Feast or Famine

Posted on by

My Life is Either Feast or Famine

All or nothing, Feast or Famine, that’s the best way, the only way to describe my life. It’s crazy really. I go years, years , I say, without a chance in ____(well you know) of ever meeting any of my idols and then BAM! 3 at once. How am I supposed to swing that?

The Top 5

Remember that post a couple of weeks ago when I told you to pick 5 people -living or dead- that you would like to spend an evening with? I shared my top 5 choices choices at that time.

  1. Dr. Greg Skomal
  2. Neil Degrasse-Tyson
  3. Seth Shostak
  4. Dr. Michio Kaku
  5. Josh Gates

I met Dr. Skomal on  Thursday September 26 at his appearance on Cape Cod. I figured that was it for the year. I mean really are personal appearances in the area for any of these gentlemen common? I think not but I was in for a surprise.

Neil Degrasse- Tyson

I was still walking on air from seeing Dr. Skomel when I heard that Neil Degrasse -Tyson was making an appearance in Medford MA on Monday Oct, 21.  He’ll be speaking at the Chevalier Theater. I checked his tour schedule and that’s the only Massachusetts stop in his whole tour!  So now I have a decision to make. I have a vacation on the books and will be spending money for that.  Who knows when  or if he’ll be back in the area! Do I spring for a ticket? Decisions, decisions!

 Josh Gates

Josh Gates is a Massachusetts native son but does he do appearances here? Nope , never so what were the odds that he’d have his first ever Massachusetts appearance on Sunday October 20? That’s the day before the Neil Degrasse- Tyson appearance! That’s also the last day of my vacation. My plan is to be on a plane coming back to Massachusetts. How am I supposed to be in 2 places at once? Like I said, feast or famine. Now I just need to find out that Seth Shostak and Dr Kaku have appearances too to really push me over the top!

What Would You Do?

Everybody has been really quiet lately but I’m sure you have ideas about this dilemma. Faced with a chance to see appearances by any of your top 5 what would you do? Would you spend the money for the tickets even though its one right after the other or would you cross your fingers and hope they’ll come back to Massachusetts again in your lifetime? Please share your thoughts.

 

Scale Aversion- the Struggle is Real

Posted on by | 2 Comments

Scale Aversion

One of the hardest things about trying to lose weight is the daily weigh in. Did I or didn’t I lose. If the scale goes the wrong way it’s such a let down. But when those few ounces slide off its cause for celebration! Too often that celebration is allowing a forbidden food. Then I spend the next day wondering why the number on the scale went up. 

Books Vs Programs

My Doctor wouldn’t sign the medical release so I could join Awaken 180 , a popular weight loss program. I’ve tried Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. I thought NutriSystem was way too expensive for a packaged food program. Tried it on my own by eating Lean Cuisine. That didn’t work out. I tried supplements like Apple Cider. All of them provided some weight loss but it never stayed off. So my Doctor started pushing gastric by-pass surgery. I know many people who have had this surgery and quite successfully but after serious consideration I decided it just wasn’t for me. So my Doctor gave me a book to read. The End of Overeating  by Dr. David A. Kessler.  So boring. I can’t read a chapter without falling asleep. I need something different or I’ll be fat forever.

NOOM

Noom, Noom Noom Noom…makes me think of zoom, zoom zoom. A little car just speeding along. I don’t know how long NOOM has been around but it’s a little different. Nothing is off limits. Its all psychology based. I admit I am skeptical but nothing else has worked so why not give it a try? I got my Fitbit first to try to get myself moving and added NOOM a couple of weeks later. Between the two I’m been plugging along. Some success some back sliding. Like I said last week, I’m not ready to say what my weight is right now but I am ready to share the results so far.

The Weigh In

Sept 26, 2019

Its time to bring you guys into the loop. I began the struggle (this time) on September 13. As of my weigh in this morning, Oct 5, I am down 2 lbs exactly. Whew!  There were so many times it was two steps forward  one step back or sometimes 3 steps back that I wasn’t sure what this morning would bring. Now I’ve got a definitive goal in mind for next week. To keep this momentum going! 

Oct 4, 2019

 

 

Weight Loss and Me

Posted on by | 2 Comments

The Weight Loss Struggle Is Real

I’m not Oprah Winfrey. I don’t think my weight loss struggles are for public consumption. Weight Watchers and I have never been a comfortable fit. All those meetings and public weigh ins. Nope, Not for me. So I find it a bit out of character to be writing this blog post. My current weight loss program wants me to share. It’s supposed to make failure more difficult. Seems to me it will just make it more humiliating if I fall off track. Weight loss and me, always a struggle. The Battle of the Bulge so to speak. Sometimes I win but more often than not the weight wins.

Oh To Be Thin Like I was Fat

I thought I was fat when I was in high school. Boy would I like to be fat like that now. The only place I’ll ever see 140 lbs again will be in my dreams. Still I have to put a stop to this steady weight gain. It’s bad for my health and it affects the things I like to do. I’m not getting any younger but I still like to hike. Tough enough when you get to my age without lugging around enough weight to have a 2nd person on your back! Can’t go horseback riding. I weigh more than the maximum, unless I want to ride a plow horse. And lets not talk about what I look like in a bathing suit. Airline seats are shrinking so if I keep expanding they are going to make me buy 2 seats! I’ve a new hip and artificial hips can fail if you get too fat. I love my hip. I am not going to go through that surgery for nothing!

