A time to plant

Looks like today's the day to plant the garlic. According to a Department of Natural Resources gardening calendar my neighbor gave me last spring, I should do it Monday. But with today's temperature expected to hit the mid-70s and then, beginning tomorrow, all-rain, all-the-time, for two days, and then colder weather moving in … well, today's the day.

I'm excited, can you tell?

My mother never used fresh garlic when she cooked. Our food was seasoned with powdered garlic salt or powdered onion salt, although she did use fresh onions. My grandmother said she never used fresh garlic, either, which is kind of astonishing, as she ate chickens she'd raised and named herself. You'd think they'd have planted garlic, if for nothing else than to ward off cold germs.

I, on the other hand, love the flavor and bite of fresh garlic. I use it in just about every savory dish I prepare: soups, stews, roasts, stir-fries, bean dishes – you get the picture. So the idea of being able to pluck my cloves of garlic from a braid I've created of bulbs harvested from my own back yard is extremely appealing.

I'm also going to plant some onion sets. I don't know nothin' bout birthin' no onions, but the bin at the produce market said "Winter Onion Sets," so I'm going to treat them just like the garlic cloves. If they don't grow, I'll have wasted only 85¢.

Can you believe that? I bought a lunch bag of baby onions for less than a buck.

Thanks for weighing in (heh), Greta, with your plan and I wish you continued success. My husband and I are one-seventh vegetarian, meaning we enjoy one meatless day each week. We've agreed that's about as vegetarian as we want to be.

Yesterday was a very busy day; we were gone from noon until 8 p.m., visiting someone in the hospital in Charleston, WV, which is a couple hours away from us. That meant eating dinner in a restaurant (I didn't get sick), and it also meant skipping lunch. I wasn't hungry before we left and I was determined not to eat just because I knew I would be hungry before dinner time. I've been trying to pound into my brain this fact:

It's okay to be hungry.
It's okay to be hungry.
It's okay to be hungry.

One of my best friends from high school, post-graduation, was trying to lose the Freshman 15 and she imagined that every time her stomach growled it was pounds slipping away.

I'm not quite there yet. But it's okay to be hungry!

Home again, for the moment

Well, last week's travel took its toll. I did well on drive day and for the first three days I was gone. I didn't completely fall off the wagon, but the only goal I was able to maintain all week long was the no-snacking one. I didn't even have time to blog, which reinforced the accountability aspect of this experiment. It wasn't that I went crazy and ate stupid stuff. But I definitely slacked off on the days I didn't blog, in all areas but snacking.

The walks got shorter as the week went by. My grandson and I took four-mile walks Monday through Thursday. We went 2.75 miles Friday, promising each other we'd make up the difference later in the day but it never happened. And Saturday we only did 2.25 miles, but I was leaving that day and needed to get on the road.

He joined me in the no-snacks-between-meals zone, and we agreed that on the days he had Tae Kwon Do he could have a piece of fruit or a yogurt before his class, which lasts 90 minutes. He really needs a little boost between the end of the school day and dinner. He's pretty big for his age (he's 10 and outweighs his 14-year-old sister by at least 20 pounds), and not happy about it, so I'm glad to be his cheerleader, and I need to be a good example. It made perfect sense to him that it's okay to be hungry, and it also made perfect sense to him that food tastes better when you're hungry.

I did the upper- and lower-body strength training every day until Friday. Friday was super busy, but it's not like I didn't have 20 minutes to myself. I just didn't use them very well. And I did great with water early in the week, but that, too, was an afterthought by the end of the week. And I stopped journaling my food (although I ate fairly healthfully) on Wednesday.

I got home Saturday evening, exhausted, and took yesterday off. All I did was laundry and cook dinner. No walking, no strength training.

The result is predictable. I wasn't surprised to see that the scale god took back two of the pounds I lost last week. That makes it four pounds lost in three weeks, which – considering my weight-loss history – is still something to cheer about.

But I don't feel much like cheering.

I'm leaving again this coming Saturday for a shorter visit; maybe I can stay on track this time. I'll be handing out candy for trick-or-treaters in my son's neighborhood a week from tonight. It will be vital to follow the no-snack rule then. I need to remind myself that candy will always be around, it's not like it's going to become extinct just because I'm not eating it.

