A New Commitment

This is what 6 weeks of hard work and learning how to eat healthy food looks like

Twelve Pounds and Ten Inches gone 

I’ve struggled with my weight and body image for a great deal of my life. I’ve always attempted to be active with varying success and have been “donating” to the local Y for 7 years. Dieting has caused me to gain and lose the same 10-15 pounds over and over again (with Medifast & Atkins), because it wasn’t sustainable.  I gained 40 pounds over the past 10 years (not including my pregnancy, which put me into the 60-70 lb range).

Around my birthday, Gina Notes (a friend of my cousin-in-law Meg, that I met at Pat & Meg's wedding) sent me a message asking if I wanted to join a health and fitness Challenge Group. I had been giving some serious thought to my health and weight lately, as I had just lost and regained the same 5 pounds in the last month. I have hypothyroidism and have been on medication for years – the condition makes it harder for me to lose weight, among other things. Diabetes also runs in my family, as does high blood pressure and cholesterol, which have both been steadily creeping up over the years.

I had recently seen some Facebook posts from an old classmate who had recently undergone an amazing transformation with the 80 Day Obsession program. After being inspired by her, I decided to say yes to Gina and commit to my health.

I joined her April challenge group and completed one round of the 21 Day Fix program without straying from the program at all. At the end of those 3 weeks, I had lost 7” and 7 pounds. Since then I have lost an additional 3” and 5 pounds by (mostly) following the Fixate healthy meal plan. It’s not easy. At the end of the 3 weeks, I had a few cheats. And then Memorial Day weekend happened, and I had more cheats.

The truth is that I felt like crap after my cheat days. My body felt wrong and I felt guilty. I have changed my mindset with my cheats. I now consider them a treat instead of a cheat, and I don’t overindulge. If you know me, you know that I love food and eating. I’m now just trying to eat the right kinds of foods now and to find some balance in my diet. 

All of that said, instead of drinking the Kool-Aid, I’m officially drinking the Shake-O. It’s true, I’ve decided to become a Beachbody Coach. I just ordered Beachbody's new 2B Mindset Nutrition program and will be trying that out along with some of their other programs (I'm pretty pumped for their LIIFT4 program - just four days a week AND a cheat day??? I LOVE IT!!).

I still have another 20+ pounds to go to get back to the weight I was ten years ago, but my biggest goal is to just keep eating well and staying active (pushing play as the BB Mantra goes). 

Don't worry, I'm not going to become a crazy Beachbody person who is constantly posting sweaty selfies on Facebook and Instagram. I'm just looking forward to helping others on their journey. I've always thought that I was pretty disciplined and could do anything that I set my mind to. It turned out that I needed a tribe, positive words, encouragement, and the daily accountability of checking in to my challenge group. Even better, the workouts are 30 minutes or less a day. It's not rocket science. Anyone can do it, and I love that there is a program for everyone.

So I'll be starting my own challenge group in the next few weeks. There is an early access to the LIIFT4 program that starts in July that I think I will do. I'm really not looking at this as any major way to earn income - I just want additional accountability for myself and to support people who need it. I think that this will satisfy my long-held desire to inspire others and help them reach their full potential. 

My why: helping others makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and as a a slightly older mom, I want to be able to keep up with my kid for many years to come. 

Winter and Being Sick Sucks

But I’m going to do my best to overcome it and do something positive.

I’ve been stuck in a funk because I’ve been sick. A lot.

I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty healthy person. I got maybe two or three minor colds a year… the occasional stomach virus. The usual. No big deal. I get migraines, but those are knocked out by injectable Imitrex quickly.

I don’t know if it’s because my kid now shares all of his germs from daycare or what, but this winter has been brutal. I got sick two weeks before leaving for Key West in late November/early December. Then I got sick again a few days before leaving for Key West. On the plane, I thought my head was going to explode, and I couldn’t hear for two days after we arrived.

