When I'm leaning over hanging my head 6" from my towel-covered yoga mat with my hands "scooping" up my heels, pulling with my biceps, straighting those hips, breathing in through my nose and out through my nose, watching sweat trickle down my legs, I feel ...great! I've been doing hot yoga for almost 7 weeks now and I'm totally hooked. When my 10-class pass ran out, I bought the unlimited 90 day package ($210- very reasonable since I go 3-4 times per week). For two weeks, I've even been going to the 5:30 am class on Thursdays and Fridays. I'm not crazy about losing sleep but at least my other obligations don't interfere at that hour. I can tell incremental improvements every single time I go. Last week my big thrill was finally being able to grap both ankles in bow pose on the floor. Progress! And I feel so good!
I took my 4 weeks of tennis lessons and loved it but the advanced beginner class is at terrible times for me. So I'm hitting up all my tennis playing friends to play with me. So far, several say they want to but actually getting from "sure, I'd love to play with you" to "let's play Thursday at 6 PM" is a big leap.
I'm barely drinking alcohol any more. I honestly don't want it after I've exercised. I just want to rehydrate myself with water. And I'm still being careful with eating. I'm not starving myself or even doing without food. I eat absolutely no sugar or sugar products, practice portion control, and only snack on veggies and fruits, homemade yogurt, or small amounts of nuts.
So far I've lost 16 lbs and gone from a size 14 to a size 12. The only problem with that is that I don't have many size 12 clothes and I sure don't want to spend a lot of money buying size 12s. I'm aiming for at least a 10, if not an 8. So I walk around in baggy-butt pants, looking awful. Tomorrow I may stop at a thrift store and see if I can pick up a few pairs to bridge the gap.
My blood sugar is now consistently in the 80s/90s. Of course, I'm still on the metformin from Dr. Pang. I hope he'll take me off of it when I go back in June. BTW, my thinning spine turned out to be in the osteoporosis stage, per Dr. McComb. We do so many spine building exercises in hot yoga that I'm still determined to stay off osteoporosis meds. I'm giving it a year to build on my own before I jump on the pharma wagon.
In short, I'm sweating and stretching and losing and loving it!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Figuring out the Exercise Thing
After a lot of consideration of exercise I enjoy, I settled on yoga and tennis. Because of my wacky schedule picking up our grandson Sean on alternating days I had to find a yoga facility with a schedule that worked for me. Turns out that Kernersville Hot Yoga has classes every evening plus Saturdays and Sundays. What is hot yoga? Also known as Bikram (pronounced bee-crum), it's yoga practiced in a room heated to 105 F with 43% humidity. It consists of 26 poses performed twice, the first set longer than the second set, over a 90 minute period. My first time going I was scared. I thought I might pass out from the heat. And it was tough. I felt like crap when I left. But the next morning was the first time my blood sugar reading broke 100. I was pysched. So I've been going there and sweating my a** off 2 or 3 times a week for 3 weeks. It gets better every time. And I think I've lost about 9 pounds between the yoga and eating right. The reason I say think is because I went to my Ob-Gyn today for a check-up and I weighed 9 lbs less than I did at my regular doctor 3 weeks ago. Hopefully their scales are both pretty accurate. And what's even better is that my blood sugar has been in the 80s most of the time and hasn't been above 100 sense my first session. It's hot, hard, and I enjoy it and feel good when I leave.
I had my bone density test today and it showed I'm losing bone in my spine, hips are stable. My doctor discussed one of those bone-building prescriptions but I told him I was going to try to handle it with exercise. There are some digestive issues with the meds that I'd just as soon avoid.
Tomorrow evening I start tennis lessons. I haven't played to amount to anything since I was a teenager. I loved the game back then. I hope I can hang with it now. I'm a little worried about my right ankle because it's still a little swollen and tender from a twist and fall I took a couple of weeks ago. I stopped to pick up an ankle brace and Target was out of them. Must be a lot of fat old women turning their ankles these days. I'll look somewhere else tomorrow. I hope tennis gives me aerobic exercise plus enough weight bearing exercise to improve my bone loss. Things were so much easier 20 years ago!
