Buns Again

[bunsofaluminum]

Buns! I am so excited about your weight loss. I know your struggles over the years and its wonderful to see you heading the right way constantly.

I am also back in the game properly, with a new journal. I saw an appalling photo of myself in a mountain race and the rolls of fat under my running clothes horrified me. I'm still vegan, just eating way too much flour/sugar/salt. I never buy processed food, oh no, not me! But I am quite happy to whip up at batch of vegan muffins for afternoon tea! And eat most of them.....

So I have just recommitted. I am back on the wagon, if you can just extend a hand and pull me up there with you. Honestly, its your success and recommitment since March that has got me back here. Thank you.

Hi Katie,

I know all about pictures of yourself! oy. My sis in law got me on video laughing my head off, and I felt so good laughing outrageously until I saw how bulgy and fat my belly was in that video I still feel good about losing, but DANG I'm fat

[bunsofaluminum]

Okay, back from vacation and stepped on the scale on Monday. Up about 5 lbs after six days of eating pretty much off plan, though I did my best to find menu items that fit the plan. This usually meant simply that I had veggies with whatever entrée I ordered. I didn't ask for them to be cooked without oil, and I often partook of say, chips and salsa at a Mexican place or fresh cookies bought at a Farmer's Market. Anyway, I knew the scale would be up and it was, and now it's down about 5 lbs. After three days of MWL

Still front loading with soup. I made a huge batch of REALLY UGLY soup yesterday morning. I couldn't sleep. No lie, I was up cooking at 4:45 a.m. and made a veggie soup based on Nappa cabbage, with onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms, and zucchini in it. It tastes yummy...the mushroom flavor is superb. But boy is it ever ugly looking. The broth is brownish-gray, also thanks to the shrooms in there I made a lot and very thankful it tastes better than it looks

Regular food is very much 50/50 starches and non-starches, prefaced by a cup of soup. I'm content with not much seasoning, and haven't been making sauces or other stuff for on top. Don't know why but that food is perfectly okay with me. Also, I was able to eat quite rich while on vacation and got right back to it as soon as I was home. Hm. What a difference it makes 1) getting your mind fully in the game and 2) ACTUALLY seeing results because danged if that isn't motivation to keep at it!

[bunsofaluminum]

holy cow the SCALE this week!

After vacation, it was up four lbs (or six lbs, depending on where I count my starting weight, because the morning we set off was up two lbs from my Friday official weigh-in) anyway, the scale was up after a week of rich foods, and went back down rapidly, and then on Saturday morning that sucker was up FIVE POUNDS! And me eating sane and compliant all along. Freak sakes.

One thing that's different is I haven't been walking much. My feet and knees hurt a bit more because we were doing well over 10,000 steps every day in Cali and I have been resting them. Today, I get back on it. It's so beautiful outside, the delicious spring air, the warm sunshine, the flowers everywhere. Love it and will be getting out in it, aiming for at least 4,000 a day. I think that lazier attitude may have contributed to the upward movement of the scale. My weight is down 1 lb this morning.

Still front loading with soup. I put rice in my brekkie soup this morning, since I only have soup for that meal. It should stick with me a bit longer.

On Saturday night, by the end of my PT shift I was in the WORST mood...and I caved. Bought some pecan pralines and a hard roll...along with regular groceries...on my way home. I ate a large hard roll, and several pralines on my drive home. Also, craved hard for fried chicken thighs. Who knows where that came from, and I hated it. Going to have to discipline my thoughts...maybe a Jeff Novick video

Grateful for my job, my husband, family! My grandson turned 4 yesterday and his mom threw a bday party for him, with several little kids joining the fun. It was pretty interesting watching the group of young parents. There were two 4 year olds, a second grader, and a 10 year old autistic boy, and they all sort of shared the parenting, if that makes sense. I saw my daughter speak with her son's little friend over some battle about toy dinosaurs; the mother of the autistic boy spoke with my grandson when he was grabby with the little wind up submarine; everyone helped the autistic boy as needed. It was cool. They're living "It takes a village" and I like it. I was one of those moms myself...at church especially if I saw a friend's kid acting up and the kid's mom wasn't there, I'd give the kid a little reminder, and I was cool if the other moms had to do the same with my kids.
Anyway, grateful for a daughter who is raising a little boy amongst a group of loving, caring adults.

We planted hundreds of bulbs last fall, and they're springing up in their tulip glory now and I'm grateful for that. Grateful that we had a little bit of rain, grateful for well-stocked pantry and fridge, grateful for the tiny garden I'm trying this year. There is so much, everywhere I look, blessings. Good things.

[bunsofaluminum]

Okay. The scale, then.

