Selling a home and moving is hell on the body.

My lowest weight logged here on Loseit was 194 back around Thanksgiving of 2013. I am now at 196.2. Which is a weight that I maintained for about a year back in 2012-2013. I am very happy with my weight at this time but want to get to maybe 190. I have made a decision to up my calories a little more. I guess it is all of the activity with the selling and packing and the stress but I am dropping my weight faster than I want to. The last two weeks have been a barn burner of Fitbit adjustments, this will I have managed to cut back a little. But my intake calories is down this week. I have not felt the need to eat that much. God I hate all of this crap that has to take place with selling and moving, it is so hard on both of us.

This is for all you people that think the GREEN REVOLUTION is the future.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
 Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a r azor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much

Beautiful Morning and a great walk

After the of last week's packing and clean up and the no show with the open house. I was very upset to say the least. But I had a good nights sleep then with a beautiful sunny spring morning I decided on a morning walk. It was still just walking the sidewalks of the neighborhood but the air was fresh and the breeze made things feel great and I needed to clear my head and see if I could make some decisions about our realtor. I am still not getting a clear message about what I should be doing. So I am asking God to give me a sign. I know he will when the time is right and I guess it isn't at this time. My impatience say fire his butt and hire someone else. Then there is the question who?  So I am stopping today by asking God to open my eyes so I can see, and my ears so I can hear, and my heart so that God can guide me to what he is wanting us to do. Because it doesn't feel like we are doing the right things now!! 

Total Frustration

We had an open house today and it was to be from 1 a 4 pm. We go to the movies so we would not be there we get out of the movies before 4 and go by the house and no one is there. My wife calls the realtor and he says only four shows up so he called it quits. My frustration is that he has never created flyers and he has never even shown the house himself. I come to find out he really is some one that will buy up foreclosures at whole sale as investments. So should I fire his butt and find someone else or not. Or is God telling me the time is not right? The problem is that the state, county, and schools have raised the taxes so high we can no longer keep the house. But we can not afford to not get our money out of this place.  And if I fire him who am I going to get to replace him?   I believe this person wants to get us frustrated enough so we will sale to him whole sale and that is not happening. I hit him up about a Veteran's discount seeing I am disabled and he refused even while I feel he has not done anything to earn any money.  Update I fired that realtor, and now waiting to talk to a couple of others. To see what we can do.  Update number 2 talked to ReMax this evenin and we are not only going back on the market soon but we are going to raise the price by about 40K. And we will have help getting the house ready for the open houses out of his commission.

I am glad I found this goal statement from 2012

This is from when I first made my goal the first time back in March of 2012. Then some where a long the line I got of course I am glad I am back on course and this is a great reminder.

My new goal in life 
I will be leaving my scale goal alone at 200. And I will be concerning myself with the more important goals from now on. I will concern myself by eating a balanced diet that I can depend on for the rest of my life. I will not worry about the occasional failure to eat perfectly. I will exercise the way that works for my life and that is comfortable and challenging enough to keep me in shape and healthy. I will concern myself with keeping health so I do not have to have meds where ever I have the control over it, by controlling my weight with diet and exercise. I have the knowledge now to know that not every day or week will be perfect and that I have to worry about the 80/20 plan. The 80/20 plan is that I will be on goal with my diet 80% of the time as well as with my exercise being done 80% of the time. What this does is let me balance my life, my beliefs, work, and my family life. This should let me enjoy my life a lot more by being there for me, my family, my church, and my work. 
Signed
Charles Kemp

Why do we always want the quick fix?

