Weekend Wrap Up - Just Us Again

Weekend Wrap Up - Just Us Again

It was nice to step back into our retired grown up lives this past weekend, after two weekends in a row of high energy activities with our young granddaughters. I'm sure I'll be missing them madly in a very short time, but for the moment I am enjoying the slightly slower pace! 

Speaking of which - we've already floated the idea of taking everyone on an Alaskan cruise next summer. We so enjoy spending time with the girls, but boy is it helpful when the activities are being run by someone other than the Bana and the Nana - our energy just can't keep up with theirs! - and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines does a wonderful job with this. We took everyone on a family cruise two years ago, and I do think that every one of us had a really terrific time.

Friday - Did the usual circuit of four markets in the AM; Aldi, Trader Joe's, and then two supermarkets solely to take advantage of some of their advertised loss leader items:

• Whole seedless watermelon for 49 cents a pound
• Kind Bars for 88 cents each (I bought 20)
• Top Round Steak marked down to $6.37 for 1 & 1/2 pounds, which I cut up into three 1/2 pound sections for future stir fry meals. (I use tons of vegetables, and just small quantities of beef.)
• Large container of fresh blueberries for $5.
• A pound of fresh deli ham, half smoked, half honey baked, for $5.

Reheated leftovers for a combined breakfast/lunch. Did a four mile walk, then home to clean up for a short visit with my cancer stricken girlfriend and her husband, the first time she'd felt up to company since January, so it was really wonderful to be able to see her and spend a little time together. After leaving the two of them, we drove over to our membership winery.  Our two glasses of wine were complimentary, which we enjoyed with a shared flatbread pizza. All in, we spent less than $20, enjoying this view while we sipped and ate-

Saturday - Met my beach walking group in the AM, followed by a group coffee chat. I love starting my Saturday's this way when we're not traveling!

Home to do some laundry and remake beds before getting cleaned up for a Murder Mystery Dinner event being held in one of our adjacent towns. It was a lot of fun, but considerably more work than I'd expected. We had to work in groups to try and identify the murderer - I thought we'd just eat and enjoy watching the faux-murder performance play out, including the eventual identification of the murderer!

Sunday - I was up bright and early to again reserve our park concert spot by laying out blankets and chairs. I left my car parked nice and close to the event, and walked home instead of driving since we live so close to concert area, and it's a really pleasant walk.

Left for spiritual services after returning home, then home for lunch before we left on foot for the concert, where we'd also saved space for some friends we'd bumped into on Friday night at our membership winery. It was fun to hang out together in the dance area (our friends favorite spot), and in front of the stage near the band (my favorite spot). Actually, the concert, primarily 70's and early 80's music, was an insane blast. There were lots of people socializing and dancing, and a large group of young 20-somethings happily singing, dancing, drinking, and rolling & smoking joints, which completely cracked me up. It was like seeing myself in a time tunnel back in the 1970's. 

Personally, I drank only water, and did my best to avoid the considerable second hand joint smoke. But I very much enjoyed watching a new generation discover the music of my youth.

Home afterwards for an easy dinner of chili that I had pulled earlier from the freezer. We ate it while watching 60 Minutes live, the first TV we've watched in two weeks - we were simply to distracted to do so while our family was visiting.

Today, Monday - 

I'm leaving shortly to meet my girlfriend for our once-a-month kayaking date. We pack lunches and pull out halfway to eat on the sand, then walk to get coffee, which we enjoy in our kayaks on the return trip - the covered coffee cups hold nicely as we paddle. 

I started dinner in the crock pot already, so it should be an easy evening once I return home. 

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Inquiring minds want to know - how was your weekend???

Weekly Weigh In & Movement (July 18)

 Weekly Weigh In & Movement (July 18)

Goal Weight:  115  112  (Revised slightly downward)

July 18 Weigh In:  115.2

Weight Lost Last Week:  2.4 pounds 

Weight Left To Lose:  3.2 pounds

I was off of my normal schedule this week, due to the granddaughters being here, and then my husband and I flying them home and visiting there for a couple of days before returning home yesterday.

