Yesterday went according to plan. I'm working to not be discouraged that the scale didn't move down from its high mark and that I didn't feel significantly better this morning. I used some of DH's fancy soy sauce at supper, forgetting that it's much higher in sodium than what I usually use. So, that's likely the culprit.
I am feeling stronger after a short pilates workout yesterday. That's not something I've tried much but it seems like a good way to develop strength with a low risk of injury.
Exercise: 55, 820/1800 minutes for May
100% of Ideal Food Day
silverbirch: When I was growing up, the evening meal was at 5pm, shortly after Dad got home from work. That was common through whole neighborhood of company housing with all the moms fixing supper at about the same time. As an adult, we eat at 7pm or later. We don't work outside of the home, now, but when we did, it took that much time to come up with a meal. Now, it's just our habit.
There was a breakfast malfunction this morning as I didn’t have enough milk! Just like gardenerjoy forgot her pizza plan a few days ago, I forgot the best way of handling a different breakfast. A key point to remember is to have two cups of herbal tea rather than one of herbal tea and one of black coffee. I should not have black coffee at any point because it erodes my insides and does not reassure or relax me about anything (this seems to be what I'm looking for in a drink). When these things happen so rarely, what to do just isn’t automatic and the action I take invariably leads me into trouble. So there was food trouble and also work trouble too, in that my planned activities didn’t go smoothly at all. Anyway, I think I’m back on the straight and narrow again now. Phew!
Sleep - good.
Food - I’ve done better but overall, probably not too bad.
Exercise - I'm getting back into doing a nice routine when I wake up which makes all the difference.
Thank you for the information about eating times in the US. My life reflects gardenerjoy’s as my dad would come home at about 5.20pm and we’d have our tea then. We’d all had our dinner at midday, the children at school and the adults at home. Now we eat about 7pm after we’ve got ourselves organised. maryann’s habit of going to bed early and reading is one after my own heart and followed by me most evenings. And I’m fully with Bill’s DW on the desire for enough time for good digestion.
Bill, oh home-grown tomatoes are so delicious! I’ve been very impressed with the amount of Zooming you’ve been doing over the years as when I use it, very rarely, I can’t seem to make a proper connection with what’s going on. My learning is definitely less robust.
curlyjax, goodness me, I knew that coffee had an effect on the heart but that’s amazing. Good luck with the grass!
maryann, credit for some great positives! Sympathy about the stomach ache and the cause of it.
gardenerjoy, nice result that you feel stronger after pilates. I haven’t done it but hear some good things. I’m all in favour of low risk of injury!
onebyone, I hope you’re feeling a bit better today. Begone, horrible cold!
Wednesday - 1st wagon train to make it to California leaves Independence, MO (1841)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – The head cold is strong enough that I rescheduled today's appointment with the dental hygienist. Couldn't imagine trying to hold a cough while there were two hands and a suction tube in my mouth. Protecting the hygienist also mattered. Made the assumption that my head will be clear enough in two weeks.
Trip to the supermarket was boring. It's becoming routine to be good boring, enough so that I'm beginning to forget why that was an issue. I'm still buying the replacements for dry-goods items earlier than I had previously since I now am concerned that the item won't be in stock. I amuse myself by checking to see if Quaker Oatmeal Squares are yet back in stock. They weren't. Excitement was finishing dinner quickly so that I could get to a working evening Zoom meeting. Zoom worked because one member was not only out of state, but weren't even at home. They grabbed a room in the basement of a church where their spouse was in a rehearsal. A frugal church. Every ten minutes or so the light would automatically go off and she'd have to wave her arms to make it come back on. Kinda funny.
Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, with snacks. Dinner was taken out on the patio for the first time this year. The birds were out, the plants alive. Like the garden of Eden.
Joy (gardenerjoy) - Fancy soy sauce is a sneaky way that more sodium gets into the diet. I forget when I'm dousing something with soy sauce that it's the sodium taste that I'm satisfying.
