Accountability

I have decided to be accountable to you for my weight loss journey. On the 1st of every month, I will post a photo of the scale showing what my current weight is. For the time being I will be working towards a goal of getting down to 110 pounds. This is the weight I was at when the COVID-19 lock down began in 2020. When I get down to that point I will assess whether I should continue on down to 100 pounds, which is the weight I was at before I hurt my back & started my uncontrolled weight gain. I am designating June 21st (the summer solstice) as the starting date for this weight loss journey; the weight recorded on the Samsung Health app was 132.2. My weight this morning was 129.8. I am amazed that I have lost 2.4 pounds since I started this journey 10 days ago! That would be about 1.6 pounds per week; I am OK with that rate. If I maintain this rate I should be able to reach 110 by mid-October. If I decide to return to 100 & maintain this rate, that would be about mid-November ... just in time to gain some back over the holidays!

Yay! No boiled vegetables!

The alternative that I threatened myself with was having to bite the bullet & follow Zhang Linghe's only-boiled-vegetables diet if I was not able to lose any weight with my anything-but-boiled-vegetables diet. In general my day starts with at least 1 glass of water, followed by my morning dog & yard routine of feeding Moʻo & watering the plants that I have had in the ground or growing bed for less than a year. (I try to avoid annuals; if it can't survive on its own after a year it is allowed to quietly compost in place.) Then I do whatever else is planned for the day & allow myself to drink as much water as I want throughout the day. Around noon I make a protein smoothie that includes a scoop of collagen powder or if I am lazy I just put the protein & collagen powders into a cup of soy milk & mix it up. If I have any, I also drink 1/2 cup of my homemade sports drink of Meyer lemonade mixed with Pedialyte to ensure I am replacing at least some of the electrolytes I have lost during whatever activity I am doing that day; I prefer not to drink the Pedialyte on its own but I will if I have to.😝 And I prefer to avoid the dyes & other weird stuff they put in store-bought sports drinks; besides, an ER doctor said Pedialyte was just as good for less the cost & less weird additives. Around 5:30 pm I prep Moʻo's dinner & mine. I usually have 1 serving of tofu or other good quality protein with a couple tablespoons of fermented vegetables, & a boiled egg. If I have a craving for more food I will have some dried aku or pipikaula. I try to complete all my eating by 8 pm; basically it is a 16:8 intermittent fasting regimen. Of course, there are days when I don't stick to this because of meetings, invitations to share a meal, etc., but I don't let that bother me because it is usually only once a week that this might happen. 

When I left Hawaiʻi for graduate school at University of Washington I weighed around 80 pounds. I felt it was a good weight, I did not need to watch what I ate, I just naturally kept at that weight due to all the diving & bicycling I was doing. I did not have my fat content measured but I am pretty sure I had less than what women usually had because of factors such as well-defined leg muscles, a 6-pack, & an irregular period. When I 1st arrived in Seattle, it felt really cold to me. I did not care how much I ate; I just needed the extra calories to stay warm! Besides I had my bike which was how I got around campus & the city; my weight increased to around 90 pounds but that was OK with me because I was able to keep warm at that weight. My normal pattern was to allow my body to self-regulate, eating tons of food when the temperature dropped below about 65 degrees to stay warm & then naturally backing off as the weather warmed up. When I got pregnant, I gained over 40 pounds! My doctor was OK with that since I was underweight to begin with; initially he had concerns because he did not think I had enough body fat to maintain a healthy pregnancy. And since I planned to breastfeed, I needed more fat anyway. I lost all except 10 of those pounds & was now hovering around 100 pounds as my new normal weight. Although I ate more during the winter, even eating as much as my boss who was 6'2" & about 250 pounds, I didn't gain any weight; I just burned it up & stunned people with my ability to eat so much. Life was that way for years until I herniated a disc in my lower back; the limitations on my activities caused me to gain about 20 pounds. And that was what I was working on losing when COVID hit.

Along this journey I have found that it is harder for short people to lose weight than tall people IF all other factors are equal. That is a big IF. Because I generally had a higher lean body mass percentage than most tall people I was around, I could eat tons of food & burn it off easier than they could. But since I herniated the disc in my lower back & gained that excess 20 pounds, I lost that advantage. So I am pleased at how much weight I have lost since I started this journey 10 days ago.