I worked hard to stay on my plan this week, modifying where I needed to at my daughter's. If they cooked a big meal, I skipped meals pre and post, and same the one night we ate out, so my calorie count looked good on paper. But, still, I wasn't sure until I got back home and weighed myself.

While we were in Tennessee, we visited with the wonderful Laura of The Occasional Nomads, and her charming husband Brett. This is our second meet up with them in Tennessee, and I feel so fortunate to have had an opportunity to meet her in real life not once, but two times. We talked nonstop, just like the first time we got together.

Weekly Mileage/Movement

• Fri- 6 mile walk
• Sat- 2 mile walk
• Sun- 3 mile walk
• Mon - None (Airport day)
• Tue- 5 miles
• Wed- 2 miles
• Thur - None (Airport day)
• TOTAL FOR WEEK: 18 miles
• TOTAL FOR JULY:  44 miles

No Sugar and Less Food Efforts

Not much to report this week due to so many family distractions. I did stick with my plan, I did avoid sugar, I did get in as many miles as I could.

I look forward to achieving my goal in the next few weeks. I'm ready to add a few more calories back into my day. Although I've become accustomed to eating less, I am very much looking forward to upping my daily calories by some 400-500, which should be the sweet spot for maintaining my new weight, vs continuing to lose more.

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If you are likewise on a quest to improve some aspect of your dietary or fitness life, please feel free to share here. The more we can work to support and encourage each other the better!

Weekend Wrap Up - Granddaughters Version

Weekend Wrap Up - Granddaughters Version

If I needed a reminder that energy in my 60's is not what it was in my 20's, this past week with my two no-end-to-energy granddaughters definitely hammered that home. While I'm pretty sure the granddaughters had an absolute blast, my spouse and I are definitely dragging by comparison. But, we're flying them home today, and once the hand off to Mom occurs at the airport, we can rest and just enjoy their energy without having to necessarily match it, lol.

Friday - Dropped the granddaughters off at Beach Camp, and went on a six mile walk around our local harbor. It was a gorgeous day, with a light breeze, and as usual, there were some out of the ordinary things to see, including these two parked helicopters in the middle of what is normally a picnic spot.

Stopped in at our favorite sandwich shop afterward to share a chicken club sandwich, which tasted so good! My spouse has been recovering from a fall, and just today got his mileage back up to six, which is the sweet spot that 'allows' us enough calories in the bank to share something yummy for lunch, post-walk. I'm so happy to have him back online - I've missed both our long chatty walks and the tasty lunch items we subsequently share.

Picked the granddaughters up from camp and headed to Taco Bell to pick up food for them, which they ate at the harbor before we all headed over to Shark Night at our local marine life facility. The granddaughters loved it, in particular getting to stroke petite horn sharks in the shark touch tank.

Saturday - Headed out to Newport Dunes RV Resort to enjoy their floating water park. The granddaughters had a ball, and we enjoyed watching the action from the shoreline.

Sack lunch on the beach, then a stop for frozen yogurt (granddaughters) and iced coffee (us). Next, we drove to my mom's to do a meet-and-greet with a Miniature Pony that resided at the horse stables where she volunteers. So sweet to watch the granddaughters gently approach and pet the skittish little pony.

From there we returned home to showers, dinner, and some much needed quiet-before-bedtime (us not them, lol).

Sunday - I was up bright and early to reserve our summer concert spot by laying out blankets and chairs. Walked home to get a little exercise before making the girls a last day breakfast treat of chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, plus strawberries.

We all headed out to do some clothes shopping next, one of my favorite things to buy them. The clothes are all so cute, and they look so cute in them!

Home for lunch, then off to walk to concert, where I’d already left our car in the AM to secure a close by spot for the short drive home. (We'd previously decided not to push our luck by expecting the granddaughters to make the return walk to house after a full day of activities!) 

