. A pat on the head would be nice! :0)

 

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Filed under Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, quality of life, taking care of yourself

Zipping It

Thanks to my good friend, Marsha Koenig, for these.

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Challenges, Favorite Quotes, opportunities

Dinosaurs

Rosie Made a Thing – via The Hippies were Right via Stephanie Youmans Wilson

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Challenges, character-building exercises, Favorite Quotes

Something to Think About

Albert Einstein-sayingimages.com

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Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes

Holding My Own, But Not Blazing Trails This Week

This picture makes me laugh. I love the creativity of the person who thinks like this AND the expertise of the person who did the photoshopping to create it.

I had a stagnant week, ‘getting-the-lard-off-wise.’

Progress to date is 16 pounds off and 17.3 inches off.

I’m frustrated that I can’t report any improvement this week, but I’m pleased that I ate three of the four FLEX meals we’re supposed to eat and didn’t gain anything. I enjoyed a FLEX SNACK of a scoop of chocolate ice cream from Braum’s after bowling with friends; a FLEX LUNCH of the salad bar with “Breakfast Bunch”; and a FLEX DINNER of chicken fried rice from our favorite Chinese place. (I got a ‘small’ portion, but I ate the WHOLE thing.)

I can report that I AM doing yoga every day, but the bulk of my ‘exercise’ has been sessions of working in the yard. With our heat index above 100 (our actual temperature will be 102 today!) just walking around in the heat is work for me, much less the weed whacking and spraying of stuff toting 2 gallons of liquid – several half hour sessions per day.

I have become a camel, glugging down water to a fabulous degree, over and above the 64 oz I’m SUPPOSED to be drinking.

So – I didn’t lose, but I didn’t gain – holding my own. I’ll ‘keep my head down’ and ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ and will hopefully be able to report some progress NEXT week.

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Filed under Challenges, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating, taking care of yourself

Stupidity Reigns

Sarcasm Dujour – http://www.pinterest.com

Between my husband and me, our life is one LARGE surprise party.

Our latest ‘party’ is listing two things for sale on eBay. We’ve done this for years, but not often. We listed an iMac, and then two external drives, asking that payments be made via Paypal.

We sold both in the last several days, but then the party began. It turned out that we had neglected to check the email address listed for our account at Paypal (listed nowhere on the site except on listings you’ve posted.) We still had our OLD Paypal email from when I had my Creative Artworks website on our LAST listing, so it went on the NEW listings automatically. Since we’re old and doofus, we didn’t think to check. The buyers paid, but the payments went to lala land, since neither that email nor the Paypal account associated with it, exist now. We tried everything to fix it, finding out that the ONLY place you can change it is in a new listing. We listed a DVD, changing the information to the current email and Paypal account associated with it, but that doesn’t help us with the old listings. ARRRGH!

When we explained our goof to the \buyer of the external drives, sending him an invoice via Paypal, he said he had found the drives elsewhere, so we canceled the sale. After communication with the buyer for the iMac,  he said if we would list it again with the “buy now” price he had bought it for during the auction, he would buy it right away. We’re in the process of doing that now, hopefully not losing this sale, too.

What should have been simple listings and sales got hopelessly complicated because we FORGOT that the old information was on the Paypal account (only on eBay) and that we didn’t understand where we should have looked to make sure our information was correct before listing. Since we don’t sell things that often on eBay, we’ll probably forget what we have now learned the hard way. We’ll make notes about this, but then the notes will mysteriously disappear….

As Bette Davis said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” 

 

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Filed under Are YOU also older than Dirt?, Challenges, The Fun of Getting Old

The Wicked Witch is Dead

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I just came in gasping and weaving, from getting the garden cleaned up – making a check to make sure I harvested all the onions yesterday – pulling off the demarking strings (most of them snapped the minute I touched them) and re-spraying the bug killer in the boxes again.

The last step will be when I can get my breath back and my temperature down below ‘WAAAAAY – too – hot.’  I’m going to mix up weed killer and spray it on the floor of the garden, and all around. At another time I’ll do the weed eating of what I hope will be dead weeds around everything and then I’ll be ready for fall, hoping that we don’t go directly from lethally hot summer into way-too-cold fall.

We have GOOD air conditioning in our home and in our vehicles, so we can insulate ourselves from it, unless we’re determined to get yard work done.  I’m counting the sessions working in the garden as most of my exercise for the day. Once I’m finished with that, I’ll do my yoga and then head for the showers.

I hope that if it’s hot where you are, you have somewhere to go to give you some relief.

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Filed under Arkansas, Challenges, exercise, Greenwood, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

I’m Getting My Exercise Today – Cleaning Out My Garden

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I’m inside, trying to catch my breath, drink a bottle of water, and relax a bit before going outside again for another session on my weekend project – cleaning out my raised bed square foot garden boxes.

The heat index is now 97 degrees (90 degrees with 55% humidity). Our forecast temperature is 98 today. Unless the humidity drops drastically, that will be a heat index of 117 this afternoon. UGH.

Mother Nature has pretty well killed off my spring garden. The plants are no match for her, even with daily irrigation, so I’m throwing in the towel and cleaning things up for next time.

I’m going to do this in SEVERAL sessions during the weekend, trying to stay hydrated and not get heat or sun stroke.

(My husband is smarter – tackling a project where he can work inside our shop. He turned on the A/C this morning and has just gone out there soon to start work, refurbishing a roll-around chair for our wonderful hair stylist and friend, Michael.)

