WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR APRIL 2014

This looks like an excellent group for me. I am 67 and retired. I was doing another program for about two years and decided to come back to MFP.

My goal for April is to lose 8 lbs, do weight training 3 x week and track daily.

Good grief! It's Sunday already! I'm taking the kids swimming at 3:00 and wanted to get some drafting jobs done before, but it looks like that's not going to happen. It's 1:00 and I'm still in my jammies, but I have managed to get a load each of laundry and dishes done. I had a really good lunch today. Low sodium tomato soup from Trader Joe's in my new soup mug I bought yesterday. Love them both! Plus, I cut some of my homemade bread into croutons, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic, and baked them in the oven and put them in my soup. Yummy!

Here is today's joke:

:laugh:

“Have you got any kittens going cheap?” Asked a customer in a pet shop.

“No, sir,” replied the owner. “All our kittens go “Meow.”

:laugh:

Today's pearl of wisdom was nice too:

Kindness to Others
When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own.

- Anonymous


Have a great day!

Sylvia

Had a wonderful day at church. I love singing in the choir, have made some dear friends and had the Lord's supper today. So it was a good day. I was able to beat the chocolate urge this weekend so far. Our youngest daughter, the one who lives here in town, goes out to eat with us every Sunday. It's our way of taking her out for a nice meal once a week and checking in with her to see how she is doing. She is not one who would call every day like her sister would if she lived in town. She really wants to go to Red Robin. She hasn't gotten on this diet thing yet. We are hoping that since her sister finally saw the light that Michelle would to. She likes Red Robin because it is bottom less french fries:frown: :noway: She gets tired of the places we go to so I told Charlie that we really need to just go and I'll find something to eat. Surely they have something. I'll check the website. I want her to know that we hear her and value her opinion.

Joyce, Indiana

You can definitely find something healthy on the Red Robin menu! Instead of a ground beef burger on a bun with bottomless fries and a coke you can get a chicken breast wrapped in lettuce with a side salad, Lite Ranch on the side and unsweetened ice tea! I think your Sunday tradition is fabulous. Good job Mom:flowerforyou:

well I am down for the count... I think one of the cysts on my kidney burst, I am having right flank pain, so I am lying down with a heating pad and 2 dogs parked on top of me... cant take any meds...so will wait it out.. just glad this didnt happen yesterday..

Grandmallie,

Ouch! That sounds painful! I have a son who had a kidney transplant 17 years ago.

Good afternoon,

Deedee:drinker: .

Kathrine from Kansas love the poppies reminds me of my friend when she lived in Belgium.

Class on emotional outburst helped me review how to help my students and myself. She divided how people respond into three categories. The level headed, the ticking time bomb, the explosion. She explained where interventions are most helpful in the levelheaded time. In other words make the plan in the level headed stage. Once a child in the ticking time bomb stage it is time to initiate the plan. By using the plan it hopefully circumvents the explosion stage. What I found most thought provoking was she said there are patterns that children have to cope with their emotions. The problem when it goes the explosion route is the brain if the patterns are not changed the brain will go to explosion route again. One way to check in if someone is escalating is to check on the heart beat. If that is going up that is a good time to intervene. Interventions include placing a gentle hand on the child if not sensitive to touch, taking a break, a walk, breathing, tapping, doing a yoga exercise, taichi, and setting a limit. Sitting still does not always work because the energy level is rising. Punching a pillow or screaming only escalates the situation. Prevention includes diet, exercise, rest, avoiding stressful situations if possible, and having appropriate stimulation.

An insight I had when it comes to the abusive personality. If a person does get to the explosion stage when it is over they fell lousy. That helps explain why an abuser is so apologetic and swears they will not do it again. Unfortunately if the patterns are not changed the explosion will come again with all its damage and chaos.

The levelheaded, ticking time bomb, and explosion reminded me of changing my diet. It is easier to make my plan about what to do with my diet when I am calm and feeling full. The ticking time bomb is when I am confronted with temptations that are hard for me to resist. That is where the plans I made when I was level headed need to come forward. The explosion is when I overeat. The next day I feel lousy and tell myself never again. Since I have started making plans in the levelheaded stage I have had fewer explosions.

She did warn that when you start helping children with these issues it often is worse before it gets better. Again reminds me of dieting.

Goal:
Today I will keep my blood sugar even by eating whole foods at mealtime and snacks and avoid highly processed foods, so I wake up feeling better and stronger tomorrow.

2014 word: contentment

Margaret

Reba, Jane AS ( there are a few Janes), Katherine, Donna, April and other newbies whose names I missed – Welcome, love to have you!

