Musings on journeys and such

I started a journey, way back in 2010, to lose weight. I’d started on Weight Watchers, and enjoyed the app. Switched over to LoseIt! at some point to avoid the fees with the WW app. I’m not sure anymore what my weight was at the beginning of the journey, but along the way I kept logs in different places. According to one such record my starting weight was 342 pounds around April 2010. By December of that year I’d past the 300 pound mark and ended up with my lowest weight being 278 pounds around April of 2011.

Math: 342-278 = 64 pounds in 12 months.

What I remember was my plan. Log every food that I eat. Drink water regularly. Move some everyday. The journey was a regular trend with some plateaus. I started a Couch to 5k program along the way and about the same time as my lowest weight, I completed a 10k race. Other things I picked up along the way was a daily weigh-in and recording that number but only looking at how a daily weight related to a 10-day moving average trend. Anything below that trend was on track. Generally I was most always below trend. There is a post in history with stats on that.

But then slowly, things happened. Life happened. Lost a job, deaths, depression, all the things and losing weight wasn’t that important. I got a new job after a few months, and started trying again, kept my weight under 300 before just not caring anymore.

There are some disparate data points logged in my LoseIt! History (thanks for a 10 year history and a lifetime premium membership) that I can look back on.

April 2014: 340
April 2015: 355
April 2016: 365
— a short stint of a diet end of 2016 got me back to 246 by the end of the year
April 2017: 370
— a plateau here, no more data until I got my type-II diagnosis in September of 2020
Sept 2020: 394

Start the clock – that was a single weigh in at the doctor’s office fully clothed. I felt horrible, had a persistent cough (my reason for said Doctor visit), was given a shot and some pills to help clear my lungs. (This was six months after Covid-19 started things, and I had a cough all the way through). Came back to my doctor in two weeks for follow up and a physical. Type-II confirmed, blood-glucose fasting in the doctor office by blood stick was 400 mg/dl.

Time to become real. I devoured books from sources either my Dad had recommended (The Diabetes Solution by Richard Bernstein, The Diabetes Code by Dr. Fung) along with every book that Gary Taubes has written. Then came up with a plan on how to eat as someone that is basically allergic to sugar.

I didn’t go buy a bunch of cookbooks, I spun my own plan. More fat, less sugar, more protein, less simple carbs. Tracked macros not calories (though track one you get both – just be sure the labels are as accurate as can be). While I do want to be more active, I haven’t really started exercising. Each time I dipped my toes into losing weight after my initial success, it was exercise more than diet. Exercise led to injury, and off the wagon I fell. This time, I told myself, it would be in the kitchen I lose weight.

Starting Weight – 394 – Sept 15, 2020
Present Weight – 325 – July 13, 2021

Math:
10 months
394-325 = 69 pounds

Steady(ish) drop in weight, two little plateaus of a bout a week. The first in April (that six month window seems to be consistent in both journeys), where I let more white carbs back into my diet, stalled me out. Better choices, less bread, back to a steady drop. Another week, first of June, I stopped tracking, stopped weighing on vacation. When restarted after coming home, I’d “gained” five pounds that was erased in three days, and haven’t had a meaningful pause yet.

I hope to be 100 pounds down by the end of the year, but I don’t have a timeline. I’m eating what is best for me, making good choices, tracking my blood glucose daily (by sticks now, not CGM), looking at trends, and drinking water. Enjoying a bit of ice cream in the evening before I start my fast, then breaking it (not really) with a cup of bulletproof coffee when I rise in the morning. I follow a 16/8 Intermittent fasting to help regulate my insulin levels (the real point where you body starts metabolizing fat, versus storing fat is based on this unknown, but related to blood glucose, number.

Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace (Serenity Prayer – Reinhold Niebuhr)

90 Days Keto

Keeping up with an update to my journey. I had my three-month doctor visit a couple weeks back. I was very interested in seeing my blood panel results, including HbA1c, and other tests to compare to how very poor my numbers were back in October.

The doctor called me, and said my blood tests looked really really good.