Since the outside work needs to be done, the garden and flower planters are my domain around here, and it’s not getting any cooler for the foreseeable future, I’m just going to be careful and get it done.

  • I’m half way through the first part – spraying the garden, tomato planters, and flower planters with bug spray so I hopefully don’t get stung/bitten/ or otherwise assaulted by our hostile insect population. (My ankle is still puffy from the last fire ant attack.)  I’m using EIGHT, a spray that isn’t supposed to affect the plants at all, won’t hurt our pets, and will JUST give me some relief.
  • The second part of the project will be pulling out the dying plants in the garden and harvesting the onions, spreading them on a screen we have on a trailer out by the shop to dry in the sun.
  • The third part of the project will be mixing some weed killer and spraying the ground under the raised bed planter boxes in the garden, around the perimeter of the garden, and around the trash cans of the components of Mel’s Mix along the back of the shop.

If I can finish this by the end of the weekend, anything ELSE I do will be gravy.

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Filed under Challenges, character-building exercises, exercise, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Feeling Encouraged

I went for my monthly massage with Lynn Moody this morning. I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to it. I was stiff and sore in my lower back and Lynn made it feel much better, as usual.  I’m so lucky to have found her.

I’m feeling encouraged because Lynn said she could tell I’ve lost weight! I’ve lost 15-1/2 pounds so far, and two people have noticed: Lynn today and our wonderful hair stylist, Michael, yesterday. They might just be being nice, since they know my husband and I are trying to get the lard off, but they didn’t have to say ANYTHING.

Officially, I’ve lost 15.5 lbs and 17.3 inches.

I wish I could tell you that I feel so much more energetic, but I don’t. Maybe in another 15 lbs or so. I’m still old. I still have to push myself to get onto my elliptical trainer, do my yoga stretches, over-the-door shoulder pulley exercises, and weight exercise for my shoulders. I’ve added one new exercise called, “The Oyster” which is supposed to be a really good, effective exercise for people who are essentially pear-shaped, like me. It is supposed to strengthen whatever the muscles are that go horizontally around your core, rather than the ones that run vertically, as most abdominal exercises do.

The Oyster

You’re on your back. You pull up your legs so they’re bent. You come up with arms straight in front of you. You push your lower back into the floor as you do this. You come up so your hands are even with your legs and hold it for a count of 5. You do as many repetitions as you can.

I’m still waiting for the 0-6 Pack Abs DVD I bought. I’m standing on one foot and the other to get started with these because the exercises are especially for people like me, who need to strengthen the horizontal core muscles in the right way for my body type so that I don’t injure myself or make things worse, making my belly stick out MORE. These exercises are also supposed to lessen the pain in my back as I strengthen the core muscles, which makes sense.

I know, it’s hard to listen to me being impatient when I hate to exercise, but I’ll stay with it if I feel it’s beginning to help me.

I’m hoping that each time I get my hair cut or go for another massage, there will be noticeably less and less of me!

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Filed under Challenges, DIET!, Encouragement, exercise, getting the lard off, taking care of yourself

92 Pound Greeting

This is Amber. She is 16 months old now, weighing 92 pounds at last weigh-in at the vet’s.  Words to describe her include, “energetic, sweet, exuberant, loving, boisterous, cute, unrelenting, playful, and ‘watch out!'”

Each morning I come down the stairs half asleep. My husband usually makes it downstairs before I do, letting doggies out and starting to feed animals. Sometimes Amber greets me at the bottom of the stairs. Other times in the living room, or the kitchen. I’ve learned to ‘brace for impact’ as we TRY to teach her not to dive-bomb us.

This morning she caught me as I was going to my recliner to retrieve the shoes and socks I had left there last night. She caught me from the side, causing me to almost fall onto the couch while I was trying to sit down in my chair. I took some time to love her, rubbing her all over and cooing to her, trying to get her to calm down. She’s like a volcanic eruption, though. It’s hard to contain all that love and enthusiasm.  (I held my feet up off the floor while greeting her, having learned the hard way that allowing her to step on my toes results in soreness and bruises.)

 

I got her calmed down, only to have to start over when I tried to stand up. She finally heard, “SIT!” and complied – just long enough for me to get completely up and around the chair. She circled around, over and over, tail wagging madly, as I made my way carefully to the kitchen. I finally got through one of the dog gates and closed it between us.

I AM smarter than this dog – I THINK.

We WILL get her to SIT and STAY one of these days ‘real soon now….’

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Family

I’m Flexing

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The Nutrisystem program encourages you to learn how to cook and eat in a reasonable fashion (unlike what we’ve been doing) by having us eat or cook one breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack on our own each week, preferably each on a different day during the week. They call these “FLEX” meals.

I really like this idea. We were on Nutrisystem before years ago before they added the flex meal idea (or frozen food choices) to their plan. We lost weight and then gradually put it back on because I went back to poor cooking habits from the past. This time they’re encouraging us to plan our flex meals for the week and work this idea into our new lifestyle.

