[gardenerjoy]

My first activity for a lower-pressure week was to visit my brother and use his new hot tub. We had a long relaxing conversation. I'm not expecting myself to come up with much more productivity today, but I'll follow my food plan and get in a bit of yoga and other exercise. I may even make it to the library because the rest of the week looks pretty rainy.

Exercise +45, 1150/1700 minutes for March

curlyjax: Your relationship with your DD remains something that can be worked on. Good for you for keeping it going. That's more than my DN has with her mother. And they both continue to suffer.

[silverbirch]

Cars were today’s theme. I took the candidate car for a test drive. It’s a very nice car and although it doesn’t fully meet my requirements (there’s a bit less room in the back than in my present car) I decided to buy it. This took a bit of thought and I was in two minds about going for lunch and thinking about it. But just as well I didn’t! The salesman took the car off the market straightaway, went out to the repair bay (more later) and discovered that there was a couple on the forecourt who had been just about to put down a deposit on the car! Their salesman had just discovered that the car was not for sale. Phew! Thank goodness. I am part-exing my existing car. Part-exchanging. When they were checking its condition, they found that I had a nail in the tyre and a flat! But they put the spare on for me, under the radar, which took a bit of time. Then I did a quick bit of shopping. All this added up to 6 hours door to door. My goodness. Food has been reasonable but finding a good emergency lunch still needs work. I’ve been trying out some kind of berry smoothie and cottage cheese, thinking that most supermarkets have these items. Yes, quite a good option for me, but I’ve discovered that I am no fan at all of no-fat cottage cheese which was the only type available today. So back to the drawing board for a new idea. I’m picking the car up on Thursday.

Bill, ah yes, the elegance of the corned beef sandwich. That’s one of my emergency lunches for when I’m at home. What a helpful 4 year-old boy! His heart’s definitely in the right place even though the result backfired.

curlyjax, the other house is my mother’s. The plan is for us to move there. I’m sorry about the DD situation. It does sound tricky. But yoga sounds lovely. And credit for signing up to the 10 week weight loss class. Tell us all about it!

maryann, forgot to say that your decluttering sounds great!

[maryann]

Good Afternoon, Coaches.

CurleyJax: In my experience young adults change so quickly. It is a long race but the person your daughter is today is not who she will be in five years. Maintaining respect and communications lines open keep them close is oh so important. It is a lot easier with students. As I tell them "I am paid to be an adult " so I don't feel their attacks personally. They are just striking out. Good for you for hanging ing there.
Silverbirch: Emergency lunches are interesting. I lump them in with vacation meals when I do not want to spend money in a restaurant but want something healthy. I just bought Tuna Pouches at a bargain price. I will keep them in my car for such emergencies along with crackers. I also just find mini cukes or peppers are easy with cheese spreads.

Credits:
I went grocery shopping and did not eat n the car on the way home ( Thxs for that one, Joy.)
I did get a Diet coke. I have had a fierce sweet tooth and it seemed a good compromise.
I am walking after I post to add to my daily steps to get to 10,000.
I wore a nice spring dress and got many compliments on it. It was a NSV.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Got a little incentive from a routine doctor's visit. He suggested that I need to get a little more exercise and lose a few pounds. Hard to deny I've put on a few pounds since his last visit a year ago when I'm standing on his balance-beam scale. He had the weights set very low so that when I stepped on there was a loud CLUNK! The clunk of shame, LOL. But my heart is good; no change in anything for the duration until next year's visit.

I did remember to put the trash bins back to the curb in time for their pickup. The winds were gone. DW didn't want to play the game of waiting to see if the neighbor picked up his trash that had blown into our yard. It was the front of our house that looked junky. It only took her a minute; it's now all gone. My social experiment with the neighbor's conscious won't get to happen.

Got reminded that cut daffodils are only a three-day delight. Oh, well.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Everybody needs a brother with a new hot tub!!! And a good ear, both.

Silverbirch - Congrats for being the proud owner of a red sporty car. Neat that you just went forward so that's no longer hanging over your head. Makes the deal even sweeter that another buyer had their checkbook out.

maryann - Wearing a Spring dress makes the season's arrival real. Thanks for the insight that young adults change quickly - we're the ones whose job it is to be calm.

curlyjax - Continue to send you encouraging thoughts as you work on your relationship with your DD. You can't know what she needs; can only know what you can give. In all the stories I've heard, time helped out when folks just hung in there while it was difficult. Yay for fabulous yoga.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

Remain in Stage 3 until you've made that shift: ...