Two reallys – I’m happy. Let’s dig into some numbers

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Removing the sugar…

The biggest change in what I’ve eaten over the last three months is cutting carbs drastically. This has had dramatic improvements in my blood glucose levels, with fasting (in the morning when I wake up) levels lower than 110 mg/dL and inching lower week by week.

Changing my diet has also resulted in less consumption, daily calories, and also a drop in weight (over 25lbs since September 15th). I’ve read some great books on diabetes specifically, and currently making my way through Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes. It’s a fascinating book, wish I would have read it ten years ago.

Speaking of ten years ago, as I wrote previously, my current diet is taking advantage of habits I learned (then discontinued) ten years ago in the middle of losing 60 pounds in a year (Apr 2010 – Apr 2011). I was trying to hack my diet using what I would now refer to as the standard dieting, lower calories. I never bought into a low-fat diet, but neither did I adhere to a low-carb diet 10 years ago. I was trying to hit more Zone Diet goals in macronutrient ratios (30-fat, 40-carb, 30-prot), but I wasn’t trying to be very precise.

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Ten Years is a long time…

I haven’t been away from the blog for ten years, but ten years is how long LoseIt keeps your data. I started using LoseIt a little over ten years ago, and kept at it for the first two years. Then slowly started trying to get back on the wagon. Ten years later, I’ve reached the point in the slow — what’s opposite of decline, incline? Where it’s time to put pressure downstream again.

I documented a lot of my weight-loss journey of 10 years ago on this blog. I personally learned a lot of good techniques to help me. But I just never go back to making them my daily routine, until about a month ago when I was diagnosed with Type-II diabetes. A wake up call I desperately needed.

I cut down my carbs drastically, went back to logging EVERYTHING in LoseIt, and now have about a month of solid data to make decisions on. I read back through my blog, and ten years ago I was struggling through a plateau, and trying to make sense of what was happening. In the day-to-day it was confusing. But – as I stated back then – time and pressure paid off. I dropped below 300# and got to almost 275 before the wheels came off, and the incline began.

The dip at the left side of the graph shows my progress at the time. I was jogging everyday, and logging all my food. The drop at the top right shows my progress since the beginning of October of this year. What is off the graph to the left is where I started. I started at 378#, which is about where I am now. So I’m traveling a path I’ve traveled before. Gonna enjoy the view as I go.

What will I do differently. Well with age comes more patience, and a type-II diagnosis comes with a different priority. I need to do this for my health. Not pride or vanity, but to keep living. I had a frightening week just before I started this new trek, and I don’t want to be there again. So what is different in my diet. This next chart will be kind of show my plan.

The far left shows my macros from my first trek down the weight loss trail. The right show my current macros. Back then I strived for “zone-like” 40carb-30prot-30fat – struggled to get protein into the 30 percent, but limited carbs to around 40% of diet for almost 20 years. The data points get sporadic from there.

The far right shows two months of the new normal. Trying to be “keto-ish”, the first few weeks my goal was 40g of carbs, to get to the 5/25/70 Keto standard. I met and discussed my goals with my dietician and adjusted my goals up to 10-15% carbs, 25-35% protein, and 40-50% fat. This seems ultimately sustainable long term.

What that breaks down into – back in 2010, my daily carb intake was in the 250g range, now my goal is 80g. That means a lot less french fries and hamburgers, not as much hot fudge sundaes, etc. But there are a lot of foods that I can still partake of.

What has this done to my glucose levels. And another chart to show progress:

These are two week trends from my continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which isn’t measuring the same as a fingerstick. But close enough. The bottom block is the first two weeks, then the next two weeks in the middle. Then the top block is my current two week period. Much better readings, much tighter control. One hypo (that is a low reading under 70 mg/dL) that was from last night (my blood glucose was ~81 for that period – the CGM was reading a bit low).

The point of that is that controlling carbs is working. My weight has dropped almost ten pound since the first week of October. I know the trail downhill will be slow, but I feel in control now.

Alexander Hamilton

So thanks, Brenna for getting that ear-worm of a musical stuck in my brain. Enough that I start to write to get things unstuck our of my brain, and interested enough about the guy on the ten dollar bill to read his biography.

Interesting chap, things I never knew. As the song goes, “how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore…” those people usually don’t get a head in life, let alone be featured on currency.

