Five New Mini Goals- September

   Five New Mini Goals- September 

Since my vacation took up the first two weeks of September, I’m setting more modest goals for the remaining two weeks of the month.

(And I’ll be back with the results of my August goals in my next post.)

1.  Complete the purchase and installation of stackable washer/dryer unit for my mom’s condo. Getting her old laundry water valves swapped out for new ones last month was the first and more complicated step. This last remaining part of the process should, fingers crossed, be easy.

2.  Send photos of minor hardscape repairs to landscaper, and schedule repair work.  Now that training for, packing, and then attending my recent adventure is complete, I can focus on getting some minor concrete remediation work done, plus my outdoor lighting fixtures reprogrammed so that they don't flash for two minutes each night as they turn on(!). This later should be an easy fix once I find the right person at the landscaping company.

3.  Make flight and lodging reservations for trip to our daughter's for the Christmas holidays.  December will be here before we know it, so I need to get this done sooner than later, when prices and inventory for both flights and hotels are good.

4.  Purchase new jeans to celebrate reaching the end of my weight loss efforts.  Trying on jeans in a retail store can be a bit of a pain, but once I find 'the pair' I should be able to proceed online for any remaining purchases. I do that a lot, BTW. I find something that works for me, and then order it in every available color or style online once back home. I prefer to order only from companies that have brick-and-mortar stores, to make returning anything a simple matter. On that list would be H&M, Skechers, Nordstrom Rack, and Columbia Outdoor Wear.

5.  Begin work on holiday felt ornaments for my family.  I enjoy this annual endeavor once I'm underway, so I just need a push in order to get started.

This year's packet of felt tree ornaments. 
They really are so fun to make.

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Today's Healthy Focus Plan - Meet girlfriend for a 6 mile beach walk followed by lunch out somewhere pleasant, make up next week's menu and grocery shop list, do light yardwork, begin this month's book club book(!),  attend philanthropic group event, reheat leftover chile verde pork stew for dinner.  

  

Post-Vacation Weigh In & Movement

 Post Vacation Weigh In & Movement

Ongoing Maintenance Weight Range:  108-110

September 15 Weigh In:  108.8 (A new low, yeah!)

The food battle continues to feel as if it has been won. I'm not fighting myself at this point, just making and executing each day's food plan. My focus continues to be on anything and everything around me, other than using food as a reward. I focus on my daily planned-out meals, good coffee, sparkling water, having fun with my clothes, good books, good friends, volunteering commitments, fun activities, running my daily chores, going to the gym, walking, hiking, and kayaking with my spouse or with friends or groups, vacation planning, and all of the clubs and club activities we belong to and attend. Food is truly now at the very bottom of the list, and often times, not even on the list.

If this sounds 'Pollyanna-ish,' I promise you that it is not. It is the result of not giving up after many, many, many tries over the years. But with eight months of positive momentum and successes (including more than a few slip ups, rest assured), a new habit of dealing with food has been created. And because it has finally become a habit (which I promise, promise, promise it will, given some time)  it all now feels easy, effortless and best of all, permanent.

How much, what, and when we eat are habits we've developed, which, means that, yes, absolutely, they can be changed. Here's a re-link of an article on this I shared some months back:  

Getting Used To Eating Less

It took me a solid six months to get to the point of food no longer being an unhealthy focus, but instead simply a tool to generate good energy and brain focus throughout my day. Life is infinitely better with the incessant food thoughts no longer occurring.

Weekly Mileage/Movement

• Sept 8-  6 miles
• Sept 9-  4 miles 
• Sept 10-  8 miles (kayaking)
• Sept 11-  8 miles
• Sept 12-  6 miles
• Sept 13-  1 mile (sightseeing day)
• Sept 14-  None (Airport day) 
• TOTAL FOR WEEK: 33 miles

Some of the views I enjoyed this week as I walked, hiked, and kayaked in Newfoundland, and along parts of the East Coast Trail:

Maintenance Food Efforts

I have an easier time managing my food intake on vacations than I do when at home. The reason, as I know this sounds backward, is that I'm so stimulated by the vacation sights and activities, I'm simply too distracted by it all to feel hungry.

For this most recent trip, which I went into two weeks ago at 112.4, and finished yesterday at 108.8, I did the following:

• Had only black coffee, sometimes an egg, for breakfast.
• Walked/hiked/kayaked lots of miles - between 5-9 daily. 
• Carried nuts to be consumed as needed during activities rather than calorie-loading at breakfast. This resulted in a much better balance of food calories in vs activity calories out at day's end.
• Enjoyed lunch as my primary meal.
• Was careful about my alcohol intake (It weakens my resolve I've learned, and makes me less food-disciplined.).
• Enjoyed small bites at dinner, great conversation, and of course, no dessert.

