Diet Coaches/Buddies - Exercise was chase the (4 yo) DGD day, CREDIT moi. After lunch at the Boston Museum of Science she proceeded to spin on a physics demonstration device. To no adult's surprise, "My tummy hurts." Yes, we tried to put a little distance between lunch and spinning, but she's got her own mind. A few minutes solved the problem.

Evening enlightenment was a lecture on smell. So much that I didn't know. When one loses their sense of smell, all food tastes the same. Just slight difference in sour and sweet from the tongue. The mouth itself sends feedback through the olfactory circuits to the brain. Apparently, we store childhood memories for the first ten years grouped by smell. One smell can bring back vast childhood scenes of happiness. Some folks have better noses than others. Dinner was planned to be a sushi place after the lecture, but we got snookered into having the FREE cheese and fruit plates after the talk. Was fun. An old friend was there with tales of life as a "trying to retire" realtor who still has customers call to insist that he be the one to sell their house. If you can afford it, leaving your house to your beneficiaries saves them money; the cost basis gets escalated to the current value. Any gain in price of the house since you acquired it never gets taxed. Government doesn't leave many loopholes, but that's one.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Yep, balance is key to healthy living. Thanks for the thoughts on sleep meditation. Sounds relaxing, alright.

maryann - Interesting notion, "Maybe the food gives the illusion of control."

Karen (karenrn) - Through The Great Southwest sounds like a good film - hope it gets out here. 15 miles is a healthy hike.

curlyjax - Ouch for facing a sudden rent deposit. Congratulations for being in a place to be able to help your DD.

Penny. - Lent is a great excuse to reel in the eating; don't have to be a believer.

Readers -

I chose to skip a sports banquet last night which would have me eating way too much food and dessert. DS was fine with me not attending, and after a long day of listening to people's problems/venting I didn't feel up to socializing with these particular folks (parents of high schoolers,most of whom i don't know). Also tonight I am probably going out to dinner with a bunch of widows and that is more important to me. I do not feel connected to many people in town, most of my friends live elsewhere, and I will not miss these school gatherings at all when DS graduates.
I continue to work out on my manual treadmill; I can do about 15 minutes then my hip starts complaining. It's more work than regular walking since its inclined a bit so i'm not going to over do it.
Bill- that's really interesting about smell and taste. Glad DGD didn't toss her cookies after that!
Karen: that documentary sounds great. Glad Otis likes doggie day care!
Penny- it must be hard to get a morning to yourself with your crew, savor it!
Gardenerjoy- lots of great yoga stuff online, that will be fun.
Maryann- sorry you’re feeling blue. I’m skipping weighing for a bit because i know i’m up due to water retention etc.

Yesterday turned out well. I ended up napping between events and felt better. Today is a full day. I have eaten the new breakfast and planned exercise. I will track today.

DH's PSA is still high. Sigh. We haven't done a lot of research, but enough to know that there's still a very high likelihood this means nothing. And, even if it's due to a malignancy, there's a very high likelihood that it's so slow-growing that there's no reason to treat it -- that it might have been better to not detect it. PSA tests are somewhat controversial, these days. But, as for mammograms, early detection of the most aggressive forms of cancer leads to effective treatment and saved lives. His next step is an MRI (preferred) or biopsy -- depending on what our insurance will cover.

My calcium is also still too high. Sigh. And, they did a couple of extra tests. My PHT is also too high and my Vitamin D is too low. Those three things are supposed to play well together in the body and do great things. Mine are out of whack. I'm taking Vitamin D3 every morning and one Vitamin D2 every week. We'll check again in 16 weeks.

My patient portal says I'm supposed to get a bone density scan, too. But no one has talked to me about that. I'll follow it up when we get DH more settled into his next steps.