Reading the source material for part of the musical has been somewhat fascinating. Usually I’m more for fiction and imagination than reading a fact based biography. But Hamilton is a fascinating fellow.

He really was non-stop. He had a set of principles that he lived by, and also broke. He was probably a man of faith, but not always a church-goer. His younger years were troubled by just surviving, then he became and aide-de-camp to General Washington. Still ambitious enough to walk away from that (in part where the musical sways away from the facts) because he was frustrated in not getting a command. Still became a war hero at the battle of Yorktown.

I’m still at the start of where his life goes in the politics of the new nation, and I’m sure that will be fascinating too, to see him go toe-to-toe with Jefferson and Madison, let along Aaron Burr.

The musical has lyrics that activate my brain more than other catchy ear-wormy songs. The way the types of music are blended, from rap to jazz to plain old ballads and show-tunes.

Anyway, I have more to share, more to write, I can’t write a novel for NaNoWriMo, but I can make the commitment to blog each day. I think it is a healthy habit to get things out of my brain, and into words. So stand by, who knows where my brain will go.

Perfect? No-No!

This is about as close as you can get to a perfect game. Each batter (28 of them thanks to a ground ball throwing error) of Clayton (K-layton?) Kershaw’s no-hit gem of a game last night. A perfect game would have had only 27 batters.

At Home, with Vin Scully on the call… Great game!

 

I drive by a food desert everyday!

Prompted by this post on Instapundit, I went to the USDA map, and inserted my street address to see where I might find a Food Desert near me.

If you don’t know what a food desert is, let’s head to Wikipedia and find out.

In general, there is no specific agreed-upon definition for the term. An initial definition counts the type and quality of foods available for purchase and the neighborhood residents being impoverished and unable to buy such foods. A second definition takes into account “access, or the degree to which individuals live within close proximity to a large supermarket or supercenter”, which offers “consumers a wider array of food choices at relatively lower costs.” Such a definition weights “the number, type and size of food stores available to residents.” One study counted food deserts as “urban areas with 10 or fewer (grocery) stores and no stores with more than 20 employees.” The existence of multiple definitions which can even change by country and the uncertainty over the exact measures by which a food desert can be recognized have fueled controversy over the existence of food deserts.

Maps, showing the distribution of food deserts in the United States can be found in Morton and Blanchard’s 2007 article.[5]

So I found think link to the Morton and Blanchard’s article and found these measurements.

  • Rural areas risk becoming “food deserts” as young families move away and market pressures continue to squeeze small grocers and retailers. Food deserts are defined as counties in which all residents must drive more than 10 miles to the nearest supermarket chain or supercenter.
  •  The Great Plains are especially lacking in easy-access grocers.
  • The residents of food deserts tend to be older, poorer, and less educated.
  • Health can be compromised by lack of food access. Many do not consume adequate amounts of fresh fruits or vegetables, and they often lack adequate dairy and protein in their diet.
  • Wal-Mart and other superstores are not always cheaper on all food items, leaving room for a competitive advantage for smaller grocers.

Fully armed with knowledge I peaked at the map to see this:

FOODDESERT

If you don’t live near me this might not mean anything, but my route to work starts on Independence Pky, turns onto Renner along the north end of the green zone, I dip into the green zone, and drive right through the middle of the Food Desert until I reach Custer Parkway and continue on my way to work.  So I know this area pretty well.

Off the top of my head, I know there is a Wal-mart and a Sam’s Club to the northwest side, a Target a stones throw away from the southwest corner, and a Tom Thumb just north of the northeast corner. But those fall outside of that roughly 3-mile wide – one mile high swath of food desert that we worry about. Though just to the south of that curved green line (that’s a railroad line, and to the north is industrial parks and a new retirement community) is a Central Market grocery store (H.E.B.’s answer to Whole Foods). Also in that swath of green is the University of Texas at Dallas Campus, a Driving Range and a large swatch of heretofore undeveloped land. The developed land to the east of UTD is some upper middle class neighborhoods, as well as a country club with a golf course.  I truly worry about the population in this deprived area.

