Category / HOW I’M DOING

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

IT’S TIME…

It’s time to get serious. Not that I haven’t been serious in my flight around the globe feeling out the terrain of weight gain and what causes it, besides over-eating. It’s just that I haven’t been serious about me actually losing the excess weight on my bones. I could have just eaten plain steamed veggies a few nuts and a few fresh fruits everyday and that would have done it. But people aren’t prepared to make that taste bud and palate sacrifice, and neither am I.

So, what better time to get serious than at breakfast.

4-12-2018 SHAR'S WEIGHT NAKED (almost)

I weighed in at 164 pounds: 7 pounds heavier than my last documented weigh-in on 5 August 2017, which was 157. I’m shooting for the thirties. I’m already there in my mind; I just have to do a little catch up. No lower than 130 no higher than 139. That’s safe and healthy for my frame, muscle fat bone content, activity level, injuries and age. Now find yours. That’s my figure.

It is about the weight once you consider and factor in everything else.

My total body has locked itself into the thirties. That’s my lock-in weight. No changes allowed. It took me a while to find it, but I did. I gained some weight since August 2017. I also gained some muscle and lost some fat. I got stronger despite my serious injuries. So here I am going for the gold of me.

So what’s for breakfast on this FAT-FREE FRIDAY the 13th?

FRUIT SALAD WITH AF FAT-FREE ORANGE MAYO SAUCE 2

Fresh fruit tossed with FAT-FREE AF ORANGE MAYO SAUCE (aka MORNING FRUIT SALAD)

The fruits I chose were:

ruby grapefruit, the whole fruit, not just half, peeled and segment

1 sliced banana

1 red apple, cored and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

FAT-FREE AF ORANGE MAYO fresh grind black pepper

fresh grind black pepper

https://fat-freechef.com/2018/03/04/fat-free-af-orange-mayo-sauce/

Toss it all together. Plate. Sprinkle with black pepper and eat.

Since this morning fruit salad contained 3 whole fruits, I spaced the consumption over a couple hours while I worked the computer, that way it functioned as breakfast and a mid-morning snack.

Now that’s a fruit salad to be savored!

 

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by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Spicy Chocolate Cashew Shake plus new breakfast and lunch regime

SPICY CHOCOLATE CASHEW SHAKE

Rarely do I put ice into a smoothie. I don’t like the freeze on my throat and my blender doesn’t do ice well. So a shake it is. And a good one at that. I always did like milk shakes, till McDonald’s changed the landscape with their impossible to draw through a straw shakes that were more like soft-serve ice-cream in a drinking cup. How dare they!!

New breakfast and lunch regimen: After drinking a 12 oz. glass of filtered water taken with a capsule of red cayenne pepper for pain control upon rising (I think the capsaicin is helping to a degree so I keep on it). After getting all groomed up I make a milkshake. Today it is spicy so I’m thinking I’ll stick with this version for a period of time till it bores me, while subbing in various plant milks for variety. Give it a try; you might like it too.

Makes 2 servings

Continue reading →

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

I Thought This Was A Fat-Free Site

I thought this was a fat-free site. What happened?

Even though the site URL is fat-free chef, it’s not all fat-free. It isn’t even all about fat. It’s about working with fat in conjunction with other ingredients or working without fat – and then a bunch of other stuff.

So why not change the URL? It’s too complicated. I posted too many articles to change the URL on all of them, and then I’d have to change it on all the places I posted them. So I’m going with it. Staying with it. I’ll get to the fat-free stuff eventually. I’m circling. I’m out on the periphery, taking stock of the entire picture. I have yet to begin the zeroing in process. I haven’t zeroed in on anything.

Eventually I have to go high wide and deep on this one. I’m still on the surface. There is a lot of surface to cover, that I wasn’t aware of when I first had the idea to go fat-free to lose all the weight I wanted to lose. It isn’t that simple. Or if it is, I’m not buying into it. It’s kind of like the skin being the largest organ of the body and I’m just at the skin level.

Just because I haven’t found a one size fits all solution, doesn’t mean I won’t. I always get my man – as I used to say. Well, my ‘goal’ is probably more accurate. I always reach my goal. Sometimes the goal morphs into something else – some new goal. I’m open to all of it.

