Health and Fitness, February, 2018

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Harriet
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Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Harriet » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:39 am

Welcome! We chat here about all aspects of health, with an eye to building strength for the calling of Homemaker. Taking care of ourselves is vital, and it also means a better chance at taking care of those around us. We hope you will join us.

February finds "Love" and "Heart" sayings and images all around us.

Are you doing things this month to show you love and care for yourself?

One might be choosing something other than candy for gifts, remembrances or our own wish lists!

Do you deserve a pat on the back for sticking with an already-made habit/goal/resulution?

Is this a good time to make a new one?

The January thread is 7 pages of encouragement, inspiration and understanding chat. Check it out!

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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:48 pm

Not feeling loving towards dh at the moment.

Warning: rant ahead.

I bought grapes when restocking the fridge and have been carefully weighing them before consuming. There's no way I'll get through them all before they go bad so today I put the rest out in the 'grape bowl' (a pretty fruit bowl) and weighted 100 g and put those in a plastic tupperware dish. As I'd wander through the kitchen, if I wanted to munch, I'd grab a grape. A single grape.

Dh was on a conference call, then I s2s. Just came into the kitchen, famished, with a load of laundry to start. As I did that, I called out to dh that the grapes in the dish were for him. He then brought in the tupperware container from the office. He had helpfully eaten the single serving, leaving me the big dish to eat from.

I really, sincerely, do not think he understands what it is for me to be trying so hard and what a temptation it is to have things for him around or to smell his amazing fries being cooked (or have to clean up the deep fryer after) or have him bring pizza home and not be able to have any of it for now until I get over my cravings for food and the ability to have just a small amount of less healthy food, on rare occasions.

The other day dd sent me home because my stomach was growling so much due to hunger. That's because I couldn't eat anything she had on hand because it wasn't on my eating plan. I skipped church so I didn't have to deal with either coffee hour or lunch out between services. We visited with dd after church but didn't stay for dinner because I need to have complete control over my food at this point. I'm compromising on fajita night because if I don't, dh would be terribly unhappy. As it is, he wants me to write out everything I'll be eating for the month and put it on google calendar so he can plan his own meals around it. Deciding what I'm going to eat each day, first thing in the morning, is hard enough. To spend that much time thinking about food is beyond my capability right now.

Eventually, this will become second nature and I'll be able to relax a bit. I'll also be able to move more (at this point my weight is so high it is affecting my ability to exercise) and then I'll be able to eat more because I'll be burning more calories.

But that's eventually. Right now, everything has to be strict in order for me to cope. I will start labeling my food and making dh bring his own snacks when we go out (he asked for a couple of my grapes on Sunday while I had my snack. I only get 12 so that's a significant number.)

</rant>

Looking forward to seeing what progress LadyM made over January.

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Nancy
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Nancy » Thu Feb 01, 2018 2:23 pm

I thought I had gotten better with my wellness log, but yesterday had a low again and messed up tracking my carb intake sigh today is a new day. Cutting back on one unit of long term insulin.
Last edited by Nancy on Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

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LadyMaverick
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby LadyMaverick » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:29 pm

Looking forward to seeing what progress LadyM made over January.


The scales have not been kind to me (or visa versa). When I stopped doing WW, I gained 6 lbs within 2 weeks.

Giving up sugar (real & fake), flour and corn is showing progress in the way I feel. My primary reason for doing this is not to lose weight (although I hope that is a side effect). I am tired of food controlling my life. Since giving up fake sugar (stevia) I can tell a HUGE difference in my cravings & binges. They have disappeared. It is WEIRD. Ya'll would not believe how bad the cravings used to be. Will they come back? Don't know. They only way to find out is to keep on and test it. I'm just thankful to reach this point and get some relief from them.

But everything isn't rosy. Today I didn't follow my planned food. I am not for sure exactly why not. I packed my food and took it with me when DH and I went out. We ate at a Chinese buffet and I thought I could eat there without a problem. But once I got there I decided there was food that fit my requirements so I ate there instead of eating the food I brought from home. I got green beans, zucchini, mushrooms and chicken. After I got it in front of me, I didn't want to eat it. My prepared food from home tastes so much better (no brag just fact).

