Weekend Wrap Up - I'm Tired!

Weekend Wrap Up - I'm Tired!

I sometimes wonder if there will come a time in my life when I'm comfortable just 'being' and not 'doing,' which is not something I do well currently. Once upon a time my dad said to me, "You and I have a hard time just being still." This, from a man who still goes on multi-state motorcycle rides and overnight kayaking trips at close to 90 years of age. 

Yeah, pretty sure there's no hope for either of us, so here we go again . . . 

Friday - Enjoyed an on-my-own 8 mile fast paced walk as I now start to implement a training schedule for my upcoming organized hiking and kayaking trip in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Focusing on increasing mileage for now, with hills added once I'm comfortably at 10 miles of walking and hiking distance. 

Once back home from the walk I showered and took a nap (I was wiped!). Read this book for a bit, checked out from the library of course, which I'm thoroughly enjoying  (this is my first Anthony Horowitz read) -

- then my spouse and I got a little dressed up and headed to our membership winery for complimentary glasses of wine plus a flatbread pizza to share. We do this twice a month, generally on Friday nights, at a cost to us of about $25 a visit, since the wine is gratis per our membership. 

I did the math on this once, and the cost of our annual fees divided by the number of bottles we take home and the complimentary glasses of wine we receive at the winery comes to about $5 a glass. The wine is excellent (award winning, actually), so we are very good with the current annual membership cost. And the setting alongside water is so enjoyable, plus cozy and friendly - lots of spontaneous talking ensues. It definitely feels like 'our place,' which is really nice.

Saturday - Met my beach walking group in the AM for a 6.5 mile walk. So enjoy this weekly date on my calendar, today electing to walk to the starting point from my home in order to add a little extra mileage.

Home for a quick cleanup and lunch, then my spouse and I left to attend a matinee live theater performance of The Sound Of Music, which exceeded all of our expectations. Having only seen the movie previously, but multiple times, I wasn't sure how 'exciting' seeing it as a live musical production would be - but the theater company knocked it out of the park - it was amazing! I don't know where the director located his talented cast from, but they were absolutely outstanding, each and every one. And the set direction was likewise clever and extremely well done. My spouse and I kept turning to each other and saying, "This is sooo good!!!"

So, so good. 

We'd originally planned to go out to dinner afterward, but I switched around our dinner plans when I realized I'd forgotten we were also going out to eat two times next (now this) week due to already scheduled midweek commitments, so instead I started a halved half rack of pork ribs (so a 1/4 rack) in the slow cooker in the AM, which along with a baked sweet potato and green beans, is what we had for dinner.

Sunday - On Repeat for now - I was up bright and early to reserve our park concert spot by laying out blankets and chairs. Afterward I did some yard work, and got dinner started in the slow cooker, a new-to-us Pork Chile Verde recipe that smelled good even before I started it on Low cook setting, yeah.

We walked to the concert, always enjoyable, and the concert, a country music band, was outstanding. I loved that so many of the attendees this weekend came in cowboy and cowgirl gear, and wished I'd thought to do so as well! The event started with a short line dancing lesson - so fun! - and then the concert kicked off. The band had a female fiddler, and she was fab-u-lous! (She's on the far right in the photo below.)

Today, Monday - 

I'm leaving shortly for a six mile walk, then home to do some light chores before getting dressed up for our annual attendance at Laguna Beach's Pageant of the Masters. This year we're taking my mom for her first time, starting with dinner at an Asian-fusion place we love, where she'll also be trying sushi for the first time. In that the restaurant's sushi is delicious, and we have second row seats at the Pageant, currently entering its 93rd year, I think she's going to have a wonderful evening out, as are we. It wouldn't feel like summer here without attending this event, which is how we used to feel about the Hollywood Bowl summer fireworks shows when we lived on the other side of L.A. from where we do now. The Hollywood Bowl is much to hard to get to from where we live now, so the Pageant has taken its place as our annual summer tradition.

A quick note: The intention of this blog is primarily to keep me focused on living as big as possible for whatever time and energy I/we have left. It's meant to incentivize me to keep on keeping on. Plus, I do deeply love a good value, so there's that here as well!

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

Weekly Weigh In & Movement - I Did It!

Weekly Weigh In & Movement - I Did It!

Goal Weight:  115  112

July 25 Weigh In:  112.8

Weight Lost Last Week:  2.4 pounds

Weight Left To Lose:  Done!

I am now done with this effort, and yes, it was an effort and then some. At 112 and change, I'm now actually back to my Junior High School weight, which I find crazy, and which I promise, was not my goal! My goal was based on the BMI calculator I used, where I decided to aim for the lower end of the Healthy BMI weight range for my height. I wanted to see how I might look and feel if I could get there. Plot spoiler - I like both how it looks and feels a whole lot!

Weekly Mileage/Movement

• Fri- 4 mile walk
• Sat- 6 mile walk
• Sun-   2 mile walk + Lots of dancing!
• Mon - 7 mile kayak
• Tue- None
• Wed- 7 miles
• Thur - 5 miles
• TOTAL FOR WEEK: 31 miles
• TOTAL TO DATE FOR JULY:  75 miles

Some of the views I enjoyed this week as I walked, hiked, and kayaked:

No Sugar and Less Food Efforts

The No Sugar effort has been dealt with for now. I've avoided sweets for over five months, and as long as I remember to keep saying 'No' I should be fine. I do have the occasional desire to enjoy a sweet treat, but so far have been able to stop myself by remembering how hard it was to initially quit them - I really don't want to go through that again.  Those first few weeks were awful! So continuing to skip the sweets at this point is easy compared to getting off of them in the first place.

Plus, I have to imagine that getting off sweets had a lot to do with me finally being able to shed some 15 pounds after years of trying and failing. Even on days when I over-indulge, it's still significantly less calories overall than when I'd over-indulge, but still reach for the sweets in the evening hours.

This recent effort to lose weight was HARD, HARD, HARD. At this stage of my life, the Mayo Clinic website gives someone my age, height, weight, and gender, only 1400 daily calories for maintenance, meaning just 900 for weight loss if I wished to lose an average of a pound a week (3500 calories, equal to a pound of weight, divided by seven days, equals 500 less calories a day). So, it took me time to get used to those lower calorie amounts, and time to figure out how to best arrange them over the course of my day. 

I will say, one thing that helped me a lot was knowing that if I avoided eating in the evening, and went to bed somewhat hungry, the scale would likely reward me in the morning. And a lower number on the scale in the morning, even if only slight, was enough incentive to get me through another day of mild starvation. LOL, OK, I jest  . . . but, not really!!!

I'm highly active, mileage wise, because I genuinely love it, and because it makes me feel so wonderful, both during and afterward. I'll keep on keeping on with my activities because they give me so much joy, and because I feel so calm and serene afterward. Going forward, instead of helping me to lose weight a little more quickly, the 'banked' activity calories should instead allow me to go equally above my 1400 maintenance amount without gaining weight, which will be nice. Particularly on the weekends, when the majority of our dining out occurs.

So that is the reality. My journey to thinner-ness was hard, and will continue to be hard. The upside is that I feel uber-comfortable in my skin for the first time in my life, I very much enjoy putting on my clothes, including my myriad pairs of yoga pants (ubiquitous here in OC), and I get almost daily affirmations from other women my age, which feels wonderful. So wonderful that I am now making a significant effort to do the same for other women that I encounter.

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Guys, I laughed along with the rest of America when I saw this clip many years ago. But you know what? I'm not laughing anymore!

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Questions about my weight loss journey? Feel free to ask me anything!

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!