I like to experiment. So I’m not going anywhere in the New Year, except closer to all my goals. I’m on the right track. Several actually. That’s the way I like it, so why resist myself?

I didn’t weigh myself today. I lost some fluid I had been carrying around for a long time. I stopped the supplements I was taking, which now I associate with the fluid retention. I’ll reintroduce them one at a time to find the culprit.

You know a lot of the supplements on the market today have as a benefit or side effect: vasodilation. If you have high blood pressure that’s a benefit. If you don’t, then that’s a side effect that can make you dizzy and retain fluid in the legs and feet. I feel best when I’m not retaining fluid. So that will be one of my goals – how to keep my body in the non-retention of excess fluid zone.

Amino acids appear to have the same effect on me. Fluid retention, especially around the middle (trunk), making it difficult to breathe and move about without effort. So those are out. I’ve tried a lot of them and they all do the same thing, so why keep taking them just because nobody else seems to have that issue with them? Maybe they do and don’t know it. Slow down your brain and maybe it will get stuck in the slow department. I’m not taking that risk any more.

I don’t believe the recommended requirements for protein that the government puts out. Why would I believe anything they put out with all their individual and private interests? If they want all those in business to stay in business, you’ll be buying and consuming a lot of stuff that isn’t good for your body. How long did they tell you cigarettes were okay? They still say alcohol is and slaughtered animals are. Come on. They’re lying to you. They’re all controlled by the government. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) – add to that slaughter houses, the insurance industry and pharmaceuticals. Communications – don’t leave that out.

Coffee? Good for you? Really? How much stuff do we have to consume from other countries based on deals made that we had no say in? When companies begin manipulating the caffeine content in foods and beverages, then you know it’s bad for you.

Think for yourself. Even when you do your own research, the intel you need to make an informed decision is often lacking, mysteriously not there anywhere on the internet. Then go by your gut if that’s all you have. All these calcium supplements over all the years we’ve been told we need or bad things would happen to us, caused a lot of calcium deposits everywhere in the body that has soft tissue.

Now how do we get rid of that huge miscalculated based on prejudicial facts mistake? Oh, we thought we had it right. Yeah and there was a bunch of money to be made on the theory that when people stopped drinking milk, they’d switch to calcium supplementation, because we told them they had to – we even kept the animal bones in it – because we didn’t want the slaughter industry to lose money.

Yeah, it appears that the government manipulates the stock market with your taxes. They gamble your hard-earned cash that’s supposed to go for services and infrastructure and running the country. You have to ask yourself, if we’re the richest nation on earth why do we look like a third world country – not fully developed – with crumbling structures everywhere? Why can’t we afford to treat our sick people? Why do we have to use Senior Residences as dumping grounds for all those people who have no place to go? Because all gamblers lose. When you gamble big you lose big.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

I Want My Land Legs Back

What does rest mean? I really don’t know. The treatment for my concussion is rest. What’s that? You mean sleep? I don’t get it.

In forty-five days I should have recovered completely if I rested – in one hundred days if I didn’t rest. I’m not recovered yet, so that must mean I didn’t rest, or I am a malingerer according to Google writers working for the insurance industry.

July 9th, August 9th, September 9th, October 9th. I still have some time to make the deadline for a ‘no rest’ recovery. Obviously, if I haven’t recovered yet, then I didn’t rest enough. Recovery time that goes beyond one hundred days is treated with suspicion by health care professionals, again, writing for Google. Prone to depression, anxiety and a bunch of other stuff I forgot about is how they start categorizing those people who take too long to recover completely from a concussion.

The kicker here is that the severity of the concussion has no bearing on recovery time.

These Google write-ups are starting to sound suspiciously prejudicial to me in favor of the insurance industry. But what do I know, except that I have a concussion.

I still have old blood in some of my facial and inner mouth tissues. My gum still hurts acutely when pressed at point of impact of fall. Still dizzy, still off-balance. Still ears ache, sore throat, night sweats as before the fall. Fatigue and progressive slow-moving from morning till night. Irritable.

