My Secrets for Weight Loss?

I guess that I really don't have any secrets. I have just been trying to follow my doctor's advice to keep my fat content below 30%, and to cut most sugars and salt from my diet.

I used to drink two regular Cokes a day, and now I am drinking just one Coke Zero. The only sugars that I allow myself are in a Nature Valley Oats and Honey Granola Bar that I have for breakfast, and in my two snacks which are usually two small Dove dark chocolate squares and two graham crackers with peanut butter.

I am usually at work when it comes time for lunch so I have either a deli turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread or a McDonald's Grilled chicken Sandwich with light mayo.

Dinner is usually a problem with hubby since he wants pork or beef, and these have to much fat in them for my diet. Most times dinner is oven baked chicken or occasionally fish so hubby has already doing a lot of complaining saying that he is about to grow wings and start clucking. I compromised today and made ground chuck hamburgers.

I was also advised to eat more vegetables, and this is hard too since hubby does not care much for vegetables except for potatoes, peas and corn. The only way I can get him to eat a salad is to load it up with mayonaise so I usually fix two serving bowls of salad. One with mayonaise for him, and one with with oil and vinegar dressing for me.


I have been taking the cardio rehabilitation classes now on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for six weeks; and this class is all about exercise and motivation so when we get there the first thing they do is to put us on a heart monitor so that we can exercise without fear of hurting ourselves, and then they check our blood pressure and weight. Then we start out by taking a moderate pace five minute walk out in the hallway, then we come in and do an exercise routine, and end by taking the five minute cool down walk out in the hallway again.

I like the classes and they do seem to be helping me get back in shape, but I am not sure that I can continue taking them. I just got my insurance statement for the first week of January for these classes and found that I am expected to pay for the classes myself at the rate of $100 a visit until I have paid my deductible, and after my deductible is reached then I pay $25 per visit.

My hubby has lung cancer and is now drawing disabled social security as many of you probably know from reading my other blogs so I don't have a clue how I am going to pay them just the $75 a week for these classes let alone the $1200 I probably owe them now so I guess that I will be going out on my own to continue my exercise routine.

I Lost 2 More Pounds Last Week!

I dreaded going back to cardio rehab and stepping on those scales today! I figured that I must have gained a few pounds with eating out a couple of times this week and not exercising at all, but to my surprise I had lost another two pounds. I guess that maybe having a McDonalds grilled chicken sandwich with light mayo and a small Coke was not to bad a choice for lunch after all.

I was able to leave work on time today, and I was able to finish the special rush order set of a 15" Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, and I am going to ship them off tomorrow. My customer needs the doll set by Wednesday, and we are both hoping that they will arrive in time. She lives in West Virginia which is not to far from here so they might make it.

How AM I Doing Today?

I went back to work for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service three weeks ago, and for the last three weeks the manager at my store has called in sick about every day except for maybe five days in three weeks. I had to fill in for him plus work my own hours which usually meant that I worked from 9:00 to 7:00, and I was already working six days a week.

I did not have time for my cardio rehab classes any day this week except for on Monday, and I ended up having fast food on two or three occassions so I am dreading going back in this coming Monday to be weighed again.

The manager was supposed to come in at 2:00 on Thursday afternoon, and I had plans to go home and work on a Raggedy Ann and Andy doll set that I was supposed to ship out on Saturday, and the dolls were not finished yet because I was to exhausted after work to do anything. When the manager called in claiming to have the flu this time and saying that he was not going to be able to make it in to work for the next couple of days I got so upset that my blood pressure went up for the rest of the afternoon. I started having chest pains about 8:00 PM, and my hubby had to drive me to the emergency room. They gave me a nitro patch and brought it down so low that they had to give me fluids to get it back up again. We were there until about 1:00 AM, but the chest pains had stopped by the time that we left.

The manager was still claiming to be sick so I had to go to work the next morning regardless of spending most of the night at the ER. I worked from 9:00 until a manager from another office came in to let me go home at 6:30 that evening, but while I was there I sent an email to my manager telling him that he was not the only one who was sick and had problems. I reminded him that I just had heart stents put in December, and that my hubby had 3rd stage lung cancer, but that I was taught to carry my own load and not throw my problems off on everyone else. I also told him not to call me if he could not make it in to work anymore. He was to call his supervisor.

He sent me back an email with an apology and the weekend off.