Then I came down with the flu on January 2^nd. It was like I got hit by a bus. I’m one of those people who rarely miss work due to illness… it’s something I pride myself on. Well, I missed nearly an entire week. I tried working from home and got a few hours in here and there. What I should have done was not attempt to do anything and just slept to get better. Three weeks later I wasn’t feeling much better, so I went back to the doctor. I ended up with a steroid injection in the ass, a breathing treatment, and a hefty dose of antibiotics. That finally seemed to knock the remnants of that crud out.

At the beginning of February, I ended up with either food poisoning or a stomach virus. Another day of work missed. Things weren’t right with my digestive tract for probably a week. It was not fun. Then we went to Arizona and I seemed to have recovered from everything! Then I came home. Last weekend I got to hang out with a bunch of girlfriends for our annual Galentines Day celebration. This time, at Turnbridge Point. The company and food was spectacular. And then I started getting stuffy and sore throaty again. Markface was also congested, so I am thinking that he was the vector of my illness yet again.

Last week before I started feeling craptacular again, my acupuncturist  mentioned that she was participating in the Food Stamp Challenge for Talbot County.

My plan is/was to give it a go. I was trying to get Jay on board with doing it too, but he said that he knew too many people that take advantage of the system. Including of course, members of his family (although to my knowledge this is no longer the case). I may have reported aforementioned person to the fraud office when they posted on Facebook that they could get people half price food. ;-)

Fraud notwithstanding, I can’t imagine having to feed my family for $33 per person per week. So my plan is to do it for as many meals as possible. The challenge starts this Sunday, on March 6^th.

I’m still trying to come up with my budget for the week, as ours will be a bit convoluted since Jay is gone 2 days of the challenge and will mostly just be eating my challenge dinners, since he doesn’t want to participate.

Fingers crossed that I will find the time and energy to blog about my experience. If I can finally stop being sick, I'm sure that will help a lot!

Catching Up Part II

Here is a photo summary of the last month or so...

The cows have been grazing across the street again... they like to come over and say hello.

Kitty Whore aka Piper is the least scaredy-cat that we have. She stands up to Loki pretty well, but our pets are still working things out. I'm hoping that one day they'll all get along. Loki of course just wants to play and doesn't understand why the cats don't want to play with him.

The dog loves to play fetch and will do just about anything for his ball. It's our most useful training tool. Although he does love treats, he's not as food-motivated as most other dogs. We are working on playing frisbee with him and he's had a lot of awesome mid-air catches, but he still prefers the tennis ball.

There was also this morning a week or two ago, where Loki chased the rooster into the house. I was standing outside in my bathrobe with the door open, trying to stop him from chasing it. The rooster had his head down in the corner like, "If I can't see him, he can't see me!"

And then I got a hold of the dog and Mr. Roo-Roo went on his merry way.

Draco, aka His Royal Highness The Reverend Doctor Tasty, Esquire is loving his new bed. I feel kind of bad for all of our animals... they have no idea how their lives are going to change in a few months. My friends Jen and Tim are done having kids, so they gave us a ton of their baby stuff late last summer. It turned out to be perfect timing. This is the pack & play bassinet that we're going to keep in our bedroom for the first few months. Jen and Tim were over a few weeks ago with their girls (two and four, who Loki did very well with) and they helped us set up the bassinet while they were here.

And speaking of the baby, here I am pretending to chug a Strongbow. That said, I am of the belief that light drinking during pregnancy is most likely okay. It is of course a controversial subject, and since there are ethical questions over setting up any kind of study that involves pregnant women, I doubt that most OB/GYNs (in the U.S., at least) will ever encourage drinking. I've weighed the risks and read more than a few articles and studies on the subject. My definition of light drinking? Since the beginning of my second trimester (my first trimester I abstained almost entirely), I've been having anywhere from one to three drinks a week. And I do mean single servings, like a 5 ounce glass of wine instead of my usual 8-10 oz pour pre-pregnancy.

The pregnancy itself is going well... I'll be 28 weeks on June 5th, which is the beginning of my third trimester. At my last doctor's visit, I was measuring a week ahead, so my appointments were moved up to every other week. I didn't post about it, but I was having some horrible sciatica and muscle spasms in my left side quadratus lumborum. The pain was pretty unbearable, but my OB sent me to physical therapy, and I think that the combination of PT, massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic finally got me all straight. The pain also seemed to clear up a ton after passing my Series 7 exam, so that may have had something to do with it.