Today's challenge is getting the car serviced. An oil change for sure and, probably, brake pads. There are quite a few unhealthy treats in the waiting room, so this is my reminder to go for the healthy things. I'll bring my own water bottle. I'll drink tea. And, if I get hungry, I'll grab a piece of fruit. Maybe a granola bar if things go really long. I'm bringing a good project to work on, so that will help.

Exercise: +40, 1120/1200 minutes for February

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Excitement was listening to an evening presentation about Massachusetts Butterflies. Butterflies are easier to watch than birds because they are active at noon when the sun has warmed their wings instead of just past dawn when birds like to hunt bugs. If you're not a morning person, butterflies might just be the hobby for you.

But the BIG deal is that this was a local group where a few members provide a table of homemade goodies: brownies, cookies, spice cake. I know this in advance; always regret that I eat stuff that I didn't want to eat; so make this plan. Instead of dropping a couple of bucks in the basket as did everyone else, I put in a crisp $5 bill telling myself that I was paying for the privilege of eating NONE of it. Instead of feeling like I had to get my money's worth, I had the feeling that I'd bought relief. It worked. I even refused a bite of the sugar cookie that DW was eating. CREDIT moi, CREDIT moi, CREDIT moi. Who says money can't buy happiness.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Yep, service center waiting rooms are a challenge since the brain is already in the I'm-being-had mode. Kudos for planning around that.

There's a Boston Globe update to the gas explosions in Merrimack Valley, Massachusetts that you mentioned was hard to follow from your local papers. (If you can't read due to lack of subscription, I can copy/paste email it to you.) Summary:
maryann - Napping between events is just the best.

curlyjax - Kudos for finding a strategy for avoiding unwanted food at the sports banquet. Yay for your DS recognizing that he didn't need you there.

Readers -

Good morning coaches,

Our hike yesterday was very good, 15 1/2 miles and 3470 feet elevation gain. It was a bit windy at the start and 75 degrees by the time we finished. We did the same hike one year ago and there was snow on the ground in the further back and higher areas. Of course that is very unusual. Today was weigh in day and weight was up 2 pounds for the week, whereas last week it was down 3.2. As usual I'm doing a pretty fabulous job of maintaining. There are some days when I feel like that's what I should do, but I fear if maintaining is the goal I will actually gain weight.

The documentary I saw the other night was really quite short and some of it's focus was on the small towns near the trails and the people in those towns that are "trail angels" and help the thru hikers. It also showed the hiker called "Legend" who holds the fastest known time for an unassisted thru hike of the 800 mile Arizona Trail, which is 15 days and some hours. I listen to podcasts that he speaks on, but it is hard to imagine hiking over 50 miles a day for 16 days straight. These are not easy miles either.

Bill I'm very impressed with how well you are doing eliminating snacking. I need to work on this. I keep putting yogurt on my plan as a snack and then eating it whether I need it or not.
GardenerJoy I hope the health concerns for both you and your husband are sorted out soon.
Maryann What is the new breakfast? I'm glad the nap helped.
Curlyjax Good for you for skipping the sports banquet. It seems sometimes we do things because we feel we must when really it doesn't matter.

Okay, time to write my food plan for the day. Happy Friday everyone! I'm hoping the stock market will quit dumping every day. It is definitely causing me stress.

The car service went more quickly than expected which helped my mood and food.

Today's challenge is lunch out at a place I've only had lunch at once before. It's a bakery that serves lunch so I felt weirdly obligated to have a sandwich. I wasn't that happy with it, so I think I'll try a salad today.

Exercise: +25, 1145/1200 minutes for February

BillBlueEyes: thanks for the update about the gas explosion.

Hi Coaches,

Gardenerjoy: Thxs for the input on DH test. We are going through the exact same thing. Dh's father had prostate cancer but ten years down line the line from our age. He successfully fought but the subject is definitely emotionally charged for us.
Karen: A benefit of WW is I have come to enjoy Fage 0% non fat plain yoghurt. This is a miracle, I never thought it would happen. It is zero points in WW. I put a fresh fruit (hopefully blueberries but most likely bananas) with it and a teaspoon of half and half stevia/sugar on top. We grow Walnuts along the Sacramento River and sell them to Diamond Foods. They in turn give us packs and packs of specialty product. I put 28 g (5 pts) of glazed walnuts on top and the breakfast lasts me till morning break.
BBE: Great mental practice with the $5 bill. That strategy is how we beat this addiction.