From Automatically Thinking This: Dieting is so hard.
to -->
Thinking This: I know I can keep this up.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 166.

[curlyjax]

thanks for all the support around DD folks. Yesterday morning I thought about what I could truthfully write to DD as a way to move forward, and did so as a way of demonstrating I was hearing what she said, and apologized for one careless thing I said. She was appreciative of my effort and we did much better in the afternoon-and I know she heard my viewpoints too even though it wasn't acknowledged. I took a quick nap then got a few more groceries and made a pasta-chickpea-red pepper=tomato salad for dinner which she helped with. I also made banana -oats-choc chip cookies with only those ingredients and ate too many as I was hungry. Had a long chat with widowfriend who is fearful about her job; she has to reapply since they're changing it from 10 months to fulltime-and she's afraid she won't get it again. I feel very badly for her; its a low level secretary job and the hoops she has to jump through are ridiculous. So much of work is politics.
Gardenerjoy-yay for a hottub visit and relaxing conversation.
Maryann-your emergency lunch ideas sound good. Nice to get compliments on a dress.
Silverbirch-hooray about the car, that is a big deal to get it done. Oh yes, now I remember about the house in a busier town.
Bill-That's great that your heart is doing well. I feel like doctor's always suggest weight loss since so many Americans are overweight.

[silverbirch]

Weight remains the same. Another busy day with a valuation of the house (I’m not putting it on the market yet but I need to have some idea of the value), working out where I’m going to be over the next six or seven weeks and who with, and a decluttering client this afternoon. Plus shopping. Sunshine and lambs this morning, heavy rain and wind this afternoon. I ate too much this morning whilst tidying the house for the valuation, and I ate too much this afternoon after the client and the shopping. This kind of thing means that my weight does not go down.

gardenerjoy, I missed your post yesterday. A long relaxed conversation with your brother and using the hot tub sounds lovely. Definitely lower pressure!

maryann, ooh, a nice spring dress! It’s too early for that here. Thanks for the tuna pouches idea. I’ve never seen them apart from for cat food but that’s probably because I haven’t been looking! Your mini cukes, peppers, cheese spreads are interesting too. I’m wondering about trying a prepared fruit salad (if available) rather than a smoothie for the volume and the increased time of eating.

Bill, great to hear about your good heart! We know that, of course, but the medical viewpoint is encouraging. Sorry to hear about the Clunk of Shame. I’ve heard about the Boston Marathon. Could that (or equivalent) be in your future?

curlyjax, completely brilliant idea to write to DD! I’m so glad it went down well. I agree with all the wisdom here about how time and being present can help with young adults. And Bill’s point that “you can't know what she needs; can only know what you can give.” In that vein, I think I try to keep things open with my DD. I listen very much more than I speak in order to give her a space to work things out and so I can try to understand what she needs and if I can provide that. I offer ideas/suggestions/opportunities and don’t mind (or try not to mind) if they aren’t accepted. I think there’s also something about boundaries but I haven’t worked that bit out yet and anyway, I don’t want to pontificate about an area where I’m just a well-meaning amateur.

[gardenerjoy]

My back felt well enough yesterday to do a yoga routine with sun salutations and balance poses in honor of the Spring Equinox. It felt fine last night, but has had a few twinges today, so I'll go back to the more stretchy kind of yoga routines.

I'm working up an idea that involves cottage cheese. It's kind of smoothie-adjacent. I don't like the texture of smoothies. And my hyperthyroidism means I don't need the extra calcium from yogurt or milk. So, I'm thinking of a smoothie that uses cottage cheese for the dairy and, thus, has a texture that can be eaten with a spoon. I'll want the berries and banana that goes in lots of smoothie recipes. I'm hoping I can hide a handful of spinach in this version, too, like many smoothie recipes do. I'll probably top it all with a sprinkle of granola to improve the texture. Nutritionally, this would be an improvement over my current breakfast. We'll have to see if I like and if I like fixing it.

Exercise +60, 1210/1700 minutes for March

silverbirch: Congrats on the new-to-you car!

