Calories
July 18 marked the last day of a year of counting calories. Last summer, I gained three pounds on vacation, and I realized my eating habits weren't sustainable, so I began to track calories on my Fitbit app. At first, I thought I could do it indefinitely, but by January, I was tired of it, so I decided to make it an even year. During the year, I only went over my calorie budget on two days, my birthday and Thanksgiving (and Thanksgiving was deliberate). There was only one day, June 30, when I did not count them at all. The Fitbit app has it so you can set a target weight, and you can either set a calorie deficit or set calories to maintain your weight. I did some of both. I did manage to lose between thirteen and fifteen pounds during that year, though the first three pounds were ones I had gained during that vacation, so I might not have kept them on anyway.
Anyway, I found it a great, easy way to lose weight. It literally has never been easier to count calories, because the app allows you to search foods, and if the exact food (name brand) isn't in there, it has lots of estimates of calories. However, I recognize that everyone has their own method; I always hear, "I lost [amount] pounds on this vegetarian/vegan/sugar-free/gluten-free/juice/low-carb diet, so you should try it." I think you will lose weight anytime you are conscious about what you are eating, regardless of what diet it is. For simply counting calories, I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I was in calorie range. And the Fitbit app gives you the option of having more calories the more you exercise, so it was a great incentive to exercise more. If I ran six miles or more, I usually had unlimited calories. (I've heard that the more you exercise, the less accurate the calorie count is, but I still acted like it was accurate.) There were some times, though, I had to do some late-night frantic exercising to stay in my calorie budget.
Though my calorie-counting has ended, I hope it will continue to benefit me, as I have learned various things about portion size and kinds of food. Here are some of the things I learned:
- I used to pack two sandwiches in my lunch. That was great six years ago when I had a job where I was on my feet. But now I sit at a desk all day, and I only need to pack one sandwich (with a few snack-y items).
- Vegetables have almost no calories. With dill pickles, the nutrition facts literally say zero calories (this is not the case with sweet pickles). Fruits have more calories, but still not a ton. Avocados are the exception; they are loaded with calories.
- Butter and oils are the most calorie dense foods.
- French fries and potato chips are generally not worth the calories. I like them, but not that much. I plan to quit, or severely limit, getting French fries when I go out to eat. (The exception is Chick-fil-A waffle fries. Those are worth it.) But this is just as well; usually when I go to places that serve fries, it's because they have seasonal shakes (pumpkin, eggnog, peppermint, shamrock), so I certainly don't need the extra food anyway.
- I was shocked at the calorie counts of Oreos and Cheesecake Factory. Two Oreos (which, let's be honest, are never enough) have 140 calories, which is more than a banana. Depending on the flavor, a piece of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake has more than 1,000 calories!
Over the last few years, I feel like Facebook has gotten continually worse. They used to have an "unsubscribe from comments and likes" feature, but then they got rid of it, and now I see all sorts of posts from people and pages I don't care about, just because my friends liked them. It's infuriating. Things got awful when they invented the "share" button, which is the darling of old ladies who don't do Pinterest but should. At least they gave me the unsubscribe feature. But in the last few weeks, they have been showing me posts from pages and people where I am 100 percent certain that I unsubscribed from them. If there is no longer a way for me to choose what I see, what's the point of being on there? I will only look at a few posts at a time now, instead of trying to see all the posts like I used to. Ultimately, though, this will be a good thing, because I think Facebook is the only thing I do where I feel like I've wasted time.
I'd like to punch Mark Zuckerberg in the face for all these obnoxious changes, but I think he'll get what's coming to him regardless. As Facebook continues to deteriorate, its users will abandon it, and it will become the next MySpace.
(I don't want to join another social media site, like Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat, because that would be another thing to suck away my time; though I have considered starting an account for my pumpkinundation roundup rather than continuing it on this blog.)
Pioneer Day
For 2017, I made a bucket list of items I wanted to accomplish for each holiday, including Pioneer Day. When my mom told me that our trip to New York was planned for Pioneer Day, I was very disappointed. I really missed out on it this year, since they don't celebrate it in New York. This was only the third year I have formally celebrated it, and I wasn't even here for it!
I only had three items on the list. One was to light fireworks. I was able to light them a few days after Independence Day, so that counted for the Pioneer Day season. Another item was to attend a parade. Fortunately for me, Draper had its Draper Days parade the week before Pioneer Day, so I was able to attend it. It wasn't very pioneer-y, but they had plenty of saltwater taffy, which I consider a Pioneer Day candy. The third item was to attend a Utah historic place, so I went to the Bountiful Historic Museum. But they were in the process of moving, so it was a mess. I wasn't in town for the opening of their new museum.
I have a few other thoughts about Pioneer Day, though maybe I've talked about them before. Some non-Mormons feel like it's a Mormon holiday rather than a Utah holiday. Is there reason for them to feel this way? I'm afraid there is. When your stake float includes blue-bound Book of Mormons, black missionary name tags, or temples from the Pacific, that is a religious theme that has nothing to do with the pioneers. Of course people will feel alienated! You should stick to things that are actually about Utah's history, not just about the religion of most of Utah's citizens.
That said, though, there are some people who think it shouldn't be a holiday because the pioneers were Mormons. That somehow that automatically makes it a religious holiday that shouldn't be public. Well, like it or not, the history of Utah is tied to Mormon pioneers. You take them out and you have almost no history or state. I've thought about defending the holiday to such persons, but then I realized that they are just bigots who aren't worth my time or consideration. I should leave them to wallow in their own negativity.
Reunion
The same day I went to the Draper Days parade, I also had a ten-year high school reunion. While some people drove up from all over the state, and at least one person came in from Texas, it was less than two miles from my house. Even though it was a really hot day, I rode my bike to the park where it was. When I got there and was locking it up, there was a kid, probably between nine and eleven, with a bike who started talking to me about mine, how we had similarly colored bikes. He asked me how many gears it had and asked if I could jump it down stairs. (I can barely ride it!) Soon I realized that I was in the wrong part of the park, so I told the kid that I had to go ride to someplace else to find the people I was meeting. He asked if he could follow me. I said he could if he wanted, but I didn't know how long I would be biking. I very quickly found my reunion, and he seemed disappointed when I told him that was where I was stopping. It was really random.
Anyway, it was interesting to see the different people from ten years ago. Many of them did not recognize me, since I'm 60-80 pounds lighter than I was in high school. Many of them have multiple children; I think one was pregnant with her fifth. Here I am forever alone. But I would rather be single than have the nasty divorces many of them have had.
I remember being sad to think about high school ending, but I don't know why, because I wasn't particularly happy then. I was always so bogged down in homework that it was a good thing I didn't have any friends. I was internally emo and wanted to be a vampire. In 2011, I remember marveling at my four-year anniversary. But now that it's been ten years, it's not really a big deal. I've moved on from that time of my life.
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