Some Rambling In Good Weather

My brain cells seem to be lining up this morning after a lot of thinking lately along with reading about different eating plans. It reminded me about times a few years ago when I was obsessed with looking at and finding RVs or trailers to buy ... or the times I would trade cars .. on and on and on. Luckily reading articles online is a lot cheaper than making the financial transaction to buy cars, SUVs or an RV.

Add to the fact, the past two nights I have stayed up late to watch the Reds lose two games in Los Angeles, the hounds and I have been starting our days a little later than normal. Today's game starts at 3:10pm local time so we will be able to get back on schedule.

While I wrapped up my reading about eating plans and nutritional targets this morning, Stella laid down by my desk chair and slept the whole time while Heidi was on her dog bed wrapped in the sleeping bag for her after breakfast nap. We took off for our walk this morning around 10:30am in 61° weather and a breeze whipping through the field.

Stella was doing a lot more trotting this morning but the camera was never fast enough to catch her when she was applying 100% effort.

So what's with all this thinking I have been doing about eating plans? I've mentioned it various times in the past four months. My brain basically locked into that topic because I was not losing the weight I wanted to lose. Like most of the population it yoyo's back and forth with a few times where I fall off the healthy food diet, losing all control with junk food. THAT has not happened recently ... but the bathroom scale still shows I am stuck at my current weight, give or take a pound or two and have been for the past six months.

Keto is too extreme for me and there is no way I am going to survive on 20g or less of carbohydrates per day. I never looked at that diet as a long-term plan but seriously considered it just to lose weight. If I were to regain that lost weight, than what would have been the point of being strict?

I tried Paleo a few years ago and that gave me instant improvement by taking away my indigestion I was getting when eating healthy food. Plus I lost a few pounds but all that fat concerned me with a family history of cardiac problems. Yes, I remember I am not them and realized that my way of eating for the majority of my life was a lot different from them. Still ... causing my own heart attack lingered in back of my mind.

Over the past four years I found out what healthy food I could eat and which healthy food gave me indigestion soon after eating it or waiting to torment me hours later in the middle of the night ... like around 3am. Never fun and very frustrating. I also figured out no matter how healthy yogurt might be for me I needed to avoid eating all dairy products. Dairy products would lead me to taking tablets of TUMS for relief.

On top of that, some whole grains did the same thing. Yet, they are listed as being healthy food and a requirement. There were certain brand name wheat breads I could eat but I found the more I ate them the harder it was to lose weight. This story gets  better. LOL

With no grains or dairy on my developed menu, the choices of food were getting less and less. Combing my physical reactions to different foods, combined with the different diets I was actually migrating to a very healthy menu of just a few foods that I could eat and enjoyed eating them. This took place over a few years but really focussing the past few months.

Since my brain cells have always "bounced around" a lot from thought to thought, I also did that with different diets. Lucky for me those spreadsheets I used to track the insanity  gave me proof what worked and what did not work when it came to my meal plan. Those crazy spreadsheets gave my answers in a very clear format. Basically it was obvious when I looked at the data I collected.

They actually have a diet name for the way I was eating most of the time. US News & Word Report's diet rankings call it the Flexitarian Diet. It is ranked high in their study with a panel of nutritional experts. Yet ... I could not lose weight eating that way.

I've always gone with "moderation" on the foods I should or was told to avoid if I wanted to eat healthy. I've been pretty consistent with that policy the past four to five years. The few times I went back to eating the way I use to and did NOT log in my food into a calorie app ... I'd gain a LOT of weight back, meaning 8-10 pounds.

Some might think from my recent posts about diet talk and mentioning some of the books I have been reading about eating, that something might be wrong with my health that I am not fully honest about.

That is not true.

Nothing is wrong healthwise with me. I was/am just wanting to fine tune my eating plan for optimum health as I get older. With my Apple Watch being accurate in counting and tracking my heart rate plus my sleep patterns, I read that I am above average for a man my age in resting heart rate, heart rate dip during sleep and not reaching my maximum heart rate doing any kind of activity.

I want to keep it that way so I wanted to fine tune and double-check what I am eating to make sure I am getting all the nutrients for someone my age and at the same time lose the weight I want to lose. Am I fat in appearance? Not by what my friends say but by what I read in articles about nutrition and my BMR number I am and need to lose weight.

