1992casey

She may have lost some fat and gained some muscle. Muscle is more dense than fat, so it weighs more. But with weight staying the same, there'd likely be a loss of inches, especially in places where inches matter.

I can recall using 40MB hard drives on computers with 1MB of RAM. Then, a couple of years after that, I ran into a geek who was running DOS on a 10MB hard drive. He had it so packed that he had to unzip almost everything he wanted to access and re-zip it when he was done.

Yeah, there can be additives, and sellers aren't required to report what's added to products sold at the meat counter. I asked about the shrimp at the meat counter at Sendik's after I heard that shrimp was particularly susceptible to having stuff added. They said it was the same stuff that they sell in frozen bags, and the ingredients panel indicated a high (not nominal) amount of added salt. The shrimp at Whole Foods is a much better option. A heart patient will fill up well before ever having to worry about what he's consuming. I get chicken at Trader Joe's. It's boned and skinned, it's reasonably priced, it's easy to cook, and it has an ingredients panel. It's great for a convenient meal.

I never add salt to my food-ever. Just got into that habit many years ago. (Now pepper...that's a different story!) Pepper is a great option to use instead of salt. It works on practically anything, it's always available, and eating as much as you want isn't a nutritional problem. Not adding salt is a great first step. Step two is to look at what you buy and figure out where it's lurking in egregious amounts; that can be at least as bad — if not worse — than adding it. Many of these foods can be switched out for alternatives, i.e making something similar yourself or switching to a different product. Once you weed these things out, you'll probably find room for controlled amounts of salty foods that you can't "fix," e.g. pickles. Make sure that you consider practical serving sizes rather than the serving sizes on the packages. A lot of times its just me and the dog walkers. I definitely put on weight when my dog died.

Yeah, you'll figure this out when you start to track anything. I don't think anyone eats a single serving of salad dressing or dip. My favorite was when I looked at a jar of pickles and the serving size was a third of a pickle. Nobody's going to eat a third of a pickle. Moving along, I hate construction dust. I'm hypersensitive about it, and people in the building trade are generally oblivious to it. More than once, I've asked if I should cover whatever with plastic and been told "nah, you're fine." Then I find out I'm not fine and have a big job on my hands instead of a small one.

I don't think you're going to break the bank with anything you buy, and I think you'll be fine going with your gut. I'd definitely go with USB3, but I think that's on just about all drives these days anyway. And I think you'll find that exceeding 100GB will be easily affordable.

I wouldn't think of diet as a cure, but it can definitely reduce the need for medication that could be unpleasant to take or have undesirable side effects. A diabetic would certainly find it preferable to control sugar intake before resorting to shots. Controlling sodium may alleviate the need for blood pressure medication. And controlling sodium definitely beats taking diuretics or being in the hospital an IV to combat water retention. From what I've been able to tell from family and friends who've had fluid issues, watching one's diet is probably more effective than drugs. And I think we've all temporarily adjusted our diet for gastrointestinal situations. It's not necessarily a cure, but it definitely helps people feel better.

Mine is Taylor Green when he was about five years old. Previously, I had one of Prince Fielder at age two.

Mediocre produce can be especially unappealing in salads. When produce is uncooked, I think that looks and flavor coincide. In cooking, not so much. Getting back to being bugged, the serving size thing bothers me. If you look at what's considered a serving, you'll immediately see that even light eaters are likely to eat two or more so-called servings of many — if not most — things. This certainly isn't the fault of the person doing the eating.

Yeah, being in one's own little world is definitely typical of a Trader Joe's customer. But I think that carries over to some extent to just about every store. On the upside, at Brookfield at least, the checkout lines are under control even if the store is crowded, and staff does its best to make things pleasant. At Bayshore, parking is enough of a drag to keep me from going there very often. Like you, with places like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, I've identified the items I like and stop in every few weeks to stock up. Also, there are occasionally fresh items that I'll grab as kind of a treat but don't warrant more frequent trips to acquire regularly. Once in a while, I'll take the time to peek around and discover something new. I wish there were more Brennan's stores in the Milwaukee area. At that store, I tend to spend time eating their free samples.