Avoidance is to be avoided, yet they (meaning whom?) want me to rest. Falling, future falling, imminent falling is almost always on my mind when I’m not sitting or lying down – actually that’s not quite accurate. I do think about falling when I’m sitting and lying down, since I know at some point I have to get up.

I want my land legs back.

How am I doing?

The more I exercise, the more symptomatic I become. Muscles under ears high on sides of neck aggravate dizzy and nausea when exercised. Concussion doctor said he didn’t think inner ears were a factor in anything. Still exercising (total core, which also includes neck, plus arms and legs), hoping for brain adjustment, adaptation to kick in. Hasn’t happened yet, but I anticipate it will.

I’m doing everything as before, but with more effort and caution, except less computer work. After sitting for a while (not that long) and I get up, I can hardly walk. Even at hair dresser or restaurant. I walk like I’m drunk till I work into a stride – and it is work.

Sometimes I speak like I’m impaired. I guess I am. I don’t like it.

I’m not going to embrace something I expect to go away and to be cured of.

The concussion doctor said I was watching too much Netflix. How would he know what I watched? He wrote on his intervention notes for me to limit my screen time, to rest physically and cognitively. He said not to play any contact sports, where I could be hit or pushed.

To me, watching Netflix is resting.

He referred me to a bunch of people whom he said would throw a lot of medicines at me and would check my mood. He said he’s a minimalist.

If there’s no treatment, except rest and time, then why would I want to go through a bunch of puzzle tests for hours on a computer and to take a bunch of medicines? I thought I was supposed to rest?

At the end, the concussion doctor said, “I have to ask you this: Does this involve litigation of any type? Does it involve worker’s compensation?”

I suspect that the diagnosis, which I didn’t see till I got home that he wrote on a print-out, in lieu of speaking the diagnosis out loud when we were face to face, may have been different had I answered yes to either of those quesions.

You got it right, I’m taking care of myself on this one – till I can’t. And I won’t let the “till I can’t” part happen.

I need a new pair of shoes. My tires are bald. Skid-resistant. Broad-base to catch me when I waver as I turn. And I do waver when I turn.

He thought the four-pronged cane was a good idea. I try not to use it, since I want to do as I did before – you know that avoidance thing could become permanent out of fear and I resist that.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

BREAST CANCER MESSAGE FROM STEVE 1

This is the note Steve left me on the kitchen counter this morning.

BREAST CANCER MESSAGE FROM STEVE 2

And along with it this booklet.

As I told my doctor: I’m not going to think about it till I have the biopsy. There’s nothing I can do now anyway. I’ll probably read the booklet after the biopsy and before I receive the results. That way at least I will have had some preparation should the news not be good.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Big Foot’s Not Going To Win This One…

07-09-2017
07-20-2017

Eleven Days After The Fall – when Big Foot (the scale) tripped me in the bathroom in the middle of the night and the bathtub sucker-punched me.

BIG FOOT SCALE

BIG FOOT

7.20.17 SHARON 3

07.20.2017

This is the first day I went out absent the face make-up. That “It” make-up for people with blemishes or rosebuds or scars or uneven coloring on their faces? It really does do a good job covering up stuff. I could do an Advertisement for this product, made by It Cosmetics, but I don’t have any before pictures of how the make-up actually did cover up the bruises. It didn’t cover them totally, and I did look a little like an American Geisha Girl in the face part, but it covered enough so I was comfortable.

It doesn’t cover up swelling though and that was a big part for the first three days. The ‘day after’ pictures, even I couldn’t bear to look at, so I deleted them and went with ‘on the third day’ after the fall, this is what I looked like.

I keep thinking there’s going to be some benefit to me. That the knockout punch corrected something that needed to be corrected in my brain, in my neck. Okay, so I didn’t ‘come to’ speaking a foreign language. But come on…something, anything good, some benefit.

Maybe something was out-of-place from a long ago injury (pick an injury any injury) or a long ago surgery (pick a surgery any surgery) that needed to be put back the way it was originally.

If I needed down time I didn’t take it.

Even when I don’t type because of the high intensity pain, I still cook and write by hand and work around the house and do my physical and mental work-outs and walk wherever I need to shop or visit. I’m tougher than I look and act. I wonder why that is? It must have a survival advantage for me. And for those around me lol.

