How lovely it is to sleep long sometimes....

Of course, my waking up at 6:30 might seem early to some people, but I went to bed about nine...and only woke up once during the night. I need to do that more often.

Found a neat page with various calculators for health - a decent body fat estimator, bmi calculator, how to determine your frame size, how much calories you can burn doing various activities (if I wash dishes for 15 minutes, I can burn 72 calories!) based on your weight, and other neat things...and some that aren't particularly diet oriented but have health value.

Health Status' Health calculators

Now that I am feeling less stressed and not sick, and actually have a bit more energy, it's time to do some housework (280 calories an hour at my weight), mopping (432 calories an hour), running up and down the stairs in my split level house as I move things around (climbing up the stairs is 388 calories for a half hour) and cooking (254 calories an hour). Sounds like great workout choices around here!

A moment's pause from the diet to think about teenage angst and responsibility

Since my teen is out of town, the house has been incredibly peaceful and calm. It's rather amazing. Is this what life after our last one leaves home going to be like? Hubby and I have a good relationship, with mutual hobbies (we do historical reenacting together), and we like to be together to do things. It's been a very pleasant couple of weeks.

I feel like I have been on vacation. Teen, who is my stepson, and who I love a lot and has had such a rough adolescence, will be back here next week. I am hoping this time away has been good for both of us, and my stress levels will have relaxed enough that we can cope with the upcoming months in a more positive way, without my kneejerk reactions sending me immediately into anger.

I have the type of temperment that blows up fast, calms down and gets to work. Until I have my teen's problems to deal with, I thought I had the anger part under control, with a bunch of good avoid anger strategies. The lessons life teach you.

Teen has PTSD and depression, and just hardheadedness. If I don't watch myself, I can rev him up bad, and get skyhigh angry in the meanwhile. We are in therapy, all of us, with the same therapist, and occasionally do family group meetings. I internalize stress a lot, and almost always develop some sort of physical sickness with stress. Gallstones are a common one for me, and I can get that whole system spasming so bad it feels like a heart attack.

But my latest stragegy has been to let Dad handle it when it gets to the triggering points. I have taught him what I know and guided him as well as I can. Dad's a bit of a creampuff on discipline, but teen will be dealing with the court pretty soon, because of a drug ticket, and that will be giving him a lot of discipline right there.

Even though we've been trying to make sure he catches consequences for wrong action, we may have still sheltered him a bit more than we should have. This year, we pull more and more back and let him become the responsible one. I didn't have problems doing that with his brother, but this one, oy veh! my troubled baby - it's going to be tape my mouth and sit on my hands time.

weigh in day

For the week:

212 (loss of 2 lbs)

Only measurement that budged was my waist at 39.5 instead of 39.75

But clothes are fitting better across my abdomen and chest, so no doubt there has been a shifting a bit in places I don't measure. I should have measured my midriff from the beginning. And my neck. But I didn't, so I'm not going to start now. I am pleased as punch to be losing off of my waist - it's still pretty much out of proportion to the rest of me, that every bit that budges there warms my heart.

When I started this diet, I had a waist to hip ratio of about .9

Now it's about .85.

It needs to be .8 or below for good health, but I am headed in the right way.

When I started, I had a BMI of about 44.6, but now its 37.6 . My goal weight would put me at a bmi of 22.1, which is a lot more healthy.

FYI, here is a handy chart that lets you know what category your BMI level is considered:

Healthy Weight: BMI between 18.6 to 24.9
Overweight: BMI between 25 to 29.9
Obesity: BMI between 30 to 34.9
Severe Obesity: BMI between 35 to 39.9
Morbid Obesity: BMI over 40

I was happy when I got out of morbid obesity and into just the severe obesity level. One step at a time.

There's a zillion bmi calculators out there on the internet. Here's one from the CDC.

Progress counts.

And yes, for those of you who asked about it, I am being very careful about my health, getting a pretty balanced diet, and taking vitamin supplements under my doctor's guidance.

Battles between top and bottom

One thing women with apple shapes have is a tummy that usually pokes out further than their bosom. To me, when I diet, it's like a war between the tummy and the top.

This morning, as I walked by the mirror on my way to fix breakfast, I noticed that that slimmer woman who is my reflection, braless in her tee and capris, had an unsupported bosom that poked out slightly more than her tummy.

That battle has been won, and the bosom is the victor! Now it's my job to win the war!

There are times when my day to day ramblings seem petty

A moment of prayer for those hurt in the explosions in London today, and for the families touched by it, and for families everywhere touched by dark doings at the hand of another.

O Lord,
let our cry come unto thee,
the cry of those weeping
the frightened,
the angry,
those who are injured,
those who lost loved ones,
those who have died,
those who would do this to others,
let our cry come unto thee,
and bring your light
to shatter the darkness
of our fear and despair and anger and loss.
Remember us,
as we struggle here,
sorting out the pieces,
angry,
hurt,
confused,
needful,
and lead us down the road we should walk,
and not the road that leads to the darkness
this day, and always,
Amen.

