hiking – Seclusion 101 with AnneMarie

Daily Food Diary – Day 36 of 365

February 6, 2025June 25, 2025 by annemariedemyen, posted in 2025, Health and Fitness, Uncategorized

I’m thirty six days in with my daily food diary and it hasn’t been going too bad so far. This month, I am counting calories to add to the challenge. I am glad February is a short month because I struggle with this exercise.

Counting calories isn’t that big a deal if one is eating one pear or a bowl of cereal. If one is dealing with a plate of homemade stew, chilli, or soup, things get complicated. Then there is meat! Two slices of thin sliced bacon is 180 calories – RAW bacon. So what if you cook it in the oven, drain the fat, pat it with paper towel AND use most of it for later use, when it is microwaved and once more patted down with paper towel to remove extra oil. Air fried chicken wings are 80 calories each. What constitutes each chicken wing? Dan and I get packages that are an equal number of drummets and the other piece with two skinny bones. Dan eats the drummets and I eat the other pieces. Is each piece 80 calories? Are all pieces considered equal. No idea! It gets so confusing!

Speaking of struggling with exercise, yesterday Dan and I took Molly back to Waterfall Park. As I was getting her out of the Jeep, I caught a glimpse of a dog coming up behind us. Trying to keep her from mowing me down and bouncing over to make a new friend, I did not even realize the other dog was her bestie Willie from the dogpark.

It turned out to be a great outing. Molly and Willie walked together, veered off a few times to tumble in the fresh snow, sat to watch the squirrels playing in the trees AND Dan and Randy had the chance to catch up as they walked their dogs. I wandered behind and managed to get one shot of our little crew.

Food Diary – Day 36

(1) coffee (2)

(1) c Cheerios with 2% milk (200)

(24) oz water

(1) sm taco salad with 5 Hint of Lime chips (264)

(1) c tea

(1/2) pkg ramen noodles with vegetables (342)

(2) No Name egg rolls with plum sauce (235)

(2) Riblets (60)

(5) Air fried chicken wings, refried with Frank’s Extra Red Hot and Frank’s Honey Garlic Sauce. (400)

(12) oz carbonated water

(1) c tea (1)

Total calories: 1404

** Yes, two riblets (I’m not a fan but I like to make them for Dan) and it was 10 wing pieces (not the drummet). And what is that piece of the wing called? If they even have a name! 🙄

That’s it for today. Take care and have a great day! 💞🌞

Daily Food Diary – Day 31 of 365

February 1, 2025June 30, 2025 by annemariedemyen, posted in 2025, Health and Fitness

Down one month – eleven to go! I have maintained and posted my Daily Food Diary for a solid month. So far, I haven’t really changed my diet, other than trying to drink more water and avoiding mindless snacking. I have experienced some benefits from the effort including losing a total of three pounds this month. 👍

In February, I am going to count calories. I did count calories in the past and I’m not a big fan of doing it to control calories. It works, but at what nutritional cost? In my mind, it is rather a drastic measure when used for weight loss. I’m not actually looking for weight loss. I am just working on maintaining a reasonable and healthy calorie count. In future months I am going to focus on specific nutritional targets.

Yesterday, Dan and I celebrated the end of January by taking a hike through a couple of Regina’s best parks – Wascana Lake and Waterfall Park. I love walking and when I can walk through nature with my favourite human and our Molly dog, that is my perfect date.

Obviously these photos were from my archives of summer pics. Climbing icy inclines and stumbling along snow packed trails, in frigid temps, while holding on to a hundred pound dog is not conducive to great photography. It is fun, a challenging workout, and it must be good for developing balance.

Food Diary – Day 31

(1) c coffee

(1) c Shreddies with 1/4 c milk

(24) oz water

(2) ginger cookies

(1) c tea

(1/2) sm bowl mixed nuts

(20) oz water

(1/2) lg chicken pot pie made with puff pastry crust

** Dan made the chicken pot pie for supper and it was amazing. It was filled with leftover roast chicken, onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, peas, potatoes, and gravy.

That’s it for today! Take care and have a great day!

October 10th Update

October 10, 2023February 9, 2025 by annemariedemyen, posted in 2023, Health and Fitness

I have a few things to cover on this week’s update. None of them are particularly relative to the others, so I hope I don’t totally confuse anyone.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada. We celebrated on Saturday with daughter Jen, her family, and a turkey supper including homemade apple and pumpkin pies. It all turned out great. The stuffing looked so good, I helped myself to a big scoop before remembering it was made out of yeast based bread. I caught myself, put it back, and was giving thanks for the rest of the evening that I had. It feels so good to feel good!

With no setbacks since mid July, I have gotten firmly back into the habit of working out six days a week. I recently added a couple of calf and hamstring muscle stretches. The one for the calf muscles is simply standing on my tiptoes and stretching as high as I can for as long as I can (with repetitions). For the hamstring muscle stretch, I hold onto the front of my desk and stretch out one leg at a time behind me as far as I can (with repetitions). As promised, my balance has improved considerably, especially when I am wearing heels, and I am finding walking any distance is easier and faster.

This brings me to my third update! For the third Sunday in a row, Dan and I took Molly out hiking. This week we took her to the Wascana Trails, a few kilometers northwest of Regina.

***You can’t really see it here but it was about twenty feet straight up on one side and twenty feet straight down on the other.*** 😮

***The trails run alongside the banks of Wascana Creek. It is gorgeous in the summertime.***

***I have no idea why the benches were built so high.*** 🫤

***We took an alternate route back up to the parking lot. This one looked a bit daunting***. ***Molly would probably have loved it.***

Lots of dogs had their people out for a hike. Molly got to meet a few of them, but her favourite was the sweetest little Bernese Mountain dog.

And finally…. Dan has been cleaning up the yard and packing away the patio furniture for the winter. He went out for one of his last rounds of golf yesterday while I stayed home to power wash the patio and Molly’s pool. There are so many benefits to being healthy and fit, but one of my favourites is being able to do such chores around the house and yard. A couple of years ago, I would have struggled to get the power washer plugged in, hooked up, and the water hose unwound. Yesterday, I got all set up, the cleaning done, and the machine put back together without breaking a sweat. Yay me!😊

***From our home to yours, belated Happy Thanksgiving*** 💞🌞

Getting Out and Getting Fit

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 by annemariedemyen, posted in nature

Since the snow melted a few weeks ago, Kat and I have resumed our daily walks around the neighbourhood. It was tough going for a while as neither Kat nor I were in great shape going in. After a few weeks at it we are starting to struggle less and enjoy it more.

Off the beaten path there are the cutest little purple butterflies in the weeds. This little guy tried to hide by folding up his colorful wings. I am pretty sure it didn’t work. Kat snuck her nose into the pic and the butterfly vanished.

A mother duck and her ducklings in the storm channel. Fortunately, Kat can’t get close enough to cause them any grief.

She did manage to startle a redwing blackbird.

We made it past the arena, past the pool, past the basketball courts and around the golf course.

Hopefully after a few more walks around this neighbourhood, we will both have the stamina to make it across Elphinstone to walk the paths that run through Princess Park. That is a nice area.

When Dan is on holidays we might even convince him to join us on a few hikes around Wascana Lake, the Wascana Trails outside of Regina and Evraz Park.

Have a great day – here is hoping everyone has the opportunity to get out to enjoy some nature and exercise this summer🌞