Maybe my brain and neck wouldn’t have been looked at via a CAT scan –  and it needed to be looked at – unless there was a visible reason, instead of me just saying there’s something wrong with my neck and/or brain that needs fixing. State of the Art fixing. Not dinosaur treatment methods reserved for women of all ages and old folks. I’m due for the best there is in medical technologies and treatment options no matter what I have.

I did notice one thing. My left hip pain and left sciatic is gone. That might be temporary. It has never been GONE before. It’s lesser or greater. Never at zero. That hip injury was from the Trayvon Martin – George Zimmerman verdict. Payback for me not supporting Trayvon Martin’s right to try to kill George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin was waiting for a drug hook-up and George Zimmerman was on neighborhood watch patrol.

We’ll see how it all shakes out.

All I know for sure is I’m on the mend for some injuries and others have yet to be addressed. And all my troops are home – in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

When It Rains It Pours…another big foot update

Alright, so I go to the doctor about my fall and resultant injuries. He sees the pictures I took, asks me a bunch of questions, examines me. He orders a bunch of blood work and is more concerned about the dizziness and resultant balance difficulties, than he is about any broken bones I might have – which I probably don’t.

He ordered a CAT scan of my head and neck.

He wants to find out if the dizziness caused the fall or if the fall caused the dizziness.

He also told me that the mammogram I had showed an asymmetry in the left breast and recommended that I go for more imaging. Steve has since made me an appointment. I will have the additional imaging, a doctor will interpret it, then the doctor will consult with me right then and there, so I don’t have to go home and wait for them to call.

The only mammogram I had back in the mid 1990’s showed dense tissue, so I’m thinking it’s probably the same thing. If not, then I’ll be told my options and will take it from there.

I had my hearing checked and have hearing loss in both ears. Hearing aids are recommended, but they are very expensive – not something I can afford. There are other test results that I have yet to research to see what they mean. I will get to that.

The colonoscopy that I prepared for and showed up for was delayed a couple of hours. Since I had been at the clinic since 10:00 AM for two unrelated appointments, and they wouldn’t be accepting me to even be prepped till 4:15 PM, I declined to have it. I had fasted too long for them to postpone the procedure in order to make room for somebody else, and I simply had to eat something. The fact that they just assumed I would go along with their changed plans, without telling me in advance, shows you how arrogant the medical profession has become. So. No colonoscopy.

Today was the first day that I didn’t feel wobbly all the time, with any and all movements. That is encouraging to me. I still have difficulty, but it’s not severe, where it feels like I’m losing control of my body from my neck down.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I’ll be showing more improvement.

It’s not easy getting appointments. I have to wait a week for the CAT scan and two weeks for the additional mammogram imaging.

I plan to get a load of work done while I wait.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Update On Big Foot

BIG FOOT SCALE

I couldn’t get in to see my doctor till Tuesday, so took pictures in case I was healed by then. Urgent care or the emergency room would have only referred me back to him with a pat on the head and instructions to take Tylenol. I wasn’t critical, so thought to save my insurance money for my primary care guy and the tests he would order.

Doctors need proof. Sometimes they act more like lawyers than doctors, who never believe any one or anything unless they see it with their own eyes. Even then they’re suspicious if you take pictures. Damned if you do or don’t. Still, it was three days since the fall, that I thought to document it.

Today, Sunday the 16th of July I feel like I survived something. Still, very wobbly when rising, bending, turning… the longer the day gets the more symptomatic I become. Slower, slower, unsteadier to the point of needing to hold the counter, sink, stove, refrigerator, chairs, table, sofa as I turn and move while I work. Still cooking up my daily storms though. Dynamite in the kitchen. Some brilliant stuff happening here. I think it, I get it. There’s a silver coating on this rusty old nail after all.

I used to awe at people who claimed to have a head injury and woke up being able to speak a foreign language. I was hoping for something like that here. No such luck.

My upper teeth (right teeth) and gums hurt like hell. So do both sides of the top of my head. My neck and arms were already out-of-bounds – now the pain in my face, mouth and head are so bad, that I’m not noticing the perpetual state of tendonitis in my shoulders, elbows and wrists.