Silverbirch - From time to time I feel called to try black coffee. It's not for me. The splash of whole milk as its whitener suits me just right.
maryann – LOL at the extra food shopping while your DS is home. Congrats for keeping your own eating sane while a young man is eating like a young man.
curlyjax - Coffee deprivation is serious. Congrats for living through it. LOL at the image of you falling asleep in your doctor's waiting room. What if you snored?
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 1The Key to Success
How Cognitive Therapy Works
To successfully lose weight and keep it off, you need to solve these kinds of practical problems. You'll also need to solve some psychological problems, such as: . . .
Feeling overwhelmed by the requirements of your diet.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), Pg 21.
I was OP for all of yesterday until the evening when I indulged in some sweets, but still my calorie intake was under 1600. It occurred to me I' didn't have any vegetables for dinner as it consisted of cereal, milk, and yogurt earlier on, but I think that's okay some days. Everything I ate was healthy (other than the sweets) and I eat a decent size salad for lunch. It helps to remember that dinner doesn't always have to be a cooked meal, but can be bits and pieces, which helps me to not eat as much.
I didn't get the lawn done, it was too hot. Excitement was my cardiologist (I can't believe that I now have a cardiologist!) calling me around 6:30 pm to tell me she was checking in with colleagues at MGH about my CT results. The good news; my heart has no plaque and looks great in general. The bad news-there's a fistula which may need to be repaired. hopefully I'll find out today. Now I'm super paranoid and imagining I'm feeling heart pains and shortness of breath etc. It will be good to talk to some experts about this.I am SOOOO glad I live near Boston and these excellent hospitals.
Maryann-count the positives for sure! And you threw away the cookie dough, thats a positive. Those sweets are so hard!!
Gardenerjoy-I forget how quickly sodium affects me too.
Silverbirch-that is great to exercise when you first wake up. I should start doing that when its consistently warmer.
Bill-I have to do that zoom waving in my office too, the lights turn off quite frequently. A good reminder to get up and move around when you're not zooming.
Yesterday was my last staff meeting. I was awarded a crystal apple and there were nice speches about me and cake. A fitting ending. I am a little uncomfortable about the attention but as my sponser said about AA chips: you pick them up to show others what is possible. I offered to donate my teambuilding games to teachers and even demo how to play them yet no one responded to the email. Wow. I can't fathom teaching any other way. Maybe it is like people who naturally can lose weight. I can't comprehend a solution even with the evidence right before my eyes.
I ate over the emotions of the day. (Sigh!). I know I will lose weight. It will not be in these last three weeks. I did have healthy food and lots of water. Students were good.
Today is yoga at lunch and fruit/cheese for snack. I will garden for exercise.
In class we will try to spot a communist amongst us. ( I have a 1954 civil defense film that tells us what to look for.)
BBE: LOL about the lights. That was a problem in the Covid teaching days. Curly: i read once we should look at what we look at over a week rather than try and daily micromanage the veggies. Silverbirch: Coffee is absolutely a love hate relationship. But i can't imagine life without it right now. Joy: I trained in Pilates for a long time. it was originally developed to rehab dancers. I had problems when I used the actual reformer but the floor exercises were great.
I’ve been wrestling with Wordpress today as I’m taking down my website and want to keep the content. There’s lots of advice out there, it’s just not for my particular use case. It’s not that big a site so I’m doing it manually. I have the time to do this, I’ve decided, which gives me the chance to look at some of my greatest hits for possibly the last time ever. Yes, of course I can look at it all when I want but life moves on. But you never know, which is why I want to keep them! It’s been overcast most of the day, and now a sunny evening. That’s very typical of May here, and lovely in this house which is full of beautiful light in the evening.
Edited for livestock interest - a massive Charolais bull has now joined the herd over the garden wall. He's quite peaceful at present as he likes the harem and the calves, even if they do push their luck sometimes.
