A Little of This, Some of That

New Year's Resolutions. As a child we always made them, and promptly broke them. As a young adult, occasionally I made them, and stuck with them for a month or two before going along the by-way. The last several years I didn't bother. For the most part, I'm happy with my life so have not felt the need to make any drastic changes. Until  now. As you know, I've struggled with losing weight- as have many of you. I've tried one gimmick after another. Sound diets, such as Weight Watchers, May Clinic, Jenny Craig and not so sound ones like Medi-fast, Commit to be fit and many others. What was lacking is the will power to stay with it. I've thought about it and decided what has been lacking is a plan.  A written formulation of what I am exactly going to do and plan for it. Each. And. Every. Day. I'm going back to the Mayo Clinic Diet and will be starting over again on January 1. But in addition to the resolve of sticking with the plan, I've changed ...

In the never ending quest to loose weight, I am attempting something new. Since I last wrote, I was only able to loose 15 pounds and keep off 5.  Sad, but true. I decided to attempt something out of the box, for me anyway, and work to combine a few things into a plan I'm designing for me. To that end, I have searched the 'net and came across a program called IsAgenix.  After some debate I decided to purchase a 30 day supply. The IsAgenix plan, in a nutshell, is replace two meals with their protein dink 2X a day. You also take Ionix Supreme, snacks and a metabolism booster.  1 once a week you do a deep cleanse. Today is day one.  So this morning I took one Natural Accelerator- the metabolism booster.  No issue here- it is a capsule. Then I followed the directions and mixed up a 6 oz Ionix Supreme.  I have the 'natural fruit ' flavored.  It is the most foul tasting stuff I have ever had. Or so I thought. This was followed by IsaLean Shake. To...

This week Hurricane Maria, on the heels of Irma, struck the little island of Puerto Rico. Taking a direct hit of a category 4 storm has completely devastated this country. AS of this writing, no one knows if there are any causalities even though the storm made landfall four days ago. There is no power on the entire island. Fallen trees, branches, roofs and other debris litter the roads. Many places are completely isolated. Without electricity, which is estimated to take weeks or months to restore, there will be no food storage. Shortages will soon reach epidemic proportions. What water there is on the island is contaminated. No electricity to run the systems. No proper sewer systems. Homes have lost roofs, walls, floors and more. People are stuck at the shelters sleeping on cots or the floor and have no place to return to. Children have no homes or food. There is no power to cook anything. No refrigeration  means food will rot, adding to the cesspool of bacteria. A countr...

It is no secret that I am NOT a 45 supporter. If you are you may want to stop reading now. These last few months have been a series of natural disaters across the  United States. I was out in the western States earlier this summer. In June, we say field after field that had not been planted due to earlier flooding. Now many of those sames fields are burning. In fact, several states have been burning out of control all summer. Mainstream media has not been reporting on this and they should be. In Texas of course we have Harvey that has devastated Houston and the surrounding areas. It will be months and years before they fully recover. Now, as I write this, we await the landfall of Irma, a storm system that has already wiped out the island of Barbuda, disseminated the Caribbean before she turned toward Florida. ALL of Florida WILL BE IMPACTED. In addition to the direct impacts, these disasters will affect each and everyone of us. In the west and Texas, many of our produ...

I admit, loosing weight is difficult. Why is it that we can gain weight at the drop of a hat but near to impossible to loose it? My end goal is 100 pounds.... sigh. It seems to be near to impossible. Even half that at 50 is a very long and arduous task. I recently ran into someone that I've known for a very long time. In all of my collective memory she has been heavy, near to 100 pounds over weight. She is older than me by several years. About a year ago, she started a program, under a doctor's care. She lost an amazing 126 pounds!!! From her I learned that it is a long and slow process. I also learned that I can do it. She has become my inspiration to keep on trucking and sticking with the lifestyle changes over the long haul. As of this morning, I'm down 8 pounds and I've lost enough in inches around my waist that I literally had to tighten my belt to keep my pants up.  Definitely going in the right direction. I still continue to follow the Mayo Clinic diet....

An update on weight loss-  over 5 weeks I have lost just under 5 pounds.  (4.8)  As the goal is to loose one pound a week, I'm on track... although I wish it would come off faster! For a short term goal- and we should always have stepping stones to keep us bolstered upon our way- I'm going on a cruise in 162 days.  That is 23 weeks. I am shooting for a 20 pound loss between now and when I board that cruise ship! Should I make that goal, it will be a total of a quarter of what I have to loose over the next year. Baby steps.

Let's get this out of the way. I am most definitely  NOT a republican.  Once upon a time I tended to be more centralist. Unfortunately centralists seem to be an endangered species. Because I call out 45 often, I've actually been told I should 'pray for him', Support him because he's our president' and 'you should leave the country'. Recently I've been, shall we say barraged, by individuals who feel as though I've been following 'fake news' apparently because I don't embrace their own point of view.  With sources cited to support my position, they typically respond with off topic meme's or degenerate into name calling. I do not subscribe to Breibit, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones or Fox News. I do obtain my information from a variety of sources. Those sources are typically Washington Post, NYTimes, The Hill, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, CNN, Vox, New  York Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Raw Story, N...

I've now spent a week on the Mayo Clinic diet. And of course I forgot to weigh in this morning. Reflecting on the last week I've discovered a few things. 1- Eating healthy tastes GOOD! I admit it takes planning ahead but I've found out: 2- Meal planning saves me money in the long run!  I started out making a daily meal plan but then quickly went to a week. I discovered that my leftovers from supper works well for lunch, saving me money. Planning my meals for the week helps in making my grocery list and using what is in my fridge, freezer or cupboards. 3- I've gone from being fairly sedentary to walking 3 miles a day. This also takes planning! I found that if I actually schedule my walking, I do it as opposed to the "I'll do it later, or this afternoon when I get  home" mind set. 3 miles may not seem like much, but to go from about 1500-2000 steps a day to 3+ miles is a  huge step forward. 4- I can't cut the sugar. I've tried but I enjoy s...

I've been following the Mayo Clinic diet now for a few days. I admit, the loose it! part that I am currently following is easy, and yet at the same time difficult. You may be asking How can that be?  Easy.  The basic rules are simple and easy to follow. It's  putting it into practice that is proving to be difficult, especially when it's the weekend and there are special events going on that includes of course food and wine. I stayed with the program as much as possible, but didn't curtail from sampling a few salads and desserts. But I did limit to just a few bites. Over all, considering everything, I don't think I did too bad. I didn't beat myself up and I logged everything I ate/drank.  AND I still managed to get in  40 minutes of brisk walking. One of my favorite things to do is look for new recipes. I found several new ones to try on the Mayo Clinic site and Weight Watchers. Putting into practice what I've been researching, I made out a weekly mea...

As  you  have probably figured out by now, I struggle with weight loss. Like millions of people, I start out with good intentions but quickly return to my life-long habits of eating and a sedentary lifestyle. Like you, I've tried many fad diets, searched for the 'magic pill' and more to no avail, even though I knew, in the back of my mind, that those didn't work. I also know what the winning combination is, even though I don't like the real answer. The answer is simple. eat less, burn more calories. We have to take in a negative amount of calories (units of energy) then our body needs. I ran across an article that said to loose one pound we have to burn 3,500 calories. Considering that most of us consume between 2,500 - 3,000 a day this could be problematic. The same article said, and this was kind of an epiphany moment for me, (paraphrased here) Rather then tying to loose a pound a day a more reasonable approach is a pound a week. To accomplish this, you need...