I've been continuing with massage and also started going to acupuncture in February. I really think that it is having a positive impact on my life as well as how I'm feeling. My massage therapist moved from the Shore Health integrative medicine group to starting up Whole Being Health with a group of like-minded practitioners, which is how I ended up trying acupuncture. My acupuncturist is also a licensed counselor, so it's like having a therapy session and acupuncture treatment together. I love it! There are also studies that show the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy - and some states and insurance companies have approved acupuncture as another way to bring on labor naturally. So I will be keeping that up, as I do not want to go past 40 weeks.

And last but certainly not least, my dear friend Christina tied the knot with her hubby Dan a few weeks ago. She was such a beautiful bride and we all had a fantastic time celebrating her nuptials. I can't wait to see Laura Dye's gorgeous photos from the wedding!

Out of sorts

Hello fellow readers. All five of you! 

I’ve been sick, out of sorts, and pulled in many directions. I also had an overwhelming amount of fun (including a random meeting of Kelly's sister) over the weekend. So I'm still a little tired from last weekend's shenanigans. I hope to post about my crazy fun weekend, but alas I have no photos! That may be for the best, as it involved swimwear and a floating cooler. 

But I digress.

Lately I’ve found my life defined by quotes from the Lord of the Rings. I make no apologies for my use of LOTR references in this post. Consider yourself warned!

“They’re scattered, divided, leaderless.”

My thoughts are scattered. There has been a lot to think about lately. Just a few weeks ago, I thought that I had it all figured out 

Shortly after writing about my deep thoughts, I sent my application and transcripts to Chesapeake College to start the process of getting my BA in social work.

Last Wednesday, I talked to someone about a job opportunity in the financial services industry. It would be similar to the work I did at my last job with Wilmington Trust.  It wasn’t an interview - just a chat to learn about the position and the person’s vision going forward. Aforementioned person heard that I’m an ideal candidate for the position. It was a nice ego boost for someone to approach me about a job when I’m not even looking.

Like I said in an earlier post, I like my current job. I don’t love it because I feel like I’m not making much of a difference. This particular opportunity would in some ways let me make a difference. Helping people achieve their financial goals makes a difference. I can get behind that.

However, I’m not the kind of person who would leave their employer after such a short period. I also don’t know if this opportunity is the right fit. There is definitely a lot of risk involved. My current position is stable and has awesome benefits. There is also a new regional director coming onboard next month who I think is going to be great to work with. But I have been leaderless since July, and I’ve felt a bit afloat here despite the local directors calling me  “Boss.”

"I'm old, Gandalf. I know I don't look it, but I'm beginning to feel it in my heart. I feel thin, sort of stretched. Like butter scraped over too much bread."

  

Then there’s that 4 year degree on my bucket list.  If I ultimately decide to pursue the financial services position, do I get my business admin degree, which I’m not all that excited about… or do I proceed with my BA in social work?  Ultimately I can go on to get my MSW. Maybe I could even knock out my MSW before 40 if I work really hard. It’s only 7 years away, I have to be realistic.

Perhaps I have career ADHD. Or regular ADHD. Or maybe it’s just my personality: 

What ENFP’s are actually searching for, however, is more mental in nature, such as words, ideas, or possibilities (i.e., Ne). ENFPs are constantly generating new ideas, associations, and quips. They can often seem random, scattered, distracted, and flighty and, rightly or not, are commonly diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.

Like other NP types, ENFPs place high value on their personal experiences when it comes to discerning truth. Though not to the same extent as ESFPs, for ENFPs, “experiencing is believing.” Because of the high value they place on their personal experiences, ENFPs may feel they cannot fully know themselves until they have tried just about everything (contrast this with INJs, who feel they know whether they will like something without needing to experience it). For this reason, ENFPs are quintessential seekers and dilettantes, wanting to experience as much of life and the world as is humanly possible. In many regards, the interests and aspirations of ENFPs are infinite. This can be nothing less than exhausting for those trying to stay apace with them.

