Changing Diet

Bird: Here comes another Cardinal, this one was thirsty 🙂

Camera

Canon EOS 20D

Focal Length

300mm

Aperture

f/5.6

Exposure

1/400s

ISO

200

Cactus Bloom

Camera

Canon EOS 20D

Focal Length

55mm

Aperture

f/5.6

Exposure

1/2000s

ISO

200

Camera

Canon EOS 20D

Focal Length

55mm

Aperture

f/5.6

Exposure

1/2000s

ISO

200

Stats: My stats are back to normal now (20 Hits or so a day ) and I think I feel better without all them people looking at me, I thought maybe my zipper was down or something, LOL!

Diet: I am switching up my diet a little. When I seen the doc the other day I was dehydrated, so I am adding a few carbohydrates back to my diet and taking out some fats. So …. Lots of vegetables, fish, chicken, turkey, tuna and other low fat meats. I will be cutting back on red meats as a whole but I will still eat red meats but it will be very little compare to now.

Friends: I have a couple of friends coming today,  and it will be good to see them.

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Leave only foot prints

Weight 184.6: The way things have been going, tomorrow I’ll be 188! Guess I need to work on that today 😛 The more I think about food the more I want to eat. I will behave, I will behave, I will behave, LOL.

Weather: Wow, looks like we’ll in for a overcast day and maybe some rain, felt a little sprinkling while out walking.

Walk: While out walking I keep running into chatters (other RVers who like to chat) which is okay to chat but it sure messes with the timing of my walks 😯 I may add another little walk to this one later and hopefully I’ll get to some stretching today, which I’ve not done for two days now 😦
I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 2.49mi, time: 01:05:03, pace: 26:07min/mi, speed: 2.30mi/h.
http://mapmywalk.com/workout/505940225

Update: I did get my stretching added in today.

A second small slow walk (I am moving slow today) I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 1.16mi, time: 29:43, pace: 25:38min/mi, speed: 2.34mi/h.
http://mapmywalk.com/workout/506022735

Clean up: Many of these desert sites are use by RVers and locals and some people are just messy and they leave a mess behind them. This area that I’m in seems particularly messy. It is my policy to always leave a area as good or better than I found it. So today was dedicated to cleaning up some of the mess around me. I put in about 3 hours, so my rent is paid 🙂 Today I clean up an old camp fire that had been there for a long time and was heap up with ashes and old rusty nails, what a mess. People who burn pallets and don’t clean up their nail mass, upset me a bit.

It is a joy to come out in the wide-open desert and boon-dock in my RV for free, and I want to do my part to keep it available for me and everybody else.

If you are a RVer, I highly recommend that you always leave an area as clean or cleaner then when you park there. Yes the fool before you may have left a mess and the fool after you may do the same but you will know that you did your part and you could be the one that saves it for everybody. You should never leave nothing in the desert but foot prints.

Night folks

Shopping today

Weight 185.6:

Weather: Little cool this morning, well compared to what most of the winter has been like here this year. So, it is still super nice weather, overall.

Shopping today? :I think I may go out for a bit today.

Yes, that is what I did. I picked up a few food items, some water for the RV and some drinking water. I picked up ten gallons of drinking water because I find myself drinking near two gallons a day.

Moved: Not far, but I did move (1000) feet maybe. Just enough to get off the 4-wheeler trail. While I was out and about today, I looked over most of the available boom-docking areas around the Lake Havasu and decided this was the better of the bunch. I will more than likely stay here till the end of the month. New locations . I would maybe stay longer but I think it will be way to hot in April.

Tablet: I am playing around with my browser for the tablet. I have always used Dolphin but I’m thinking I will switch to Firefox. They have made some changes to Dolphin and they changed the things I like most about it. I have always used Firefox on my computers but like Dolphin on the tablet because of it being a little different in that some of the function worked by swiping form the sides(which I liked) but they took that away 😦   I do think Firefox Mobile has much better add-on support than Dolphin too. It is also easier to sync my bookmarks with Firefox being on both my computers and my devices. So I’ll play for a while.

Night folks

Photo equipment

Weight 185.6: Go figure, walk my butt off yesterday and gained a pound 😦 Unfortunately things just don’t work that quick, we’ll keep working at it. There will be no walking today, the knees need the rest for sure. I will take a couple of rounds of anti-inflammatory pills today ( over-the-counter ibuprofen ) and ice them a little. They did a fine job yesterday and deserve a little pampering.

Blythe CA: I was off to Blythe this morning to do a little shopping and get out and about for a bit. I picked up water as usual while I was out, along with a few food items.

