Health and Fitness, July 2021

[Harriet]

Welcome! July offers us 31 days of promise! It's time for congratulations on weight losses here (reading through the thread from June will be inspiring - yay Ramblin' and Harmony, maybe others).

Lady Maverick mentioned "honest thinking" as a help in a post she made in June. How true about truth! We can get in our own way by overestimating to ourselves our healthy eating or underestimating our absent-minded eating. "Our bodies are never not looking." (I believe that's a quote of Dr. Michael Klapper)

Are you able to find time for activity these days? If you live in a way-too-hot spot right now, how are you coping? Do tell!

[blessedw2]

honest thinking is what I need.

thank you for starting this d harriet.

[Ramblinrose]

I’m still watching what I eat and hover between 1000-1200 calories. No white stuff still and one piece of fruit or a cup worth a day. Not much action on the scale even with daily 10K steps which of course is puzzling to me.

However I am wearing clothes I Haven worn in a year and that’s encouraging.

I am contemplating going back to Jason. What stops me is how tired I am the day after I work with the horses. However I’ve been thinking about cutting back to one full day instead of two since I do know there’s a move in my near future, though I’m not sure when till we spend some time in Fl come sept.

I am really beginning to loose some of the muscle mass I had built up and that is important to me not to loose it as I age.

I will have time to think about all of this once I get back from my trip. I am pretty happy with my eating as I haven’t binged at all which tells me I’m doing something right. I made blueberry muffins yesterday and only at one, which I felt reasonable.

[Harriet]

I've been concentrating on getting in lots of servings of greens because they are number one for eye health. Kale and cabbage top the list, and I get in both every day. Carrots are next, but I don't have any right now. Peaches are third and HRH bought a couple of those.

went back through some old ('18, '19) online eating records to remember meals I used to enjoy and found a couple recipes I want to get back to eating - stirfry, kitchery, homemade cole slaw, etc. I'm always glad later to find that I did some recordkeeping. It's always very HONEST with me. (smile)

box-packing and box-moving is the new exercise here.

Ramblin' are you just tired the next day or is it muscle aches? I wouldn't know what to do with that info even if you gave it, but maybe it jogs your thinking in some way. I am achy after moving boxes, is why I thought of it. Different motions, a little too much weight out in front of me as opposed to more structured, planned exercise.

[Ramblinrose]

Oh Harriet…
I definitely come home tired and acky after working with the horses. There’s a lot of heavy chores to do at the care center especially loading manure in to w wheel barrel and then having to run it up a ramp to dump
It. Takes to people to do that part.

Yesterday I helped loading a truck with 20 bales of hay on to a truck which required me to climbs two story hay “squeeze” … hay stack…pulling bales of hay out and dumping to the truck below. I worked with another gal. Still have to move the bale. Pick it up and then push it over the side

When I come home I shower with hot water, take two ibuprofen and use either a heating pad or lay on top of my electric blanket.

Most days I do a round of specific core exercises as it’s my lower back muscles that bother me. Also I’ve started getting deep tissue massages which hep. And although all this helps my body I am very aware that I’m still not as strong as I was 18 months ago. COVID and my lack of physical activities during that time is the result, but I am determined to get back as much as my strength as I can.

My mom was a runner from the age of 49-83 running 3-5 miles daily until she turned 78 when she cut back to 1-3 miles. Though running is great for cardio it’s not good for the body unless you add some strength training. The results for my mom were she began to get balancing issues and she ended up having to use a walker.. which she hates

My trainer, Jason, stresses good core muscles are needed to maintain good balance, and at this point I am looking to the future today to start healthy in my later years. Different mind set

[LadyMaverick]

If you are interested in gentle core building exercises there are several video exercises. Google "Staying Active and Independent for Life" and you will find many options. When I first did them I was mentally rolling my eyes because they seem too easy. HA! I was overconfident. By the time I was finished exercising I decided they were exactly what my body needed.

Today is day 83 of tracking my food. I've lost 13 lbs during that time. I wish it was faster but am committing to staying focused on doing all that I can do and let it happen at its own pace. I do weekly averages of staying around 1200 calories. Somedays I'm at 1600 calories and some days I'm at 800.

It took me the whole month of June to eat a piece of DD10 birthday cake. I put it in the freezer and took a bite on most days. It didn't feel restrictive at all. I enjoyed every single bite of that piece of cake.

I don't eat most of the things that I cook for the family. Recently I've cooked Chicken and noodles, spaghetti, potato salad, pasta salad, mac & cheese, rice, etc. I'm not interested in eating any of that and rarely even take one bite. I do still eat some things that I prepared for the family - pizza, chip & dip, fried chicken, french fries. I do watch my portions because all that is super high-calorie and adds up fast.