At sunrise it was a little drizzly & not looking promising in terms of mowing. But about mid-morning it began to dry out & the sun started to peek through the clouds. By mid-day it was getting drier.

Sunrise.

So today Emily came to mow the lawn; she was supposed to come on Monday but it was pouring rain. Then Tuesday was also fairly wet; this afternoon was somewhat dry so she came to mow the lawn. To prevent Moʻo from escaping & raising Emily's anxiety level, I locked Moʻo in the outside shower. It worked! She was not able to get out & Emily had a stress-free mowing experience! I will be training Moʻo to go in to the shower on voice command (ʻaoʻao) so when I am off island & it is a mowing day Emily or one of the neighbors can more easily move Moʻo into the outside shower. 

Not looking too happy. But better than running loose out on the road!

Today is one of those days where I did not keep to my usual eating plan; the Kohala Night Market was tonight. I met hoa hānau Fran & her boyfriend Billy there & we had dinner from the food trucks. Fran had Korean fried chicken, Billy had chicken katsu, & I had golden bao bun with smoked meat. For this week this is the 2nd time I am not following the usual eating plan; the 1st time was at the special planning commission meeting yesterday where they provide the lunch & I had a meal replacement smoothie for breakfast. Over the remainder of the month any excess I gained because of these extra meal days should work itself out; I guess we will all see whether that is true on August 1st! But I think next time I will go with something that has less carbs & more protein & vegetables.

Need more protein & less carbs.

There was a screening of the independent film Kealoha Disappears as part of the Night Market tonight. It is a work-in-progress so there was really no end; we have to wait & see what Lucas brings back next year! All of the scenes were shot in North Kohala & I recognized many places. Writer/director Lucas moderated a short panel discussion with some of the local actors after the screening. Lucas & his mother Jocelyn also directed & produced This is Kohala a few years ago; it aired on PBS in 2025. I know about a dozen of the people interviewed in the film.  

Panel (L to R) Keala, Uncle Jeff, Lucas, Aunty Sarah, & Keanu.

For the Hanzi practice on Duolingo you trace the characters on the phone screen. In the word below for "gym", it is the 1st radical jiàn (highlighted in blue) that is the subject of the lesson. One of the things I have not been able to figure out is what is the stroke order. Earlier it looked like from top to bottom & more or less left to right. But for jiàn you start with the middle part that looks like a 3 with a tail, then the left side, then the right side. "Relatively" bǐjiào is a lot easier to write, especially the left radical bǐ. 

I've decided to take a look at the stats once a month near the end of the month so I should have done this yesterday. I'll try to remember this for next month. 

The next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea has been moved back a little. It is now likely to occur sometime between the 7th & the 14th. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Sandy & Brad! 

Bill 147 Deferred

At the Leeward Planning Commission meeting today, the commissioners voted to defer the final vote on Bill 147 to next month's meeting. That will allow us more time to read through additional materials & more thoroughly digest all the information that was shared with us in the meeting today.

On my way to Kona for the LPC meeting, I generally stop at Juice 101 in the Maunalani Resort to get a Met Rx meal replacement smoothie. I do the chocolate whey powder with peanut butter & chocolate chips. Yes, I know, not really consistent with the diet plan. But it is not a boiled vegetable! So I can technically say it is part of the anything-but-boiled-vegetables plan! Besides, I generally only do it once a month so it should not really impact the overall weight loss journey. 

MetRx meal replacement smoothie on left. Haven't quite figured out how to do this kind of photo yet.

After the planning commission meetings, I run errands in Kona. After all, it is an hour away from home & there are things I can't get in Kohala that I can get in Kona or other parts of the island; since I am already in Kona, I should do it while I am there to reduce my transportation impacts on the environment. I stop at Petco to pick up Moʻo's frozen food. I go to Island Naturals for organic & other natural foods. I go to Office Max to get ink for the printer like I did today or other office supplies. I also go to Hawaiian Fresh Specialties to get fresh poi, poke, & dried aku; but they were closed today since it is Tuesday. (LPC meetings are usually on Thursday which is when they are open.) I also go to get the  car washed & waxed at the Kona Express Car Wash; today I had some free time so I also vacuumed the car.

