Getting and Staying Healthy After Fifty

I almost burned my kitchen down today. I put some grease on the stove to heat, then went and called my son. Stupid. I hear crackling, ran into the kitchen, and had a nice little grease fire going. Luckily, I had a fire extinguisher and put it out, but there is some damage, and a lot of smoke damage, and I don’t know if my stove will be safe to use again.

So if I can’t cook, I guess I can’t eat much, huh? Oh, I’ll find a way, believe me. I have a toaster oven, and a microwave, and if I want to eat, I’ll find some way to do it.

If the entire kitchen had burned down, I guess that would make it difficult to eat, but I can live with this. I hope my insurance company writes me a check, because I’m flat broke, but that’s a big “if” since I have a high deductible. I’m sure they’ll find lots of stuff that isn’t covered at all.

What a horrible Christmas. Good thing I was alone, and nobody was expecting dinner, huh?

You got it. I’m sitting her munching on dark chocolate chips. Hey, at least it’s dark chocolate, right?

I’m not even going to think about dieting until the first of the year. It’s just pointless. There is all that Christmas food, and I want fruitcake! I can’t find a Claxton’s fruitcake anywhere. It’s making me sad. Guess I waited too long.

I didn’t walk today, because I was up until 3 a.m. with leg and foot cramps, and finally had to take a pill to get to sleep. Just didn’t feel like going anywhere today.

I guess the first Christmas without my mom has me down. I really miss her.

I’m going to eat more dark chocolate chips now.

Other than that, the diet is off the table until after Christmas.  Not because I plan to be eating a lot, but because I lost my mother on September 23 of this year, and this Christmas is stressful enough without having to watch what I eat.

 I’m very tired lately, and haven’t been taking my vitamins regularly.  I’m going to try to remember to take them every night.  I don’t know how, but I am.  My memory isn’t what it used to be.

I have been doing more calisthenics, both with weights and the stretch bands, so I’m pretty proud of that.  I watch t.v. on the computer, so I was working out while watching.  At least that keeps it from being wasted time.  My plan is to move my computer and treadmill/exercise stuff into the other room, and have a sort of home office/workout room combo.  Right now the treadmill is in the Living Room, and the computer is in the back room.  I want them both in the smaller front bedroom, and I’m going to rent this room out.

Of course, none of this is going to happen for a few weeks, because I have to get rid of a room full of junk first.  When I say a room full, I LITERALLY mean a 9 x 9 room full of stuff.  Just stuff.  Not even very important stuff, just stuff people have left here over the years. 

It’s all going. I’m going to have so little stuff in my house that it’s going to be absolutely zen.

I’m going grocery shopping tomorrow, and I’ll be looking for more high protein foods to munch on with my fruits and veggies. I’ve added more protein the last couple of days, and good fats. Now if I can just start drinking more water, but I hate water plain! I have been trying to drink more herbal teas without sugar. I want to find the stevia I had somewhere around here, and use that instead of sugar.

I also walked more yesterday, because I knew I wouldn’t today, since I had to sit and wait for UPS to bring the computer. Tomorrow, I’ll double my walk. I walk with my neighbor, who is 71 and sort of slow, so I’ll walk to the corner with her, then take off faster, go around the block and catch back up with her for a cool down. That will be 2.5 miles. That should be a good walk, and if I feel like it isn’t later, I can just jump on the treadmill.

I have started doing a few calisthenics. Nothing big, just some leg lifts, and some arm work with weights. But hey, anything is better than nothing, right?

I have now gained back every pound I lost on my 10 day fast.  I have joined the thousands of “yo-yo” dieters everywhere who lose the same 10 lbs. over and over.

I got a Christmas card today from a friend who came down to visit two years ago.  In it were two pictures, one of each of us on our trip to Selby Gardens.  I was totally shocked when I saw the one of myself.  

