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.

December 11, 2009

I went for my first heart rehabilitation yesterday. They had me answer a lot of questions about what kind of mood I have been in over the last few months. They allso wanted to know whether it was more important to me to lose weight, feel better about myself, or to overcome my fears of having a heart attack as a reason for me to be there. I just wanted to feel better.

My weight was now at 165 so I had lost 5 pounds since I had entered the hospital to have the four stents put in last week, and my BMI index was over 40%.

They set a goal for me to lose 20 pounds, and to get my BMI to around 30% over the course of the next 12 weeks.

This cost of this course is $105 a day, and I am supposed to be there three days a week. The coordinator told me that my insurance should pay for it at 100% since I now have my duductible paid after my three day hospital stay, but I wonder how I am to pay for it when the new insurance year starts on Jan 1st.

I am also supposed to keep a food diary so here goes:
12/10/09
Breakfast
coffee with powdered milk mixed with a little cocoa and two Splenda sweetners, plain Cheerios and milk
Lunch
16.5 oz Coke Zero, 1 piece whole wheat bread and 1 tablespoon peanut butter
Dinner
Wendys grilled chicken sandwich
Snacks
1 cup milk and 1 slice whole wheat bread
1 apple and 1 tablespoon peanut butter

December 6th!

I got on my scales today, and after adjusting it back to zero I seemed to weigh somewhere between 160 and 162. I really need a new pair of scales since everytime I get on the crazy things it tells me a different amount. In any case I seem to have lost a few pounds which makes me happy.

I bummed a ride with friends to service because I felt to dizzy to drive, and I really enjoyed being there.

I think that I may have found where the dizziness is coming from. I seem to have bent my glasses while I was in the hospital which threw the bi-focals off since one lens was now closer to my eye then the other. I was fine while sitting, but it made me feel almost drunk when I walked. My daughter Myra was going to Walmart so I bummed another ride to get my glasses straightened out so maybe I will feel better in them tomorrow.

While I was in the hospital Dr Parker told me that I was now a AB diabetic so if it was white then to not bite, and I am trying to stay away from anything that would cause my sugar level to soar. It is hard but I am trying!

December 5th, 2009

I started having pain in my chest and left arm a couple of weeks ago, and my blood pressure started going pretty high in the evenings even after taking my two medications to control it so I went to see my family doctor on the day before Thanksgiving. The doctor said that it sounded like I was having angina, and ran an EKG which showed that I was not getting enough oxygen to the heart. He gave me a perscription for Nitrogycerin, and wanted me to go see a cardiologist on the following Monday. I left his office feeling kind of shook up and scared.

Over the next few days I barely ate anything because I had heard that a lot of folks eat to much on Thanksgiving and have a heart attack because of it, and I was not going to be one of those folks. I made it through to Monday with having only one episode of the angina which lasted for only a couple of seconds.

My hubby and I showed up for my appointment to see the cardiologist, Dr John Harper, on Monday. He seemed to not know at first how to proceed with me, but after asking me a few questions he decided to run another EKG. He did not like something in the EKG, because after he looked at it he told me to go over to the hospital next door and sign myself in so that he could do a heart catherization later that afternoon.

When I came out of Dr Harpers office it was going on lunchtime, and my poor hubby had not eaten anything that morning. I could not have him sitting there waiting on me for what was going to be a long evening without eating anything so before signing myself in we drove to McDonalds to get him some lunch. I was not supposed to eat anything, but it did not matter since I was so nervous that I could not have eaten anything if I had tried.

Dr Harper did his catherization later that evening, and I had several blocked arteries, but just one had been causing my problems because it was blocked 95%. Dr Parker decided to fix the 95% blocked one with surgery, and wanted to try to fix the others with medication. He gave me three choices on how to fix the one that was blocked at 95%...uncovered stents where he said that I would probably be back in a year to get it fixed again because it would block back up, covered stents where I would be taking Plavix for a year, and heart by-pass surgery. I choose the covered stents and Plavix for a year, and he scheduled my surgery for the next evening.

The surgery went okay I guess. Dr Harper put four stents in to fix the one blocked artery, and I was given so much of the dye that everytime the nurses tried to give me a pill later I just threw it back up. They finally left me in peace so that I could sleep it off.

