Whisper's Diary

Marsia said:
Hi Tom, I just moved to the Southeast, and am doing something similar trying to get outside doing gardening every day to sweat the pounds off. Glad your hernia is getting better! I have a bad back, so have to watch how I exercise, but love when it gets stronger with exercise. We just moved from Northern CA, where 92 would have made us hide in the house!
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Gardening really does seem to help. I think for me, not only is it physical, it feels therapeutic. Anyway, that's what my used to be neighbor always said and I'd have to say I agree. I sleep better at night. I would love 92 in the summer time. It was about that today, but still felt pretty hot due to the humidity. On the average, we usually get about 20 days a summer over 100. I'm in the North Texas area. I didn't feel particularly well today, so I took the day off outside. So, I could be up in the morning because I did drink a lot today, but at least I know this kind of weight I can take back off easy.

Best wishes with the move. The good thing is that your body does adjust to the heat and cold for that matter. It usually takes a couple of weeks though.
 
whispers65 said:
I've been watching what you eat for a while now, you eat so clean! I wish I could, but it isn't in the cards right now.
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Tom, have you tried recording your food and calories? I think you have talked about it, but don't remember.

You could start just recording without setting goals or anything. It could help you better understand what you are doing. I use myfitnesspal.com to do it. Not too hard.

MFP also lets you track exercise, but I only use it for tracking the time I exercise. I think their calorie estimates are not very accurate. They do have law mowing and gardening in their database as exercise.

I find tracking helps me get back on track.
 
Hi Tom, thanks for the perspective! I have adjusted somewhat, but those high humidity days coupled with the heat are still hard. Glad it does get easier, and thank goodness for air conditioning! I 100% agree about how therapeutic gardening is. I get childlike wonder watching the plants grow. We have a screen room that I've filled with baby fruit trees that I'll plant in the spring in the yard, and going in there is like going back in time to some Victorian orangery and makes me so happy. The cat really loves it in there, too, and I often find happy frogs and toads hanging out in there enjoying themselves. Plus it's so nice getting exercise that is fun and provides food, too.

Have you been in North Texas long? Do you like your area? I just had more than a week of company and too much wine drinking, so I'll join you on losing that extra weight. Hope you feel better!
 
alligatorob said:
Tom, have you tried recording your food and calories? I think you have talked about it, but don't remember.

You could start just recording without setting goals or anything. It could help you better understand what you are doing. I use myfitnesspal.com to do it. Not too hard.

MFP also lets you track exercise, but I only use it for tracking the time I exercise. I think their calorie estimates are not very accurate. They do have law mowing and gardening in their database as exercise.

I find tracking helps me get back on track.
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I do record what I"m eating and so forth somewhat. I haven't been motivated a lot to change my diet, but I am getting into the swing of things now. I don't have any money, so I have to rely on my sister and whatever she buys to eat. So I can't eat as clean as I'd like to, so it looks like calorie restriction is the only thing I can do for now. I watch my dad which is a 24 hr a day job. I typically just put everything into excel.

Lately, I've used a calculator to get a baseline BMR and then try and add exercise calories and so forth. I use an exercise calorie calculator online. Not sure how accurate it is. I didn't feel good yesterday so not much exercise to speak of. And because I didn't feel good, I ate more thinking it could be a blood sugar issue because I've been doing a lot of yard work, at least for me. And I'm drinking near 100 oz of fluid a day.

I just have to stay the course and stay motivated which is hard to do with everything going on. I'm a stress eater and there is always tons of stress.
 
Marsia said:
Hi Tom, thanks for the perspective! I have adjusted somewhat, but those high humidity days coupled with the heat are still hard. Glad it does get easier, and thank goodness for air conditioning! I 100% agree about how therapeutic gardening is. I get childlike wonder watching the plants grow. We have a screen room that I've filled with baby fruit trees that I'll plant in the spring in the yard, and going in there is like going back in time to some Victorian orangery and makes me so happy. The cat really loves it in there, too, and I often find happy frogs and toads hanging out in there enjoying themselves. Plus it's so nice getting exercise that is fun and provides food, too.