Then, as I am driving back home, I call Kai & talk with him so the drive is not so boring. Over the past 2 years that I have been on the planning commission, we have discovered where the signal moves from 1 tower to the next & where the dead zones are along the hour long drive. I can usually get to within about 15 minutes of home before I lose him completely. We never call back since we have usually covered everything we need to for the month by that time. Today he enlightened me about my serendipitous decision to start learning Mandarin. He said the State Department rates Mandarin as the most difficult language to learn. But that wasn't quite true. Mandarin, along with Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, & Arabic, is in the Category V group of languages that the Foreign Services Institute of the State Department considers the most difficult for a native English speaker to learn. According to the FSI it takes about 2200 hours or 88 weeks of classes to reach the S-3/R-3 level of proficiency. (That's about 3&1/2 hours per day for 1 year & 9 months. I am doing about 30 minutes per day on Duolingo; which means it will take me at least 12 years to reach that level! I will be happy if I reach Level 25 in Mandarin in a year; that's the level I am at for ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.)

This is about half of the Asian languages available.

I think this is more for embassy interpreters & translators.

Interestingly, to me, they have more than 1 type of Mandarin lessons. There is a section of courses under the Defense Language Institute; it seems to emphasize reading a lot. I'll let you guess what their main purpose might be. And then there is the Peace Corps course. It probably emphasizes more community-oriented words & phrases. I am thinking may be I should start with that last piece on verb usage patterns; I think I am noticing some as I listen to the shows but it would be nice to have that confirmed.

Under the Oceania section of courses, there is no ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. So I was surprised to see Pidgin listed! Turns out it is not the Hawaiʻi Creole English pidgin but the pidgin spoken in west & central Africa; which made me wonder, why did they lump it with the languages of Oceania? (My native language is Hawaiʻi Creole English, which is why sometimes my sentence structure in this blog might be a little strange. My 2nd language is Standard American English which I learned when I started grade school. I would say I am fluent in both of these. ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi is the 3rd language I am learning & Mandarin is the 4th; I would like to become fluent in these. I have also dabbled in Japanese, German, Spanish, & Arabic; in that order.)

Not Hawaiʻi Creole English.

Interestingly, I have already thought about moving on to Arabic once I finish Mandarin on Duolingo if they have not introduced more ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi lessons by then. So, Yay! Let's try to learn 2 of the 5 most difficult languages for native English speakers! Why Arabic? I had actually started to learn Arabic at a mosque in Washington because I was doing advocacy work for local Muslims who were fearful of the safety of themselves & their families. What is really cool is that the FSI has on-line courses which have both written & audio portions. And best of all it's FREE! Down side - there is no Hawaiian. Probably because the State Department is not needed here in Hawaiʻi & English is the 2nd official language of the state. Oh well, but it doesn't hurt to check if there might be something for ʻÕlelo Hawaiʻi; like finding out Wikipedia can be shown in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi!  

The fermentation of the sauerkraut & kim chee are coming along great! The red coloring from the Crunchy Garlic in Oil that I added to the kim chee for Kai is turning everything red as the bubbling spreads the color around. The sauerkraut continues to leak a lot more brine. 

Not as much liquid spilled over; color is spreading nicely!

More liquid spilled over; color from red cabbage spreading to everything!

The window for the next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea has been narrowed. It is now anticipated that it will erupt some time between the 6th & the 10th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Cathy! 

Boring ...

Today I worked on finishing the readings for tomorrow's special session for the Leeward Planning Commission. This item was originally on our agenda for the June 18th meeting. It was moved to tomorrow since there were already 7 items on that agenda & this item already had 41 letters of written testimony that had been submitted by the 15th & more in person testimony was expected during the meeting. Now we have a total of 80 written testimonies; 39 more pages were submitted after the June 18th meeting. We will likely get a few more late arriving written testimonies that we will have to read before the meeting tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we will also find out how many in-person & Zoom testifiers there will be. It could be a long day. But that's our job, to provide an opportunity for the public to voice their support for or opposition to a code amendment (in this case) or certain projects. (We don't hold meetings for all projects, only the ones that require a public review.)