Stretching: At least I can do just a little stretching today, even though I’m not exercising.

Photographic: Yesterday I posted a older picture of a Robin and I notice that I like the image better than most I have taken of late. So I decided to look at the Exif data of the image and it was one I took with only the 300mm lens that I have had for years. I have not had the 1.4 extender off the 300mm lens for a long time because I like the extra reach that I get with it, but when comparing images …… it causes a fair amount of image quality loss. I have a 400mm lens but it don’t have the I.S. ( image stabilizer ) and at that length, I need the I.S. Makes me wish I had one of the big boys, like maybe a 600mm L f/4 with I.S. 😛 LOL. Unfortunately that’s not gonna happen and if you look up the cost you’ll see why. But I can and have, gotten some fine shots with the equipment that I have, I just have to work at it a little harder. Something I have not done a lot with of late, maybe a like of motivation. Birds is the thing I like photographing and I have to have an area that works for that. Mind you, there are birds everywhere one goes but some places work for me and others don’t. Maybe a good spot and the motivation will both come together soon 🙂

Last week’s workout totals:
WORKOUT SUMMARY for 02/17/2014 – 02/23/2014
6 workouts
5 routes
28.3 miles
9.9 hours
3,224 kCal burned

Night folks

Weight and diet

Weight: Okay, I’m just going to throw my fat a_ _ out here in the cyber world! This morning I weight 186 pounds, much better than the 280 I weight 2 or 3 years ago but I’m not going to settle for that. I want to be 180 max, and preferably less. Over the pass year, I was able to maintain the 180 pounds but in the last two months, 5 or 6 pounds have snuck back on. That 5 or 6 pounds has got to go. Even at 180 I’m still over what is recommended for my height of 5’9″ . For now my goal is to maintain 180 pounds or below.

Diet: What happen to cause this gain? Well, after giving it much thought, this is what I come up with. One, I over did my exercise a couple months back and got the knees out of whack causing me the need to slack up on the exercise. Two, I hit a bout of depression(happens with me now and than, no big deal, lots of folks fight with this) and that didn’t help, and I, like a lot of over weight folks want to feed this kind of thing to death, oddly it don’t seen to work, LOL! Three, I started drinking tea again and that is fine, except I like the sweet taste so I added lots of artificial sweetener to it, which does have some carb count to it. (Note: artificial sweetener is not too good for you, no way, especially the amounts I like 😯 ) . Oh, for those not familiar with my diet it is the Atkins diet, which is a low carb diet. I don’t look at it as a diet no more, I just see it as the way I eat. By the way the tea is out now, no tea for me.

Why: am I a bit upset at a little 5 or 6 pounds? Well when you have spent much of your life being over weight it feels like a big deal. Accepting 5 pounds now could lead into accepting another 5 down the road and ……., you get the picture. (LOL, lead in pounds?) I really like the littler me! Just accomplishing my goal is pretty important too.

Okay, may the food-gods give me the strength to eat well today 🙂 Maybe not eat so dang much? 😯

Walk: I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 2.46mi, time: 47:52, pace: 19:27min/mi, speed: 3.09mi/h.
http://mapmywalk.com/workout/483415661 I’m managing to keep my walks down to a reasonable distance for an old dude, being nice to the knees.

Weather: wow, I think it is summer here. I went into Blythe for an hour or two and when I got back the temperature inside the RV was over 90° . This is a very warm February for this area and I like it.

Night folks

Fasting Friday?

The day is starting out with the normal morning chill but with a little wind added, making it feel even cooler. It is extremely overcast, hope that clears up pretty soon, however it looks pretty set in to me. No never mind, the forecast looks very good for the next few days so all is well.
Weather update 03:40 pm: The overcast skies never did go away today but the temperature has been comfortable. Only real downfall is that I have not gather much solar power for the day.

I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 2.44mi, time: 47:32, pace: 19:30min/mi, speed: 3.08mi/h.
http://mapmywalk.com/workout/469732549
My little walk for today is done. This is a fine place for walking, with lots of option in near every direction. Added a minimum amount of stretching, good enough for today.

Training my keyboard ….. sometimes it’s the little things makes me nuts. I often swipe the word “is” and the Swype keyboard kept giving me ” ous” whatever that is, anyway I finally figured out that you could delete words from the default dictionary, very helpful. I just love learning these little tricks 🙂 . Man I am glad that word “is” is fixed, LOL. Only people with a good memory of President Clinton will enjoy the humor in the sentence before this one! LOL.

