Discussion Board

Hi FV,
I would think you could find a good one for $150-$200. Just try it out in store for at least 5-10 mins & see how it feels. Having something 1-2 inches for your feet may take pressure off too, a foot board or something.

We do ergo assessments at work every year to make sure we are sitting correctly, which is nice. The ergo people also suggest to get up every 20-30 mins & stretch.

Hope you find a great chair, and good find on the blazers!
- Karen

Thanks for the info, beansnrice! I have a footrest, and angled one, but I keep tangling my feet in computer cords when I use it. Or if I bring it closer to my body, my knees are jammed against the keyboard shelf. I think the hardest part to understand is that my chair was the most comfortable place for me to sit, at work or at home, until I lost the weight. Now it's got a lot of space in it that used to be me, and my back is sagging.

OK, now--10 days to San Diego! I did a long (40 m) yoga video today, with the title Digestive Help. No idea what is was for, but I liked it. Love legs-up-the-wall pose! No time for savasana, though...

Food over the weekend was chaotic. Had wine Friday and Saturday evenings, but in neither case did it stimulate my appetite. Saturday I had the usual oatmeal, then for lunch the tomato-mixed veg-brown rice "chili" I like the best--lots of chili powder, chipotle, cumin, and some vegan Worchestershire sauce. Made a bean dip that sounded so good but was really bland and boring, but DH liked it (!), from a Chef & the Dietitian episode. I need to figure out what I did wrong...I think I used the wrong kind of salsa (the mango made it too sweet), and I forgot to throw the garlic cloves into the processor so I used powder instead, and maybe I should have used the Vita-Mix instead. I didn't have enough time to really think about it. I had a tiny bit of that, too, with some home-baked corn chips, some raw cabbage and carrots for snack, and a couple of nuked potatoes.

Yesterday's food--we went to Talkeetna for breakfast, but they really don't have anything for me. I had them heat up their granola, but I'm pretty sure it's baked with oil, and it is of course loaded with walnuts ans seeds, and sweetened with apple butter--it was a real indulgence. I can't get over that they don't offer oatmeal--puzzles the heck out of me. So for lunch I had more mixed veggie chili--2 big bowls--then a potato, then a slice of rye toast, then 2 corn thins with some bean dip, then some more raw cabbage. I was massively hungry! That finally lasted me until dinner--2 corn on the cob, 2 gold potatoes, and Mary McD's mushroom gravy. I had to make it without the soy sauce, though, because DH hated it, so I used (about) 1 1/2 t. Kitchen Bouquet, 1/4 t. Liquid Smoke, and 1/2 t. vegan Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 t. salt. It was OK. I need to experiment more. I'm also going to see if it freezes well, because I had a lot of mushrooms.

On to work, and making the budget 12-month, with detailed notes, and seeing how far I get with that, before going to (my doom?) the Finance Committee at 4 pm.

Today is another day. Had a terrible night's sleep--a foot-twisting leg cramp at about 11:30 kept me restless for a couple of hours. No exercise for me today--when the alarm went off, I thought, "Today? Isn't it Saturday?" and snoozed it about 5 times.

Food yesterday was: oatmeal and pineapple; yam; cabbage, carrots and tomatoes; for dinner the rest of the bean mixture with baked tortillas (about 4 altogether), and 3 rice cakes, and 2 glasses of wine. That was in celebration that the Finance Committee meeting went well, with openness and lots of exchanges of good ideas. I have to get the minutes done first thing this morning and then continue on the 12-month budget detail, talk with my bookkeeper about her process for dealing with payables as they come in, and then about my seeing payables and Purchase Orders, get going on the July entries and financials, set up a Purchase Order tracking system as part of the new regime, and plow on!

No more wine until San Diego now! Today's food: oatmeal and pineapple, grapes, red potato, salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and corn, the mixed veggie chili & rice form Saturday, the same when I get home if I'm hungry, and (I hope!) a banana "ice cream" if we get home soon enough.

Need to get to bed early enough so I get up early enough to do long exercise tomorrow!

Well, 6 days to San Diego. I get my hair cut today, and it has to be a killer haircut, to impress DH's long-unseen relatives with how newly-cool I am with my new weight... and to distract them from my loose skin and big belly! And oh yeah--no tan, ever.

