Friday Quote Day

I've learned only that you never say never.

~ Marina von Neumann Whitman

I'll tell you right here and right now that Marina von Neumann Whitman was not the first person to never say never.

Case in point: I'm tempted to say I can never lose weight again. My metabolism is so screwed up, my age is working against me, I'm post-menopausal, blah, blah, blah. But … I lost a pound in August.

So there. Never say never.

The Fat2Fit guys would be so proud of me. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.

A pound doesn't sound like much, and it isn't really. My weight can vary by a pound or more from morning to night. Not that I weigh myself morning and night. (I used to. I'm so over that.) During the month of August I weighed myself twice: the 1st and the 20th. I'm not sure why the 20th happened, but I recorded my weight in the FatSecret app on my phone, so there you go.

(Aside: One of the diet tips on FatSecret is: STAY AWAY FROM CAKE. Heh.)

I weighed myself yesterday and am going to try not to weigh myself again until October 1.

I bet you'd love to know how I lost all that weight in just one month, right? Well I think the secret was switching to soy milk. (All kidding aside, I'm a new soy milk convert, the light vanilla is delicious!) Pretty soon I'm going out on a limb and try almond milk, as well.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still using fresh cow's milk for mozzarella, cottage cheese and yogurt. But the occasional glass of vanilla soy milk has totally revved up that lagging metabolism and blasted away four ounces per week.

One serious thing I've been consciously doing is eating a yogurt/oat/fruit concoction for breakfast nearly every day. I was a little worried at one point that I was setting my day up for a fall, because the fruit is either homemade-with-sugar strawberry jam or peach preserves. However, after my spectacular weigh-in yesterday I can throw that worry out the window.

Some people call the concoction overnight oats, but I usually forget to mix it up and let it mellow overnight. So basically I'm eating half a cup of plain yogurt with a quarter cup of old-fashioned uncooked oats and a tablespoon of preserves, all mixed up and eaten quickly, so as not to dwell on the fact that I'm eating minimally processed oats. (Sometimes I add chia or sunflower seeds and sometimes I sprinkle the whole mess with cinnamon. But basically I'm eating glop.)

Really, it's not so bad. The oats meld into the yogurt, and fruit preserves can mask a lot of gloppiness with some juicy, delicious gloppiness of its own.

Are you doing something fun for Labor Day? I'm visiting family in North Carolina and planning to hit the farmer's market on the way home. Last time I did that I bought peaches; this time I'm looking for okra and apples. My okra harvest, as I reported earlier, was not a total crop failure, but was too skimpy to make pickles. I love okra pickles and they are worth the trouble to make. My neighbor's apple tree produces fruit only every other year, so no free pommes this year, but with only one eight-ounce jar of apple jelly left to get me through the winter, I think I need to snag a bushel.

I also might get some raw peanuts with the idea of planting some, just to see what happens. I'm thinking our soil/climate is a little too wet for peanuts, but I'm willing to throw some in the ground and see what happens.

I appreciate all of you who take the time to share your thoughts with me in the comments, and all of you who lurk, too. It's time for you lurkers to come out of the virtual woodwork. Don't be shy! I know you talk to real people, you can talk to me, too.

Here's to college football, cooler temperatures, maybe even a little rain to end the summer season. Have a great weekend.