Well, It works

The food isn't the most tasty we've ever eaten. But, we have been eating the food and we have been losing the weight. As I posted on January 12, we have been on the Nutrisystem diet since January 7. In the past almost 6 weeks, John has lost almost 17 pounds and I have lost almost 13 pounds. We feel really good about that.

We have not really been hungry. We eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. But the food we eat, especially the dinner entrees, is either like cardboard or has a spicy or peppery taste I'm not crazy about. But, again, I'm not hungry and I am losing weight.

These two boxes arrived on Valentine's Day.

Here is the contents of the top layer of food in the two boxes.

The bottom layer includes dinners and some snacks. For this second month, we ordered food for 5 days of the week, leaving 2 days each week to eat what they call flex meals, the proper combination of protein, carbs, vegetables and miscellaneous to provide a low-calorie, balanced diet. I am supposed to eat about 1200 calories a day, John up to 1500 calories. We also received guidelines for a maintenance diet. That will allow me somewhere between 1500 and 2000 calories daily, John 1800 to 2300. Both of those seem a little high, but we will begin at the lower level and only add more if we continue to loose weight.

Over the years, we have tried many different diets because weight has been an issue for both of us for more than 20 years. Weight Watchers worked the best in the past. In fact, I have been cooking Weight Watchers meals for years--but the portions kept getting bigger and bigger. Portion size, not the foods we eat, is really the issue, isn't it? With this delivery of food, we received a number of small plastic containers with different colored lids. These will be used for maintenance to control the quantity of fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy, grains and starchy vegetables, and healthy fats we eat each day. More on that when we get there.

A Favorite Haunt

Two or three times a week, there is a room here at Canyon Vistas where you can be sure to find us.

Thats right, we do our best to work out in the Exercise Room several times a week. First, a little bit of history.

When I started college at the age of 18, I started smoking. I didn't kick that habit until I was 38 years old. I tried to quit smoking several times a year over probably a 10-year period. Finally I did it--by giving myself permission to eat whenever I felt the urge to smoke. You can probably imagine what that meant. It didn't take me any time at all to gain 25 pounds. And I kept eating until September of 2002, when I weighed 175 pounds. That month, I received a letter from my health insurance saying they recommended that women not take hormone replacement therapy for long periods of time. I had been on them for 7 years and now I had to stop.

My issue with that was that the hormones helped to keep my bones strong. Since my mother had osteoporosis, I knew I had to do something to protect myself. After some research, I took a deep breath and signed up for a weight training class at the Goodson Recreation Center near our home in Colorado. I expected to be in a class with lots of young, strong men. To my delight, the other class members were all seniors, both men and women. Not only was I comfortable in the class, I soon really enjoyed the workouts. John had done weight training off and on since his teens. By January 2003, he, too, joined the class. And the really good news was that I lost 28 pounds by that April!

Since then, we have continued our weight training. A personal trainer designed routines for us, using free weights, for use when we traveled in our RV. In January 2009, we became full-time RVers and continued with that same routine for the past nearly 6 years. We knew it was important to change the weight training programs to keep muscles in shape, but never took the effort to make new routines. The good news is, I weigh the same today as I did in April 2003. The bad news is, that weight is 15 or so more than my lowest weight in the past 11 years. I would like to loose weight, but I try to appreciate the 28-pound loss I have maintained. If only I was still as tall as I was then!

For the past 6 winters, we have had access to circuit machines, but never bothered to use them until this year. It feels good to do something new. When it is cool to cold in the mornings, John runs on the treadmill and I use an elliptical trainer.

As you can see from the photos below, there are machines to work just about every muscle in our body. And there are lots of people here in the resort who like to keep fit by working out here.