Now that I think about it, everybody's restricted. It's just that healthy people can be a lot more flexible. Added sugars have zero nutritional value and don't contribute to one's diet at all. Examples include sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup. Experts disagree on the maximum limit, though. The American Heart Association suggests 9 teaspoons (36 grams) for men and 6 teaspoons (24 grams) for women in a day. Others go by a percentage of one's daily calorie intake. Unlike added sugars, sodium is necessary to one's diet. Examples of sodium sources include table salt (sodium chloride), MSG, baking powder, and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). But like added sugars, there's a maximum limit. In the case of sodium, experts generally agree on what the minimum and maximum amounts are. The minimum is 1500mg per day. A younger healthy person should stick to a maximum of 2400mg (the equivalent of 1 teaspoon of salt). At age 50, that number reduces to 2000mg. Heart and kidney patients should stick to 1500mg and might be told not to worry about reaching the minimum. It's pretty clear where added sugars are. A healthy person can get a lot of mileage out of watching sweets and limiting sugared drinks. Diabetics may need to get much more sophisticated about how they deal with sugar and carbohydrates in general. What works well for one person may not be the best solution for someone else. Salt/sodium is tough because it tends to lurk in mass quantities where it has no business being in the first place. This probably relates back to what RobDeer45 said earlier. Processing causes food to lose flavor. Adding salt is a cheap, easy, and lazy way to offset that. Some products are downright misleading. As an example, Roundy's saltine crackers with unsalted tops have just as much sodium as the Premium brand with salted tops. Healthy people shouldn't need to keep a scorecard. But they should be aware of what's bad and what isn't. The doctor told us that it's very common for people to exceed the sodium limit threefold. Like added sugars, a general awareness can go a long way. People under doctor's restrictions will likely need to start counting. For instance, if they want a brat at the Brewers game, they'll likely need to skip the bagel and cream cheese for breakfast. They'll learn very quickly how flexible they can and can't be. To make things easier, the dietician told us that averaging intake over a two day period will generally work. Healthier people can probably just look at general habits and would be good if the "numbers" average out appropriately over a period of several days.

Yesterday, I split the Random Thoughts and What's Bugging You topics for the new year. We do that as a precaution because too many large threads can contribute to a drag on board performance. jerichoholicninja ended up the new year's lead in both threads. That was totally random.

Not sure why? … You can start with what I mentioned in post 15: A quick and fairly unwelcome way to become familiar with how bad certain foods can be is to have a family member become subject to dietary restrictions. Most stores have a nice selection of the troublesome stuff but are lean in healthier alternatives. You have to ferret out where they're at. And of course, you also have to factor in what this person likes vs. making him or her venture into things that are completely unfamiliar or potentially unappealing. Once you become educated, so to speak, you find that you don't want to be eating a lot of junk either. And as you learn each store's strengths and weaknesses, you start to want to take advantage of their strengths. I'm also annoyed with the "stroll on the beach" shoppers. I usually say that it's like they think they're at Disneyland. Add in that so many are clueless about what they do with their carts. It doesn't bother them to block an aisle by "double parking." I try to keep my cart out of the way as much as possible. If I could make Sendik's my usual destination, I would. The size of the store is manageable. It's no trouble to go back and forth if you forget something or want to grab your meat and frozen stuff last. Plus, you have the choice between a small cart or a semi-large one; there are none of those huge carts that clog up the aisles. They generally have control over the check-out lines. And they keep their eyes on quality. One day, I went in and there was no lettuce at all because the produce manager refused that day's shipment.

I can sympathize with the extra trip thing. Twice in two weeks, I had to make special trips to Woodman's to buy a single item because I knew they were the closest store that would have these things. That definitely bugs me because Woodman's isn't a great place to go when you need to run in for only need one thing. I can also sympathize with the days and hours thing. I always to forget to take advantage of the closest Farmer's Market on the day it's open. Having said that, it's generally necessary to patronize more than one grocery store even though you'd rather not. And if you're aware of farmer's markets, they can be incorporated into your meanderings when you're in the area. There's also the flip-flop. If I get the urge to go to the Brookfield Trader Joe's, for instance, there are usually several things I can do when I'm in that area. As an aside to the food discussion, it bugs me that "Brookfield" isn't in Firefox's spell checker.

If you take the time to make something good, you can always freeze the leftovers. I make two crock pots of chili at a time. There's one mess and several easy meals afterward. The only problem I have at the farmer's market is that I buy too much because everything looks so good.