So yesterday I blew off the journal? So busy I can't even write to myself apparently. Work is intense right now, and will be this fiscal year.

Yesterday's exercise was the 20-minute standing exercises in yoga--triangle, warrior, etc.--really balance-challenging; I nearly fell over a couple of times. Good for the core! Food was oatmeal/raisins; 1 yam 1 gold potato; lettuce, cabbage and tomato salad with balsamic dressing; carrots; grapes. Had a banana when I got home from karaoke at 9.

Exercise today was 25 minutes with the Wii--1 slow and 2 fast Step exercises, a Hula Hoop, and 10 minutes of Free Run--really had to force myself to finish--I'm proud of me!

Food will be oatmeal & dried cranberries; 3 medium gold potatoes; a medium container of frozen mixed veggies, cooked; grapes; carrots, tomatoes & cabbage; then I have to fortify myself for going to the Alaska State Fair with DD--probably 2 or 3 more potatoes, I'll have to see about time and appetite. We have never been a family for eating fair foods (our church ran the only indoor sit-down food stand, which served hamburgers, hot dog, pie, that sort of thing, so that's what we ate, not the elephant ears, deep-fried ice cream, or any of that). We will look at the booths and displays and that is that!

Speaking of the fair--one of our drivers bakes--and enters the stuff at the fair--and he brought a huge box of his baked goods--he is wonderful-- and they were in the break room all day yesterday. Ii actually screamed a little at the sight of them. I must confess I had a tiny piece of the peanut butter chocolate thingies. Incredibly good but - and here's something I NEVER would have said in my sad old days - too rich for me!!! I actually started a second one and threw it into the trash after the first bite! Miracles never cease! I still shouldn't have had that one, but it was eye-opening that I realized it just was not something for me.

Well, gotta get ready for work--so intense, I can hardly make a phone call. Numbers is my life....

OK, put down the chocolate and back away from that table! <--- stern Mrs. D face

Oh, yeah Seriously, I was in some danger for a few minutes--the second day the stale leftovers were still in the room, and once I made myself touch each one (I know, yuck to everyone else, right?), and I didn't take a single one, remembering how rich the first one was.

DD and I went to the State Fair yesterday, and we went to the exhibit where our driver (& his wife) had entered the very same desserts we had at work. Many of the items had taken first and seconds--and I'm sure they deserved it!

I was proud of DD--we walked through the fair in an hour & a half, and she couldn't find anything she wanted to indulge in (the prices too high and the amounts too big), so we left, went to the store, got her some food, and ate at home!

I had tomatoes, carrots and a potato in my purse so I could eat if I got hungry, but we never sat down at the fair. It's really tiny and has gotten a lot tinier since we first started going in 1983. Anyway, I ate in the car on the way home, and then had wine and baked tortillas for a finish to the day. Man--got a lot of exercise, 'cause all we did was walk, walk walk for an hour & a half! We hardly stopped and we never sat. Of course, we can't count the 50 minutes we spent waiting in line to buy tickets, in the wind and drizzle!

Today we go out to dinner for our anniversary/my birthday. We're going to the same restaurant as last year, the one with the vegan selections on the menu. Best restaurant meal I've had on McD--and there was no oil on the offering! Looking very much forward to it.

I used to eat Elephant ears all the time.

I think elephant ears are big fried dough things covered in powdered sugar--right? There is no so yummy as flour mixed with fat, fried in fat and covered in sugar....but no more in my life!!

Yep sugar and cinnamon and dough in the shape of an elephants ear.

I love going to the fair and walking around to see all the stuff. I love the home making exhibits, antiques, and all the animals. I love everything about it except for the food, but I think I've been to my last one. My boys just don't enjoy it like I do to just walk around and see stuff, all they want to do it get their junky deep fried "food". This last time I gave them each 10 dollars and let them keep what they didn't spend. Since they are both saving for new computers, that went well. Something funny, as much as they both like greasy deep fried stuff, after the first time they each had an elephant ear (and threw half away) they have NOT wanted another one. That was over 5 years ago.