Tylenol swells my legs up like tree trunks. On top of all else I can hardly walk by the time I lay me down to sleep. Substituting two a day of Aleve isn’t enough either. Besides I’m already bleeding and I might make it worse. I bought some, so I’ll try some. Keep changing my mind.

Stabbing pain in right eye. Better be careful. I could detach a retina and be blind. Fear is probably my friend right now. Have to be careful walking about outside. I could go down at any time, any place. I’m being super cognizant, super careful. It’s critical that I keep going out though, acting as normal as possible, keeping with my normal routines. Still taking Lilly out for her walk first thing every morning.

The inside of my right mouth, cheek and gums are still black. My nose is displaced to the left. Maybe I did break it. I bled a lot into my tissues. My throat is still sore and swollen on right side. Difficulty swallowing. And nauseated. Jeeze.

Three weeks before fall both ears started hurting out of the blue. Stinging, deep down pain in my eustachian tubes type of pain. Needles to the ear drums type of pain sporadically. It begins late afternoon and disappears by morning, then starts again in the next late afternoon, early evening. I still have that. It’s now 10:30 AM Sunday and it’s beginning early, along with blurring vision where I have to keep blinking for clarity.

Big Foot sure messed me up. It was a useless scale. I bought it for accuracy and the needle was installed so tight, that the weight was never accurate. It was too much trouble to send it back and it did seem to work better for Steve, probably because he weighs more. So now we have three scales and I have no weight change in the past month.

We’re both eating a lot of healthy stuff – Steve bringing home most of it from his favorite upscale downtown grocery store, Heinens. Once my neck, nerve, muscle, tendon issues are addressed by a medical person, plus my new balance issues, I’ll be good to go and to do anything. Something to look forward to.

Yeah, I’m wishing on a dandelion (weed if you will) for some pain relief and structural corrections that will improve the quality of my existence.

DANDELION

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

It’s The Scale’s Fault

BIG FOOT SCALE

The BIG FOOT scale I put in our tiny bathroom tripped me in the middle of a bathroom run in the middle of the night and the bathtub sucker-punched me right in the kisser as I fell.

I could have died. I could have broken my nose, jaw, teeth, neck. Maybe I did. My nose still runs blood and water – but less than it did. There was blood everywhere.

The first day post fall, or maybe post concussion, I cleaned up, put some make-up on, found some big old sunglasses and went as previously planned for a bus ride on a high-end grocery store shopping outing – with Steve.

That night in bed with eyes closed I hallucinated. Wide awake? With eyes closed? All these faces coming at me, nobody I knew, talking to me like in the silent movies, moving their lips, talking frantically as if they thought I could read them. At some point I was afraid to go to sleep thinking I might not wake up.

I finally took two over the counter pain pills, that didn’t touch the pain, but put me to sleep. Was happy to wake up in bed the next morning instead of someplace I wasn’t ready to visit yet.

The swelling went down considerably two days later. Half my face was ballooned up like I’d been in a boxing match. I appear to be healing quickly though – a credit to something, I don’t know what.

I’m wobbly when I walk, talk and turn. I’m nauseated. Doctors won’t give me anything for pain, so why go and spend a couple thousand dollars on MRIs, x-rays, just to be told I’m okay now. Take it easy for a while, take Tylenol for pain and don’t jump out of bed, wait fifteen seconds before rising.

All the heroin users ruined it for everybody else. Now doctors are afraid to prescribe pain medication that actually works. They treat everybody like drug addicts.

At Walgreen’s when I picked up a pain pill prescription for Steve after his carotid artery surgery, I was put on a registry – a controlled substance registry formed by the government. They scanned my picture identification and now I’m listed as a pain pill popper with the United States government.

They put Steve in the registry too, when he picked up his refill. So now we’re both listed. But me? I didn’t have a prescription. I was just picking one up for him. It doesn’t matter. You walk out the door with a controlled substance and you get registered with the United States government. That wasn’t President Trump’s policy. It was President Obama’ policy.

Whoa. What country do I live in? I forget. All countries look the same to me from my post concussion view. I can’t even begin to image all the ways that the registry information is going to be abused and used against people in pain. So, I don’t want the pills. You don’t even have to register to buy a gun, but you have to register to buy a prescription.

