oops my bad. I did a 12 min pace but only a mile and a half.- then weights.
Nice info!
Added some weighs after my walk today and bought a beginners yoga kit at TJMaxx to try. Hopefully it will help with my tight back if I do some yoga and stretching. I’ve been adding in 5 minutes of running in my hour of walking. Just don’t want to do too much too soon and mess up my heels again!
Found a funky snack: I take some slices of Oscar Meyer rotisserie flavored chicken and roll them up in a slice of light havarti cheese. Yummy!
Really interesting article on calories in our food and why the numbers can be misleading. Long but worth reading.
http://mosaicscience.com/story/why-calorie-broken?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
The new oat bran diet fad? http://time.com/4194761/weight-loss-flavonoids/
Thanks for the link, mathmom. Looks like they are recommending the fruits that I am eating. I didn’t see the reference to the oat bran diet, but I bought oat bran a while back when the Dukan diet was recommended. http://www.dukandiet.com/oat-bran
I’m just referring to our tendency to jump on the latest food fad. Last year it was kale, this year it’s blueberries. Mind you, I think kale was a great discovery. I never had any of those leafy greens growing up except spinach and then only frozen spinach.
I like spinach and try to eat it several times a week. I make a vegetable pizza at home and I put a layer of spinach leaves over the sauce and then a light amount of cheese and a lot more vegetables. When it is all cooked you can’t even tell that there is spinach in it. Out of all the leafy greens its the least bitter. It is one vegetable I don’t get sick of eating.
I like eating blueberries to. I try to incorporate in different things.
That article had a lot of things to think about @MichaelNKat - there is some truth to many of the discussion points.
The portion size is so true on how it affects the calories. I never thought about how cooking the food would change the food ‘value’ - however some of that makes sense too.
The info/discussion about twins. I saw on a TV weight program twin women - one ate enormous amounts of food and high calorie high fat foods - the other was normal size and terrified about weight gain so was very careful on what she ate. There was a lot of psychology going on there. And yes, the gut microbes are going to be different because they are eating so much differently.
H lost another 1.5 lbs - he is now less than 10 lb from his goal. I made a nice dinner. He walked in the door famished. Later, he made himself a peanut butter sandwich. Since our doctor retired, he has an appt with new doc on Monday. I look forward to H hitting his goal and being less crazy about the way he is eating.
Losing weight, especially when older and maybe less healthy, is tough.
A while back, there was some discussion on this Board about how frequently people weigh themselves and there were some varied opinions. Yesterday and today, I had an experience that reinforced the advice I give to clients seeking to lose weight that they only weight themselves once per week. Yesterday, I had a routine checkup at the doctor. As a practice, I never allow the doctor’s office to weigh me (more on why later) and weighed myself in the morning so that I could report my weight to the doctor. This morning, I weighed myself as part of my normal weekly self check. Same time of day as yesterday (7:00 a.m.), same scale, under the same conditions (after peeing and sans clothing, I know - TMI 
). Yesterday’s weight was 1.7 lbs more than today’s. Which brings me to my point.
Our weight will fluctuate from throughout the day and from day to day both up and down. It happens regardless of our level of activity on a particular day (although high activity levels and a failure to adequately rehydrate certainly influences your weight the same or next day). For those actively trying to lose weight, these fluctuations can be very frustrating both at the beginning (where weight lost is very often water weight and not fat tissue loss) and later down the road where daily vagaries are often misinterpreted as back sliding or false successes and it becomes a bit of a vicious cycle that creates stress and can be self defeating.
So my advice to clients seeking to lose weight is that while the “number” is important, more important is to look at your trend line. The direction you are going in over a course of time tells you much, much more about the success of your weight loss plan than the number on any particular day. My recommendation to clients is to pick a day that will be your “check-in day” and to weigh yourself only on that day. Do it on the same scale, at the same time of day and under the same conditions for each weigh-in. That way you eliminate a load of variables and can get a reliable measure of weather your program is working. And you eliminate the potential stress and tendency to “over-correct” that can come with daily weigh-ins. Even then, you may find that your trend has ticked up on your weigh-in day. If so, don’t panic, just look at your previous week to see if you did anything different that can be corrected. Analyze whether your previous successes have resulted in the need to adjust your nutrition plan because you now need a lower caloric intake to continue to lose weight. Or it may be that on that particular day you were having an anomaly for reasons unknown. But the bottom line is take the number with a “grain of salt”, have faith in your program and efforts and see how the trend continues to develop before reaching a conclusion that the ship is way off course.
So why don’t I let the doctor weigh me? I don’t trust the accuracy of the scale that is probably used hundreds of times per week without calibration in a multi doctor practice, the time of day and conditions are never uniform and by self reporting my weight to the doctor, he is getting the most reliable trend information. And by nature I’m a contrarian who takes pleasure in not following someone else’s directives when I know that the information produced is likely to be useless. 