I had my bone density test today and it showed I'm losing bone in my spine, hips are stable. My doctor discussed one of those bone-building prescriptions but I told him I was going to try to handle it with exercise. There are some digestive issues with the meds that I'd just as soon avoid.
Tomorrow evening I start tennis lessons. I haven't played to amount to anything since I was a teenager. I loved the game back then. I hope I can hang with it now. I'm a little worried about my right ankle because it's still a little swollen and tender from a twist and fall I took a couple of weeks ago. I stopped to pick up an ankle brace and Target was out of them. Must be a lot of fat old women turning their ankles these days. I'll look somewhere else tomorrow. I hope tennis gives me aerobic exercise plus enough weight bearing exercise to improve my bone loss. Things were so much easier 20 years ago!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Almost 6 months later...
It's almost 6 months since my last post. What happened? Well I honestly don't know. I have all sorts of excuses but they all boil down to the fact that I just lost my willpower. I think it started with the farmers' market closing. Anyway, as has always happened since I started having weight issues, I gained back the weight I lost and I ended up this week with my doctor putting me on a diabetes med because my blood sugar has been high for "about a year" (how can I not have known this?) and my fatty liver needs relief from all the sugar in my system so it can heal itself. Of course, all of this would be miraculously repaired by my body if I just lose 30 or 40 pounds.
The thing is, I'm still eating a heck of a lot better than I was before I started this blog on my 50th birthday last August. I still do not consume fake foods. No frozen, packaged entree has made it past my lips in the past 9 months. I don't drink soda (diet or otherwise). That was a real shocker for my doc who assumed that I must guzzle the stuff by the gallon and, just eliminating that from my daily routine would bring my blood sugar into line. I do not eat packaged foods. Well, OK, confession time: I have eaten a *lot* of Girl Scout cookies. And I have worked myself back into an ice cream habit. And on my frequent business dinners out I have always had dessert, usually when I was so stuffed from the appetizer and entree I could barely force it down. And I haven't made wise food choices. I have looked at menus with grilled salmon and ordered filet mignon instead. I have eaten french fries instead of salads. I could go on and on. The point is, I fell off the wagon and I have to get back on and take responsibility for my body.
Last weekend, when I knew I had a doctor's appointment which I assumed was strictly about my fatty liver, I went online and did research on liver health. I kept running into information about juicing. The more I read, the more I was impressed by the health benefits. I discussed it with my doctor and also with the intern that is following him around. Both were in favor of it. Of course, I still need to eat vegetables for fiber but the intern said, "There are few things in medicine that are absolutely clear cut, no questions, and getting more raw vegetables into your body is one of them." But then my doctor dropped the pre-diabetes bomb on me and put me on meds.
So I sit here today, typing and drinking a juice made from: 1/2 small cabbage, 1/2 grapefruit, 1/2 lemon, 1 pear, about 8 stalks of asparagus, 1 stalk celery, 1 carrot, a chunk of ginger root, a clove of garlic, a big handful of spinach leaves, and a few grapes. It made about 24 ounces and it is surprisingly tasty. Because of my blood sugar, my juices have to be green veggie based- cabbage, cucumber, or celery being the bulk of it. Yesterday I added a few mustard greens and some turnip greens. Every day I throw in different stuff- basically whatever catches my eye as I go through the fridge. My intent right now is to drink the juice prior to eating a healthy breakfast each day. The stuff I've read says that juice has no fiber and is quickly absorbed into the blood stream on an empty stomach. Since everything is raw, I'm getting tons of enzymes, chlorophyll, beta-carotene and other anti-oxidents. Now I just have to make healthy food choices the rest of the day.
I also have to get back into an exercise routine which I lost in January when I hurt my knee. I'm racking my brain trying to fit something into my schedule (work plus picking up my grandson Sean on different days each week). The lunchtime walking works but it's not something I look forward to each day. My doctor's intern said I should pick something I enjoy so it won't feel like punishment As a teenager, I loved tennis. As an adult, I love Yoga. I also love gardening. Gardening is the one thing that gets inserted into my weekly schedule and doesn't get skipped. Yesterday I planted our "salad garden" of lettuces, broccoli, spinach, onions, Swiss chard, etc. I also planted a peach and apple tree. Last night I forgot to take my diabetes med and this morning, my blood sugar was 10 points lower than it has been all week with the med. I'm still trying to figure out how to work tennis in but I did have a schedule last fall for Yoga. It wasn't perfect but it was a schedule. I just need to call and verify the schedule and get back on it.