About 1/4 of testimony on this item.

 

The weather was kinda gray & wet at sunrise; it remained that way for most of the day. So it was a good day to stay indoors & finish all the readings & formulate the questions I had about the proposed amendments to the code on transient vacation rentals (TVRs). In a way, the weather helped me to focus more on what I needed to finalize for tomorrow's meeting. 

Sunrise.

It was raining really hard in the morning when I went to feed Moʻo. I decided to ignore the rain & check out how much was flowing in to the māla kalo; I had never gone out during a rain event to see how much rain was directed in to the māla. Its not easy to see in the photo below since I have not removed all the weeds but it was a good amount of water; I am pleased with how the māla is working!

It looked like entire māla was inundated.

The controlled rotting, aka fermentation, of the sauerkraut & kim chee is coming along well! More liquid has been pushed out of the jars by the fermentation process. And active bubbling can be seen in both jars.

About 1/4 inch liquid has leaked out.

Still foaming at vent.

A bubble escapes from brine. More are on the way.

Learning Mandarin is coming along slowly but surely. And apparently the words associated with sports are starting to stick better in my brain! I guess I just needed a little more repetition.  

Still doing well on these exercises.

And these, too!

I do well on these, too. But it is harder to show you what happens.

When you click on them & its correct, they go dark.

These are the flash card words! Got all correct this time!

 

In today's episode of Guardians of the Ancient Oath, a weapons rack can be seen to Baili Hongshuo's right. It's a lot bigger than the one I ordered & also a lot sturdier. It is meant to hold longer weapons (like spears) made of metal not of wood. The top tier is also a lot higher than mine will be, because, you know, some of us are vertically challenged!

The next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea is likely to be between the 6th & the 12th. More time & data is needed to figure out more accurately when Episode 51 will be. Hopefully, Kai will be able to see it this time; he has missed it the last 2 times he was here. He is arriving on the 9th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Tony! I know some cool people; Tony is one of them. Some of his LinkedIn profile is below.

Controlled Rotting

The sauerkraut is doing a lot of fermenting! Today there was a lot more liquid in the bowl & a foamy mass surrounding the vent. And the kim chee has started to release a lot of gas & liquid, too! So I was wrong in thinking the capsaicin was inhibiting the fermentation. FYI Fermentation is just properly controlled rotting!

Today's breakfast special at Motek Bakery was shakshuka, my favorite! Since I had a larger early meal, I only had a protein smoothie for my later meal. 

When I let Moʻo out this morning, I heard several ʻIo calling. They sounded like they were quite low so I pulled my phone out & started scanning the sky in the direction of the calls. I saw an ʻIo skim low over the top of Jessie's roof; it then headed over in our direction & passed so low over our garage I could see the color of its eyes! Unfortunately, since it was that low, it also passed over us so quickly that even though I had my phone out I was unable to get a good photo of it. The photo below is similar to what I would frequently send to my friend & co-worker Terri who taught me about birding by ear & how to identify a lot of the Pacific Northwest birds. It became a running joke between us!

I sent this to Terri. She said, "Yep, still the great bird photographer. 😂"

Many of the earlier Chinese TV series that I watched had both English & simplified Chinese subtitles. The last few did not; I think Love of Nirvana, which I watched last month, was the last one that had both. I am on Episode 11 of  Guardians of the Ancient Oath, it only has English subtitles. I think I will add another category to my rabbit hole document that notes whether there are Chinese subtitles. It seems my Mandarin learning has slowed down since there are no Chinese subtitles.

Where's the Hanzi?

Here is the the Hanzi for swimming. In the blue highlighted character, the radical on the right is "water". I like to imagine the other 4  brush strokes mainly on the left are the splashing around of someone in the water, like they were "swimming" but doing a poor job & floundering around instead. Or perhaps a good job at attracting sharks! Maybe those 4 brush strokes represent a shark coming in for a taste?

 

The next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea will likely come between the 6th & the 12th.