Health and Fitness May, 2012

[Harriet]

Welcome!

In this thread we chat about keeping ourselves strong and capable as we pursue our calling as homemakers. Our family members may need to lean on us, and we may need to lean on them. Proactive medical answers, sensible consumption of healthy food and water, getting enough rest, and getting enough activity, too - these are all part of our plans! Helping each member of our households work in all their healthy habits is priceless!

[Nancy]

I've walked pushing dgd in the stroller to see the baby goats two days in a row she walked the last 1/2 block yesterday and today a block and a half at her insistence! Getting good habits in them starting young is a good thing!

[Harriet]

April report for me. I weighed and took measurements yesterday morning and finally got everything recorded.

My records on video workouts show 6 hours of T-Tapp in April, plus I walked such a marathon - over 4 or 5 straight hours on my feet and moving - on the 21st, trying to keep up with grandchildren at the Highland Games.

Taking measurements showed 1/4-inch losses at ribcage, waist and abdomen.

So throughout April, I lost
½-inch at ribcage and abdomen,
3/4-inch at waist, and
1/4-inch off each arm.
Hips never budged, but my derriere may have needed more muscle, since my body type can be flat-reared.

As of May 1, I'd lost another ½-pound.

So that's 1.5 pounds lost in April.

Just 2.5 more to go for my mini-goal of 10 pounds.
2.5 pounds lost in 2012.
7.5 pounds lost since the end of October.

So, 1 ¼ pounds per month average loss over 6 months. That's not so bad. At that rate, I would meet my mini goal of 10 pounds by late June.

HRH wants me to quit then. I don't know, maybe I would put a further goal off for a while. It's just that I have this TUMMY.

The important thing is HOLDING ON to a new weight and not mistaking a stopping place for a gain-it-back place! (Amused at myself saying, “new” weight. Like I haven't seen the number before, coming and going, LOL.) Last month Harmony said to OKay,

I wish you success in finding a good spot to remain...and not too hard to maintain.

If I had only invented that scale alarm when I thought of it I wouldn't be having this trouble now. Maybe a sign someone could plaster to my back: “Do not feed this woman. This morning she went over her maintenance weight.” Maybe one of those tear-off desk calendars with a reminder-a-day, only all 365 reminders say, “If you weighed more than (goal) pounds this morning, go eat celery.”

[OKay]

Harriet - Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!

You have such a wonderful way with words

“If you weighed more than (goal) pounds this morning, go eat celery.”

After tracking my food/drink for a week, I once again discover what my weigh gain is from (beside the obvious...too many calories). When I eat food that I cook, I don't gain weight - in fact, my weight drifts back to where it is suppose to be, almost with no effort. My weight gain is the eating out - the many celebrations as we go through the days - that put the pounds on me. Now I am stumped how to overcome this.

** Stopping the celebrations is not an option. I love - love - LOVE celebrating loved ones triumphs.
** Eating together is acceptable by all way to celebrate. Do I change it to something else? What? Other ways are hard to coordinate with a group. And the frequency of celebrating would be reduced.

HUmmmmmmmmmmmmm must think upon this.

In the meantime......I just need to GO EAT CELERY!

[Harriet]

If it is super hot in your part of the world as it is in mine (90 degree mark passed one month early), please remember to up your water intake as though it were summer already. It's not the calendar, it's the heat index.

So glad to hear Kathryn got bloodwork answers back promptly.

Someone posted that their husband didn't get bloodwork answers back - they were kept by the doctor's office and he wasn't informed - who was that? I remember being upset about that but didn't have time to post then.

Nancy, dgd is excited about little changes in her independence, I bet!

OKay, you deserve congratulations, too. The record keeping is the ticket, isn't it? We've got to catch on to what we are eating in a thorough way so we can analyze it and learn. Nancy does this all the time, of course.

Celebrations - How to corral those things - wow. Just eeeeasing them over, more and more to your own house would be helpful. Find out loved ones' "favorites" and prepare plenty of the ones that are actually healthy choices, so that the cake, chips, ice cream, etc. aren't missed. Nice grocery stores offer lots of cake options in small portions - half cakes, already-sliced half-cakes, single portions. For cake, unless you find a healthy recipe of some kind and can make a small one, I think it's better NOT to cook it at home - too tempting, and the leftovers are like traps.

Fast food stops - remember fast food places are not in the business of helping you control your health, nor are they in the business of too much honesty about how their food impacts you. (Well, maybe Sub Way, but they're not perfect either.) It's the SODIUM.

Example: one day when all other food choices had been excellent, I was pressed into one meal out for dd13's sake on an after-school shopping run, and Wendy's was the choice. I was SO GOOD and only ordered the "half-salad" option of pecan apple salad with water, which was only 340 calories, but would have 4 grams of fiber and count for 2 veggies/fruits. Well guess what, the next morning I gained! So I checked out their website - the half-salad has 800 grams of sodium! I really don't know how they even pack that much sodium into that little salad, but I felt it and the scale felt it. They must marinate the chicken in brine. Had I prepared a salad at home (which is how I was thinking of the meal as I planned my day) with my own grilled chicken breast, added chopped apple and chopped pecans, even added the dried cranberries they use, my sodium count would have still been tiny. So, when we pull a vehicle into a fast-food place, we just need to remember, these people are making their living off of salt.

I'm hoping to get to the second half of the link Lynlee gave us today. If I do, I'll try to make notes again.

[Nancy]

I did a bit of a walk w/ my trusty umbrella in the rain today.
Blue skies are coming so I'll finish it later w/ out the rain or umbrella in the sunshine!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Gained 2 pounds so far this week and am blaming the drugs (naproxen.) My tummy is unsettled or sore all the time, a common problem with the drug.

Bleeding is definitely slowing down. Tonight, for the first time in 17 days I'm not wearing a tampon. Goodness knows what mess I'll face when I go upstairs but things are getting light enough that a pad should handle it. (There were times when a pad and tampon combined were barely handling the flow.) I'll stop the drugs as soon as things are slow for 24 hours.

Now I'm off to have some crackers and a glass of milk so I can take my last pill of the day. They have to be taken with food and the best time to take the pills doesn't coincide with meal times.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

OK, I moved my post from last night into here from April.

I'm also repeating Harriet's link

Food sources of iron

because it looks very helpful and deserves to be shouted from the rooftops since it confirms Nancy's comment about chocolate!

My period was light enough to go with just a pad overnight and a panty liner would have been enough. So I left the pad on for while I'm on the treadmill in order to not waste a pad. I'm going through so much toilet paper and so many tampons and panty liners that there is a significant financial hit to this bleeding.

[Nancy]

I do not track my food or meds. any more like I did when I first got the diab. diagnosis.

[Harmony]

Kathryn, I do not understand the Naproxen (sp?) for you. I understand the pain relief part of it, but doesn't it also thin the blood and make that part worse? In my last oh 8 years of this I had to give up any painkiller since it would make flow worse. I had to just tough it out. I remember working (I was on my feet constantly at that time) and the heavy dull pain would be intense for a day or two and I would stand on one leg at a time to rest the other and ease the pain. Well, I hope this passes for you soon.

I am still tracking fiber. Even if I don't write it down, I am aware how much I'm getting, and if it's not enough, there will be consequences the next couple days. I guess I will always have to be aware of this. The good thing is if I do the right things, my body will cooperate.

Weight loss is odd. Maybe I am more sensitive to sodium than I thought. I go up in increments about 3 pounds, then down the same way over a few days. Up and down like a yo-yo. Constantly. The pattern never changes despite what calories I consume or what exercise I get. The only way I get down below the usual 3 lbs is to be 1000 or less calories consistently.