(Look at alcohol – I stopped drinking almost 21 years ago, but they've come out with all kinds of new concoctions since I gave it up! The most exotic thing I ever ordered at a bar was a Long Island Iced Tea. All these new martini drinks sound like way more fun. Heh.)

It really is a combination of things that creates success, not just in weight loss but, I would presume, in the achievement of any goal. If you're in business, you can't just focus on customer service, you also have to have a good product. In all things health-related, one success builds on the next to achieve optimum results.

With that, I'll get back on the horse, so to speak, and do my best. I won't do a weigh-in next Monday, since I won't be home. Maybe two weeks of healthy behaviors will yield good results next month.

Anne asked how I manage the water drinking. I realized sometime this week that I've reported drinking a gallon of water daily, when I have, in fact, been drinking half that amount. I fill a half-gallon Brita pitcher in the morning and keep it on the counter. (Room-temperature water works better for me.) When it's empty, I'm done drinking water, although I usually have an extra glass with dinner. I drink from a 16-ounce cup and I start early in the day. The rule is I can't have the first cup of coffee until the first 16 ounces of water is gone.

I hope you will join me, Anne and whoever else is interested, in continuing to work on these few simple (but not easy) changes. Our health depends on it!

Labels

First, @Gingerzingi: Did you see my response to your garlic question?

Second: Cto5K. Last week I did the first two days. Tuesday I repeated Day One. Hoping to repeat Day Two today. Which is really boring, since they (and Day Three) are all the same. OH WELL. Party prepping got the best of me last week, thus the lapse.

Now. Labels. No, not food labels. Very little of my food has a bar code slapped on it these days. I'm thinking of the "caveman" label that Diandra objected to in a recent comment. (I appreciate the comment, Diandra, you really made me think.)

I haven't studied what it means to Be Paleo. I would guess, from what I've skimmed on the interwebs, that such a lifestyle includes weight training or kettlebells or crossfit. (I could be wrong.) What I do know, for me, is this:

We can’t return to the paleolithic. We’re not cavemen. This isn’t about reenactment, and it never has been. We’re all here because we recognize the value in viewing our health, our food, our exercise, and our everyday behaviors through an evolutionary lens.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/12-easy-ways-to-primalize-your-everyday-life/#ixzz2YjXgcQZN

This isn't about reenactment.

It's just easier to type paleo or caveman/woman than it is to type grain-, legume, dairy- and sugar-free. I suppose I could start calling it my GLDS plan, but I'm okay calling it paleo or primal or caveman. It's descriptive, and I know what it means.

And I think you do, too.

No one out there in Whole30 Land is suggesting we kill and field-dress a deer before dinner. (Although that happens pretty frequently out here in the Middle of Nowhere.) What I get from the philosophy of the primal lifestyle is to avoid processed foods whenever possible, to eat as close to the source as one can afford (grass-fed, organic) and to move your body. (Is anyone hearing that song from Madagascar?)

My lifestyle leaves MUCH room for improvement.

My food budget is not infinite. I cannot afford to go completely organic, nor do I even buy and process my own fresh produce all the time. If pineapples are too dear, I buy canned in juice. I'm still eating regular grocery-store chicken, but my beef is grass-fed and my bacon is preservative-free. My go-to intentional activity is walking; I've yet to pick up a kettlebell, or even a dumbbell since I switched my eating plan in April.

Yoga is back in the mix, though, at least once a week.

I am, for sure, eating more healthfully than I did beginning the day after Christmas, when I started pursuing yet another weight-loss goal. I was thinking, as I was making egg salad yesterday morning before work, how easy it used to be to grab a chunk of cheese and a handful of crackers for breakfast. I nevereverever went anywhere without a snack tucked into my purse.

God forbid I should ever feel hungry.

Hunger is okay. Especially hunger first thing in the morning. It's a sign of good health to be hungry after a good night's sleep. I'm not going to die if my stomach growls. And my metabolism is not going to die if I don't feed myself every three hours.