Planning to pack

Yesterday, I went shopping one (hopefully) last time for a bit. I am putting together a wardrobe to take with me to Houston to my niece's wedding in a couple of weeks.

Bought a cute denim skirt, a pair of white denim cropped pants, two white blouses, a white cami, and a new pair of walking shoes in white. All the clothes are as small as I can wear decently, so as I shrink, I can still use them for awhile. I want them to last me through most of summer at least! And a new purse of the handbag type, to wear with the dress I hope I can still wear to the wedding.

I want to bring three hats with me. I am trying to figure out how I am going to pack a hatbox...do I bring it as part of my carry-on stuff? (if I do that, I have to take out the hat pins - sign of a serious hat wearer is hatpins!) Do I put it in my oversided duffle bag and check it in? Quandries. I was hoping to bring a garment bag rather than the big duffle...I'm only going for a long weekend (fly in on Thursday, fly out on Monday), but I haven't seen these people in six years, and I want to look as spiffy as possible! So, knowing me, I will probably overpack.

Two hats may lose out. I may just end up wearing a sun hat on the trip. We'll see.

But I am very excited. This may be the last time I get to see my grandmother alive. She's in her eighties, has lupus, and lives over 2000 miles away. Haven't seen my niece since she was just starting high school, and I was always very close to her when she was little. I was at the hospital when she was born and later helped give her her first bath. And now she's getting married.

Tempus fugit.

Milestones

Today, I finally hit 40 lbs. lost. Feels good. My next special point will no doubt be when I hit 50, and then shortly (I hope!) thereafter when I break through the 200 barrier.



An interesting site to play with is RealAge

They go through a variety of things, risk factors, nutrition factors, family tendencies, your risk-taking behaviors and calculate something they call your "real age," which might or might not match your biological age. The idea is the more positive things you do for your body, the more you are doing for your heart and other disease prevention things, the lower your real age is.

It did give me some pointers on my diet, how I am probably low on Vitamin E with the food choices and supplements I eat, and that I need to lose weight. It also belongs to the "only eat red meat once a week or less" group, and I do eat it a bit more than that. They also didn't have a place to note non-fat yogurt when they were surveying my food, and that's a staple in my diet.

But I did their calorie count survey, and they told me I need over 2400 calories a day to maintain my weight. I am eating about 1000 calories a day less. Therefore, I lose about 2 lbs a week right now.

By the time I reach my goal weight, I will be needing around 1800 calories a day, which means I will only have a little deficit in my diet, which means minor tinkering when I go on maintenance.

That's sort of my plan...to eat to where I need to go, then be in a situation where I add maybe a hundred calories a meal to reach maintenance weight, and continue with the regime...It's not a diet, it's a life-style change.

I have a dress form

My dress form is one of those adjustable plus size thingies. I have used it to make fitted clothes for reenacting, the dress I wore to have my marriage blessed, and something I wanted to design, but never finished. It wasn't quite big enough, and I had to pad it. It's dressed in a blue and white checkerboard gingham thingie about the middle where I had to adjust the waist and bosom to make it fit.

It was a pretty close double of me.

I am a good bit smaller than it right now, although I could take off the padding, and readjust it down. But I think I will save it to remind me of how I looked.

I hope to get its sister when I'm smaller. I'll stand them side by side. Perfect before and after pictures!

I don't like to say diet.

Someone asked me how I've been dieting. This is basically it -I like to think of it as more of a lifestyle eating approach:

I eat about 1300 calories a day, low fat, restricted carb, with lots of fresh and steamed veggies, salmon, lean meat, yogurt, other non-fat dairy, walnuts, asparagus, some whole grain bread, multigrain pasta, fruit, esp. berries...kind of like the South Beach diet, I suspect. Not much in the way of potatoes. Some rice, grits, cream of wheat, in restricted amounts.

I journal everything I eat, even if I splurge. I have learned that if I splurge, it's not usually not nearly as bad as I thought, and it helps keep me motivated. It also gives me a record of what makes me crave or triggers other problems, like eating light, olestra cooked potato chips at lunch makes me want to eat all afternoon.

It's a pretty low fat diet because I make gallstones, so for the fats I choose, I need them to be quality for me. I basically use olive oil, but mostly as spray. I am a bit lactose intolerant, but I handle yogurt ok, so I have a Carb Control yogurt with every meal. Eat non-fat cottage cheese, non-fat cheese. Getting enough calcium is important, both for my aging bones and how it plays a role in fat metabolism, and yogurt is one of the better ways of getting it in.

I am always having to work to keep enough fiber in the diet. Eat lots of salads with non-fat salad dressings, and occasionally take fiber suplements. I have trouble getting enough fruit in my diet, so I have taken to drinking things like Bolthouse's Berry smoothie -high quality ingredients, 110 calories an 8 ounce serving, no high fructose corn syrup.

I avoid things with high fructose corn syrup - I suspect it causes some metabolism problems.

If it makes me crave, I try to stay away from it. Breakfast cereal is bad about that for me. I do better eating a turkey burger. Eating more than a smidgen of carb at lunch will set off the afternoon craves for me. When that happens, I eat non-fat cottage cheese. The protein burst seems to kill the craves better than any carb food.