I think that’s enough seriousness for now. 

  

“We dwarves are natural sprinters! Very dangerous over short distances!” 

This weekend I’m running my first 5k. I slowed my progress a few weeks ago, thinking that I would still be finished the program in plenty of time. Then I got sick and missed a week and a half of runs. Then I hurt my knee. Then I read an article that said to avoid injuries, run faster. Of course I couldn’t keep up with my fast pace and had to walk a lot. Like Gimli, I’m a natural sprinter.

And you know what? I am way faster doing a walking/running combination than I am running at a sustainable pace. So I’ll be walk-running this 5k. I have one run left before Saturday and I’m going to try to get my endurance up. That means running the entire 25 minutes of my Week 7 Day 2, but at a slower pace. I’m not sure what I’ll do on Saturday, but my main goal is to finish in 45 minutes or under. I think that is more than doable.

I’m not sure that running will be my main exercise after I complete the C25k program (on pace to finish on or around September 22^nd) but I will probably try to run once or twice a week in addition to other exercise. In a perfect world, I’d like to do a combination of yoga, pilates, running, swimming and elliptical each week. With some ballroom dancing thrown in. Jay and I were talking about taking lessons again since we had such fun learning scuba together. Of course he’s all into MMA at the moment. So perhaps the ballroom dancing will have to wait.

Oh, and look at the message that my tea gave me today:

I feel like I'm a little too much into experiencing myself lately. I think that I need to get out of my own head a bit. 

Well said, Bilbo. Some time off would be swell. Who wants to tell my boss that I need a mental health week?

 

Back on the Wagon

Lately I've been slacking off BIGTIME on the diet and exercise. And although I was pretty active while in OZ and Kiwiland, I gained five pounds back during vacation. Probably because of all the sweets and drinking. It was quite excessive, I must say.

So I bought a FitBit to help motivate me. I've been wanting one for a long time, but I finally decided to pull the trigger... especially since this is the third or fourth incarnation. I figure that they probably have all of the kinks worked out by now.



I've had it for all of a day and I'm in love already. It makes me want to do more. It syncs with LoseIt and a ton of other things. I'm planning to start the Couch to 5k app this weekend, so I've downloaded yet another app - Endomondo. That will interface with my FitBit as well. So pretty much everything is connected.

I'm still not sure if I'm sold on picking running back up, although I have to admit that it was great for weight loss. We'll see, I guess. My main goal is just to become more active, whether that be through walking, running, swimming, SCUBA, climbing or whatever. The rock wall is something I definitely want to get into.

Updates on the chickypoos (Lucky is alive and thriving), my vacation 202 list and some other stuff are coming soon. Jay and I also start our SCUBA course in a few weeks, which we're doing through Sea Colony Aquasports. Pretty excited about that, plus SCUBA is supposed to burn a ton of calories.

More to come soon, I promise.

Wordless Wednesday - A BIG break in the plateau, right before vacation! :)

More chickens, more injuries

I’m afraid that some of my new babies are mean little assholes.

I came home from work a few weeks ago to find one of my white marans chicks covered in blood with a degloved neck. She was a little over two weeks old. Her buddies caused this injury by pecking the hell out of her. Poor baby. Apparently once they see blood, they keep at it. It can get pretty nasty.

(BTW, do NOT look at "degloving injuries" under Google images - you'll be sorry!!)

I’m sorry for the graphic images, but I hope that this kind of info might help someone else whose chick ends up with a similar injury.

My first thought was that she was a goner. However, she seemed happy, so I wasn’t going to give up on her.

I separated her from the others and put her in a bin in our tub. I crushed up a tiny amount of aspirin for her water and put some triple antibiotic ointment on the wound. In hindsight, I wish that I had irrigated it with saline or watered-down betadine solution to get out anything that may have been in the wound.

She wasn’t thrilled with the antibiotic ointment and shook her head like a wet dog every time it was applied. I ended up wearing a fair amount of it each time I put it on. She also liked to scratch at the wound with her foot, which was just awful to watch. Ugh. I tried to put some nonstick dressing on it, but getting it to stay was pretty much impossible, so I gave up.

