Lawn mowing with a twist

Whenever I need to get extra steps I start the mower and go to work. This time around I decided to get a little more creative. I was laughing so hard and feeling glad that we are well hidden from the neighbors...I also had a lot of coffee.

Yesterday was my 2nd full day of not having refined sugar and I'm not craving it as much as I used to. I really felt inspired by the other conversations here.

I've had less luck with Intermittent Fasting because my schedule is kind of weird, but I'm going to keep breaking up with sugar. I have also been drinking black coffee instead of adding cream and sugar and that's another big change. I'm hoping to stick with a healthier lifestyle.

My main workouts are yardwork / projects, hula hooping, and I'm trying to learn how to do a free standing handstand. My partner and I go for walks by the ocean at night.

I used to spend 3-5 hours in the yard, but my hands started to get stuck in a fist from the weeding so I've scaled back to one hour. Taming the jungle is a full time job and I have other things to do too

What are lifestyle changes that have made a big difference for you?

 

LOL! Glad I drink tea! LOL! Cut out the sugars and carbs and magic happens within two weeks. I did exactly this and the first few days are rough, craving carbs, but then stops and the weight starts shedding. I don't think I have ever been able to do a Hula Hoop, not sure why, but sure makes everyone laugh when I try...maybe because I try too hard?

 

It's actually shocking, how much you can end up walking, just mowing the lawn! My yard in Texas was only 1/8th acre, but since I was bagging the cuttings, I'd have to stop every so often, to empty the bag. Measured it once, with an app named "Map My Walk" (by Under Armor), and it said doing front and back lawns, I ended up walking over 2 miles!

 

LOL!!! Hula hoop and pushing a lawnmower is a first for me!
Go for it girlfriend you're doing great!

 

Processed HFCS and Sugar addiction was a never big one for me. Potatoes, Carrots, Sweet Taters, Peas, beans, Corn Bread and Biscuits on the other hand were and all convert to sugar. 2016 I got YOU ARE GOING TO DIE sick Can't stress enough Sepsis (Your body going Septic) is no Joke. Long story short it was bad and did a lot of damage to my organs that lead to years of complications. One being I either make massive amounts of insulin or I make no insulin. One day I had no hint of diabetes and then one day at Docs office he stuck my finger and I was running 550 blood sugar. So I had to make major diet changes for that. During the years 2016-2019 I got real chair bound and traded in muscle for FAT. Already had lung scarring from trying breathe in a toxic fireball many years prior, more lung scarring from the sepsis compounded the problem and I should be running a O tank on my hip but compromised for a pocket inhaler that straightens things out if I exceed my limitations. And no Gator I am not going to stop smoking, LOL I don't even inhale, I just like the taste of that rancid black tobacco I grow tempered down with the sweeter gold stuff

So since 2020 I have strictly limited my diet to MEAT, Lots of Animal Fat, Fish ideally catfish, trout and salmon. I won't take supplements and Doc suggested 16oz of V-8 vegetable juice to compensate for the lack of vegetable intake. So I have found the body has adapted well to that and tells me when I need to take a big swig from the V8 jug. Massive amounts of black coffee and unsweet tea are prescribed to keep the glucose I seem to make out of thin air flushed out of the body and it encourages peeing A LOT regularly to flush the sugar out. I was having a very large problem with getting dehydrated becuase the body was pulling every drop of moisture it could from my body to try to keep the high blood sugar flushed out. Want to feel like total crap try 400+ Blood Sugar and being Dehydrated and peeing out 30% more liquid than you are taking in. Oddly enough drinking more coffee and strong unsweet tea = Peeing once every 60-90 minutes VS every 15 minutes. LOL 4 pots of coffee and 1.5 gallons of tea per day might be a little extreme but it works for me. Doc watches my blood work and cholesterol like a hawk. My LDL runs in the low 20s and my HDL runs in the 70s Bad cholesterol is very low and good cholesterol is in a decent place. Total Cholesterol runs 100-105 on average. Doc doesn't really care how high the HDL goes, says we want to keep that LDL where it is at or at worst in the 40s. The high animal fat is because it blocks the glycemic reaction in the body limiting the conversion of carbs to glucose. Following this and taking the diabetes med I went from a 14.3 A1c to 9.2 A1C over 90 days Down to 7.6 A1C last check. Nothing as impressive as that first big drop since it. But consistent .2 - .5 drops during the in between 3 month A1C test. Blood sugar is holding in the 170-180 range on average Still high but a whole lot better than the 350-380 average with 500+ peaks. Always very glad that Doc is not a 1 size fits all just prescribe crap Doctor. He is not against prescribing crap but looks at more holistic approaches and how a prescription can fit in and benefit rather than the prescription being the first and finale solution.