So far, I’m having two problems:

  1. I’ve prepared a couple of flex dinners from their Leaf Recipes section. We each ate a serving of it and I froze the rest in individual portions so we can pull them out, nuke ’em, and eat.  This is complicated by the fact that I’m eating “dinner” for ‘lunch’ at the counselor’s suggestion, trying to work my way out of a plateau on my weight loss. “I” pull out a flex dinner for lunch one day a week, but my husband either doesn’t think about it or the idea doesn’t appeal to him for HIS dinner.  We can only eat ONE of these flex dinners per week, so the ‘reruns’ are lasting weeks and weeks!
  2. When I cook completely on my own,  or we get something out, we gain weight back. Example, Sunday evening I cooked two 4 oz steaks. With them we had little bitty potatoes with a little bit of butter and no salt, plus cut up fresh tomatoes. I thought it was a good dinner and my husband thought it was ‘wonderful,’ but we were both up on the scales Monday morning. Last night we went bowling with friends and had a scoop of real ice cream afterwards as our “flex snack” for the week. We were both up AGAIN this morning. Friday we’re due to eat our flex breakfast (or lunch) at a restaurant with the “Breakfast Bunch.” This gain isn’t only for one day, either. It seems to take the whole week to get back to where we were.

My first reaction is to quit eating the flex meals because they’re messing us up. But then the more grown up part of me realizes that this is the whole point of the program. We’re supposed to be learning what a ‘portion’ is, how to choose foods more wisely when we’re out, and incorporating the ‘new’ healthier eating style into our lives as a regular thing.

I’ll probably get online and talk to a counselor about this, since I’m determined to learn the lesson and make it a larger and larger part of the way we live. Right now I’m frustrated, but hopefully a nice person at NS can guide me on a better path.

latestwhatsappstatus.blogspot.com

 

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, Challenges, DIET!, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating, quality of life, taking care of yourself

Choices

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, via Lisa Bearnes Richey

As I get older – and older – I see that this quote is true. It IS our choices that shape our lives.

  • Do you choose to expand your life – try new things – learn something new?
  • Do you choose to actively try to get healthier?
  • Do you choose to reach out to a loved friend who needs you?
  • Do you choose to tell – and show – people you love how much they mean to you?
  • Do you choose to try to make each day count?
  • Do you choose to look at life in a happier frame of mind?
  • Do you choose look for ways to make others happier?

I’ve had several friends over the years seemingly make a conscious choice to allow their lives to implode. They resist change, refuse to learn new things, allowing their lives to get smaller and more insular until they’re gone.  It’s a pattern I don’t want to follow. I’m choosing to live each day to the fullest. What choices are YOU making?

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Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes

Another of Life’s Character-Building Exercises

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My husband is the technical person, handling computers, all things electrical, a LOT of things online, fixing things, etc. He was the one who figured out how we could cancel our satellite TV and save a lot of money. But, as he ages, his temper gets shorter and shorter – and – I admit I’m describing myself, as well.

Yesterday we had a power blip. Though the electricity was off for such a short time a lot of our things didn’t notice, it took us the rest of the day to deal with things that WERE affected.

We like DirecTVNow. All of a sudden, it wanted us to sign in with our user name and password. This is a really aggravating, laborious process of searching for one letter at a time, making our user name seem endless, and our password almost impossible due to the fact ours is quite complicated for safety concerns. I told my husband I would do the input if he would get me the password.

To make a long story shorter, we couldn’t get DirecTVNow to accept our password. My husband went into the office, then came back saying, “I deleted our Roku account because it wouldn’t take our password.” It turned out that he had confused the Roku and DirecTVNow accounts and had been giving me the Roku password. Now the account was deleted, so that meant ALL of our TV related accounts were toast.  His reaction to the problem and his temper in deleting the CORE of our TV watching ability was done in a fit of pique. He then decided to divorce himself from the problem – saying, “I don’t know,” to all my questions and not showing any interest in helping –  which had me tearing my hair out, and – at one point – going out in the back yard to yell a bit. (I wonder what the neighbors down in the valley think of the crazy woman who shrieks once or twice each year.)

I finally created a Roku account in MY name, and then got on my husband’s computer and added each of the programs and channels we had before, laboriously going from the living room to the office and back again, jumping through the various hoops each required.

We are both still alive and the TV stuff has been restored.

If you heard my head exploding or my shrieking last night, don’t be alarmed. Things are back to what passes as ‘normal’ around here.

It truly amazes me that the person I love most in the world is also the one who drives me completely nuts!

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Filed under Challenges, Changes, character-building exercises

Getting the Lard Off Report – 07-05-2018

mashable.com

This is the end of Week 10 on Nutrisystem. I’ve lost 15 pounds and 15.8 inches. 

I’m a bit frustrated at my fumbling around on measuring myself. I’m following their suggestions, measuring in the bathroom where I can look in the mirror and make sure the measuring tape is level, etc., but I’m still coming up with different numbers from time to time. I guess the ‘flexibility’ in measuring can be factored in, assuming I screw up the same amount each week. As long as the general trend is downward, I’m happy.

Of course my husband, who just eats the food I bring him, not worrying about drinking water, exercising or anything else, has lost more weight than I have. I’m delighted for him, though, because he is a Type II diabetic. His blood sugar number this morning was 101. (normal is 100 or under.) His lowest reading to date was 96. I’m hoping that the A1C he has at the end of the month shows really good improvement. He told me last night that ‘it’s amazing that I’m losing weight and I’m never hungry.’ He is also really pleased that he gets to enjoy an orange or an apple each day – something he thought he would never be able to do again. His reaction so far is, “I don’t see why we can’t stay on Nutrisystem essentially forever.”

It’s a really good thing he feels this way because I have a lot of lard to lose and, though I’ve made progress, the weight is coming off slowly. I’m more pleased with the change in measurements, though there’s a long way to go there, as well. It’s so much easier when we’re both eating essentially the same thing. I’m not having to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen. I dash in, get a snack or we each grab a meal. I cut up raw veggies for lunch and a salad for dinner. Not a lot of time to think about food – always a good thing.

