In It to Lose It!

             As you know, I’m working my way toward a healthier lifestyle. And it’s not easy. Sometimes, it’s not even fun. But it is a necessity. After the scare I had with the Pulmonary Embolism (PE) in May 2020, I realized that I definitely needed to make some changes to become healthier. I can retire in 2.5 years, and I want to be able to enjoy that retirement. I have family and friends who I love dearly, and I want to be able to actively live my life and do things with them. Bottom line: I had to make some changes to give myself the best shot I could to live a long, healthy life.

             After receiving an excellent report from my cardiologist in December 2020, I knew my body could handle the changes I knew I needed to make. I’m a planner, so I had to have a plan. I installed an app I have used before and had success with: Lose It! I synced that app to the Fitbit app. I put in the app that I would like to lose 1.5 pounds per week. It gave me a daily calorie limit. I started tracking everything I ate in the app. I started walking. And I saw the pounds start to drop.

A couple months later, I gave up pop. I haven’t had a Diet Dew (my vice) or any other pop since March 2021. I feel a lot better. I’m sometimes tempted. If I’m at a restaurant and they don’t have lemonade, it’s tempting to ask for Sprite or a Diet Dew, but so far, I’ve stuck to water. When I’m traveling and have been driving for a while and starting to get tired and stop at a gas station, I really want to get a Diet Dew. So far, though, I’ve always talked myself into just getting the water.

I knew exercise had to be part of the plan. I started by walking. I set my goal to 8,000 steps a day. I read several articles that indicated this would be as effective as trying to do 10,000. I don’t always hit 8,000, but most days I get close. In the spring, I bought a stationary bike. I started riding it. Most weeks, I get four to five days in on the bike. Some weeks, I manage to do all seven.

All of this made a difference and at one point, I did hit the 50 pounds lost mark. I did gain a little back through Christmas, but I wasn’t surprised by that. I changed the Lose It! app from “lose” to “maintain,” and I didn’t get to exercise as much as I had been, but when all was said and done, I still had dropped 45 pounds in a year.

I kept the app on maintenance mode until Jan. 10. We had a vacation planned for the week of New Year’s, and I wasn’t going to fret over calories while on vacation. On Jan. 10, I switched the app back over to “lose,” and again selected to lose 1.5 pounds a week, and I got started back. I also changed my exercise routine a bit. Instead of just walking or riding the bike, I added in some exercises that would target and tone my body. I still want to lose another 40 to 50 pounds, but I also don’t want flabby, floppy arms. So I worked out a plan where I use old workout videos I have on DVD (yes, those still exist). I also downloaded an app called “Lose Weight in 30 Days.” This app has a series of daily exercises that take less than 10 minutes to complete. The exercises I’m doing on the DVDs run from 10 to 20 minutes.

Taking the maintenance hiatus and adding in extra exercise when starting back seems to be working. I’ve lost two pounds since we got home from vacation. At the rate I’m going, if I can be diligent and avoid the seemingly inevitable plateaus, I should reach my goal weight by Thanksgiving of this year.

Right now, that sounds like such a long way off. However, I keep reminding myself that I didn’t gain weight overnight, thus I won’t lose it all overnight. I keep reminding myself that I’m making smarter food and activity choices than I have in a long time, and I’m not doing a fad diet that will result in gaining the weight back when I stop. I’m making this a lifestyle change. There may be a time when I don’t have to track what I eat, but I will keep tracking even after I reach my goal. If I don’t, it will be too easy for my eating to get out of hand again. I will keep exercising regularly because if I don’t, all the work I put in to making my body healthier will be for naught. When my doctor asked me to explain what I was doing to lose weight and I told her, she asked, “But isn’t that a lot of work?” and the answer is “yes, it is.” But I want to be successful in this endeavor, and this is the only way I know how to do it.

I understand this approach isn’t for everybody, but it’s what works for me. I use the apps. I track what I eat, and I eat what I want. No food is prohibited in my plan. I just have to make reasonable choices and watch my portion sizes. There have been a few days when I’ve gone over the allotted calorie intake, and the world didn’t end. The important thing is I don’t let a week of the scale staying on the same number discourage me enough to revert to my old habits. The app does allow me to select “flexible” for the week, and this breaks the calories allowed down to a smaller number for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and gives me a few more calories on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I do this because I tend to eat more on the weekend, so this way, it’s not as disastrous when I do. The app allows for that.