A friend of mine started dieting with me on the same day a few months ago. Some of you read his blog or his journal as he likes to call it, will know this story. After 3 months he lost the 30 pounds he wanted to lose but had a mild heart attack soon after. He told me the other day that doctors did not know why he had a mile heart attack but he suspects it was caused by his low blood pressure in the middle of the night.

We all probably knew a friend that died at a younger age, ate healthy and may have even been a workout addict. Like I mentioned before a lot of people in my rural area live into their late 80's or 90's and were not the type to drink bottled water nor eat all the fad diets. They may have smoked cigarettes their whole life and/or had a lot of fat in their diets ... still they lived a lot of years.

So nobody knows when it's time to check out, and everybody is different.

The past two days I had come to the conclusion based on all I had read in medical journals, blogs by licensed nutritionist, my personal experience and my spreadsheets ... I had a range of foods I could eat that were listed as healthy by one diet or another. I also knew each kind of eating plan never agreed on what to eat. To some oatmeal is healthy and by others it's a food to avoid ... just an example.

I know what foods give me indigestion and I'll avoid those. I have for months. I also know I cannot live on fast food cheeseburgers and pizza as much as I would like to and remain healthy from what I have read. I also know from personal experience eating that way is the fastest way to regain the 26 pounds I have lost since retiring in April 2014.

I also decided I did NOT want to splurge on carbohydrates nor did I want to go to the extreme that Keto suggests. I found when I would eat more than 100g of carbs per day I gained weight ... although carbs do NOT cause weight gain ... calorie intake does.

Yes carbs that are not burned turns to fat and weight is gained but at the same time calorie intake could be higher than the daily requirement during that time. One thing I did find when I did eat higher carbs and low-fat meals ... I felt lethargic, took naps, felt like crap. So much for the vegetarian diet.

I also found I felt better, less hungry and ate fewer calories per day because I was not that hungry, occurred when I at less carbs, more protein and fat. In some eyes that is a terrible diet for long term but it is what I feel best on.

Is there a happy medium balance between the two ways of eating?

I could see I was coming close to a final eating plan and end my insane obsession with what to eat and just enjoy life. I also know that if I don't track what food I eat using Cronometer where I can see the detail nutritional value of what I am eating (a free app) then I eat more than I should, gain weight and feel like crap like I use to.

I want to do this.

Avoid all dairy products, cut way back on grains eating smaller portions of grains that don't give me indigestion like pasta, brown rice and that specific brand name bread. I will go back to skinless chicken, more seafood and a NY strip steak only once per month. Pizza and cheeseburgers are allowed but no more than one per month if that. I know what fruits cause me to gain weight so I will avoid those and I know which beans give me indigestion, to avoid those ... but eat others.I am going to lean toward lower carbs but will not go crazy if I eat 150g in a day. I'd like 50g per day but see I do well at 80g per day. For someone my age the consistent answer is I need .4g of prot

ein per pound of body weight. I found today in reading that protein target could be between .36 to .68 grams per pound.

So yesterday afternoon I decided to come up with my own nutritional targets that I can put in Cronometer to see daily results. I wanted to stay at 50g of carbs per day, and I used .4grams per pound for my protein target. You can see by the process of elimination, once you have a carbs and protein target that leaves your fat intake to be only a blance of what is left out of a 100% of calories.

When I wrote those numbers down my fat intake would be off the charts. I didn't want that. For example: Calories 1750, Carbs 50g, Protein 80g and that left Fat 138g per day. The percentages would be Carbs 11%, Protein 18% and what is left is Fat 71%, WAY OVER the limits of most diet suggestions.

So I went digging again and found a good article "How Many Carbs & Protein Over 50 years Old" and brought those nutritional targets a little bit more into reality.

After reading their information and taking their "overweight" ranges I came up with these nutritional targets. I think with what I plan to eat and do eat most of the time this will be a good range of nutrients.

I dropped my calories from 1750 to 1600 because I want to lose weight. I took the lower percentage of 45% of calories for carbs (180g). I split the difference between .36 and .68 to come up with .52grams per pound or 26.5% of calories for protein. (106g) and that left a balance of 29% of calories for fat intake. (52g)<

It will be the lower 1600 calories per day that will have me losing weight, not the amount of carbs I eat. I've seen that happen before when I was eating 1200-1700 per day. I have not been eating 180g of carbs based on the foods I eat. The fat intake is not 10% like some doctores or diets recommend but remember I said a few paragraphs before ... low-fat, high carbs make me feel sick, lethargic and at times sleepy in the middle of the day.  It still falls below the recommended 30% by a lot of different diets.