I will have ‘re-runs’ (a term I love that my friend Marsha uses) at lunch, and my husband will have one tonight for part of his dinner. The flex meals are still a work in progress, but we’re getting a bit more comfortable with it now.

I’ll feel a bit better when I’ve made enough progress that people begin to notice there isn’t as much of me as there used to be. :0)

 

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Filed under Challenges, Changes, DIET!, Healthy Eating, taking care of yourself

Defurminating the Dog

Amber is miffed at me because we went out onto the screened porch with a trashcan and a ‘furminator’ tool and I proceeded to try to thin her hair. She’s been panting like crazy in this heat even with plopping herself into her kiddie pool almost every time she goes out. I even gave her a cookie after she had taken all she was going to tolerate, but she’s still miffed.

furminator

This started when I was watching the news today and Amber sat down on her bed which is right under the TV. She plops, rather than sitting more elegantly, and this resulted in a cloud of hair flying in all directions.

After getting 1/3 of a large trash can full of hair today, I’ve decided that we’ll try to do this at least every other day. Even though I’m not winning any popularity contests with this, it will make her more comfortable and it will help MY mood. I’ve been vacuuming a LOT (for me) and each time end up with a canister full of dog hair and YUCK from our floors. Maybe I’ll feel that I’m making more progress in this as we thin Amber’s coat a little.

Meanwhile, she looks at me, huffs, and lays her head down again – on the floor because she can’t fit into Molly’s bed. :0)

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Family

Lunacy

workingtruckworld.com

Recently I told you that we found a wonderful guy who is coming tomorrow afternoon to clean out our gutters, install covers, PLUS give us an estimate for taking down parts of two trees. He’ll have his chainsaw in the back of his vehicle so he can do the tree work while he’s here if we like the estimate.

Yesterday I was sitting in my comfortable chair in the living room reading when I heard a strange sound in the back yard. I looked out to see our truck backed up toward the evergreen tree that has a huge dead place in the middle of it due to the power company clearing things for their lines, cutting stuff down in a really careless way.  My husband was up on a ladder, precariously balanced on the slope that runs down to the actual tree trunk, trying to tie a nylon rope to the dead part of the tree.

I screeched silently, grabbed my sweatband and sunglasses and ran out to the truck. I held onto the ladder while my husband got the line tied. The other end of the line was on the trailer hitch on the back of the truck. Amber was in the back of the truck, looking delighted.

We tried the technique several times before we finally pulled the largest dead branch off the tree. We untied it and rolled the whole branch into the easement behind the evergreen, across from the greenhouse and the ham radio tower. We were then able to use another tool to grab another large piece of dead stuff and pull it down.  We couldn’t get all of the dead stuff, but it looks a lot better than it did.  We’re all still alive and no one was hurt.

We still have the mimosa at the bottom of the driveway that suffered a broken branch. It’s hanging down halfway onto the driveway. I’m picturing the two of us tackling THAT, too, today, ahead of the handyman coming tomorrow.  To do this, my husband will have to stand in the back of the truck and try to use the chain saw on the branch. I’ll be in the truck – positioning it as closely as possible – and then dragging the branches across the road as they’re cut and tossing them down into the ravine on the other side of the road from us.

I’m thinking that this is a pride thing, where it’s better to kill ourselves than have to admit to someone else we’re too old to do it…

Please wish us luck.

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Filed under Challenges, Changes, Housekeeping - Maintenance, Lewis projects

Getting the Lard Off Progress Report – 6-27-2018

cliparts.co

The BAD news is that I’m still old and still don’t look a THING like Julia Roberts.

The GOOD news is that with the help of the Nutrisystem counselor, I seem to have broken through the plateau from Hell I was on and am losing weight again!

 

To date, I’ve lost 16.3 inches.

Poundage off is now 14.4.

Other GOOD things –

  • I’m getting used to drinking 64 oz of water daily, no longer feeling that my eyes are floating. (My husband – who is not even trying to drink any certain amount – is getting used to having to pause the movie several times, though, as the drinking catches up with me in the evenings.)
  • I’m getting more confident about being able to adapt our life style to the Nutrisystem program, particularly as it relates to the flex meals and our social life. We like to bowl with friends on Monday evenings, for example. We use the trip to Braum’s afterwards as our FLEX SNACK for the week. We eat with friends every Friday for what we call “Lunch Bunch.” We were counting that as FLEX LUNCH, but are finding it easier to work it into the program by having it as our FLEX BREAKFAST for the week. I’m starting to prepare some of the “Leaf” Nutrisystem FLEX DINNER recipes, having fixed two so far. One of the recipes was an “OKAY,” but the latest one, the “1-Pan Rice, Chicken and Vegetables” was a winner. Today, since I made it to 1100 subscribers – actually 1101 now) to my blog – HOOORAAAAAAAY!” – we’re going to Red Lobster for Lobster Tail as our FLEX LUNCH for the week in celebration!
  • I’m starting to look forward to some of my exercising. I’ll never become like Jillian Michaels, who seems to live for exercise, or like annoying Leslie Sansone, who keeps talking about how much FUN her walking program is and how GOOD it feels, but I AM enjoying the half hour I spend daily doing my yoga stretches and then using my cervical pillow to completely relax for several minutes. I’m trying to do my elliptical trainer for 30 minutes every other day. I’m using all the vacuuming and mopping of floors as my exercise a couple of days a week or more, since I seem to have to devote my life to it to even THINK of trying to keep up with all the dog and cat hair right now.
  • I’m starting to believe that if I keep on keepin’ on, I’ll eventually lose the lard, be healthier, and feel better as there is less of me.