I applied the ointment every morning and evening. The entire time she was eating and drinking normally like nothing had happened. She kept flying out of her bin and pooping everywhere. NBD, just hanging out with this giant hole in my neck. She was also lonely and incredibly sweet. She peeped incessantly until you would hold her. Every time I would pick her up, she would run up my arm and nestle into my neck. 

One day I didn’t get a chance to do the ointment in the morning and by the time I checked on her at night, the wound had started to scab over. It had been 5 or 6 days, so I decided to leave it alone and let it continue the healing process.

The wound continued to scab over and heal. After she’d been separated from her tormentors (who were moved out to the new coop) for about 9 days, I decided to attempt a reintroduction. After all, as I mentioned - she was flying out of her tub and crapping EVERYWHERE. She had become quite the sweet annoyance. So I sprayed BluKote over her wound and the area around the wound to discourage picking and pecking. It didn’t go very well initially. The big meanies started pecking at her again and she made no attempt to get away from them.

So I grabbed a cat carrier and threw her in it inside the coop. That way they could see her, but they couldn’t get to her. Yesterday morning I went in to change her food and water and she flew out. She went up to some of the other chicks and started pecking at them and basically acting a little crazy. They seemed to be leaving her alone, so I crossed my fingers and went to work. When I got home, she was doing great. There were no new marks on her and she seemed like she was getting along with everyone.

So that is the happy story of our little white marans chick Lucky. We hope to have no more misadventures with the new flock of babies, who turned five weeks old yesterday.

New coop and attached run

We are hoping to officially introduce the big girls to the little ones this coming weekend. They have had supervised visitation over the last week and the little ones seem to know to stay out of the way. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can get everyone into the same living quarters this weekend – before our trip. Although we don’t actually leave for Australia until next Saturday, we are leaving for NJ and a friend’s wedding on Friday.

Fortunately we have a small army to take care of all the critters. A book club friend's daughter is taking care of the critters, and if she can't make it either my friend or her fiance (who is the E.D. for the Humane Society) will stop by. There are a few other friends who have offered to stop by and check on things too. So I know that we're leaving our house and pets in good hands.

I’ve started to pack and have been making good progress. I had been having nightmares about forgetting things for the past few weeks, so I decided that I needed to take some action.

Exercise and diet have still been good - exercise moreso than the diet. I've had a few cheating days with the diet, but I've still been averaging at or under 50-70 net grams of carbs a week. I'm swimming one or two days a week, walking and doing the elliptical one or two days a week, and over the weekend, I used the post hole digger for a few hours. Let me tell you, that is HARD work. I don't think I could cut it if I had to do manual labor. 

My weight is still at a plateau, but I feel like I'm more fit and healthy than I was a month ago when the plateau started. I don't have any good recent pics of me, because I avoided cameras for the latter part of last year. For real. I felt huge and tried to stay behind the camera instead of in front of it. For my Wordless Wednesday post, I'll be posting some of the few recent-ish photos from the last year or two, plus a current mirror self-portrait. They're all the rage on Facebook, you know. Maybe I'll even do the pouty face!

Wordless Wednesday

The stall continues, but I'm starting to be able to squeeze into some of my old clothes.

This trip can not get here fast enough. I really need a vacation. I haven't had a week off in 14 months and I'm beginning to realize how burned out I am... work and life have kinda got me down right now.

Steroids are nasty

So I’m pretty sure that my high blood pressure was caused by a combination of pain and the methylprednisolone that I was put on to relieve the pain from my swollen tonsils. This stuff is evil.

I took my last dose of the stuff last Thursday and my blood pressure has been slowly coming back down. But by Friday it had not decreased enough for my concerned coworkers and I had significantly different BP readings from my left and right arms, which apparently is a bad sign. So they gave me an EKG.

Nothing like having to lift up your boob for your coworker to stick electrodes under. The EKG was abnormal, but not heart attack kind of abnormal. My doctor friend who reviewed it said that it was probably nothing and could be connected to the steroids, but that I definitely needed to see my PCP about the high blood pressure. At the doctor yesterday, they took another abnormal EKG and numerous blood pressure readings. By the time I had finally calmed down, it was down to 128/88. Much better than my previous readings of 140/110 and 158/108. Goes to show you how much pain and stress can affect those things. 