Will I splurge every once in a while? Sure ... but that falls within my 'moderation' boundary and I don't see anything wrong with having a Five Guys cheeseburger or a pizza ever month or so. For example I had a pizza a few weeks ago for the first time in two months or longer. I can't remember the last time I had a cheeseburger from any fast food drive-thru.

I have cut out a lot of those foods I'm told avoid and like I told someone the other day, without noticing, I no longer have the nightly insane urge for candy, cookies, ice cream or sweets. Those cravings are gone.

As you can see, our morning walk is not really official until Stella turns to her right and walks as close to the house as possible to finish our morning walk.

Like I said on this blog on Blogger a few years ago or possibly my dieting post here in December ... my eating 'problem' has always been PORTION SIZE more than what kind of food I eat. Always has been.

If you read this far I hope I did not bore you. For those that read this far and are interested in an eating plan or trying to diet for whatever reason, I hope you found some useful information in my rambling.

I have a lot of these purple flowers in my yard. I never spray to keep them but I do mow over them. There are a lot of them in the front yard and always show up in the same part of the yard for the 21 years I have lived here. Cutting the grass at 3", taller than all my three or four neighbors. I have a green yard and theirs are already showing grass that has been cut to short and will look dead in the middle of the summer.

Heidi woke up around her normal time and let me know it was time for lunch. She has become a little more demanding lately with her nonstop barking and hopping up and down as she barks at me. She gets those front paws off the ground a good half-inch each time she jumps.

They went outside right after eating but didn't stay long. Stella checked out the neighbor mowing his yard along the edge of the highway and headed for the door to go back inside. Within SECONDS both of them were in a deep sleep for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing new there.

I need to clean their ears and cut there toenails today or tomorrow, maybe I'll try cutting their nails while they sleep. With baseball at 3:10pm, great overcast weather and all the windows open, it's a perfect time to continue reading the three books that seem to go on forever. That short time I was outside talking those two pictures I found three ticks crawling on my when I got back to my desk.

Healthy eating here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Enjoy Their Weekend

First of all I hope all the blog readers that experienced tornado weather yesterday that moved through the south made out okay without any kind of damage. We had nothing like that yesterday but woke up this morning to signs of heavy rain last night while we slept. These first few pictures are from an exciting Saturday ... as you will see the hounds didn't do anything different from any other day.

Stella and I had a good Saturday morning walk. I planned on posting just one blog post Saturday later in the day, thinking I would get some activity from Heidi. That did not prove to be a correct assumption. She didn't do much, didn't want to do much and following her lead ... Stella and I ended up not doing too much on Saturday either, with great weather outside.

With a weather forecast of rain most of next week I was going to mow the yard while it was dry. In some spots the grass was tall enough to mow but I knew if I waited another two to three days after the rains, then it would be too tall to mow with a lot of excess grass lying around. After seeing some water standing in the field this morning and my neighbor's culvert I was happy I mowed yesterday.

Like I said, Heidi didn't do much yesterday. Did that short burst of sprinting and getting airborne on Friday afternoon take that much out of her? She spent a little time outside after her lunch but wasn't interested in anything else besides sleeping the rest of the day. She had to get ready to watch the Reds game at 7pm. I decided to spend the day reading books.

Stella felt the same way. Took a look around, then turned to head back inside. She was in her afternoon siesta mode within minutes of stepping inside the house.

I never heard rain last night while I slept. I did close all the windows though because the temps were going to drop to the low 40's during the night. This is always a sign that it has rained a lot. The water comes from under the edge of the shed wall, yet when I sit a level on that carport floor ... it is level.

Even if the standing water is small in this part of the field I know by that, the path in back will be saturated under the leaves and there will be spots of standing water on the path the further we get into the field at a higher elevation.

What a shock I had when I stepped around the car this morning. I had forgot to put all the stuff back in the shed after I mowed the yard yesterday. That just shows that we did not get back outside much yesterday afternoon and I evidently did nonstop book reading right up until the time the Reds game started. Only the mower was rained on.

I was also a little surprised that Stella was going to go on the walk this morning. I took a step onto the path and had water coming up the sides of my boots, over the edge of the soles of the boots. With more rain on the way, about 40 miles west of us, we didn't have much time to get this walk in this morning.

