Losing weight 2015

Vanity as usual was the goad, but I am glad I was able to shed the pounds that had been building up over a few years. At least 10 pounds left, maybe more, but I wasn't carefully noting the top weight. It was over 170, and I'm hovering at 160 now.
People ask how I did it. I looked at the literature. Women's magazines always have ideas, right next to the latest recipe for chocolate cake. I clipped out a set of exercises that looked promising in Parade magazine, a barre set by Sadie Lincoln entitled "5 minutes to WOW!"
Then it was February, and Joe went off to Florida to escape the snowy winter. My daughter-in-law entrusts our grandson to me once a week, a job I refuse to miss. He will be four soon, so one more year before I am not needed in Dartmouth.
Anyway, Joe was gone, so I decided to make an effort.  I stopped buying bread. Having to make brown rice instead slows down the consumption. Also, I was eating yogurt with ginger jam and coconut butter every night, so I stopped buying any of that. Finally, the Ritter dark chocolate bars with hazelnuts had to go, even once a week.
I went to the library health section (613) and took out a bunch of books. One said a good goal was to lose 10% of your weight, so that was maybe 17 pounds. The South Beach Diet and The Atkins Diet were mildly interesting, but not my style. Eat, Drink and Weigh Less by Mollie Katzen had some good recipes as well as encouragement.
The Eight Hour Diet by Men's Health magazine author David Zinczenko had an entirely different approach. Sort of fasting by starting to eat later in the day or quitting early. I toyed with that idea. Certainly giving up eating after 6:30 PM was a good idea.
I was going to the high school at 7AM to tutor for the MCAS, my spring job. For the teenagers, I need to stay on an even keel, so forget the waiting until 10:30 to break fast. I went with oatmeal every morning. I'm still on that.
The strongest suggestion was to exercise for 8 minutes before eating anything, thereby burning fat calories.  I liked the barre ones better than Men's Health.
 "Sumo Squats" describes the right way to do squats, an excellent all around useful exercise for a woman my age. Keeping the knee going over the second toe is crucial, as I discovered last summer when I tried to strengthen my knees and wound up tightening my IT band until my knees ached at night. My daughter-in-law put me on a "foam roller" a self massage technique for the outside of the thigh.
Carousel Horse is a variety of lunge. Horse Pose Plie is very wide. Starfish is a wide plie with a leg lift. I round out the routine with a minute of plank or any other core exercise from Pilates. Then I stretch the quads and roll once on the foam roller. Maybe 15 minutes in all.