I am a fiftysomething grandma, post bariatric patient who needs to remember the old habits of calorie counting. Growing things is therapy and I like cooking from scratch.

I figured It out, Kerri!

Good Morning ladies. This, MFP, is my first attempt at any sort of social networking so I apologize in advance for being awkward. I much prefer a face to face conversation but these days that's a bit old fashion, not to mention impossible in some cases.
I, too am a grandmother jgnatca. Only two grandkids though, but I've been "daycare" for their working parents since they were 3 months old so maybe two is enough. lol! Up until a year ago I also cared for my mom, who I lost to cancer. Cruel disease, my heart is broken.
My husband is handicapped, in that he can only walk short distances. I have spent most of my life as caregiver, still do. It is who I am, but at some point, as I got older I suspect, I forgot to care for me. After I lost Mom I went to hell, quite frankly. I've always been healthy, active - I was raised to be that way - but stages in life and generally ignoring my own health put me in a bad way. Medications for this or that... "you're getting older and..." was the phrase.
So, early in February I decided to do something - enter South Beach - I lost 10 pounds BAM! in a matter of two weeks....!! Then nothing, no weight loss for days, weeks - not an ounce. I was ready to scream, then I stumbled onto MFP. I've been here 6 days, I think...
I realize the initial 10 pounds on South Beach was fluid...ok. And that you can't eat a pound of bacon to avoid a cupcake. By logging my food, every bite, I realized my calorie intake and portion sizes where that of a lumberjack, not a 60 year old woman, and I'm only 5'1" tall. I'm learning that I can have a wide range foods with this "life style" as long as I'm smart and eat small portions. I weighed myself this morning and I've dropped five pounds since I began MFP. I find that amazing, but moreover I feel good. I'm eating healthy. Don't get me wrong - I could eat a mountain of cheese cake right now. Left alone, in the right mindset, on a gloomy day - yeah boy ya betcha!! But I can't do that to me now.
Going to the green house! Hope to get seeds in dirt!

Kerri, when I think of the portions I was eating a few months back it blows my mind. Now I get hungry between meals, big time, but I'm learning to use healthy snacks to help get from one to the other. So far it's working.
Jellis, a lot of veggies grow great in pots. I have several large and some not so large raised beds and yet I'll always plant a favorite cherry tomato or cayenne pepper in a pot on the patio. In case space is an issue and you haven't already thought of it- use a sturdy trellis for the cucumber - most varieties climb well with a little coaxing.

Hello fellow gardeners! I'm Rae from the beautiful state of Oregon, USA. I've been an avid gardener for the past 25+ years and I've had my share of successes and failures. I tell people I have a "light-green thumb" because not everything always turns out, but I enjoy it so I have kept on trying. I'm also a very frugal person. I absolutely hate waste and I HATE paying big money for produce when I can grow my own. I have canned, frozen and dehydrated a lot of my bounty over the years so I have quite a lot of experience.

All the above aside, this is the first year I am not planning a large vegetable garden. Ugh! I'm already feeling the twinges and longingly glancing at seeds as I pass through the hardware store. I just couldn't resist joining this group hoping it will satisfy a bit of my garden cravings vicariously. I won't ever stop with the flowers and a few veggies, but my days of a big garden might be over . . . . or at least back-burnered for a wee bit .

Here's a bit of my garden history:

Nearly 28 years ago my husband and I (along with 2 young sons) moved to the country to an old farmhouse with 2.5 acres. I told him I wanted a garden. He knew a guy down the road with a tractor. One day I went to town for groceries and when I came home I had a tilled up garden plot. Nearly 1/2 an acre of a garden plot! Yikes! I planted up the whole thing and then all I did was weed and water, weed and water for the entire summer. My little boys had zero interest, but they loved playing in the yard while Mommy was gardening. We had a lovely crop of everything you can imagine and I spent weeks (months?) putting it all up.

Every year thereafter the garden plot got a bit smaller and smaller because my boys got bigger and bigger. They were very active in sports and I just didn't have the time to dedicate to it while we were traveling around watching their sporting events.

About 10 years ago I switched from a regular in-the-ground garden plot to raised beds. Hallelujah! What a concept! The planting and weeding became easier, but it was still a bit of work. Mostly, it was my therapy and also good exercise so I continued for a long time. My husband works for a manufacturing company and he would bring home all these odd-sized wooden boxes and packing crates to use for garden boxes. It looked a bit odd but I didn't mind. We just kept adding them in a grid pattern until we had about a dozen or so. We also have a second fruit garden with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, marionberries and rhubarb. We just put that one in last year.

