[gardenerjoy]

I got a nice drop on the scale that I'm crediting to my new breakfast. That's encouraging enough after two days to keep going.

DH's first cataract surgery is on Wednesday, so a lot of today was about making sure that we've got a good plan for everything. A lot of the next two days will be implementing that plan. Including a grocery run on Tuesday when I'll be a bit torn between looking at more plants to buy and making sure that we have the kind of food that DH will want after surgery. This is much less of a deal than the prostate surgery a couple of years ago, but his taste for food was very limited and simple for several weeks after that.

Exercise +45, 1445/1700 minutes for March

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Excitement was a visit with the (3 yo) DFGD, DS, and DIL. Started with a marble run at their local library. A "marble run" merely means that the librarian in charge of the children's room puts out the large bin of plastic parts which kids (and their parents) make marble chutes for marbles to run down. DS built a neat structure; DFGD added odd pieces here and there that DS skillfully incorporated. Got a good thirty minutes before the DFGD wanted to do something else. The DIL had her scooter in their car and knew that a playground was right there. The next hour was spent chasing a non-stop tornado on a scooter; in the swings; on the climbing structures. Most important part: she pushed the button to open the electric door. Second most: she put the two return books in the slot without having to be told where that was. Best moment for me: she turned to me, "They have lots of books in there." Love that she's getting indoctrinated that libraries are a friendly place for her.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner conversation was a debate about how close we come to 30 plant products a week. DW grabbed the mixed greens container to read 12 different varieties. I add cuke, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and (at least once a week) avocado. So, up to 16. My breakfast has 5 items in my "fruit bowl" and an oat cereal. Lunch has peanut butter, pecans, whole wheat bread, and carrots. So, I'm up to 26 before dinner. DW says it's close enough to count a different veggie each night and a different "starch". If that is so, that adds 14 each week, putting me at 40 before we begin to consider spices and herbs. DW snarled when I mentioned salt and pepper, reminding me that salt is NOT a plant product and being reluctant to count pepper since the quantity is so small. The good news is that the discussion led us to remember that variety has more benefits than we'd been thinking and that the quest to keep trying new veggies is useful. I also got reminded that the geek in me is more interested in counting numbers than planning healthy eating, LOL.



Joy (gardenerjoy) - Interesting tension between the dietitian working on variety and the nurse seeking solace food for her patient.

Silverbirch - Welcome to Daylight Saving Time. Good to be reminded that my nominal thinking "five hours behind Wales" needs to be adjusted more often than I've been thinking. Each draft completed must feel like an accomplishment.

maryann - Thanks for the link to a plants list; it makes me feel better at counting all items in a mix. Super Kudos for leaving half an ice cream sandwich.

curlyjax - Such healthy fun to be dancing to 70's music. Hope your two kids don't tease you too much. Always a surprise to meet a friend at an unexpected place.

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 rude to turn down food.
to -->
Thinking This: It's important for me to stick up for myself.

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

[curlyjax]

Very active day yesterday-active for me anyhow. Yoga in the morning followed by fabulous coffee at a small family owned cafe-Brazilian, with lots of treats as well, but I only got a spinach feta thing as it was noon and I hadn't eaten anything. Groceries again, followed by brisk walk with BFF and her two dogs. Then back home to cook: oatmeal for the week, pasta veggie salad for DD, banana-oat-choc chip cookies for DD, roasted beets, and sauteed beet greens and swiss chard. Then cleaned everything up, Whew! My hip was killing me at night so I think I overdid it, and I lay there thinking about whether my hip is bad enough for surgery yet and when I could do it if so.I'm very tired this morning and will make sure I eat breakfast so I don't get too hungry and overeat at work later today.
I counted 10 plants yesterday if you count two different colors of tomatoes and peppers I was motivated to buy the greens because of our discussion, yay.
Silverbirch- you're getting us to all eat more plants, thank you! Your tea sounds very good. never had a lime pickle, not sure what that is.
Maryann-wow, you're off to a great start! Fun to see someone you know playing in a band
Gardenerjoy- DH is lucky to have you taking such good care of him.
Bill-wow, you are smashing the plant count! Sounds like a very fun day with DFGD

[gardenerjoy]

I'm writing it here so that I'll do it: I plan to restart the 30-day yoga program that I attempted earlier in the month today. I'll go back to Day 1, just to make sure that I'm proceeding slowly enough for my body to accommodate the down-dogs and planks without injury.

Exercise +50, 1495/1700 minutes for March

BillBlueEyes: Cool that DFGD has already been inducted into the collective of library users. That's an impressive amount of plants!

curlyjax: Good for you for finding a way to get all of those plants in on a Sunday. I hope your hip feels better soon.

