Jack's Diary

J

jackbenimble

New member
Hello!

It's nice to find an active site that provides support for weight-loss. I'm hoping to be able to get back on track after gaining a few pounds recently.

A quick intro - I just turned 61, I'm 5'7" and weighed 166 as of this morning. My job is as a software developer, so there's not much activity during the day. I hope to get back to the 160-162 range, but I'm usually around 165 or so over the summer and run it up to 170 or more during the winters.

I'm finding motivation difficult right now. Last night, for the third night in a row, I went out and bought a snack which I ate up before going to bed. This is new and not good at all. At the moment, I'm power-watching through an endless Netflix series called "Undercover Law".

If not doing that, I'm probably watching a baseball, football or basketball game or a sports forum. Essentially, I'm a couch potato, except for jogging and weightlifting, neither of which I'm doing frequently enough right now.

So, my goals at the moment are:

1) Cut out the late night eating
2) Get to the gym 4-5 times a week - a couple of cardio, a couple of weightlifting.
3) Don't waste endless hours on sports forums.
4) Spend my spare time more productively - either playing guitar, learning Japanese, developing new software skills or being more social. None of which I've put much time into recently.
5) Do the most important things first.
 
Hi, Jack & welcome to the forum. With only a few pounds to lose simply adjusting your diet should do the trick. Always having something at home that is a healthy snack is a good idea. Having a container of cut-up raw veg in the fridge & some hummus, maybe a hard-boiled egg provides a healthy go-to snack. I like your goals. Life should be a good balance. Are you interested in playing any sport? I play golf (not in a ride-on buggy) badly, but it's very social & great exercise.
 
cate said:
Hi, Jack & welcome to the forum. With only a few pounds to lose simply adjusting your diet should do the trick. Always having something at home that is a healthy snack is a good idea. Having a container of cut-up raw veg in the fridge & some hummus, maybe a hard-boiled egg provides a healthy go-to snack. I like your goals. Life should be a good balance. Are you interested in playing any sport? I play golf (not in a ride-on buggy) badly, but it's very social & great exercise.
Click to expand...

Hi Cate - thanks for the response and the tips. I like the veg and hummus idea a lot, and will try it out.

I have played a lot of tennis over the years, but something happened to my knee about 3 years ago makes it sore every time I play. Same with basketball, which I used to play pickup occasionally. I've never gotten into golf, although I've tried it occasionally. It's kind of a frustrating game for me. What I like about jogging is it doesn't seem to bother my knee as much as the more active sports, plus I can up and do it anytime I want.

Btw, I held out and didn't go to the store last night, though I was sorely tempted. I ended having a couple of bananas and an apple, though.
 
So, after spending the morning on sports forums, at around 11 I got to the gym and did my lifting. When I got back, I practiced guitar (I'm learning Landslide by Fleetwood mac) and then singing. The singing is something I never practice, but my guitar instructor last year suggested some good sites, so I came back to some youtube videos by a guy named Ken Tramplin. The two main things are to use your abdomen as your engine, and keep your mouth open as if the doctor could see your tonsils. I always sing a lot louder when I try this, although I wish I could tone it down a bit. But it definitely helps out with the higher notes. My wife, who sings professionally, says I sound better, too. So, I'm definitely wanting to make this a part of my routine.

My sister called around 4, and I went over to help her get into her wheelchair. She had an operation and she's feeling much better now. I brought my guitar and was showing my brother-in-law some tips. He loves music and has always wanted to play, but never got around to really doing it. I showed him "Horse with no Name" which is only two chords, and "Can't you See", which is three chords, D, C and G. I showed him a two-fingered version of D, a one fingered version of G, and a one-finger bar version of C. Also, position one of the pentatonic scale at the open position. He seemed to like it. He's in a wheelchair, too, but he's a gamer.

After that, I came back and had dinner and basically was watching the Red Sox all night. But I did have my guitar and jammed a ton to "Sounds of Silence" throughout the game, also some "Under my Thumb". I played them in the same key, so they have a lot of same chords. Under My Thumb throws a B chord in there, which is tough on my wrist, so I didn't do that as much.

After that, I watched a couple of episodes of "Undercover Law", but since the game went so late, I didn't get to bed till about two, and wasn't up until 7:30 this morning.

Today, I'm going to jog or treadmill, then I'm going into Boston on a date with my wife. I might go over my sister's around 7, then I'll watch Pats and Red Sox tonight.
 
jackbenimble said:
Btw, I held out and didn't go to the store last night, though I was sorely tempted. I ended having a couple of bananas and an apple, though.
Click to expand...
That, Jack, is a win.
It sounds like you had a really good weekend. I love music, but am not at all musical. Singing is meant to be so good for your mood. Our older son went to Boston( on his 'round the world tour at 18yrs) & loved it. Enjoy your date with your wife :)
So, it's "go the Red Sox"!
 
jackbenimble said:
Hello!

It's nice to find an active site that provides support for weight-loss. I'm hoping to be able to get back on track after gaining a few pounds recently.