I put that picture up on my mirror in the bathroom, where I have to look at it every morning. I’m having a copy made and putting it on the refrigerator.  I’m so ashamed of how I look.  I looked like a butterball turkey with two strings sticking out of the bottom (my skinny legs).  

If it absolutely KILLS me, I AM going to lose these 25 lbs. before I got to visit my sons in March! That’s about 2 lbs. a week, and I CAN and WILL do it!

Wish me luck.

I just didn’t even feel like eating today. I nibbled on some stuff here and there.  Tried to eat a meal, but the closest I got was two small zapped sweet potatoes. 

I’m going to definitely have to start taking my vitamins on a regular basis again, as my feet are threatening to cramp.  That hurts so much! Why does it always happen at night, and always in the middle of a great dream?

The worst leg cramp I ever had was right after my shoulder surgery. I was stressed, on Vicodin and nausea medicine, and wasn’t eating or drinking much, much less taking my vitamins.  Mostly, I was just sleeping and praying that the pain wouldn’t last long.

On about day three after the surgery, I woke up feeling like someone had driven a red hot poker into my left calf muscle!  Oh My God!!!  It was so terrible, that I tried to stand, and literally fell to my knees screaming out in pain!  I was so scared I was going to fall and injure my shoulder again, but somehow, I managed to maneuver myself down to the kitchen, grab a dishtowel from the drawer, wet it, heat it in the microwave, and put it on the muscle.  

I didn’t even try to get into the Living Room like I usually do when I have a cramp.  I sat right on the kitchen floor, crying, holding that hot towel on my leg.  It took three hot towels to get that muscle to relax.  

After that, I faithfully took my multi vitamin and extra calcium/zinc/magnesium and extra potassium every day for a very long time.  I tend to forget, though, when I’m stressed and in survival mode like I am now.

Better go take them, before I forget and get waked up screaming tonight. 

… depression makes it impossible to get off your butt and exercise. When I’m depressed, I just sit in front of the computer or read all day. No way am I going outside, because that would involve getting into some decent, not grease stained, clothes and actually making myself look decent to go out.

It’s much easier to sit here and do nothing, except that it makes me more depressed. I haven’t eaten much today, so that’s a good thing, but I haven’t drunk enough water or juice either.

Why does everything in life boil down to an impossible choice? This is why so many people sit and do nothing with our lives. They go to boring jobs, pay the same bills, watch the same t.v. programs, and basically turn into mindless blobs. It’s because doing something different would require making a choice.

Choices are hard. Indecision is easy. Change is hard. Sameness is easy. If you make a choice, it can be the wrong one, so why risk it? Risk is hard, and it most of the time leads to failure. Getting up and brushing yourself off and starting over is hard. Not starting at all is easy.

Failure is easy when it’s all you’ve ever known. You get comfortable with it, with being a failure. You become numb to the world that keeps pushing you to do more, ask more, feel more, be more.

You just sit, and become a lump. I’m a lump. Now I have to make a choice…do I want to stay a lump or do something about it?

Choices are hard.

Drank juice, ate, and now I’m ready for bed. I don’t know even how to get a decent post out of this, except to say that it’s boring.

I never had to diet when I was younger, and I didn’t understand why people quit diets when it was obvious they desperately needed to lose weight. I don’t desperately need to lose weight, but it would be nice to not be overweight.

I do, however, now understand why people give up on diets. They are boring. The same foods, the same way, day in and day out. It’s enough to make you want to rush down to Mickey D’s and grab a triple cheeseburger and large fries, and top it off with a sundae!

On the Master Cleanse, I cheated because I was hungry. Now I just want to cheat because I’m sick to death of not having anything decent to eat. Do you think it would work if I dieted 6 days a week, and ate anything I wanted one day? Surely, you can’t undo a week’s worth of dieting in one day. I mean, I’m not going to go buy $30 worth of junk food and scarf it all day. I’d just like to have one hamburger, or one steak, or one baked potato with butter AND sour cream.

I’m human. I want human food! And right now, I’m very, very sleepy, so I’ll think about this tomorrow.