[silverbirch]

Great session at the gymn this morning. As always when I move forward with weights or reps I eat like a horse later on. And so it has been today. I have to relearn the lesson, relearnt so many times before, that I must take food with me to eat immediately after the gymn. This seems to stave off the ravening desperation of the post gymn early afternoon. Mostly.

I have a bootful of logs but don’t have the energy to barrow them up to the house today so that can be a job for tomorrow morning, I think. I won’t witter on about the new car today. Please assume that I’m still on its case until I tell you that all’s well. I haven’t had any tea today as I’m very full with the food I ate as a late lunch. I drank a couple of cups of rooibos tea whilst doing the crossword.

gardenerjoy, great to hear of a nice drop on the scales. Very good luck with the preparations for the forthcoming surgery, and the surgery itself, of course. This morning I saw my friend (almost 69) who’s in line for the same in the next few weeks. I’ll learn from your example and pass any useful tips on to him. He told me of a car journey he made last week which was ‘a bit blurred’. Dear me.

Bill, fantastic plant food count! How good to hear that the DFGD is learning that ‘libraries are a friendly place for her’. It will stand her in good stead for ever and ever. Point of information: what you call Daylight Saving Time, we call British Summer Time (BST) and the other is still Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Once again, divided by a common language. Yes, a good draft is a wondrous thing.

curlyjax, such an active weekend - brilliant! Yes, we can count different colours of tomatoes and lettuce etc. Glad I encouraged you to buy greens. I think folk wisdom tells us that they make our hair curl, if that’s of interest to you. Lime pickle is a spicy and tangy Indian condiment that we eat a fair bit in Britain, especially with curries and poppadoms. I like to think it’s better for me than mango chutney, another Indian condiment, but it’s a sugar vs salt toss-up probably.

[maryann]

Good Afternoon, Coaches.

Credits:
Drinking my 100 ounces of water.
I had soup for lunch and cranberry salad for snack. It seems to ward off the sweettooth gremlins.
I used a spreadable pepperjack cheese on my personal naan with artichoke bruschetta. The spice of the cheese makes me use less of it. Savings of some important calories.

Silverbirch: Nice effortless word introduction "barrow."
Curly: I did batch cooking as well. I buy the shredded broccoli, carrot and cabbagesald mix. I add an apple cider vinegar dressing, cranberries, walnuts. It is enough for all week and it will last all week because there is no lettuce. It keeps getting better and better.
BBE: we teachers have often discuss that our class can really be divided into two groups - readers and non readers. The reader have a tremndous advantage.
Joy: hoping to join you in a drop soon.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Amusement was a trip to my dentist for the final step installing my implant. Was taken aback that there was a screwing motion - just couldn't imagine that my tooth was being spun around in my gums. Then the dentist took out a ratchet torque wrench. Small sized for the mouth but a ratchet torque wrench like one uses to torque down the head of a gasoline engine. I heard the familiar clicks as the torque mechanism slipped signaling that proper torque had been achieved. Surprised to be asked, he explained, "There's a hole in the center of the tooth. That's where I stick the wrench. Now I have to patch the hole and you're all set." The phrase, "and you're all set" is designed to assuage any thoughts I have that I just spent a wad of money for a tooth with a hole in it. He called for dry fill <something> from his assistant; patched the hole. And, true to his word, I was all set to leave. That all tweaked the geek in me.

But the amusement was his running story about removing a baseboard in the bathroom of his 100 year old house so that his plumber could proceed. His plumber had stopped, "You need a carpenter for that part." He called his buddy who can do EVERYTHING. The two of them pried and pushed and levered and banged until they got the board out. I got every detail while flat on my back with mouth open enough for both of his large hands to be working inside. Constantly having to grunt in response to "Everything OK?" asked, I guess, just to know if I was still alive. Just amazing. And, as I left, the assistant called out, "Enjoy your new tooth." Spent the whole walk home, CREDIT moi for walking, trying to figure out how to enjoy a tooth.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner included a sauteed mix of chopped cabbage and onions - a taste familiar because that's how DW sometimes prepares Brussels Sprouts. She was excited because the raw cabbage was left over from our St. Patrick's Day corned beef and cabbage dinner. "Usually I leave raw cabbage in the fridge for the length of time it takes for it to mold; then toss it," she admitted.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Yes, do proceed slowly; you're critically needed as Nurse Ratched for the duration here. Yay google for giving me the source of the title of the book:

The title of the book is a line from a nursery rhyme:

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew East
One flew West
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest

Silverbirch - Thanks for the reminder that it's called British Summer Time (BST). Does remind me of the history that the French fought hard for Longitude Zero to pass through Paris instead of Greenwich since clearly (to them) that's where the center of civilization lay. Do hope this relationship between you and the car works out.

maryann - Naan with artichoke bruschetta sounds terrific. Kudos for finding a way to limit the quantity. Thanks for the stark reminder, "our class can really be divided into two groups - readers and non readers. The readers have a tremendous advantage."

curlyjax - Neat that you mixed beet greens and Swiss chard; I, too, like getting tweaked to think about how many plant items we're eating. Do hope your hip doesn't try to slow you down; you seem so active these days.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

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

From Automatically Thinking This: I should be able to treat myself in special circumstances.
to -->
Thinking This: I can eat what I want as long as I plan in advance to use my Bonus Calories for it.