I took Hwy 100 from Potter Road to the freeway during the peak of rush hour a couple of weeks ago. At first, it looked like the Bluemound Road intersection would be terrible, but it turned out to be fine. I wouldn't be surprised if that intersection got worse when the Bluemound Road bridge over the Zoo Freeway opens, though.

I don't recall rabbits or other animals eating my tomatoes, but they definitely like peppers. Maybe I shouldn't blame rabbits; it might have been deer doing the eating, although they're less apt to come into the yard when there's an ample food supply in the woods.

As an option to canning, tomato sauces can be frozen. And actually, the tomatoes themselves can be frozen if the intention is to use them for cooking. Freezing makes it very easy to remove the skin. Hold the frozen tomato under running water and rub a little. It's been a while since I've done this; I don't recall the preferred water temperature. Canned veggies have a pretty high sodium content, but you can lessen that by rinsing them before you use them. Better, most come in a "no salt added" variety. Most stores carry "no salt added" in only one brand, so you have to be flexible that way. I like to use frozen veggies for meals. I think they qualify as a convenient shortcut that tastes good. Canned veggies work well in recipes that call for them. I freeze leftover veggies and potatoes from crock pot meals. That's a handy option. Outpost is a nice store with four locations (plus a hospital café). It's a co-op if you prefer to go the membership route, but it's not required. If you're headed to the Bay View (Kinnickinnic Avenue) location from the north via the Lake Parkway, be aware that your GPS is likely to announce that you've reached your destination before you leave the highway, so it's good to take a peek at a map first if you haven't been there before.

Tomatoes are really easy to grow and don't take much effort. If you're going to pick one thing, I'd say that tomatoes have the biggest payoff. You can get a pretty big yield out of a couple of plants, and they need little care beyond watering. More than health, I think that the payoff with growing produce or finding a good source for it is the fact that you have stuff that's much more appetizing. It's tastier, jucier, isn't coated with wax, etc. The really nasty stuff that actually can have a negative health effect tends to come in boxes, cans, or jars. Restaurant food is generally bad too. The best thing is to make food from as close to scratch as possible. In some cases, that's really easy, and in other cases, it's a ton of work. A happy medium would seem to make the most sense. It's worthwhile to read labels to understand what you're getting. That way, you can choose shortcuts that minimize the nasties. As an example, I've seen pre-made pizza crusts with 300mg of sodium (in the whole crust) and others with 1500mg or more. A quick and fairly unwelcome way to become familiar with how bad certain foods can be is to have a family member become subject to dietary restrictions. More often than not, these restrictions involve either sugar or salt. And more often than not, it seems that these restrictions necessitate a major change in eating habits. I kind of figure that if I can develop at least a few good habits now, the transition will be easier when it's my turn to be restricted. That's not to say that you have to totally avoid everything bad all the time; "treats" are definitely permissible for most people as long as they're not an everyday thing. I tend to eat whatever I please when I go to Miller Park, for instance.

That makes sense. You charge to ship it to Kentucky, and eBay charges to do the heavy lifting.

Nothing beats vegetables that you grow yourself. With some exceptions, packaged and frozen foods are almost universally horrible. They tend to be loaded with salt, sugar, and fat. Salt is probably the worst simply because people don't realize that it's lurking in mass quantities in so many products. I think there's a vague awareness of the presence of sugar and fat.

I don't understand the Global Shipping charge. What benefit does the buyer get over whatever the seller needs to charge?

I'll comment. Yuck. Back to the topic of pulp, if I were running a restaurant, I'd be embarrassed to serve orange juice without pulp unless it were specifically requested.

It seems that the majority of orange juice is now being sold without pulp. I don't get why that would be a better option. I would think that no pulp would appeal to a small minority and that there's a place for it, but I can't fathom why there's so much of it. If you want pulp, you have to choose between low pulp, medium pulp, high pulp, or whatever. I want orange juice with the amount of pulp that would normally come out of the orange. With the way things are labeled, I don't know which option that might be. The part that sucks is that all of these choices make it difficult to take advantage of the other things that might matter, such as price and expiration date. I'd love to simply look for the best price and check to make sure that what I buy will last for a while.

I'm not exactly sure how much the commissioner has to do with the voting process and things like that but if he has a big part, I would love for him to make this his first change in the new position. The commissioner doesn't have anything to do with the Hall of Fame; they make the rules. As an example, it's the Hall's choice that players on baseball's ineligible list are also ineligible for the Hall.