A quick intro - I just turned 61, I'm 5'7" and weighed 166 as of this morning. My job is as a software developer, so there's not much activity during the day. I hope to get back to the 160-162 range, but I'm usually around 165 or so over the summer and run it up to 170 or more during the winters.

I'm finding motivation difficult right now. Last night, for the third night in a row, I went out and bought a snack which I ate up before going to bed. This is new and not good at all. At the moment, I'm power-watching through an endless Netflix series called "Undercover Law".

If not doing that, I'm probably watching a baseball, football or basketball game or a sports forum. Essentially, I'm a couch potato, except for jogging and weightlifting, neither of which I'm doing frequently enough right now.

So, my goals at the moment are:

1) Cut out the late night eating
2) Get to the gym 4-5 times a week - a couple of cardio, a couple of weightlifting.
3) Don't waste endless hours on sports forums.
4) Spend my spare time more productively - either playing guitar, learning Japanese, developing new software skills or being more social. None of which I've put much time into recently.
5) Do the most important things first.
Click to expand...


Your schedule seems to be quite good, I will try to follow this.
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for your support - it's very encouraging!

On the weight front, I was down to 164 today. It's always a good day when I come in under 165. I did a strong half hour on the treadmill yesterday. Burned off around 400 calories. In addition to walking around town with my wife, it was good exercise. I've also managed for the last 2-3 nights to avoid going out for the late night snack. I was tempted again tonight, but realized what nasty bad habit that is that I was developing, so I had an apple instead.

I have insomnia tonight. So, I decided to pray to God to reach my goals. I figure, why not? It couldn't hurt. So I got up and practiced "Landslide" for a while. One of my goals is to not be so lazy and get better at guitar. So, I was been playing along with the song at 3/4 speed. I have the basics of the chords down, but nailing the finger-picking on the chorus part is a lot harder than the verse part. This is my first real serious stab at a picking style called Travis-picking. It can be easy depending on which chords your playing.

Work kind of sucked today. I found out I made a mistake in creating a Linux image. The instructions were a little unclear at one point. I thought I had figured it out, but testing showed it wasn't the case. With the help of L (this guy at work who is just great), we worked out how to fix it though, and created a new image. One of my other goals is to be more careful and detailed.

Lol, Stairway to Heaven is playing. I've taken a couple of stabs at that, but can't really play the whole thing. Plus, in one of those Wayne's world movies, at the guitar store, when Wayne tries to play Stairway, the guitar store guy mutes his fretboard with his fist and points at a huge sign which says "No Stairway". But it's a great song, one of the best.

No exercise today. B is coming over tomorrow and we're going to watch the Celtics season opener. They should be really good this year.
 
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cate said:
That, Jack, is a win.
It sounds like you had a really good weekend. I love music, but am not at all musical. Singing is meant to be so good for your mood. Our older son went to Boston( on his 'round the world tour at 18yrs) & loved it. Enjoy your date with your wife :)
So, it's "go the Red Sox"!
Click to expand...

I'm glad your son liked Boston, Cate. It's a jewel of a city. Parking's tough, though.

Had a nice time with my wife. We had Pumpkin Latte at a Japanese coffee shop, and then got canolis in the North End.

The sox did win! Series tied at 1-1. Go Sox is right.
 
So, I finally gave in and bought a snack at stop and shop. Kind of a carrot or pumpkin cake roll. Bad habit I'm getting into.

I haven't exercised since Sunday. There have been a lot of games - the Red Sox are heading to the world series, and the Celtics season just started. But, what I've been doing is turning down the sound and practicing guitar. Not all the time, but some of the time. My friend B came over Tuesday and we watched the Celts, then this comedian Bill Burr. He's hilarious.

Having dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and their two kids Friday, going over to C's for a jam on Saturday, and there's a block party Sunday. The block party is cool - it turned out that my wife goes to a Zumba class with someone who turned out to be a neighbor. They invited over for dinner, we had them for a cookout, then they had a party for the neighbors, then the neighbors decided to have a block party. Cool, right?

My weight is still below 165, believe it or not, despite all my sedentary activity. I just have to get to the gym a couple of times during the week. It's a lot easier to get exercise on weekends, though.
 
A block party is a very cool idea!
What you eat is much more important with weight-loss than exercise so you are obviously doing ok with your "diet".
 
So, I had one of those days at work that bites you in the butt. When my code went to user test, I found I'd missed half the problem and therefore needed to go back to the drawing board. P has forced an artificial deadline on this due to an install he's putting in next week, but still, it's a bug and needs fixing. I got it to work, but the problem is I don't know exactly why. So, I have to spend some time on it today and be ready on Monday.

Other than that, the dinner last night actually turned out to be my brother's birthday, which I had forgotten. At least my wife brought some flowers. I think his wife didn't say that in the invite because she didn't' want people to bring gifts, but there were some minor ones anyway. What I do like is seeing my niece and nephew. They are two very talented competitive kids, older brother, and younger sister, and they have a classic sibling rivalry relationship that manifests itself in these subtle digs they're always tossing at each other. I get a great kick out of it. They are good at everything, man, it's incredible. Academics, sports, music, art, personality, looks, performance arts, a second language - they have it all. Crazy.