I truly think (I hope this doesn't come back to bite me) I've found a way of eating that works for me. Whatever it's called, it's helping me reach a healthier weight. The less I weigh, the more easily I can move and thus I move more often.

I'd label that GOOD.

How's that working for you?

I don't watch Dr. Phil (is he even on television any more?), but I used to catch the program occasionally, and it didn't take long to figure out that his five most important words were these:

How's that working for you?

This week I have:

• Downed more than 7 gallons of water. A gallon a day is my minimum and I've been managing it really well. I find room-temperature water goes down more easily than cold, so I keep the pitcher on the counter or just drink tap water. I start early in the morning and, in fact, have a tall glass (16 oz.) before I have my first cup of coffee. Drinking so much water so early in the day was, um, problematic earlier in the week, because I also like to walk early in the day. You figure it out. Heh. But my system has adapted already. So. Water? Check.

• Eaten 19 healthful, home-cooked meals – 5 breakfasts, 2 brunches, 5 lunches, 7 dinners – and one snack. There were a couple days where breakfast turned into brunch, and on one of those days I really needed to eat something mid-afternoon. The difference between eating that snack and eating all the previous snacks in the past few months is that this one was in response to physical hunger (as well as lightheadedness). I've experienced hunger more in the past week than I have in a year, maybe even years. And it's okay to be hungry. I didn't die because I didn't get to eat right now. The sensation of hunger goes away if you don't eat, especially if you're busy doing something else. So. Meals? I'll say check. 

• Done an upper- or lower-body weight-training session every day. Because these sessions are relatively easy (tricep dips using my own bodyweight are the most difficult), I haven't felt it necessary to take a day off. I also have been doing them daily to reinforce the routine and turn it into a habit. If I were lifting heavy, I would probably skip a day in between. But if I were skipping a day in between, I would talk myself into skipping two days or three, and then I wouldn't be lifting anything. Because that's how I roll with the weight training. So. Weight-training? Check.

• Walked 30 miles in nine hours and 36 minutes. Approximately. There was never a day when I didn't want to go for a walk. We're having some lovely weather – the leaves are bright and beautiful, the temperatures have been in the low 70s, some days there's been a light breeze but no heavy winds at all – which makes it easy to get out the door on a daily basis. I did four miles five days and five miles two days and enjoyed every step I took. Seriously. Walking? Check.

I wish I could say that all I wanted to do was accomplish those four things. But I really wanted those four things to result in a pound or – dare I wish for it? – two of weight loss. Alas, I weigh, this morning, precisely what I weighed a week ago, and that was a very scary number. To say I'm disappointed is a HUGE understatement.

HUGE

I didn't write down what I ate every meal, but I've been tracking meals more than half my life. At this stage, I eat more healthfully and more nutritiously and more reasonably than I ever have. I didn't (and don't) think it necessary to record it in a program or write it in a journal. 

However, I could certainly be wrong about that. It appears that I'm going to have to count some effing calories in order to make the kind of progress that shows up on a bathroom scale. I have the tools to do that, it doesn't take much extra effort and it will give me more information to work with.

It's all about the information. And the exercise. And the water. And the metabolism. And the motivation. Oh, hell, it's all about everything.

Moving on.

Knitting: I know you're dying to know how Jujuba is coming along. You're not here just for my weight-loss progress reports, are you? Football weekends mean lots o' knitting time. I have two more rows to go for the first half to be done. I'm putting the live stitches on a spare needle, in case I have to go back and add a couple more rows. I won't really know if it will span the circumference of my body until I'm ready to assemble it.

The way things are going, I might need to add more rows by then.

SIGH

What was I thinking?

Planning to do a second Whole 30 in November wasn't, probably, the wisest decision I've made this year. Then again, when I planned it I didn't know I'd be traveling to a neighboring state to wait for a family friend's brain aneurysm to be surgically repaired!

In fact, I thought this same friend would be coming to visit me for a few days. Instead, she was admitted to the hospital the day before her trip to West Virginia. She's been in ICU ever since, and will be there a couple more days before spending even more time in inpatient rehab.