Lots of water, not much soda (I do like Pepsi One, and may have one or two a day, or maybe none). I like to use things like Ocean Spray's Diet Juice and Tea and Diet Splash some too for alternative drinks. Both of those only have about 10 calories for 8 ounces.

I take chewable calcium and vitamin supplements, both chocolate flavored, which keeps me from feeling chocolate deprived.

When I need a treat, I make a cup of Hill's Brother's Non-fat Cappachino. They are not calorie free! About 90 calories a serving, but it soothes something in my heart. This is a comfort thing, because the mix has stuff I try to avoid, but we all have our weaknesses. I don't do this every day.

I have one to 3 cups of regular coffee sweetened with sugar most every day. I figure that since a typical 20 ounce coke has the equivalent of 17 teaspoons of sugar, my little 2-6 teaspoons of sugar aren't nearly as much to worry about. For some reason, I just don't like the taste of any sweetner I've tried in coffee, except sugar.

I try to follow some things I picked up from Dr. Phil: Don't keep foods around you that cause you problems. Don't keep convenience foods around. It's better for you if you have to cook, because you pay more attention to what you're doing (he calls this something else, but that's the idea). I measure and weigh everything.

I walk a lot. I work on taking extra good care of my skin, since this is somewhat stressful on my body. I try to baby my hair, which is dealing with the stress of the last two years (which have been hard! Between teenager problems and being sick, reaching the perimenopausal time of life, and dieting, it really needs babying). I make sure I do things that make me feel good, like pedicures, wearing earrings, listening to upbeat music.

I try to make sure I always get at least 1000 calories. Some days I have to push it. Other days, 1500 calories is easy to make. If I'm sick, I tell myself I can eat up to 2000 calories, and I mark it a sick day in my journal.

Goal for me is eat like this until I need more calories, then just add more to the meal allotment...and keep journaling and avoiding triggers.

So this is what I have been doing. In case you are interested!

Closet cleanout

This morning I tried on this neat jacket I had bought last fall...a chinese style jacket that was snug when I bought it...now it swallows me up incredibly. No way I’ll ever be able to wear it again.

Same with that neat jacket I bought off of ebay. Too big. And by fall, it will be huge.

Before that, I tried on a pair of camo pants I have. When I started my diet, I couldn’t close them...there was over a good inch before the two flaps would touch. Then I could wear them, but they were tight. Now they aren’t exactly loose, but almot so, with no more tightness. They are military spec, and have tabs that will let me tighten them as they get loose, so I’ll keep them.

My lovely gray sheath dress...too big in the bosom. It was a wedding present. Out it goes. The duster that went with it - way too loose. It goes.

The pretty blue rayon dress I bought last summer too big in the bosom. Barely worn. Has to go.

My size 44 bras. Gone.

The really nice rose printed big shirt I bought right before the diet. It swallows me. Regretfully, it goes.

I have never gone and bought so many clothes before, I think, because the clothes I had didn't fit. Now when I have to get rid of the replacements of the clothes I bought to replace them, that will be really neat!

Yardwork

Every spring, I get into this gardening frenzy. It doesn't last all summer, and by the 4th it's almost always petered out. This year was no exception.

I'm also allergic to the fumes from two cycle engines, which means if I mow the lawn, I have to use an electric mower.

We've had a wet spring (which means even fewer of the projects I was hoping to accomplish got done, but oh, how the weeds loved it!) and then a dry spell when our sprinkler system was broke, and then my hubby decided to do some heavy watering for a week to make up for it.

The grass is now higher than it ought to be. Our son who used to do the lawn mowing has grown up enough to move out. Younger son hasn't quite stepped into the niche, the last time he mowed, he broke two sprinkler risers, and is out of town anyway. And so, we haven't kept up the yardwork as well as we ought to.

Hubby is still dickering with repairing the sprinkers. At least we have water now, and he's just adjusting and changing sprinkler heads and watering a bit heavy, so I haven't wanted to run an electrical cord across the damp grass.

The grass still needs mowing though. Maybe today.

Yesterday, we trimmed a spruce tree, and filled up about 15 lawn bags full of green spruce needles and branches. Hubby decided that the area around the spruce is potentially fireprown, and wanted to be safe for the fourth. Since we did this on a Sunday, there was no way to get rid of the tree clippings, so they are in our garage until after the holiday.

But scooping down and picking up all those branch bits and stuffing them into bags was a nice bit of exercise, at least. It's kind of nice when your workout gets you some extra benefit like goals around the house accomplished.

But tonight will be a nice evening to watch fireworks. Our front porch has a great view of the valley here, and there are a bunch of townships visible, and each has their own fireworks display. We'll sit on the porch and watch all the neat spectacle without needing to go anywhere...and if it is a usual year, there will be a lot of spectacle.

Who is that person in the mirror?

While brushing my hair this morning, wearing clothes that actually fit me instead of my oversized "fat clothes, I noticed that the reflection I saw in my mirror looked too thin! Who is that person that looks like me in the mirror, but isn't wide enough?

Interesting experience!