Health and Fitness, October 2013

[Lynlee]

found a local tai chi class today - and got there 30 min late due to media promotion glitch. I was one of 3 newbies - another was later than me even. I think it will be good for me.

[Twins' Mom]

Wow, Fitbit is replacing my Fitbit One that went through the washer!

[Ivy]

Twins, What's a Fitbit? A pedometer?

I did stretching, yoga, calf/leg stretches, walked 20 minutes x 2 to = 40 minutes. Exercise and stretching seem to help with sleep and less pain because of FM.

[Twins' Mom]

Ivy, it's an electronic pedometer/altimeter. Counts steps and stairs and can also monitor sleep.

I was up 2.8 pounds last night at WW. Between all the water I drank when I got hot working in the garage, and wearing jeans instead of shorts and wearing chacos instead of taking shoes off, that probably accounts for it. I had a yummy sandwich last night from Jiimmy J Johns and am ready to go again this week.

Dh stayed at same weight and was miffed. However, leader reminded him that he's lost 11 pounds in three weeks so he should look at the averages.

[Nancy]

I had 1/4th of a sub. San. for lunch yesterday. Got the mi. In on the bike an a long walk. Can't remember dinner ... oh yeas been and cheese wrap and canned salmon.

[Ivy]

Twins' , Thanks for telling me what FitBit was.

I've lost 5 Lbs. I still "feel" the same size though and clothes still fit the same. I imagine when I've lost -10 - -15 Lbs. the clothes will fit better.

I pulled a muscle in my tummy, DH and I believe it's a small hernia, it's not unbearable pain, so won't go to the dr. Also, DH has had them before, so he's taken it easier for a week or two and then they've gone away. I hate going to the dr. for every knee bump and bruise, sneeze or cough. ($$$) Just had my physical, which insurance does NOT pay for and that's over $200. Sure, it's great to find out I'm healthy as a horse, but why do I need to pay $$ to find THAT out????

I'm going to walk slowly in baby steps today, or I'll try to. I won't be doing much, but have my food planned out for the day. I'm only 4 Lbs. away from 179 Lbs. and I'd LOVE ♥ to see the 170's so MUCH! I also want to get back down into my smaller clothes. Wearing the baggier more comfy clothes makes me feel on the "frumpy side".

Have a great day, Everybody!

[Nancy]

I can still wear jeans from 2 yrs. Ago this week I realized that was a measure of success yea! Yesterday I did ten mi. On the ex bike apx. 20 mi. And took a 2 mi. Walk some half mi. in the a.m. and finished it in the afternoon.

[Harriet]

Couldn't decide where to post this, and in a way it is skippable so please forgive me, but it is related to Health and Fitness. I was thinking about how blessed we all are, NOW, to have the required labels on all our prepared food products, and required information available for many chain items we eat. There was a time we had no idea what was in products we bought, and certainly didn't know the particulars, like how much protein was in something, that sort of thing. Now we would be shocked if we couldn't look at labels and learn a lot - if a manufacturer hides info they are taken to court by governments!

This blessing was pointed out to me when I was researching so carefully trying to help our cat. A veterinarian, Lisa Pierson, DVM, got fed up with the refusal of pet food companies to label their products so that veterinarians could know what the protein/fat/carb ratio was. (That is the important thing for a cat's health, and even though vets know the ratio it should be, they unwittingly cause suffering by suggesting the wrong ones, and never have a way to find out.) Food for pets, right now, is where our food was decades ago - the truth is hidden to protect company profits.

She says, "... welcome to the world of pet foods where the manufacturers are not required to put much usable information on their packaging - unlike the case with food targeted for humans."

She went on a crusade to personally contact 40 different cat food manufacturers, some of them taking as many as 6 follow-up calls, and compiled an extensive comparison chart of the protein/fat/carb ratio of the products. This took her 4 months and was like pulling teeth with many of the companies, some of which have still refused to give her any info. She posted this on the net for anyone to be able to see.

