Today I dug through a pile of very old jeans and found two pairs of 30–30 to put aside. The rest were mostly 32–30 and 33–30; I’ll be putting those in a clothing collection box the next time I go out.
I can wear the 30 inch waist again.
Really, I’ve been able to for months, but I’ve been cinching up my belt and tugging the 32’s up all day because I wanted to make sure I am really there, that the weight and the waist aren’t coming back.
I am really there.
I’m happy about that. It’s required years of cutting calories — no keto, Atkins, or anything like that — and exercise, but I’m there again, back where I was as a young man. If I had to attribute my success to only one thing, I’d give the award to retirement. No more work stress, no more hours of driving, no more fast food on the road, plenty of free time for exercise.
There are some wrinkles though, mostly on my face. I look older.
Sometimes a mirror or a reflection in a glass window will catch me by surprise and an involuntary “Whoah!” will leak out. When we do a FaceTime with our daughters I wonder who that old man on the couch beside my wife could be.
It’s me, but not the me I know.
And my wife doesn’t like it. As my waist has melted and my face has drawn in, she has regularly reminded me that “A little fat is good for you as you get older.” When that didn’t work, she ramped it up to “You look old!”
Well, hell, I am old. I’m a 1948 model and I have some rust. But here’s the thing: since losing the excess weight, I feel better. I’m more energetic, peppier, and I have more spring in my step. I’m a tad over 5–10 and 150 pounds, which is not overly skinny, at least by my standards. I’d give me slim, okay? And I like slim. It feels good to be slim again and step into my old 30–30's.
I’d rather look old and feel young than the other way around. Why wouldn’t I?
Losing weight isn’t easy. As I noted, retirement helped me avoid crap food, relieved stress, and gave more more time for exercise. I also used the Lose It app to track calories, though my use was perhaps a bit unorthodox.
I did not set a calorie goal. Lose It is never 100% accurate and the level of activity I do will always vary. So what I did (and still do) was weigh myself every morning. I learned from this that if I ate about 2200 calories a day, I’d neither lose nor again. Above 2600, I’d gain; 1800 or below caused a small loss.
I aimed for small losses.
If I lost too much, I ate more that day. I did not want to lose weight too quickly because I don’t think that’s healthy. I’d also let myself plateau for days and sometimes weeks to help my system “know” where I want to be. I think that’s important too. If I can get my body “set” at a weight, it tends to stay there without much attention.
Then I’d cut back a bit and drop a few tenths of a pound. That’s all I was looking for, just a minor drop repeated for a few days, then I’d let it plateau again. Rinse, repeat. Nothing rushed, nothing drastic, no hunger pains, no agony. Just a slow, steady trip down.
And here I am, happy as a slimmed down pig, if that’s a thing. I’m 30–30, old as at least some dirt, with a wrinkled neck and some deeper smile lines.
Apple Has Fixed More of My Gripes and One of Them is Really Funny They do pay attention to feedback Photo by OSPAN ALI on Unsplash As much as I am an Apple Fan boy, sheeple, sycophant, fool, or whatever else the Android guys would like to call me, I do have my gripes. Some of my gripes could be fixed by third party apps, some by third party hardware, but I prefer to stay foolishly trapped in the Apple ecosystem as much as I can. Anyway, a little bitching and moaning can be therapeutic, right? A couple of years back I put some of my complaints out into the world. I’m an Apple Fan, Except When I’m Not There goes my Special Sycophant Status In addition to that, I pleaded with Apple at their feedback page. I do that with anything Apple does that annoys me, whether I tell the world or not. You should too. Product Feedback We would love to hear your comments about any of our hardware and software products. Send us your thoughts. And, unbelievably, Apple has fixed, or will soon fix, quite
I Owe an Apology to Anyone Using Voice Over Maybe you do as well? Accessibility is important Anthony Lawrence (Pcunix) TECHNOLOGY Safari can show text in photos, Voice Over should read it, but it doesn’t Yesterday I posted an article about Google Bard and made a bad accessibility mistake. I posted screenshots of Bard and ChatGPT rather than pasting in the content. That was sloppy. I want to thank for calling me on my error at “ Your ChatGPT Screenshots Suck ”. I won’t make that mistake again, but it also reminded me to be more aware of Alt Text. Alt Text is important If the text had been short, I could have used the Alt Text option to add what a sighted person can see. Unfortunately, Safari and probably the Web Accessibility Standards only allow a limited amount of explanation in Alt Text. I didn’t think of it anyway, so that wouldn’t have helped. Voice Over should recognize text in photos As shown in the screenshot above, Safari does have a “Show Text” ability. Coincidentally, I onl
My Great-Grandfather’s Toy Cannon I’m not sure that “toy” is the right word, however, that is the word my father and his mother used. Anthony Lawrence (Pcunix) History The “toy” cannon The picture above is a Lawrence family heirloom. I’m not sure that “toy” is the right word, however, that is the word my father and his mother used. I know that it was a gift to Herbert Myron Lawrence, my father’s grandfather. My father gave it to me and I, in turn, have given it to my oldest daughter. HML engraving I do not know how old Herbert was when he received this. He was born in 1851 and died in 1937, which does not identify the time frame of the gift. However, my father did say it was a gift, not something he bought for himself. That could be a misunderstanding. The cannon is engraved with HML initials. One reference I found asserts: In fact, toy cannons date back to the American Civil War and before, and not only were they popular toys for children, they were remarkably dangerous. Many of t
Comments
Post a Comment