I’m in this for the long haul. I don’t want my body to get back to the unhealthy state it was in. I love looking at pictures and being able to see the difference. I love looking at the app and seeing how much lower all the numbers are. I love buying new clothes, many of which are one to two sizes smaller than what I had been buying. But most of all, I love having more energy. I love being able to do things with the grandkids that before I wouldn’t have been able to do. I love just feeling better. This hasn’t been easy, and I suspect that won’t change, but it has been so worth it.

 

Resolutions Off to a Great Start in 2013

The first month of 2013 comes to a close today. It’s already been a busy year, and if the weather for the month of January is any indication, this year is going to be a doozy when it comes to weather. Temperatures in the 70s one day, then plummeting to the 20s with snow the next day. Just this week, we’ve had 70 degrees and sunshine, rain, severe thunderstorm warnings, and now 30 degrees and snow. You can’t help but wonder what the rest of the year will hold.

Despite the weird weather patterns, however, I have been able to make some progress on those New Year’s resolutions that I set just 31 short days ago. I’ll update you on the progress I’ve made, partly to satisfy your curiosity and partly because it’s a way to help me stay focused and on track.

My first resolution related to my writing. Yes, I intend to write every day, but mainly because that has now become a habit for me, and I intend to post a blog every day, which is also habit. I did miss posting a blog a couple days in January, but sometimes things just come up, and there doesn’t end up being enough time left in the day to get it done. My real resolution for writing is to finish the mysterious project. I have made a little progress on that, not nearly what I should have by this point, but I can say that I have worked on it a bit, which is better than having to say that I haven’t worked on it at all. As I rededicated myself to another resolution about mid-month, I find that I do need to rededicate myself to this resolution, and I need to take steps to ensure that despite my busy schedule, and despite my other resolutions, this one gets some of my time, so that by the end of the year, a short 11 months from now, I will have the project completed. This one is a lofty resolution, indeed, but if I focus, I can do it.

My second resolution related to my reading. Because I failed to hit the 75-book mark in 2012, I’m trying to do so in 2013. In order to stay on pace to reach 75 books by the end of the year, I need to read at least 6.25 books a month. As of the writing of this blog (around 1:00 P.M. thanks to a snow day), I have read five books: Many Waters and An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, and The Education of Hyman Kaplan by Leonard Q. Ross. The first two by L’Engle finished up the five-book set in her time travel series. I reread The Hunger Games because my English 200 class has been assigned the trilogy, and I needed to reread it so I could write test questions and discussion board topics and so I could remember enough to be able to answer any questions the students might have. I read Macbeth with my English IV classes. Finally, I read the Ross book because my “other” son, Jeremy, suggested it and let me borrow it. It’s a very funny read about an immigrant in the 1930s who is attempting to learn the very confusing English language.

I’m aware that five books is less than 6.25 books. However, I have read one-fourth of Catching Fire, the second book of The Hunger Games trilogy, again because the English 200 students are reading it, and I need to write test questions and discussion board topics. And according to my Kindle, I am 60% finished with Dracula. My hope is that by the end of the day today, I will have finished Dracula. If I can do so, then I will be at exactly 6.25 books, which is right on target. I believe this is doable, and I will come back to the blog later today and leave a comment letting you know whether it happens. On January 2, I posted a blog “Read the Bible in a Year,” and though I didn’t mention it in my January 1 resolution blog, this is part of my reading resolution. By the end of the year, I want one of those 75 books to be the Bible. I included in that blog, a daily reading plan to make that happen. I have followed that plan and have read every day in January. Thus far, that means I have completed the books of Genesis and Matthew. I’m a third of the way through Psalms, half way through Romans, and a few chapters into Exodus. This plan is so simple and easy to follow, as long as I stick with it, reading the Bible in a year won’t be a problem.

