THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2022 - PERSONAL

 THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2022 - PERSONAL

Good Morning Friends!!!  Today is going to be more personal.

First - my body.

I started my job at the senior independent living facility in September 2021.  One of my duties was to take a senior lady to dinner.  Dinner at this facility is very good.  Two entree choices, fruit and salad, a tasty soup, good vegetables, awesome desserts, and freshly baked buns (with butter.)  

I was working four nights a week, and dinner tasted good.  My friend loved desserts so I would take two desserts to our table and she would choose one.  (And, on a few occasions, she took both - so I went back and got another dessert for me).   

I “blossomed” to at least 243 pounds.  I had a scale and I remember that weight.  After a visit to my cardiologist, where my cholesterol was elevated and my weight was up, I decided to lose the pounds.  I was also slowing down on the granny basketball court too.  

I have yoyo dieted over the years.  To me, losing weight means cutting out sugar, salt, flour, sweets, alcohol, bread, and maybe the hardest - cutting out peanut butter.  

Yesterday morning, my scale read 200 pounds.  I had lost 43 pounds - or about 17% of my body weight.  

My “secret”?  For a good portion of the past five months, I have had only one real meal a day (lunch).  So, I was largely fasting.

The second factor - I went crazy over fiber.  My meal frequently was oatmeal - with extra oat bran.  Another option was raisin bran cereal. In reading “Lessons in Chemistry”, where the protagonist avoids all the additives to food (the small print of ingredients where you can’t pronounce the items).  Go for pure!!

A comment about fiber.  When I stop eating and lose weight, my digestive system has trouble eliminating bodily waste.  There were times when I would go three or four (and maybe even five) days without eliminating waste.  Fiber helped to keep things moving.  

For summer, I had cut back on my work to one evening a week.  I hiked up my walking.  

Aside - I am “frugal”.  My medicare supplement came out with a plan: if I walked at least ten days with at least 7,500 steps (about 3.75 miles for me), they would give me $10 on a prepaid credit card.  That plan was independent of weight gain or loss - just get the steps in.  So, I’ve been walking generally four to five miles a day.  I use my iPhone health app and towards the end of the month I click on synchronize and my daily walking totals are sent to the medicare supplement people.

I also record my walking on the “Map My Walk” application on my iPhone.  I’m currently at the top 2.51% out of 156,000 people (so, in the top 3% of people who use that app).  

There are days I don’t feel like walking.  Today is the 18th day in August and I’ve not reached the 7,500 step mark three times this month.  I tend to walk at my apartment complex exercise room - which has two treadmills and one television set.  I can turn the television on to something innocuous and walk.  I have found that I watch sports and game shows.  In Texas, there is the “longhorn channel” which shows repeats of the University of Texas games.  I like Family Feud, The Price is Right, Let’s Make a Deal, and other numbing game shows.  

I prefer walking at the Georgetown Recreation Center on an indoor track overlooking a gym floor - but (frugal Karen) has convinced myself that requires driving - and driving requires gas - so using the treadmills is a cost-effective exercise!!

*****

Next week I am taking a trip.  (I commented to a friend once about taking a vacation, and he told me retired people don’t take vacations, they take trips.).  I am going to three state high points and hiking.  I’ve already been to eight state highpoints - some of which required hiking or climbing, so this will get me to eleven high points.  It is more of a goal-driven trip.  

I have written about having memorable experiences so that in five years (or ten years), I can remember that in the summer of 2022, I got outside my comfort zone and went hiking.  

“I lift my eyes to the hills, whence comes my Lord who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2)

(Or I can sing “The Hills are alive with the Sound of Music”)

*****

But, there is a negative.  Two weeks ago I had my first mammogram and first bone density scan.  My mammogram was clean, but I was diagnosed with osteopenia - a kind of early osteoporosis.  So, I need more calcium.  (But I thought that calcium was a factor in cholesterol).

Plus, (finally), next Wednesday I turn 75 years old - ¾ of a century.  So, a trip, weight loss, and losing bone density.  Life goes on.

I’ve heard many seniors saying “I’m praying for God to take me home”.  (My mother was like that).  So I’m heading into my senior years.

God is good (and sometimes religion isn’t so good).

LOVE WINS

Karen White

August 18, 2022, ©