My next goal is to earn my 20 lb Nutrisystem bear!  One day at a time….

taolife.com

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating, opportunities, quality of life, taking care of yourself

Mixed Feelings

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I’m split right down the middle emotionally this morning – one half is jubilant, the other feeling very, very humble.

I officially hit 1100 subscribers to this blog the day before yesterday. Half of me is joyously dancing around the room. The other half is feeling very serious.

THANK YOU  to those of you who signed up to receive the blog. People see my posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, but 1100 actually signed up to receive my posts every day. I gain and lose subscribers on a regular basis. That’s normal and to be expected. To have this many people actually stick with me – many for several years now – is such a beautiful compliment.  My goal is to provide a place free of politics, outrage, bad news, and other gloomy, depressing things. We all get more than enough of that in our regular, every day lives. I’m trying to provide a break, focusing on beautiful things, funny stuff, posts that might bring you a smile, or that you might identify with. Above all, I hope to never bore you.

THANK YOU to those of you who take the time to hit ‘like’ or write to me. Feedback is a wonderful thing. Otherwise, I feel I’m throwing a bottle in the ocean. I appreciate feedback on what you enjoy, what made you smirk, what touched you in some way. I would love to know what you would like more of, as well as what you hope to never see again. :0)

When I told my husband that my subscriber list had reached 1100, he insisted that he take me for a meal of my favorite food in all the world – lobster tail! We’re doing that tomorrow!!!!  So THANK YOU, also, for giving my husband a reason to spoil me once again. :0)

As I wrote this post, my stats told me some wonderful news: I just hit 1101!

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What Color is Your Attitude?

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“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” – Allen Klein

_________________

 

My dad taught me how important seeing the world with humor can be. He lived it, giving me a beautiful example on which to base my own attitude.  I can stand back and look at what’s happening as if I’m watching a movie. This allows me to see the humor in the situation and give a big, hearty laugh at myself.

My mother-in-law gave me a reminder when we were driving her to a retirement center in Tulsa. Her whole life was changing. Her husband was dead set against the move. She was giving up much of her previous life and activities. She knew no one at the center. I asked her how she felt about the move. She smiled a bright smile, her eyes twinkling, and said, “I’m going to LOVE it!” I looked at her, silently asking her to go on. She said, again, “I’m going to love it. I’m going to make friends, find fun and interesting things to do, enjoy fixing up our rooms a bit, and make this my new home.” And she did.  Everyone soon knew who she was and loved her.

I’ll never forget this, and hope to embrace changes with this same enthusiasm. Attitude colors everything.  We can look at things with the idea of new opportunities and wonderful surprises ahead. I want my life to keep expanding. I would like to reach out, savoring what remains of my life with gusto. The more colorful, the better.

What color is YOUR attitude?

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Celebrating My Husband’s Health

I told you recently that my husband and I just celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary. We ‘renewed our option’ as we usually do at this time, but I told him that I wanted him to live healthy and happy so we could one day celebrate our 70th.

He has Type II Diabetes. We’ve been trying to get his blood sugar down for awhile now with varying degrees of success. He’s been doing better since we started Nutrisystem toward the end of April. We started monitoring his blood sugar twice a week after starting a new medication a couple of years ago. His blood sugar was in the 500’s when we discovered he had diabetes. When we started monitoring with the new meds, it was still at around 350+. (normal is below 100).

This morning it was 96!!!!!!!!!!!

He also complained of some dizziness about two weeks ago. We’ve been monitoring our blood pressure, so we noticed that his was low. We decided to have him stop the blood pressure medicine, taking his blood pressure daily and watching for any more dizziness. His blood pressure is now normal without medication and has been for a week or so now!!!!!!! No more dizziness, either!

I am SO happy for him. He is a HUGE sugar lover. (He even calls ME ‘Sugar.’)  He was kind of in a funk having to give up so many foods and drinks he loved. We were able to find some substitutes so he has a hot drink he likes and a cold drink he likes. (He will only drink water to take pills, and occasionally when he’s been out working in the yard.) The Nutrisystem choices so far have been at least “edible” and some are ‘really good,’ he says.

He only has about 12 more pounds to lose to get to a healthy weight, but the blood pressure and blood sugar differences are life-altering-for-the-better. He used to have pain in his feet, but that is all but gone now. He still has a bit of trouble wearing certain styles of shoes. (We found good sandals for the summer and good boots for the winter. He’s still having trouble finding tennis shoes that are comfortable for his toes, but he’s functional.) He had double vision for awhile, but that’s gone, thank goodness. Restless leg is still bothersome, but not often anymore.

Food and drink changes are never easy. He knows more than anybody (he thinks) and so pooh-poohs what experts say. He is having to admit that he is much better now, feeling better, sleeping better. We are both delighted to see the blood sugar and blood pressure numbers.

I hope our new primary doc will see that we’re serious about trying to take care of ourselves when we see her the first week in August. :0)

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New Recipe (Flex Dinner)

The rain has stopped, so we’re about to go grocery shopping. I’m getting the ingredients for a new Leaf Nutrisystem Flex Meal Dinner called, “1-Pan Rice, Chicken and Vegetables.”

I’ll make this when we get home. We eat ‘lunch’ at 2:30, so I’ll have plenty of time. “Why in the world would you fix a dinner in time for lunch?” you ask, having read the title of this post.