I was at 220 on Friday, April 23. We left for Vacay on Monday, April 26 and the scale showed 222 that morning.

We ate rich for the entire week, no point in denying it, and the scale showed 226 on Monday, May 3. It went down right away to 222 again, and stayed there until Saturday May 8, when it soared up three lbs to 225. Then down 1 lb to 224 where it stuck ALL WEEK LONG. Finally it went down by 1 lb this morning, but dang, what's up with it going down so well so fast, and then up and sticking? The SCALE booooo!

But I think I may have figured it out: I have not been stopping when satiated. I've followed MWL guidelines very closely, but at meals, when I feel that initial satiation, I just keep going until my plate is clean. And I've done it over and over. In fact, I can think of one meal where I pushed away upon feeling satiated. Otherwise, it was "shovel shovel shovel" until all food is gone and my stomach is stuffed.

That's my focus for this upcoming week. Stop when satiated.

Yesterday I hauled a 10 lb bag of potatoes out of the pantry and baked them all. Or maybe it was a five lb. Either way, I scrubbed, poked, and baked them all so I have something on hand to grab when I get hungry. Because I bought a 10# at the store on Wednesday, and found the other unopened bag of taters already there. Gotta do something with them.

Loving the garden these days. We have tulips up all over the place, three rows of peas are well up, and I see six potato seedlings emerging. There's tiny fronds of carrots and beets up, and my chard is appearing as well. I saved one bed for a second planting on the root vegs. As for decorative, Wylie's been super busy with color pots, fence building, rose planting. It's looking real pretty outside. And so pleasant going out in it, with the delicious spring air, manufacturing Vitamin D, listening to birds singing. This morning before work I took a walk...the dawn chorus was in full throat, and SO delightful. Everyone up and singing the sun up. I'll walk in the mornings from here on out. My lunch hour walk will be too hot, I'm sure. I'm increasing my daily steps to 5,000, up from the 2,000 that I started with in February, which I doubled in mid-March to 4,000. If I take a long walk first thing in the morning, and a shorter walk on each break, and park as far away as possible whenever I go anywhere...it'll go into the 5,000 range for sure.

Also thinking about a personal moratorium on screen time. I think I need to let my brain rest from the constant influx of actually meaningless drivel. How cliche is that, but it is meaningless, and it is drivel mostly. I need to back away from all of it, and let myself be bored, and start reading instead of scrolling through FB, or have it just quiet and contemplative in the mornings, instead of going straight to the "Daily Dose of Internet" vids on YouTube.

Yep. Love how I feel, love the walking, love the simplicity of my food.

[bunsofaluminum]

Scale still stuck Maybe that rich eating week stuck to me harder than I thought it would. SMH.

Also, feeling gassy and belly-achey today. Since healing my IBS with this WOE, my farts don't stink. My poop, either tbh. But today it's horrible. It started yesterday and this morning it's BAD. Smelly and sort of hot. And a little gut ache in my actual gut, not my stomach. I've had to visit the toilet several times already this morning, and none of it really "emptying" me out. Must be something I ate. Black beans that were in the freezer, which I thawed and had some yesterday and the day before.
Sushi on Friday night (including raw fish and it tasted meh. Not worth it.)...otherwise, my eating has been as usual. In fact, I'm very aware of my satiation and stopping when I hit that point.

Awesome new morning walk habit. Today I went out the door at 5:15 and walked for about 30 minutes. The sky was still dark, but the dawn chorus was in full throat and it was really pretty...the houses with their yard lighting and such. A very different look at the neighborhood. It occurred to me as I put on my dark gray workout pants, and my black jacket over a bright red shirt...I need something reflective. But I didn't see any cars at all, at that hour and I loved it. Walked a mile for about 3500 steps. I'll do another 1500 ish for my morning break and have my 5,000 steps before noon. Gosh, it's good to feel this with it and energized in the morning. I've already gotten so much accomplished except making soup. Wylie used my soup pot last night for chicken bone soup and just put all of it in the fridge...leaving me without a soup pot for making my soup this morning. Eh, I'll whip a batch together during lunch.

Now that I've created a walking habit, I am starting to think about my upper body. I still have a membership at Planet Fitness...wonder if I should head over there after work and do weights for an hour. Hm. Or maybe I need to start doing some mellow yoga. The past several years, every time I start a regular yoga practice, I end up hurting myself...knee or foot. Maybe I just need to add 25 pushups a day. Walk every day, and do 25 pushups every day. Doable.

[Ruff]

Congratulations on the walking. And buy another soup pot! One for you and one for Wylie.

