It was a cold and stormy night...

No, not quite. It was cold but the sky was clear. It was almost a full moon. My husband and son joined me in our second annual "Big Dam Bridge Full Moon Walk" last night.

When we arrived, it was almost dark. Aren't those lights pretty? They changed with the music that was playing over the loudspeakers.

There I am, about halfway back to the North Little Rock side, where we started at:

I love how the lights are checking me.

Here I am, posing for a photo. I was on the Little Rock side of the bridge at this point. I wish I could share with you just how exhilarated I was! As I strode along, this feeling of power and strength and pure enjoyment flooded over me. When I did this same walk last year, I didn't weigh THAT much more than I do now...I was about 25 pounds more a year ago. It was a bit of a struggle to do that walk, but this time...this time I felt SO STRONG! That feeling carried me all through today. I was proud of myself. It is a strange feeling to admit that I could be PROUD of what I've accomplished. Little old me...I DID it. I lost the weight. I worked at getting stronger. I accomplished so much! Little old me.......and now I hope I can help others to feel this good about themselves too.

Walk-on dear readers...walk-on.

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving Day! 

I am thankful to all my readers who see my messages and are inspired to keep on, keeping on, with improving their lives, losing weight, and just living healthier! YOU keep ME going! Yes, you do!!!

I am totally not stressed out about today. I plan to eat well and sensibly. I will have pumpkin pie. It won't be the whole pie though, and I plan to enjoy every bite of what I do have. I also will go for a little walk later today as it is super lovely outside today!

I am grateful, that after all these years, I seem to have finally figured things out! I am successful, for the first time EVER, all on my own with no surgery, pills, gimmicks, or major life stresses used to lose weight for a short time, only to then gain it all back again.

I love my diamonds! I did have help though. Without the support of my husband and the folks in my support group, I really believe I would not have been this successful.

So again, thank you!

Not real exercise?

I didn't go to the gym today.
I didn't go for a swim.
I didn't walk on the trail today.
I didn't pick up my weights.
I didn't sit on the bouncy ball.
I didn't stretch out the bands.
I didn't do yoga or a DVD.
however.....
I did cover our 21,000 square foot lawn with fertilizer.
I did feed and mulch the roses.
I did sweep the sidewalk clear.
I did clip off the dead heads of flowers.
I did trim down some shrubs.
I did rake out my neighbor's huge flower bed.
I did sweep off her sidewalk.
I did a load of laundry and a little housework too.
I guess I did a little bit. How about you?

Did I mention we have NINE mature oak trees in our large yard? AND that we take care of our neighbor's yard too? I think almost three hours of yard work will count as exercising today.

Happy Fall! Oh, and walk-on dear readers, walk-on.

Random Thoughts

In no particular order, here are a bunch of random thoughts going through my head today:

1. No news about my friend who was injured. I hope to hear something on Monday at yoga class.

2. I finally took some photos off my phone and have them in my computer now. I have done this before, but here is a reminder of why I don't like the trail so much in the summertime in the south:

That is 77 inside and 110 outside. I bet I could have fried eggs without grease this summer if I'd put them out on the driveway!!!

3. About a month ago these flowers started blooming again. My cell phone camera doesn't begin to do them justice!

They are bigger than a baseball!

4. I have not stopped smoking, but have set Monday as the day to wake up and be smoke free once more! (damn cigarettes)

5. Mark Sisson of paleo eating fame was on a podcast I listened to today. He talks a good talk. He suggests trying his methods for four weeks and judge for yourself. I hate when things sound good because so many turn out to be just another twist on low carb or low fat or .

6. Crabby McSlacker, over on Cranky Fitness, asked on a recent post if we are guinea pigs with ourselves. I read her posting last night and was tired, but that thought stuck with me a lot today. Do we experiment on ourselves to see what works and what doesn't? I would say a resounding yes! 
See #5 above...am I thinking about experimenting with myself with Sisson's program? (the key word there is thinking about) I am not ready to give up on grains and dairy yet though.

7. I am really enjoying weight training classes. I think I am getting stronger. There are hopes that we can keep working together when these free sessions end.

8. I've been avoiding the trail a lot. I have no real reason or excuse. I finally forced myself out of the house at ten this morning and took off. Again, this photo doesn't do it justice. I am SO glad I did go out there.

9. THE BLAME GAME: I was thinking about how we play the 'blame game' with excuses as to why we do this or that or turn out the way we do. I think I started gaining weight around age four when my sister was born. So should I blame her for me being fat? My parents entertained a lot and always had chips and snacks and very buttery popcorn around. Should I blame them for me being fat? Fat makes us fat, or so they said in the 70's. Now they say it is sugar. Should I blame the government for getting it wrong?

I've said it before and I will say it again...we CAN blame everyone and everything we want to blame for how we ARE. We can really only blame ourselves for how we proceed from here.

