Weather & Food A Factor Today

I forget sometimes that I cannot have great weather every day of the year. Especially when it's springtime in the Midwest or at least approaching spring. It's days like today that will remind me I will be mowing the lawn between rains this spring, just like I have every spring living in this house for the past 21 years. That didn't bother Stella, it was time to go this morning and she let me know.

Those skies don't look that bad but the radar shows a huge thunderstorm at the Illinois-Indiana state line. The rains should arrive here on the hill around noon since it's a slow-moving storm. The gutters and downspouts are clean and anxiously wait for the rain water they will have to process. For me, it will most likely be a day to read and squeeze in a few games of Mahjong. It's a rough life but someone has to do it.

It was late last night when I sat down in my desk chair to turn off the computer when I picked up the book by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. sitting on my desk. Before I knew it I had read almost two chapters about what to eat and about his "6-week Plan". I remember doing that plan for the first time in 2003. I felt great after the six weeks were up.

So why didn't I continue that?

It was harder for me then than now, to make changes to my diet and eat like he suggested for his plan. Back then I was in a job that was time consuming, fast foods when I had time to eat and business travel where we ate out all the time. I had the worst diet you could have and weighed more than any time I have in my life. Of course being 16 year younger, I didn't feel the need to make diet changes although I knew I was leading to major problems if I stayed on that course.

It finally dawned on my after reading two chapters last night, that the print in the book was just small enough that it was hard for me to read. I had to hold the book away from me for the words to really focus in. I then wondered if I could find this book online for free. What a concept? FREE.

Why did I wait so long?

I found and downloaded a .pdf file of the book, all 299 pages and when I adjusted the size of the page on my 27" monitor ... my eyes thanked me ... I continued reading for another hour.

So I am going to follow his "6-week Plan". It is going to be challenging for sure. Yet, after the way I felt yesterday and last night after eating more wheat and grains than I have been used to these past few months, I knew I had to do something. I felt terrible most of Wednesday.

Until I picked up that book last night I was seriously thinking that the Paleo Diet or the Blood Type Diet was my only choices for food.

Now I didn't start on page one of the book. I looked in the Table of Contents and cherry picked the chapter called "The Dark Side Of Animal Protein", page 68. By the time I read the next 23 pages there was no way I was going back to animal protein and trying the Keto or Paleo diets again.

I moved to the chapters on his starting plan that would not only reduce my weight but more importantly help get my body back in tune with fresh fruits and veggies plus adapt to my increased consumption of beans. Remember when I was eating somewhere between the theories of Keto and Paleo, I had cut out bananas, apples and blueberries because they were high in carbs. I had cut out almost all fruit except kiwi.

I had also cut out all grains and felt better since I have some sort of problems digesting them. Notice I have not mentioned dairy products because in the first six weeks of this plan, dairy is not allowed. THAT will be tough for me to get through.

It's not that bad because after the six weeks are up, there is room to add certain foods back to my menu. IF I can stick to the plan until May 3rd I am guessing a lot of the food I liked before, I will not have an interest in based on personal experience from years ago.

By the time Stella approached the turn to the far right corner of the field, the scent of deer was tormenting her nose and her will to move in that direction. Just to the right of that corner is a worn path that moves down into the gully. In the past I named it "The Deer Highway" in my blog posts. There were no sounds of cows like there were last week ... no, she was only analyzing deer scent today, as she sniffed the air.

Again .... soooooooo tempting to head back in the opposite direction to that far right corner where the deer have been. Are my words of "come on" ringing in her ears and preventing her from taking off on me??

Instead of filling this post up with what I read last night, I'll just give you the title of the book so you can search on the internet and get a free electronic copy if you are interested. I'm not an affiliate for his book, website or blog. I am just passing along information for those interested.

Eat To Live by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

Just like the weather changing and letting me know you cannot take good weather for granted. I was reminded on Monday just how life can change in an instant. While outside with Stella and Heidi after lunch, I heard a siren off in the distance.

It is a normal occurrence on the highway with either police chasing down cars speeding, or the ambulance that makes more passes by my house than I think is normal. Only this time the ambulance slowed and made the very sharp turn into my neighbors driveway, going up a steep hill all the way to the front of the house.

My neighbor is married, and the same age as I am. He was born and raised here but that is about all I know about him. He had a stroke a couple of summers ago, and I was told he has medical issues ever since. Just like that he life has changed for him again.

It must have been a major issue because they turned south heading to the interstate. That would be the fastest way to a larger hospital 25 miles away. Their other option was turn the opposite direction toward the smaller hospital 12 miles away. That's not good news.

