Jewish musings, Wed., March 13

[gazelle18]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Frieda (hopefully)?
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

[gazelle18]

Hi everyone,
Time for a WLJ check in. Here’s what’s going on with me: I have an incentive to lose weight right now; I have a family wedding, the wedding of the son of a close friend, and the (God willing) bris of a newborn male grandchild, all coming up in the next couple of months. I had gained some weight over the past year. Starting around 6 weeks ago, I decided I needed to feel serious again, and I have lost 7 lbs. Of course, I’m now hitting the usual plateau and am concerned about yo-yo-ing back up. But, in general, I’m in a pretty good place on the journey.

What’s going on with everyone else?

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Re today's topic: My weight is still bouncing up and down; a couple of pounds either way every week. I wonder if the Wegovy will be different than the Ozempic? If all goes well, my first package of Wegovy should arrive within the week (YAY!).

How do I feel about all this? I'm really excited about the Wegovy; it took such a long time to get it pre-approved, with a LOT of persistence and also creativity on my part to get my endocrinologist, BC/BS, and CVS Caremark to all be on the same page. I am proud of myself for handling the situation so well!!

I still have a lot of weight to lose before I can get knee surgery, but I am working on it. I feel good about myself. I've come a long way in the past couple of years.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[hollygail]

One of my students became bat mitzvah a week and a half ago and another will become bat mitzvah this coming weekend. The first of these two had a terrific b. mitzvah weekend! Her grandparents had Friday night's dinner (before services) catered; I suspect DH and I were the only non-family members invited. The caterer served (buffet style) a Mediterranean dinner and after services ended, the same caterer had some incredible desserts for the whole congregation. Saturday afternoon (yes, this girl's family chose a mincha service rather than shacharit / morning service) followed almost immediately by the reception at the home of the same grandparents (in the backyard which was not your typical backyard by any means; more about that later). The girl's favorite meal turned out to be burgers, so they were grilling both hamburgers and veggie burgers (DH said the regular ones were fine and I'd say the veggie ones were okay) with all the regular "burger fixing's" (which I'm not all that crazy about). Because I hadn't eaten meat, I went to where all the kids had gone (you're not gonna believe this): a milk shake station! The choices were vanilla and chocolate, but with several variations. The "glass" (plastic?) containers had either chocolate chips and chocolate something else holding them onto the rim (which I bit off after I was done with the shake itself) and the vanilla containers had something white (I didn't ask any of the kids what it was). And there were choices of what you wanted added (like whipped cream from a can and/or other things (I chose some of that plus some crushed Oreos). I shared it with DH (but he got tired of it first, so I had finished than than half). GREAT ending to the food part of the party. The yard is more difficult to describe... I'm guessing it measured about two acres... I wasn't inside the house, but from the outside, it looked like it had quite a few bedrooms plus some extra rooms besides the standard kitchen, living room, dining room... What an adventure! (On top of all this, the grandparents were really nice people! I'd love to become friends with the grandmother.)

I guess what I've been doing lately is enjoying the fruits of my work. I'm looking forward to the reception this coming Sunday afternoon. It's at the same hotel as her older sister's was (a few years ago; that was one terrific experience too!). The next one is in May. I tutored all three of the May boy's siblings and his mother holds me in very high esteem. I'm more excited about his progress in learning how to read Hebrew than anything else about him and his upcoming bar mitzvah.

[louise]

I'm in a pretty dismal place in my WLJ. I haven't been on a scale but my weight is up, I am very uncomfortable and seemingly unable to stop eating. A friend of mine had been a WW coach for 24 years. I saw on FB that she she now works as a behavior coach. I contacted her to see if she could help me. Not sure how that dynamic would be - she won't accept payment.

[peachymom1]

I didn't do the greatest with my eating during the weeks following the wedding, but I yanked myself back on track last week and am doing all right now, thank God. I'm still working on what I can learn from the experience, and I will probably talk a bit about that next week, if I come up with any clues / insights / lessons.