My primary care physician agreed that it was most likely nothing, but she is sending me to a cardiologist for an evaluation and stress test just in case. On my 33^rd birthday, I get to go see Dr. Okun. 

This is not how I envisioned spending part of my birthday, but oh well. Jay is probably happy because it means that I’m bailing on book club and now we get to go to dinner instead. And since we’ll be on “the other side of the bridge,” we will have plenty of great restaurant options in Annapolis and Baltimore. I’m sure that everything will be okay, but it will be nice to have him with me at my appointment.

All of that said, I’m not really sure what is going on with my diet right now. I’ve been committed to recording everything I eat with LoseIt, and have remained under my target calories for the past 8 weeks. However, somehow I’ve gained 2 pounds in the last week, while as long as I stick to my plan, I should be losing a pound a week. I think it is probably all water retention from the steroids and that this time of the month isn’t great for me. So I’m trying to be patient. I'm still exercising every other day, if not every day. I've been walking, doing the elliptical, and swimming. Over the weekend I did the stationary cycle and used the rowing machine. So my body seriously needs to get its act together.

Since I’m not sure how the diet is affecting me health-wise, I am trying to keep my saturated fats and sodium low. I caved a bit in the carbs department, but I haven’t completely caved to the point of eating pizza, French bread and French fries. But I did have a rough day last Friday. I had two tater tots, a big slice of delicious pineapple, part of a chocolate dipped banana from Edible Arrangements  and several fried green beans. And too many cocktails at Harry’s. I’m now trying to keep around/under 40-60 net grams of carbs a day and under or around 20 grams of saturated fat a day. My current struggle is with nuts. I am shoveling fistfuls of almonds and walnuts into my mouth. I convince myself that since almonds and walnuts are heart healthy that eating a pound in one sitting is perfectly acceptable.

Okay, I may be exaggerating with eating an entire pound of nuts, but I haven't exactly been counting them out.

In other news, we are running out of time to figure out who is taking care of our critters while we’re away. 

Mind you, this is when we LAND in Brisbane. We are down to 31 days before our flight leaves.

Normally I’d be fine with asking our friends to take care of the chickens, but three weeks is a lot to ask of someone. Plus this vacation is going to require cleaning litter boxes, and I don’t want to ask that of my friends. When you’re spending over ten grand on a vacation, another few hundred bucks for a pet/house sitter shouldn’t be an issue. However, Jay still won’t make a decision on whether he is going to ask a slightly odd guy he knows from the Masons. So I think he just wants me to take care of it. I sent out a message to our book club to ask for recommendations… some of the women have college age kids who might want to earn a few easy bucks. Fingers crossed.

My aunt Nancy has been sending these photos almost daily. I can almost smell the salt in the air.

This picture was taken FROM A McDONALD'S! Seriously, how beautiful is this place that even the McDonald's has this kind of view?

Hey, I just met you... but this could kill you!

Well, there must be something going on around the Blogosphere (or maybe my Atkins buddies) because my friend Kelly had a bit of a health scare a few weeks ago.

It looks like it’s my turn! I’ve been doing Atkins for seven weeks now and have lost 12-ish pounds. The first week I felt weird, but I attributed it to being an out of balance electrolyte thing. I had some chicken stock and everything was fine. Clearly the diuretic effect of the Atkins diet is screwing with me. Or maybe it was just the Atkins flu. 

Fast forward to last weekend where I was completely miserable. My throat was disgusting. My tonsils were enormous and covered in puss. I considered sharing the photo on the blog, but decided that was just TMI. So, I showed the photo to one of my doctor friends at work and she told me that I needed to get antibiotics. On Saturday, I took my sick butt to Your Doc’s In. The PA took one look at my throat and burst out laughing, “YEAH! You NEED ANTIBIOTICS!!” I told her that I knew that already.