It is Friday and one week ago today that I fasted for the day. I am again fasting today, it don’t feel no better than last time : shock: . I have read many places where they don’t think it is good for weight lost, But still I find it interesting. Maybe one of these days I will try a 36 hour fast vs this little 24 hour thing I am doing. I have to admire folks that do fasting for long periods of time, they have to have some great discipline, I don’t think that will ever be me, I enjoy my eating way too much! Today has seem long to me and I think it is because I have all the time extra that I spend preparing and eating food. Never give much thought to how much time all that takes. Dang, it’s a lot like sleeping in that it takes a lot of your time but you sure don’t want to miss out on it.

Night folks

Down Sizing, and am I the chatter?!

Yes I am starting to down size again …………. as in 2X to XL, LOL. No more $2.00 more for the big man size! I bought a new shirt today and seeing as I am now pretty confident that I am going to keep my weight down, I am buying to fit. ❗  I don’t seem to be going any lower but I am staying where I am and have done so for over 6 or 7 months now? I don’t see myself as dieting any more, but as eating a new way, a way that I should have done all along. Of course if you call not eating anything you want when you want, dieting, then I am dieting. However I am starting to look at this as the smart way to eat and the way one should eat, one should not be able to eat just anything they want in this day and time. The foods of today are just not that good for you. Bottom line ……….. I like my new size 🙂  and I am liking my new foods.

Seeing as I bought a new shirt today that means I did get off the hill and go into Deming for a spell, mostly to have something to do. I spent a few hours messing around doing much of nothing, shopping and the like. Didn’t do too bad on the buying end, just a shirt, a battery power vacuüm cleaner and some hamburger patties.

The battery power vacuüm is something that I have needed for some time now, with all the boon-docking I am doing. It just is not to convenient to run the big one I have, because I need to run the generator and that is a bit of a hassle seeing as the generator is not the built-in type. I do get the generator out once a month and run it just to exercise it, but that is not enough vacuüm time, even for an old bachelor, LOL. I have vacuumed once a month and swept the carpet the rest of the month but sweeping does not do as well as vacuuming. So I am glad to add a portable vacuüm to my mix of tools.

About the Vacuum cleaner, it is from Walmart (where else would it be from for those of you that know me ❗  ) and it is a Shark 15.6 volt cleaner. I tried it out for a couple of minutes before plugging it in for its initial charge (20 – 24 hours, wow) and it did a fine job. I think I should have had one of these a long time ago. They sure are a lot better now (battery power ones) then what I could have bought 6 years ago when I started to RVing.

Just had me a meal, and it was two hamburger patties with one slice of cheese split between them, a bowl of greens and one hard boil egg. I eat about 3 meals this size during the day and one a little larger in the evening. I know, I know, that I should do the  bigger meal during the day ………… but I don’t. Hey, I still weigh in at 190 pounds so I have room to improve yet 😉

After getting back from Deming, I took a short but quick walk to warm up a little and then did my stretching. The short walk was to rest the knees a little, they been fussing just a little of late with all these long walks, but I did need to warm up a little for my stretching.

You know what, I think I am beginning to enjoy blogging a little better as my writing and typing gets better. Yes, I know I have tons of room for improvement yet, but I just keep trying. Hey, for someone who quit school barely being able to write I am doing pretty dang fair!

Oh no, looking back over my blog today ………….. I might be the chatter  ❗  😯

Everyone have a nice evening  😉

Headed into the Week

This is Tuesday and I still have not set a time to go. Guess it will happen when it happens.

Exercise is in the can for today, a bike ride of about 11 miles and a little walk down to see the Owls. After the exercise I did do my stretching, which I missed yesterday.

Wind, there has been a lot of wind this last week or so, but that is kind of expected here in the southwest this time of year. I think it is better here in  and around Yuma vs the Deming NM area. It is pesky here but it is worst in the southwest of NM, I think. The temperatures are going to get pretty high later on this week, mid 90s or so. The good part of the weather for today is, that there is plenty of sunshine.