How Times Have Changed

I remember when it was cool to smoke. Now smokers are ostracized. Public buildings are non- smoking. No smoking in restaurants. Being fat is well on the way to the same thing. There is a lot of prejudice against  fat people. It can be hard to get heath and life insurance. It leads to diabetes. There’s even evidence of discrimination in the workplace. It’s just not good and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore. So that brings me to this post. I’m supposed to share my weight loss journey. Forgive me if I don’t post my weight. I promise I will a some point but that’s too much to ask of me right now. But I will post a photo each week and any weight change, for better or worse.  Maybe my struggle will help someone else.

September 26 , 2019—Fat Fat Fat- Next year I’ll half the woman I am here

 

Greg Skomel the Shark Man

Posted on by

Have you ever heard of the Shark Man?White Shark

My first exposure to that title, Shark Man, was Thursday night. I was back on Cape Cod but not to go “Sharkin”. This time I was there to listen to a presentation by Dr. Greg Skomel aka The Shark Man! I’m not sure when I first heard of Dr. Skomel but by the time I saw him on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week his name was quite familiar to me. In fact when I was challenged to pick 5 people dead or alive, that I would like to spend an evening with, Dr. Skomel was on my list. The rest of my list were Neil Degrasse- Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Seth Shostak, senior astronomer SETI institute, Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, futurist, and last but not least Josh Gates,  cable TV host and adventurer. He also has a degree in archaeology so I guess I’m still sticking to the science theme.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to meet any of the other people on my list but I can tell you that they will have tough shoes to fill!

Living With White Sharks

Dr. Skomal’s talk was about living with white sharks, a very timely topic for Cape Cod.  Greg is assigned to the Martha’s Vineyard Research Station. Can we all say Jaws? I’d been told that he was very charismatic and it  was quickly clear that this was true. His spotter pilot was sitting in the same row as I was.  Before the evening even got started Greg came over to shake his hand and welcome him to his talk.  Once the presentation got underway there was quite a bit of good natured banter back and forth between them especially when Greg showed a clip of an “Air Jaws” right under his feet on the pulpit. You could hear the pilot’s voice telling him there was a shark right below and then wham! That got everyone’s attention! That was the way evening went. It was an intimate setting as there was only room for about 150 people. It was a full house. There were lots of oooh, ahhh and wows in between the more dry scientific stuff.

In Conclusion

Greg started the evening off by asking how many people had been to a presentation of his before and most of the room had been. I was one of the few newbies. By the end of the evening I could see why. I will definitely be  keeping my eye out for more opportunities to hear him speak. 

Gone “Sharkin”

Posted on by

“Sharkin” on Cape Cod

Flash Back to Jaws (1975) when the fictional town of Amity on Martha’s Vineyard was terrorized by a great white shark.  Chief  Brody, marine biologist Hooper and shark hunter Quint took “Sharkin” to a new level as they pulled out all the stops to catch the murderous Great White. Shades of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Anyway, last year Cape Cod had it’s first fatal shark attack in 82 years! Everyone was horrified and as this year arrived towns along the Cape struggled to find ways to protect vacationers when they entered the shark’s domain.

The Shark App

The Atlantic Great White Conservancy created a Shark App ( There’s an app for that) that alerts when a shark is sighted and lets you know where, which beaches are closed and for how long. My app had been blowing up and I was determined to see a white shark in its natural environment. Whale watch boats reported seeing sharks feeding on a whale carcass. Sharks were stealing fish right off the lines of guests on fishing charters. Was I around when these things were happening? Of course not. I couldn’t be that lucky. So I picked a day to take off from work to go to the Cape to look for sharks. I told everyone at work I was going “Sharkin”. Of course it hadn’t rained in a week but it did that day. 

The Atlantic Great White Conservancy

My app was strangely quiet. Either the sharks didn’t like the rain or  no one was at the beach to see them. My friend Nancy and I wound up in Chatham. We planned to go to the Fish Pier for lunch and watch the seals. On the way there we spotted the Atlantic Great White Conservancy. What a neat little museum. It was pretty crowded because no one wanted to go to the beach in the rain but even though we couldn’t turn around without bumping into someone we had fun. The last room was a virtual reality room where we donned  a headset and voila- we were swimming with sharks! And we didn’t even get wet!

 

 

Beachcomber Seal Tour

We wrapped up our Cape day by visiting the seals with Beachcomber Seal Tours. We didn’t see any sharks because the tour stayed in the inner harbor and so far the sharks haven’t ventured in. The channels and low water level seem to discourage them. But there were certainly enough seals for the sharks to have a hearty lunch if they wanted to drop by. The light misty drizzle changed to serious rain while we were on the water. The captain pulled out the disposable rain capes and pretty soon our boat looked like a convention of ghosts with the breeze flapping our ponchos. Our “Sharkin” day  didn’t yield any sharks but we had a good time anyway.