Marsia's Diary

Marsia said:
Hi! Good to see you on my page. I use My Fitness Pal for calorie counting, and it often has name brand foods already entered in - in both cups and ounces. It's not convenient to calorie count for me, but it makes all the difference in whether I lose or not, so I try to do it at least 6 of 7 days. I have an extra glass pyrex measuring cup just for weight loss that can go in the microwave, so no excuses for not using it. It's there for warming things up in as well as measuring, and if I am lazy I just eat right out of the measuring cup. You could alternatively get a kitchen scale that measures ounces.

You probably know most of this, but I'll just write out what I do so maybe there'll be ideas you haven't considered. I try to get a palm full of protein a meal. I will have canned salmon or tuna mixed with my salad dressing on top of a big salad or good quality sandwich meat (chopped with kitchen scissors to make it easier) added into a salad for one meal. Other meat that is really easy: ground turkey or chicken mixed with stir fried veggies, fish, smoked salmon, shrimp (I''l get cheap little baby frozen shrimp, thaw them and drain off the liquid, and mix with a little salad dressing), seafood blends, already prepared turkey burgers or lean beef burgers (I sprinkle Worchesterhire sauce and garlic powder over them while they're cooking), veggie burgers (look them up first online - some are terrible, some really good), chicken soup, chili with lots of beans, beans (be careful as garbanzo beans are very fattening but nutritious -good in salads), black bean soup, things like turkey bacon and veggie breakfast sausage can be really gross if you get the wrong brand so research first, eggs - if lazy I'll just make myself an egg or have hard boiled eggs ready for times I am getting heavy cravings (or make the hard boiled eggs into egg salad), research if you get protein powder for smoothies - some are very fattening and not as good for you. Nuts or seeds are very healthy but measure for sure - most are very fattening. When I first started I made big batches of chili and chicken soup and froze what I wasn't going to eat right away. I will also sometimes do fattier meats if they are no antibiotics or organic - cheap meat can have added sugar, antibiotics, and other horrid crap. I don't eat large quantities of meat, so buying the better stuff is not too expensive. Hope you found something helpful in my brain dump!!

Hi LaMa! Hope your day's going great!!
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Thank you for your answer! I will continue reading this topic. Have a nice day!
 
Marsia said:
Hi Cate! Hope you're doing really well!!
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I am, thanks hon xo
 
Marsia said:
...cheap meat can have added sugar, antibiotics, and other horrid crap. ...
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i'll agree on the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed, that should be more controlled but sugar is only a valid argument against processed meats (typically on the other end of the cheap scale)... not sure about any other horrid crap.
 
Marsia great work on the continued estate work . It can really drag on .
And even better news on losing a lb .
Relax and enjoy that wood fire
 
Hey Marisa, I am woefully behind but wanted to say hello. Sounds like you are doing well! Can you post a picture of that sunrise over the ocean? You live in a beautiful place.
 
Wow amazing pictures!!
Lovely that you are getting back into yoga seeing as it served you so well in the past. I love the idea of using yoga as both strength and flexibility training along with the benefits on the emotional level. I think you inspired me as I integrated my yoga and qi gong into my strength training this morning :)
 
You're sweet, Marsia :grouphug: Enjoying your food & exercise & just life in general, took a back-seat with caring for your Mum. It's lovely hearing your enthusiasm again :)
 
This does sound like a wonderful healing time for you Marsia. Having this time to find the best ways to be nurturing to yourself after caring for your mum sounds really good. Your area looks so nurturing for that.
Excellent too to hear that your diet and exercise is becoming more of a natural lifestyle choice than something you have to constantly think about.
Sounds like you're doing really well!
 
How lovely to read you're doing so well! Destressing? Getting a feel for your calories and enjoying exercise? Wonderful.
 
Marsia said:
Wow, thanks so much Rob! Natchitoches looks really historic and lovely. We plan to buy a commercial van and fix it up as a camper van and travel around looking for potential places to live, and will definitely visit Natchitoches. New Orleans would be wonderful to live near, but I would never live in a big city again. We are really spoiled living in the countryside, and would probably pick a small town near New Orleans and then maybe park in Algiers and take the ferry or something like that (if we did plan to live there). Algiers looks gorgeous though, and I peeked at the houses for sale there, and they are really amazing. Definitely a wonderful place to sketch!

I've been researching the southeast coast, so have been putting addresses into an elevation-finder and making sure there are places at least 25' above sea level in the towns I am looking at, since I would like my grandkids to be able to inherit a house instead of just a roof. I read some good articles on flood insurance and real estate, too. Having just lived through a month or so of forest fires looming very near us in CA, I am very leery of natural disasters now! That's actually why our house insurance nearly doubled. Anyway, thanks so much for sharing - I'm excited to visit and check out both places!
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Sounds like you are doing your research well. I have to tell you flood insurance is part of what drove us to sell our Florida house and move. By the time we sold we were paying about $11,000 per year for $250,000 in coverage, and were told it would be going up 20% per year with no end in sight, and $250k was the maximum coverage you could buy. And that was just flood, our other homeowners insurance was also quite high, about $4k per year with windstorm (wind insurance cost is another thing to look closely at). An increase of well over ten fold in ten years... However our house sat at an elevation of 6.7 ft and flooded every 10 years or so, 25 ft would have made a big difference.

In New Orleans the highest elevations are near the river, the "sliver by the river" its called, but nothing is above the flood zone. So far as I know Algiers and most of the sliver by the river has not flooded in modern times, but that's because of the levees, and levees are not 100% safe. The only high ground near New Orleans is north, across Lake Pontchartrain is best, there are some nice areas up there within an hour or two drive of New Orleans.

Another place you might want to look at is Apalachicola, Florida (Apalachicola • St. George Island • Eastpoint - Apalachicola Bay Chamber of Commerce), its the only really rural place left on Florida's coast with nearby nice beaches. Apalachicola was once (over 100 years ago) Florida's richest and largest town, before the Civil War it was the third largest cotton port on the Gulf, after New Orleans and Mobile, but it was more or less abandoned. Result is a lot of nice old historic buildings, but not a lot of people. The town's population is lower today than it was in 1860. It is becoming a trendy out of the way place, lots of newer artsy types mixed with the locals, you might like it. Not sure if it rises to 25 ft, it might, it is one of the highest places on that part of the coast, but "high" means something very different on the Gulf Coast than it does in California.

I know the Gulf coast, but not the Carolinas. I have cousin who moved from south Louisiana to North Carolina a number of years ago and she really likes it there.
 
Marsia good luck to K in her finals . Is she in high schoool now . Your approach is similar to mine , enjoy food and stop eating when full .the rest will sort out in time
 
Marsia said:
I still am amazed at getting the ability back to just stop eating when full - so grateful for that!!!
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That is really great Marsia--took me about a year of counting calories before i even tried to see if I could trust myself to not overeat every single meal!
It's nice to develop that sense of what's enough instead of relying on numbers.

And lovely that your family is joining in with you on the exercise!
 
4 lbs lost without trying too hard is excellent. I'm looking forward to hearing about your xmas adventures.
 
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