I’m trying to break through a plateau in my Nutrisystem adventure.  One of the suggestions the Nutrisystem Chat counselor made was that I should try swapping ‘dinners’ and ‘lunches’ for one week and then get back to her. I’ve been doing this, plus the other things she suggested, such as being sure my ‘Powerfuel’ and ‘Smartcarb’ snacks were 80 calories, cutting down on the salad dressing (extras), and eating everything I was supposed to eat for the day, rather than skipping anything.

The result is that it seems to be working!  I’ve lost 1.4 pounds this week, so I’m encouraged.

So, I’ll prepare our ‘flex dinner’ for the week and I will eat it for lunch, while my husband will have a serving for dinner, and I’ll freeze the remaining two servings.

Wish me luck?

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Whine and Cheese

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Today marks the end of Week 8 on Nutrisystem.  I did pretty well for an old, fat broad the first month, but I’ve stalled in the second, as far as any real difference in weight or measurements.  To date, I’ve lost 12.5 pounds and 16 inches.  I’m pleased to have any results at all, but I’m frustrated that my progress seems to have stalled. I’m fighting with the same 3 lbs.

One great thing about Nutrisystem is its online CHAT. Today I talked to Allison J.  I explained my sad problem to her. She wanted to know what I ate yesterday, meal by meal. When she analyzed it, she said

  • she noticed I was skipping my Power Fuel (PF) at breakfast. I admitted that I was skipping it, sometimes making up for it later in the day.  I didn’t realize that WHEN you eat stuff – and in what combination – is very important for your results. (Today for breakfast I ate a Nutrisystem (NS) Blueberry Muffin, and then 2 tablespoons of Cashews).
  • we decided that I was probably eating too much salad dressing during the day, since I eat it with my lunch veggies and also with my salad at dinner. I’ll cut WAY back on the ‘dip’ with the veggies at lunch and try to watch it better at dinner.
  • she suggested that I swap ‘lunch’ and dinner’ entrees for a week and then get back with her next Thursday. I’m guessing that the dinners are higher calorie and that it might be best if I ate those during the day, rather than in the evening when I’m less active.
  • she asked if each of my snacks (PFs and SmartCarbs (SCs) were at least 80 calories. I looked at my log on NuMi and found that my PFs were okay, but my SC was only 65 calories. She suggested that I eat 1-1/2 oranges, instead of just one, to bring the calories up. (Weird, isn’t it? – The idea of bringing the calories up.) I’m supposed to be eating 1200 calories each day, but I routinely came up with up to 200 short.

Thanks to Allison J., I now have several changes to try to see if this breaks through my plateau from Hell.  Hopefully, by the time I report next week, the changes in eating will have wrought some changes in ME!

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating, taking care of yourself

Pat on the Head

First 10 Pounds Off

My husband and I were on Nutrisystem once before, years ago. We were successful in getting a lot of our lard off, but we stopped because Nutrisystem kept discontinuing the foods my husband liked until he got fed up and wouldn’t continue. Since then, they have revamped their programs, so we’re trying again, fingers crossed that they continue providing the foods my husband likes.

One of the things they haven’t changed is a nice reward for progress. When our non-frozen items were delivered today, a cute little bear was in my box. It’s a fun, happy way to show you’re trying and you’re starting to get some results. I had saved the bears I got from the last time, so I gave one of them to my husband. He is underwhelmed, but I wanted to pat HIM on the head for his efforts, too. So here are our matching ‘First 10 Pounds Off’ Bears.

Tangible things are important when you’re changing lifestyles. For us, the biggest change is in learning what constitutes a ‘serving.’  I, of course, glanced at labels on the items I buy at the store, and I’ve noticed that many of the labels tell you the nutrition count for 1 serving, but the bottle or package actually contains at least two, if not more servings. I think almost NO ONE actually eats or drinks 1 serving of most things. This was a huge eye-opener for us. The fact that a serving of rice is 1/2 cup, for example, and one of our favorite meals was chicken chunks and soup over a large bowl of rice, meant that we were each eating enough to feed an army.

Making these changes is difficult. It’s much easier to continue on, mentally excusing your behavior, rather than stopping and really looking at what you need to be doing in order to get healthier, feel better, and hopefully increase your quality of life for as long as you’re here.

The scales are tangible, but ‘she giveth and taketh away’, making you happy one day and disappointed the next. My husband and I refuse to stop weighing every day, though, as it is one reality check that we need to keep on keepin’ on with our efforts.

The measuring tape is tangible, but as I’ve whined before, even with going into the bathroom and looking in the mirror while I measure, I’m not always accurate. I’m telling myself that even if my numbers aren’t completely accurate, it’s the DIFFERENCE I’m looking for. Any numbers showing less are welcome.

Looser clothes are tangible. Women’s sizes have always been a joke, though. You can be a lot of different sizes depending on the store where you’re shopping. Again, I’m looking at the actual clothes I have. I’m able to buy some smaller jeans and shorts now, shopping in the same stores, and usually going from the same brand. That’s tangible progress.

The cute poundage bears are a cute, tangible reminder that we’re on our way to being healthier. The more bears we collect, the better we should feel. At least, that’s the plan…

 

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Week 7 – Getting the Lard Off Progress Report

Objective Changes:

WEIGHT:  12.2 pounds down. I have to admit I’m a bit teed off because my husband doesn’t take any responsibility for even thinking about what he’s eating or when, just says, “Thanks” when I bring him the next snack or meal; doesn’t drink the water, doesn’t exercise, and he’s lost more than I have…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEASUREMENTS:   Down 16.3 inches. My husband has no interest in measuring, but he just ordered shorts that are 2 inches smaller in the waist. He put them on this morning and looks GOOD.

