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.