Sylvia – great definition of Emotional Abuse!!!
And I was faced with a BBQ place a few days ago; (knew it was coming so did some web page research) and found that a pulled pork sandwich was not as bad as I would have expected – ate ½ and brought ½ home and that worked well for me. I don’t know about your place; but it gave me hope for BBQ in the future.

Michele – sorry that newcomer situation is so difficult ! I am in a club and when it is touching on the budget the committee chair has to be involved.

Wife of Pastor – day or night there is someone on this thread cheering someone else on! We have ladies from all over the world so it is a fun place to have friends and learn about what others are doing!

Tere – 6.4 lbs is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:bigsmile:

Alison – take care!!!! Sending good thoughts

Lila – Gardening is a double dip – it makes your yard look good; and counts as exercise! Love it. :happy:

Yanniejannie – Go see Bruce! Seeing him in concert is on my bucket list – :laugh:

Joyce – my nephew is like your DD loves red robin, they have a great web page for making the calories work, there is a salad that I love just have them leave off a couple of things and good to go!

Kay in WA – congrats on the loss ; Sorry about the cathing for your son….:frown:

Margaret- sounds like a great class – really interesting

I picked up a friend from the airport today and took her home, she was at a niece's wedding, we had not seen each other in about a month so it was nice to catch up - but the first thing she said to me - was " You are looking really good" I grinned from ear to ear ! love the NSV's almost more than the scale victories.

All that gardening has me a bit sore today, which is weird as I do a lot of gardening - just must have moved different! It is beautiful out today and I want to be back in the yard, but really need to get some embroidery done, as I will be busy with some other things this upcoming week.

So better get to it.
Smiles Kim in sunny 75+ degree N. CAL

I'm not sure I'm going to take the kids swimming anymore, unless I can get another adult to come with me. It's too hard for one person to watch three very active kids. (The lifeguard had her eyes closed part of the time, so I didn't have any confidence in her to help me keep them safe.). The girls are doing so much better swimming though, after a few lessons. But that means they are braver and go farther away from me. The little guy won't give up his floatie, but he's like a motorboat in that thing. Everybody yells "look, grandma!" At the same time from three different parts of the pool. And today they were bickering and trying to drown each other. I came home stressed out and having angina. Took a nitro.

Tonight for dinner I made some amazing wide flat noodles I got at trader joes that were lemon pepper flavored. I've never seen any noodles like that before. I made chicken breast seasoned with mrs dash lemon pepper, and tossed them together with a tiny bit of olive oil. Yummy! And very low sodium. I'm going to buy those again. For dessert I made hubby an angel food cake and strawberries. I had a small slice. I love baking angel food. It's like magic! I haven't made one since I got sick, so it's been a while.

I'm going to bed early.

Sylvia

WifeofPastor - welcome! I wouldn't say that I hate the "like" button, I just don't feel that it means much at all. Anyone can just hit "like", that doesn't mean that they even LOOKED at your menu. Whenever I make a comment, I try to mention something in the menu so that the person knows that I, did indeed, look at it. Even a comment like "good job" really doesn't mean that the person even looked at your menu. But it does mean that they at least went out of their way to make a comment. I'm so sorry that your reno is turning more and more into a larger project than you anticipated. Guess we just have to look at it as any reno that was done, even tho it isn't correct by today's standards, hopefully was done correctly by the standards of the time it was done. Is it possible that your body just doesn't want to go much below 145? Congrats on your weight loss, how much did you lose in total and how long did it take to lose it? Keep coming here and you'll get lots of encouragement.

Tere - congrats on the loss!

Katherine - welcome. Boy, you sure have a lot on your plate. Come in often

Donna and April - welcome! You CAN do it!

alison - so sorry you are in such pain. Maybe, tho, it is a blessing in disguise. Now you HAVE to take care of yourself.

yanniejannie - I do hope you decide to see Bruce

Shirley - welcome

katla - enjoy the time with your son

Joyce - what a wonderful mother you are

Did an hour of Denise Austin Belly Fat DVD today, tomorrow the plan is to do about 10 minutes of pilates, hold my plank and then take the extreme pump class

This a.m. I went to this lady's house who made a costume for Jessica. I think it came out real nice. Honestly, if Jessica had given her more time, she could have made it more realistic. Then we drove up to Lexington (VA) to get Jessica's cats and brought them here (4 hrs one way). I have this quilt that I'm making for my friend (I think I told you about it). It's a real easy pattern, so I take it and work on it at the Green Room. Today I did more work on it in the car.

I'll probably sleep with Jessica's cats tonight.

So not a whole lot of time. Thinking of you all.

Michele in NC

:mad: :explode: :sad: I just typed a really long post and it all disappeared!! I'll try again tomorrow. It's past my bedtime tonight. :yawn:

Hope everyone has a good sleep!