Today, in addition to restocking my pantry and refrigerator, I'm going to go shopping for a new pair of jeans, something I'd put off until I got to my revised 110 pounds or lower goal.

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Today's Healthy Focus Plan - Unpack and do laundry, meal plan and do grocery shopping, attend a free movie with my mom at her 55+ community, do some new-jeans shopping at a few smaller boutiques I enjoy, book our summer 2026 cruise around the British Isles, read through my emails and purchase tickets and save dates for the myriad of activities they contain, use up small balance on an REI gift card to purchase running socks and electrolyte packets.

Friday Five - Moose Stew & Iceberg Beer

Friday Five - Moose Stew & Iceberg Beer

It’s been an amazing trip, with this past week seeing my husband fly home, while my girlfriend and I transitioned to the wilderness portion of our trip on Newfoundland versus the Toronto city sights we enjoyed last week.

Friday Five In Newfoundland 

1. Iceberg Beer lived up to the hype. My girlfriend and I heard about this beer while researching St. John’s Quidi Vidi area, and out of curiosity decided to walk over and try it. Well, it was really interesting and tasty, and not overrated whatsoever. Plus, where else could we try something so unique?!?

2.  I experienced Moose Stew. Our first evening dinner at the meal-inclusive cabins we are staying in featured Moose Stew. I was a bit hesitant initially, but quickly and pleasantly surprised by the moose meat’s mild and non-gamey taste, quite similar to hamburger meat. I did also appreciate that my first experience with moose meat was in a mixed stew rather than as a large moose steak. I think I would have mentally struggled with a steak!

3. We went to Canada’s eastern-most point, one of those little factoids that makes travel so fun. Specifically, we visited Cape Spear and the Cape Spear Lighthouse. Both were rugged, remote, and exquisitely beautiful in the way off-the-beaten-path places so often are.

4.  We kayaked in paradise. During our 8 mile / 13 kilometer paddle along spectacular Cape Broyle Bay, we saw Bald Eagle, Minke whale, sea stars, sea urchins and extraordinary sea caves. We were also fortunate to have sunny skies and calm winds for our paddle, which our kayak guides told us repeatedly was turning out to be their best kayaking weather day of the entire season. So, yeah us!

5. It looks like we can all get home. We are flying Air Canada on the return, and thus have been keeping an eye on the negotiations currently occurring between Air Canada and their flight attendants. So far, so good with regard to our upcoming flights home, but my fingers will remain crossed until it’s wheels up.

Friday Five - Vacation Edition!

  Friday Five - Vacation Edition!

I 'borrowed' this idea from a fellow blogger, so thank you Juhli over at Boomer Girls Guide!

I don't think I can swing more than this once a week update until I return, but I'm definitely 'gifting' my blog with travel photos today. 😄

1. Had an easy, holiday-lite drive to the airport on Labor Day Monday, a quick check in, a fast check thru security, and a wonderfully smooth flight into Toronto, Canada. Gosh, if it were always this pleasant, I'd fly a lot more often!

2.  Paid a small fortune for our hotel in the Old Town area of the city, because our days of saving money by skimping on lodging are pretty much behind us. We may not be flying first class quite yet, but we are definitely paying more for convenience these days!

The hotel's central city location is fabulous. We've walked everywhere, and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

3.  I am not a fan of the hotel's choice to play loud music in the AM in the dining room, however. Can I please just sip my coffee and read my Kindle in peace and quiet?!?

4.  We had a long, but fantastic tour of Niagara Falls yesterday. And you know what? It lived up to every single one of my expectations! It was fabulous and worth every effort to get there!

The falls roared  . . . 

We definitely got wet . . . 

And we are so happy we got to experience it!

5.  I declined to engage when an Australian gentleman I sat next to at our lunch at the Falls yesterday launched into a personal diatribe on pretty much every controversial political topic we are grappling with around the world. I pointedly gave him my shoulder and immediately engaged the woman on my other side, coincidentally as it turned out, on her and my upcoming hiking adventures in Newfoundland. 

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Next up, hiking and kayaking on Newfoundland, where, remember, if it's 5:00 somewhere, it's 5:30 in Newfoundland! 

Weekend Wrap Up - Music, Ocean, A Debate

Weekend Wrap Up - Music, Ocean, A Debate

It was a great weekend, and hopefully I am still friends with a neighboring gentleman after going head to head on an issue I'm more passionate about than I'd realized!