Her recovery since the initial incident has been remarkable, and no one was more surprised than my husband and I to be able to talk and laugh with her the same night she'd spent hours and hours and hours in surgery. We're so grateful, and so glad we made the trip.

I did okay with food while I was gone. Waiting while a friend goes through life-saving surgery puts things in perspective. The good thing is I didn't cave in to emotional eating. Removing inflammatory foods – and, I think, especially sugar – has brought some sanity to my eating patterns.

No longer do I stand in front of the pantry or refrigerator looking for something, anything to eat. If I'm hungry between meals, I'll have fruit or nuts* or a hard-boiled egg. I'm mostly not hungry unless I haven't eaten for a few hours. (Although I was hungry a lot while I was gone; that could have been an emotional response.)

I remembered to do my bodyweight routine in the hotel, but we only had time for one short walk, on  Tuesday. The scale reflected my lack of exercise this morning, sadly, but since the official weigh day isn't until Monday, I have some time to get back the loss I had last week.

I'm happy where I am. As I've written before, it's kind of hard to keep on keeping on when I feel as good as I do at this weight. However, even knowing the BMI benchmark is flawed, I still want to be at a normal number.

The best way to get there is to follow this advice:

If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got.                                                         ~ W. L. Bateman

*The link is to an NBC piece referencing a Harvard University study suggesting eating nuts can help you live longer. The study included peanuts, which are technically a legume and not on the paleo plan. That said, the common denominator in all varieties of nuts is FAT. I will say again, NO ONE is more surprised than I that I've lost more than 50 pounds while consuming about 50 percent of my daily calories from fat (not all nuts, of course). Fat is not my enemy. Sugar and grains clearly are.

Moving right along

Thanks for your comment, Mindy, it was just what I needed to read to stay on track yesterday. I was beginning to hit the slippery slope of habit-making, so getting an attagirl – and knowing that what I'm doing is inspiring you – kept me on the beam.

I wrote a fairly long, somewhat coherent post on August 1, that was sort of a manifesto for doing what I need to do to lose some of this weight. I then proceeded to blow August and September off like a bad date.

My apologies to the late summer months.

My five missions (the link takes you to the post where I declared the original four, I've since added journaling), which I committed to last week, are working well. Okay, maybe not well, since I haven't technically lost any weight, but I'm noticing changes in my attitude, if not my waistline. (And, weirdly, my wedding ring is so loose it keeps twisting around so the blingy part is on the palm side of my hand. Progress? Who knows?)

• I make time for a walk every day. It's important. (I'm important.)
• No snacking is not killing me.
• It's okay to be hungry.
• I'm not too tired to do those baby strength-training exercises every day.
• I'd almost rather drink water than coffee. And I haven't had a diet soda since I started this, this, whatever it is. (Soda is not off-limits, I'm just drinking water instead.)

I'm at the very, very beginning of accepting that if I want to be able to play for a few more years, I'm going to have to do this work now. Otherwise, I'm going to end up on my ass or bedridden for the rest of my life, having other people take care of me.

It's that serious.

Fitting it all in

Kind of a late start today, even though I got up at the usual 6 a.m.-ish. (I thought you were supposed to be able to sleep late once you quit working at a regular job. Yes, taking care of my home is work, but it's certainly not anything I would call, um, regular! I am most definitely a lark when it comes to sleeping and waking.)

Anyhoo. I had a meeting with the owner of the garden center this morning and in order to be a good little wife I had to give up writing this morning to play a game of SuperScrabble with my husband. He's been on a roll lately, and I am not a very gracious loser, so it did start my day off pretty well to be able to STOMP him. Heh.

We take our SuperScrabble seriously here in the Middle of Nowhere.

Were it not for NaBloPoMo, I might have skipped writing today entirely, as I've very little to report. I walked yesterday afternoon and will walk again in a couple of hours. It's SuperWindy today, which is making the actual temperature of 29° feel like 19°. We're going to start out at 2 p.m., hopefully at the peak of the afternoon warmth. Got a couple nice pix walking yesterday, don't you think? Same barn from different directions.

We see this barn and outbuildings at the beginning of the walk.

