I choose #1, and no, I don't intend to keep on talking forever about my weight. But I am proud that I've stuck to my guns for six months, even though losing weight, for me, is the easy part once I get started. This entry, really, is for my own benefit because it marks my progress. This will be my last entry about weight loss (and/or maintenance) until New Year's. After that, I will make it an annual entry.
This morning I weight 2/10 of a pound under 150, which is another milestone because I am now one hundred forty-something. I am ten pounds under my original goal, and have lost thirty-seven pounds. I don't care whether I lose more, but I do care that I keep the weight off.
Something I've learned is that I don't need to eat dessert just because Cliff does, which saves me at least 200 calories a day. Cliff cannot eat a meal without having something sweet, and for all these years I have been eating dessert just because he does. We are both "buddy eaters" and tend to want whatever the other is eating. Now I ask myself, "Do you really want that?"
The answer is usually no. During the summer, I buy those long popsicles at Walmart. Our old practice was to eat several of those a day. Now we are allowed one daily, but I forget to eat mine!
So here's hoping I can give a good report six months from now. Every time I wonder if I will maintain, I remember my daughter's challenge early this year: "Do you know ANYBODY who ever kept the weight off after they lost it?"
I am striving to finally be that one. Thanks, Rachel, for the motivation.
My birthday is coming up soon. I recently tried to talk Cliff into taking me on a bus trip out of Kansas City that makes a tour of the Flint Hills area of Kansas, but he was having none of that, impending birthday or not. The only bus trip he intends to take is one that is taking us to a tractor museum next fall.
So I figured he can just take me to the Flint Hills in the car. That'll be about half the price of the bus tour, but I still get to celebrate my birthday in a suitable manner. Today I'm mapping out our route.
Cliff has never been a big fan of the state of Kansas, but we both like museums. There seem to be plenty of museums in those small towns in the Flint Hills. Maybe that will win him over. We may not go north into Manhattan as shown on the map. Smaller towns sound like more fun to me.
There is a sort of museum in Alta Vista, the Ag Heritage Park, that is a personal collection of old farm-related items. Sounds like something we would both enjoy. You call the owners if they aren't on the premises, and they show you around. We saw a collection like that in Iowa a couple of years ago that was well worth the time spent.
I thought about taking a picnic along, but I think it would be more fun to eat at the Hays House in Council Grove. It was built in 1857 by the town's first settler, Seth Hays, and is regarded as the oldest continuously operating restaurant west of the Mississippi River.
I hope we'll learn something about a state that we are prone to think of as nothing more than an ordeal we have to suffer through to get to Colorado. Friend Meesha blogged about visiting the Flint Hills, if you want to see what he has to say about it.