Have been doing things the hard way, like building dams, pond and a lake with a smaller tractor and 6' box blade. Sitting on a tractor going around and up and down might not sound like it, but it is a Extreme Workout with a lot of ranges of motion and every muscle in the body being stimulated. 4 Months of that at a average of 14 hours per day........ I lost 68 pounds over the summer. Weight loss slowed down when I switched into house building, not nearly as extreme as the tractor November and December combined I have lost another 11 pounds. I walk the property perimeter fence every morning weather permitting and walk the cross fencing every evening. All total I walk 3.25-3.5 miles total most days. I have around 20 pounds of the dreaded belly fat I am struggling with. Best way to lose it is to convince my body that we are starving and trigger the body to start burning that fat in survival mode. About 3 Months would burn it off, it is just unpleasant and I keep avoiding it LOL I keep telling Doc I want to wait and see if I am carrying large twins or a set of triplets LOL. That frontal fat that makes the big belly and rack of man tits is just not easy to lose like the Back, Butt, leg, arms and double chin fat is. Best option is to just not become a Fat Body to start with...... But here I am

Doc Stresses that health and weight loss is a very individual thing and what works for one person can be lethal for the next person. Everyone is different and the weight loss program needs to be tailored to the individual based on each persons general health. I started my individual weight and Blood Sugar loss program at the end of April 2022 and the goal has been to lose 100 pounds and get the A1C down to 7 and the blood sugar down to a 130-140 running average by May 1 2023. I am on target to be in that zone on the A1C and Weight, blood sugar average is still up in the air and stalled out. We run the A1C and track the daily blood sugar averages because I have had other complications from the Sepsis that make the A1C test sometimes misleading. More of that individual gotta look at everything to see the big picture stuff. Worst and does not happen regularly is when my blood sugar does a fast nose dive down into the 20s/30s Then it is break out the emergency Nutty Buddy and tube of cane sugar Extreme Low Blood Sugar and Extreme High Blood sugar are just about the same symptom wise for me. So a quick finger stick is required to know which I need to deal with. Downing a cup of sugar water and eating a nutty buddy does nothing to help a high sugar spike Just like giving myself a injection of whatever is pre loaded into the syringes to get the high spikes under control would not help with a low sugar extreme dip

Hehe my life got interesting after the diabetes manifested. One day I started peeing like a horse every 15-20 minutes went and saw Doc and since I had zero indication of even being a little bit diabetic and a Month Earlier had a A1C of 4.8 diabetes was not even on our radar. So he decided it was probably a prostate infection and gave me a antibiotic to clear it up. I did not not communicate clearly that I did not just feel like I had to pee every 15 minutes....... I WAS peeing large volumes every 15 minutes. 10 days later with the antibiotics gone and Willy that that was literally hurting from so much pee action. He stuck my finger and said, well I know why you are peeing like a horse all of the time now, you are extremely diabetic at 490 blood sugar! Things can go sideways fast in the most unexpected ways

 

Thank you! It was a first for me too and might be the last (for awhile) since I have a new renter in the other house I'm already thinking of new possibilities though.

Thank you! I always try to make the buzz work for me somehow

 

Nah good side hustle you have going on, Will cut that lawn and hula-hoop as well
People will pay to see that!

 

What is your favorite kind of tea? I wasn't always a coffee drinker, but desk work got me hooked. I like that tea provides clean feeling calmer energy and it feels more like a ritual. Great job on making that lifestyle change! It's not easy. I'm hoping to do the same and cut the sugar and carbs. I had discovered hula hooping when I injured my foot jogging. It could be the kind of hoop that you used. I got a toy shop hoop at first and it was rubbish. Too light and never stayed up. The heavy fitness hoops aren't that great either (with the foam) they can cause bruising. When I got a PE hoop that was large enough with a big diameter 38 inches it made a huge difference. At the same time, laughter is a darn good workout too

 

Right?! It's a good workout. I love the "Map My Walk" app. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing things. It's a great way to multitask (lots of steps + cut grass!)

 

Thank you! I never thought of it as a side hustle. Maybe someday I'll be brave When I know people are around I get so shy and it's like I forget what I'm doing.

 

Wow! What a harrowing journey you have had and I'm sorry that you have undergone this level of suffering, but it also sounds like a success story too! Thank you so much for sharing your journey. I had to look up sepsis and it sounds so uncomfortable and life threatening. I'm so glad that you are working closely with your doctor.