Same barn from the opposite side, heading back to the car.

Last week I checked my weight every morning. That half-pound gain happened between the official Monday weigh-in and Tuesday, and I stayed the same all week. Perhaps that's helped me be able to accept the result this week.

I don't plan to weigh myself again until Monday, mostly because a weekend of restaurant meals is probably not going to look too good. But partly just to see how I react. I'm my own petri dish experiment, I guess, and in the end, I'll choose the method that allows me to feel the most OKAY on Mondays.

Honestly, though, I feel okay most of the time. I like the walking, I'm not hungry, I'm eating healthfully. I've not been very good about the yoga or weight training or drinking water, so there's a lot of room for improvement. All in all, though, the first eight weeks have been pretty good, both for me and to me.

Having something to focus on that I can't complain about: Priceless.

Can't get blogger to work this a.m.

For some reason it seems not-right to e-mail a blog post. I guess I'm
used to doing it MY way, checking the formatting, blah, blah, blah,
and when Blogger is being uncooperative, I feel like e-mailing a post
is a last resort and not as good. And you probably don't even notice
the difference!

We were away for the weekend, so no weigh-in this morning. One thing I
thought about all weekend, though, was this:

I should only eat when I'm hungry (I didn't do this all the time, but
I certainly did it most of the time, which is a big victory), and

It's okay to be hungry.

We had a great time on our little mini-trip, but it was punctuated
with two pretty bad shocks. If you read the blog Bo vs. BAC, which is
listed in my sidebar, you already know that Bo lost his battle with
cancer Saturday morning. He was a friend of a friend of my son's; I
never met him, but felt like I knew his wife, who took over the blog
when he was too ill to post. They have a little girl who will never
see her Daddy again, and that's just too sad for words.

The other was learning that the 25-year-old son of an old friend had a
motorcycle accident in September, and is paralyzed from mid-chest to
his toes. He was just a little boy when I met him, eight or nine I
think. I haven't stayed in touch with my friend, but thanks to Google
was able to find an e-mail address and send a short note.

If I ever feel overwhelmed or that life is not treating me fairly (I
rarely feel that way, I'm just sayin'), I hope I remember Bo and
Brian. We all have so much for which to be grateful.

Friday Quote Day

Discipline is making the choice

between what you want now

and what you want most.

~ Author Unknown

I'm not so sure I like the word "discipline," but I like – and am comfortable with – the concept of choice. I'd rather think not think of myself as an unruly delinquent. Discipline belongs in middle-school classrooms, not grown-ups' kitchen pantries.

Last night we did indeed have pizza, and it was my favorite variety: pesto sauce with mozzarella, fresh sliced tomatoes, kalamata olives, onions and grilled chicken, sprinkled with feta. I had just one slice.

By 8 p.m. I was a little hungry. I'd been alternately knitting and playing BlackBerry solitaire while watching television multitasking. I wished for ice cream, but none appeared, so I had a half cup of applesauce with a little cinnamon mixed in. By 9 p.m. I was ready to read for a while and go to sleep, still a little hungry but not uncomfortably so.

It's okay to be hungry. Meals are so much more satisfying when I am ready to eat, rather than when I eat by the clock. But I'd rather not go to bed hungry. I think maybe I need to eat dinner later in the day (we usually eat around 5:30). I'll have to convince my husband that scheduling dinner for my needs is more important than watching The Ed Show.

Or Colbert Report reruns.

Thank goodness ...

blogging isn't my job, because I don't feel very inspired today. If I
had to show up for it, I'd be calling in sick.

I'm tired of bitching about the weather, but the weather is the be-all
and end-all of my life right now. We're in the midst of yet another
Winter Weather Catastrophe. What else can one say about bitter cold,
driving winds, icy roads, snow and more snow, and MORE SNOW?

Thank goodness for the Olympics, where we can watch, um, more snow.
And ice! (Actually I love the Olympics and find them a comforting
distraction. Maybe when they're over we'll start thawing out here in
the Middle of Nowhere.) But the fact that it's warmer in Vancouver
than it's been here since December is NOT comforting.