 

 

 

 

 

I had high blood pressure even with my medication. I’m now showing normal with my meds. “Normal” is such a beautiful word!

 

My husband is a Type II diabetic. When we started monitoring his blood sugar, it was at around 353 or higher. (Normal is under 100.) This week it was 113!

 

 

Subjective Measurements:

Each week we’re supposed to have one FLEX meal for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack, preferably on different days. Our flex SNACK is ice cream after bowling with friends on Monday evenings. Our flex LUNCH is Lunch Bunch with long-time friends on Fridays. We usually don’t do the flex BREAKFAST, since my husband likes Nutrisystem’s oatmeal and prefers to just stick with that. Flex DINNER –  I’ve broiled a thin steak cut into 2 pieces and we’ve had little bitty baked potatoes. We’ve also shared a small container of chicken fried rice from our local Chinese restaurant.

Yesterday I tried cooking our first flex dinner from the Nutrisystem website. It is called “Meat and Potato Casserole.” It makes 6 servings. We ate two and I froze the other 4 servings in labeled individual dishwasher-and-microwave-safe containers. We found the casserole a little dry, but the flavor was good. We had a salad with it. Today I stopped and got some packets of low sodium brown gravy. The package makes 1 cup – way more than enough for the one tablespoon of gravy I plan to pour over each of the remaining servings when we eat them.

I’m not a wonderful cook. The amount of preparation for this meal seemed like a lot to this lazy woman who would rather do almost anything than spend a bunch of time in the kitchen. I used a food processor as they suggested to prepare the carrots and potatoes, but I think the next time I’ll just use my hand-held shredder because clean up will be a lot easier. It seemed that I had half the kitchen messed up by the time the casserole dish was finally in the oven.

That said, I’m delighted to be able to have recipes at my fingertips to help us stay on the good start we’ve made on losing the lard. To complain when I cooked once and had servings for the two of us for THREE meals is a LOT more “poor me” than any of us need or appreciate…. :0)

All in all a good week’s progress. I’m hoping to get off the plateau I seem to be on, but I’m doing healthy things for us.

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Nutrisystem Week 6 Progress Report

I was hoping to be able to report wonderful progress to you, but to be honest, I’m a bit bummed out.

I’ve lost a bit over 11 pounds via Nutrisystem thus far. Since my lardiest – almost 24 lbs.  I’ve been ‘good,’ so my explanation is that when you’re old, it takes longer to lose the lard. I’m encouraged by the fact that I’m still making progress, but the slowness is getting to me a bit. I wish the Nutrisystem website had a ‘search,’ so that I could find the article about plateaus again. If I can’t find it, I’ll go back onto chat to see if someone can guide me.

 

I have found that measuring yourself is an art. I’m following their guidelines and trying to be as careful as possible, but from one week to the next, you would think that the numbers would be close. My accuracy apparently needs some work. My best guess is that I’ve lost a bit over 13 inches via Nutrisystem – almost 30 inches from my lardiest.

Even though I couldn’t swear what my actual numbers ARE, the difference is nice. My clothes are looser, and I’ve gone down a size or two in some cases. I’m moving a lot each day – some days on the official exercises, other days working my heart out in the garden or hauling things around or cleaning. I’m drinking my 64 oz of water each day.

Even though I’m a bit disappointed, my husband and I are doing good things for ourselves. I’m feeling more energetic, needing fewer naps. Each day I feel I’m doing a bit better, and that’s a good feeling. I’m doing what I can to keep serious health issues from my door.

 

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Aquarium

This aquarium is very similar to the one we have on the divider between our dining area and our kitchen. It’s supposed to be a 5 gallon aquarium, but it’s mostly full after I add 3 gallons of treated water.

Lately it seems that the filter pump isn’t working right. We had made some changes in the depth of the water and the height at which the filter hung previously, because I was suspicious it was acting up. The filter was for a 5 to 15 gallon tank. I just drained the tank, cleaned everything, and put fresh, treated water into it two days ago. I put a new filter in the filter pump. Everything looked good, so I put the fish back in. (They were relieved. They don’t like being in a bowl with a dishtowel over it while I clean their home.) Yesterday the water already was clouding up.

Today we bought a much smaller filter pump and filters at Walmart and have just installed the pump. This one is for a 1 to 3 gallon tank, which seems like a bad idea, but the only choices were 1-3 and 3-5 and larger. Since I’ve been changing the filter that goes inside the pump twice a month, rather than the one time it’s supposed to need. We’re going to give the new filter pump, which has an air flow thingie to push water through the filter), some time to clear up the water. If that doesn’t work, I’ll drain the tank and change out the water again.

I don’t really care if I need to change the cartridge a lot. I just want the water clean and sparkling.

Fingers crossed.

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“Knowing” and Dealing With It Two Different Things

Okay. I KNOW that weight loss – particularly as it is reflected by the scales – is a fickle thing. The fact that it’s MORE than yesterday shouldn’t be a big thing. Maybe I retained water. Maybe I gained muscle. Yada yada yada. According to a lot of people, I shouldn’t even be weighing myself every morning – that I should only weigh once a week. Well, I weigh each morning to keep me on track and honest. This morning I weighed MORE than I did yesterday and it’s ‘weighing’ on my mind (hahahahaaha).