My third resolution related to weight loss. Last year, this one was a major fail. I ended the year at the same weight I began the year, though I had wanted to lose 20 pounds. I knew it was something I needed to work on, but I just simply failed to do that part. I started 2013 with a slightly different goal, lose five pounds per month, for a total of 60 by the end of the year. By January 21, when I weighed in, I discovered I was still on the 2012 track. I knew if this was going to happen, I had to be the one to make it happen. At this point, I did a blog about my weight-loss goal, “Diet Food for Thought.” During my grocery shopping that day, I bought more fruits and vegetables, and I set my mind to achieving this goal. Ten days after that blog, I’m very pleased to be able to say that I have lost a total of 6.4 pounds, which means that for January, I have met my goal of at least five pounds for the month.

So, what have I done these last ten days? Exactly what I should have been doing the first 21 days, and then perhaps I would have actually lost more during the month. I started exercising on the morning of January 22. Using Denise Austin’s Daily Dozen DVD, I got up a half hour earlier so that I could do the 12-minute exercise for that day. This video is great. It has seven days’ of exercises, each lasting just 12 minutes. Each minute, there is a different move. There are exercises for cardio, for toning, and for yoga. It’s a great variety so you don’t get bored. It’s fast and easy so you can work it in. I did these exercises on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week. On Friday, we had a snow day, so I did the Daily Dozen routine, and I added the one-mile walk from the Walk Away the Pounds DVD with Leslie Sansone. It takes just 18 minutes to do the one-mile walk. I did the same routine on Saturday. I did skip exercising on Sunday and Monday, went back to it for Tuesday, but skipped it again yesterday. Today, with another snow day, I did the Daily Dozen routine but not the walk. The point is I am exercising. I can’t do all the moves, and I sometimes go a little slower than they do, but hey, I’m terribly out of shape. I’m at least trying to work myself up to the level that they do on the DVD. As I get better at it, I’ll add more to the routine. In addition to exercising, though, I am using the Lose It! app on my Kindle, and keeping track of what I eat and how much I exercise. This keeps me on track. I stay within my daily budget for calories. It also forces me to make healthier eating choices. Finally, I weigh every day. It’s great motivation to see even a half-pound drop in the weight, and it’s helpful for staying on track as well. I also wrote down my measurements as they were on January 21, but according to the Denise Austin plan, I won’t do measurements again until February 11, which is three weeks from the original date. Right now, having met my goal for January, I’m feeling very good about moving into February.

My fourth resolution related to movies. There is a list of classic movies I have not yet seen, and I identified ten classics that I would like to watch at some point during the year. In January, I haven’t watched any of them. Jimmy did bring The Shawshank Redemption for us to watch one night, but there was something on television that we’d forgotten was going to be on, so we ended up watching that instead. I’m thinking, though, that with the snowy forecast ahead for the weekend, Saturday night would make for a great movie night.

My final resolution related to food. I’m still trying new recipes and finding keepers. At some point I’ll share with you some of the recipes I’ve tried this year. However, this year’s goal was to try at least one new restaurant every month. This was successful. We tried Mi Pequena Hacienda in Lexington, Texas Longhorn Steakhouse in Lexington, and the Big Blue Smokehouse right here in Jackson. I would return to all of these restaurants. We called in the order to the Mexican restaurant, and though there were a couple mistakes (it was a huge order), the food was really good. We dined in at the other two, and the food and service were both good. I’m already thinking about what restaurant we might want to try in February.

All in all, I’ll have to call January a successful month in regard to my resolutions. Yes, there are some things I need to improve upon, such as spending more time on the project and watching a classic movie, but I’m confident I will finish Dracula by tonight, which will have me on track for the reading goal, and I’m also confident with the success I’ve had in just the last ten days of January, I will remain motivated to continue my weight-loss plan through February. I’ve no doubt the restaurant goal will be met; we love to eat out when we travel. Keeping a resolution is a matter of making up your mind about what is important to you. We can all do it. I’m looking forward to following through with my resolutions during the remainder of the year.

A New Year Brings New Resolutions

Happy New Year! 2013 has arrived, and with the arrival of the New Year comes the arrival of new resolutions. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past month thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2013. Coming to terms with the resolutions of 2012, what was successful and what was not, was a month-long task, but it was one that allowed me to determine what I wanted to put on my list of resolutions for 2013. Again, I think the list should be a rather short one. The more things we include, the more difficult it is to achieve them.