Things like that puts things in perspective pretty quickly. I forget about all the 'noise' on TV news or if my team won the game or not and it's hard to complain that it's going to rain just a little today. I have been always thankful for my good health, that my hounds are healthy and I live in a pretty neat place. I chose a "tiny house" option before it was a fad, 21 years ago, when I downsized.

Yet, a life changing experience like my neighbor has had, makes me think about things in life. It's hard not to. Even though I am pretty sure I have a good 20 some years left in me, I am still aware of what might go wrong and will only show up when least expected.

Of course when you see a bloodhound walking up behind you looking like this, everything leaves my thoughts. Stella reminds me to relax, stop analyzing everything, quit thinking about literally everything that goes on in the world or here at home and just enjoy the day. That's what she does ... enjoys each day.

She doesn't change her routines much and will be 10 years old this summer. She knows how to enjoy life ... and how to increase my pulse rate sometimes with her stubbornness. :)

I had my coffee black this morning for the first time in a few weeks. I know that two teaspoons of sugar in one cup of coffee isn't that much but I sure do feel different when I don't use it. I'm serious. I don't have a full case of bloat after drinking coffee with sugar in it but I can see it and feel the difference compared to when I don't add that addiction.

Coffee is not on the "6-week plan". I am not sure I want to go though the four to five days of headaches if I were to eliminate coffee just to follow that plan. I did cut my quantity this morning to just one cup instead of two. It wasn't strong enough and I feel I still need that 'boost' from the caffeine.

The hardest part of all the change in eating plans ... tv commercials.

They do exactly what they are designed to do with their hidden high tech engineering. I am constantly attacked with a 55" picture of that double cheeseburger, every time a game breaks for a tv commercial. One thing I have noticed though is when I fell for those food commercials .... the sandwiches are never as big at the store as they are on tv. I ask myself "where's the meat?" (That question mark inside the quotation mark still looks weird and wrong to me. I don't like the look, although it's correct grammar.)

Nor are the burritos at Taco Bell as big as their commercials. Subway ??? Highway robbery. I could pay for a 'double' portion of meat for my 12" sub and still not have as much meat, veggies or cheese on the sandwich they give me through their drive-thru as what I see on tv.

Every time I drive by McDonalds I remember the blog I read a few years ago where the reader claimed he lost weight by eating at McDonalds EVERY MEAL ... lunch and dinner !!!!!

Now to really change the subject .... Vintage Audio.

I follow a Vintage Audio Twitter account. Not only are these 40 year old stereos still in operation, owners have kept them looking brand new and the rooms they have set up for their music and components are fantastic. Take a look and search those two words if you have a Twitter account. They are also on Facebook.

Which reminds me, tonight one minute after midnight my Facebook account will be officially wiped from all existence ... except on the Facebook servers I'm guessing. All it means is 30 days ago I clicked that "delete my account" button and they gave me 30 days to change my mind and fall back under their control. Yes, I know Facebook owns Instagram.

Stella was pretty popular on Facebook over the years, along with Sadie and Heidi and Winston. I am not sure if she understands her popularity here on the blog or my old blog on Blogger. Out of all the hounds I think Winston might have been the all-time favorite on the blog. You can read his page at the top of this blog

I know when she decides to go right of the bushes at the end of the walk, something is up. There is a small narrow path you can't see, that the deer have made as they either walk toward the highway or come from the other side of the highway into the field behind the house.

You can tell that something has Stella's interest and it isn't deer scat

What kind of scent could be that high on the pole that points out the property line. That depends on which survey you look at. I know that my survey is different from the owner of the field's survey and they were done by the same company !!!! WTF ???

A "Classic" Stella look ... LOL

She took her own sweet time but finally made it around the corner into the carport. It took so long I almost went back to the yard to see where she was or if she had decided to walk over to the neighbor's yard after being so close to her house.

I watched a little of the Cincinnati Reds spring training game last night. I am getting in the mood for Reds baseball. Things are looking up after 4 years of 'rebuilding' and losing more than 90 games per year. I think this team can win 90 games this year instead of losing that many. Isn't baseball a sure sign that Spring is almost here?

Right as I start to edit this post and then publish it ... it is so quiet in here I can hear my ears ringing. Both hounds are soundly sleeping, dreaming of lunch around noon. Stella does a lot more running in her sleep than she does in the field.

Will Heidi fit in a walk this afternoon if the rains really do show up? Forecasts are never 100% accurate, so she might have a chance.

It's a nice quiet morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Food, The Government Shutdown and Congress

The sunshine disappeared, the skies turned gray and the winds picked up. All that means is the weather is about to drastically change again. This time we are headed for temperatures back in the teens by the weekend and possible snow by Tuesday. That change was off to a good start as the hounds and I stepped outside after their lunch. As you can see neither hound was too enthused about staying outside. I could feel a very cold wind coming from the west, whereas the weather channel shows the front blowing in from the Northwest at first then a big western front early next week. No matter what, our routine will stay on course.