I prepared Hot Dogs and homemade chili for DS9 and DGD6 dinner tonight. Most every day I prepare meals for DH and kids that I don't eat and it typically doesn't bother me. I guess because I had already baled from my planned food, then it was easy to do it again. I ate a couple hot dogs weiners instead of my planned food. Why? I don't know. I did not violated my no sugar/flour/corn rule but still, I felt disappointed in myself for not eating my planned food. I hope this regret helps me in decision making in the future. My planned food is good and fills me up. I miss it when I don't eat it. I guess that is a good sign.

I have a plastic shoebox type container in the refrigerator. When I weigh/measure my food I put it into that container to keep it all together. I don't care of others eat it but it is already weighed/measured in the portions that I eat. We have a bigger plastic container in the refrigerator that holds the food for DH and the kids. They like to eat their own version of a portion size so they don't mess with mine.

I prepare & weigh my salads. DH and kids eat some out of my weighed baggies of salad. I don't say anything to them because they don't realize it. I just make sure to prepare plenty so there is enough for me and them. I usually prepare 6 baggies of salad every other day. It seems to work out okay most of the time.
1. Know what you want.
2. Go after it relentlessly.

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Harriet
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Harriet » Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:14 am

I'm surprised to hear so many of my friends have the skill of weighing foods - we've never had a scale for it. I weigh food so seldom - never - that when I needed to convert from grams for the mung been seeds yesterday, I measured out and soaked twice too many, :roll: , and had to divide into two containers. Oh well, a mistake I can live with!

Bought a bunch of just the red of Rainbow carrots and enjoyed including them in a big stir-fry today - dramatic, lol. I believe they cook faster, which I can't prove since I may have simply left them cooking longer. Odd to think of getting lycopene in a root vegetable, but there's a lot. Not as much as tomato paste, but you would probably eat more of the carrots, so a respectable amount.

Had a thought today about cooking from scratch being active. Staying on my feet for lots of slicing and dicing, plus hanging out with the stove so everything's on time. All that means I'm not doing the dreaded sitting thing. Quite different from convenience meals.

My family has found several uses for this free all-year calendar, when printed in landscape, so I thought I'd share. One of my own uses this year will be weight, not that I am advocating weighing every day, or even at all. It's just my habit. (LadyM is moving away from that right now.) I never bother writing until a weight is actually lower than previous low, so I don't write a weight many times in a given month, just want to have it recorded on the right date.

Kathryn, I understand what you are feeling. Several times I have announced to HRH, "I'm not eating with you any more!" He is unaffected by sodium, for instance, and there is no effect on him if he eats Oriental take-out, while I will gain 2 or more pounds and feel bloated. Also he eats late without weight gain. This evening he made up the most aromatic pot of jasmine white rice, but I had promised myself I was finished eating and would rather have brown for myself anyway, so I had to walk away.

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LadyMaverick
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby LadyMaverick » Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:28 am

I already baled on the not weighing myself. **sigh** I thought I could do it, but since I didn't follow my planned food yesterday then it felt wrong to not step on the scale and weigh myself. I need some sort of boundary so I don't wake up one day and weigh 400 lbs.

I am still very frustrated with myself for not following my planned food yesterday even though the scales show a 1/2 lb drop this morning.

Weighing my food has been an eye-opening experience for me. It feels very self-smoothing to do. It takes seconds to do and feels like I am taking excellent care of myself. I guess that is why it frustrated me yesterday when I baled on eating my planned food. I wasn't taking as good care of myself as I had planned. Instead of excellent, I just did okay.

I do acknowledge that I am a number person. I get excited working with numbers. I love doing number formulas. I like timers. I like having hard facts. I like being logical. So it makes sense to me why I am growing quite fond of using scales to weigh my food. I am kinda wondering why it took me so long to realize that using a food scale brings me joy.

I bought a food scale this week to leave at DGS21 apartment since I am eating there every Friday. Although I am tempted by the thought of weighing my food when we eat out, I'm not brave enough to pull out a scale and use it at a restaurant. I am hoping my eyes will soon be trained to know what a correct portion of food looks like.
1. Know what you want.
2. Go after it relentlessly.