[bunsofaluminum]

Hey Katie

We do have two soup pots and funny thing, one is mine and the other is Wylie's...and he used MY SOUP POT! Anyway, I finally got soup made this morning and it's currently simmering.

I made soup instead of walking this morning, because I woke up at 3:00 to go pee and tried like anything to get back to sleep. Laid very still and quiet for an hour, and then got up a little after 4:00 when my brain presented the deeply pressing question "What is the etymology of the word dog?" and also "Why is the word for cat so similar in Indo-European languages, while the word for dog differs widely between languages?" so I got up to Google that. Found out why. Also found out that the words for tea, cha, and chai are all EXTREMELY similar between dozens of languages.

Anyway, the word(s) for dog differ widely because the dog has been domesticated for 29,000 years, since before the first cities were built AND before Indo-European languages began branching off and cats came along about 4,000 years ago after languages were already differentiated. As for Chai, when I was studying Russian just a teeny tiny bit, that was one word I picked up on. Chai is the Russian word for Tea, and also the Indian and many other languages word for Tea. Another thing I learned while lightly studying Russian is that backwards R thing...that is equivalent to the English I and is pronounced ya. Like English, ya is how you say things like "I am going to the store" and also how you say "I is for Indiana"...iow, the pronoun as well as the letter.

Well check this out. In Spanish "yo" means I as in "I have a red hat" Russian ya. Spanish yo. Cool, eh? And that's what I was doing at the butt crack of dawn. Then I plugged in some rain sounds in my earbuds and tried to fall asleep...well, I fell asleep two or three times, but my husband's cat woke me up every time by grumbling because his man was petting him.

I'mma have to work on not being grumpy today.

Ha! The scale finally went down yesterday, and then back up a pound this morning. SMH. But I am sitting here in jeans that I couldn't get over my thighs a year ago.

onward, ho!

[Ruff]

Morning Buns. Your post made me laugh.

he used your soup pot!!! I'm not sure, but that must be getting near a divorce-able event! I told my husband there are very few divorce-able events.....one is draping hair across a bald patch! Another is using my quilting scissors for paper/card. I am sure appropriating the personal soup pot is well up there in the list.

And looking up etymology at 4am. Actually I am a natural lark, and I get up at 5am most days, except Sunday which is my lie-in day and my husband brings me a cup of tea in bed at 5.30. So this is not as surprising as it might be. Being a total tea drinking nerd, I knew all about tea/chi/cha. In parts of the Uk people still offer you a' cuppa cha', rather than tea. But the whole dog/cat thing is interesting. I hadn't thought about dates of domestication affecting language.

I dont really know any languages other than English. I have retained a smattering of schoolgirl French, and can still decline lots of Latin...Mensa, Mensa, mensam.. etc but nothing of any practical use. I have been wondering about learning another language to stop the brain atrophying, and was wondering which. French and Spanish have lots of online resources, I am Irish, my family left Ireland in the Famine, so there is Gaelic, I live in New Zealand, so I could learn Maori, and finally I have been considering NZ sign language. Decisions, decisions....

And congratulations on the jeans!

[bunsofaluminum]

Morning Buns. Your post made me laugh.

he used your soup pot!!! I'm not sure, but that must be getting near a divorce-able event! I told my husband there are very few divorce-able events.....one is draping hair across a bald patch! Another is using my quilting scissors for paper/card. I am sure appropriating the personal soup pot is well up there in the list.

And looking up etymology at 4am. Actually I am a natural lark, and I get up at 5am most days, except Sunday which is my lie-in day and my husband brings me a cup of tea in bed at 5.30. So this is not as surprising as it might be. Being a total tea drinking nerd, I knew all about tea/chi/cha. In parts of the Uk people still offer you a' cuppa cha', rather than tea. But the whole dog/cat thing is interesting. I hadn't thought about dates of domestication affecting language.

I dont really know any languages other than English. I have retained a smattering of schoolgirl French, and can still decline lots of Latin...Mensa, Mensa, mensam.. etc but nothing of any practical use. I have been wondering about learning another language to stop the brain atrophying, and was wondering which. French and Spanish have lots of online resources, I am Irish, my family left Ireland in the Famine, so there is Gaelic, I live in New Zealand, so I could learn Maori, and finally I have been considering NZ sign language. Decisions, decisions....

And congratulations on the jeans!

Oooh, Irish/Gaelic and accents.

So. I have a PT job captioning telephone conversations. This entails my listening to one side of a conversation, and saying verbatim what I hear. As the software is "tuned" to my voice, it translates to text which the customer will then see on a screen attached to their phone. This means I hear all manner of accents, as we have customers in every state. The dialect of the southeast United States is so similar to Australian and Irish accents, that it has thrown me off. The first few words can fool you....like "Is this guy from Australia?" or "Wow, an Irish accent" but it always turns out to be Kentucky or Tennessee.