It would be easy to include my two most successful resolutions from last year as resolutions for this year. The two successful resolutions were trying a new recipe every week and updating readers every month about the success, or lack thereof, of keeping my resolutions. It would be easy to tweak the recipe resolution to trying two new recipes per week, but I think that now that we are in the habit of trying at least one new recipe per week, we will continue to do so just because we like trying new dishes. Since the goal was such a success (85 new recipes in 2012), I don’t think simply increasing the number of recipes would make for a great resolution for 2013. Therefore, this will not be on the resolutions list for this year; what is now a habit cannot be a resolution. There’s not a lot I could do to tweak the updating goal. However, just because it’s not a resolution does not mean you will not be updated. As with the recipes resolution from last year, this one has become a habit, and as a result, at the end of the month, you will get the update on my success or failure for the month. It’s just not a resolution in and of itself this year.

That said, there were three resolutions where I did not achieve the blaring success that I had with the aforementioned ones. Those resolutions related to my writing, my reading, and my weight loss. As such, those three will be tweaked and new resolutions will be set. Because I like having five resolutions, I will also add two new resolutions for 2013.

Resolution # 1 – Writing. I will continue to write something every day, and I will continue to post to the blog every day. These things have become habit for me, and habits cannot be resolutions, so while I will continue to do them, they are not the resolution for 2013. Last year, I said I wanted to work on my project at least two days per week. As we know, that did not work out. Here’s the thing. This project has now been in the works for a year and a half, and that’s just since I revived it. It had been sitting there for a while before its revival. I guess the good news is that I have been working on it over that year and a half, while the bad news is that I haven’t been working on it nearly enough. Therefore, my resolution for writing is to finish the project. When I update you about the success or failure of my writing resolution each month, I’m not going to focus on whether I wrote every day or whether I missed a blog. The real goal here is to finish the project by the end of 2013. And when it is finished, I will reveal what it is.

Resolution # 2 – Reading. I set a goal to read 75 books in 2012. Although I did manage to break my personal record for number of books read in a year, I did not meet my goal of 75 books. Because this resolution failed in 2012, I’m going to give it another shot in 2013. Once again, I’m going to set a goal to read at least 75 books during the year 2013. Again, if I can just manage to read 6.25 books per month, I should be able to reach this goal. I managed to make a late run and came closer to 75 than I thought I would for 2012. Therefore, I will simply pace myself and will meet my goal of 75 books in 2013.

Resolution # 3 – Weight Loss. This resolution was the biggest failure for me in 2012. I managed by the end of the year to weigh a whopping one pound less than I did at the beginning of the year. I know I can do this, and I’m going to work a lot harder at it. My goal for 2012 had been to lose 20 pounds over the course of the year. I’m going to put more pressure on myself this year. My goal is to lose at least five pounds every month. If I can do that, I will lose 60 pounds by the end of the year. That still won’t put me at my goal weight, but it would be a heck of a start. I’m going to use two apps on my Kindle Fire (the WWPP – Weight Watchers Points Plus – Calculator and Lose It!) to help me track what I eat so that I can make sure I’m staying within the appropriate boundaries to lose the weight I want to lose.

Resolution # 4 – Classic Movies. Every year in December, I show the movie It’s a Wonderful Life to my classes. It’s a classic, and many of the students have never seen it. This made me think about other movies that are classics, ones that I have not seen. As a result, I have compiled a list of classic movies that I will watch by the end of the year. It is possible that I may watch other classic movies that are not on this list, but after reviewing several online lists of classic movies, these are the ones I have decided I should watch. They are: The Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca, Schindler’s List, Citizen Kane, A Streetcar Named Desire, Sunset Boulevard, Rebel without a Cause, Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and White Christmas.

Resolution # 5 – Food. Since trying a new recipe every week is now a habit for my family, my food-related resolution for 2013 will deal with restaurants. With three of our four children living in Lexington, we make frequent trips there. We have our favorite restaurants, and we usually make it a point to visit one of those whenever we happen to be in Lexington. For 2013, we are going to diversify. We are usually in Lexington at least twice a month, and at various times throughout the year we are in places other than Pikeville and Jackson. At least once per month, we are going to go to a new restaurant. By the end of the year, we will have visited 12 new restaurants and may even add a new favorite to the list. If we’re feeling really frisky and adventurous, we might even order something that we would never ordinarily consider ordering, though I’m not going to make that part of the resolution.