I went to bed hungry last night (not something that usually happens
around here). It's okay to be hungry, I kept reminding myself. I woke
up hungry, as well, but have only had coffee so far. I'm down to the
last quart of my last batch of fresh milk. I'm going to savor some of
it on a bowl of homemade granola, and make warm, COMFORTING bread
pudding with the rest. Mmmmm. Just thinking about turning the oven on
makes me feel better. Heh.

But enough about politics

Thanks for your comments yesterday, as well as the previous day. Bloggers love comments (hint, hint)! I left a reply, but I guess if you don't subscribe to the comments, you wouldn't know unless you came back and read the post again later. And who has time for that?

It looks as if the social-media pressure on Rush Limbaugh is working, in so many ways. Advertisers are bailing, stations have begun to drop the program and he continues to apologize. More importantly, President Obama's poll numbers are rising, particularly among women voters.

If only we could pressure Congress and get similar results.

My congressman is a Democrat, but he votes carefully so as not to upset the Southern Democrats who've kept him in office for 35 years. Don't get me wrong: I like him. I've met him, talked with him, visited his offices in West Virginia and in Washington, D.C. and will work hard to keep him in Congress. But he and the other moderates could and, in my opinion, should take advantage of the current huge lean to the left.

Don't get me started on our junior Senator.

Okay, moving on! It's Tuesday, and that means weigh-in day around here. Nine weeks in and I'm eight pounds down. I was able to get back on track this week but I gotta tell ya: Taking it off is so much harder and so much less fun than packing it on.

You've probably already figured that out, right?

weheartit.com

Although navigating Other People's Cooking wasn't really fun at all, now that I think about it. I was anxious and peevish and hungry. I'll probably never get to the point where I can just tuck into a big plate of forbidden fruit with joy and pleasure, but I hope I can get to the point where food is fuel. Not pleasure, not entertainment, not something to look forward to, not a battle, not a drag. Just food.

I'm guessing if you're reading this you might be hoping the same thing for yourself.

Eating lots of vegetables certainly turns food into fuel. I've been in a cooking slump lately, and it would be good to get that "I love to cook" mojo back again. Because I really do love to cook. The chopping and prepping is part of the cooking but lately it's Just Another Chore. I guess it comes down to making the decision to do whatever it takes to further my goal of once and for all getting rid of this lard.

So simple. And yet so hard.

We had lots o'snow yesterday morning so I worked out on the elliptical here at home. It's melted quite a bit already and it's going to be in the 60s today – spring in the Middle of Nowhere! – so look for a photo on Facebook later from my outdoor walk. And maybe tomorrow there will be one here from some fabulous South Beach-friendly new recipe I've found.

Better start looking …

It's melting, it's melting!

The current local temperature, according to the weather widget on my phone, is 37°. I'll take that. It might rain, and I'll take that, too. It's probably not going to get too much warmer today, maybe five degrees, but RAIN CAN'T TURN INTO ICE AT 37°!

Which means I'm going out today. Did you hear that? I'M GOING OUT TODAY! In the truck. To town. And maybe even to walk!

Those dark spots on the driveway are
where the snow used to be. Yay for melting!

I'm pretty darned proud of myself for climbing onto the elliptical every damned day for the past six days. Last time I was outdoors for exercise was exactly a week ago, when I alternated jogging and walking for a little more than four miles. And whether I am able to walk outdoors today or not, the very fact that the snow is melting and there won't be any additional ice (today) to keep me from going out is giving me hope, hope, HOPE!

Sometimes you just have to grab that string of hope and run with it.

Yesterday was less-than-productive, despite my good intentions. I ended up working on a friend's website for a while, then worked out, then fixed dinner (an old-fashioned chicken pot pie, yum!). I took a nap. I did NOT straighten up the secretary, nor did I go through the bookshelves.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Who among you will be joining me there? Heh.

Because I spent an hour on the elliptical yesterday, that 537-calorie serving of chicken pot pie didn't adversely affect my daily calorie count. In fact, I came in well below the target. I'm trying not to eat when I'm not hungry. I eat a snack when I want one. I eat three meals almost every day, I think I've skipped lunch a couple of times and breakfast once since the day after Christmas.