It's because the Irish settled that region of the states, and the Irish also were a large part of the European settlers in Australia. The Irish language influences English to this day. And country western music in the states. AND we have a dance style called clogging that looks a lot like standard Irish dance. AND what about square dancing? I think that came over the Atlantic with our Scottish and Irish immigrants.

I've got Irish blood myself, my maternal grandfather being 100% Irish. My ancestors left Ireland during the potato famine, as well. Patrick McSharry, my grandfather's father. And his mother's family also came over during the famine. My daughter has researched all of that. We celebrate our Irish heritage more than the English and German that are also part of us. Huge family feast for St. Paddy's every year. And we act Irish, if that makes sense. Goofy and a bit risky. Hilarious senses of humor, gabby. Sorry if I'm stereotyping but it took a friend, from Danish people, to point out how Irish I act sometimes

Now. I am LOVING my early morning walks! The daylight is starting earlier every day, so today's 5:30 walk was under a light sky, whereas when I walked out the door on Monday at 5:30 it was quite dark. And today, because it was already light, I decided to go down to the river walkway at the foot of my street. Wasatch Hollow. It used to be "the gully" where people could walk along the river and such, climbing over felled tree trunks or following a dusty foot trail up an incline. It was one of my hangouts when I was a kid. Well, the city made it into a preserve with groomed walking trails, but leaving the roughness of the trees and a pond, the river. The other end of Wasatch Hollow has a playground and dog park, but where I walked there are no dogs allowed.

So I'm moseying along, checking out the area where a bunch of volunteers planted 450 trees back at the beginning of March. Enjoying the dawn chorus, and getting my steps in. As I approached a Y in the trail I was trying to decide whether to go straight or turn when I looked up to see a young mule deer standing and staring at me! It was a buck with little boy antlers and he was staring at me, tensed to spring off if I made the wrong move. I got a picture of him and then turned so he could go back to his morning grazing. VERY cool.

The scale actually sucks. It has been stuck at 224-225 since May 9. Then it plunged to 220.5 on Tues, up to 222 yesterday and this morning it was back up to FREAKING 225!!! Honestly. But I'm wearing a pullover today that fits OVER my butt. I bought it in 2019 on my honeymoon, a souvenir from seeing Cirque du Soleil in Vegas. It was a good fit, and I could tug it down to cover my butt, but it was tight around that area. Not so, anymore. It dangles over my butt, with lots of room. Gee, that suddenly made me feel really happy! So we must not use the scale as the only measurement for fitness, eh? Good thing too, or I would've thrown in the towel long ago.

Well, on with my day. Feeling pretty good. Need to get my 25 pushups in.

[bunsofaluminum]

I'm excited! I have about a dozen potato plants pushing above the ground! woo hoo! Another week and I'll be digging their little moats around them for water retention. Also up are peas, which are plants now, not seedlings. And carrots, beets, and chard which all are so teeny tiny...and I planted them all the same day. Go figure.

But potatoes! yassss! Fresh out of the ground? Nothing like it. When we lived in Idaho potato country, we could get 50# bags on the day of harvest. MAN were they good. With these, I can harvest some when they're still small and that'll be good. But I'm also hoping to get some nice big russets. I planted purple, red, and russets. Can't wait to (oven) fry em, mash em, put em in a stew. PO-TAY-TOES!

Loving my 5,000 steps per day. I was thinking about my life four or so years ago. Let's say 2016. I was doing my grocery shopping in a scooter because my feet hurt too much to walk around the store. When Wylie and I shopped for some household stuff at Ikea, he had to push me around in a wheelchair because NO WAY was I going to make it through their cement-floored maze on my crippled feet. We went to Idaho somewhere in there and went zip lining. There was a small walk/hike up to the launch and I was in tears from the pain by the time we got there. I didn't even try the second launch pad, which was up the mountain on the other side. Instead I sat and kept my tears to myself, and made a video of Wylie zipping. Lord, the pain in my feet was bad, and almost 100% constant.

When I started getting serious about no added oils, last summer after my sister's diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolemia, I started experiencing relief of that pain, and started walking VERY short distances, like to the close end of my street (five doors) and back. I usually returned from even those short walks limping. Gradually I increased my distance and a challenge came out from my employer to do 2,000 steps a day, which I started about the middle of March I guess. Doubled my steps to 4,000 a day, again a work place challenge, and then to 5,000 a day just because. Now, after a long walk, I do take ibuprofen because yes they do hurt. Sometimes they hurt at the beginning and I walk it off, but more often I'm fine at the beginning of my walk and by the time I get home I've slowed WAY down and sometimes limping due to foot pain. But it's such an improvement to be able to walk. I don't need the scooter at the grocery store (sometimes I lean on my pushcart though my "grocery store walker") and if I wanted to I could make it around Ikea. In fact, I walked literally all day long for at least one day of my vacation in April.