Thanks, MNK. That is very helpful. I have been weighing myself daily at home and need to choose a weekday as my weigh in day. I have noticed that if I have a glass or two of wine I tend to weigh more the next morning.
Good timing, fallgirl. I read your post just as the morning show is talking about selecting the right wine to go with your Girl Scout cookies
Well jym , wine and Girl Scout Cookies probably covers a few food groups. At least it does for me!
I’ve never been on a diet to lose weight quickly and by weighing daily, and occassionally in the evening I’ve learned I nearly always weight 2 pounds more on Monday than Friday and I weigh at least a pound more in the evening than the morning. When I was recording on Livestrong regularly and trying to see where my weight ended up eating what I considered about the right amount and getting more exercise, I was losing about half a pound a month at the end - but it was barely visible in the day to day fluctuations.
I don’t like weighing at the doctors office since they frequently do it before I’ve gotten down to the gown. So you know it’s going to be several pounds too heavy. They aren’t going to catch anything but huge gains or losses. Since my weight is in the normal range, I don’t worry about their dumb numbers too much.
Right now I will not bring Girl Scout cookies into my house, as I am not sure I have the self control to eat just one. Ditto for Nutella that SOSconcern mentioned earlier. We actually had some Nutella in the house when I was really diligent back in December and when I tasted a small taste it was painfully sweet. But in general, I love that stuff, and right now it is listed in my head in the category of “things that were not put on this earth for my consumption”. Personally, when I have my head in the game, I can do things like treat myself to a potato chip or two, and I hope to get back there. But right now I need to avoid temptation and keep it out of the house. I have a luncheon meeting today at a very nice restaurant, and moderation is the plan. And I plan to hit the gym later, to keep it in the routine. But, no Girl scout cookies for me. At least not right now. I’d rather save the calories for something else.
Agreed, mathmom. Weighing in at the Drs office, after we have had a meal, are clothed, and have our shoes or at least socks, if wearing them, on ( our Drs offices do not want to spread athletes foot or the like) , with scales that likely aren’t frequently calibrated, it’s just a general benchmark for their records and perhaps for their treatment plan. It will likely be a pound to a few pounds high. Some insurance companies, like Medicare, may require a BMI report, so the data is needed, even if it’s a general datapoint for that moment. Often a patient’s self report of weight, medications ( frequency, dosages and OTC supplements or homeopathics), alcohol consumption is limited in its accuracy. Heck, when I rented my skis at the slopes, I shaved 5 lbs off my weight ;). They used height/weight/ski level to set the bindings, and 5 lbs won’t likely make the settings too tight or too loose. Good news-- I only fell twice in the week- once on the slopes and once on the escalator when I got my boot caught between the steps!! That was embarrassing! But I did a great tuck and roll and recovered its out assistance
Ugh, typo, and cc is glitchy today and am not able to fix typos at the moment. That should say I recovered without assistance. And I wanted to clarify that when I described the limited accuracy of patient self report, I was not speaking about you, MNK. I fully believe your weight report would be extremely accurate. But in other cases, Patients often have difficulty remembering all their meds, the correct names, dosages, frequency, etc. and if they are prescribed by multiple physicians, the Drs office the patient is at at the moment may not have a complete list of the patients meds. To me this is a bigger concern than the accuracy of their scale within a pound or two.
So, got motivated by the posts and did 10 min on the elliptical. Still plan to go to the gym later. 10 min is not a lot, but it’s 10 min more than yesterday!
For myself I find I have to be really disciplined about certain things. My problem is I’m an all or nothing kind of person.
I used to have sugar and artificial sweeteners in my tea. I cut that and only used wild honey or organic coconut sugar. (it is not as sweet)
I used to like fried foods but in the last two years have stopped frying at home and don’t eat fried food outside.
I limit use of salt and try to season food with herbs, citrus, and spices.
I was addicted to soda because it was freely available at my office pantry. I cut it out completely. No longer buy or drink soda. (since last two years)
I drink water with lemon and tea with cinnamon and honey. No smoking and no alcohol.
We used to order pizza delivery and I stopped that. Haven’t ordered in the last two years. When I crave it I make it at home using multigrain pita or dough and limit the amount of cheese and increase the amount of vegetables. I found a recipe for a cauliflower pizza crust that I am going try out.
DD and I used to go out a lot for Chinese food which we have stopped doing. Mostly try to cook and eat at home.
Another thing I have done is started eating on lunch plates vs dinner plates.
Cut down on processed food and if god made it I eat it. So these are some of the lifestyle changes I have made and I don’t miss any of the things I have dropped out of my diet.
My issue is that I am mostly vegetarian so I have to find ways to incorporate protein in my diet.
I am trying to make lifestyle changes that I can live with. No temporary changes.
So I hope to incorporate more healthy habits over time.
My weakness - bread which I am trying to limit.
No chips and junk food.