Clearing off day, or the calm AFTER the storm

 

This is the "dark of the morning" photo from Thursday morning.  You can see the tops of plants poking through, showing clearly that we didn't get nearly the snow amounts predicted.  We did, however, get almost an inch of rain equivalent.  I waited until after sunrise to go "work on" the sidewalks and the driveway.

It was, mind you, very slick out there.  I didn't snap a picture of up close what it looked like as I shoveled a narrow strip down to the mailbox yesterday afternoon, but my kid sis describe what scraping this stuff off was like.  "It was like rolling snowball logs with the shovel."

Isn't that a great word-picture?  That's exactly what it was like at my house, too.

I went to bed on time and slept well.  Waiting for the other shoe to drop is exhausting!

Yesterday The Prisoner was so antsy that he went out the front door, and was prancing across the yard while it was still sleet-not-snow on the ground

He did the same this morning, in the dark.  When I stepped out on the front porch to snap the photo, he squirted out, and would not come back in.  Weather like this puts the kitties into "cabin fever" mode.

The Prisoner nailed my left index finger pretty well this morning.  He was demanding attention and I made the mistake of trying to pet his exposed belly, while Rubia was suddenly up on the table and batting at his tail.  No wonder he defended himself.  But it took two bandaids to cover the slice on my finger!  And that's my phone unlock fingerprint, too!

Someone brought to my attention an article that I'd seen featured on the news last night, too.  It reports that a 6 year study of Intermittent Fasting showed no association with weight loss. That was the headline.  When you dig into the actual nature of the study, it's not a study of Intermittent Fasting at all.  It's been warped to observe those who eat less than 3 meals a day, and calling that "intermittent fasting", mapping it and other eating patterns to weight loss.  The fasting times were 12 hours or less, on average.  The participants were average age 51, and average BMI was in the obese range.  

I posted a reference in the IF facebook group I belong to and got a really good discussion going.  Most of the group agreed that 12 hour fasts would hardly give the benefits of clean fasting autophagy.  It is true that losing weight is not about when you eat, it's about what and how much you eat.  Those of us who do fast intermittently are usually doing something else, too... we're trying to listen to our bodies, improve the quality of what we eat, not to overly restrict, but also not to binge.  

IF is not really a weight loss program.  It's a health care tool.  My own experience has been that the major benefit is about how I feel, how I sleep, how cravings have been reduced because after all, the body has its expectations of when it's going to be fed.  

I happen to have also seen some weight loss, slowly, and I've been fitting into some of my smaller clothing.  I don't care what program you choose, the healthy ones will NOT give you overnight success, and the ones that do will probably mess with your body in ways you don't like very much.  So be a good Spark refugee and be certain that what you choose to try in your "experiment of ONE" is not going to harm you. 

The clearing off work

Session one of clearing revealed that the sleet left a crunchy textured underpinning to the snow.  I'm estimating I only got about half an inch of the top layer of snow at my house.  The dog walkers who came by before the freeze overnight left icy footprints in the slushy underlayer. 

By the end of session 4, it was looking pretty good.  It's not terribly cold or windy, although it is below the freezing mark.  The sun has been in and out, so with ice melt applied, I am seeing some spots that are just wet, no white layer showing.  

The most dangerous spot is the landing leading up to my front door.  I spread ice melt and left it to do its work.

Feeling accomplished, I came in to work on the base for my next few days of eating.  I made runza soup.  

The soup work in progress.

For those of you who aren't from Nebraska, a runza is a sandwich made with ground beef and cabbage, baked inside the bread.  My runza soup is pretty much the beef, cabbage, onions, mushrooms simmered in veggie broth.  No bread, 'cause it is soup.  Today I added a little bit of green bell pepper because I had it on hand.  

After lunch, I looked out the window and decided a session 5 was in order, to try to reduce the puddles which no doubt will provide skating capable ice overnight tonight!

I'm going to call that good.  I am glad I canceled the trainer today so I wasn't worried about time to get to and from and didn't push myself to try to clear off last night.

Here's wishing all of you a safe and warm Thursday, leading into yet another good weekend.  

Life is good!  Spark on.

💖🔥✨