Great job on turning things around, completely!!! It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works best. Hearing your story is a real wake up call for me. My dad is a type 1 diabetic (has been since he was 33) and he is on dialysis 3 times a week. Basically hospice status.

I run a sedentary online business and I don't process stress very well and hang on to the belly fat way more than I would like. I had some success in 2021 and lost 60 lbs from clean eating (keto / very meat centric), running 5 miles or more a day 6 times a week, and lifting. Soon I was running half marathon distances up and down my road. I had to scale back on the running when I got an overuse foot injury and that's when I discovered hula hooping. It was the thinnest I had gotten since highschool. But then I was in a facebook group and people were jumping on my back telling me that I have a serious eating disorder and that I'm overtraining. I kind of let it get to me. I read the eating disorder books they recommended and drank the "kool-aid" for a little while and gained the weight back, but now I stay off of social media as much as I can . Maybe in a sense it was a good thing because I was overtraining and worried that I wasn't going to get results and I probably couldn't have fit more in and I was starting to feel weak and injury prone.

I think it's amazing that you have so much functional strength and so many practical skills. I dream of maybe resurrecting our pond someday and I can imagine that that much tractor work is an intense workout! It's amazing that you walk so much on your property everyday. What a great way to get some fresh air and heal.

I have a "well check" in February and I hate going to the doctors because I'm always worried they'll find something wrong, but I'll get it done and continue to work towards a healthy lifestyle. Thanks again for sharing and inspiring me.

 

LOL! No, I am done making a fool of myself trying to hoop the hoop-la-hoop. I drink plain black breakfast tea, a British blend called Tetley tea, that Lipton crap is - well - crap!. I got hook on tea while in the UK years ago, never cared for coffee as it wires me, puts me on the ceiling, don't know why, but I can drink tea even before I go to bed and feel perfectly fine. I drink mine with a drop of 2% milk and have 2 cups in the morning.

Yeah, stop sugars and carbs, the more the better, and I mean all sugars (alcohol, fruit juices, honey, even some vegetables and definite totally cut out the four big carbs (bread, pasta, rice and potatoes). Once your body goes through the shock, you will start shedding weight, could take 4-7days, maybe less, depends on person. I only weigh myself once a week, still do, Sunday morning and would see 2-5 pounds decrease every week. Once you get in the grove its easy. The change is amazing. I put on a bit of weight, 10 pounds, during the holidays and just got back onto my old diet routine. My activity level has gone down during winter months, but I think we'll see the same results but slower.

 

I have tried Tetley tea before and it has a really good flavor! I was doing really well with intermittent fasting and not having sugar for two days, but then my will weakened when my fiancé brought home cheese and crackers and peanut butter & acai sorbet (it should be illegal .)
I feel like I'm back at square one again, but seeing your post has inspired me to not give up. It's great that you got back into your routine and I bet it will pay off. If you live in a cold place during the winter, it can be tricky to shed weight. Hopefully it will be easier as the weather gets better. I don't have a good excuse

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SAPXF4/?tag=survivalmonke-20

What We drink
Out of stock because of Sloth got his order filled .

 

Thank you for sharing! I've been trying to find a good source for loose leaf. Oh! They even have Genmaicha! That's my favorite.

 

I wanted to do a little update. Is there a better place for it? Like a designated thread for health and accountability? Let me know!

I feel pretty good this week. I've been drinking my coffee black (which is a big step for me) and less of it. I have also managed to fast past midday, but haven't been strict about the exact hours. I think this next week I'll pay closer attention.

I'm eating more veggies and meat (chicken, ribeye (because this needs it's own category), and pork.) I still need to kick out the sweets. I'm good for most of the day, but at night my bf likes to get dessert at least now it's mostly peanut butter and acai sorbet. And we still have a weakness for cheese and crackers... It's a process.

Workout and activity wise, I feel fantastic! I did some of my "gauge moves" like getting off the ground without using my hands. Forearm balance to a yoga wheel, and splits on both sides. I started doing some restorative yoga and I've amped up my hula hooping and handstand practice.

One thing that I've noticed is that when I'm active like this, I don't feel like sitting at a desk so I would like to find my motivation to write again, but I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself.

What's new and exciting in your world and what are you working on?

 

It was clearly time for an update! My hooping and my mowing has gotten better. I also feel much healthier too! I haven't been in the yard as much as I usually am, but the heat is really getting to me these days.

 

LOL, You a trip girlfriend!!! Thats a first for me seeing the hula-hoop mowing trick!!!

 

Thanks @Gator 45/70! Never a dull moment here! Hope you're doing well. I try to think of more tricks.