Sleep - not bad but I think the room was too warm. I’ll open the window tonight.
Food - not great but not too awful.
Exercise - I managed the morning exercises but nothing more.
Bill, bad luck with the cold. Look after yourself! That’s funny about the light in the church basement. How nice to be out on the patio once more.
curlyjax, such an excellent choice to live near Boston and its great hospitals!
maryann, congratulations on the award of the crystal apple and the nice speeches!
gardenerjoy, glad to hear of the movement of the scale! Taking notes that time and water are a good part of the successful plan.
Last edited by silverbirch; 05-15-2024 at 04:21 PM.
The big success of the day was getting to my printmaking class and teaching it. I wasn't very sure I could do it due to the wheezy stuffed up lungs I've been dealing with.
This afternoon I wanted to do something about it so I called my family Dr. We talked over the phone and he prescribed an asthma puffer and a corticosteroid inhaler for my lungs. It only took about an hour to arrange all that.I was amazed.
The asthma puffer worked wonders. I used to use one but its been ages since I had one. Credit for taking care of mmyself. It felt good to breathe more freely.
Class went well. It seemed extremely laid-back. I brought all my ink colours. The whole rainbow. Guess what they wanted to use? Sepia. Sepia!! The colour of old.photographs. Amazing.
We printed on paper and on muslin/linen bags
Varying degrees of success from a printmaking standpoint but from a sheer fun standpoint they loved it.
After class was winding up I realized I felt way better. Art and working always make me feel better. These students are still awesome.
I'm kind of wide awake even though it's 2:30am
I'm going to try to sleep now. Im out on the loveseat again, but I think it might be the last night I need to.
Thursday - French heroine Joan of Arc canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XV (1920)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Excitement was picking up the (8 yo) DGD from second grade. Rain forced us inside where she did kid's crossword puzzles with DW. She's pretty good at guessing answers, pretty bad at spelling. Do hope her schools do better for her than they did for our two kids who graduated with "invented spelling" to support their self worth and creative development. They're both employed today solely due to easily available spell checkers.
Another excitement was picking up a book from the library that I'd only learned about the day before from DW. Rapid service from our library. One draw for DW was because it tells about the impact of Julia Child and Asa Gray. In the Julia Child section, it tells the story of dropping a chicken live on TV. An oft told story. Oft told but not true. The most frequent rebuttal is that it was a pan of potatoes that she dropped. Asa Gray is revered still by botanists for studies of the flora of the Eastern US.
also includes Edwin Land, W.E.B. Du Bois, Yo-Yo Ma, and Noam Chomsky. A good summer read.
Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. It was thirty minutes before bedtime when I realized that I "needed" a snack. Did the old Beck strategy; I can live for thirty minutes. Dinner was a delightful chicken stew with zucchini. So good. Might be even better if we called it courgette and claimed the recipe to be from Julia Child.
onebyone - Makes sense to me, "Art and working always make me feel better." Surprise that Sepia printing was the color choice.
Joy (gardenerjoy) -Yep, in addition to time and water, credit also goes to "adherence to my plan."
Silverbirch - You sent me off to see a Charolais bull. Decided that would be my next career.
maryann – Congrats for all the accolades from your colleagues. Double Congrats for accepting them graciously. Love searching for a communist in your classroom. What a lesson on seeing what one wants to see.
curlyjax - I agree that on some days a meal can be made of pickups that don't include a vegetable. Welcome to the land of having a cardiologist. Seems that with gray hair comes the need for our Primary Care Physician to refer us to a specialist for each organ. Wish you well waiting for that report from yours.
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 1The Key to Success
How Cognitive Therapy Works
You'll also need to solve some psychological problems, such as: . . .
Feeling deprived.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), Pg 21.