And I'm still having trouble eating at the level recommended by the LoseIt! app. Oh, well, it is what it is, as the young folk say. And if the weight is meant to come off, it will. If not? Oh, let's not go there. Okay?

In the still of the morning

The wolf moon has just slipped behind the mountain to the west. The sun is slowly creeping up behind the mountain to the east. The sky looks soft, dewy, impressionistic, all the colors blurred and blended. Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days.

The heat pump is humming and the coffeemaker is gurgling. It's a lovely, quiet beginning to the day. I'm grateful for electricity on cold mornings like this.

A warming trend is on the way, however. Today's expected high temperature will be double that of yesterday's, in the low 40s. Finally, an opportunity to walk outdoors again. I've missed it a lot, which indicates that I am enjoying moving more, despite the disappointment of Friday's scale result. Tomorrow and Tuesday will also be warm – unseasonably so for southern West Virginia – and I plan to take advantage of them outside, either along the creek or on my mountain.

The elliptical is a fine machine and provides an efficient workout. But I'd much rather have blue herons and mountain deer accompany me during a workout than a recording of Bill Maher or John Stewart.

I won't say I'm an athlete, but the fact that I will work out indoors when I can't walk outside is a pretty big change for me. So let's talk about food for a bit.

As both of you know, I'll be 62 this year, and with age comes a balky metabolism. I've also been dieting since I was a child – I first remember trying to lose weight on a liquid diet at the age of 11. With my mother's blessing. My metabolism doesn't know what the hell to do to keep me upright and breathing. I think I killed it 20 years ago, during the low-fat phase.

When I was much younger, all the women's magazines published weight-loss menu plans that topped out at 1200 calories per day. The calorie deficit I created over the past four weeks had me eating a little less than that, on average. So if the starvation mode theory is true, that could account for only losing two pounds in four weeks. But in my mind, I was doing the right thing.

I wasn't hungry. I wasn't thinking about food or wishing I could have more. I didn't feel deprived. My meals go like this: I enjoy a serving of whatever and then I don't eat again until the next meal. I don't snack, except for a couple little pieces of dark chocolate sometime during the day.

The past two days, I've increased my food consumption significantly. Friday I was 13 calories shy of the target and yesterday it was just 2. I'm going to keep doing this for a week and weigh myself again on Friday, February 1.

I hope to see at least one pound gone. That's a reasonable amount of weight for an older adult female to lose in a week. One whose metabolism isn't dead. So we'll see if feeding myself a little more will make a difference.

My husband doesn't believe in this eat more/lose more theory, so we won't tell him, okay? He's older than I am and eats one meal a day and is in fine, fine shape. (And sometimes, maybe, thinks he knows it all. Sometimes.)

Your comments the past couple days have meant more to me than you'll ever know. I go back and read them again and again. I appreciate your support so much.

Thank you.

Day One DONE

Okay, so that went well (first day of Whole 30). And the way I feel this morning reinforces that a paleo plan – as I've said many times previously – is the way to eat that works best for me.

I've not really been off the paleo template, but if the general rule of thumb for "cheat" days is 80 percent on/20 percent off, I'd say I'm a fallen woman. Getting back on the horse, 100 percent, both feels and sounds very good to me.

Yesterday was somewhat challenging. Breakfast was fine, as it usually is – scrambled eggs with salsa and I "baked" a chopped apple, sprinkled with cinnamon, in the microwave. For lunch, though, I had to make mayonnaise before I could make egg salad and I was in a hurry to get out and take a walk before I had to go to a meeting. So no vegetables for lunch.

Dinner was terrific – I made a chili-ish stew-ish concoction in the slow cooker with ground beef (instead of bison), sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and spices. It was great to come home from that late afternoon meeting to have dinner ready and waiting.

The bigger challenge was that after the meeting I did a major stock-up grocery trip. And I was hungry. And we all know one doesn't shop for food when one is hungry. Had I not made the Whole 30 commitment, I would totally have bought something sweet-and-carby to eat in the car on the way home.

