tuffy

Mongolian beef this time along with green beans.

Leftover pork enchiladas & beans along with a rather large salad.

Chicken Tikka, green beans and roasted carrots

I'm a form follows function person, so generally speaking white. Though my wife really liked the purple molicare diapers back in the 90s and I do have some megamax blue they sent as free samples, so there are exceptions. But I'm not really interested in juvenile prints.

Both!

Hi @CptKirk, I'm glad to see you're still kicking. You seem to have a good heart and the world needs more people like that, not fewer. I don't really feel the need for couching though. When I first started (over 25 years ago) I had a few coaching sessions at the Y that got me started and that was about it. Later I switched to Gold's Gym, but I just kept plugging along. I slowly built up the weight and figured out I need to concentrate on my quads and gluts so I could do the moguls on the slopes. The biggest problem I found was living at 1000 feet and going up to 6 or 8000 for a ski trip. I'd try to take it easy for the first few days to get acclimated to the altitude before doing anything difficult. My issues at the moment are all social in nature. Given that my triglycerides are creeping up again, I'll need to do something about it soon. The changes to my routine will probably upset the apple cart at home, but the rest of the family will adjust. The real problem is my current work schedule. I hadn't really planned on working as much as I have been and when my brain gets sucked dry during the day, I find it hard to get on the treadmill for any amount of time after work (much less go to the gym and lift weights). And before you know it, a week went by and now it's July (to paraphrase Zappa). Getting back into the routine after a pause is always a big problem, but I usually manage. Thanks for the offer though.

Only my wife as well.

The worn out elastic can be replaced with fresh elastic if you have access to someone with sewing skills.

I paid $4.69 today for regular

I thought it might be helpful others to tell my story here. TLDR: Diet and exercise and work, if you keep at it and don't give up. I worked most of my life sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen and never exercised much, apart from running to the server room when something went wrong. I tried to follow the low fat lifestyle that was so popular in the '90s and ended up putting on about 10 lbs a year instead. By 2000, I was a 6' tall 52yo that weighed 285 lbs. My life and slowed down a bit and I was no longer working 60 hours a week and my wife and I were empty nesters. I also had aspirations of re-learning how to snow ski. I'd tried it when I was in college and loved it, but having a wife and family made that hobby way too expensive for our budget. With the kids gone, we could finally afford it again. I decided the best path forward was to join the YMCA and start exercising. They had people there to show you the ropes, a default routine to follow and a way to track your progress. I followed it pretty closely and went there 3 or 4 times a week with about 20 minutes of fast walking and 20 minutes of weight lifting. After 2 1/2 years, I'd only lost about 15 pounds, but I was comfortable being fat. I was mostly doing it so my legs and arms would be strong enough to hold me up for more than 1 run down the easy slope before I was too tired to go on. In 2002, 18 months later, my blood work came back with my triglycerides over 250 for the second year in a row. My doctor suggested that I think about doing something about it and gave me standard "low cholesterol / low triglyceride" diet sheet they keep around as a handout. At this point, my focus switched to getting my blood chemistry closer to normal, so I decided to follow the diet. The basic elements of the diet were to stop consuming all forms of sugar and the kinds of starch that would convert to sugar quickly and eat very little fat. You could eat all the veggies and mushrooms you want along with a reasonable amount of protein. One interesting part was you could have 1 slice of bread and 6oz of beer. I ended up skipping the bread and drinking a 12oz beer! I stopped drinking all soda (don't care for diet soda) and any other drink with sugar in it. I also gave up bread, pasta and deserts. I wasn't so careful with the fats though (I really like BBQ). After following the diet for a month (and still working out), I'd lost 10 pounds. After another 4 months, I'd lost another 20. At my next doctor's appointment, I'd lost another 10 pounds and my triglycerides were back to normal and for the year I'd lost 40 pounds. I went on a ski trip the next year using rented equipment. The next year I bought some skis, boots and poles. By 2009, 5 years after I changed my diet and 9 years after I started working out, I'd lost a total of 90 pounds and was able to stay at that weight level for the next 6 years. What happened after that is another story. In the end, I didn't see my journey as "being on a diet". We all have diets. Your diet it is what you eat. In my mind, I switched to a new diet and left the old diet behind. The general guidelines I follow these days are to eat salad, veggies and meat. In that order. Is it ok to have some ice cream from time to time? Well, if that happens more that once every few months, then that's really become part of your diet. When I eat BBQ, I don't really use much sauce, when I eat Mexican food, I stay away from the chips and skip the sopapilla. I've been known to eat ice cream, but I stick with the "no sugar added" stuff and because ice cream is loaded with lactose, I only have it a few times a year.

I found the spaghetti squash wasn't close enough for the same enjoyment, but using the sauce as a topping for the veggies worked pretty well. I've also been known to just eat the meat sauce like a bowl of chili. I still make sure I have salad and veggies to go with it though. Recently we've tried using pasta made from chick peas and found it to be acceptable. If you cook it to the directions, it comes out very al dente, however, we found that if we cooked it in our instant pot (a regular pressure cooker would be fine) that it for 10, 15 or 20 minutes, it was ok. Not perfect, but good enough. We also tried pasta made from lentils, but had to cook it in the instant pot for more like 45 minutes for it to be soft enough. That looks pretty good, I need to give that one a try.

I always called it dunlap disease because your belly dun lapped over your belt!

Pork enchiladas (from leftover pulled pork) , refried beans and guacamole from scratch.

Pulled pork, Cole slaw, potato salad & watermelon

We had grilled cheese sandwiches and tuna salad.