OK, now--3 days to San Diego (If you don't count Thursday, which is a half-day of work and then the travel).

Did fine over the weekend on food. Went out Sat. night for our anniversary/my birthday. Same place as last year! The restaurant was very nice, but I hardly remember the main course, since the salad was so lovely. It was made up of steamed asparagus and broccoli, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes (none of those in oil!), lovely greens (butter lettuce among them, my fave!), and so on, with a bottle of balsamic on the side. I'm sure the main course was lovely too, but we had such a good time talking, and because I'd had salad I wasn't so hungry, so I couldn't remember the Main! The dessert was the same as last year--a Danish "pudding" which is gelled mixed berries. Not overwhelmingly sweet, it was absolutely wonderful! (And they hand you a sparkler, and take your picture, and play the anniversary song and the birthday song (since it's both!), and the staff then makes a greeting card out of the pic and they all sign and you get to take it home!)

I am trying to get used to not losing weight and not being stressed about it because I am at my goal. That is a very odd sensation--I was expecting to feel weird, and I do. I'm very satisfied where I am--I can't imagine that I could lose more weight dramatically, since I have so much loose "baggage" that isn't going to go anywhere. Even if I got intense about core workouts, I don't know if pounds would come off. I've stopped worrying about then pounds. I look fine in clothes, and I know I am still losing fractions of inches. I am wearing smaller clothes than I have ever worn, and still don't know what sizes to look for or order, so I have to try everything on. I suppose that's true for most people, anyway, since sizes are all over the place.

Exercise this am was 18 m. of Wii Fit--1 step slow, 2 fast, a Hula Hoop. Not too enthusiastic for some reason--terrible night's sleep, due to the packing and trip plans all afternoon and evening. I really hate travel, and I hate the planning and execution stage with DH--our styles are so different, I hate all the dithering and waiting and weighing of options that he does. If it were up to me, I research, decide, reserve, and be done with it. 'Course, if it were up to me, I'd stay home!!!

Food for today: I made a huge pot of brown rice for the 3-1/2 day week, and a pot of glop--Pomi chopped tomatoes, a whole onion & 5 garlic cloves, frozen mixed vegs, frozen collard greens, soy sauce, chili powder. That's lunch & dinner over rice all week, with rice as a snack. Bfast is oatmeal with pineapple, and I also will bring carrots and tomatoes.

Part of the trip that I will like, once I have been forced to go, will be the Casino spa that we're going to. We'd NEVER go to a casino, but DH's SIL manages one. We've never met her, and she insisted that we go up to the casino and she's putting us up in a room & giving us dinner, the sweetie! So I can look at gamblers up close! It is apparently 117 degrees there. We will probably have to go in and out on a stretcher, because that sounds like a temperature that humans cannot live in!!!

However, once in the refrigerated indoors, I am getting treated by DH to a spa treatment, and I have chosen a mani-pedi (since I plan to wear sandals), and a body scrub--hey, maybe the scrub will take off a pound of dead skin that never sees the light of day here in AK!!!

And the next trip, to Oregon in Oct., I have found a B&B that I hope we will love. It's right on the Pacific shore, has a yoga-type feel, oriental decor, and they only have three guest rooms. The hosts are vegetarians, and make the breakfasts to dietary needs. I will be taking a 1-hour yoga session, and DH will have a 1-hour massage. An extreme indulgence for us, but this trip is a fact-finding mission for our move to Oregon, and I want DH to have a wonderful, relaxing end to the trip. It's my anniversary gift to him, just like the spa treatment is his anniversary gift to me.

So, now--off to work to get 10 days' work done in 3 1/2, in preparation for the trip!

I'm been watching you count down. You are so close. I'm excited for you.

Thank you both for the best wishes, Sksamboots and Debbie! Ah, yes, the limp frozenveg! I have no idea what 117 is like, but it's probably a little hotter than 103, which I have been in, but not recently!

I am getting my usual scrambly-ness as I get closer to the day of travel. I have to get myself to the airport and meet DH there, hoping his flight down from Barrow isn't delayed, which would mean we'd have to go home and wait until Friday morning to fly. I have a bad record on getting myself to the airport--once I thought I had left in time to allow our usual hour and a half wait at the airport, but I arrived to find that I was the last in line to get on the flight! I had forgotten to allow the hour and a half for me to GET to the airport!

