I’m not sure which of these pictures (or either of them) clearly shows you that I’m half way to an old Nutrisystem reward bear that says, “20”. I have officially lost 15 pounds this morning.
I know I told you a couple of days ago that I had lost 14.4, but 15 is much more satisfying as a number. :0)
I have a long way to go on my journey, but I’m starting to feel I may have a handle on what works for me, if I can just keep my act together.
The basics for an older-than-dirt lady like me are –
Intermittent fasting from after dinner at night until lunch the following day.
I eat mostly protein and share an apple with my husband for lunch
For dinner we eat either portion-controlled leftovers from my cooking or occasionally a commercial frozen dinner (Healthy Choice/Atkins), sometimes a side veggie, plus one dinner roll with butter.
I’m trying to drink lots more water during the day
I’m trying to move more – walking out to the shop, working out in the yard, plus doing a session of old lady yoga stretches each afternoon with some extra exercises thrown in.
This is what is finally working for me, and I have all appendages crossed that I will earn the 2nd side of the ’20’ bear soon.
My scales weren’t quite so snarky this morning, registering my loss of almost 15 pounds – finally. Even a turtle looks like a race car in comparison to my weight loss, but it IS happening, and I AM learning healthier habits. So, a very small celebration of moving in the right direction plus “keepin’-on-keepin’-on!”
A bit more progress this morning – almost 14 pounds off. If I can keep this up, only 6 years or so to go and I’ll be where I would like to be. :0) I just finished getting the ingredients for chili in the crock pot for dinner tonight.
I’ve pared down what I’m eating for lunch and drinking a lot more water during the day. If I eat between lunch and dinner, I’m watching what I eat VERY carefully. I’m watching my portions at dinner and then not eating afterwards until lunch the next day. (Intermittent fasting.)
On day where the weather allows, I’m walking out to the shop and garden a couple of times each day, plus I’m doing careful old lady yoga stretches each afternoon.
The progress is so slow I tend to lose my patience, but I’m looking at this, besides trying to get the lard off, as a character-building exercise, working toward a long-term goal and realizing that if I’m moving in the right direction, no matter how slowly, I’m doing well.
I found this on Pinterest and they didn’t say who this artist is. I LOVE this turtle and will keep it as a symbol of my ‘slow-but-steady’ battle to lose the lard…
I’ve come across several recipes for getting the lard off recently and thought I would share –
I’m incorporating portion control, eating more fruit and veggies, eating more fiber, intermittent fasting, drinking more water, and trying to get more exercise. 11 pounds down so far. Trying to make it to 12…
This morning we fought our way through what my husband calls, “The Mommy Traffic” where moms are dropping their kids off at school in order to get Amber to the vet’s office for her leg surgery and the fine needle aspiration of the lump in her neck.
We made a quick trip to Walmart and then my husband suggested we have breakfast at The Dari, one of our favorite places in Greenwood. I’m on DAY 3 of my Intermittent Fasting addition to my diet and managed to get a pound off this morning, so I thought, “No.” THEN I started fighting with myself. We eat breakfast at The Dari after we get blood tests for upcoming doctor visits – that’s twice a year. What is one more time in the grand scheme of things. If I do the fasting like I should all the other days, wouldn’t that outweigh one breakfast with my husband? We ate there, both enjoying a big, no-holes-barred breakfast, where every bite was delicious, and we also splurged with orange juice. It was wonderful.
We are ready to leave our trash at the bottom of the driveway when they call and tell us Amber is ready to be picked up. Now is the hard part of the day – the waiting. The lady at the vet’s office said they might call or text with updates, but that Amber would definitely be ready to be picked up after 4pm today. (They close at 5:30). Our vet suspects cancer, so I don’t want to be waiting for a call. The lady said they might or might not know the results of the test today. Part of me is hurting already. The other part is numb. Part of me is watching my cell phone. The other part wants to go somewhere and cover up my head. Wishing I had a magic wand…
The view out our back door looks much like this today. 75 degrees with 91% humidity. UGH. The valley has ‘cotton’ threaded through the valleys. Surreal. The weather folks can’t decide if we’ll get rain or not. Their wise forecast is ‘Maybe.’ :0)
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The steroid shot and eye cream the vet gave Amber yesterday allowed her to calm down and sleep well. She ate with appetite and was her usual barky-take-the-world-by-storm self as I let her out this morning. She was 97 lbs at the vet’s office yesterday, and almost pulled my husband down while we were trying to get her into the office and then into a room to be seen.
