Health and Fitness, November 2021

[Harriet]

Any Calendar Event Goal Setting going on? Tis the season, , and we support you! Accountability provided here!

As homemakers, when we take care of ourselves, we increase the strength, stamina, resistance and optimism we have to enjoy life and to be nurturing to others, whether in our homes, extended families or community.

Welcome to our thread about benefiting health and fitness! We are challenging ourselves to greater well-being and encouraging well-being in our family members. Each of us is learning - recognizing needs and finding personal balance.

[RunKitty]

Yes! Challenge yourself! I remain grateful for the challenge given here in 2017 which led me to decide to run at least two miles every day. Today marks the fourth anniversary of that decision and I haven't missed a day of running.
We are still eating 100% plant-based and mostly whole foods. Loving it. I get four servings of fruit and three servings of leafy greens in my morning smoothie, plus flax seeds and hemp seeds. It's a good start to the day after a run.
Best wishes to all.

[LadyMaverick]

Runkitty! I am so happy for you and your healthy endeavor successes! BWTG!

[Twins' Mom]

Runkitty you're an inspiration.

My weight was about what it was when I left here, despite all the stress eating. My middle feels big though.

I got 7K steps yesterday - had one lap around the block with dh and other than that, I was fetching things for him. Fifty-five hundred so far today.

[LadyMaverick]

For the first time since April 15th, I recently had a day that I didn't want to record everything I eat/drink. It was day #199 and I had a decision to make.
Do I want to stop tracking?
If so….
Do I want to do something different?
Do I want to eat whatever in any portion size and be okay with the consequence?

I spent several hours thinking through this situation with the various pros/cons of each possible decision.

I finally came to the realization that I do enjoy tracking and having the hard facts to analyze. I do enjoy the NSV changes that have happened in the last 6 months. I do enjoy that I'm not in pain from overeating. I do enjoy not having heartburn and acid reflux anymore. I enjoy the changes to my taste buds & desire for healthier food choices that have developed over the past 6 months.

What I don't enjoy is putting in the effort of weighing my food & tracking but not seeing any results on the scales. For the first 5 months, I lost weight each month. It was an agonizingly slow rate of weight loss but it was consistent. Last month I didn't lose ANY weight. My average weekly weight at the end of the month was exact to the tenth of a pound the same as at the beginning of the month. I tracked everything I ate & drank during those 31 days and the result was ZERO weight loss. That was disheartening to me and I wanted to just throw my hands up and quit.

However, I decided to continue what I am doing. The pros outweigh (pun) the cons. I'm trying to accept that plateaus are normal. I need to be okay with that. My consolation prize is…..at least I didn't gain weight!

Today Is day #203 and the effort continues.

[Harriet]

Maybe you're poised for a dip, LadyM!

Great to see you, RunKitty.
About smoothies, what is your favorite go-to recipe these days? The seasons recently found me switching from fresh to frozen mangoes as you can imagine, and they're disappointing in the oatmeal, but still inspiring for a smoothie. Very tart fruits worry me a bit because of a recurring irritation I have from a salivary gland that blocks easily. Tart fruits seem to bother that. If it wasn't for that, I'd be having strawberries or acai in smoothies more often. My older dd has been ordering from Misfit Market rescued produce and they have had wonderful fresh greens, including unusual ones.

blender thoughts... ..
I tried to have a "gift list" this year and put the first item on - a new Nutri bullet - with the idea that HRH could give the idea to any of the children who came to him asking. Nope, he was so happy for any idea at all that he took it and it will be no "surprise" any more, since now I'm involved in the purchase. Problem is, he wants to buy me one of the pretty ones, but they come only from the company website. They promise 20 percent off but when you actually start to buy, that 20 percent disappears. Sigh. So I'm in limbo wondering if it's going to happen, while he fights for "the principle of the thing".

Our Nutri bullet, bought on Ramblin's recommendation in mid-2015, still works. The mechanism is not so great, though, with tiny bits of the rubber of the wheel having come off onto the motor. I feel it's on its last leg after being a workhorse.

Recent new use for the Nutri bullet has been the "dressing" part of the Tu-No recipe from Straight Up Food book (mock tuna salad made with chickpeas, celery, etc.), in which you whir soaked cashews with lemon in a blender.

[RunKitty]

Thanks, everyone.
Harriet, here is my smoothie recipe; measurements are approximate. About a cup of almond milk, a scoop of Vivo Life Vegan Protein Powder, a cup of frozen mangoes, a cup of frozen wild blueberries, one frozen banana, a teaspon=on of amla powder, a teaspoon of maca powder, a tablesppoon of cacao powder, a tablepoon of ground flaxseed, a tablespoon of hemp seeds, and the rest of the space in the blender full of kale, baby spinach, baby kale, and baby chard. That's it. The protein powder is lightly sweetened with stevia.

[Harriet]

That gave me an incentive to change things up, RunKitty, just to see what you're enjoying. Since I already had everything except hempseed (put that on the list!), I made about a 3/4 recipe up this morning (even the tall nutri bullet container has less space than most blenders, plus I'm not running beforehand!) and found it super good. The mangos gave enough tartness without too much.

This got me out of my rut to go ahead and put some chard in - unusual for me, but I do often add whatever odd microgreens, pea shoots or sprouts I have. My vegan protein powder is Vega right now - just easiest to find I guess. I don't always use it anyway. For me, after the blueberries the most "usual" fruit from the freezer is probably cherries, next would be acai and next cranberries which I must limit because the tartness is off the charts if I use acai and cranberry both. Seldom remember to freeze the bananas but I do put in other frozen so it's all good, even if they're room temp. Oh, have sometimes added beet powder, another thing I'm out of at the moment.

[Harriet]

Got my hormone-doctor appt out of the way. First in-person visit with her in a while. Will still be cutting the Th pill in half, half the time. By now it doesn't even seem complicated. I'm at 2.6 TSH. BP was good, and again she just talks about how her patients look, does not weigh. She thinks I look fine. See, this way, it's always good news. The scale is in a closet somewhere around the office but is not "displayed". I wonder if this is one reason her patient's BP is good.

[Harmony]

Dr. said she wants TSH less than 2.0 and mine is 2.83. I admit to not understanding these numbers at all but sometimes I think I don't have the energy that's normal....if I would understand what normal for a 72-yr-old is after all. She did ask how I was feeling and I'd read going by that is sometimes as accurate or more accurate than the numbers themselves. I don't remember when we tried to boost the med up and see that 6/2020 I was at 4.500 and they backed it back down...but that was the nurse practitioner instead of the doctor. My heart was beginning to pound at that number. Her scale for the lab is 0.2700 - 4.2000.

My Friday morning teacher who fell and broke her femur, is now in rehab making better progress than most do. They say her progress is due to the fact that she walks 6 miles every day.