Slow & steady - it may win the race but it's frustrating!

 Another half pound loss this week. Not surprised - not gonna lie, there was some major stress eating last weekend!

I'm doing between an 8:16 and 5:21 intermittent fasting schedule (except the days i fell face first into a pizza) and I am enjoying it. I'm not a big fan of breakfast food anyway, although we did have breakfast for dinner one evening. So mostly I'll have an afternoon snack (yesterday was a bacon & tomato sandwich), a healthy dinner, and maybe dessert or an evening snack. 

It feels easy and I'm not that hungry. Once I get to the point I am finding hunger really distracting, then I'll eat! I still try to make reasonable choices, but I'm not counting calories or weighing anything - which feels very freeing.

Not much going on here for the holiday weekend. A friend from Maryland is down visiting her daughter and is staying with us, so Tim gets another human to talk to! And another friend is coming over after work to grill burgers & watch "Labyrinth" - so yay!

Enjoy your weekend!!

Same old Same old

 This week has been pretty bananas at work so I haven't had a lot of head space for posting. Tim's knee is doing really well (we're going to the gym this afternoon). I've struggled some this week, but the scale is (slowly) moving in the right direction, and I have continued to exercise. So - small victories.

Another work week in the books

 It's not quite the end of the workday, but lunchtime Friday is good progress!!

It's been a frustrating week. We found we need to replace a bunch of our AC ductwork (cha-ching!) and I'm getting a new boss at work. Frustrated & burned out is where I'm at right now. So this weekend is especially welcome.

Take care.

Monday again

 Happy Monday (lol).

Hope you had a good weekend. Ours was ... okay. We were both kinda low energy & cranky. Not sure why, but there you are.

Saturday I opted for a 3 meals day (and an after dinner snack). My eating window was roughly 12 hours and I did NOT snack between meals. Yesterday I used a 6 hour eating window. I had planned to make it 5, but T wanted to go out for a late lunch and I didn't want to sit there & watch him eat. 

Other than that, walking the dog, doing my kettlebells, T goes back for his ortho follow up this afternoon. I'll keep you posted.

Take care!

A science experiment of one

 Good morning and happy Friday! It's been a nutso week. I am going to MAKE TIME for DOWN time this weekend! :-)

A lot of things (except work) have settled out a bit. Tim is doing much better and has graduated to a cane! He is going back to (sort of) doing Optavia (formerly Medifast). I did it the first time with him to see how it worked. He had done it in the past and had a lot of success with it.

Things I liked about it:

• Easy (except dinner)

Things I didn't like about it:

• Expensive
• Not a lot of selection
• Dinner is good, but there is a lot of weighing & measuring.
• I was assured the hunger would go away. IT NEVER DID.

By the end, I was adding a lot of meat & veg just so I wasn't constantly hangry. Not gonna lie, I was miserable. But I gave it a good try.

So color me shocked when I decided to give intermittent fasting a go! I mean, if I'm starving on Optavia then it's gonna be way worse with nothing at all, right??? Wrong!

Let me back up. I've been reading Katie's blog https://www.runsforcookies.com/ for ages. She has tried intermittent fasting in the past and I've always felt like it wasn't for me. I wake up hungry. I hate being hungry. But recently she mentioned in a post about reading (or re reading) a couple of books: "The Obesity Code" by Dr. Jason Fung and "Delay, Don't Deny" by Gin Stephens. I got curious because this isn't something I know much about since I've never really considered it. On a whim I checked them both out of the library. I read Dr. Fung's book first, and I'm glad I did. 

Jason Fung is a kidney specialist who has spent a lot of time trying to help his patients, most of whom have type 2 diabetes & are overweight. This book synthesizes his findings based on a ton of human studies. Even though this isn't an easy read, I'm glad I read it first. Gin's book is a layman's book. She does reference both studies and other books, but had I read it first I might not have been convinced to give this a whirl. 

After reading both books, I was convinced that regulating insulin v. calorie control is a legit (and maybe even healthier) method for losing weight.So this week I have been a study of 1. 