We take her tomorrow morning 1st thing for the surgery to remove the knot from her leg and the fine needle aspiration of the lump in her neck. We’ll deal with the diagnosis when it comes in. The big thing RIGHT NOW is to remember to put her food bowl somewhere weird tonight after dinner so that my husband doesn’t feed her automatically in the morning before he’s fully awake. I’ll also try to get him to wear his sneakers, rather than his sandals, so that he has a bit of traction on dealing with Amber at the vet’s.
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I made a bit of progress yesterday on the glassware I’m trying to etch for my friends. Soon I’ll try to figure out more details. I’m doing the free-form etching now, and of course it looks very different from the cream-with-stencils part I’ve already done. I’m trying to decide if I want to leave the cream etching as it is or try to outline the designs with the engraving pen. Then there’s the question of whether to leave them as they are at that point or use some glass paint on them. So many decisions on a project I don’t know will ‘work…’
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Women’s Health
Shout-out to Cathy, who has finished her radiation and chemo! She sees her doc Wednesday, and meanwhile is resting and trying to eat well and regain strength. Sending lots of gentle, heartfelt hugs your way today, Girl!
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Champagne Flutes “Copper Flowers” One-of-a-kind, hand-painted pair – $41.99 with FREE SHIPPING to the contiguous U.S. HandmadeHavenByLinda on Etsy
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And in the “Awwww – Isn’t she cute” category –
I made the first biscuits of my life yesterday! I used a recipe I found on YouTube, threw caution and intimidation to the winds and tried it. The best part is that my husband said, “These are good. I want to eat a couple tomorrow with butter and jelly.” They LOOKED right. They were edible. I DID IT! I know it isn’t cute anymore that I’ve found something ELSE I’ve never done and might suck at, but I’m patting myself on the back this morning as I type this. Can you see me grinning?
I would LOVE to have this in my yard. If we DID try to do something like this, it would have to be created as a stand-alone wooden piece of art. We don’t have a fence at all. It’s wonderful, though, isn’t it?
Women’s Health
Shout-out to Cathy – and others who need it today –
As I type, it’s rainy and 67 degrees. I don’t know whether things will dry out enough for me to weed today or not.
Since I can use as much motivation to lose the lard as I can amass, I dug out an old NutriSystem bear I earned years ago in order to mark my newest efforts. I’m monitoring my eating (watching it like a hawk), not eating between meals and being mindful to get some kind of exercise in daily, drinking glasses of water between cups of coffee and weighing each morning to keep my goal in the forefront of my mind (wherever that is :0) ) I’m hoping it will continue to all work together to steadily shed my excess lardage over time. I don’t really care how long it takes, as long as I’m moving toward my goal in a mindful way. I’m down 11.4 lbs as of this morning. My next ‘eye-on-the-prize’ goal is 15 lbs, and I can look forward to digging out another bear eventually.
The Gardner School
If it turns out to be too wet outside to weed, I’ll plan on spending time upstairs in my art room.
I hope you have a nice day planned, or that you get some happy surprises that make you grin from ear to ear today.
I seem to have finally put together a group of behaviors that is working for me –
I’m eating breakfast nowadays – Fiber One Cereal, blueberries and milk. 18 grams of fiber, NO sugar. The milk and blueberries add a bit of sugar, but not much in the grand scheme of things. The cereal tastes like rabbit pellets, but I’ve been having trouble finding more, so I’ll quit griping. I finally found some at Walmart on ONE of our trips, but none there or at Harps last week, so I ordered more from Amazon. It took a month to get the first order from Amazon, but there was no problem this time. I have no idea what the problem has been. I’m just glad I can get some.
I’m having a pretty heavy lunch – deli slices of turkey, some cheese, a hard-boiled egg, and some fruit.
Dinner is either a frozen dinner (like Atkins or Healthy Choice and a roll) or something I’ve cooked, with careful portions and the rest frozen in individual portions for another night.
I’m weighing each morning because the prospect of that – and MAYBE seeing good results – is keeping my motivation high.