In short if that area is a food desert, please find me a house there (preferably the one near the 18th fairway with the nice view of the green).

Just for giggles, plug in an address near you and see what the USDA is considering a food desert near you! I’m sure glad tax-dollars went into making this map. To see a non-tax payer funded map of the area with indicators of where to find “grocery stores” click here.

 

A Baggins Of Bags End.

Had an interesting weekend, as I attended a discussion about the book, “The Art of Neighboring” and the challenge that went with it to learn the names of the eight neighbors around me. (NB: think of a tic-tac-toe board with your house in the middle and your physical geographical neighbors that would inhabit the other eight squares). I was able to list three, I would have gotten four but one neighbor recently moved. I’ve lived here longer than any place else I’ve ever lived, and I’m failing at the basic step of a neighbor, namely calling them by name.

Of course it doesn’t help my self-esteem to be handed this challenge in light of Jesus’ words affirming the young man that repeated, “Love your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself” as a summary of the scriptures, and telling him to go and do likewise. The bit of shame is further ground in when looking at the text and reading the young person used the following to try and weasel out from the command:

Who is my neighbor?

In this modern world, we have tried to re-define our neighbors, as a matter of fact you might have stopped by this post because of a link on Facebook, and if you did… welcome Neighbor! I wouldn’t blink an eye, to call you my neighbor in this electronic age that has made distances shrink, and relationships grow across the magic of the internet. I’ve even been to talks where this ‘quasi’-neighbor is heralded as an extension of the great commandment. It’s really easy to pat one’s self on the back about how great a neighbor one is to their electronic friends.

Then, I look at that tic-tac-toe board and wonder about the names of whosie-whatist across the street, or loud-trampoline-family kitty-corner in the back alley, or mr. always-has-the-garage-door-closed two hows down from him.

I really have no excuse, it isn’t that hard to learn people’s names. But if I learn their names, I’d have to use it when I say hello, and if I use it to say hello, I might have to ask, “how are you?” and if I asked that, I’d have to listen to the answer, and if I listened to the answer I might be able to help, and …

Not to sound like a DirecTV commercial, or a children’s book about feeding pancakes to pigs, but at the end of that stream of thought is something dangerous! Actually getting involved with strangers! My mother warned me about them!

But if I knew their name, they wouldn’t be a stranger.

I’ve also been reading The Hobbit, and how hard it was for Bilbo to leave Bag’s End and start on his adventure. I read often in the narrative about how he wishes he was home in his hobbit hole enjoying second breakfast (and if there is anything we should learn from Tolkien is the importance of second breakfast, if not elevensies) and smoking on his pipe (so long as you live in Washington or Denver, I suppose). How in the midst of the terror and fear of the adventure he could always remember home.

So I have a quandry, stay cozy in my hole, or learn the names of my neighbors. My real. Physical. Literal. Neighbors.

To add to this, there was a final paragraph in a review for the movie Her I read, copied here without further comment:

For this segment of the population anyway, we may be over-thinking the hangups with marriage. It’s not necessarily an outgrowth of economics, public policy, sociology, or religious belief. It might just be that love is hard. And, increasingly, ‘hard’ is something we’re not willing to do.

(how hard is it to learn a name?)

 

Bible verses suck

and sometimes passages of the bible suck. Because they are ripped out of context, and applied haphazardly to whatever we think they should apply to.

Take for example Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

All nice and warm gooey feeling, right? The context of what Jeremiah is saying to the captives in Babylon though is lost, because he’s just got done telling them: “make yourselves comfy, you’ll never see your home again. Get settled in this apostate region, because it your home for a while, and for your kids and maybe your grandkids. But realize that it is part of God’s plan, after 70 or so years, I’ll make it right, and bring you back home.”

I read on the internet today that someone doesn’t agree with Paul. Well boy howdy, that’s a pretty broad generalization, all of Paul’s writings? The ones wear he hopes that those that require circumcision as a prelude to believing in Christ slip and castrate themselves? The ones where he lists all the nasty sins we all do, just about daily, like slander and gossip along side sexual immorality?  The ones where he shows that there is no condemnation in Christ? The one where he list the ways that we’ll never be separated from Christ?