My sister was at the Walmart where our office is located this morning, and she told me that there was a very unhappy looking man sitting there, but I do not feel sorry for him at all. It is time for him to do his job or get out of the way and let someone else do it.

I went to see a GI Doctor Friday

The emergency room had told me that I had pancreatitis, and my doctor had scheduled me for an ultrasound almost 3 weeks ago, but would not give me any information from the ultrasound other then I needed to see a GI doctor. He set me up for an appointment Friday at 11:00.

We got about 2" of snow Thursday evening, and I am not much of a driver on snow so I tried to call and reschedule my appointment, but the only appointment that they could give me was in the middle of February. I had waited long enough to so I got my hubby to drive me to my appointment.

Turns out that I did not have pancreatitis after all. My doctor was really nice, and he took the time to explain to me that my blood count in the hospital was just 8o, and that if I had pancreatitis caused by gallstones, alcohol or some other problem then my blood count would have been up around 1000. He told me that my pain that night that I went to the emergency room was probably caused by something else like maybe my Plavix and Crestor which will both cause stomach upsets.

Thinking that I had pancreatitis for the last three weeks made me really try hard to stay on my diet, and I have been a little off it and my exercise routine this weekend so I am dreading going back to cardio rehab this morning to get weighed. I weighed 161 at my doctor's office Friday so I have lost 10 pounds in the five weeks since I went into the hospital to have my stents put in. I would hate to have gained even one ounce back.

Saturday

I forgot and had chili for dinner Thursday night, and I had warning signs that the Pancreatitis attack was coming back Friday morning when i got out of bed. (The warning signs for me is feeling sick when anything touches my neck and having a headache.)

I decided to go back to the mostly bland diet yesterday to try and ward off another trip to the emergency room so I had rice flavored with a chicken bouillon cube for breakfast and lunch, a cup of low salt vegetable juice and half of a banana for snacks, then Campbell's Vegetarian Soup for dinner with just a couple of crackers.

I feel a lot better this morning, but I am still going to be weary of fat and spices today because I am not sure that I have stopped my stomach from getting even with me for having the chili.

I can't weigh myself and get an accurate reading on my old scales so I have to wait until Monday when I go back to the cardio rehab class, but I have been walking on my treadmill for 20 minutes each day just like they advised me to do when I did not have class.

Feeling Good Today!

It is party time! I was stuck at 168 for the past three weeks, but when I got on the scales at cardio rehab this morning I just weighed 164. I lost 4 pounds. Yeah!

I am having to pull my good jeans up in the back now where they are beginning to ride down cause they are just a little bit to loose now, and I also got muscle on my upper arms instead of the flab that used to be there. I just wish they could do something about the granny jiggles on the underside, but I guess that all good things takes time.

Because of the holidays I won't be able to go to cardio rehab again until next Monday, but I am going to try to keep getting up at 7:00 AM just like I do when I go there so that I can walk on my treadmill and not lose any ground that I have gained.

December 23, 2009

I was doing really good until the 16th when I started having severe stomach pains. I thought that the Plavix and Aspirin had declared war in my stomach, and I was declared the loser. My blood pressure also shot up and I got really shakey so I had my husband drive me to the emergency room at Fort Sanders Hospital. They took a blood test and told me that I had Pancreatitis.

The cure for Pancreatitis is to let it rest which means mainly living on things like broth and jello then start adding bland foods back gradually, but once it acts up you can never have a full meal again for fear that it will act up again, and if it ever stops working then you can starve to death even while eating because your body can no longer absorb nutrients from your food. Sounds pretty serious right? It was enough to scare me anyway!

For the last five days I have not eaten much of anything except for broth and jello, and when I have gotten real shakey and felt desperate for a meal I have eaten a light lunch. So I thought that at least I would have gotten a little head start on the 30 pounds that I needed to lose. Wrong! I have lost only 2 ounces if that much! Your body conserves energy when you don't eat solid food so that you don't lose weight!

Now I am sick, hungry and depressed.

I went to see my family doctor yesterday, and he changed my blood pressure pill and took me off a dieuretic saying that they aggrevate Pancreatisis, and set me up for an appointment to have an ultrasound this morning at 8:00 AM to see if I have gallstones or some other problem that could have set off my Pancreatitis attack.

Got to go now cause it is time to get ready for my appointment.