Then she says, “There must be some mistake… you say that you’re not on blood pressure medication.” I said no, my blood pressure is always low – 110/70. She shakes her head and says, “No, you’re hypertensive. Your BP is 140/110. Are you sure you aren’t on any blood pressure medications, because you should be.” I convince her that it must just be because I’m in so much pain. My discharge papers list my first condition as hypertension instead of the strep throat that I came in with.

Great.

So I’m thinking this must be some kind of mistake. For the last month and a half, I’ve been dieting and exercising my ass off, have lost weight, and now I’m hypertensive?

So all this week I’ve been stressed about it and my chest has felt tight. I chalk it up to anxiety. I still think that a lot of it has to do with anxiety. If I could just freaking relax, it would be better. But now the seed of doubt has been sowed and every weird pain or tightness doubtlessly sends my blood pressure into stroke country. Which makes me more anxious. Which makes my pulse race and my blood pressure skyrocket. 

It's a vicious cycle.

Earlier this week, I mentioned my doctor's office experience to my friend at work Grace, who also happens to be the ED manager and my favorite coffee buddy. 

“That’s really high. You need to check it. Landra is in triage, ask her to check it for you.”

I suppose that I inherited some of my dad’s stubbornness when it comes to health problems. I’m in denial. Oh… and yes, my dad suffered from high blood pressure. So my denial is stupid, since I know these things can be genetic.

So of course, I put it off. Grace asked me again today how my blood pressure was. I sheepishly told her that I hadn’t had it checked.

She hauled me out to triage and checked it herself. It was 133/105. Still high. She said that it’s the diastolic (bottom) number that is the concern moreso than the top. She gave me a bit of a lecture on how important it is that I take this seriously. Consider me admonished.

I think that it may have something to do with my sodium intake. I also mentioned it to my boss, who agreed that the high blood pressure could be due to my excess ingestion of sodium. Looking back through my LoseIt app, I’ve been consuming between 500 and 1000 more mg of salt than is recommended. So I’m going to be reducing my sodium intake big time. Hopefully reducing my sodium to a normal level will make my blood pressure decrease to something that won’t kill me. Like back to my usual 110/70.

That said, I’ll be checking my blood pressure each day at work and I’ve agreed to call my doctor next week if it’s not lowered by then.

Fingers crossed that salt is the problem. If not, I suppose that genetics are finally catching up with me. Which sucks, since diabetes also runs in my family. 

On the bright side, at least I work in the ER where medical help is only steps away!

I haven’t had a slice of bread in three weeks

It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without having bread, rice, or pasta in my life. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh crusty piece of French bread slathered in mashed potatoes and angel hair pasta. Mmmm.

In reality, Atkins is not that bad. The first week was the worst for sure… I felt so bad on the fifth day that I had a PA at work check my blood sugar because I thought I was dying. Turned out that I just needed some delicious salty chicken broth. Your electrolytes can get all out of whack on Atkins, especially during that first week.

There have been some other discoveries, like when I realized that this delicious Caffe Breve that I’m drinking is full of carbs. Crap. I looked at a carton of half & half and assumed that they don’t put that much in the drink. Well… yeah. This drink has at least 16 grams of carbs in it. Crap. Crap. Crap. I decided to search the interwebs about the amount of carbs in a Caffe Breve and it was bad news. So no more lattes, breves or anything. From now on, I’m sticking to brewed coffee with heavy cream and sugar free sweetener.

The other discovery I’ve made is that the Atkins bars and shakes have made me stall. I bought them probably a week or week & a half into the diet when I thought I was going to die. I needed something crunchy and sweet, and they fit the bill. Depending on my cravings, I’ve been eating anywhere from 1 and 3 of those Atkins shakes/bars/treats. Well, the last week hasn’t been good. I drank too many sprite zero & vodkas at a party over the weekend and have probably not been counting carbs as well as I should. This weekend will be another challenge – a one year old’s birthday party and a fun night out with my girlfriends in Baltimore. I think that I’ll choose a drink like vodka and club soda so that I can pace myself better. Those Bacardi & diet cokes and sprite zero & vodkas just go down entirely too smoothly.

