Each year, as the holidays come to an end, the after-holiday commercials start in earnest– end-to-end coverage, as it were, of ads promoting Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. In my opinion, if you lose twenty pounds for twenty bucks, you’re liable to find those twenty pounds again, along with plenty more to go with them, but don’t expect anybody to refund that $20.  Do I sound like a veteran of one of those wars? Check. Mark me down as a Weight Watcher Failure as opposed to a Weight Watcher Loser. The weight I watched went away, all right, but it came right back. In spades!

I’m returning to this topic because this morning at my cost-free weigh-in, I clocked in at 189, down a full 75 pounds from where I started in April of 2015. Maybe part of the reason it’s still working is that we didn’t start in the middle of a post-holiday guilt trip. We started when we were ready to start and not a moment before.

Going on two years later, I’m still walking 10,000 steps a day.  Still.  Every single day.  Rain or shine.  Sometimes I walk outside.  The desert after a rainstorm is wonderful, but walking outdoors in icy cold weather makes no sense.  One of my friends in central Oregon, who has been snowbound for weeks, has been doing her steps up and down her indoor staircase—without having to cough up money for a gym membership or a Stairmaster or even one of those stand-on rocking boards they were advertising earlier this week

When our doctor suggested we go to a gym, our response was a heartfelt, “No way José!”  Three months into our walking, that same doctor found us a personal trainer named Dan Kritsonis, someone who actually likes working with OLD people.  When we started with Dan, he saw to it that we began very gently with stretching exercises while he assessed our general lack of physical fitness. When we’re in Seattle, Dan comes to our house twice a week. At first we exercised when Dan was at the house.  Now we do a twenty-minute workout together each day.  Balance exercises. Stretching exercise. Wall push-ups. Chair dips. Sits-to-stands. (In July of 2015 I couldn’t do one.  Now I can do twenty.)  For curls, I’m using an eight-pound weight—a gallon milk jug filled with water. (As far as weight lifting equipment is concerned, that’s pretty cost effective.  We have a well, so the water’s free, and the milk jug came with last week’s milk.)

Before meeting Dan, I had encountered situations where I had fallen and had to use my cell phone in order to call for help in order to be dragged to my feet. Now I can get up off the floor all by myself—without even having to crawl over to a nearby chair.  Yes, you read that right. At age 72 I can now get up in the MIDDLE of the room. And this week, while I was practicing getting up by myself, I did something else besides—something I have never done before in my whole life—ten pushups.  Ten floor pushups!  Hey, Dan, what do you think about that?

But walking and working out isn’t the whole story.  One of Dan’s favorite sayings is this:  You can’t out run your fork.  And we have definitely changed the way we eat.  We don’t keep bread in the house.  Or potatoes. Or potato chips.  Or tortilla chips.  We’re not purists.  If we go to a restaurant and bread is offered, we have it—but we don’t take it home.  Ditto for chips and salsa at Tres Hermanos in Kirkland. And if there’s a summer swimming party at our house, and chips and dip show up?  We probably eat those, too, but whatever is left over goes away. For late night snacks, we keep peanuts on hand and almonds, and those work.

Not having bread or potatoes in the house has come with a learning curve. Giving up bread means giving up toast, which in terms of breakfast, seems almost un-American. There are, however, some alternatives.  Rather than using whole wheat toast, I’m perfectly capable of dipping a hunk of avocado in my over-easy egg yolks. (I admit, however that there is no workable substitute for a grilled cheese sandwich, and when it’s time for Thanksgiving, I’m making pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes—NO EXCEPTIONS!)

We’re retired.  We don’t have to keep work hours or school hours.  We get up.  We have coffee.  We have a late morning breakfast and then an early dinner. Breakfast is an egg or two eggs and fruit—raspberries and cream in Seattle or grapefruit in Tucson. (By the way, what we’ve learned in the past almost two years is this: Fat is not the enemy. Carbs are the enemy.)

For dinner in Seattle, we may have beef stew or Senate bean soup—one bowl only. No bread. I’ve learned that drinking a glass of milk with dinner helps keep me from being hungry later. In Tucson for dinner we usually have salad. Believe me, it’s definitely not my mother’s salad.

Bisbee in the Fifties was the end of the road as far as grocery produce was concerned.  I grew up thinking my mother’s version of salad was all there was, which is to say, shredded iceberg lettuce slathered with a dose of Miracle Whip.  (It has taken me decades to recover from my history of growing up in a dead lettuce society!)

These days our salads are a wonder to behold. We may have slices of protein—five or six ounces of steak or pork chop on the side, or  cut up Safeway Rotissierie chicken added to the salad plate itself. (We have a postage meter on the kitchen counter. Bill weighs the protein.) But the salad itself is the center of the piece.  Lettuce? Yes, a fistful of lettuce is required. Without it I’m not sure you can call it a salad. As for the other things that are tossed into the bowl? Here they are, in no particular order: riced raw cauliflower; sliced radishes; shredded onions; chopped scallions; sliced cherry tomatoes; Bread and Butter pickles; sliced bell peppers; sliced cucumbers; and grapes.  (Wait, did she just say grapes?  In salad? It took someone from South Africa to teach us that grapes work in salad—black seedless grapes.  Try it; you’ll like it)

If you look at that list, you’ll discover that, other than grains, we’ve just covered all those food groups we’re supposed to eat on a daily basis which is to say, some protein, some fruits, and a whole variety of veggies.

You may be wondering why I’ve written this all down and put it out there. It turns out I read the comments on my blog, and someone months ago, one of the commenters asked me to outline in detail what we’re doing as far as eating is concerned. Someone asked for it, and now you’ve got it.  And in case you’re wondering, we do not consider adult beverages to be off limits.

What we’ve learned on this journey is that we are not on a diet.  The word diet assumes that there’s a start time and an end time, a point when you can go back to doing exactly what you did before.  Guess what? That won’t work. What we’ve had to do is  change the way live. Permanently.

Why? Because, if we stop, we won’t have any clothes to wear, and having people our age going around stark naked wouldn’t be good for ANYBODY!