60 yrs and up

Receiving Christmas greetings via WhatsApp this morning from everyone on our Uzbekistan trip.

Shocked to realize it’s been 75 days now since returning and developing Reactive Arthritis from the Uzbek …..“Tummy”. Result was swollen and painful joints, eye issues, ER , Urgent Care and ophthalmological visits. Has cost a fortune (as much as the trip itself 😡) in medical bills and many hours of lost activity. Still can’t walk without pain and have cut steps drastically.

Silver linings;
It’s just a foot. It wasn’t a brain bleed like someone here suffered,

If I had it to do again, the trip was magical, I’d do it over, and I still feel fortunate to have had the experience.

Once again learned that swimming is the savior when you can’t walk. Thank heavens for having access to a pool, right?!

Retinal issue healed fine, can start doing fun yoga stuff again. ( As soon as it doesn’t feel like burning foot pain to do any Warrior or Crescent poses. )

Life Lesson: Learned that, just because urgent care bears the name of the plan-accepted hospital, doesn’t mean urgent care is also “in network”. 🤦🏻‍♀️



Here’s to 2025: no bike wrecks, no flying trapeze accidents, pain-free feet, and to using a life-straw on future travels. 👍🏻

And to everyone reading this: no brain bleeds, falls, breaks, tweaky backs knees or other vital spots, no pulls, or any other hazards of the “New You”s!

Oh, and, minor update: Despite the head injury limiting exercise intensity until after the neurosurgeon follow up on Dec 12, I managed to make it through the whole Concept 2 Holiday Challenge: 200k rowing machine, 400k stationary bike, or a proportional combination of both, between US Thanksgiving (Nov 28 this year) and Christmas Eve.

Since Thanksgiving was late this year, there were fewer days, so I needed to lengthen the workout durations a little versus previous years . . . especially during the "only mildest exertion permitted" phase of recovery before Dec 12.

I usually do 6 days a week workouts, 1 rest day. This year it was just under an hour on workout days; and I took one extra rest day when the head injury symptoms kicked up a bit. I hit 200,643m in rowing-equivalent meters yesterday, though it was 43,146 rowing meters, 314,983 bike meters.

I'm happy I could finish it.

On another front: Another couple of orchids have flowered in my foyer. Here's one, Gerberara 'Snow Ballet'. It has good-sized blooms, maybe a couple of inches across.

Ending the year with an ice cream experiment. Local Italian restaurant sells a few groceries and they had a jar of Calabrian Orange and Pepper jam. So tonight’s homemade ice cream was spicy (very!!!) orange ice cream. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

I’m planning on ham biscuits for dinner Friday, using up New Years leftovers, and I think it will also be delicious spread on those, after I use up my last spoonful of rhubarb ginger I’ve been hoarding.

Happy New Year, everyone!

CathyMcMac wrote: »

Hi! My name is Cathy. I am 65. Is this group still active? I could use a lot of support as I begin this journey.

Yes, ma’am, it is! Would be awesome to get some new blood here. Please post away, ask away, whinge away. It’s all good. 😁

Thanks for welcoming me! I am 65. I am looking to lose 30 to 40 pounds. It is so nice to have a group of people in my age range who care about our health. Plus, I still do care about how I look. Not trying to be 20 again. Just still want to have some pride. So glad to be part of your group!

So I am a massive fan of a Belgian meringue sold, apparently, only at Sprouts. I can usually only find two or three packages at a time, so when I find them in stock, I buy all they have.

The are 30 calories each, large, sweet, crunchy, sorta sweet umami, if that makes sense, and I enjoy them every single night. Two ingredients: sugar and egg whites. I don’t know why theirs are so delicious, but, Oh, My!!!

Jackpot! Sprouts had two full shelves and we filled a cart. We were the talk of the store. The manager even came up to surreptitiously take our photo.

So if you see a photo somewhere of some random woman buying a buttload of meringues, that’d be me.