My base eating plan that I eat most days includes scrambled eggs with mirepoix, lentils & mirepoix, plain greek yogurt with blueberries, homemade soup with about a dozen different vegetables, strawberries & cherries with whip cream. These daily dishes come to around 800 calories. The rest of my calories are used to eat whatever sounds good that day. Yesterday I wanted stir fry so took my biggest cast-iron skillet started adding things... 4 oz of brisket, 300g cabbage chopped, 5 spears of asparagus chopped, summer squash chopped, 5 garlic cloves, 1/4 onion chopped, tomato & peppers from the garden chopped. I just kept adding things until the skillet was full. The total calorie count was 294 calories for the whole skillet!

Today the family requested that I make a big pot of hash. It only has 3 ingredients - beef, potatoes & onions so I will probably eat some of it.

[Ramblinrose]

LadyM…

I cook for Sweetie all the time but seldom eat much of what he does. He loves rice and cook eat it for every dinner. I am a simple cook most of the time… meat, veggies, rice and a salad for dinner

I too eat scrambled or fried eggs for breakfast and had Greek yogurt and a fresh peach for lunch. I do eat a wasa cracker which resembles cardboard, but I love it and substitute it for bread. Light rye is 20 calories and multi grain is 35.

I eat between 800-1300 calories daily. I need to add more water during the days I’m not with the horses. And I’m getting between 8K-12k steps daily

Today I had Greek yogurt, 80 calories with a fresh peach and a wasa crackers for breakfast. Then I went to a neighborhood brunch and had coffee, one fig and abt 3/4 cup of the hostesses egg casserole. I just finish dinner with a large salads with 3.5 ozs of salad, 2 saltine crackers and two tablespoons of light ranch dressing…just finished my desert, an ice pop which is 15 calories. I’ve had 60 ozs of water and Gatorade and will get another 20 more before I go to bed.

[LadyMaverick]

I'm having to constantly fight myself to not get so frustrated that I quit trying. Fact: I am NOT a patient person.

I know that if I give up, I can easily gain 2-5 lbs a week with no effort. So what are my options? Either I continue the daily effort or give up and commit slow suicide.

When I step back and look at monthly progress it looks good (not great, but enough to see progress is happening). However, the day-to-day decisions & constant attention to eat healthy and lose weight are frustrating me.

On the good side -
** I am rarely hungry. I used to be STARVING. I remember the feeling of wanting to eat so bad that I was willing to eat anything. For example- open a can of cold green beans and eat them right from the can. I would wake up in the middle of the night wanting to eat. Thankfully that feeling of extreme hunger and binge eating has disappeared. Hopefully, forever!
** Weight loss continues to happen even though it is extremely slow. I want to lose 2 lbs a week but I'm not having success doing that. I am having success losing 1/2 to 1 lb a week (averaging .8 lb weekly loss this month)

So here I am.....consistently tracking and doing the best that I can. I'm frustrated with my progress rate, but the only thing I know to do is just keep on making an effort.

[LadyMaverick]

Today is Day #100 since I started documenting every calorie I eat/drink. it took a lot of time in the beginning because I made a spreadsheet of every food I ate with macros. Once I had that information captured, it became quicker to record it by simply doing a cut/paste.

My macros have evolved over the past 100 days. I know what keeps me feeling full and is easy to keep ready to eat. I continue to cook for the family but rarely eat what I cook. Yesterday I made chicken alfredo but I removed 6oz of chicken for me to eat before I put all the ingredients together. Today I made spaghetti & meat sauce but choose to not eat it and ate some leftover pork ribs instead. Most days I eat some sort of legumes with my favorite being lentils because they are quick & easy to cook. Most days I eat greek yogurt sometimes with blueberries or strawberries added or mix in some sugar-free chocolate pudding powder. Most days I eat stir fry made with multiple vegetables.

My detailed food list with macros shows that I have eaten 256 different food items over the past 100 days.

My daily calorie average is slowly decreasing as time passes -
1481 calories averaged in April
1320 calories in May
1269 Calories in June
I tend to watch the weekly average calories - this week I am averaging 1210 calories a day.

As I said above, I am averaging about a 1 lb loss weekly. Today I weigh 15.4 lbs less than I did 100 days ago.

My goal when I started this was to count calories for 100 days. I need to consider what my next goal will be.

[Twins' Mom]

LadyM, fabulous results, both the scale and the NSV (non-scale victory: recordkeeping and reducing calories.)