Look, I’m with Peter (2 Peter 3:16), who a couple thousand years ago wrote about Paul:

He speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

He is hard to understand, it takes a bit more than the discounted 10 second sound bite that gets tossed up in the middle of a “news” story to understand Paul’s words. I’m sure that the words of a grace healed red-neck paraphrasing those greek words translated into southern twanged English are even harder to understand.

Perhaps, a few more moments dwelling on what Paul meant, and what his whole corpus means, might be a good exercise.

Try this, read Romans 7, then stop. Don’t turn the page, don’t read past the last verse and skip on to chapter 8. It’s not a happy ending.

The first letters and gospels that were penned in greek didn’t have paragraphs, didn’t have numbers for easy reference. People passed around whole letters, copying letter by letter, and sending it to another congregation. These people found hope in Paul’s words, in Peter’s words, in John’s and James. They developed the Gospels, to share the story of the God that saw our lost world in such disarray that he lowered himself, to be made all man, while continuing to be entirely divine. To provide the perfect sacrifice for the slanders, the gossips, the liars and the thieves, even for those that commit the lesser sins listed as they live in their flesh. As I live in my flesh.

This Christmas in the turmoil of the latest, loudest, if not ugliest kerfluffle over Paul’s words, take a moment, and read. Read Matthew and the scandal that surrounds the line of the baby born in Jerusalem, that includes a incestuous daughter, a prostitute and an adulteress (and murderer too). Read Luke and marvel that the first announcement of his miracle of God with us, was not to royalty, but to dirty stinky shepherds.

Read on to realize that Jesus didn’t come to save the well, and the upright, but came to heal the sick and seek out that one sheep out of ninety-nine that has gotten ensnared by life.

Then realize, that you… the ones that read Paul’s words, and understand them, you are the ones… no … I am the one, that he bids to wash the others feet.

Bible verses suck.

 

 

Boanerges

Today my father’s mother passed away. That makes me, the oldest male from the line that bears the name Stueve. My grandmother, Grace, was proceeded in death by her husband Stan, and her son Dick. (Both oddly, nicknames that avoid using the name Clarence… (this is a picture of how my brain works, and freely associates things))

I have many memories of visiting my grandmother’s house, that shared real-estate with a much ignored stop sign. That her picture window that framed the tall cedars of Pier Park in St Johns, Oregon never was destroyed by a car careening down N. St James Street is a glimpse of God’s grace and mercy. Perhaps.

It’s not much coincidence that her house was at the junction of St Johns Ave and St James, who were aptly named by Jesus as the “Sons of Thunder” in Mark’s gospel. Their evangelical zeal for the Lord was kindled early in his ministry, and then purified through their life under the counsel of the Spirit.

One of my memories is of a collection of small booklets that my grandmother kept, with titles ranging across many mundane topics. One I remember vividly was entitled, “How to argue,” which I immediately opened and began reading. At that time, I think I recall, I was often embroiled in verbal parries with my older sister Sarah, and perhaps I thought I would now have the upper hand being properly educated on the art of arguments.

It was much different than I imagined the title to be, and it’s lessons, perhaps, have faded in my much crowded memories.

Then I recall, that St John, lived much longer than his brother. The sole surviving Boanerges twin, lived a long life. Much longer than his fellow apostle Peter that barged into the empty tomb, while John had arrived first. The older John, his fiery temperament perhaps soothed by the balm of Gilead, boiled Jesus teaching into simple phrase, that we glimpse when we read the eponymous letters in the thinner part of the New Testament.

“Little children, love one another.”

Overtime, I have taken this philosophy more to heart than the philosophy of “how to argue”, and my grandmother’s love is one of the reasons. She possessed a servant’s heart, always making sure when we visited that we were fed, that we had her bed (and to the unknown person that invested cash money to purchase her couch last weekend, you have yourself a gem of a napping couch). Her acts of service were her love language, much more than her words.

So with words that spring from a place I know not where. I muse on my grandmother’s passing. Hoping that she enjoyed that walk up the path, through the towering cedars of Pier Park as much as I did, every time I visited.

I’ll miss you Grandma, but you are already part of me.