😳😚

Cathy: fun experiment. Look up aquafaba meringues. Use half or even less the sugar called for. They cook up great, last several days if properly stored, and taste like cotton candy. Make sure you whip til peaks form like regular meringues, otherwise they’ll run all over the oven.

You can have your meringue for about 3 calories- if you can get past the idea of aquafaba. I love them. They make my husband and friends a little queasy.

I’m going to try some with granulated Sucralose soon, which, weirdly, would be too few calories to count if they work. Would also like try black bean aquafaba with a little chocolate extract, just for fun.

Don’t think”difficult” or “diet”. Think “fun time to experiment and think outside the box”!

PS one of the things that helped me a LOT was flavoring used (naturally low
cal) balsamic vinegar. A local shop sells them in a myriad of flavors: chocolate, pineapple, chili pepper, vanilla. My favorites are blueberry and strawberry on fruit and cottage cheese. I also like honey-ginger as a light stir fry sauce. They make fabulous marinades, ice cream sauce etc. You’ll find them in gourmet or kitchenware type shops. Oli+Ve will also ship.

Also check out Ninja’s frying pan. I can’t remember the name. It’s about $50. You have to preheat it well, but once preheated, you can brown meat, chicken, even stir fry and “sautee” vegetables, without oil. It also goes in the oven. I use it as a bain Marie for when I make homemade lo-cal cheesecakes.

I use it constantly.

I haven’t bothered with the other pieces from the set. I’m sure they’re good, but that frying pan is magic.

Also, the Ninja Creami ice cream maker is “tha bomb”. We have homemade ice cream or sorbet every night. Tonight is the last batch of yogurt/sugar free orange jello mix/spicy Calabrian orange and red pepper jelly. (“Bloom” jellos in some warm water first before adding it to the mix.) It was a whim, but we are loving the hot spicy ice cream. It’s like an orange creamsicle but with bite! I can easily make a very good chocolate ice cream for about 100 calories apiece if we split a pint (actually slightly over since 3 canisters require a little over 7 cups of mix) canister.

Add a 15 calorie squirt of reddiwhip. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

I just discovered the fanclub on Reddit and intend to do a deep dive in their recipe suggestions this weekend. That was where I learned to bloom the jello. I usually use instant sugar free mix, which can go right in.

CathyMcMac wrote: »

Hi! My name is Cathy. I am 65. Is this group still active? I could use a lot of support as I begin this journey.

Welcome, Cathy. You'll find a lot of support and camaraderie here.

Personally, I would not 'redo' under any circumstances. I would however gladly embrace a reverse-aged body with which to go forward with, especially knowing what I do now about maintaining it! 😘

Happy new year everyone, 2025 has begun! Cheers 🍻
I turn 65 this year, and my health (mental & physical) has improved much since I retired. I am so grateful to have been able to do that.

2024 was a good year for me, decent weight loss and fitness gains, hoping to rinse & repeat for this year 🙂

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I have to admit, I'm not very attracted to unachievable hypotheticals. I know you've read me typing this before, but I think one of the wisest signs in the world is the one we see in lots of places that says "You are here". It's the only place from which I can take the next step. In the case of aging, the choices are get older, or be over. As a cancer survivor and cancer widow, the truth of that is pretty sharp.

Partly because of that "I am here" orientation, I'm mostly with mtaratoot: I'm the sum of my past selves, and that's going to have to be OK. I'm not interested in going backward in age . . . not even very interested in looking backward yearningly. I can't change it.

My young self did some things that contributed to driving my middle aged self into a ditch, in some ways. It was fun for young Ann, but the later Ann paid the fare for it. (That realization is one of the things that has me trying to be a little kinder now to future Ann, not dig her more ditches unnecessarily.)