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

[curlyjax]

No sugar at work yesterday and I only ate what I brought in. I made an appt to get my hip looked at next week to get the ball rolling. I got 16 more plants in, thanks to my salad mix which contains 6 types of baby lettuce. If I eat broccoli, cuke, carrot and cabbage this week i'll make it to 30 unrepeated. This has been a good reminder to add variety, as I do tend to eat the same things for breakfast or lunch; although that also is easier to manage and possibly keeps me on track better too. Exercise was walking around Target for yet more groceries/staples. Big credit for buying some Easter candy for the kiddos and not getting/eating any myself. I had one cookie yesterday and that was it.
Silverbirch-thanks for the info about lime pickle, very interesting. I do love mango chutney-with brie on homemade bread, could life be better.
Running late, wave to all.

[gardenerjoy]

I successfully did Day 1 of the 30-Day program -- although only because I wrote it here. The day got away from me. Still, it was good to have that moment of self-care, even if it did come late and with a side of grumpiness about other things that didn't get done. Now that I've done Day 1, I feel propelled to do it every day, in spite of the many uncertainties in the schedule for the rest of the week.

Today's themes are shopping, cleaning, clearing, packing and otherwise getting ready for surgery day tomorrow. We don't have to arrive at the clinic until 11:30. That has a huge downside since DH will be NPO after midnight, but the upside is that there will be plenty of time for gathering and preparing tomorrow, too.

Exercise +50, 1545/1700 minutes for March

[silverbirch]

Today’s decluttering client has a high temperature and cancelled late last night. And I woke up to pouring rain. Both of these mean that my day has had a different shape than the one I planned. The SO is at the office so I have the whole, very small house to myself. I’ve been able to focus on backed up paperwork, other catching up and general relaxation. Lunch didn’t work, unfortunately. Yesterday I bought a kipper (smoked herring) at a supermarket as I thought it might just do. Well, it didn’t and I threw it away. Very unusual behaviour for me. Anyway, I ate the saute potatoes, orange and kiwi fruit but then fell off the wagon because I did not feel satisfied at all, presumably because my athlete’s body* required protein of some kind.

[* This concept started life as almost a psychological trick but, with affirmation from my coach, has now become the way I think about my body, at least some of the time. ]

I’ve also made a cauldronful of bolognaise sauce which will coast us through a day or so and a large amount can be frozen. Definitely credit due here.

maryann, thank you for remarking my effortless introduction of an exotic word (”barrow”). I’d actually wondered whether “witter on” would make it over the Atlantic, and on to the Pacific, but maybe I managed to get that one under the wire! You’ve fired “pepperjack” back at me - that sounds very hot and strong so I can see how you might use less. Credit for an interesting and workable cheese tactic.

Bill, credit for no daytime snacks! I’m glad you’ve got the tooth screwed in now. The dentist who did mine also had very large hands. When I met one with small hands, it was wonderful. Thanks for your good wishes about my car relationship. Although the car has moved in, we’re still only at the finding-out-about-one-another stage. I’ve handed over barrowloads of money so perhaps it’s something like a shotgun engagement. I’m not sure whether it will be a long-term thing but at least it doesn’t have to be “marry in haste, repent at leisure”. I’ve given myself a day off from it today.

curlyjax, no sugar yesterday - credit! And many plants too - credit!

gardenerjoy, credit for Day 1 of yoga. I don’t know how some days get away as yours did, and mine has today, really.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - One more trip to the supermarket requiring me to jump over the mounds of Easter candy. Since they aren't on my food plan, one would think that I'd just walk on by. But I did have to check out what's being pushed this year. Noticed that nothing contained only dark chocolate - only milk chocolate. The packages are smaller than I remember; I assume it's smaller packages with the same price. Good news is that I didn't see hot cross buns which tempt me with warm memories of childhood.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Proud of that because I spent the day trying to get my computer to talk to the Internet. No joy. I may have to take it to a computer store tomorrow. DW kindly allows me to use her computer when she's not on it. I can type now before she wakes up. It's fun to sit at her desk seeing different pictures of the kids, different awards she's gathered, different nature photos. Although I do feel like a voyager, LOL.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Good luck with your DH's surgery today; may you both have a successful journey. Do like the argument that having started Day 1, you're committed to run the thirty day course.

