empowerment class

I had an interesting day. I even got some walking in.

At 8:30 I headed out for the dentist. It's only about a mile away. Made it with 5 minutes to spare. They started work on that broken tooth. In April, I will be the proud owner of an expensive dental bridge. I have a CD maturing, and hopefully my tax refund will pay the rest.

Note to self. Do your taxes.

I didn't get out of there until 10:30. the community college has a wellness program and they were sponsoring an 8-week empowerment class. It started at 11. I had to really hoof-it to get home and pick up the car to get there somewhere close to 11.

Note to self. Next time you have back to back appointments, take the car.

So before Bonnie calls me to say "I can't believe you signed up for another weight loss program. You do well on the program and never follow thru." I will state that this is not a diet. It is informational only and all about wellness. Arming you with tools for you to make your own decisions with what works into your life. It's education. That's what we do at the community college.

I arrived at 11:15 and promptly went to the wrong room.  Was the last in line for weight and BMI. Always the best part of any course. Weight on their scale was 227! YES. I did it at home last night and it was significantly higher.  BMI hasn't changed. It's still 33. Percentage of fat is 45, I think. It used to be 50. Improvement. Not a great improvement, but an improvement. To maintain the status quo I should eat 1650 calories a day. That's about what I eat, hence the reason I do not lose weight. And you should never go under 1200.

The facilitator was a cross between Richard Simmons, Jillian Michaels and Susan Powter from the 90s infomercials. She had more energy than any person I ever met. The energy in the room was almost intoxicating. She kept everyone involved and basically all we did was go over they syllabus and gave us homework. She had a story for everything. And apparently has teaching moments with her hubby. For example he ate a whole bag of chips. She didn't care about that. She cared that the chips he bought were loaded with trans fats. And he ate a bag of trans fats.  My kind of teacher. And she remembered everyone's names.

We also have a book to read. This class concentrates on nutrition and exercise. But the other five tiers of a healthy lifestyle will be also be discussed.

Today we talked about fat. The good. The bad. And the truly awful. Word of warning. If it says 0 Trans-fat on the outside of the box or bag they could be lying! Under 5% you can label it as 0. Look for partially or hydrogenated in the ingredients. Commercial peanut butter is a big one. My PB says "peanuts" as the only ingredient. Pat's is guilty as charged.

Next week we'll talk about portion control and eating slower. And wellness resources—both traditional and apps.  Week three is all about the salt, the salt, the salt. Also about the relationship between food and feelings. Weeks four and five are about fitness and behavior resources. Week six we get actual nutrition. And how to real NF labels. Seven is about portion control.

Maybe it's the warm weather. Maybe it's losing my one job and being forced into change. Maybe it's the class. But I feel like a cloud has been lifted. Maybe, just maybe, on the horizon is progress.