Everything wobbles now. Not just my head. I’m still working. No down time. I just got a rude, out of the blue, awakening in the middle of the night to my age. I’m old, no matter the youthfulness of my mind.

So I need to take better care of balance concerns. Who would think? Exercised, walked all my life, ate right and all of a sudden I’m falling down for no reason except that a Big Foot scale and a bathtub got in my way.

The first thing I did was remove all area rugs, rolled them up and threw them in the dumpster. BIG FOOT got a new resting place, where nobody could bump into it.

Be alert, always. I thought I was – except when half asleep in the middle of the night and I don’t want to wake fully since I want to get back to sleep. The plan has got to change. I can’t have this happen again.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

WEIGH-IN 2 DAYS PER WEEK: BEST DAY AND WORST DAY

THE RULES

When I looked over the months of weights recorded, my best weigh-in day is usually (not always) Wednesday. Steve’s week-end (Monday and Tuesday) is over – that’s when I weigh the least. I eat less when he’s home. We do more together. I’m not working all day – alone with Lilly Belle – cooking, maintaining websites, writing, typing, researching, cleaning, planning – and for some reason it all makes me hungry, especially seeing food – pictures of my own recipes – makes me want to cook and eat.

The morning after my week-end with Steve I weigh myself, plus the morning before my week-end. My worst weigh-in day is the day before our week-end – our Friday morning. I’m hoping and figuring that now that I see a pattern, that the pattern will change. No, not change itself. I have to change the pattern. I need to eat less on my work days. I exercise more on my work days, though. When Steve is home, I walk more, which may have something to do with the eating less. I don’t know that part yet.

Most people eat more on their days off than on their work days. Not me. I’m not as distracted by food when Steve is home, though we both love to eat. We regard our days off as time to catch up by cutting back on some of the excesses during the week. The proof is in the scale and the amount I eat. I actually kept track of everything I ate and drank for two weeks. Keeping track made me eat more, since I figured as long as I wrote everything down I could eat it.

Nice trick. The ‘at least I’m being honest’ trick that we all use to justify just about anything. What for, I wonder? Being honest never produced a good result for me in anything. I’m beginning to wonder why I do it. I guess it makes my life easier in that I don’t have to keep track of lies, but the benefits are slim and none.

How am I doing? I’m out of the 60’s, which means I’m in the 50’s – the 150’s. So I’m doing okay.

My goal is to stay out of the 60’s forever. Focus on that, and maybe soon I’ll be out of the 50’s forever. All the while I’m establishing new little habits to eat more nutrient-dense foods in smaller portions. My portions aren’t that big to begin with though.

For me it’s primarily the frequency. Nutrient-dense foods are not an appetite suppressant for me.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

KAPUT

What do they say about the best-laid plans? They often go awry? Well, that’s me and my gym/spa escapade. I have to get up so early, and the bus trip is long and sometimes the bus wait isn’t a pleasant experience, then the bus trip back all before Steve goes to work. Then on opposite days he does the same thing.

All the preparation, it’s like packing for an overnight trip someplace. The showers and lockers, and pool, hot tub and sauna, everything needing an order to it, that takes up way too much of my time for such little gains. Mostly setbacks, as my muscles aren’t really ready for the big machines. This tendonitis just doesn’t want to go away.

Ten minutes rowing, ten minutes on a bicycle, 20 minutes on the machines, 10 minutes in the hot tub and again ten in the sauna, then I have to do the shower and dressing thing, but have to undress to go into the pool area, the floor is slippery, sometimes the sauna isn’t hot enough, nor the hot tub, and I’m wondering why I don’t feel better than I do after all this effort.

Steve feels the same way.

Every time I work out I want to go out to eat. What’s that about? I never even got to use the pool. Too many classes and when I was available the pool wasn’t.

We can exercise in-home, then outside walking, do the stairs in the building, we have enough equipment to make the required impact if we just do it. We both came to the same realization. There’s no shame in quitting if we continue on our own path and what works best for us. We already know what that is and how to do it.

So it’s kaput for the gym/spa. Sounded like a good idea, but it wasn’t a good fit for us.

Now it’s back to the old-fashioned way of exercising.