Yesterday was OP but I did not exercise. I had to meet a AA newcomer I am sponsoring and it threw me off schedule. However, I did treat myself to Knives Out which came out as a rental. I did enjoy it but I brag that I had it figured out half way through.

This weekend holds one more dinner out. I have my selection planned. I am going to focus on lots of veggies today and a bike ride.

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Trip to the library to pick up yet-another book for the DGD. And a list of movies that DW had secreted on her computer for some time. We watched (the 2017) Victoria & Abdul. What a joy. It received some critical reviews because the history is distorted. Hard to believe that the history between the UK and India about 1900 can be told without some pain and exaggeration. Different times then.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi. That included a trip to the supermarket where I avoided the aisles of cookies and chips and marched through the checkout gauntlet of impulse buys.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - It's the smell of fresh bread in a bakery that does me in.

maryann - Veggies and a bike ride sound like good places to focus.

Karen (karenrn) - It is difficult to imagine doing the 800 mile Arizona Trail in 15 days. Kudos for equanimity as you face scale jitter from week to week.

Readers -

Good morning coaches,

Food was on plan yesterday and weight was down a smidge. This morning I'm heading out to my weekly meeting with the PNP gals and then no big plans for the day. I have a book on hold at the library which I'll pick up on my way home. It's the How Not to Die Cookbook 100+ recipes to help prevent and reverse disease by Michael Greger. I may pick up a couple more cookbooks at the library too. I do get many recipes on line, but sometimes thumbing through a book is nice for ideas. I checked my Garmin ap and saw that I only did hikes two days this past week instead of the 5 or 6 days the week before. I'll try to get that increased again this week.

Bill The quote at the bottom of the page is speaking to me about lowest achievable vs lowest maintainable weight. I know that I need to reduce the calories if I want to get to a lower weight. We all know I am pretty top notch at maintaining where I am.
Maryann That sounds like a terrific breakfast. I've been using the Oikos Triple Zero yogurt lately, but should go back to the Fat Free. I think Fage is good.
GardnerJoy It's always nice when a service appointment takes less time than expected.

Waving to Curlyjax and Penny.

Yesterday's challenge didn't turn out to be a challenge at all. I sat down at 10:30am at the bakery cafe for back-to-back meetings and never got up -- not to order tea or lunch. I left at 1:30pm and ate lunch at home! I feel a little bad for not supporting the place that provided the table. But, I feel good for a healthy eating day.

Today's challenge is another lunch out and I don't know where. I'll focus on veggies and company.

Exercise: +20, 1165/1200 minutes for February

Good morning!

A little calm before the storm that is my work day. Yesterday was maintenance eating and weight is holding. Aka no recovery diet eating yet.

I finally got my two older boys registered for their first classes at the community college, after what felt like a lot of hoops to jump through.

Maryann, sorry about the medical stress your (and Gardnerjoy's) dh is going through. Kudos for sticking with your ww plan.

Gardenerjoy, I understand the guilt of not purchasing something at the bakery. My knitting group meets at a cafe and I always get a tea, even though I'd rather get nothing. We need free public spaces indoors that don't require us to be quiet. lol

Bill, kudos as always for avoiding the temptations at the grocery store.

Karen, is the How not to die book also a documentary? I read a lot of comments from people switching to whole food plant based eating after reading the book and watching documentaries. Have a nice PnP meet up.

Curly, credit for adding the treadmill to your routine! lol at the request for available men in their 50s. I hope you catch one!

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Beck Diet For Life/Solution – March 2020 – Support, Discussion, Buddy/Coach

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