The next news from cardiologist land is they think it can be managed conservatively, yay, but I'm going to be scheduled for a cardiac stress test. Everyone is very reassuring about there's no hurry etc but it would be nice to get it over with. In other news, my aunt's caregiver called and is thinking about taking my aunt to look at assisted living places for the possible near future, as she seems to be doing worse with mobility and cognition. Plus my aunt has mentioned wanting to be with people more. So we'll see what the upshot is of that.
Onebyone-glad you had such a good class and that you had a good way to deal with breathing issues quickly.
I have tried something new this morning. I woke up early and did about an hour and a half of gardening starting at 6:00 am. It is the only way to beat 100 degree heat. I accomplished a great deal. I can't believe there is still so much to do in such a small contained space. How did I let this go so long? I guess Spring just jump when I wasn't looking. So I have now taken a quick shower, am posting here and will hop off to school.
DH is looking at me like i am crazy. I am always skittish at the end of the school year and retirement will be an exponential amount. I imagine he thinks I have hopped off the deep end at 6:00 am. He may be right.
I ask only one thing of myself for the rest of the day. No desserts!!! I can eat anything else when ever I want to do so but NO Desserts. I have yet to accomplish this in weeks.
I have a book group meeting tonight which means supper is what my mother called "catch as catch can." I don't want that to turn into permission to eat everything that I think of before and after the meeting, so I'm going to write out my plan....DONE!
Exercise: 50, 920/1800 minutes for May
100% of Ideal Food Day
BillBlueEyes: We're currently enjoying Julia on the Max streaming service about Julia Child. Their version was that she accidentally tossed a chicken leg across the kitchen while using broad hand gestures as she spoke.
silverbirch: Spotting Charolais cattle was one of the car games we played while traveling when I was a kid. Thanks for pulling up that memory.
maryann: Congrats on the retirement honors! Early morning gardening makes sense to me when the weather makes that the most pleasant part of the day. My farmer ancestors did a whole list of chores before breakfast most days.
onebyone: Yay for finding energy and wellbeing in your teaching and artwork.
curlyjax: I think I'd want to get a cardiac stress test done as quickly as possible, too, so that I could quit thinking about it and move on to learn what conservative management requires of me.
I had a quick outing in the sunshine to buy some stamps. I also packed a few more things in the car. The challenge is to use as much room as possible without being overloaded. The three compost bins (nested inside one another) are a bit of a challenge but I’ve wrapped some soft things safely in plastic and shoved them into some of the narrower places inside. There will be room in front of them for the printer with some light freezer boxes on top. I’m not going south for a while yet but it takes time to Tetris. And it’s now pouring down with rain so I did well earlier on.
Sleep - I woke in the night but went back to sleep which was great.
Food - OK until mid-afternoon. Then I fell off the wagon briefly. Now I’m wondering whether to eat this evening or not. ‘Yes’ is the correct answer to keep regular eating going, but just something small. I’m hard-boiling some eggs which will also help tomorrow. Edited: 1 hard-boiled egg cut into 8 and 8 radishes was just what was needed. Eaten at the table with a glass of water whilst reading my book. Thanks for a space to work it through!
Exercise - I did the morning exercises and also some core-challenging and back-challenging push mowing.
onebyone, I’m so pleased to hear your doctor was helpful and that the class went well. How great to have a laid-back class. I bet you’re a laid-back teacher too.
Bill, before you make a definite decision about your future Charolais career, you need to know that bulls’ knees get knackered very early. And then so do they …. Credit for living those 30 minutes without a snack before bedtime!
curlyjax, that’s good news from cardiology land. And great that your aunt’s caregiver is helping in looking at assisted living places. It makes such a big difference having people who really help with the nitty-gritty.
maryann, credit for trying something new out. And credit for early gardening work which sounds really sensible if it’s very hot in the daytime. Whenever you do it, it all counts. Here in the damp land of snails and slugs we are advised to go out at night with a torch and pick them off our plants. When the veg crops are being badly damaged I’ve done it and been amazed at the number cruising about in the dark.
gardenerjoy, oh goodness, well done for taking charge of a ‘catch as catch can’ meal. That’s a very tricky situation, I do agree! I’m glad to bring Charolais back into your mind. It’s lovely to remember these things.