Monday I did basically an OMAD fast (one meal a day). I had dinner at 5:30 and a snack (popcorn) after. Tuesday I ate 3 meals, but like Dr. Fung suggested I did NOT snack throughout the day (I did have an evening snack shortly after dinner - a root beer float made with protein powder). Wednesday I did a "fast 5" (that's a book Gin references) where you have a 5 hour eating window. Mine was from 3-8 - I had a snack, dinner, and an evening snack. Thursday I repeated what I did Monday. The result? I lost 4.6 pounds this week. 

But how did I feel? Pretty good! Yes, I got hungry sometimes. I was the least hungry on the OMAD days, then on the fast 5 day, then on the 3 meals day! Like Dr. Fung said, the hunger came in waves but I kept busy & distracted myself. I drank water, black coffee, & tea throughout the day. I was less hungry eating this way than I was on Optavia.

I am doing OMAD today. Dr. Fung suggests doing OMAD 3 days per week, with 3 meals (no snacks) the other days. Gin (who reminds the reader a billion times that she is NOT a medical professional) says "Here are all these methods. Here's what works for me. You gotta figure out what works for you!" If I am cranky mid afternoon I will pivot and do a fast 5. Anyway, a couple of pictures from Dr. Fung's book.

Have a great weekend!

A lot of catching up to do!

 Good morning.

So, where to begin?

Yes, I bought a car. I purchased a 2007 Nissan Sentra back in 2009. I really loved that car but it was approaching 250K miles on it, and Tim's is approaching 300K. I had been looking around for a while, and decided to go ahead and pull the trigger before the trigger got pulled for me. I went (back) to Carmax, they offered me a decent price for my trade in, and I bought another Nissan Sentra. The reason they had to ship it from Virginia is because I was determined to drive a car with color! I didn't want black, white, or gray. And I wanted a sunroof.

I was able to move my Sunpass from my old car to this one, so mom and I drove it to Georgia to see my great aunt this past weekend. We hadn't been down since December of 2019. Y'all, she is pitiful. The only good thing I can say is that she is in no pain. The gal there said some days she makes sense, but Saturday wasn't one of those days. She pretty much just lays in bed. It was so sad to see her so frail. (The reason we wanted a Sunpass is because FL and NC toll passes work in GA as well and it makes getting through Atlanta easier). 

Tim's surgery went well and the PT guy says he is ahead of the curve. So yay! There has been a lot of this going on around here:

His follow up with the ortho is next Monday, hopefully at that point he will be cleared to do a bit more. He did graduate to a cane, it's supposed to arrive Thursday.

The first day he came home I might have had a meltdown because I felt overwhelmed & incompetent. My in-laws came over a couple of days and mom came up earlier than planned - having family to help out has been awesome. And a dear friend husband and pet sat so we could go to Georgia. 

I was able to finally finish the new valences for my living room - I think they are a lot more cheerful than the old ones.

(Note the styling sheets & towels tossed over furniture. Four dogs for a week is a lot of fur! LOL)

This year has been hard - I know I've said that a lot. There's stuff I haven't gotten into here, and prefer not to. The down side of marrying later in life is that it can be challenging to adapt to something new - you both bring a whole set of baggage. (A really big set, like for an around the world voyage in the 1930s!! lol) And when things are tough you don't have the history (or entropy) to keep you chugging along. There have been a couple of times this year that we very nearly called it quits. Even after months in counseling, we still came pretty close. I think we had a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago. I asked T to reflect on his past relationships and rate how he treats me relative to past wives/ girlfriends. He got pretty quiet and said "I've probably treated you the worst." I told him I thought I was worthy of his best. He agreed.

We are taking a marriage class (in addition to checking in with our counselor once a month or so). It has been super helpful! Obviously we took a break for the surgery but we are back at it, plugging away.

So I guess some good has come out of the bad. That's probably my theme for this past year - looking for the silver linings.

Take care. I've missed y'all.

The other side of surgery

 T's knee replacement went well, but I am pretty swamped just now.