Stella and Heidi waited for me to return from the mailbox. Besides my small card for the water bill, a bill that has not increased in the last four years, mail was nothing more than added fodder to my recycling bin. Those landscape bricks are going to be swapped out for something taller this spring OR I am going to have a load of dirt dumped in this corner then rebuild the yard. I have lost that much ground in the 20 years I've lived here. Meaning, the ground use to be level with the carport floor. Too much erosion? Or not a concern? Let me know what you think.

So I was ready to go back inside where it's warm ... so were they.

Heidi wanted to do something most of the day but was having a hard time conveying to me exactly what she wanted. She acted like she wanted to play but that wasn't it. She didn't want outside again. She had been fed. She had fresh water and she had plenty of attention after she woke from her morning nap. By late afternoon we still didn't have an answer. She finally gave up and went to sleep.

A little after 2:30pm Stella and I decided it was a perfect time for an afternoon walk. I had some pasta for lunch/dinner and I need to walk off some of those extra calories. That meal brings up some of my recent thinking about food the past couple of days. Since I have blood pressure below the normal range for someone my age, height and weight, plus a low resting pulse rate, and I get some sort of daily exercise ... what if I really don't need to lose weight?

What if my body has decided this is where I need to be just as long as I stay away from fast food, junk food and sodas? What would happen or what would the results by the end of December 2019 if I will have eaten nothing but healthy food minus the cookies, candy, sodas and quarter pounders with cheese? I've not eaten like that since my mid to late 20s. Would I still lose weight?

Obviously I cannot follow the Keto way of eating because after one banana and one apple I am already over their 15-20 grams of carbs. I can't go strictly vegan or even lacto-vegetarian because when I tried that last year I felt lethargic most of the time. If I follow meals similar to the Mediterranean Diet I gain weight because there is too much pasta or too much bread or grains. What if I forgot about counting carbs and calories, fat or protein and just ate good healthy food every day. No processed foods, just food from the produce and meat/chicken/seafood isles? Except for coffee.

As far as calories go, those are tracked in the food apps I've used and use today. Most tell me, along with medical articles, that a man my age, height and weight needs 2200 calories per day. That is more than enough food for me. Overall I average somewhere between 1600-1800 per day. There will be days I go both extremes of 1200 or 3000 depending on what I eat that day. I try to shoot for 1500 but with that number I am too hungry after 7pm. 1800 calories seems to be the best ... still those 1800 calories do not include any packaged food, maybe a can of tuna for spreading on a salad, or pasta sauce from a jar (no I'm not making my own). Meaning, my cabinets are not filled with packages of cookies, chips, crackers, candy, breads, ice cream, etc. It has been months since my last gouge on bad food.

I read the other day a study showed that a high carbohydrate diet was good for longevity .... as long as your lived in Okinawa.   :)

The path was wet this afternoon. Since it was 30° that is still cold enough to keep the ice around.

So I am leaning to do what I have been doing. I'll eat when I am hungry with my biggest meal of the day no later than 4pm. I'll keep eating bananas, apples carrots, other fresh fruit and veggies because they are good for you  and carbs don't matter when it comes to good healthy fruit. I'll have a lot of salmon because I love salmon plus I have a great source nearby for fresh caught wild salmon.

I will still have a steak occasionally along with a burger every 3-6 months because they taste good, high in protein and fat - no carbs to speak of. The BIG KEY will be, to resist that urge for a candy bar, a package of oatmeal raisin cookies or "just one" container of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. This spring and summer will be the hardest time of year to stay away from that kind of food.

I will not care knowing that if I had any amount of pasta to my day, most likely that will shove my calorie count over 2200 for the day ... who's counting? who cares?

I know my limits. I have to stay away from any kind of cows milk, any kind of cottage cheese and even the best of the best yogurt. Why? I can drink milk nonstop and within 24 hours a gallon of milk in my house is gone! I know with a container of cottage cheese that it will not last much longer than the milk does, once I open the container. Same with the yogurt ... only a difference ... I have yet to find a yogurt yet that does not give me some sort of indigestion. So  ... none of those kind of dairy ... Kerrygold butter, yes. Eggs, yes, cheeses, yes.

am I am anxious to see how these new thoughts on food shows on my monthly spreadsheet. I'll adjust my food intake from what I see there.

I've must have turned on my tv and off within 5 minutes a million times the past few weeks ... trying to listen to the news, since I do not sit and watch the news. For those that have never worked in government, let it be known that things operate a little differently than a job in a company. I have been in both worlds, corporate and government in the accounting field.

There is so much more to government finances than the media lets on. So much that I cannot even cover all the points of differences here. I'll just mention a couple of things that make this 'shutdown' confusing.