Another thing I've said on threads here - and it's true in a lot of ways - is that my 60-something self can do a lot of things physically that my 40-something self couldn't do nearly as easily, if at all. To the extent that's true, I think I kind of have reverse-aged my body a little bit, in the common cultural sense that tends to conflate age with disability. For many of us, I think that kind of reverse aging is somewhat possible at least for a while, and believing it's possible is part of making it happen.

There are pros and cons, but no, I wouldn't be 25 again. One of the things that troubles me about our culture is how desperately hard so many people seem to try to escape aging, perhaps more often visual aging rather than functional aging; and how youth is put on a pedestal. Youth is fine in its place, but so is aging, IMO. The only real alternative to aging isn't looking that great to me yet.

I am in a MFP group where we had a weekly challenge last month about this. We called it "no regrets." The challenge was to think off into the future and see who you might be. The challenge was to do TODAY things that the future you would not regret. Kind of an odd spin on regrets. Our little group has been faltering, but that's not relevant.

Your mention of "You Are Here" signs made me laugh too, but for another reason. I volunteer at an aquarium. They recently completed a significant remodel of some exhibits. They added a room with animals from farther away - all across the Pacific. It previously focused only on local animals in our little part of the Pacific. There is a new interpretive sign that shows how all the ocean currents interact around the world. It was a sad statement to me that they had to put a "You Are Here" arrow on that map because some folks probably can't identify their location on a map of the world. That's kind of sad.

Happy New Year!

I would watch International House Hunters with you! That's so funny.

Similar to You Are Here, I read a wierdo book in my awakening years with the mantra Be Here Now, and it has always stuck with me. It was written by Richard Alpert who had been a colleague of Timothy Leary's and was now called Baba Ram Dass!

I am lmao. When I first started, I had a chocolate issue. I’ve been sharing around here that I created a smoothie that tasted like a Wendy’s Frosty, and that’s what kept me on track til I lost my weight. I had it for breakfast, and sometimes as a snack, it was that good.

Well, I was fooling around in Recipes and found that original recipe! I had forgotten it and thought it must be ooooo eeeeee, since it was so effective, right?

I am gobsmacked. High calorie, low protein, high carb, basically very little nutritional value.

But it worked.

Ain’t it funny what the mind can do?!

CathyMcMac wrote: »

Springlering62 you have some really good ideas for recipes. I am going to look for aquafaba.

I stepped on the scale today and was really happy to see it showing 2 lbs. down. Happy with the start of the new yesr!

I try to experiment.

The chicken lasagna this weekend, with red lentils and lots of veg was terrific, and loading it up with veggies brought it well under 400 .calories for an 8 ounce serving. The red lentils are creamy and made it taste like I’d added lots of extra ricotta.

The self rise flour/yogurt rolls I intended as garlic bread? EPIC fail. I can’t see why these things are the darling of the internet. Will try one more time in case it was me, but ick for the first try.

Btw, when I make lasagna, I use ground chicken and mix it well with salt pepper and herbs de Provence, and let it sit for a day or two before browning (in my magic Ninja frying pan that does not require oil.). You’d never know it’s not Italian sausage! Even smells like it.

Oh my goodness, snow shovelling is such a workout! Good for you. It's good to be outdoors too.

Our winter weather has been dreary but above seasonal norms for temperature. We've had very little frost or below freezing nights - only a couple of scattered days. There are still have many 'seasonal' plants alive, looking much worse for wear but hanging in. Like marigolds and snapdragons for example. Shrub roses are actually looking okay in South facing locations! I have 2 gerbera daisies on my (covered) deck that are feebly trying to still flower. Feel sorry for them lol. I moved my geraniums in but they would've been fine out still. Usually by early December they would be goners.

I got in my walk outdoors today, no rain but very foggy. I too seem to be down 2 lbs from my Dec 31st weight!! Auspicious start lol. I have my sights set on Onederland now, target for the first 1/2 of the year.

I did some pruning yesterday because the sun was out, my green waste cart was empty, and it will get emptied today.

I noticed one of my rose bushes has two buds that are trying to open. Yikes!