So, this is like 5 months of blog posts in one. And I'm not writing it for anyone else but me. This has been my way of sorting out what I need to do. I do think I've figured out one thing: if I don't do this sort of writing, I won't stay on target for my health goals. Now I'm going to eat breakfast (our first duck egg- more on that another day) and then go outside and weed a flower bed.
The thing is, I'm still eating a heck of a lot better than I was before I started this blog on my 50th birthday last August. I still do not consume fake foods. No frozen, packaged entree has made it past my lips in the past 9 months. I don't drink soda (diet or otherwise). That was a real shocker for my doc who assumed that I must guzzle the stuff by the gallon and, just eliminating that from my daily routine would bring my blood sugar into line. I do not eat packaged foods. Well, OK, confession time: I have eaten a *lot* of Girl Scout cookies. And I have worked myself back into an ice cream habit. And on my frequent business dinners out I have always had dessert, usually when I was so stuffed from the appetizer and entree I could barely force it down. And I haven't made wise food choices. I have looked at menus with grilled salmon and ordered filet mignon instead. I have eaten french fries instead of salads. I could go on and on. The point is, I fell off the wagon and I have to get back on and take responsibility for my body.
Last weekend, when I knew I had a doctor's appointment which I assumed was strictly about my fatty liver, I went online and did research on liver health. I kept running into information about juicing. The more I read, the more I was impressed by the health benefits. I discussed it with my doctor and also with the intern that is following him around. Both were in favor of it. Of course, I still need to eat vegetables for fiber but the intern said, "There are few things in medicine that are absolutely clear cut, no questions, and getting more raw vegetables into your body is one of them." But then my doctor dropped the pre-diabetes bomb on me and put me on meds.
So I sit here today, typing and drinking a juice made from: 1/2 small cabbage, 1/2 grapefruit, 1/2 lemon, 1 pear, about 8 stalks of asparagus, 1 stalk celery, 1 carrot, a chunk of ginger root, a clove of garlic, a big handful of spinach leaves, and a few grapes. It made about 24 ounces and it is surprisingly tasty. Because of my blood sugar, my juices have to be green veggie based- cabbage, cucumber, or celery being the bulk of it. Yesterday I added a few mustard greens and some turnip greens. Every day I throw in different stuff- basically whatever catches my eye as I go through the fridge. My intent right now is to drink the juice prior to eating a healthy breakfast each day. The stuff I've read says that juice has no fiber and is quickly absorbed into the blood stream on an empty stomach. Since everything is raw, I'm getting tons of enzymes, chlorophyll, beta-carotene and other anti-oxidents. Now I just have to make healthy food choices the rest of the day.
I also have to get back into an exercise routine which I lost in January when I hurt my knee. I'm racking my brain trying to fit something into my schedule (work plus picking up my grandson Sean on different days each week). The lunchtime walking works but it's not something I look forward to each day. My doctor's intern said I should pick something I enjoy so it won't feel like punishment As a teenager, I loved tennis. As an adult, I love Yoga. I also love gardening. Gardening is the one thing that gets inserted into my weekly schedule and doesn't get skipped. Yesterday I planted our "salad garden" of lettuces, broccoli, spinach, onions, Swiss chard, etc. I also planted a peach and apple tree. Last night I forgot to take my diabetes med and this morning, my blood sugar was 10 points lower than it has been all week with the med. I'm still trying to figure out how to work tennis in but I did have a schedule last fall for Yoga. It wasn't perfect but it was a schedule. I just need to call and verify the schedule and get back on it.
So, this is like 5 months of blog posts in one. And I'm not writing it for anyone else but me. This has been my way of sorting out what I need to do. I do think I've figured out one thing: if I don't do this sort of writing, I won't stay on target for my health goals. Now I'm going to eat breakfast (our first duck egg- more on that another day) and then go outside and weed a flower bed.
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