It's perfectly legal for these companies to neglect to print this info on their packaging, no matter how much they charge for their products or how they advertise. She found that some of the very companies that advertise as having "healthier" products than others were the ones selling super high-carb items with little protein (just terrible for a cat, in fact devastating) while the ones they were comparing themselves to were actually pretty decent.

Anyway, in case anyone would like to know about her crusade, her article about it is here and she links to her comparison chart several times. Her main point is that a cat is carnivorous and shouldn't be forced to eat more than 10 percent carbs and needs to have more protein than fat. She says that since cat food companies also don't have to explain to anyone where they buy seafood, lots of mercury-tainted fish is going into cat food now, making it highly dangerous, so poultry meals are safer. She feels virtually all canned cat foods are better than the dry ones, btw.

So I will be purchasing "chunky" and "roasted" poultry from the Fancy Feast (purina) people, rather than just any/all of their many choices. My vet had recommend that general brand, but didn't know which ones had good or bad protein/fat/carb ratio, and it turns out some have 3 times the carbs a cat should have to eat. That causes constipation (exactly what was hurting my cat!) sometimes vomiting because of allergy, and over time can cause feline diabetes.

[Harmony]

I am glad I don't have to figure out what to feed a pet. I can hardly do that for myself these days.

I am stuck. At -7 lbs. Still, happy that I haven't gained any back. But, I've been stuck long enough that I'm ready for the big push downward again.

Nancy, I'm wearing denim capris that I've had for at least 5 years! I couldn't wear them comfortably until I lost this last 7 lbs!

[Harriet]

Harmony, thanks for the update, and make no mistake about it, we are proud of you. I lost 10 pounds in 21 days on my 100-sugar-calorie way-of-eating, feeling well, and took time off at that point, which I'd promised myself for the 10-pound mark. Then it was like - out of the blue - every stressor in my life came down on me right after that. Don't even know how to explain it, but I did lose my edge! I regained 4 pounds but have maintained the 6-pound loss. So I'm holding up your hand with mine in the wrestling ring of weight loss, and announcing we have won a round!

A little confused as to why new starts have not "taken", since I have no complaints with this way of eating. Yet even though I'm using my smart meal ideas, at some point in each day I also end up stress-eating, so then I feel guilt, thinking I'm wasting my good ideas, and what if I tire of them? It seems the wedding and shower, and other carved-in-stone things didn't stress me nearly as much as the following days of finding myself behind and having uncertainty about next priorities. I stopped "putting out fires" but was left w~o~r~r~y~i~n~g about long-term stuff. Two weekends of intense visits from in-law family members, plus hours of driving because of that party for dd's friend have made weekends awful. Now dd33's family arrives in 2 days and so I really need the next few days to be "good" but that's because I know the weekend will be "bad" with stress eating and eating-out. So even that chance at better eating for a few days seems like a downer!

Maybe I should go on vacation away from here every weekend! Wow, Sunday afternoon here was awful, with HRH's poor ddad suddenly asking to come visit here and dd almost an hour away. Racing to pick her up, Racing back, still finding he and his wife were here earlier than expected, sigh. Terrible guilt making him wait, then he didn't feel well, struggling with his walker, difficult visit for him, couldn't stay long, ugh! Guilt, guilt, guilt. I'm lucky I didn't eat everything in the house.

Harmony, you held onto your weight loss right through family visiting, so you are doing great.

Pet thoughts - all these times I've "blamed" cats for vomiting, and most people do. You'll hear people say cats just do that. The more I read the more I think it's because of the wheat and corn put into their food to make more profits for the cat food companies. Over and over am reading that when cat owners changed their pets' foods the vomiting stopped. What I hate is that I can hardly find the ones that have absolutely none of these fillers, so I can only depend on the ones that don't have as much, and hope. Even some really expensive ones have corn as the first ingredient, and cats get sick on corn - duh.