Silverbirch - Thanks for the notion of "athlete's body" - Dr. Beck should add that to her next book. I do worry that your car might friendzone you. Even, perhaps, without explanation. Relationships are hard.

curlyjax - Yay for observing the varieties of plant foods you're eating - this is fun. Kudos for avoiding the candy - evil stuff that it is.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

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

From Automatically Thinking This: When I'm stressed I need to eat.
to -->
Thinking This: I can deal with stressful situations without turning to food. And I'm always so glad when I do.

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

[curlyjax]

OP day at work yesterday. Got an interesting dessert idea from a nutritionist; spread Greek yogurt on a parchment paper, put chopped nuts and fruit on it, and freeze it. Then break it off into bark (keeping it in the freezer) and you have a nice healthy treat. You could put a little honey in it too if you need it sweeter. I'm going to try it sometime when i have room in the freezer. I went to the library after work for a bit and then was so hungry that I went to McDonalds which I haven't done for eon, and satisfied my craving for a cheeseburger. That plus ice cream will no doubt push my weight up again, but at least I didn't eat for the rest of the day and still went to bed a little hungry.
Heard from the Y weight loss program manager; they are still waiting for one or two more folks to join to make it a go, so I'm not sure it will happen which is a bummer.
Silverbirch- I love the expression witter on, I'm sure i've read it in some book by an English author. I bought a new car in 2019 and we are very happy together Love the notion of athlete's body too.
Gardenjoy-yay for Day 1 and motivation to keep going. Good luck with surgery prep.
Bill-ugh for computer issues. Interesting that you're only seeing milk chocolate, maybe that's more appealing to kiddies than dark.

[gardenerjoy]

My twenty minutes of exercise yesterday reflects that I did Day 2 of my yoga program. Since I only count intentional exercise, it doesn't count the many steps that I took running around to complete errands and get the house as ready as we can manage.

This morning, I have the challenge of coming up with three hours of entertainment for while I'm in the waiting room and with preparing a packed lunch for myself that is reasonably healthy.

Here's my reminder to get up every 25 minutes and move around or stretch, even if it makes me feel self-conscious. Instead of feeling self-conscious, I'll declare myself on the mission to normalize that human bodies need frequent breaks from sitting.

I feel like we have limited understanding of what this afternoon and the coming week will be like.

One restriction is "don't rub your eyes." How do you wash your face?

Another is "don't bend over from the waist." In the last 24 hours, we've become keenly aware of just how often DH bends from the waist without even thinking about it.

Hopefully, we'll get some practical answers and tips for these restrictions before we leave the surgery center.

Exercise +20, 1565/1700 minutes for March

[silverbirch]

I spent the morning barrowing logs from the car and barrowing rotten pallets and old windows to the car. My lovely trainer and I think that this kind of thing is one of the triggers to my increased speed of progress at the moment. The forecast said heavy rain all day but it held off till about midday. I’d hoped to go to the tip but I ran out of energy. Lunch seemed OK (lots of veg, rollmop herring) but obviously not enough as I ate a sandwich later. Perhaps that was my mid-afternoon snack, the one I tell myself I need to have (but I forget I should do this).

Bill, bold work in the supermarket. You’re really on a roll with no daytime snacks - credit. You’ve introduced me to an alarming new word - “friendzone”. I had to look that one up and I'm being brave. But, yes, relationships are hard.

curlyjax, that Greek yoghurt, nuts and fruit sounds like a great idea. Thanks, I’ll try it, also when there’s some space in the freezer. It encourages me that you and your car are getting on well.

gardenerjoy, credit for Day 2 of yoga. Good luck for today. Are you confined to the waiting room or can you go for a stroll around the place? It’s hard to normalise that bodies need movement and frequent breaks from sitting. I always walk around railways stations when I’m waiting for my train. Once, and unusually, there was someone else doing it. He looked American (it’s the footwear) and when we fell into conversation on the train, I found out that he was! So perhaps the message is spreading over there.

[maryann]

Good Afternoon, Coaches.

Life continues to be incredibly busy. Food is good. I find myself refusing Girl Scout cookies, eating 1/4 of a doughnut, having three peanut butter M&Ms. It is too soon to know if this is the medicine kicking in. I will be starting the final whole pill of Bupropion tomorrow. after another week I will start the Naltrexone. Together they make up the name brand Contrave. I am a little anxious to get started but better to listen to the Dr. and avoid side effects. I am trying to get all my water in.

I am free for a nice long weekend. Exercising will be skiing if I can ever make it up the mountain. So nice to leave the class with my co teacher. I will meet my friend from Colorado in Reno and ee will drive to the cabin. Fingers crossed the weather allows this.

Catch up on personals tomorrow.