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Harmony
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Harmony » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:53 pm

Those are some nice scales. I have a very very old little one that I used now and then. I'm not weighing food any more. I pretty much know what a portion size looks like. Small potato (pretty small) is one serving. Veggies and salad don't matter. The more the better. Meat should be the size of a pack of playing cards. That works for me. Other carbs: I just try to limit them to what I can stand to do. One slice of bread instead of two. Skip the potato. Stuff like that.

And oh does this work for me. Yeah. Last month I lost .2 pounds. .2 .2 not 2 - .2 I've already lost another .2 and if I could get 4 more gone this month I'd be in the 150's. That's the goal for this month.

Food is hard. Choices are hard. Depriving oneself from what we love is hard. I'm in a serious candy want right now and fortunately there's nothing here like that. DH's clear container of cookies is hard for me.

Good luck to all of us!

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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Fri Feb 02, 2018 11:13 pm

It is good practice to weigh food from time to time to make sure your eyes haven't forgotten what a serving looks like.

Because of my water intake issues, I re-measured my glasses yesterday so I knew what I was getting. The glass I remembered as 20 oz turned out to only be 16. I also had a new tea mug dd gave me for Christmas. It is 16 oz too, so if I make up a mug of decaf tea, I'll count that as 2 glasses of water.

Today I filled my water glasses in the morning - my treadmill one is 24 oz, plus 2 of the 16 oz and left them on the counter. That, plus my 2 glasses of milk, is what I should have each day.

Double checking your packaged foods can be important too. Companies do change formulation from time to time. And since I change brand of chocolate all of the time, I weigh in the morning just so I know how much I'm getting.

Weight is the most accurate way of measuring. I did it with salad today and discovered what I thought was 3 cups was actually 4. In this case, it doesn't matter, the difference is a matter of 5 - 10 calories. But the leftover pork from the other day was 175g, not the 120 I thought it was. That's well over 100 calories difference so I'm glad I measured.

All that being said, I proudly thought I was well under my calorie allotment today until I forgot and had milk with dinner (I had it at lunch as well since to me milk and lasagna go well together.) And I had a piece of bacon I forgot to count as well. Suddenly my great day was just a couple of calories on the plus side.

The important thing is that I'm counting. I've planned out a lot of tomorrow and will be over unless I get more movement than I think I will get. Again, I'm reminding myself, being over isn't a problem. Not counting is a problem.

I weigh every day but try not to get too hung up on numbers. I also don't weigh at the same time each day which makes it easier to ignore inconsistencies.

Today I was 186 with is still 1.5 pounds more than after Christmas (and 2.5 pounds more than the beginning of December.) Dd wonders if I created more muscle on my trip and that's the difference since my clothes didn't warn me at all and I ate no worse over January than I did in December but I was certainly moving a lot more that month.

I'm setting an aggressive weight loss goal. My overarching goal is to be at my goal weight by my birthday so 7 months to lose 46 pounds. My first interim goal is 179 by March 1. I'm still losing quickly stage so that should be a reasonable goal.

My motivation this time is that it occurred to me all but one of my health issues at the moment is weight related:

Arthritis pain will be less with less weight.

High heart rate will be lower with less weight.

Breathing trouble will be less with less weight.

Numb foot should go away with less weight.

While my blood pressure is just normal, it has always been much lower than it is now. I'm figuring the weight might be the cause.

Suddenly, I'm at a crossroads. It isn't vanity that is motivating me. No longer is the extra weight making just a cosmetic difference in my life, easily solved by buying larger clothes. I've got health issues and, aside from the eye floaters, losing weight will help treat my issues.

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Nancy
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Nancy » Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:20 am

H got take out oriental forgot to get fried rice so we have this white stuff that will be for the kids or animals. Sigh. Have not had it in a long time we half the portion of meat. It is a chalIenge to order what we want for some reason. It took for ever to get our order so is not really high up on our list.

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Nancy
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Re: Health and Fitness, February, 2018

Postby Nancy » Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:57 pm

I walked the dog and have done several trips up and down the stairs today. Glad my bs was tolerable this morning.


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