Health and Fitness April, 2012

[Nancy]

Exercise yesterday was walking and mopping my floors in the kit. & dining room.

The older you get you need to eat less get muscles are already formed and developed;
eat as little as you can is what my doc. said.

[Harriet]

⊰☺ ⊱ I've lost 1/2 pound! ⊰☺ ⊱ Finally a change since Jan. So that means 6.5 pounds since Oct, and 1.5 of it in 2012.

I've decided there were 10 pounds in October that just were NOT me and need to be ~~~vanquished~~~ before I can feel successful
So that is the mini-goal I've decided to embrace! 3.5 more pounds.
But a further truth is I should lose more if I want to be at my best. So after suitable celebration I'll likely start in on 5 more.

HRH is concerned because he remembers exercise alone managing/taking my weight down in the past (so can't understand how so much late winter/early spring exercise hasn't changed the scale). And now he notes I'm having to take my calories down pretty low - he worries about it. Also almost every meal he eats here, I won't eat with him or I eat something different. Guess he can't help but notice, hmmm? I don't know how to explain it - either to me or to him. But that's what it seems to take now, so I'll make sure I've started a trend again and then see if I can ease off the strictness.

20 minutes of exercise last evening.

Your floors look beautiful, Nancy! And calories burned to boot!

Kathryn, how are you doing? Mood and tiredness easing, I hope?

Kind of you to help your neighbors, Lynlee. I imagine you would be a great resource for them.

[Indiana]

Way to go Harriet.

[Harriet]

Thanks, Indiana! Finally the ball is rolling again.

You were going to wait until you had lost 25, then you decided to let us know you had lost 22, but then you had to head to the hospital. If there's a landmark you need to let us know about.. ....

[Indiana]

I passed a landmark and I don't remember when it was.

I'm on my next segment of 22 more pounds. So I lost 3 of the last 25 I would like to get rid of. Whatever I get rid of will be good. It doesn't have to be all 25 of this one.

I lost track of how much I got rid of in total. I also don't remember what I started at. The thing for me now is just getting healthy not how much. Don't get me wrong it was important before and over all the significant weight drop is fantastic but now I'm just onto being healthy.

Eating healthy for the last few years has been eating healthy not to get rid of weight.

For me everything is healthy - even decadent bread pudding. The trick now is how much and how often. I have never been a fan of chocolate so that helps. Jelly beans are a different story.

The whole serving of bread pudding doesn't need to be consumed in one sitting but I can savor it over time.

This is my lifestyle now and I don't have to think about it. Just like eating carryout for two meals a day was a lifestyle. Once I am satisfied I stop eating. Before I felt it all had to be eaten.

This isn't what you asked me but I thought I needed to explain. There is more but I won't bore you.

[Nancy]

Way to go Indiana!
Back from a walk to see the baby goats w/ dgd for today's exercise.
Hiked in the field w/ dgd today too.

Tomorrow's ex. will include mowing weather permitting that is.

[Harmony]

Harriet, I'm convinced our fluctuating / disappearing hormones have something to do with how hard it is to lose weight. I'd read that estrogen is stored in fat and a woman's body tries to hang on to it... but I wonder if that's really true... it does seem likely.

My recent problems had me down a pound or so. I'm still struggling with that a bit, except for the additional problem of now having a raft of chocolate and other easter candy around here. I'd bought some things for DGKs baskets, as every other year DD did this at the last minute and shelves were bare......so I grabbed what was scarce in the store for her. Turned out for the 1st time she shopped before she came and arrived with the giant candy bag. Ok, I will take this back...

Except for Easter morning there were 3 baskets for the kids and one for grandma and one for grandpa too. DD is a thoughtful person and generous to a fault, and I do appreciate the gesture.... but I've searched the whole house in every nook & cranny for my will power.

The good thing, chocolate seems to alleviate the problem I've been having, not one tiny piece, but a few will do it. Go figure, it would be something bad for me.