There you have it. My five resolutions for the year 2013. Five is a manageable number. Three of the five are more difficult and will require a significant amount of work on my part. The other two are fairly easy and shouldn’t be difficult at all to achieve. Remember, though, that we do need to feel good about ourselves, which means we have to have some success along the way. Hopefully the ease of the last two resolutions will help keep me inspired and motivated to achieve the more difficult first three. Either way, I’ll keep you posted.

Fire Convenient, but Not Necessary to Kindle My Love of Reading

For Christmas, my wonderful husband got me a Kindle Fire, among other things. Last year (2011), he had gotten me a Kindle for my birthday, and I was enjoying it more than I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, I still love holding an actual book in my hands, turning pages while I read, using a real bookmark to mark my spot, and closing up the book when I’ve made it to the end. I can’t do any of those things when reading on my Kindle, but I have still enjoyed the convenience the Kindle allows me.

As my kids starting getting the Kindle Fire for themselves, I was intrigued enough to want to upgrade, and thankfully my husband took care of that for me. Fortunately, Amazon doesn’t place a limit on the number of Kindles that can be registered to an account, because I currently have seven registered to my account – my original one, and then a Fire for Byron, Nic, Cody, Tiffany, Ashley, and, now, me. The great thing is that we can share books and apps.

For the most part, when it comes to apps, most of what has been applied to our account has been free apps. There is the occasional app that somebody will pay for, but even then, I don’t recall anybody paying more than $5 for an app. Often, we also choose free books. A lot of the books on our Cloud are classics, and I have chosen some free books as well. That’s not to say that on occasion one of us doesn’t buy a book just for the Kindle. The great thing about all these Kindles on one account is that whatever one person buys goes to the Cloud and is available for all of us. All we have to do is download it to our own device.

Now that I have the Kindle Fire, I’m quite happy. I’m not going to stop reading actual books that I can hold in my hands, but there are so many other things I can do with the Fire. I will use my Fire for reading books, but I also have several apps that I will enjoy. There are games, such as Scrabble, Unolingo, Tetris, Solitaire, Jewels Star, Logo Quiz, Words with Friends, Jeopardy, and The American Bible Challenge. I have apps for Pinterest, WordPress, and Facebook on there. Two other apps that I’m looking forward to using are the WWPP Calculator (Weight Watchers Points Plus) and Lose It! I’ll be revising my weight-loss goal for 2013, and I’m hoping the combination of these two apps will make achieving that goal a little easier for me.

There are many other things I could choose to do with my Kindle Fire, including adding music, videos, and pictures, but I’m not sure I will do that. I still use my iPod for listening to music. I don’t know that I want to watch videos on a 7-inch screen, and I have pictures on my iPod and my phone, so I’m just not sure if I’ll be moving pictures over to the Fire or not. There’s a tab for audiobooks, but I’ve never been fond of “listening” to a book, so I don’t see myself using that. I’m also not sure how often I’ll use the tab for the newsstand. The tab for docs may come in handy. I won’t upload a lot of documents to work with, but it will be handy for carrying around the file that has my booklist. Too often I’m in a bookstore and can’t remember if I have a certain book. Being able to access this list will make life much easier. I’m sure there will be times when I’ll have another document that it will be handy to have easy access to, and when that happens, I’ll simply move it to the Kindle. Finally, there is the web link, and I’m sure that when wi-fi is available and I don’t have the laptop handy, I will be using the web browser. I’m not sure how often that will be, but it’s nice to have it if I want it.

I’ve only had my Kindle Fire for five days, but I’m very grateful to my husband for getting it for me. I had used my old Kindle more than I thought I would in the year and a half that I’ve had it, and I imagine that I’ll use the Fire even more. A couple weeks ago, someone was talking to me and said that she had read her first actual book in over a year, and it seemed weird to her to be reading a book where she had to hold it and turn pages because over the year she had only been reading books on her Kindle. I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. I have decided that I like the convenience of reading on the Kindle, but I still love to hold and read actual books. The great thing about this device is that it does not have to replace your books. It can complement them. As for me, I’ll use my Fire as much for the other apps as I will for reading, and I will still be reading actual books along the way.