Getting back to healthy eating after the holidays

I love this idea! I want to take off about 5 pounds. I am going to start a food diary today.

I walk daily on a treadmill at a nearby gym for my cardio.
I also, just found out my library is doing free Tai Chi on Wednesdays. I intend to sign up for these classes to help me with my balance.

I am very surprised that I gained this extra weight. I blame the holidays.

@rosemarya the article is very good. It’s good to be reminded of what we need to do so we can commit to it. For me it helps if I can envision a goal. Right now mine is for my clothes to fit more comfortably!

@grillgirl. There’s an excellent, free tool online to track your food. It’s MyFitnessPal.com. I used it and found it very helpful. If you get yourself committed you know you are only cheating yourself if you don’t put EVERYTHING down. I plan to resume using it once again. I’ve gained 6 - 8 pounds, and would to lose that and 5 - 10 more.
JK

Happy Monday!
What healthy habit have you adopted from the Healthy Lifestyle article that @retiredteacher included in the introduction to this discussion?

I have to admit that I have already wandered astray from diligently writing down my foods and beverages. So today, I am ignoring my recent blank pages, and without feeling any guilt, I am resuming my goal of food tracking! Over the past 12 days I have already discovered some patterns of eatng and snacking that are less-than healthy. Now I am seeing where my real problem eating areas are because I have circled the 'unhealthy' choices red. I did some selective grocery shopping and I am ready to begin again..

How about you, @grillgirl, @dsisko, @contentandwell, @retiredteacher, @johnbishop. How is your resolution going?

I diligently track in LoseIt every day. A very easy app to use. If I don’t record, I tend to slowly gain back. I record what I see as “bad foods” in snacks so I can see how many calories could have gone to good foods instead. It’s too many but I’m staying stable in weight so that’s fine for now. Will reduce those soon. Biked 28 miles today so getting exercise as well.

Happy Monday to you too @rosemarya! I decided this year that I would make a New Years Resolution that I could keep ☺ My resolution was to not make any resolutions. That said since retiring at the end of the year, I am able to easily manage my daily exercise schedule of 30 minutes and have even bumped it up to 45 to 60 minutes on days when I'm feeling fairly good. I have had a few bad days with the sweets but I have been mainly focusing on portion control. I have a daily morning gut check on my bathroom scale but I need to get a new one because the one I have is faulty. I know they tell you not to weigh yourself daily but it is an incentive for me and it helps me identify or reinforce what I did or didn't do the previous day.

@rosemarya I had to give myself a tough talk about being in control. I've always been in control, but lately I have allowed myself to have a pity party because there are things that I have no control over that make me disappointed. However, I went back to the "get hold of myself and do it!" I have not missed a day, and I must lose some weight. So, I returned to a rigid diet. I have veggies for lunch, and have cabbage soup (Wt. Watchers) and a sandwich or salad for supper. I have counted carbs and calories as Wt. Watchers says, "If you bite it, write it." I did not weigh when I started, but I will soon. The scale is not my friend so I'll start weighing once a week. I do not eat much meat and my veggies are limited. Fruit is my enemy also. So my meals are eating to get healthy, not eating for something delicious and illegal for diabetics. My blood numbers are still too high. They have been so off the charts that I have to see if I can get back on track; it is a challenge I like. If that doesn't work, then I'll see an endo somewhere (since the only endo here retired), If I have to go to a new endo., I will not be happy. I don't like new doctors. But it may be necessary. I am very stubborn and hardheaded, so I will continue making myself do what I must whether I like it or not.
Thanks, Rosemary, for asking. It's good to have accountability.
Carol

I have done the daily weighing and the weekly weighing deal and find that there is no advantage to me either way. The best thing for me is to not bring the wrong stuff in the house from the store. I must cook from scratch which I like to do anyway, or eat less when I am tired or in a hurry. The number one goal for everyone, despite our handicaps, is exercise or movement of some kind. I like fresh food, and I like raw food. I like less work, so no fancy recipes. I live alone and only have to please myself. I overdo when cooking for a family dinner, but then I don't eat any of that fat food. I bake and give it away which makes me feel popular. Every day I thank God I am not in a wheel chair. I try to be grateful in my mind and heart. It is what it is. Dorisena

I saw another doctor yesterday for a blood pressure drop episode and he thinks I don't need anything serious right now. He said I shouldn't concentrate so hard on achieving low blood sugar numbers at my age because they tend to not stay low as I age so just to keep it under 7.0. I told him I wanted the numbers to be lower and I wanted to lose weight to improve the blood pressure numbers without so much medicine. So now I take my blood pressure every day and try not to worry about strokes. My mother had many little strokes before the big one which fried her brain but she lived another six years. Dorisena

@rosemarya All of these are very good but are things I already knew. It's just following through on them that can be a problem. I am working at using myfitnesspal again to track my calories. I sometimes despise going to the health club but I force myself. Once there I am glad I went. Today I did water aerobics for almost an hour and then about 15 more minutes of water jogging.
I find if I can keep myself to recording everything I put in my mouth, it really does help -- even the half-ounce of dark chocolate I ate today. I too am doing more selective shopping. It's so difficult to walk by things I love but so far, so good.

@johnbishop If you are trying to really track your weight, something I do, then a scale that also measures fluid retention and BMI helps because when my weight goes high some days I look and see that I am retaining water so I know it's not a permanent gain, and I also know to cut way back on sodium. It's definitely not a medically accurate scale, if the BMI is low the fluid retention is high, it balances those two things. I know approximately what my BMI is though so if that varies much from what I know it is then I know the fluid retention is probably fairly accurate. There are days when it says my BMI is in the teens. That will never be the case.
This is the one I have but that same brand has some for as little as $42 which is about what I paid a few years back. I would say I've had it for at least 8 years. I find it really does help. Recently I had been retaining a lot of fluid, but today I was almost back to normal, not quite.
https://www.amazon.com/Tanita-BC533-Innerscan-Composition-Monitor/dp/B0007Y6BS4/ref=sr_1_9?fst=as%3Aoff&keywords=bmi+bathroom+scale&qid=1579031464&refinements=p_89%3ATANITA&rnid=2528832011&s=hpc&sr=1-9
JK

Thanks JK, will have to take a look it as I need a new scale anyway.