Carol in NC

Just a quick note tonight. to say thank you for the warm welcome. To answer a couple of questions:
Yes I'm a Pastor's Wife and tired of moving, hoping this will be our permanent home as we now have two houses here... not planned but a member needed to rent a larger place and as we couldn't sell and want this house, we decided to rent her our smaller home.
In 2000 when I had my leg amputated below the knee I went up to 175 lbs, have never been that heavy ever, when I was pregnant I only weighed in at 132 lbs. I began this current journey originally at 165 and lost 20 but put back most of it so this time I began at 161 lbs and am now down to 145 lbs. I feel I can loose more but not going to stress over it.
My body is getting older than I want and I get extremely frustrated with that fact. DH is saying it is time I stopped being the stand in organist at church due to the pain it causes me in not only my body (due to the bench and keyboard being so low, but with the osteoarthritis now in the base of my thumbs playing is very painful... I hate to leave the church without any guiding music so today I played parts of the liturgy and some of the verses for the hymns, dh was OK with that compromise for the time being.
Time for me to hit the sack as I am very tired and 6:00 am comes early and II still can't get to work on time at 8:00. Good job my bosses understand that health issues make me slow in the mornings getting moving. I'm sure I shall tell you more as I get to know each one. It lookas as if we all have our own problems and the one in common of trying to keep our weight under control or loose it.
Thanks for reading.
Ronnie
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

ronnie, AKA wifeofpastor, my Mom, also preachers wife, was also the organist for many years. Loved the job, the music and being by Dad's side but also had bad back and knee problems. I remember well the Sunday Mom played her last time on the organ. It was a very hard day for her.

Joyce, Indiana

Good morning everybody; hope for all of us that this is the beginning of a good week!

Michele: I sometimes use the like button if I don't have any particular comment after reading the diary (I always do read them).

:flowerforyou: for everybody,
Cynthia

Hi gbutterfly, welcome. I would guess that it might be time to look for exercise that doesn't injure you, like walking (you could build up speed and/or incline later), swimming or cycling (start with low resistance). Listen to your body; if you keep getting injured you're probably not doing yourself any favors. :flowerforyou:

Cynthia

Good morning!

gbutterfly - I have joint problems, especially in my left knee. My frustrstion is that I can't dance, which I used to love. My exercise regime is mostly on machines - rower, elliptical snd recumbent bike. I have to be very careful on the elliptical as if I try to do intervsls my knee immediately swells up. I do all this for about one hour- the machines say about 420 - 440 cals.
I then do strength training and floor exercises. Dumbbells, planks, push ups, crunches etc. About 20 mins. Also balance exercises. Once a week I have a rest and go to a yoga class!
I am lucky in that I don't work so I have the time. I find this doesn't stress my joints too much. Rowing is good provided you build stamina and strength up slowly and don't wrench your back by going at it like it like a mad thing!:laugh: If my knee is playing up I can even do it one legged!
You can google floor exercises and chair exercises so there is no excuse! ! ! !

Mindy - reading the above paragraph you would think I am an exercise fanatic. Quite the opposite. I have never been sporty and only really liked dancing or a bit of tennis as exercise. I used to hate getting sweaty. Even with swimming, which I can do, I didn't like all the getting in and out of the pool. Too much hassle, though I did do it because I felt I had to.
I have though got into a regime with my exercise such as I feel bad if I don't do it. This is largely down to to DH who has always had a regime of regular exercise. He does it with me and encourages me, rather like your personal trainer, except he comes free!:laugh: My main motivation started off as wanting to lose weight for vanity reasons, but I soon realised the health benefits. I was in a pretty bad state. Now the fear of putting the weight back on gets me in there! I love to eat and I have to earn my calories. My natural inclination is to stay in bed reading all day!:laugh:

I am very pleased to say that I weighed myself today and am only a few ounces up after my mega eating trip away. I gave myself three days to let things settle. Great relief and happiness!:bigsmile:

Bye for now, Heather in damp Hampshire UK

Hello to All, Welcome Newbies,
I'm disappointed with myself, I gained back two of the four lbs I lost last week. I need to stick with what works and not "find" my weight again. I got caught up in things again and didn't log food. why is it I think I can eat things when I doin't log? They are certainly not any less calories when not logging.
I did get my cycling class in Saturday and an hour of Yoga, we also went dancing Saturday night so I think in the back of my mind I was thinking I burned more calories and could eat more. Since I wasn't logging it was so much easier to over eat and pick the wrong things.
Oh well, moving on. I watched my DGD Saturday and she is recovering from the reaction although still breaking out in hives. I watched her again on Sunday along with her brother. Yesterday was even better for her although again still dealing with the hives and the Benadryl makes her sleepy.
I wish I had the time to read back over the posts and reply but it is time to get to work. I will try to catch up later.
Wishing all a great week, Patty, Cincinnati