We've been away for a few days: a trip to the Smoky Mountains for fall foliage. Weather was beautiful, just perfect. But lots of time sitting for the drive each way, eating restaurant food, and little exercise. Not a healthy week.

Karen

Got the last plants off the trailer and into the g'house. I think I have 3 more coming, but they might bring them instead of me going to get them. We'll see. My FitBit buzzed just as I finished unloading them and indicated I had 10,000 steps.

Congrats, you've been walking to get those 10,000 steps! I had a pedometer that let me know when I made my goal, but a burglar stole it and all of my jewelry.

plantmanager said:Congrats, you've been walking to get those 10,000 steps! I had a pedometer that let me know when I made my goal, but a burglar stole it and all of my jewelry. :(

Rotten buggers to steal your stuff!!

plantmanager said:Congrats, you've been walking to get those 10,000 steps! I had a pedometer that let me know when I made my goal, but a burglar stole it and all of my jewelry. :(

How awful! I hope you weren't home and I hope you weren't hurt.

Karen

We went for a walk.

No, we had gone to town to do errands. Rotten buggers, for sure!

For the past few weeks I have been working on losing 5 pounds. This 5 pounds I put on since last February in the late winter and very early spring. Come summer I usually loose a few pounds but not this year thanks to stopping the Ice Cream Truck far too many times.

So I got serious, cut out any and all sweets. Figured that would do it as I walk plenty for exercise and also work in my garden. That sure has been using plenty of muscles not usually strssed. I know as they have gotten sore.

But so far I have only lost two pounds. I loose those two pounds over and over as the scale goes down and back up. I do know I have lost fat, I can actually tell around my fat middle!!

But I am determined that the scale show 5 pounds less so now I have gotten serious and started eating things like oatmeal in the morning. I HATE oatmeal. Absolutely DESPISE it!! But it is part of my get the weight off plan.

I also ordered some more Garden Of Life products. I always take their Raw Fiber and Perfect Food Raw. But I added it it. Today my Raw Meal and Perfect Food Raw Energizer arrived that I had ordered. I tried both. The Vanilla Raw Meal is not so bad, the other stuff tastes pretty bad. Not surprised, they really can't get this stuff to taste great considering all the good raw veggies and sprouted grasses in it.

But going to be adding them both to my daily regiment and see how it works for me.

Rita, sometimes I make the SU and me a "shake" after the workout.......this would be a "breakfast" I guess. I just use water or milk, 2 scoops of protein powder, some frozen fruit, and 3/4 cup of dry oatmeal. Chew it all up in the vitamix and you can't even taste the oatmeal. I'm rather lukewarm on eating oatmeal..........it's ok, but.................just tossing it in the mix and it gets pulverized is a good way. Try it.

I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes this morning, before PT. I like to exercise BEFORE the PT works on my legs.

Karen

AnnaZ said:Rita, sometimes I make the SU and me a "shake" after the workout.......this would be a "breakfast" I guess. I just use water or milk, 2 scoops of protein powder, some frozen fruit, and 3/4 cup of dry oatmeal. Chew it all up in the vitamix and you can't even taste the oatmeal. I'm rather lukewarm on eating oatmeal..........it's ok, but.................just tossing it in the mix and it gets pulverized is a good way. Try it.

Doesn't the oatmeal make the shake too thick to drink??

I had to add juice that green drink I ordered. In water it is just too vile to get down. The juice helps some to mask the taste. Well, not really hide it but it is some better.

I can't imagine why some people say this actually tastes good. Of course most say it tastes awful, which is true. But it is really good for you.

Forgot to ask, do you cook the oatmeal before adding to the shake and grinding it up?

Maybe use instant oatmeal. The oatmeal I have right now is not the instant kind. Don't know why I don't have instant as it is easier to get soft .

Newyorkrita said:Forgot to ask, do you cook the oatmeal before adding to the shake and grinding it up?

Maybe use instant oatmeal. The oatmeal I have right now is not the instant kind. Don't know why I don't have instant as it is easier to get soft .

Okay, I read it again and you plainly say dry oatmeal.

It's been a long time. We are now home and I brought home a good case of Italian cold germs too. But even though I came down with the cold late on Tuesday, it didn't keep us from covering 10 km easily the next day once we got back to Milan. Lots of walking on Monday in Firenze (Florence) and on Tuesday when we took a bus tour to various spots in Tuscany. Decent flights yesterday. Laundry is done. I'm nursing the cold and editing pictures.

I've got two albums up on FB. The one about Milan is at https://www.facebook.com/media...

And the one about Cremona is at: https://www.facebook.com/media...

Welcome home Ann, loved the photos, just took a quick look, I will check them out again for sure.

I finished getting the garden ready for winter today, drained the fountain and put it away, the rest of the flower pots, put my planters on their side on the wall, don't want them to freeze and break.

Rita, I use the old fashioned oats. I don't even buy the quick oats any more.

AnnaZ said:Rita, I use the old fashioned oats. I don't even buy the quick oats any more.

Hopefully I will remember to try it tomorrow morning. I sure do hate to actually eat oatmeal. It me it just tastes awful.

Now I do like those flavored packets of instant oatmeal. Like the Apple Cinnamon one. But I think it is loaded with sugar. I will have to look as I could be wrong.

My favorite (when I ate that stuff) was the maple-brown sugar..............oh, yum.

AnnaZ said:My favorite (when I ate that stuff) was the maple-brown sugar..............oh, yum.

So I looked on the box. Each serving packet has 12g of sugar. Oh well, not what I wanted but I guess not too bad?

Of course all this thinking about the flavored oatmeal and I just had to have some. I just made myself a packet but of course it is not much food. I am am still hungry after my eating of various courses of leftovers.

I thought maybe I had the oatmeal dried powdered baby cereal and I looked and I did. That is what I used to eat instead if the real oatmeal as even if it doesn't taste great, at least it tastes tolerable. So now I added it to the flavored stuff and the resulting mix is not bad at all. Almost tastes good. Eating it now.

All this stuff was what I used to eat when I was loosing that 30 pounds of weight a few years ago. Have gotten away from eating some of it but really I have to go back to eating that way.