BillBlueEyes: Our outdoor daffodils perked back up this morning with just a slight increase in temperatures. I'm glad you got your 3 days money's worth of the cut daffodils.

curlyjax: What a great way to move forward with your DD! I'm glad that it worked.

maryann: That's a nice list of credits! Yay for a spring dress that made you feel good.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Walked, CREDIT moi, to the dentist's office for the standard cleaning visit. Rather ordinary visit until my hygienist asked, "Do you know that you have a bump on your gum near this tooth?" No, I didn't know, nor did I know which tooth she was pointing to in the back of my mouth. She was worried enough to take an x-ray and have the dentist come by - the dentist who is scheduled to install my new tooth in a week. "Oh, that's nothing," he said in that reassuring voice that causes terror, "it's just gum tissue trying to take over the space waiting for the tooth. I'll take care of that with the new tooth next week." Naturally I assumed that I have wildly growing gums taking over my mouth. Perhaps preventing eating. My imagination works splendidly when prone, under operating room style lights, in the presence of two white lab coat professionals looking down at me. But then I felt happy because one standard issue of aging is having gums that are receding. Which comes with gruesome pictures on the dentist's walls along with clucking about not brushing and flossing enough. My next career will be teaching bedside manners to dentists

On the walk home, I noticed that every front yard on the north side of the street had daffodils. None were in bloom; all were standing straight with tight buds waiting for a wave of warmer weather. Was fun because I'd never been out daffodil-spotting before.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. I'm still under the influence of my doctor noting that I could lose a few pounds. Perhaps I should visit the doctor once a week to stay motivated - a pricey way to diet, LOL.



Joy (gardenerjoy) - Neat to be planning a new type of "smoothie." My congrats to your daffodils for their resilience.

Silverbirch - "Sunshine and lambs" is just the best expression ever. Was surprised to google it and find out that everyone else already knows it. Wish you well with the juggling act of moving to your other house. I used to dream of doing a marathon but 26 miles is a looooong run.

curlyjax - Super Kudos for finding a way to move forward your relationship with your DD. I hope her high pressure nursing school is coming to an end. Your dinner salad sounds yummy. Unfortunately, so do your cookies, LOL.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

Remain in Stage 3 until you've made that shift: ...

From Automatically Thinking This: I wish I didn't have to exercise.
to -->
Thinking This: I feel good when I exercise.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 166.

[curlyjax]

Boring day yesterday with a long webinar. I continue with no sweets at work, yay, although I had a panini sandwich instead of my salad. Good session with my therapist- I tend to ask her for help with "how do I say this in a nice way". She was glad to hear I was moving forward with DD. I was going to take a walk but was so tired I lay down for a nap instead. I ended up watching two episodes of Endeavor instead of food prep/cooking. I had one of my quick meals of microwaved frozen turkey meatballs with spag. sauce, cheese, and arugula and cabbage. It's wierd but satisfying and I figure at least i'm getting some greens in. I got into the choc chips again-if you melt them and then add peanut butter its quite fabulous. It's a challenge to stay out of that stuff but I did it last week successfully so onwards.
This morning i'm going to an allergist for the first time which will be interesting. I had a reaction to some foods at one point and would like to know what exactly it was.
Gardenerjoy-great your back felt better to do yoga. I think doing the cobra pose has helped mine (well, maybe older cobra, i can't arch very far)
Silverbirch- I like your thoughts on your DD. Sounds like a very productive day. I hear you on eating too much while doing chores and then recovering from them.
Bill-i had to giggle at your description of the dentist's not so reassuring voice, I know what you mean! Goodness, our bodies are always full of surprises.

[gardenerjoy]

I slept poorly last night. I'm blaming it on lack of exercise. I thought I was too tired, but it turns out that only my brain was too tired. My body wanted more before it had to rest. Sometimes, I listen to the wrong messenger.

Exercise +30, 1240/1700 minutes for March

silverbirch and BillBlueEyes: I took "sunshine and lambs" quite literally. But I love knowing that it's an expression, too.

curlyjax: I hope you get some answers at the allergist. DH and I have both benefited from allergy tests and treatment. Not to 100% satisfaction, but enough to stay out of the worst problems.

[silverbirch]

Terrible day for eating too much. I’ll be glad when I’ve collected the car tomorrow and I can also collect up all the bits and pieces I need in the car which are currently in three different places.

High winds and rain today. I’m sorry to say that ‘sunshine and lambs’ isn’t an expression really but is a description of what some of us see in the springtime, so perhaps we use it a lot. Today the lambs look rather sodden, poor things.

gardenerjoy, I like the cottage cheese adjacent smoothie idea. I sometimes have cottage cheese rather than yogurt on my muesli in the morning (I also have milk). CC is such a good source of protein for us bodybuilders!

Bill, isn’t it strange that dentists and hygienists think you know which part of the mouth or tooth they’re talking about? Also that they seem to think that you can carry on a normal conversation when your mouth is open or, worse, full of instruments. What fun to go daffodil-spotting.

curlyjax, I sometimes have that exercise vs tiredness struggle, even though I know (or am told) that exercise will give me more energy. I’m not convinced that this is 100% correct on every occasion, even though it’s touted as a truth. Sometimes I just need to conk out.