I’m trying to include more veggies, drink more water and I’m eating nothing in-between meals now. I’m trying to move more with yard work outside or yoga inside daily.
The fact that I’m seeing some steady progress now is motivation to continue. So
My husband and I have laughed for years at what we have named, “The Lewis Effect.”
Basically, this says that when we buy something, move in a certain direction, decide something, it causes something in the universe to realign – causing the stocks we purchase to take a dive, difficulty in being able to purchase things again, or even companies deciding to no longer make things or go out of business completely. This pattern has persisted over many years. We used to laugh about starting “The Lewis Effect Newsletter” so that we could warn people not to buy – or do – what we just did.
The latest example of this has been that we have been trying to increase our fiber while avoiding sugar. The answer we found was Fiber One Original Cereal.
It has 18 grams of fiber (65% of the daily recommendation for fiber) and NO SUGAR. It’s the only cereal that we found that met our needs so well. I wrote a post comparing it to ‘rabbit pellets,’ but it doesn’t taste BAD and we sweeten it with blueberries (me) or blackberries (my husband). We bought three boxes of it so we would have plenty.
When we decided that this was the cereal we wanted to eat every morning, we went to purchase more. AND GUESS WHAT – the Lewis Effect had begun and Walmart didn’t have any. Neither did our local store, Harps. We asked the manager to see if he could get them for us. I got online and found that NONE of the stores in Greenwood, Fort Smith, or other surrounding towns had any. I went to Amazon. They didn’t have any. There was a notice that they couldn’t get any and weren’t sure when they could. I couldn’t find any information as to WHY this problem had occurred, but to say we were ‘upset’ was to understate the issue.
A couple of weeks later, I was able to order 3 boxes on Amazon, but they wouldn’t be delivered until the ‘week of Sept 7th. ‘ We bought another bran cereal after reading MANY labels in the store. It had half the fiber and had 9 grams of sugar per serving, but it was the best we could find. ‘Rabbit pellets’ would taste better, but we were determined to do the best we could.
Yesterday after Lunch Bunch we went to Walmart and FOUND some Fiber One! We bought the 3 boxes they had. We are still supposed to be getting the Amazon order from over a month ago – the week of the 7th.
We HOPE that this was a supply glitch and that we won’t have any more trouble trying to eat right. We have a lot of ‘discussions’ around here about what we SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be eating because of our health conditions, overweight, etc., and we need all the help we can get when we FINALLY agree that one food is doable…
Ugh. I gained back one of the pounds I recently shed.
YourTango
I’m TRYING to act like an adult, attribute it to ‘retaining water’ – only a temporary glitch – but it’s hard. Like a small brat, I want STEADY, POSITIVE results ONLY.
We have Lunch Bunch today, so we’re skipping breakfast and eating our normal Lunch Bunch fare. (It’s Kay’s birthday celebration today, so I’m HOPING that the core group is all there.) We’ll be eating either frozen dinners tonight or main meal salad, so hopefully this pound will go away.
As of this morning my weight is down almost 10 pounds. I’m happy about this, except that it’s the SAME 10 pounds I keep losing and then ‘somehow’ gaining it back. UGH.
THIS time I’m doing a combination of things that I think are sustainable –
I’ve increased my fiber a LOT
I’m not eating in-between meals
I’ve cut down what I’m eating for lunch
I’m trying to stay busy so I have less time to think about food
If I get past the 10 pound mark and continue steady loss, I’ll start to build hope that I can get to my goal.
Actually, this is looking better to me today, with our endless ‘heat advisories.’
I’m trying a new recipe for tonight. It’s a crock pot chicken recipe. I started it when we got home from Lunch Bunch and errands. It’s easy, and I’m hoping it tastes as good as it sounds. I’ll give you a review tomorrow.
BoredPanda.com
This is the way I feel after doing errands, then helping my husband carry filled gas cans from the bed of the truck out to the shop for the mower. I have no idea what the heat index is, but it certainly saps my strength. I’ll rest a bit and see if my motivation to accomplish something today kicks in.
I stumbled upon what is coming to be a favorite dinner.
I wanted to find a healthier way to cook the chicken strips we like.
