Buh Bye Little Scotties

Starting tomorrow, it's back to basics.  For me that means Intermittent Fasting and no sugar.

In spite of my best intentions, I've been slacking lately and eating a lot of garbage.  

So starting tomorrow, this is the plan:

During the week, I'll only have coffee and a light nutritious breakfast, which will provide me energy to help me workout at lunch time.  And then I won't eat anything until dinner.

So this isn't intermittent fasting (in the strictest sense of eating for 8 hours and fasting for 16), but I've been finding myself snacking in the afternoon at work.  And at lot of that snacking has been sugar-y stuff.

Black licorice Scottie Dogs have been my vice lately.  I've been getting them at Tuesday Morning.  I walk in to TM to buy towels for the guest room and walk out with several packages of Scotties.  I can't resist!  They are so cute and taste so good...and go down so easy.  Anyway, no more Tuesday Morning and no more Scotties.

So delicious but so dangerous!

So if I eat something nutritious in the morning, work out around noon, don't eat anything in the afternoon, and then eat dinner at night...that should work out to just about the right amount of calories for weight loss. 

In any case, it should take away the mindless afternoon eating.  No matter what, that will be a good thing.     

Whoops, and just like that it's almost Summer!

Is it May already?  It is?  I'm shocked and stunned.

Since we last visited, my husband sold his business on April 1 and is officially retired.  After that we went to Hawaii for a week, then we were home for a week, then we left again on a road trip to San Francisco for hub's 55th high school class reunion.

Hawaii was okay, but I really enjoyed the car trip to California.  We took our convertible, which is always fun and the weather was gorgeous most of the time.  We got to see some of hub's siblings as well as his best friend of many years, plus the reunion was good for his soul.  He is still close with many of his classmates.  Unfortunately, every reunion, there are fewer and fewer folks attending for obvious reasons. There is always a moment of silence after reading the list of classmates who have passed away in the last 5 years.  This year the list was quite long. 

We passed through Reno on the way home.  Our intent had to been to stay overnight, but I really didn't get a good feeling about the town so we kept driving and stayed in another small town further north.  As a result of that change in plans, we ended up driving a totally different way home, and so we were able to spend a few days at a hot springs lodge in Oregon.  It was lovely and quiet and not very expensive.  Our room looked directly out on the hot pool and the McKenzie River.  

View from our Room

The lodge was in the middle of nowhere and there was no TV or cell service!  But they did have internet "in the lobby" and since our room was directly above said lobby, we had internet in our room. I made my first cell phone call ever using internet.  I called my office and my co-worker said he could kind of hear me, but not great.  At least I know it can be done.  

There was lots of wine and beer drinking and dessert eating throughout the trip, which is always enjoyable.  However, it's not so great for the scale, which I have been avoiding since we got home about 10 days ago.  Getting back on track eating wise is hard!   It was good to get back to my office and my routine and my normal healthy lunches.  And I can also say I've been working out regularly again, 4 times this week so far! Plus gardening, planting tomatoes, and spring cleaning of my landscaping and yard.   

Speaking of cleaning up, I've had to start cleaning up after a raccoon who apparently spends quite a bit of time in the tree in front of our house.  I've not actually seen him, but our dog sitter has.  She said he growled at her and that he's quite large.  So are his poops, which he leaves in the crook of the tree every day.  YUCK.   

Yuck Pooey! 😒

He's also not a fan of some of my yard art.  I spend a lot of time curating my yard and I had a little fake nest with paper mache eggs that I put under one of my Japanese maple trees.  Every morning for 3 days, it had been tossed into the driveway.  As if to say BITCH NOT FOOL ME NOT REEL EGGYS!  I'd put it back under the tree, but he'd do it again in the night.  The last time, he tore it apart and ripped out one of the eggs.  Fine, you win, nasty wild animal.  The nest was wrecked so it went into the trash.  

This is what it looked like before he had a temper tantrum.

See the little nest behind the glass mushrooms?  It was so cute😍

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this beast go away?  I'm not only disgusted by the poop but I'm also a bit concerned about my dogs getting in a confrontation with him.  I've been researching raccoon repellent, which usually involves hot sauce and/or vinegar, but I'd be interested in anyone's experience with raccoons.

Because our yard is not fenced, I do keep my dogs on a leash whenever they are outdoors.  This is mostly because there are lots of wild animals around our house.  My little 6 lb yorkiepoo is a fearless hunter and will take on any animal she sees, which could be a disaster.  It's the terrier in her and she turns mindless aggressor when she sees a wild animal.  Along with the raccoon, there are eagles, Canadian geese, deer, coyotes, beavers, nutria, and otters.  But even if it's just a bunny or a squirrel, she would chase it wherever it goes, which includes the busy road up our  driveway.  So...Miss Jennie is always always always on a leash when outdoors.

Jennie the killer YorkiePoo

   Anyway, time to take pups to the park.  Onward and upward.  

      

This is what SMUG gets you

A gain of 5 lbs.

I start thinking I'm invincible when it comes to gaining weight.  After all, I didn't gain weight during the holidays!  How special is that!?!

But during February, I lost control.  Well, not really "LOST" control, I just stopped paying attention.

After all, there was Valentine's Day, the long weekend for Presidents Day, my birthday, a big snowstorm, travel to California for a funeral.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Lots of excuses to eat stuff I don't normally eat and to not work out as much.   Lots of licorice, Good and Plenty, and Sour Patch Kids.  (You can keep your chocolate...just give me all that straight sugar crap candy.)  Eating out for my birthday several times with different friends.  Having my cake and eating it too.

Thank heavens it was a short month!!! 

Late in February, I noticed my skinny jeans were snug and were making me feel not so skinny.  So I weighed myself on March 1.  I was back up to 173.5.  Aaargh!  Those 5 lbs that took me 3 months to lose only took me a month to gain back. 

This week, I'm back on track.  I worked out 5 days this week, cut out the sugar (SO HARD TO DO), and just generally cleaned up my act.  The weather has improved, so there's that too.

I already feel better.  

We are going to Hawaii on April 3 for 10 days, so I hope to be down to 163 (my goal weight) by then.

I'm looking outside and it's a gorgeous day.  Still cold (33 degrees) but it is warming up nicely.

Little ducks all in a row, enjoying the sunshine

Spring appears to be Springing right now!  So I'm going to take the dogs for a walk and enjoy it.  After all, this is Seattle and it could start raining any second!