I think making the car off-limits for food (beverages are okay, as long as the beverages are black coffee or water) would be a good rule for the long term. I'm both an emotional eater and a sneak eater, and the car facilitates both behaviors nicely.

Yesterday's meeting was supposed to have been final proof of an annual report project, with few corrections. As it turns out, there are minor corrections for 90 percent of the book. I need to get busy, baby.

Again.

Lighten(ing) up

Okay, so apparently writing my intentions in a public space is one very motivating way to get me to clean my closet. I haven't done the shoes yet, but I managed to take one full trash bag to the end of the driveway for this morning's pick-up, and another one is ready to donate. I cleaned the dresser drawers, as well.

The sweatshirt experiment ended up in the trash bag. Removing the lower ribbing did, indeed, make the shirts too short for my liking. No matter, I didn't wear them anyway, so the attempt didn't destroy anything useful. Unless you have a use for cut-up sweatshirts. NO, WAIT, THEY'RE ALREADY IN THE TRASH.

Rule #1:

Don't retrieve anything from the garbage 

once it's been placed there. 

That goes for food, too. 

I've also been unsubscribing from e-mail lists, a few each morning, to reduce the amount of time and attention I need to spend in front of this screen. It's very clear to me that I'd rather play solitaire on my phone than just about anything else read e-mails.

Nearly all the cyber-based communications I've backed away from are political. The GOP is doing a pretty good job of self-immolation, and the next election I'll be involved in isn't until the Congressional contests in 2014. Taking some time off just feels right. And light!

Went for a four-mile walk with my friend Lynne yesterday. Here's the cloud shot I took:

And the future looks bright for more walking – we've had some very cold days lately, but temperatures will be comfortable enough next week that I won't need three layers of clothing and two pairs of gloves. Yay for that! Looks like I could start planting peas next week. KIDDING!

Lest you think all is glitter and unicorns – or glittery unicorns – I must report my first fitness FAIL. I was supposed to lift those dumbbells yesterday, but never managed to get around to it. It's not that I didn't have time. I have more time than just about anything else. I did squats and lunges and pliés, oh my, but kept resisting and resisting and RESISTING picking up the dumbbells.

What's up with that? I'm going to do them this morning, go for a walk later and find a good sun salutation yoga video for tomorrow.

I was hungry last night after dinner. Watching the Sugar Bowl will do that. Mmmm, sugar. I ended up drinking a large glass of water (my other fail so far, I'm still not drinking water in the quantities I'd like – BABY STEPS), which helped, and I went to bed before the game was over. Which is a great strategy for not eating, by the way. Rule #2 is

NO EATING IN BED

One day down … done and DUSTED!

Yesterday was perfect!

Four-mile walk? Check.
Three clean meals? Check.
No snacking? Check.
LIFTING TINY DUMBBELLS? CHECK!

I hadn't even planned to lift my little (3-pound) dumbbells yesterday, but they were right there in plain sight as I was tying my shoes to go walk and I thought, "Why not?"

I'm so awesome.

It's really amazing how much better I feel this morning, not just physically, but emotionally. I'm not a loser! I can and DID do what I said I would do.

And I will do it again today.

I made my all-time favorite paleo meal for dinner last night. I didn't have chicken tenders, so I cut four chicken breasts into three long pieces each (which is probably how Tyson creates chicken tenders, eh?). I then dusted the pieces with chili and garlic powder, wrapped each one in a strip of bacon and baked them in a 350° oven.

An hour later we were eating half of them, along with sautéed zucchini/peppers/onions/carrots. The remaining pieces will be sliced to top a big salad for tonight's dinner.

Planning is KEY when you're following a paleo diet. Making twice as much last night as I needed was easy, although my husband would have eaten all of them if I'd let him.

Yes, he likes them that much.

Having those dumbbells in plain sight was good planning.
Walking earlier, rather than later, was good planning.
Eating when I was hungry, not just because it was "time to eat," was good planning.

And good planning led to a very good day.

(An aside: It feels kind of weird to have started over on a Thursday, and the 4th of the month. Okay, it feels really weird. But, as the young folk say, it is what it is and IT WORKED!)

Now it's time to do it all over again.

How was your Thursday?