I decided I would bake them, but didn’t have any Shake-n-Bake for Chicken. I didn’t have any regular flour, either, since that’s one of the things we don’t stock anymore. I DID have some Shake-n-Bake for Pork, though, and I decided to use that.
It actually had much more flavor that the bake for chicken and we really like it. My husband even requests it now.
Cut boneless chicken breasts lengthwise. (One breast makes 4 or more strips for us.) Coat with a thin coat of the Shake-n -Bake and place on a baking sheet. 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven and they are ready to serve with a salad or veggies. YUM. (Two strips is a serving. I freeze the leftovers for another meal.)
I tried a website new to me called, Klinio.com, recently, hoping to get a better handle on cooking for my husband, who is a Type II diabetic (although he denies this, saying he ‘has a sugar problem’). I was looking for a lot of good information, lists of what TO and to NOT eat, possible meal ideas, a place to record meals and see how we were doing as to calories, sugar, salt, carbs, etc., log exercises, research and be able to find answers to questions reasonably quickly, etc. I was looking for an all-in-one, “go-to” site.
I read their information and decided the monthly fee to join was too high. Someone got back to me and offered me a much better price, so I decided I would try it for 6 months. I filled out all the information to join, a little frustrated that it would be for me, alone, but figured I could use the information I got to apply to both of us.
Long story short, I cancelled my subscription today. They don’t give refunds, but did tell me that although my subscription was canceled and I wouldn’t be charged anything more, my subscription would be honored for the full 6 months.
They asked for reasons why I canceled. I gave them several, but then the ‘cancel my subscription’ button wouldn’t work. I then got on my phone and reached a person on chat. He asked me why I was canceling, and I said I had filled that out online, but that the website wouldn’t accept it, and would he please just cancel it. He did, very promptly and courteously and agreed to send me an email confirming that. He did, so I’m pleased at that part of the service.
I’m glad that this website exists. It is probably good for a lot of people. They offer lots of meal ideas and offer the option of printing grocery lists. They give suggestions for exercises, and there are some good articles on the site. If you’re looking for something like this, I suggest you check it out.
This morning was DAY ONE of eating Fiber One Cereal. We put blueberries and milk on it.
My husband and are are of the same mind – the rabbit-pellet-looking cereal has very little taste. I was very happy for the blueberries. The cereal wasn’t objectionable in any way, other than making me feel like a rabbit eating Purina Rabbit Chow.
The fact that one serving is 18 grams of fiber is really important to us. The fact that it contains NO sugar is equally important. That outweighs any other considerations, and we are super grateful.
a confusing and difficult problem or question.”one of the most difficult conundrums for the experts”
My husband is a Type II diabetic, though he describes this as NOT diabetes, but ‘a sugar problem.’ I’m borderline high, as well, so we eat the same.
The latest problem is breakfast cereal. You would think that would be a simple decision – We wanted to increase our fiber. Raisin Bran tastes good. It has 7 grams of fiber in a serving, so we got it. We SHOULD have read the full nutrients label, but we’re lazy and just grabbed it. I discovered later that it has 26 grams of sugar per serving and 262 mgs of salt – something I am trying to avoid. So we’re back to square one.
I Googled “High Fiber Cereals” on the net because I have a lot more patience here at the computer than with my husband at the grocery store. (He is always in a hurry and wants to come with me, so that’s in the mix.)
I found a good list of high fiber cereals that listed fiber content, but not sugar, so I went back and searched for low sugar cereals. I got a completely different list. ARRRRRGH.
Finally, I found a cereal that looks perfect for us. Fiber One by General Mills has 18 grams of fiber per serving, 140 mg and ZERO sugar! This means we probably can’t get it at our local stores, but we’ll try tomorrow. Failing that, we’ll get on the net and order some – hopefully.
Trying to eat healthy, adapting for health problems as you age, should not be so difficult.
I’m down almost 12 pounds now, so I’m encouraged that my current efforts are bearing fruit (if you’ll pardon the expression.) I have a LOOOONG way to go, so I’m just quietly smiling a bit, but it’s good to know that if I just ‘keep- on-keepin’-on,’ I may live long enough to see the results I would like.
I’ve changed two things –
THING ONE – I’m eating breakfast. Nothing fancy, my husband and I are eating Cheerios, blueberries, and milk.
