@vegan4lyfe2012 Ah good reasons to give up added oils ! LOL she is violent! She lives up to that Garbage Pail Kid card I made, right? It did make my friend very happy to see me in the blazer. Yeah, but then I thought, maybe it will help someone if I tell people I had the surgery. Why am I hiding it? Although, I don't tell anyone on social media...I don't want the people from home to judge me. They WOULD. Some of them only follow me to see me fail! That's a good response, I like it! Oh gosh, rain AND hot weather? It must be STEAMY there! Happy birthday to the babies! You are going to be exhausted lol, hopefully it is fun. Look into this app: https://freedom.to/ . It's really helping me not order things online. I'm sorry about your weight. Good luck with your game plan. You got this!

Weigh in day: Friday

PW: 277

CW: 277

@askewcr - Hang in there! Now you have started a new week. Do you have weekend plans?

@trooworld - Sympathies about the weigh-in. So frustrating when you are down, down, down, then up on weigh-in day! Ah, well, maybe things will shift by next week! Hopefully creatine is doing its job and helping oyu add muscle! How frustrating that the person at work only heard part of the story. As you say, though, you did this for you! Your soup looks great. Did you get some basil? America's Test Kitchen is a great place to look for recipes. Your husband's dinner choices sounded great, too!

@micaroo4 - I had not thought to call it food sequencing, but I am paying attention to this, too! Michael Greger of NutritionFacts has for some time been advising that you start meals with a vegetable (like a light green soup) or fruit (like an apple). It is something I am tracking using his Daily Dozen app.

@Cornanda - Hurra for Friday, indeed! I hope its a restful weekend away form the work stuff. Hang in there. You will get to that goal! What is you book about obscure documents? It sounds interesting!

@Katmary71 - Oooh, the traffic sounds stressful. I am glad you were able to reschedule. Hopefully the kittens will keep improving and the scruffing can stop soon. Sick cats do make for stinky litterboxes! Poor babies. Once you are past the round of meds, I have seen probiotics for cats, though m,aybe they will just pick things back up from your other cats.

@laurelfit57 - Your marinated salad and protein bagels sound so tasty! Hurray for all that cooking! Your Agility classes sound so fun. It's great you are able to do more!

@DrewsAnna - Hurray for doing all that work to save your house plants! Those gnats are so annoying. I just finished doing a coupe of weeks of cider vinegar traps to deal with that.

@lislisa123 - Hurray for being in the green this week. Keep it up!

@19shmoo69 - What are you up to this weekend? Got any big running plans? I am sitting here drinking my morning coffee, and thought of you.

@vegan4lyfe2012 - Your getting conscious of your level of health sounds like a great start. Let us know about that plan you are putting together. WIll you be looking at working on some more movement, too? Maybe just a walk around the block before breakfast?

Happy Friday, all!

I am sitting here on my sore behind, thinking about what I am going to get done during the rest of the day. The sore behind is because I did so much walking yesterday. I did a morning walk on my own, and then got my husband to come walking with me as soon as he got home from work. We love to talk about the day when he gets home, and I asked if we could do it while walking. We walked and chatted and checked out the neighborhood for an hour, and Garmin said I burned over 300 calories having fun. Wooohoo! We also talked about going hiking, and will maybe do that tonight. Last night when I thought of hiking, I just wanted to get going and not have to change into boots.

My culinary adventure for the week has been vegan sweet and sour soup. It took a trip to an Asian grocery for ingredients, and time on making vegan fish sauce (though I now have a far of it in my fridge). In case anyone else is interested. I madce this for lunch yesterday and again today: https://www.vegkit.com/recipes/vegan-soups/freshly-picked-canh-chua-vietnamese-sweet-sour-hot-soup/

@katmary71 many years ago I was a nurse so talking about poop is never TMI for me 🤣. So glad that the kittens are feeling better, I'll bet your house smells a lot better!!

@Cornanda I am a lucky gram indeed ♥️. Ty's picture is so intense and she is so completely the opposite of that🤣.  Working on one's mental health is hard, but still rewarding.  I've been on that journey for a couple of years and it's very liberating. So close to that milestone!!

@micaroo i'm afraid I didn't do too well on my food sequencing today . The foods I ate were correct, but way too spaced out to do any good. I will do better tomorrow. I will put the original pictures I used at the end of this post.. You should do pictures of all of your cats present and past!  That picture is stunning!!

@trooworld that picture is so cute !!  That is crazy that you have lost over 66 pounds!!! Good for you!

@Teresaw2024 our summers have been getting hotter and we are having longer stretches where we are 95 ° plus, but not with that humidity. I can't even begin to imagine that! Maggie's pictures are too sweet. I really like the profile picture, I haven't seen one of those before. Sounds like you are really figuring out how to manage Joe's schedule so it is a bit easier on you both. 

@Vegan4lyfe when I was giving that recipe I was wondering whether or not you would be able to get a thick vegan yogurt .  I understand that dopamine chasing fully, it is tough!

I use the proper foods for food sequencing today, but everything was so spread out that it didn't do any good. I can tell the difference, I definitely don't feel as satisfied after meals.