All I ever see, and for that part I am the same way we want the quick fix for everything. We do not want to wait for anything. I have to say the quick fix is why we are having so big a problem with our governments, and our health. We do not have the patience to do it right. Weight loss, weight maintenance, and fitness is not about doing it quickly and going back to our lives the way they were so we can eat all of the junk foods we were eating, and stretching out on the couch watching endless TV or movies. Weight loss, weight maintenance, and fitness is a slow and sometime painful process of changing our lifestyle for the good. We need to realize that if we lose the weight slowly by eating correctly, not dieting, and do activities that we enjoy and can do the rest of our lives we will have a better chance of maintaining that weight loss and keep ourselves fit and healthy as possible.  We need to erase from our brains the thoughts and the words quick and fix. We need to impress upon ourselves the words, slow, patient, patience, and doing it correctly. We also need to learn to at least for ourselves and our families and close friends, be good to ourselves, it is not selfish to put yourself first when it comes to your health and fitness. Life is short, we need to live it as healthy as we can. We have to eat correctly and be activity to do that.  You noticed that I say be activity and activaties and not exercise. To me exercise is work, acitivity is fun and sometimes exciting. And activity can be exercise with out you say so. I love to walk, hike, and ride my bike. To me that is being active, it is not exercise. To me exercise is weight lifting, and going to the gym, and I dislike both of them. I want to be outside enjoying Mother Nature and getting as much sunshine and vitamin D as I can.  So lets slow down and lose or weight slowly, and the closer you get to your goal the slower you need to lose the weight so you have a better chance to keep it off. Set you goal weight to be the maximum you should weigh, then in your head and write it in your journal write down the lowest weight you feel you should weigh, normally about 5 to 10 pounds should be the range. And try to maintain your weight within that range. Most doctors say that you should stay within a 10 pound range over the course of a year. And it is unhealthy to have larger swings in your weight. And lets pick the activities that you enjoy and do not think of as work, which is what exercise is to me. And get out and be active. 

Finally

We were awaken Wednesday morning by our Min Pin warning us that I our hot water heater was leaking. Called our applicance insurance to get it taken care of and we just now this afternoon got the hot water heater replaced. I had forgotten what it was like to have to take a sponge bath, and shaving in cold water sucks. I am glad the thing is fixed but I am so upset with them taking so long to fix it. We had the same issues a few winters ago with our heating system, and of course it went out when we had one of the coldest days in a very long time. There is no need in the insurance taking so long in approving the work then finding someone to do it. 

I have found a great Linux OS for my old Dell XPS Laptop

I have an old XPS-L501 laptop that has been over heating with Windows 10 on it. And I have tried all of the popular Linux Distros, and then started looking at some of the not so popular Distros. I could give you a list but I have decided just to say that the Distro that I have decided on is KaOS, it is a small distro that is using only the KDE Desktop. It is build from the Linux kernel, and the use of the paceman application builder. It does not have a huge number of applications like the big Distros but it does have the ones that I need. Libreoffice, and Google Chrome. And I am able to install Calibre Ebook Manager from the command line. Most Distros that have KDE Desktop are slow but this OS has been tuned to use KDE and KDE only so it is extremely fast and KDE is very fast also. Also it is the only Linux Distro that I have been able to find that the sleep mode, and hypernation mode works without and issues. Also this distro gets all the latest updates, almost daily. It is a rolling update OS meaning install it once and then keep it updated an you will always be up to date. I have not had any crashes and it has never failed to wake up from sleep or hypernate. 

Just a short note this morning

I am back below my weight goal. It feels so great to be back below 200. Yes I know I have a couple of my doctors that will not be happy until I weigh 184 which puts me at a BMI of normal weight for the average person my height, but I am not that average person. I now weigh 199 and I have a percent of body fat of 17.5% that is right in the middle of what I should be caring for my age and height. I also went below a BMI of 27 which was another goal for me. Yes I know I am still above that all magical BMI of 25 but I will be way to skinny and have too little a percent of body fat if I go that low. I am wishing to get down to somewhere between 190 and 195 so I have the headroom I need to stay below 200. There will always be days of too much salt that will cause me to have water weight for a few days. And there are the holidays and special times I will over do my eating and I need some room to work with. Life is good, and I am not having to take any prescription medications. Which for someone that is almost 70 is great.