THING TWO – I’m trying really hard to not eat anything in-between meals, before I go to bed, or allow myself to get up in the middle of the night and snack because I can’t sleep. (this has been hard, but has been the biggest reason I’ve been yo-yo-ing, so I’m trying to be really serious about it). I now picture myself getting on the scale in the morning and hoping to see a lower number.
As a preliminary, I checked what I’m eating on MyFitnessPal.com. It basically decided I wasn’t eating enough, but I’m paying attention to what I’m eating, trying to increase my veggies and fiber. I’m eating some fruit, some protein, some carbs.
I’m trying to drink more water. My exercise varies all over the place from basically nothing to being outside in the garden, then doing yoga and/or my elliptical trainer, and cleaning the house, all in the same day. I’ll concentrate on trying to even that out over time. Paying attention to my eating is enough for now.
I didn’t LOSE any lardage yesterday, but I didn’t GAIN any, either, so I guess that’s a win – at least in my book.
We’re trying to add fiber to our diet – a difficult thing in that my husband doesn’t like veggies much. I made a list of some fiber-rich food and printed it. I put the list on the dining area table so that we could go over it together. My husband honed in on ‘beans,’ deciding that this means he can now eat the deli baked beans he likes so much. I reminded him that the reason we avoid them is because they are loaded with sugar. Deaf ears.
I have started eating breakfast again, and that seems to be helping curb my hunger. Today we had some cheerios, blueberries, and milk. We’ll have our normal lunch and then I’m fixing hamburger patties and some black eyed peas with onions for dinner.
Trying to accommodate different tastes in food, different dietary needs, age, and more is quite a tightrope. I’m pleased that some of the changes I’m making are resulting in my scales snarking a bit less. (Down 7 lbs so far) I’ll see if there are any changes with the measuring tape at the beginning of next month.
I told you I was going to ‘change things up’ trying to shed some of my lard.
I started eating breakfast again – namely Cheerios and milk. I started using MyFitnessPal.com again, listing what I’m eating. It tells me that “You may not be eating enough,” but I know that’s not true in my case. Since I’m listing everything I eat, I’m very aware and try to plan. Then I KNOW if I can ‘afford’ to eat a bit of a snack before bed or not (something I know isn’t the best, but might keep me on track.)
The result thus far is I’ve lost 6.4 lbs. This is just a drop in the bucket as far as what my goal is, but it IS a start. I AM seeing a difference on my scales each morning. I also know that this will probably come to a screeching halt one morning soon, but it’s nice NOW, and I know it IS possible.
The effort to shed my lard is showing a bit of progress.
I decided that what I’ve been doing obviously isn’t working, so decided to change things up a bit and see if this helps.
I had been skipping breakfast, calling it “intermittent fasting,” but the result of that was a LOT of hunger for lunch – so I’m now eating some of my husband’s Cheerios with milk for breakfast.
I’m consciously trying to consider each thing I’m including on my plate for lunch, NOT including something that is less important to me in an effort to keep my metabolism working but not load myself down.
Dinners are 1) an individual frozen portion of something I have cooked (like spaghetti, a casserole, hamburger patty); 2) an individual portion frozen entree (I’m eating Atkins Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo tonight); or 3) a new entree I’ve cooked. I make a side veggie and we have a dinner roll.
The MyFitnessPal.com calorie counter thinks I’m ‘not eating enough’ (based on 1200 calories per day) until I add a snack. I’m waffling on this one, since I know I’m eating healthy and mainly wanted to make sure I wasn’t shooting myself in the foot inadvertently.
I’m trying to make SURE I’m either working in the yard, doing my yoga, or both, daily, plus I’m trying to drink more water.
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IndiaMART
So far, I’ve lost 3.2 lbs. Suffice to say I have a LONG way to go before I get to my goal, but I have started. I’m happy that my scales have finally noticed, and are registering a difference, but they continue to be quite snarky. I’m hoping to squelch the snark with my continued efforts.
My stress eating is stressing me out. I’m eating because several times a day my husband is doing things that scare me. He will be 80 in November (and is quite smug about that) but ACTS as if he’s 20. He has had a couple of strokes and has mainly come back, but still has trouble speaking at times, typing, figuring out technology, and walking at times.