Friday - This was housecleaning morning, and in that I'm on the early schedule, with my wonderful cleaning team arriving at 7AM, my husband and I head down to the harbor as soon as they arrive. We sat in our car for the first hour, while we sipped coffee and read our iPhones. Once sufficiently awake, we enjoyed a lovely and cool five mile walk, which was particular appreciated after a series of warm days here where I ended up throwing in the towel and finally turning on our A/C. 

Normally my husband and I go to lunch after walking the harbor together on housecleaning day, however, I'd hit a new low weight threshold in the morning, and asked if he would mind eating at home instead, so I could eat a smaller meal in my almost-there efforts to reach my revised goal of 110. He was kind enough to agree - thank you honey!

So, so close!

This is the evening I grilled the London broil I'd been marinating. It turned out really terrific, and although I made homemade steak sauce to go along with, it really didn't need it. The marinade (recipe here) did a lovely job of permeating the meat.

Saturday - Worked outside in the adjacent HOA area (I have no landscaping around my own property - it's all hardscaping aside from two very small planters. This was deliberate on our part, as we wanted to achieve a lock-and-go situation for long travel periods). I actually enjoy trimming and weeding - I find it tremendously satisfying. 

I got good and sweaty, so I enjoyed my lunch and some reading outside in our yard, where a really nice breeze was blowing.

Afterward I showered and got cleaned up for a Happy Hour event we were attending with two neighboring couples. The Happy Hour restaurant was lovely in that we had a shaded outdoor patio table. We all six were having a wonderful time talking and laughing when, somehow, one of the husbands and I got into it over the most basic of basic gun regulation efforts. He immediately went to the stance of "You all just want to take our guns away!" I responded, "Dude! We just want to see the needle moved slightly - even 5% would help. Stop with the '5% will turn into 100%!' BS!"

Oh gosh, it got heated. But 1) he started the conversation about guns and gun control efforts, not me, 2) our current no-regulations situation is causing harm to innocent children, which is 1000% unacceptable to me, and 3) we did manage to hug and shake hands afterward. And now he knows - don't start it and I won't seek to finish it.

Sunday - Up early to drop one of cars at the harbor for a floating concert happening later in the day. We returned home to attend spiritual services, then walked back to the harbor on foot to enjoy the concert, along with a lunch I'd packed earlier and left in the car. The harbor was packed when we arrived, so it was definitely a good plan to head down earlier in order to reserve a parking spot. The concert was great fun, as was the mass of small watercraft that crowded in. Plus, bonus, we watched an Osprey scoop up a fish in its talons right in front of us. 

We drove home from the concert, and enjoyed the last of the London broil steak for dinner, along with rice and broccoli. I also made pesto with the last of the summer's basil, which I then froze for future use.

Good day, good weekend.

Today, Monday - Heading to the airport to meet my gal pal for our hiking and kayaking adventure in Newfoundland, Canada. 

See you back here in two weeks when I return - likely with some good adventuring stories!

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Friday Five - Let There Be Water!

 Friday Five - Let There Be Water!

I'm 'borrowing' this idea from a fellow blogger - Thank you Juhli at Boomer Girls Guide!

1.  Successfully navigated an upgrade to my mom's condo - replacing her very, very old combo washer/dryer unit's water valves. Working on someone else's property, where I don't really know it's ins and outs, is considerable work. I think we made four or five attempts to replace her stackable washer/dryer unit, because it quickly became a "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" scenario when the dryer quit, which then meant the washer's ancient water valves needed to be replaced before the equally old water hoses could be replaced before the stackable washer/dryer could be replaced . . . 

But, whew, as of yesterday we are done.

2.  As a result of above, however, I finally found a plumbing company I really, really like and will use going forward. They were reasonable in their pricing, and that is increasingly difficult if not impossible to find. Plus, they have a real live person answering their phone, and their follow through has been excellent.

3.  I procrastinated like crazy, but I finally forced myself to pack for my upcoming combined city sightseeing plus back country hiking trip in eastern Canada. The hiking piece was what I was procrastinating, as there are so many small items to consider or remember - compass, headlamp, emergency items, bug repellent, gloves, layered outerwear, and on and on and on. There ended up being almost no room for my non hiking clothes, so a few outfits will be worn multiple times, LOL.

4.  Enjoyed a fantastic 9 mile urban coastal walk with a girlfriend, including a 250 step foray down (and back up!) to a small but public beach. We explored and explored, and just had an as-always great time talking and laughing as we went, including some memorable dodges around a number of parked cars along always-busy Pacific Coast Highway.

