Monday, September 29, 2008 - Week 1 Day 5

I can't believe I have made it to day 5. The number on the scale is dropping. Mary Ann has been making regular appearances, though. The tiredness hasn't hit yet, but I woke up cranky this morning. The house is getting on my nerves because it needs a good cleaning and I don't seem to be making any progress. I have discovered that as the house goes, so goes my mood.

I think another reason for my mood this morning is that my mother would have been 76 today. I often wonder what life would have been like if she had lived longer than her 32 years.

She talks about preserving muscle by consuming protein before working out. I am going to walk outside today but I am taking weights with me because Monday's are strength training day. I am going to see what happens when I drink a protein shake before going out. Update later.

Type: Walk with 5 lb weights
Route: Deadend and back
Time: 34
Average heart rate: 117
Maximum heart rate: 132
Down 2.8 from last Monday

This was a first for me - taking weights on my walk, but it seems to work great. This would be a good option for people who can't run but can walk as the weights help to keep your heart rate up. It is pretty out this morning but it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. I hope it is all rained out by Saturday.

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Today and tomorrow the FlyZone is the living room. I am needing Flylady because I am letting my zone work slide. It seems like I work, work, work, and don't even have 15 minutes. But that's silly. Somewhere in my day I will find 15 minutes to declutter in my zone - yeah, I am still in the de-clutter stage.
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Tonight I also have one more batch of fudge to make and I also have to package up the stuff I've already made. Of course this week is Staff Meeting week.

Word of the Day
Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels
Gospel
Jn 1:47-51
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened
and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Thoughts from the cornfield
On this Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels, it's a good day to think about how much would be revealed to each of us if we lived in authenticity; if we lived without duplicity; if we lived as Jesus has asks us to live. We truly do entertain angels in our midst. Wouldn't it be nice to recognize them?

Interesting note:
Nathanael: "Gift of God"
Raphael: "God has healed"
Michael: "Who is like God?"
Gabriel: "God is my strength"
and my son's name,
Samuel: "his name is God"


God bless the troops!

Monday, June 30, 2008

On the lowcarb front:
Here are my stats for this morning:
Did treadmill intervals with weights
Time: 37 minutes
Average heart rate: 113 (hmmmmm, that's not very impressive)
Maximum heat rate: 161
Calories burned: 226
I am down .4 pounds from last Monday

During the slower intervals on the treadmill, I read DANDR. In the exercise section, I found something very interesting. Under the benefits of exercise listing I found the usual good stuff. But there was one thing listed there that I had missed in earlier readings of the book. Exercise decreases the output of insulin. And what does insulin do? It helps the body to store fat; not something I want to encourage my body to do. I think I am going to make a big sign and put it on the wall behind my treadmill. Regular exercise decreases the output of insulin.

On the home front:
Today is Monday, so that means I make soap, do laundry, and pay bills. The Fly zone this week is the living room. I think I am going to tackle weeding out videos and cds that no longer make me smile.

The UPS man dropped off some new fragrance oils so tomorrow I will be making some Hot Apple Pie jar candles. I mixed up some with the fixitive for simmering potpourri. I've been testing the spiced orange clove mixture. Simmering potpourri is a much gentler scent than candles or tarts. There are some days I just don't want a heavy scent.

I need labels . . . . and Anna is gone for the week with her cousins who have a Christian drama ministry. They also have three little punkins so Aunt Anna is Nanny Annie this week. (Oooooh, I hope she doesn't read this. LOL!)

The new soap dishes came today, also. I am really excited about these. Wednesday is photo day for the website so I will be doing the photography then.

Word of the Day
Matthew 8:18-22
Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Another of his disciples said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Reflections from the cornfield:
It's easy to give lip service to following Jesus. Jesus doesn't let these two get away with it. He spells out exactly what is required to truly follow him.

This is from today's psalm: PS 50:16,17

“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”

Pretty apt, wouldn't you say?
You can't fool mother nature and you can't fool God . . . . . . but of the two, only God is merciful.


God bless the troops!

Weigh-in - June 8, 2008

On the lowcarb front:
I am down 1.8 for the week. That is not a stellar loss, but - hey - a loss is a loss. Since I was supposed to be doing Induction, I had hoped for more. As I said yesterday, I found several errors in my implementation of Induction. I think for this week I am just going to limit carbs to under 30 and then begin Induction again next week when school is out. I will have more time to concentrate on what I am doing and more time to plan out Induction menus. I want to do things exactly as Dr. Atkins wrote them so that I will have a benchmark to work from. One thing that irks me to no end is when people take liberties with Atkins and then blame Atkins when they don't lose. I do not want to be one of those people.

One thing I will not do this week is throw the whole Atkins WOE out the window. I have felt way too good this week. And this is coming from someone who is in the throws of hot flashes and the weather has been hot and we do not have air conditioning in the house. I have been pretty even tempered even while phasing off of some of my meds. Some of the foods I will be using this week are not approved for induction and they need to be used up. DH dropped a package of Dixie Diner/Dobie muffins out of the freezer and I stuck them in the fridge because we were going out the door and we were late. I have to use those up this week. I also have some yogurt that needs to be used.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I use a program called Diet Power. I love it. It keeps track of all kinds of things that I don't have time to put into spreadsheets. It also gives a projected progress line which keeps me motivated. I have tried lots of other programs, but I keep coming back to this because it is so user-friendly.