I have put on a crock pot full of chicken breast and it will be ready about 3 or 4 pm today. Should make me at least 4 good meals. I put in just a little garlic salt and Mrs Dash Table Blend season, makes for a good meal along with a vegetable of some kind. Speaking of vegetables, of late I have found that I’ve taken a liking  to canned Collard greens and Turnip greens. I will start watching for fresh ones in the stores but I like the canned ones pretty well too. I bet the fresh ones will be harder to find. Even the canned ones are not to be found here in Wellton, for the greens I got to go to Yuma. I guess the next chance to get them will be in Casa Grande at the Walmart. Today I am having me some green beans, not a thing I have often on this Atkins diet because they are pretty high in Carbs, but it won’t hurt to have some now and then. I am starting to eat and like foods that I have not seen on the tables much since I was a kid, by the way I didn’t like them then, and only eat them because I was hungry. At least, that is the way I remember it 😉

I get a good many Likes on my blog and in return I go over to the “liker” site and give them a good read and often return the like. I don’t do this every day but when I have 5 to 10 in my email box, I go do it( about every other day) . I have gotten to enjoy this a good bit because I find some very interesting folks out in blog land. Many are much younger than I, but still I like to hear what they are up too. Very few of them are as boring as I with my little old slow-moving blog. They are doing exciting things, living exciting life’s and almost all of them are good writers, unlike myself. Makes me sometimes wonder just what the hell I am doing out here in the blogosphere. I guess I am one of the representative of the plain and non-exciting people that the world is so full of? Hey, all I can say is that we (plain and ordinary people) have got all you other kinds of people out numbered! LOL.

I hope in the after life, that my spirit turns out to be more exciting than I  ❗   🙂

Later.

Bad, Bad John

LOL, today I am being a very bad me. As you all know, I have been on the Atkins diet for a year now and today I am letting go ………. at least for today. I have had me a big old sweet sugar-coated doughnut and a small order of french fries, already. The doughnut is the first one that I have had in over a year now and the french fries are the first full order I have had since about 18 months ago. (I would steal one from a friend now and again when out eating, but only one, but today was a full order) Also today I am drinking soda pop, for today. The doughnut was about the best thing I ever tasted and the fries where good, but the pop not so much, I could have done without it I think. The day is young and it is anything goes day, as far food goes. I wonder how hard it will be tomorrow ❗  ❓  We’ll see 😕

Tomorrow I will go back to being good, I promise.

On the exercise front, I am kind of off for today on that too, somewhat anyway. I did ride my bike out this morning to do my bad eating and ended up with about 6 miles on it, and if I go out again it will be the bike that I take and not the truck. So exercise by default? One of the things I have thought about, on the bad food front, is a pizza ………… so maybe I will ride down to get me one later on. After all, I only get this one day. I don’t think I will have any more pop, the caffeine has about blown the top of my head off, I am jumping around like a frog! 2:30 pm, Update on food/exercise; I rode down to get me a pizza, the good, a total on the bike 10 miles, the bad ………. that pizza sure was good! Diet shot to hell for today.

Hey! Did I tell you how good my doughnut was this morning ROTFLMAO! OK,OK, no more food talk, I will be too busy eating 😀

I feel so stuffed, later 😯

Rain in the desert

Rain,  is starting to come down and that is a good thing. It will help settle some of the dust around here and give the plants a much-needed drink. I like seeing the rain in the desert. After being in the desert for a long time it gets to be a treat to have rain now and then. It is just kind of sprinkling for now but maybe it  will pick up a little later on.

I got my bike riding out-of-the-way early today and it is a good thing seeing as the rain is setting in. Never did do any stretching yesterday but I did today, so I am fit for today.

Me and my habits.

I have broken some really bad habits. The worse is alcohol. I did not get to the point that I was ever homeless (but close) but I did cause myself and many others around me a lot of pain. I was a working drunk, when I was working, I did not drink but if I was not working, I was drinking. Took me most of my years of drinking to realize I was an alcoholic and even when it finally hit me, it still took another 10 years to break the habit. I did not do too good with this habit, but in the end I got over it, alcohol free for near 20 years now.
Come to think on it …………. I did live in my car when I was a young man, maybe for just a few months. So I guess I was kind of homeless for a spell.

Smoking for me started openly in front of everyone at 11 years of age. I smoke for the next 34 years and for the last 10 years I was a three-pack-a-day smoker. I have not had a cigarette for over 15 years.

Food is also a bad habit for me. Twice in my life I have weigh in at 280 lbs. I lost down to 180 lbs before blowing out a knee and put that weight back on over the next 7 years. After having my knee replace 3 years ago I am back down to 190 lbs and still fighting the battle to make it back to 180.

So you think, looking at this tea/soda pop thing, it should not be a big deal, right? LOL. It is the little things that fool you, yes? Speaking of tea it is time for my one and only glass …………… 🙂

OK, enough confessions for today! I am going to sat and watch the rain and enjoy my tea. You folks have a nice day.