Last edited by silverbirch; 05-16-2024 at 04:27 PM.
Quiet day here today. My cold continues to srop me from being productive.. It continues to stop me from sleeping in the bed as well.Another night here on the loveseat.
Food was terrible.today. I drank a ton of orange juice and I had Lipton chicken noodle soup adding so many noodles it turned into a noodle dish
Talk about a comfort food throw back. Ditto for the juice. Tomorrow I'm determined to tighten up my food choices. My weight as down to a low right after my flu. I am.now.climbing the scale again. Ive added 7lbs back. This set of 10lbs that I am in is a really important set. At the bottom of it I felt great, energy levels better, clothes fit a.smidge better
Now closer to the top of the ten is harder to move around and I just feel more tentative, more prone to injury too. I don't like it.
I believe I can get this off again I just need to begin. I'll focus on that tomorrow.
Friday - Massachusetts becomes first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage (2004)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Major paper work task completed, CREDIT moi, with the result of doing nothing. It was an emotional challenge getting there. We were struck by the high price we were to pay for collision insurance when reviewing the standard yearly renewal of our auto insurance, even with the largest deduction they offer. I set out to determine what the insurance company would consider the value of our two older cars if totaled. It took longer for me to dig through all the ads that were just phishing for my name to send to dealers. But Kelly Blue Book and Edmond's both came through. Their opinion is that our cars are worth more than we had in mind - the higher price driven by their low mileage. I'm dubious but less so after scanning the local used car advertisements. Finally decided to keep the insurance coverage partially driven by some recent friends' experiences that their insurance companies arbitrated that the fault for the accident for 50/50. Even if we weren't at fault, we might fall into the going trend that it be declared half our fault.
Spent a chunk of time sorting through two boxes of books, CREDIT moi. Half went to the give away stack. I read the incentivizing book, No One Wants Your Sh*T, to get in the mood. (I appreciate that the book is designed to be rapidly read; the key thought for a page appears in one line of bold print.) Hardest to let go: A book with a moving personal note to me from the author. Despite the warmth of the message, I no longer remember the author or the event where it was signed. Nor am I interested in rereading the book. If I kept it, it would be to try to remember some phase of my life from decades ago. Or to consider that the moving note wasn't personal but was that author's standard signature. Anyway, it's gone. Moving forward one box of books at a time.
Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, with extra snacks that were consumed while angry at insurance companies for events that haven't happened. A prime example of Dr. Beck's Negative Projection.
onebyone - Wish you well getting past that cold. Chicken noodle soup is such a reliable old-wives-tale remedy.
Joy (gardenerjoy) - Good luck making sure that "catch as catch can" doesn't turn into permission to eat unbounded. Love the Julia Child story of flinging a chicken leg. I was reminded that her TV shows were shot exactly once. What you saw was what happened.
Silverbirch - Terrific to add Tetris as a transitive verb to my vocabulary. (Ignoring that Merriam-Webster says it's not dictionary worthy yet and the OED says it's still a "Monetary unit of Georgia, equal to one hundredth of a lari.") Consistent eating does help to keep the path.
maryann – Good grief! That's some early morning gardening. I do recognize that surprise at the seemingly instantaneous burst of Spring growth.
curlyjax - Yes, get the cardiac stress test over with. I suffered more stress worrying about mine than the stress of the treadmill. (Discovered that my heart was fine; it pumps more when required then pumps less.) Such good news that your aunt is motivated to go into an assisted living situation - half the problem solved.
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 1The Key to Success
How Cognitive Therapy Works
You'll also need to solve some psychological problems, such as: . . .
Feeling discouraged when you don't lose weight consistently or lose as much weight as you had hoped.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), Pg 21.
Tuesday
Wednesday - 1st wagon train to make it to California leaves Independence, MO (1841)