My results? The first two weeks were great! The first week I lost 4 lbs and the second week I lost 3 lbs. Week 3 = 0 pounds. In all fairness, I haven’t been great about going to the gym. I’ve only been going about once a week. Starting today, I’m going to be more disciplined. No more Atkins shakes/bars/treats or fancy coffee drinks. Gym no less than three times a week. No alcohol other than vodka & club soda – and those sparingly.

So last weekend I faced a dilemma… what to make for a party. I googled “low carb appetizers” and came up with a bunch of different recipes for stuffed mushrooms. Most of them called for mayo mixed with cheese and artichokes. YUCK. Straight mayo? No thanks, I’ll make my own concoction.

I ended up making shrimp cocktail and my own version of artichoke dip stuffed mushrooms. Both were gone in fifteen minutes… so I’d say that people liked them!

Here is the recipe… it was incredibly simple!

Artichoke Dip Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

 8 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup Italian blend cheese – parmesan, romano & asiago

14 oz. can of artichoke hearts

2 lbs baby bella mushrooms, cleaned & stems removed

This made about 40 stuffed mushrooms with 1/4 cup of dip leftover.

Drain and finely chop artichoke hearts. I removed a few of the outer leaves if they were too fibrous.

Mix cream cheese, artichokes & cheese.

Stuff mixture into mushroom caps.

Bake on foil-lined tray at 425 for 25-30 minutes, until tops begin to brown.

Enjoy!

Before and After

We are nearly done. I am beyond exhausted and hurt all over.

There was a mad rush to get everything done this weekend - getting the porch painted to improve curb appeal, straightening the yard, painting trim in the house, straightening, dusting, sweeping, mopping, shining, staging. You would not believe how filthy the house was - and I feel like we just cleaned it! Constant construction = constant dirt and dust. Jay had to work yesterday, so I busted my ass from the time I got up to the time I crawled into bed. We had hoped to finish the stairs, but at 10 pm last night, I gave up. The steps still needed to be sanded before we stain and poly them and there was no way I had another 2 hours in me. Overall, we spent 51 man hours from Friday through Sunday working on our project. Jay spent 21 hours between Friday and Saturday, I spent 27 hours between Friday and Sunday, and my girlfriend Angela came over and helped us paint for about 3 hours on Saturday.

Why the mad rush? Our house is being appraised today for refinancing. When my dad died, I inherited a substantial sum of money. However, since he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon, the majority of the money was in an IRA. I don't think he knew much about how IRA's work, because the money that he had inherited from my grandparents was all in cash, which he converted to the IRA. Since I wasn't a surviving spouse, nor of retirement age, I took a HUGE hit on taxes, which left me with less than half of the original amount. I won't lie - I spent about half of the remainder on a ring to wear in my dad's memory, furnishing my Odenton apartment, paying the disparity in rent between what I was putting in to make up for my ex not making much money, Ann Taylor clothes for work (and good makeup & skincare products) and took some nice vacations with the ex (which was also mostly on my dime). The rest of the money went to dumpster rental and some emergency repairs with the house, mainly the roof and porch to the tune of $30,000. By the time I met Jay, most of the money was gone - so I had to take out a home equity line of credit for the actual rehab project. And of course aforementioned rehab project ended up taking more time and costing way more than what I took out from the HELOC. So that is the long story short of why we are refinancing. Once the new conventional mortgage is in place, we will be saving almost $500 a month - or more, if the appraiser gives us a better LTV (loan to value).

Add all of this work to the Atkins diet that I started last Wednesday? My body is screaming for more nourishment. I probably should have eaten more this weekend, but we were so busy. The thing that I've noticed about Atkins is that I'm not as hungry, and things with the least number of carbs suddenly tastes ultra sweet. We had green beans on Saturday and they tasted sugary to me. Weird! So that's going pretty well, but I need to force myself to eat more often. Today is day six and I feel pretty shaky this morning. I'm sure it's because I didn't eat enough this weekend and I put my body through hell.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of every room for the before comparison.

So, without further ado... I give you the final comparison (and some in-between) photos:

Not too shabby, eh? :)