Have you been in North Texas long? Do you like your area? I just had more than a week of company and too much wine drinking, so I'll join you on losing that extra weight. Hope you feel better!
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My sister and my goal is to start growing vegetables and spices and stuff. I'm working on the backyard. It has been neglected for a long time before I came. I've lived in North Texas most of my life. I was born in the Philippines. My dad was in the navy so we moved around quite a bit. This area is okay, but the air quality isn't very good and it's a haven for allergies, which is not a good combination for me. I really like the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. I feel great up there. I used to visit my aunt and uncle up there all the time before they passed away. It's like once I get out of my area, I feel better. Unfortunately, I don't get to travel these days at all. Oh well.
 
Llama said:
Restriction under stress and with health issues is obnoxiously hard. But it's a lot better than unrestricted weight gain.
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True. Because like I said all along, I can way easier put on weight than take it off. Gain up to 400 lbs or lose down to 200, I'd take the gain up to 400 lbs in a heart beat.
 
Wow, that's our goal, too, to have fruits and veggies and try out spices like ginger and the more tropical things that I can grow here. I am married into a Filipino family, so I know how hard it is to resist all that fattening, delicious food! I hope eating fresh veggies helps your allergies get somewhat better. Bad allergies and bad air quality paired together are the worst. Our last property was over run with invasive vines and plants, so I really empathize. I tried to get an area clear and work at keeping that cleared and inching out from that. What spices are you planning to grow?
 
Marsia said:
Wow, that's our goal, too, to have fruits and veggies and try out spices like ginger and the more tropical things that I can grow here. I am married into a Filipino family, so I know how hard it is to resist all that fattening, delicious food! I hope eating fresh veggies helps your allergies get somewhat better. Bad allergies and bad air quality paired together are the worst. Our last property was over run with invasive vines and plants, so I really empathize. I tried to get an area clear and work at keeping that cleared and inching out from that. What spices are you planning to grow?
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My mom used to make lumpia a lot. The backyard has a lot of vines and a couple of hundred baby elm tree sprouts. Ugh. My fave spice is basil. A perfect garden to me would at least have basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, oregano, chives, and cilantro. And any kind of squash.

It's going to take a while to get the backyard under control though. I trying to go out at least 30 to 60 minutes a day to work on it. Today, my sister came home late from work so I went out there about 4:30 and the mosquitos were already out in force. I was eaten alive in 10 minutes so we're looking to see what we can spray for the mosquitos and chiggers and ants. So we gotta do something to take care of some of these pests. I have a lot to do!
 
Your perfect garden sounds delictable! I love all those herbs and veggies, as well. I have some Thai basil and normal basil in the garden now and it's amazing how much it loves the heat.

I was going to try putting down tarps over the invasive plants and weight them down with rocks so I cooked them under the tarp. I just didn't get to it before we moved, but I hear that is a really effective solution if you don't care that a whole rectangle of plants will die off. I am putting on bug spray from now on if I go out when it's either muggy or too close to dusk - I have so many mosquito bites from gardening today! Chiggers sound scary. I hope you find something for them! I agree with Cate - so nice you and your sister are sharing a garden! My daughter and I are working on ours and it's wonderful having company and another person to bounce ideas off of.

I have used My Fitness Pal, too (because Cate recommended it) and it really really helps to see where you might want to cut back or substitute healthier foods. I'll probably go back to it once I find and unpack our bathroom scale.
 
Llama said:
The herbs would probably work in a pot even now, to give you a taste of the deliciousness to come.
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The biggest problem that we have for indoors is that because we don't have central air and the house is really drafty, the environment reflects the outdoors. So if it is hot outside, it is hot inside. If it is freezing outside, then it is freezing inside. So taking away the temperature extremes, we'd have to see what we can plant and grow in the other times.
 
Cate said:
I love that you & your sister are sharing the plans for the backyard. It gives you something really worthwhile to aim towards. I use my fitness pal too & find it really helpful.
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I've used myfitness pal a lot in the past, but prefer excel these days so I can see what is going on. MyFitness has its merits though and I may go back to it. I just like excel also. and if I'd work on my dashboard, I'd like it a whole lot more.
 
Marsia said:
Your perfect garden sounds delictable! I love all those herbs and veggies, as well. I have some Thai basil and normal basil in the garden now and it's amazing how much it loves the heat.