My brother remodeled his basement, which because it's on a hill has windows. It's really great, a big space with couches, HD TV on the wall, and a ping-pong table. My sister-in-law wanted to do some dancing, so for a brief minute I was back into freak-mode, dancing to "Super Freak". The knee held up pretty well, too, which was cool. But for some reason Alexa started playing all this slow stuff, so she bailed and I changed to classic rock after she left and watched some of the game. We might watch some World Series games there is the timing works out.

So, I'm lazing around right now. I'm going to the gym after this, I'll do weightlifting, then 1/2 hour on the treadmill and I'll feel better. My headache is already gone.
 
As far as diet, my sister-in-law's parties are good because she doesn't overdo the sweets. So, I didn't gain much, maybe a pound, and was at 166 or so this morning.

My typical day is no breakfast, a chicken or some other similar salad and a couple of pieces of fruit for lunch, then a nice dinner my wife makes. Dinner is usually some kind of meat or fish plus veggies and a salad. After that, I'm usually hunting for snacks at night after she goes to bed, but she doesn't keep any in the house because she knows how I am. So, I'll end up having some fruit if it's around. But recently I've developed a nasty habit of going out and getting a pumpkin-cake roll at Stop and Shop late night, which I pulled as recently as Wednesday. I mentioned to my wife about veggies and hummus dip, but I think she's not into the idea for some reason. Maybe she thinks hummus is expensive and I'll eat it all up, which is probably true.

Anyway, I love Saturdays. My wife teaches so I have the house to myself all morning. Ok, so I'll do some work today, but it's peaceful and I'll learn something and be better prepared, which is a great stress-reducer. I'll have to skip the jam with C, which sucks, though. Plus, he brought me a Harvard sweatshirt in Cambridge at an Octoberfest, which I'm keen to pick up because the zipper broke on my current one.
 
You could always make your own hummus. If you want, I'll give you our recipe. It's delicious. Do you cook at all yourself?
 
So, I have insomnia. That bug turned out to be elusive. I think I figured it out, but it took me from like 1 to 10. There were a lot of things to consider. Also, there was an issue with the data - there was an overlap in dates that normally shouldn't be there. It threw me off the trail. Sometimes you just have to grind this stuff out.

I had a nice morning, at least. Did weightlifting, and it was warm enough to jog along the beach, which is so much more interesting than the treadmill. I did a 15-minute "mediation" aftward, which was really just sitting on the wall enjoying the outdoors. It would've been nice to be out there a bit more today.

I was listening to some Clapton live stuff on you tube. He's so good. I shot the sheriff, Layla. The guy just is so skilled, and an underrated singer.

Listing to some Doors. I'll play along until I get sleepy.
 
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That's my kind of music!
Hummus is simple. I'll post the recipe next time I'm on my laptop. I have it saved on Facebook, but can't copy it unfortunately on my phone.
Hope you managed to get to sleep. Insomnia sucks!
 
Hi Jack, I lived near the Berkelee School of Music in Boston for a while in my twenties. Loved that area so much! My husband suffers from insomnia, and aerobic exercise really helps him. With the late night snacking, does drinking liquids instead to fill yourself up help at all? Sounds like you are doing great with all the exercise!!
 
Thought I would post this before I forget, as I'm going away for the week.
G, my OH (who does almost all of our cooking) said to say he always adds extra garlic, lemon & olive oil :)
Copied & pasted-
Hummus
200g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight if possible
1 onion, halved
2 bay leaves
4-5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon Tahini (sesame seed paste)
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, to taste
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin

Method.
If you haven't soaked the chickpeas, that's fine, they'll just take longer to cook. Either way, rinse the chickpeas & add to a decent-sized saucepan with a litre of water, the onion & bay leaves. You can also add 1 tsp bicarb soda to help the chickpeas soften. Bring to the boil, then simmer, covered, for 1-2 hours or until very soft. Add more water if necessary, to keep the chickpeas covered.
Drain, keeping the cooking liquid but discarding the bay leaves & onion.
Blend the garlic in a food processor & add some of the still-hot chickpeas. puree with the remaining ingredients & chickpeas, adding some chickpeas cooking liquid to produce a smooth, but not too runny paste. Take care not to overload your blender; you may have to process the chickpeas in batches.
Mix all the batches together in a big bowl, adding pepper to taste, then allow to cool. Check the consistency(it thickens slightly as it cools) & the seasoning(cold food needs more salt than hot food to taste as lively). Serve with a sprinkling of Paprika & a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
You can pick up hummus in the supermarket, but if you've ever had the real thing, made from scratch, it's hard to go back. This chickpea dip is one of life's great pleasures. The secret is in using enough water to give it a smooth, moist texture & pureeing the chickpeas while they're still hot.
 
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