[bunsofaluminum]

Gotta stop with the rice crackers. They are zero fat, but they are a refined food, and high sodium. AND super easy to eat more than "a serving" Also, something about Saturdays makes me want to go nuts. I should stop that, as well.

Goal this week: 100% compliance with no straying from the guidelines. We'll see what that stupid scale says about it, eh?
NO. RICE. CRACKERS. Nada. Zip. Nothing. I did it with chocolate covered espresso beans, and I can do it with rice crackers

walking is amazing. My only wish is that my feet/knees were hardier so I could walk more. There's a grocery store not too far away. Maybe a mile? and I'd love to walk there, shop, and walk back. It's coming. My steps are at 5,000 a day now, and I always go over, some days by a couple thousand steps. It's easy, free, gets me outside, gets my heart rate slightly up, and strengthens all muscle groups except maybe my actual arms. I can feel the difference even in my core. Feels good.

[Ruff]

Go you Buns! Its so exciting to see you making such wonderful progress particularly with the walking. I know you can do the crackers too.

Potatoes, honestly there is NOTHING better than digging them up about an hour before supper! They are so yummy straight out of the ground. I am trying growing some overwinter, but I'm not sure of it will work. it doesn't matter as they will come up in spring anyway. Summer itself is too hot for them.

[bunsofaluminum]

Go you Buns! Its so exciting to see you making such wonderful progress particularly with the walking. I know you can do the crackers too.

Potatoes, honestly there is NOTHING better than digging them up about an hour before supper! They are so yummy straight out of the ground. I am trying growing some overwinter, but I'm not sure of it will work. it doesn't matter as they will come up in spring anyway. Summer itself is too hot for them.

Hi Katie

I am so excited about fresh baby potatoes! Oh boy, it's gonna be good.

Okay, today's walk was AMAZING. I went down to the river walkway at the foot of my street. The other day when I went that way, I met a yearling buck and took a picture. It was SOOOO cool. He was staring at me and you could see that he was ready to bolt, so I turned and went the other way, leaving him undisturbed. Well today I went down that same section of trail, and was quite far along without seeing anything and just enjoying the dawn chorus when there he was! He had been around a bend, near a trail through the fence allowing river access...he looked at me and paused, then walked on and bent his head to graze...right there in front of me! I stopped long enough to get some pictures and a short video, and no lie, that little feller continued placidly munching grass while I walked the trail. In fact, when he did move on, he got onto the trail not far in front of me. TOTALLY cool! So worth it, getting out the door by 5:30. So glad that early mornings are easy for me. My eyelids fly up at 5 a.m. and I'm awake. Get out of bed, get dressed. And now that it's fair weather and lighter mornings, I'm out the door before 5:30. So nice. Not another living soul around but us dawn creatures.

There's also a little pond in the area, that forms in the springtime and dries up over the summer...and there's a little family of ducks on the pond! We saw the ducklings sunning themselves on a floating branch the other day, so cute and comical as they tried to balance on it. Maybe four or five days old. So DANG cute.

One full day without rice crackers, and halfway through day two

[bunsofaluminum]

So I actually did break down and had some rice crackers yesterday also a spoonful of peanut butter with some honey drizzled on it. SMH. I'll do better today.

[bunsofaluminum]

Okay I stopped taking rice crackers with me to my PT job, and haven't eaten any since last week. Weds or Thu? Anyway...heh...the scale dropped! Like, two lbs and declining. They are calorie dense, and possibly somewhat high in sodium (did I read the label? not beyond seeing that there is no fat in the ingredients) but because they have no fat, I ate them for a snack almost daily. And the scale stuck, or went up and down like a roller coaster.

Once I quit them, I see the scale going down. Who'da thunk it. Funny how, one little item at a time, I'm learning what is NOT FOOD FOR ME. Dairy, way back in the day. Refined oils, last summer. And now...rice crackers Oh also...in order not to be awakened at 3:00 a.m. to go pee, I am not eating or drinking past 7:00 pm and it's working! But that also may be helping with the lower morning weight. I weigh first thing, when I get up for the morning. Go pee, and weigh before putting any clothes on. By not eating late at night, my gut also isn't full of digesting matter, right?

Whatever the reason, it's nice to see the scale moving downward.