10. For whatever reason, I have managed to lose over 100 pounds. "Whatever reason"? I worked at it. I didn't give up. I tried again. I tried a different way than from before. THIS time, it worked. THIS time it continues to work. I don't feel like I am starving. I don't feel I am over exercising. I am leading an active life but not at breakneck speed.

Will my way of losing weight work for you? It might. I can offer suggestions. I can offer tips. The trouble is, what happened to me, happened to ME. Not you. YOU have to experiment with yourself to learn what will work best for you.

We all have generalities that we can follow that seem to work on some levels for all of us. Knowing what we eat; eating quality food; fitting exercise in our lives; those all make a difference. Remember that we are all different. We all have to devise a lifestyle that will work for us, personally.

"OH that is TOO hard! I don't want to do all that WORK to lose weight!" Fine. You don't have to! That's the good news, right? Yes, there is bad news. You won't change if you don't change.

That's it for today friends. Walk-on!

Hurting for a friend

I am sad today. At our yoga class we learned that a well liked member had been in an accident on Saturday. She is 65 and was riding her bicycle when she collided with a vehicle. She's been in a coma ever since. We don't know the prognosis.
She was one of the first ones in class that I talked to on a regular basis. An avid bicyclist and gardener, she always seemed full of energy and had a smile. I hope she will be ok. 

And they call it "The Streak"!

I admit it...I am a streaker! When I started changing my life around, I was adamant that FAT was very bad and was making me fat. I cut back everywhere on fatty foods. The less fat the better...in EVERYTHING! I was on a zero tolerance, no fat streak.

I then went on a tangent of having oatmeal every morning. Without fail, I HAD to have oatmeal.

I had a streak of Greek yogurt eating. I often had four or five servings a day!

There was the chicken salad for lunch streak that turned in to baked chicken with spinach salad for every lunch streak.

Right now I am eating eggs a lot. I love them poached on an English muffin with a piece of Canadian bacon. I have two eggs, one each on a half muffin, for breakfast. Yum!

There was the walking over ten miles a week streak, and the swim in the pool five days a week streak. That was followed by shopping every day at the thrift store streak. Shopping became my exercise of choice for a while.

I seem to go in streaks all over the place!

 The trail is beautiful this time of year.

 Ziva is always ready to go farther.

 I noticed this interesting piece of wood buried in the trail bed.

 Early morning sun makes the trail almost look magical.

 This could be a weed, but it still stuck out and begged to be noticed.

 Long tall morning shadows are interesting too.

 Walk-on dear readers!
 But with clothes on please...we don't do that type of streaking!

Move along, move along, nothing to see here

As I write this, this morning, I am beating myself up over two stupid things. The first is that I am still struggling with cigarettes. I am not smoking much, but I am smoking some. I know I will quit again. I hope I get myself kicked in the butt hard enough to make that happen REAL soon. Right now I am having a royal pity party though, and it ain't happening.

The other thing that I am beating myself up for, is over shampoo. Shampoo??? WHAT? Yes, shampoo. I am cheap frugal. It is a holdover from 20 years with my first husband who was a penny pincher extraordinaire. Sometimes this IS a good thing, but not always.

When I go grocery shopping I go down isle 20 in my local Kroger's, to see what is in the markdown section. I have had great luck with trying new things there, that I would never have bought at full price. The latest was Pantene shampoo and conditioner that was 50% off! Wow, a quality shampoo instead of the cheapo watered down stuff that is .99 cents a bottle! What a deal.....until this past week. We used it and it left a waxy feeling in our hair. We could not rinse it out! My hair looked wet or greasy, even though it was just cleaned!

So today I went to the store to return the bottles that I hadn't used. All SIXTEEN bottles worth...over $48 of shampoo and conditioner. The store would not take it back because it was marked down and I didn't have a receipt. I don't blame them, but that hurt the pocketbook a LOT. I did arrange to have the bottles donated to a women's shelter so perhaps someone there could get more use out of it. But I am kicking myself and feeling REALLY bad that I made such a huge and to me, costly mistake.

That's about it for today. The weight is staying the same again, but at  somewhat lower number that is three pounds down from where it had been for over five months. That is good. I am trying very hard to keep doing what I need to do to keep things in line as far as exercise and food intake. My heart is not in it. However, being the cheap frugal person that I am, I am STILL hanging on to those 100+ diamonds and I will not give up. I trust that things will turn around for the better soon...they always do. And I know in the whole scheme of things in life, that this too, shall pass and it really is NOT that big of a deal!

Walk-On my friends, walk-on......oh, and don't buy Pantene shampoo!!!

Floating Along

Weigh-in later today. Struggling with those blasted cigarettes this week. Kinda floating along right now with a maintenence mode of good eating most of the time and exercising too. Keep watching. Knowing me, things will change again soon! (in a good way)

Keep positive! Walk-on and see you around the bend!