As a government contractor in 2013 I was sent home during a shutdown in the Obama administration. It wasn't long, a week to ten days. By the time my boss called me to come back to work I told him I am somewhere between Arkansas and Missouri driving and being at work by 8am the next morning was not possible. "After all YOU are the one that told me to go home" :)

I was still paid on a regular basis during that shutdown because I took vacation days as did EVERYONE ELSE I worked with!! There was no hardships by those married with kids - they were happy to have the time off!!!

I have also been in a government position. In most cases throughout government nationwide, funds to pay people salaries are already on the books in THEIR department, especially in January the start of the second quarter in a fiscal year. So the shutdown isn't a money thing, there is money available within their departments to pay salaries.

There might be some people in between projects, or a new hire that doesn't have funds set aside for them but I know from personal experience those kind of employees are paid on time with the project money already on the books. The kicker is, depending what type of funding it is, they will have to spend all of it some way by September 30th or lose it as DC takes back the balance. When people are not paid, those balances grow astronomical.

From the personal side ... I'm sorry I don't agree with the "sob story" of food lines, trying to feed my kids, missing a mortgage payment ... etc.

WHY??? "That's terrible" "You suck saying that"

Even the new employee hired a week before the shutdown, they make good money. Very good money. IN MY OPINION after being in their shoes ... the people who are crying to the heavens that Trump or the shutdown is destroying their life .... really???? ONLY BASING THIS ON WHAT I HAVE SEEN WITH MY OWN TWO EYES WHEN WORKING ... those kind of people have a house that they couldn't  afford when they bought it. I mean, they mortgaged out more than they could afford. God bless them if they don't have a fixed rate mortgage. They stretched that monthly payment as much as they could within their budget .... called income and expense.

See along with that house are one or two NEW cars, trucks or suv's. They have $700-~$1,000 per month going out for car payments. "Ah you want at that $65,000 pickup truck but can't afford that monthly payment ??? Let me help you and stretch that loan out 7, 8 or 9 years. Is that better?" says their friend car salesman.

I haven't even got to the credit card mess yet. For those government workers that are strapped for cash driving an older car and bought an older cheaper home or even renting ... I'll bet all the money I have that their credit cards are max'ed out to the maximum balance and there is no more money available .... why??

WHO BUYS GROCERIES WITH CREDIT CARDS THAT HAVE INTEREST RATES OVER 20% ????? Who? .. More people than you can imagine.


Again, based on my personal experience of working for the government, having lunch with co-workers and even having some co-workers show up at my desk more times than I can count saying -----

"I hear you do spreadsheets. Do you think you could make one for me that can tell me where all my money is going , I never seem to have any money left after I get paid?"

Those were people making over $65,000 per year, with kids usually, possibly a single parent. Or a young graduate just starting. Or someone as old as me that just figured out they really want to retire but has not saved a dime for retirement and could see they were not going to have enough to live on after working for the government all their life. They had refinanced their house to keep their lifestyle of the 'rich and famous' going strong all those years.

Now there are those that are innocent, have a savings accounts, have paid for college tuition for their kids, are responsible for their money and stays within budget ... but those people are not the ones crying to the heavens how they are getting screwed.

BTW do you know that most airports hire their security checkers from private firms and not all are TSA employees?

Do you know that 4 out of 6 illegal immigrants have an education level below high school? What kind of job can you get with that?  (Yes, I know Gates nor Zuckerberg finished college) Do they deserve a "living wage" or $15 per hour minimum?

So it's a mixed bag of thoughts for me on this shutdown stuff. I am guessing that Congress will come to some sort of agreement, after both of their bills fail to get passed this afternoon. It will be a deal behind closed doors ... then all the whining and bitching can move to another topic in the media. Just like referees in ballgames, the media reporters make me puke!!!

I did well playing Mahjong today. I also found a new tv series I love on the History Channel called "Project Blue Book" ... my DVR had taped three shows for me. I watched them all back to back. If you like true stories, if you like UFO's, you like history ... then you will like Project Blue Book on the History Channel. Another show I mentioned a few posts ago, is about the start of the internet, the anti-trust suit against Microsoft that they lost, the destruction of Netscape (my favorite browser in the 90's) ... Valley of Boom, their last show is on Sunday night.

Stella of course is not affected by the government shutdown but you can't say she hasn't thought about it. That is a look of some deep thinking from a bloodhound.

While playing Mahjong at the kitchen table I noticed the water rising from the flooded creek that borders both fields across the highway.

By 5pm there were signs of unexpected snow. No urge to nap after that pasta I ate. No urge to read ... just urges to hang out and enjoy another day of retirement. Tell me what you think about my food thoughts or my thoughts on the government stuff.

It's been another nice day in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.