Tomorrow is an exciting day, I am going to do my first Agility competition. My anxiety always got the best of me before, but I'm going to give it a try :-). I am doing what is called FOE (for experience only). I will run the same courses do all the same things, but I won't have the pressure of being judged and timed. I just want to get one good experience under my belt and then I will think about really doing it for points :-). Depending on how dead I am after the competition tomorrow I may or may not post lol. I am going to pack a lunch for tomorrow so that I can do my food sequencing in a more thoughtful way. I not only find it helpful for my body but also my brain. Hope everybody has a great day!

These are the original pictures that I used of Vannie and Ty. 

Username: micaroo4

Weigh In Day: Saturday

PW: 131.8

CW: 131.4

@vegan4lyfe2012 It is scary that you can’t climb a flight of stairs without being out of breath and your heart racing. Chasing the dopamine has to stop! I’m right there with you, and we can support each other and end this year proud of ourselves. We can do it!! ♥️

@micaroo4 Your kitty is gorgeous !! 😍

@laurelfit57 I love that profile picture of Maggie too. I took it one night when she was on my lap and rested her leg on my leg. I hope all goes well with the agility competition. I look forward to hearing all the details. I am sure you will do an amazing job! 🙂

@trooworld Thanks for the soup recipe. It looks so good and summery! 🙂

Good morning! Yesterday was a struggle! I think Joe is right on the edge of going into stage 7 of dementia, which is the last stage. He has gotten so weak that yesterday we just used the wheelchair to get around the house. He cannot even lift himself to a standing position without my help. I had to give him a full sponge bath because there was no way I was going to let him try to get into the shower! 😧 I’m researching a Hoyer lift for when he becomes bedbound. It’s expensive, but Medicare is supposed to help pay. We have an appointment with his Geriatric primary at the end of July, and I want to talk about all the things, including his medication load, palliative care, and hospice. I haven’t wanted to start thinking about the reality of end-of-life care, but I also can’t hide my head in the sand because it’s coming no matter what and if I want him home, I'm going to need support.☹️In other news, my great-nieces are coming to stay the night, and they have requested my pancakes. I can’t wait to have some little girl conversations. 😍

@AustinRuadhain "Thanks for sharing the article on definining fitness for oneself… What did yo ucome away thinking about?"

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you… This quote - among so many! - stood out for me:

"Research has shown for years that a negative perception or relationship with exercise wrecks your motivation. Maybe you feel intimidated, inadequate, or defeated when you think about exercise. Maybe you see too many super-fit people on Instagram and know that’s not you, never was, never will be. The message has been driven home that fitness is a “have to” not a “want to” proposition." 

I was the "fat kid" in both Middle-School and High-School gym class in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I don't know how gym classes are now, but back then it was horrible experience for every fat/obese kid and those very skinny with no body strength. It wasn't just the idea that you were always chosen last for team sports. It was more that the gym teachers treated everyone the same with the same (supposed) abilities: everyone should do 50 pushups, be able to tumble, be able to climb ropes, jump over hurdles running around the gym, etc… etc… ETC !!! It's no wonder that I, and so many other kids, HATED gym class and would cut those classes when able !!! (In fact, I almost had to go to Summer gym class to be be able to get my H.S. diploma, because I had cut so many classes !!!) Is it any wonder that I, and many other young/older adults have a hate/hate relationship to fitness??? I mean it's taken me to age 67 - a year ago - to use an indoor bike at home for 2 hours a day. Still fighting with myself to do weight-training at home. I started a fitness routine only because it finally sunk into my old brain, that the combination of Stage 3 obesity AND my MS was definitely going to shorten my life significantly. (I'm happy to say that in 13 months I've lost 80 pounds and now in the Stage 1 Obese category… but I still have 60-ish more pounds to lose, and it's really become a S-L-O-W process <sigh>😐️)

22 posts overnight- wow! I'll try to catch up more tomorrow.

@trooworld - I want to clarify what I said about your coworkers disappointment- I wasn't saying you SHOULD have told her sooner- it's really no one's business and definitely up to you if/when you want to share. And what you posted on here didn't indicate that you were thinking that's what I meant….. but I wanted to state it for the record.

@AustinRuadhain - the book is called "The Weight of Ink"- it's a historical novel. It's 790 pages. It's for book club. My first impression was that it would be a huge bore. But I'm getting into it!

@TeresaW2024 - I'm going to throw a few ideas out there for you. I wonder if Joe is eligible for Visiting Nurse services? I wonder if there is some equipment (prior to the hoyer) that would make things easier for you now? Would you be able to hire a caregiver to help you once in awhile? Is it possible that he is having colitis issues again that are causing the weakness? Discussing all the care issues including palliative care with Joe's primary is a great idea, but perhaps there are some things you could get started on now. Unfortunately, what my Dad is experiencing is that doctors are not much help with any of this, so you may need to start checking around to see what resources are available to help you. It's one of the worst failures of our health care system in my opinion. Sending you lots of hugs.

Lisa