I am also starting to be a bit concerned about food with my BIL, who is putting us up. I have no idea what his household setup is like, if he has a microwave, etc., how close a grocery store is--so I'll be arriving with my little bags of whatever potatoes, carrots and tomatoes I didn't eat on the plane, but no idea of how I would go on from there. He hasn't got a lot of dough, so I doubt he has much of any kind of food in the house...

Onward to today. Yoga--I did a new one from streaming Netflix. It was something about health, and some of it was dead easy, but there was one really challenging one I loved. My thighs are still singing about it...bend your knees, put palms together, twist to one side & rest elbow against thigh & hold. I had to straighten at least once--burn-y! I love it! Gotta do that one more.

In a minute I will get my oatmeal & pineapple, and put my lunch / dinner together for the day. More glop, brown rice, carrots, tomatoes and grapes. The glop needed a little something yesterday, so I added cumin and lemon pepper, but it still needed something, so I drizzled a bit of maple syrup in it--perfect! My mom used to say that tomatoes are acidy, so they need a bit of sugar to cut the acid. Who knows if that's' it--but it was just a flavor the dish needed.

I need to get a present for my Human Resources Manager's birthday--also my boss--their birthdays are the same day, the day before I get back from the trip. Maybe I should just wait and see if I can find something in California. Hm. Are there things to buy in California?

Today is my birthday! Two years ago, I weighed 223 or so. Only 2 years. What a journey! This is the new day I was journeying toward! Thank goodness for Dr. McDougall! I am here!

I did yoga again today, the new one with the elbow-to-the-knee pose & the lunge I fell out of yesterday. Just so I don't feel too much like I've arrived, I still am incredibly shaky as far as balance goes. I have a lot of work to do with my leg muscles and so on! I wouldn't have thought those poses were so hard! Helps to have a sense of humor!!! It actually feels wonderful to have those muscles aching.

I leave tomorrow for San Diego, around noon (2:30 flight). I am already preparing food. I realize we'll get in (fingers crossed) about 10:30 and are getting up to drive north for 2-3 hours the next morning, so I am bringing a bag with rolled oats, cinnamon and raisins so I can try to make oatmeal before we leave. I scheduled the spa treatments for 2 & 3 pm, so I may not get lunch before going to the spa, but I can live with that--oatmeal really lasts with me. I am going to nuke lots of little red potatoes (Costco finally had bags of them again! Whew!), and bring lots of baby carrots & grape tomatoes. I will also have a bag each of craisins and raisins just in case. I'm bringing several tea bags and stevia packets for restaurants. I don't know if I can bring corn thins--not much room for bulky things like that, when real food is needed.

Today I'm having oats and peaches, rice & glop, and raw cabbage for snacks (I figure I am having carrots & tomatoes for at least the first 2 days, so I'll have something different today!), and red grapes. I should finish off the iceberg lettuce with something for dinner tonight and I will have the rest of the refried bean dip tonight with freshly-baked tortillas (I need to make some to leave with DD for her nachos as well) and salsa.

Yesterday, someone started a thread about what foods we miss on this program. I don't need that kind of thinking! I went along time without cravings or "hooks" and the last thing I need now is to picture what I really miss! Geeze, I really miss several things - nursing my babies, meeting a new guy and flirting, dancing the frug - but there's no use thinking about them when I'm not going to be doing them again and have no reason to be doing them again! I shouldn't have responded to that thread, because it set up images in my head, and smells and things, and it made me feel weak and deprived. That's not productive.

So, yesterday someone brought cinnamon cranberry bread from Great Harvest to work and it sat, smelling all cinnamon-y and delicious, all day in the kitchen across the hall from me. It made my knees weak! I kept wanting to have a slice, but I kept looking at the labeI, which stated that it contained white flour, soybean oil, and a light egg wash over the top. I resisted. So, I vowed when I went home to do something about it, so I had a bowl of rice, raisins, cinnamon & maple syrup nuked--it was lovely. It wasn't the flavor I wanted, but it was a great flavor!

Well, onward and upward!