I was going to try putting down tarps over the invasive plants and weight them down with rocks so I cooked them under the tarp. I just didn't get to it before we moved, but I hear that is a really effective solution if you don't care that a whole rectangle of plants will die off. I am putting on bug spray from now on if I go out when it's either muggy or too close to dusk - I have so many mosquito bites from gardening today! Chiggers sound scary. I hope you find something for them! I agree with Cate - so nice you and your sister are sharing a garden! My daughter and I are working on ours and it's wonderful having company and another person to bounce ideas off of.

I have used My Fitness Pal, too (because Cate recommended it) and it really really helps to see where you might want to cut back or substitute healthier foods. I'll probably go back to it once I find and unpack our bathroom scale.
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Do you do raised beds or straight into the ground? I thought about raised beds to make it faster and easier to get something up and going. I do have some mosquito spray and will probably start using it. I just hate the smell of it, but I need to get these limbs done in the next week and a half. I can start putting them out on the curb Sunday.
 
I did raised beds because we are near the coast and the soil is mostly sand and any nutrients I add will just wash out of the soil. It's been more work initially, but after this year, I'll have beds that are far easier to maintain. The trade off, I'm sure you know, is that non-raised beds can be way bigger for way less money and initial effort if you are starting with fairly good soil in the ground. One thing I was thinking of trying is those beds where you put down lots of layers of wet cardboard and then put good soil on top so it smothers the weeds and you can control just what's in your soil. Then comes the plants and a thick layer of mulch. They use lots of layers of cardboard and sometimes wood chips for the paths. I think it's called lasagna gardening. I'll let you know how it goes if I try it.

Someone recommended to me this all natural spray called No Natz that is for gnats and mosquitos. It's made from lemongrass oil, which the bugs hate, and it smells pretty good. I got some from Amazon, and it works well.

That's great you can track your calories on your own program!
 
Marsia said:
I did raised beds because we are near the coast and the soil is mostly sand and any nutrients I add will just wash out of the soil. It's been more work initially, but after this year, I'll have beds that are far easier to maintain. The trade off, I'm sure you know, is that non-raised beds can be way bigger for way less money and initial effort if you are starting with fairly good soil in the ground. One thing I was thinking of trying is those beds where you put down lots of layers of wet cardboard and then put good soil on top so it smothers the weeds and you can control just what's in your soil. Then comes the plants and a thick layer of mulch. They use lots of layers of cardboard and sometimes wood chips for the paths. I think it's called lasagna gardening. I'll let you know how it goes if I try it.

Someone recommended to me this all natural spray called No Natz that is for gnats and mosquitos. It's made from lemongrass oil, which the bugs hate, and it smells pretty good. I got some from Amazon, and it works well.

That's great you can track your calories on your own program!
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the only thing about non-raised beds is that we have most clay. I think it's more clay as you go down about 4-5 inches, so I'm not sure how that would work. My sister knows way more about gardening than I do. I'll get her to look into the lasagna gardening.

No Natz sounds good. I went out into the backyard the other day and instantly felt like my calves were on fire. In the last several days, I've noticed I have about 30 bites on my legs. Ugh. I'm so looking forward to sunday so I can put out limbs.
 
Raised beds sound perfect for your area. Ugh to bug bites. Have you tried putting tea tree oil on the bites? It makes them way less itchy and inflamed, I am finding (plus I like the smell of tea tree oil). Good luck with the limbs and hopefully you'll have a less buggy weekend!
 
Marsia said:
Raised beds sound perfect for your area. Ugh to bug bites. Have you tried putting tea tree oil on the bites? It makes them way less itchy and inflamed, I am finding (plus I like the smell of tea tree oil). Good luck with the limbs and hopefully you'll have a less buggy weekend!
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I don't think we have any tea tree oil. And I have no money and no way of going anywhere. I feel like a captive lol. I'm just waiting until tomorrow and then I'll start working on limbs. The physical exercise will help my mental state. And I'll be walking around a lot so hopefully that will help with the bugs. And I won't have to wait on anyone so I'll be doing it during the day instead of the evening so that will help also.
 
Gardening during the day sounds like a much better option for the bugs anyway. Gardening or doing almost anything outside is very good for my mental health I know.
 
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