Me at the top of the 250 step descent, thinking "That's a long way down!"

Me at the bottom of the 250 step ascent, thinking, "That's a really long way up!!!"

5.  Looking forward to grilling a London broil tonight that I've been marinating since yesterday. (I used this recipe) The marinade smells divine, but I haven't grilled meat in forever, so I'm a bit nervous that I don't over or under do it, but I'm sure it will turn out just fine(!). And it should be a beautiful evening to dine outside. Plus it's Friday, meaning that some wine will be enjoyed as well.

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I hope your week has likewise been interesting! 

Monday Resets Plus Six Months Of No Sugar

Monday Resets Plus Six Months Of No Sugar & How Its Going

Monday Resets

Good Monday morning! In retirement I learned to love Mondays rather then dread them as I did during my working years, because they now represent a restart. They are a blank page on which I can write whatever I wish for the week to deliver, and renew efforts in areas where I may have stumbled. 

Areas where I stumbled and will now reset:

• Drink ample water. We are now in our season of humidity, and I can tell if I'm not drinking enough water by how frequently light headed I'll feel when physically exerting.
• Study Spanish. Fell off the wagon here and will now attempt to return to prior habit of doing 15 minutes of online and free Spanish Duolingo a day.
• Reading my August nonfiction book. I'm almost done, but oh gosh is it dry reading. So I'll return to my 30 minutes of self designated AM reading today, and then mark Mr. McCullough off my reading list forever. Too dry for me, even if I appreciate his ability to organize an array of previously scattered historical notes into a single cohesive book.

My No Sugar Efforts At The Six Month Mark

The sugar beast has been slayed! Really, there has been a noticeable turn in my efforts to remain sugar free - I continue to no longer think about sugar, but even more exciting, I genuinely no longer want to eat it or even to smell it!

To my shock, but a really, really good shock, I no longer think about sugar in any form or at any point of the day. Rather, it represents a terrible coping mechanism I had developed from a very young age, that did nothing to enhance my life. It doesn't bother me one iota to be around sweets or to watch other people enjoying them. I can now bake and serve sweets without having any desire to sample or indulge. I feel free, free, free, which is a reward I did not see coming. I just wanted to stop feeling like my life evolved around my next sugar hit.

So my food life is good nowadays. I'm eating for the sake of fueling up and that's really about it.

And not at all the point of giving up sugar, though certainly my desire to lose some weight was part of it, but I am getting daily comments about my thinness and overall appearance, and I am deeply, deeply appreciative of each and every comment. The comments validate my efforts, provide a lovely moment for my ego to feed on, and incentivize me to keep on keeping on. Sugar now represents an awful return to my former self, where I lived in a state of constant self-criticism. 

And a note on my recent efforts, and the alcohol effect. I have no issues with alcohol. I've always been a light drinker, and I don't think about alcohol really ever at all. I enjoy it on the weekends, and am happy to drink pretty much just water during the week. However, back when I first began my efforts to stop eating sugar, I began to notice that after having a glass of wine on, usually, a Friday night, I wanted sugar. Badly wanted sugar. So I began to experiment, and realized that the alcohol weakened my self resolve just enough to make me really, really want to dive back into sugar.

And while I didn't stop drinking, because I never actually reached for the sugar, I just wanted to, this is no longer occurring. My battle with sugar is over, in that I simply no longer want it at all, even after a glass of wine. It represents an immediate return to a dark part of my life that I want no part of. Instead, a glass of wine is now making me want to eat something, anything, in general, which is making me laugh. It's like water - the active brain wants to find a way somewhere somehow!

So I'm now only having wine two nights a week instead of three, and I'm focusing on half glasses instead of  full glasses for now. If this follows form with my sugar efforts, eventually I'll be completely reset into my new lower calorie lifestyle, and wine won't be effective whatsoever in moving that needle.

To be clear, I haven't regained any weight. I just find it's been harder to stay with my new lifestyle after having a full glass of wine. So I'm drinking a lot more water on weekends, and limiting my wine to just one half glass on one or two weekend nights. The scale will generally show an uptick on Monday, reflecting the extra calories I tend to reach for after a bit of wine, but I can handle that both mentally and physically, since I'm able to knock back the weight in just a day or two of resumed 'normal' eating.

So an interesting correlation that I didn't see coming.

A recent event where I simply enjoyed the evening and gorgeous sunset while drinking water. I enjoy wine, but it's no struggle, thankfully, to pull back for a bit until my brain stops fighting, and instead resets into it's new lower calorie lifestyle, similar to what it has now done with regard to sugar.