Kathryn, I feel like I'm at war with my age. I guess that's the same thing as what you're feeling. DH is feeling it too. Playing kickball with DGKs this past weekend, I discovered some problems now where I can no longer run. Our old age didn't sneak up, it ran up and smacked us right over our heads.

BWTG, Indiana and everybody else.

[Harriet]

Lisa B. we have really been missing you! Did you notice the PWYC thread of March 23rd?

Harmony, if chocolate helps but you worry it's bad for you, try the healthier chocolates and experiment to see how much makes a change for you. Kathryn buys these. At the grocery store where I usually shop, I can find a nice selection of bars and other shapes with exact percent numbers on them. (60, 70, 80, etc.) They are nice but not always tasty, HOWEVER some of those have additions to make them better tasting, like raspberry..

Not boring, Indiana. Great job thinking healthy for the most part, then letting weight change come as a result.

I was eating healthy foods but just not realizing how I needed to reduce calories to EVER see weight loss, I guess! Harmony, hormones do make a difference but I think my main hormone problem is there may be more wrong with my thyroid than a little pill can cure. I go to see a different specialist Thurs.

25 minutes exercise yesterday.

Ya'll know I loved my morning smoothies sometimes, but now that I'm trying to limit calories, the fruit in them is too much.

I had tried some Atkins ready-shakes, but the sodium disappointed me. So I switched back to coconut milk smoothies (yay, a fresh food) with whey protein powder. The calories are similar, but there's 62 percent less sodium (75 as opposed to 200 in the Atkins).

That being said, the Atkins shakes do have 35 percent of daily iron, and 12 percent fiber. So in a rush, they are not a bad thing at all.

I found one of those shaker bottles with a wire whisk ball inside at the pharmacy on the nutrition aisle now that I don't need a blender. It really does a better job of blending a powder into liquid than other shakers. The bottle, lid and whisk all go through dishwasher - takes up space but is not much trouble.

[Harriet]

This clever Goal Weight Calorie Calculator will calculate for free how many calories you can/should eat to reach a certain goal weight by a certain calendar date. It's very sensible in that it won't calculate for lower than a healthy number of calories (1,200 if you enter female) and I think it may be a little conservative (which is good - better a happy surprise than a disappointment). It does require your age to calculate, so that's more evidence that even the computer knows it takes longer to lose when you're older!

I knew this type calculator existed on Live Strong .com, but didn't want to commit to membership at an additional site (I'm already using another site for recording calories), so I'm glad to see it's here for anyone to use on the spur of the moment. I couldn't resist checking out what my result would have been had I still been 40 years old! The difference for me is about 100 less calories per day (the computer believes) to meet a goal now than when I was 40. Well, I decline that courtesy! I think I do a little better than the computer thinks.

I got in 25 minutes of T-Tapp last evening, finishing another round through the Total workout. I sat with my yogurt afterward and watched some form tips and advice on that video and on one of her seminars.

Harmony - about running - I'm sorry you hit a glitch and don't think you should be running any more. I don't like to run, but don't think of it as a worry, exactly. I don't like the "what-ifs" on my driveway or even the lawn, since we do live out in the country and have a digging dog, kinda large-sized driveway gravel. (Just 2 of the many reasons I think the barefoot-running craze is nuts.) I'm certainly not going to run in public, but that has to do with my personality. I don't like to think I might jar a knee or ankle, so why run unless necessary. I guess that's how I feel about it. It occurs to me if I really believe this, then there are activities like tennis or little pick-up basketball games that I'm saying "good-bye" to forever. See, I'd have to think about that.... ... I don't like that.

Nancy, take it easy today! Keep your feet on the ground, too. (ducking and running)

[Nancy]

Yep I point at that other branch and say your time's coming! LOL! Maybe I need to get dson's harness or better yet ask him to remove it for me!

Did my long walk and helped h. unload the leaves we had in the trailer.
Weather is nicer than anticipated so far today so I took another walk w/ a friend med. in length.
Plus some outside activity doing yard zone work picking up rocks and enjoying the day with the great weather decided it was a good day for it!