 

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

TURNING THE CORNER

Steve finally made it to the gym after procrastinating since September 2016. In fairness he had a stroke over Christmas and had a long recovery from carotid artery surgery, so he had some excuses. For me there were lots of excuses, but none of them were valid – the main one being I just didn’t feel like it.

It’s now 30 March 2017. I decided yesterday that I would cancel the membership. Why pay every month when I don’t go? Why pay 48$ a month for a bus pass on top of the membership fee, when I can exercise at home? Steve decided the same.

It takes up too much time – all the prep stuff to get there, then the winding down time. It was simply too big a block of time.

I have a balance ball, 5 and 10 lb. free weights, cords and a bunch of stairs, a sweat suit that makes me sweat out toxins, and a bar made from a tension curtain rod that’s the perfect size for me. I do stretching and crunches with no assist appliances. Plus I walk everywhere I go, unless it’s too far, then I take a bus. In fairness to myself I have been fairly consistent with my home exercises.

This morning I wake up and lay in bed thinking today is the day I quit. When I called the gym yesterday, the person I talked to on the phone said I needed to come in to cancel. They don’t do it over the phone. So, here I am ready to make my first appearance at the gym since September to cancel my membership and Steve’s.

I’m keeping an open mind I told Steve before I left.

When I got there I was given a tour by a guy whom I told my plan to. I figured since I’m here I might as well try it on for size and see if it fits. By the end of the tour and the end of my light work-out I decided to stay with it. I think the guy figured that just me showing up meant I probably really did want to do this.

The other day I read an article by the NO MEAT ATHLETE about forming new habits. It takes 30 days to form one or to break one. I think. Anyway, I’m going to form a new habit of making the gym a part of my life. For 30 days I will show up to the gym and do something, anything. Maybe one day work out in one area, maybe the next day do the water and sauna stuff. Don’t really know except that I will be there. After that I’ll reassess how often I want to participate.

The gym is no stranger to me, but it has been a really long time.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I turned the corner onto a new, better path.

Oh, and Steve decided to stay with it too.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

2 March 2017 Weight Loss Update

For months I’ve been putting off doing an update, since my weight fluctuated all over the place. But, since today is my birthday and I couldn’t sleep, I decided to get up and do some calculating.

Granted I’ve had some stress in my life and I’m beginning to think now that it’s not just the eating more than my body needs that made me gain weight again, but that stress may, at least in me, slow my body processes down as the weight of the stress bears heavy on my mind.

Okay, my mother died, my sister a short while later had a stroke, then my brother had a massive heart attack accompanied by a heart infection, then my husband had a stroke and subsequent carotid artery surgery, spending Christmas in the hospital, plus two other related procedures to get his blood pressure down.

Some guy and gal from Black Lives Matter came into my husband’s work place making a big scene that they were racially profiled and wanted to lodge a formal complaint, that now although my husband was exonerated of any bias after everybody viewed the tapes, it’s still on his record and the FBI and Homeland Security both have a presence at his workplace, so that whole thing was one ugly experience. Now we realize that the Black Lives Matter Organization is targeting old people, especially old men, since they figure if you’re old and you’re white, then you were a racist back in the days of Martin Luther King – and it’s time to get vengeance.

Then the promotion my husband thought surely was his, he being the most qualified, was given to someone else the very next day. Well, as they say, if we didn’t have bad luck we wouldn’t have any luck at all, but that really wasn’t about luck. It was about somebody making a false claim and that false claim was made on the basis of race and that affected our lives in a big way.

The medical bills are huge.

Wow. Unbelievable. There is tension all over Cleveland, Ohio. In the building where we live, at the bus stops, on the bus, at restaurants, bars, stores. The other day we’re standing at the bus stop and a black kid rides by on a bike and shouts out, “You two idiots are too old to change”. At first I didn’t catch it all, so asked for a repeat. He simply said, “you heard what I said”. Well, between my husband and myself we pieced it together. Ageism exists and every time there’s a story on television about blacks committing a crime and getting shot, old white people suffer who live in black neighborhoods.

So, no significant weight loss. I gained back 15 of the 16.6 pounds I had lost. My net loss over a 205 day period was 1.6 pounds. The YO-YO effect was in full force all the while.