We enjoyed pizza out for our last dinner together, then we put two very excited girls to bed (the younger had missed Mom, and both had missed their pets).

Today, Monday - 

Flying the girls back home. We made it, they made it, we all had fun, and they want to return next summer to do it all again. Hooray!

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How was your weekend???

Take 2: A Day In My Weight Loss Life

 A Day In My Weight Loss Life

I wanted a re-do of yesterday's meticulous tracking, in order to see if spreading out my calories just a bit more might result in a better food ending to my day. Spoiler alert: It did.

Morning Weight

117.4

Movement

6 mile walk (approximately 500-600 calories burned)

Food

Half a Bagel with one slice cheddar cheese & one slice deli ham, one cup fresh cherries (Approx 500 calories, about 100 of which was margarine added by my granddaughter before I could explain to her that I don't use it.)  Eaten at 11am

Banana (100 calories)  Eaten at 1pm

Small cup Greek Yogurt + 1/2 cup frozen berries (150 calories)  Eaten at 3pm

Trader Joe Bean & Rice Burrito, Salsa (240 + 50 calories)  Eaten at 5pm

Two frozen berries (10 calories)  Eaten at 7pm

Total:  1050 calories

AM Weigh-In This Morning

117.4, no change 

Takeaways

A much better day! I would normally not do a 500 calorie bagel 'thingy' here, because I don't normally use any margarine - just bagel, cheese, and a deli ham slice, but my granddaughter added it before I could stop her, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I ate it and elected to go a bit lighter elsewhere.

Anyhow, just some very mild food compulsions when we returned home from an early evening event, which I was able to satisfy with two frozen berries. (For any new readers - I've been at this for four months, I did not start off by being able to shut off my noisy brain with just two berries, trust me!)

Lesson Learned

A bit lighter at first meal allows for slightly larger later-in-the-day meals, and that seems to work better for me. OK, so now I know!

A Day In My Weight Loss Life

 A Day In My Weight Loss Life

I was interested in tracking very specifically the results of one day of calorie reductions, and how my scale responded, and here is how it went yesterday:

Morning Weight

117.6

Movement

6 mile walk (approximately 500-600 calories burned)

Food

1/2 of Board & Brew Bacon Chicken Club + One small container of their Secret Sauce (approximately 750 calories)  Eaten at Noon

Small cup Greek Yogurt + 1/2 cup frozen berries (150 calories)  Eaten at 3pm

Potato Chips (300 calories)**  Eaten at 7-8pm

Total:  1200 calories

AM Weigh In This Morning

117.4, down .2 pounds

Takeaways

Too many calories consumed in one meal (750) made it difficult to not eat in the PM, resulting in a choice to fuel up with potato chips. Terrible choice, even if I still ended up losing weight.

Lesson Learned

Its fine to skip breakfast, as its my least needed meal, from an energy and blood sugar perspective. Smaller lunch and larger mid-afternoon snack, should allow for healthier evening choices.

**I'm realizing I have to be careful not to let salt (potato chips) become my replacement sugar addiction. Da#n this eating healthier in an unhealthy world is tough!

Weekly Weigh In & Movement (July 10)

 Weekly Weigh In & Movement (July 10)

Goal Weight:  115  112  (Revised slightly downward)

July 10 Weigh In:  117.6

Weight Lost Last Two Weeks:  1.4 pounds 

Weight Left To Lose:  2.6  5.6 pounds

I revised my weight loss goal downward by three pounds, from 115 to 112 pounds. I did this after running my stats through an online Body Mass Index calculator. At 112 pounds, my BMI would be at the low end of the range tagged as 'Healthy.' 

It looks like I can go as low as 110 pounds and still be in the Healthy range. Any lower, however, and I'd drop into the 'Underweight' category, which I don't think is advisable for my aging bones.  😐

At my current rate, I should be able to make the new 112 weight target by mid-August.

At which point, I'm going clothes shopping!