Stella didn't take long to decide the path was too wet and she moved off to the side as we started. The field grass is growing fast, faster than my yard is.

If the path was fairly dry she walked on it. Once it became to saturated with the rain water, she moved off the path just like always. She is smarter than the AKC thinks she is.  :)

We are nearing the back of the field, about 40' higher in elevation based on facts from my Apple Watch, and there is standing water on the path. That is not out of the ordinary.

I made some minor adjustments today in my clothing. With it being 44° at 10am I went from summer clothes back to wool socks and a thermal long sleeve undershirt. I am a wimp the older I get when it comes to cold weather. It did snow lightly the first week of April last year so in comparison this weather is not bad.

Stella didn't investigate a lot of scent nor did she eat deer scat this morning. She acted as if she wanted to get this walk over as soon as possible. Walking at a pretty steady pace we knocked off 3 minutes from our total time for the walk.

You might notice her collar has a slightly different tint of red. (faded) The other bright red collar I tried the other day was just too small for her. Late last night I opened the closet door in the kitchen where I have all the older hound collars hanging along with my three 6' leashes. I found a collar that was a little longer. I moved her current rabies tag to this collar and slide it over her head this morning.

She whines when I take the collar off of her as if she likes wearing one. So she was pretty happy this morning to have a different collar to wear. Heidi does not wear a collar until she makes a trip to the vet. Sadie and Winston didn't either

Most of the day is going to look just like this. With more books to read and the Reds starting at 2:30pm today, it can rain all it wants to outside.

I've gained all the weight back I had lost a few weeks ago. At least I know the reason for that and my spreadsheet confirmed what I thought the reason was. One is eating 500 more calories per day, bumping it up from 1500 to 2000 range. Along with that is an increase in carbohydrates. Like I have said before, carbs and I do not get along, with added weight and slight indigestion when eating food that is called healthy.

I do best somewhere between Keto Diet and a Paleo Diet compared to a meatless diet or one with a lot of grains and fruit.

I thought we might take the older path home but at the "Y" Stella kept walking our newer path we started a few years ago. It's the one we take the majority of time and ends up putting her in the northern part of the backyard.

She got an early start of cleaning her legs up and didn't wait to get in the house to start her daily routine after a walk through the wet field. She will lick to dry her legs and all of her paws dry. I have not mowed the north side year nor this north section of the backyard yet.

She was about as close as she could get next to the house. Closer than she normally does and I can only assume it's because of how wet the walk was. I still have not decided what to do about the area where the river rock is. Mulch or grass?

With temps in the 40's, a cool breeze and no changes predicted for the day, you can expect Heidi to do this most of the day. She does demand the sleeping bag though, even when she moves to the couch. I know that when she is staring at me shivering she is wanting me to bring the sleeping bag to her on the couch.

I heard about Trump's new idea for placing the illegal immigrants in the US ... giving them a bus ride to the sanctuary cities.  LOL ... isn't it interesting that those politicians that support sanctuary cities do not support that plan to accept them. I still say, the Democrats are 'giving' Trump a landslide win in 2020.

The NBA Playoffs have started I guess. I never watch the NBA and I can't even tell you who won the championship last year. For being a sports fan and a college basketball fan it is a little strange how I have no interest in professional basketball.

I found a Toyota FJ on AutoTrader last night that had everything I wanted in one but have not found that combination since I traded my first one in November 2017. It was silver instead of blue, it had the rock rails and the TRD package just like my first one had. The color and features are what I've wanted every since I traded that first one I had.

It is very tempting to make the drive to Northern Kentucky just south of Cincinnati to check it out ... but I won't. I remember why I traded my last Toyota FJ just last August. That lingering sharp pain in my hip joint every time I climbed into the seat. Plus I am on pace to drive less than 3,000 miles total for 2019 unless something drastic changes in my driving habits for the next 8 months. So what difference does it make what kind of car I drive, when I drive so few miles?

IF Heidi decides to shock me today and I can take some outdoor photos of her, I will and add those to my next post. That is highly doubtful but you never know with her. In fact this morning I woke up to her barking from the hallway ... that has never happened, ever. She sprinted to the door when I walked by her and then tip toed around the standing water in the carport to get just off the edge of it to pee. She has always been the perfect house dog.

All is good here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.