We are adapting to this fairly well, adjusting our activities, expectations, helping each other as much as we can, hiring others to do what we’ve always handled ourselves (as much as we can afford).
The stress comes when he decides to do something I consider foolhardy (is that even a word anymore?) Yesterday he was standing on a wobbly, heavy plastic can on the carpet in the corner of our office, trying to get the top to grip down to the can. He was holding onto some shelves above, but the shelves aren’t really attached to anything. They LIE on some supports, so they can come crashing down, along with everything ON them, ONTO the person who was standing on top of the can. I leapt up to try to get him down. He told me to grab a 4″ x 6″ battery we have for a UPS and hit the rim of the top with it. I managed to do that several times while he turned the can with his feet. We did get the top on the can, but I was exhausted with sore hands from crashing the battery into the rim as hard as I could over and over. I got my husband down safely, but this is what we’re doing several times a day, no matter what I say or do.
I’m seriously thinking of making him wear a bell like a cat or tying his leg to his recliner where I have the only key…
When my husband went to bed last night I ended up eating half a bag of Fritos as if I were starving. I had done well on my eating all day, but blew it as soon as I was alone. It’s a play on the ‘if the tree falls in the woods’ question – ‘if no one SEES you eat, does it count’…
My SCALES don’t need to see me eat. They just die laughing every time I step on them. I’m getting quite hostile.
I was doing well on my ‘no-eating-between-meals‘, ‘no-extra-salt,’ plus ‘yoga-every-afternoon‘, but had a bad day yesterday. I felt like I was starving to death. I fell off and gained back two of the five I lost. UGH.
Today is a new day, though, so I’ll give myself a break and do better today. I’ve never been a runner, and these days my hips start yelling at me if I walk a lot, so I’ve been redoubling my efforts to practice my yoga each afternoon, doing lots of slow, careful stretches, breathing into each pose, relaxing as much as I can. This, combined with working in the yard, should make a reasonable amount of exercise.
Motivation Monday – Pinterest
Hopefully, by the end of the weekend, my scales will stop laughing so loudly.
I’m going back to an ‘old faithful’ for me – rewarding myself with a sparkly star on my desk calendar when I achieve one of my goals.
I’ve been stress eating and I’m really trying to stop that.
I’ve been liberally sprinkling salt on everything, plus eating salty snacks
I’ve been making excuses for not doing my daily yoga session
Otherwise, I’m a reasonably nice person… :0)
SO
I started yesterday (DAY 1) in a serious effort to mend my ways. I got one star for not eating in-between meals and not putting any extra salt on anything. I made an excuse for not doing my yoga, so I only got one star yesterday, but put that silver sparkly star on my calendar a couple of minutes ago.
She and I are trying to encourage each other in our efforts to lose the lard and exercise.
She has lost a pound or two already recently and purchased a peddler that she can use several times a day, rain or shine, to try to build muscle and stamina. Huge kudos!
I, on the other hand, am a dismal failure. I do pretty well, and then my husband, trying to be nice, brings me a dish of ice cream with chocolate syrup. Or, failing that excuse, I decide I’m starving to death mid afternoon and have some pretzels, even after drinking a bottle of water first and waiting to try to curb my hunger. I’ve also been using my meager yard work as a substitute for my yoga practice. Bah. Humbug.
I’m trying to do one day at a time – even one morning at a time. I’ll try to get my act together VERY SOON – if not TODAY…
The mission to quit stuffing my face continues, some days more successful than others, trying to watch my portions really carefully.
I did an experiment a couple of nights ago. I started to bake some chicken breasts and discovered that the seasoning/coating I thought I had in the pantry wasn’t there. I didn’t want to just use flour, but I wanted to use something that would hold the juices in and give the breasts a bit of flavor, too. I did have some seasoning I use for pork chops. I went ahead and used that and my husband raved. :0) I had cooked two chicken breasts, cutting them in half lengthwise and serving each of us 1/2 breast, plus veggies for our dinner.
I used one of the remaining half-breasts for dinner last night. I cut it up and added chopped onion and chopped mushrooms, plus some cream of chicken/mushroom soup. I served this over rice and my husband complimented the dinner – twice.
I’ll cut up the remaining one tomorrow to make a big chef type salad.
creativeartworksblog 