Anger is not good for weight loss

While I'm not trying to exert mind control on anybody, it's a fact that cheerful people are healthier than unhappy people. Although that's probably...not a catch-22...a chicken and the egg problem? If you're healthy, you're typically happy and vice versa. Anyway, if something in your day is not going as you expect, if it's really bugging you, what do you do? Many people sit down with a cup of coffee and some comfort food. Once in a while that's fine, but when you find yourself in a whole midst of irritations, day after day after day...it can get kind of wearing, and the comfort food and hence the calories can add up. Rather than take out the frustration on food, go for a job or a bike ride (or just a drive!) I've been in a state of constant frustration for the last two months, as one thing after another has just gone wrong... on occasion I've splurged on happiness-giving chocolate, but for the most part, it's been power walking in a mall (since it's been too damn windy to bike.) If they had a cardio kick-boxing class around here I'd enroll in that - I feel the need!

Sometimes you just need chocolate

Another Saturday, another day when the guy who was supposed to finish off the sheet rocking in my apartment just couldn't make it - same like last Saturday. Meantime, since unlike a year and a half ago when there was no furniture down here and my sister could have done the sheet rocking in a couple of hours, today I had furniture or shelves under every hole (which I'd covered up to my satisfaction with white foam board eight months ago and didn't want the guy to do any sheet rocking to now anyway!) so I've got that all moved out of the way, and have had it moved out of the way for the last six bloody weeks! - the stuff on the shelves are now on the floor and the shelves unscrewed...ya da ya da I am so pissed that I went and bought a box of Snickers ice cream bars and ate all 6!

Sometimes you've just got to do it.

This is part of the thing where if you get out of your rhythm and feel your life unsettled, and that you're out of control with your life, you start over-eating to make yourself feel better.

Well, six Snickers bars may have been a bit much, but what can I say, I felt the need. Some people drink to insensibility, I have six Snickers bars. I'd go for a bike ride now except off course it's cold and rainy here - the first cold and rainy day in several weeks and ain't that typical?

Not a good day.

Exercise is key

Folks who are mobility impaired have to lose weight, and maintain weight, strictly by their diet alone. If you can''t walk, however, but can move your arms, you can still keep your arm muscles trim by using dumbbells...

If you are mobile, then losing and maintaining weight becomes so much easier.

This is because you can increase your musculature, which improves your posture,and helps you to build calories faster.

In addition, you should just celebrate your ability to move. To be able to go outside and enjoy the sunsine and the fresh air.

So make it part of your schedule to walk. First thing in the morning, last thing at night (assuming you live in a good neighborhood), during lunch... enjoy the move...

Woman Takes 16 Days to Complete 26 mile marathon

You want to live a long, healthy life. You want to be able to go where you want to go, when you want to go there. You want to feel comfortable in teeny tiny seats at a baseball stadium or at the theatre. THOSE are your goals...losing weight is the process to reach them.

Can't lose weight because you love to eat and don't like to exercise? Bushwa! Stop whining and just do it.

From Yahoo News: Paralyzed woman makes marathon history LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 08: Claire Lomas (C) walks the last mile of the London Marathon on May 8, 2012 in London, England. Ms Lomas, who is paralysed from the waist down after a riding accident in 2007, has taken 16 days to complete the 26.2 mile route. Starting out with 36,000 other runners she has averaged 2 miles a day with the help of a bionic ReWalk suit

A salad is a meal

For a change of pace, why not try making a Ceasar salad or something of that nature for dinner. Add in chunks of tastily seasoned chicken, hard-boiled eggs, as well as any other fruits and veggies you want, along with Caesar salad dressing, and you've got a tasty meal.

I will have calories - but so what?

Apparently many people think that salads don't have calories... a select few know that most of the caloies in a simple lettuce salad comes from the dressing, and so use it only sparingly.

Uh oh....

I've already got tickets for tomorrow afternoon's ROckies game in Denver. Forecast is for rain...I sure do hope it's not rained out because I live two hours away, it's gonna be a long drive for nothing if they're rained out.

Sorry not to have posted here for so long, things have just been at sixes and sevens. When my routine is disturbed, I find it very difficult to get anything done, and it's been disturbed for the last week and will continue until Thursday, when my visiting brother leaves.

So, what's my weight tip for today?

Well, it's that you must develop a routine. You might be a free and easy person who likes to do things on a whim, but really, when you are trying to lose weight - and then keep it off, you need to do, so far as is possible, the same thing every day. By that I mean, exercise at the same time, eat ant the same times, and eat the same things - have enough different meals so that you have a variety - but always have the same meals so you know their calorie count.

To do lists are also very helpful - to get anything done. But having a regular schedule is key.

In spring a young person's mind turns to gardening

That's a quote from something... although I've changed it to be gender neutral...

I was out gardening yesterday... I live in a house that sits on a lot of clay-ey soil, so the lawn - in the back where my "apartment", aka the first floor is, looks out on clay and tufts of weeds.

So yesterday I bought 20 30-pound cinderblocks, and have arranged them in a line from my driveway, all the way across to where the bones of a room that never got made (by the person who put this house together himself - it's a prefab house) sit.

And hefting those 30-pound blocks, thanks to my work gloves, was a workout. Ended up taking 2 nice hot baths last night.

Today, rather than buy 26 more cinder blocks, to create three squares which are to contain flowers, within the border I've already created, I'm going to make wooden frames - or rather, dragoon my dad to do so for me.

But there'll be plenty of hefting still to do - bags of wood shaving to surround the wood frames, and planting soil inside the wood frames, and some flowers.

If you're a gardener, you know how tiring it can be - even if you're not lifting 30-pound cinder blocks. It's teh stooping and kneeling that gets to you - isn't it? You may have the muscles in your arms to lift things, but your back and hamstrings aren't quite as fit as the rest of you.

To counteract that feeling of soreness, there are a few exercises you can do.

Specifically - squats, with either a light-barbell or two dumbells, and the deadman's lift.

The lift is where you stand with your legs straight, bend over, grab hold of a light barbell, and then straighten up - using only your back and stomach muscles. The barbell comes up only because you're holding onto it, not because you're lifting it with your arms. This is a tremendous exercise for your back.

Start out with light weights and work up - if you hurt your back, it'll trouble you forever, so make sure you don't lift and twist, for example, or try to lift something that's too heavy for you.