Today's menu:

Breakfast:
Mocha latte
Dixie diner/flaxmeal muffin
1 T. Smucker's natural peanut butter

Dinner:
Romaine and spinach salad
Omelette with cheese, sour cream, and salsa

Supper:
Not sure yet -

On the Flylady front:
I absolutely am chomping at bit the for school to be out. Clutter has been building since I got behind at Easter. The house is driving me nuts. The laundry room is torn up in anticipation of a new window being put in. That hasn't happened yet because of the whole well pipe leakage problem. Remember the cubby I had to clean out? Well that stuff had to go somewhere so at the moment I am suspending Flylady's zones in favor of getting rid of some of the junk I have accumulated. I found a whole box of floppy disks. Does anyone even use these anymore?

On the home front:
Today we celebrate our son Sam's birthday. He is 26 and the youngest of our four kids. Where on earth did the time go? It seems like just yesterday that I was 26. We will be celebrating at Sam and Kelli's house tonight - our family and Kelli's family. I love it when both sides of the family get together. Kelli's family is great and they love Sam. Warms the heart, it does. It's been a long year for Sam. He has been trying to build his business (he owns a collision shop and does auto body work) and he had a lot of zoning and legal hoops to jump through. On the one hand, I am glad that those hoops are there. Sam's business is on his property which is out in the country.

Farm folks have a vested interest in keeping country looking like country. Sam is a farm boy so he is heartily in favor of keeping the ever-shrinking rural areas in the hands of the family farmer. All the same, when you are young and trying to get started, it can be frustrating. Kelli's folks and all of us were at every zoning meeting cheering Sam on. My sense was that the zoning board and the planning commission were very much on board with what Sam wanted. However, as the head of the zoning board said, "it's never about the guy sitting here at the table. It's about keeping the language clear so that other's can't come in and put up a Walmart." Well, he didn't say Walmart, but you get the drift.

Now let me make one thing clear, I have no issues with Walmart. I am a capitalist. It does make me sad to see acres and acres of farmland transitioning from agriculture to urban growth, but Walmart is not the one forcing the family farmer out of business. It is other farmers - huge corporate operations that are contributing to the decline of the family farm, but I won't get into that particular rant today.

Farming used to be more than a way to earn a living. It was a lifestyle. There were trade-offs. The average farmer was not rich in the way that CEO's of large companies are, but there are other sources of wealth. There is no price you can put on the view out your kitchen window on a snowy winter morning, or the wonderful life that country kids have. I grew up in the city - a suburb of Detroit. Having that vantage point, I am extremely grateful that our kids had the opportunity to experience life as part of a farm family. I work in a school and I will tell you that I can spot a farm kid a mile away. They are just different. The work ethic is unique. I remember when Sam was on his high school wrestling team. He quit his job on a dairy farm to give his all to the team. Unfortunately he had a coach who didn't appreciate the sacrifice that Sam made. That coach could have taken Sam's strong work ethic and team loyalty and really used it to the team's advantage. But he didn't. Too bad for Sam and too bad for the team. Well, enough of that for now. I have to get ready for church and another Sunday hangin' out with the family. Does life get any better than that?

Later . . .

Wed. June 4 - Day 3 Atkins Induction

On the Lowcarb Front:
This is day 3. I have 2 days of Atkins induction behind me. Do you think the scale rewarded me? Nope. I am up a half pound. The sticks are stubbornly not purple. (Yes I know they don't turn purple for everyone, but they always have for me. I have a theory about this. At my age, the TOM days are behind me, but . . . I have a suspicion that certain hormonal cycles still continue. There was only one time when those the sticks didn't turn purple (assuming I wasn't off track) and that was during TOM. Even though the scale and the sticks are not co-operating, I am committed to this 2 week stint. Hopefully, some day soon, the "woooosh fairy" will visit me.

I had intended to work out this morning, but it didn't quite pan out. What I need to do is just get it over with first thing in the morning so that I have it. Hopefully, as the weight goes down and I have more energy, I will get myself moving sooner in the morning.

I have been doing pretty well on drinking water too!

Here is today's menu:

Breakfast:
1 piece lowcarb cheesecake
mocha latte (coffee with cream)

Snack:
Atkins Caramel Brownie bar

Lunch:
Romaine lettuce with bacon bits and ranch dressing
Chicken salad on revoloopsie rolls

Dinner:
Omelette with salsa and sour cream

On the home front:
The boxed toilet is still sitting in the dining room. Tonight is supposed to be the night.

On the Flylady front:
Worked on decluttering the laundryroom (entryway). The guys are going to be putting in a new window which happens to be in the cubby where I keep all of my music files for church. The cubby wouldn't need decluttering if that's all I kept there, but it seems to be a catchall for those things I just don't know what to do with. Like that brand new keyboard in a box that I might need some day. Actually, that is probably a legitimate keeper. The 10 year old planners could probably take a hike. Anyway, the bookcase that sits in the cubby is now empty and awaiting the putting in of a new window above it. Of course I still have to deal with the stuff I took out of it, but there are only so many 15 minute segments in a day until school is out for the summer.

I have another wake service tonight and a funeral tomorrow.

On the Kimkins front:
The Fascination thread is strangely quiet which makes me wonder if there is something going on behind the scenes that some of us are not privy to.

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