What I did discover is that it really isn’t harder to lose weight than it is to gain weight.

From 8 August 2016 till 30 October 2016 I lost 16.6 lbs.

From 30 October 2016 to 2 March 2017 I gained 15 lbs.

I did cook a lot. Engineered a lot of recipes, that I need to get typed and posted, but those creative juices keep flowing and it’s hard to say no when I know the result is going to be good. Need to get more discipline in the typing department. Since I have dystonia, which is characterized by abnormal muscle contractions, typing is uncomfortable at best and excruciating at worst.

Exercise, exercise. Walking is my preferred form of exercise and I do a lot of that – always have. The other stuff causes more pain than sometimes I think it’s worth, but I keep doing it anyway. Whether I’m actually increasing my stamina and overall strength is questionable. Past injuries interfere with my success, but I’m also not working hard enough at it and need more organization.

Carrying those heavy grocery bags from the store over all these years has taken its toll on my neck and arms. It’s like I’m in a perpetual state of tendonitis.

I’ve had a spa membership since September of 2016 and I still haven’t used it. Maybe today I will. I have safety concerns. Maybe Steve and I will go together. Better for old white people to travel in pairs.

Next time I report in I hope to have more positive results.

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

30 October 2016 – weight loss update

My goal is to lose 5 lbs. per month. For the third month I’ve reached that goal. For weeks I weighed myself everyday, then only when I felt like it. Now it’s about every ten or so days, usually after a weekend, but not always. My final weight for the month is usually taken on the 30th of the month.

I’m pretty much going by the Circle Of Fat-To Fat-Free on what I eat (besides being animal-free). One half of the time I eat fat-free, then the other half is divided into low fat, medium fat and fatty. So far it’s working. I’m estimating everything, so the lines are blurred. Just being on some kind of weight control program makes one lose weight, although for the first three weeks of essentially no fat, the scale went up and down like a yo-yo. Sticking with it seemed to be key, at least for me. Eventually the scale moved and stayed moved. Then the yo-yo effect starts over again, but at a lower weight. I’m good with that.

My mother died. I had a sinus infection, then got a bladder infection, then upper respiratory and just got done with what I think was the flu. I didn’t get medicine for the flu, because I wanted my body to beat the illness it by itself. I figured if that happened, then my immune system would strengthen. I did take antibiotics for the bacterial infections, and maybe I didn’t really have the flu, since my fever soared to 103 degrees, but I don’t have a fever now, so I’m okay.

Perhaps the fever upped my metabolism and is responsible for the success of losing 5 lbs. a month. Stress, especially of losing such a powerful force in my life, my mother, tended to make me eat more. I don’t know the actual why of losing that 5 lbs. per month, except that maybe because I posted it, I felt compelled to succeed. Anyway, I’m back to work after nearly a month of grieving and processing and healing and bingeing on a lot of Netflix. I kept recalling what my mother had said to me decades ago regarding my work, “the animals need you”. Then I attended to when Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech, “…fighting for what’s right is worth it”. I think what she meant was ‘worth the pain of losses’. I’ve known many losses in my animal rights endeavors – in every realm of those endeavors. And sometimes when the body gets sick the mind gets weak, especially when progress is so slow. But I’m feeling better. Top of the mountain I’m at today. I’m optimistic.

After I weigh in on the last day of the month, I let my body know that I’m not starving, by eating more fat for a few days. I figure that will jack up my metabolism. Then about mid-month or just before it, I buckle down and focus on not gaining the 5 lbs. back and on losing 5 lbs. more.

The most recent morning after my 5 lb. weight loss success I made myself a Fatty Veggie Sandwich and loved every bite! A perfect breakfast.

Toast 2 slices potato bread. Spread one slice with peanut butter and the second slice with veg mayo.

Spread dill pickle relish on top of peanut butter, then squirt with a little mustard.

Top mayo side with lettuce, tomato and sweet onion.

Sprinkle all with fresh grind black pepper.

Lots of fat, but lots of veggies too! I like that. So of course I look forward now to the day that I make my weight goal.

fatty-veggie-sandwich-1 fatty-veggie-sandwich-2