[maryann]

Good evening, Coaches.

This is a week is very full of many emotional contacts and late nights. That is never a good combination. Today's event was a drive to the shrink. I get antsy before it. DH called encouragements. The truth is I have never felt emotionally better in my life. The one thing i would change is the constant struggle with food. I feel if I let down for a minute I will be back over 200. I think that is actually a possibility. Having been obese before, my brain is wired to secrete certain hormones that cause me to be hungry when I start to lose weight. I have also lost the genetics lottery in terms of obesity. That is never going to change. So I had a long talk with the Doc. We decided to add and additional medicine called Contrave. It has been proven to lose weight maybe 8% of TBW in a year in conjunction with a reduction of 500 calories a day and exercise. I get the exercise in. I know that. I am interested in what 500 calorie reduction of what a "normal" person eats. It takes 4 weeks to kick in. So my plan is rather than try to restrict protions, I will log all food in MFP and keep to healthy stuff. I will also keep up with the water. I hope this is a real solution. My real life goal is to be in the 60s.

Catch on personals at the end of the week.
Wave.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Excitement was picking up the (7 yo) DGD after her first grade classes. She spent over an hour playing on the school's play structure with two distinct groups. First she played with her nemesis - the boy she says is "Annoying." He clearly is. But yesterday she sought him out and gave him a cookie from the snacks that we show up with. Then they disappeared behind some bushes to write on the school wall. The bushes were wimpy, schoolyard bushes so they weren't actually private. But hard not to notice the desire to go off to be private. I continue to compose my toast for their wedding, LOL.

After that boy left, she played alone with the only kid I've seen who was taller than her; turns out to be a third grader. They'd never played together before - just knew who each other was. The kid had a gender neutral name, long hair parted in the middle, thin arms and legs, looked female; our DGD used masculine pronouns. Our only contribution was to say nothing to contribute to the notion that it wasn't a big deal.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. I spent time thinking about how a handful of almonds would make it easier to figure out how to make the scan function of my printer recognize my computer. The printer recognizes my computer when I send something to print, but the scan doesn't recognize it. If I can't figure it out this morning, I'll have to trot down to Staples and use their machine. At moments like this that I hate all computers. I'm ready to be locked up in an institution where someone else worries about computing. Then I remember that when I get locked up, I'll be the person that everyone comes to since I'm one of the incarcerated geeks. Back to the point: almonds don't know about computers.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - That's an interesting contrast when your brain was too tired but your body wasn't. An interesting reminder that some exercise is demanded of our bodies every single day.

Silverbirch - Happy car collection day. Will be reassuring to drive knowing that you have brakes. My take is that a sporty car is enhanced by a neck scarf blowing in the wind.

maryann - I wish you well with your new eating plan. Interesting to be reminded that we can have a brain capable of sending hormones to try to conserve weight - to be prepared for the oncoming famine, I suppose.

curlyjax - I do wish that making any sandwich a panini makes it so appealing. There just anything better than butter grilled into bread. Continued Kudos for no sweets at work.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

Remain in Stage 3 until you've made that shift: ...

From Automatically Thinking This: It's unfair that I can't eat like everyone else.
to -->
Thinking This: This is how all successful dieters and maintainers eat.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 166.

[curlyjax]

I did terribly with eating yesterday. I got into junk at work and just kept going. Possibly because of that I took a nap after work and slept too long, so I couldn't get to sleep last night and didn't sleep well. I am determined to get back on track today.
Allergist was interesting-turns out I have sensitivities to soy, and a tiny bit to peanut as well. The peanut one was odd because I eat pb all the time without any trouble, but maybe i'll stop doing it as much. If I want more envt allergen info i'm supposed to see a dermotologist for further testing. The allergist was very nice as was her entire staff, and I'm glad I went.
I think I'm in a funk again which may be partly why i'm tired- time to shake myself out of it.
Personals tomorrow!

[gardenerjoy]

I got my second Shingles shot yesterday with much less drama than the first. In the fall, I encountered a Catch-22. My insurance wanted me to get the shot at the doctor's office and my doctor's office wanted me to get it at the pharmacy. I must not have been the only person with that problem -- now, the doctor's office is providing them again.

I forgot the side effects. I woke up in the wee hours too achy to sleep and too tired to get up. I finally did get up and it helped both problems, but I'll want to take it easy today.

Exercise +80, 1320/1700 minutes for March