Weekly Mileage/Movement

• Fri- 3 mile walk
• Sat- None
• Sun- 5 mile walk
• Mon - 5 mile walk
• Tue- None
• Wed- 4.5 mile walk
• Thur - 6.5 mile walk
• TOTAL FOR WEEK: 24 miles
• TOTAL FOR JULY:  26 miles

No Sugar and Less Food Efforts

I'm pretty much humming along at this point, with regard to my No Sugar effort. Saying 'No' to myself, whenever sugar crosses my path, is really no longer an issue for me after four months, which does feel like a miracle, given my sugar-heavy past.  

So my latest effort has been to see if I could silence the post-dinner Food Noise that would sometimes cause me to look for something to crunch, even though I wasn't really hungry. And, I hope it is helpful that I can share that similar to having to get through those first few nights of saying 'No' to sugar, I'm having similar results with regard to Food Noise. After working hard to ignore the brain messaging for a couple of nights, the noise is fading. And doing so much faster than my sugar addiction did. 

Meaning that after just about a week, I no longer feel compulsions to find something to nibble in the evenings, which was way faster than I'd expected.

I found the following article really helpful in researching what I was experiencing, and how to stop it- 

How To Combat Food Noise

About my weight loss efforts in general - my current rate of progress has occurred by working diligently to get myself into a new mindset. A mindset where I'm deliberate and aware of what I'm eating, and one where I'm trying as hard as I can to avoid what I experience as mindless eating.

I'm also working hard to shift my focus away from food being viewed as a reward. Instead, I'm working to focus on how much enjoyment I'm getting from picking out my clothes, and how much happier I am about the way they look on me, with some 12 pounds shed. Iced black coffee is my pick-me-up treat, which I genuinely enjoy. And I'm having some fun trying out new coffee spots as I'm out and about.

Food just cannot be the/my focus going forward, if I want the weight to remain off. I have had to come to peace about this, which I think I have. I am increasingly comfortable having just one full meal on days we have social events that include food, and then doing a semi-fast for one or two days afterward, until any weight gained from food-heavy events has been reversed. This approach allows me to enjoy eating out, while still managing my weight and/or weight loss.

Weight loss might come easy for some, but it most definitely does/has not for me. The mental work I've had to exert to accomplish even a fairly modest 12 & 1/2 pound weight loss has somewhat shocked me. I'm doing it, and I'm very happy with the results, but it has been hard.

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If you are likewise on a quest to improve some aspect of your dietary or fitness life, please feel free to share here. The more we can work to support and encourage each other the better!

Happy 4th Of July + Lots Of Family Fun

Happy Holiday!

It's been a wild week with four extra people in the house, two of them little people with way more energy than their grandparents!

The Fourth of July was a great day. Exhausting, but great! We started the day with a three mile roundtrip walk to the beach, stopping at Starbucks on the return to fuel up the granddaughters with frappuccinos. 

We then headed to the harbor for Water Wars, a decades long tradition that brings out the kid in everyone. People paddle out on everything from SUP's to jet skis, and proceed to shoot water at each other, and the dry land crowd, from any and every type of water device. The folk on dry land do same in return, and it is a great and wild time.

The granddaughters loved it - I had bought them pink high powered water guns - but I think my son-in-law enjoyed it more. The kid in him definitely came out. 

After we returned home here, we headed to the HOA pool for an afternoon of swimming. For dinner, we enjoyed grilled burgers, corn on the cob, watermelon, and homemade ice cream (them, not me 🙂 )

Fireworks viewing was enjoyed from our balcony, which, I'm not going to lie, was awesome. So stinkin' easy!

Anyhow, the fun with them continues here for another week. I'm exhausted (LOL!) but they are all having a blast, and already talking about returning next 4th of July. Actually, my older granddaughter considers it a given, so I'm not sure her parents will have much say in the matter!

I hope your holiday was absolutely fantastic, wherever you are, and however you celebrated!