One day this winter I was staring out my kitchen window, contemplating my ramshackle packing box veggie garden, when my husband came up behind me. We both stared out the window for a bit and then he asked if I was thinking of not doing it this summer. Gosh! We've been married a long time because he was reading my mind. We've got a lot of remodeling projects going on, we've got grandkids now that we love to spend time with and we have some traveling plans coming up. Maybe it's time for a little break? SO, we are taking a break this year and see how it goes. I'm still going to plant some tomatoes in pots, work more on the berry garden and who knows? A stray zucchini or lemon cucumber might randomly pop up in my flower bed!

trials and errors... forgive me, it's early and I watched basketball last night....

Hazel, I love the look of your "allotment" and the fact that you travel out of your way to do some of your gardening is admirable! I've been in my raised beds all morning, tilling, raking and weeding the lettuce, onions and greens...can't wait for warmer weather to get full into it.
40 pounds lost - excellent!! I'm sure by losing the weight counting calories you've learned the value of growing fresh veggies and fruits.

Somehow missed your post, Blondie. Too bad the varmints brought your veggie gardening to a halt. I have several raised beds for my veggies and they're near the house, and I have about half an acre around the house fenced. Fenced to keep the deer out and the dogs in, when they're outside. Anything I hope to keep has to be within the fence. I don't mind really, I love the deer - they are beautiful animals. They graze every evening in the orchard I see from my patio. Last evening there were 15 - sometimes more.
I love my flower gardens, too. I especially love working in my rose garden -I've a few antique roses that I cherish.
Are you sufficiently frightened enough to try to lose the weight now? Sometimes that's what it takes but please be determined - not frightened. We'll help.

OBXbrit wrote: »

trials and errors... forgive me, it's early and I watched basketball last night....

I watched basketball last night, too! NCAA Women's games. My Oregon girls are moving on to the third round!

What were you watching?

Hi Kids! I found my group! Hooray! I have a crazy suburban yard where I have 15 fruit trees and 12 veggie bins, all currently empty. Waiting for next weekend. I am a master gardener in California, which means I learn from my mistakes and know where to get good information. I use Mfp as part of my new training plan with a trainer and nutritionist who has recently given me ideal macro counts for my journey. Looking forward to planting soon, but I am proud to say my recent COSTCO card looked greener than it ever has. There should be an award at the checkout. I am 51, Navy wife, parent of a college son, and high school daughter. I have 3 cats, a pug, and fish in the fountain. And a truck named Duke who hauls my garden goodies!

Hey kids! Since I see a lot of newbies on this thread (which is AWESOME), thought I'd share a couple tips for posting in a group or forum. Just in case you didn't know these things, because I didn't when I first started . . . .

If you click on the little star at the top of the thread, then you will get a notification every time someone posts on the thread.

The notifications are found up at the top on the right hand side of any of the community pages on the MFP site. Just click on the little bell and you'll see your notifications. The drop down menu will take you directly to the page.

Also, if you put an @ in front of someone's user name, then they will also get a notification when you comment on something they've said. For example, I wanted to say thank you to @kerrimiller2018 for starting this group! This will be a lot of fun! And welcome @no6016! Now, they will both get a notification that I mentioned them in a post. You also get notified if someone clicks on "quote" (below) and then replies to your post.

Happy posting!

Thank you, @RaeBeeBaby! I am new to this, the group thing, the social networking all together...So, much appreciated!
Question to put to you all -
Yesterday I loaded firewood into the Ranger at the barn, unloaded it at the garden shed, split two wheel barrow loads and wheeled them to the patio.... surely this should count as exercise. I'm running into this problem nearly everyday. I don't have a gym membership, I don't have exercise equipment at home - I do practice yoga, stretches every morning, and sometimes at other times of day - when there's time and I can get away from the chaos. So you see, a lot of what is listed doesn't apply, as for substituting I'm simply guessing...can't be accurate. ?
Gardening - it's there, but what about shoveling and hauling a truckload of manure. That's just not the same as planting and weeding.

I've done plenty of wood loading and hauling and it IS hard exercise! I've also hauled rocks around my yard for various planting bed projects and little rock walls. The MFP database doesn't have wood hauling/splitting or rock wall building in their database. LOL

You CAN create a custom exercise if it's something you think you'll be doing frequently. I've made a few of them myself. It's a little trial and error to get it right, but it works. You have to find an exercise in their database that seems equivalent in effort and then you can go by the calorie burn for that.

For example - I created an exercise for Disc Golf. It's something my husband and I do quite frequently. Sometimes the disc golf courses are pretty rugged and I carry my own bag which weighs between 10-15 pounds. So, I used "hiking with 10 pound pack" as my comparison exercise. Plugged in 60 minutes to see what the calorie burn was for an hour of hiking and then used that to build my custom exercise. Now when I log Disc Golf in my exercise diary it calculates it for me.

I was thinking for heavy gardening or wood hauling/splitting you could just use strength training, but it looks like general gardening is about the same calorie burn anyway.

It's kind of a guessing game with the exercise, as I'm sure MFP's calorie burns are not that accurate. It's still fun to keep track of it, though. Especially when you look back over a week and see how active you've been!