It’s one thing to “KNOW” the facts and quite another to deal with the emotional reaction when you hope/expect to be down another .2 lbs and find that you’re actually UP .8 lbs.  I feel that ‘someone’ snuck (is that a word?) some lead into my underwear.

Since I also “KNOW” that I ate only what I should have eaten yesterday, did my exercises, drank my water – the poundage may come off tomorrow. Since I’m old, though, I’ve also learned that it may take 4 days or more to get back down to where I was only yesterday…

Since I know, also, that I won’t get any awards for fast weight loss, and that, in fact, my body will actually do better at keeping the weight off if I lose it gradually, steadily – I’m talking to myself this morning, reminding myself of all the things I SHOULD be concentrating on –

  • feeling good that I’m down 11 lbs and over 13 inches from when we started Nutrisystem
  • that I’m not sitting around feeling hungry
  • that I like MOST of the foods we’re eating
  • that both my husband and I are getting healthier as we lose the lard
  • that our blood test numbers should show significant improvement in August
  • that we’re doing what we can to avoid the health problems we can control
  • that we’ve both gotten shorts one size smaller than we were wearing a month ago
  • feeling grateful that we are in a position to afford a good weight program

Hopefully, tomorrow morning the scales will show me something I like better than what I saw this morning. In the meantime, I’ll continue talking to myself, trying to act like a grownup. :0)

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Laughing

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My dad had a great sense of humor and he was kind enough to give it to me in a lot of different forms – stories, jokes, puns, sarcasm. He taught me to stand back and look at things as if it were a movie. Many times, when you do this, you are able to see the humor in the situation.

He also used laughter as a defense. When he was 3, he fell off a horse, breaking his arm so badly that the doctors barely saved it. The result was a left arm much shorter than his right and a curled up, essentially useless hand. When kids at school bullied him, he made them laugh. They decided they liked him and wanted to be around him, so the bullying stopped. This ability served him well his whole life, allowing him to get married, have two kids, provide for everyone using his humor and talent to create radio commercials for his clients. He won an Addy Award for lifetime achievement in Tulsa. When he died, he scrawled on a piece of paper, “Remember me laughing.”

He gave us love and a priceless tool for handling many of the tough things in life. I can’t count the number of times that being able to see and share the humor in a situation has helped me – plus those dealing with me.

This morning is a good example of how being able to see the humor has saved my husband and our marriage! We were upstairs trying to program our ‘smart’ thermostat to cool down in the evening before we go to bed, keep it cool while we sleep, and then turn off during the day. The idea is that you set the time and day of the week, then start with day 1, setting heat and cool for each ‘period’ of the day – morn, day, afternoon, and evening with temp for heat and then for cool. When you finish one day’s programming, you can then copy it to all the other days and then get out of programming mode, setting it to ‘cool’ or ‘heat.’

We have just tried to do this four times, laboriously going through the long list of directions. When we finish, we get out of the programming mode, putting it to ‘cool.’ And it immediately turns on the a/c and starts to cool it down. WRONG! Plus – the ‘prog’ mode indicator is flashing. We don’t know if the thermostat is messed up or we’re having a serious case of user stupidity or what. We started getting really frustrated and angry, and then I was able to stand back and look at the two senior citizens – frustrated and angry – arguing over the thermostat being smarter than we were, and I started to laugh. When my husband asked, ‘what the hell are you laughing about?” I laughed even harder. Finally, he started to laugh, too. It diffused the situation – even though it’s still true that the thermostat is smarter than we are. We have now called and left a message with our go-to guy on heat and cooling…

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Good Start

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I lost another pound yesterday, so I’m down 10.6 officially since we started Nutrisystem, and 32.6 lbs down since my lardiest.  I have a long way to go, but I’m feeling good that we have a good start now.

My husband doesn’t have much weight to lose, but he is diabetic and his blood sugar numbers have been a real challenge for about two years now. His sugar was off the chart. He had double vision and pain in his feet. He is now registering the lowest numbers we’ve seen since we’ve been monitoring AND he gets to eat fruit again! He really looks forward to his SMARTCARB snack of an orange or an apple, since it’s been two years since he could enjoy them. He also likes to have some blackberries on his cereal on FLEX BREAKFAST day. His attitude about Nutrisystem is good, and for that I’m truly grateful.

“I” am the one who really needs this program for weight loss. Several years back my thyroid was completely radiated away due to Grave’s Disease. A couple of years ago I said goodbye to my gallbladder, which then made the low-carb diet we were trying to follow a challenge, because my body had trouble handling the fat. My blood pressure is a problem, and triglycerides are high, so I’m hoping that getting the lard off and eating healthy will make my doctor realize I’m serious at our next regular appointment in August.

We both are calmer about portions since we know we’ll eat again in 3 hours. Neither of us has been hungry. My appetite has always been voracious – when we were dating my husband would say, “We need to get you something to eat!” his code for me being ‘snappy.’  My husband said last night, “I don’t see any reason we can’t stay on this plan as long as you want to.”

We quit several years ago because Nutrisystem kept doing away with the choices my husband liked. Finally, he was so upset we had to stop. Now they have SO many more choices – also adding frozen choices – that it will take us several months before we have tried everything. We like the fact they let you know when the deadline is for making changes for our programs, and that we can make changes any time we like up until then.

SO – a Good Start on getting healthier!

 

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, Encouragement, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating, taking care of yourself