I got to go home on Wednesday evening, and I am doing okay I guess. It just seems hard to control my blood pressure, and I get swimmy headed at about 10:00 in the morning and it does not go away until in the evening, and my blood pressure seems to raise after the dizziness passes.

I also do not know what I am supposed to eat, but I am to go see a dietitian Thursday so maybe we can work that problem out.

Trying Again!

I quit trying to lose weight in January when I went to work at Jackson Hewitt. My job ended there on April 15th and a short time later my hubby was diagnosed with third stage lung cancer. It has been a rough three months since that time. Hubby is still taking treatments, and these past few weeks it has appeared that he is not doing very well. I know that I will not be able to handle the stress if he does not make it so now is the time to try again. I decided last night to not be so ambitious and just try to give up sugars and junk foods as my first step. Today is the day I decided to start again so this morning I had a cup of coffee with non-fat dry milk and two packs of Splenda instead of my usual Coke. My grand-daughter left a can of Pringles sitting in front of the computer when she went to bed sometime this morning so I don't know how the rest of my day will go with this No Junk Food Plan, but I have resisted the Pringles call so far. I think that it is about time to go hide them in the kitchen though.

The Birmingham Hospital Diet Plan

The diet is used at the Birmingham Alabama Hospital Cardiac Care Unit for patients who need to loose a lot of weight quickly before having surgery. You can loose up to 40 pounds a month on this diet. This diet works on a chemical breakdown and is proven to work, but you must follow the diet exactly! Drink water between meals. You can have vinegar or lemon on greens, cabbage, and tuna. Salt and pepper can be used, but no other seasoning. The diet is used for three days then you eat what you normally do, but do not overeat.

Day One Breakfast
1/2 grapefruit or juice
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
1 Plain toast
tea or coffee

Day One Lunch
1/2 cup tuna
1 plain toast
tea or coffee

Day One Dinner
2 slices meat (3 oz)
1 cup green beans
1 cup carrots or beets
1 small apple
1 cup vanilla ice cream

Day Two Breakfast
1 egg
1 plain toast
1/2 banana
tea or coffee

Day Two Lunch
1 cup cottage cheese or tuna
5 saltine crackers
tea or coffee

Day Two Dinner
2 hot dog weiners
1 cup broccoli or cabbage
1/2 cup carrots
1/2 banana
1/2 cup vanilla ice cream

Day Three Breakfast
1 slice cheddar cheese
5 saltine crackers
1 small apple
tea or coffee

Day Three Lunch
1 hard boiled egg
1 slice toast
tea or coffee

Day Three dinner
1 cup tuna
1 cup beets or carrots
1 cup cantelope
1 cup cauliflower or greens
1/2 cup vanilla ice cream

So far I have not made it past the first day on trying this diet plan, but i keep trying. I am also beginning to like peanut butter for breakfast since I have never been a breakfast food fan.

How I did today!

I had one mug of coffee on the run for breakfast. I was still running for lunch so I had one slice of whole wheat bread with peanut butter spread on it, and a 12 oz coke. I had to go to the grocery store before I could make dinner so I decided on a $5 Subway sandwich with all the veggies they could get on it for dinner. I was really hungry, and I would not be able to eat anything tomorrow until after 12:00 since I have a doctor's appointment and have to have a fasting blood test so I ate 3/4 of it.

Looks like I got to start again!

I did not do very well on my diet this weekend. Hubby sabotaged me when he bought a box of the chocolate Little Debbie cakes with the raspberry cream in the middle knowing that I cannot resist the things. I have been off my diet all weekend. The Little Debbie cakes were all gone this morning. Today I had a cup of coffee and peanut butter on one slice of wholw wheat bread for breakfast. A bowl of Campbell's Tomato Soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a 12 oz coke for lunch. Potato soup, corn bread and water for dinner. Tomorrow I will try my diet again.

I got to lose a few pounds.

When I was sixteen I moaned around because I missed having a perfect figure by 1". To have a perfect figure your hips and bust had to measure the same, and your waist had to be exactly 10 inches smaller. My measurements then were 33, 24, 34. How I wished that I had this same problem today. I have packed an additional 70 pounds on my 5' 2" frame since that time, and my measurements are now 43, 39, 44. I have to go to the doctor next month to get my cholesterol checked and to get my two blood pressure pill perscriptions renewed, and he will again try to force me to take those pesky cholesterol lowering pills so now is the time to try to lose weight.

My grand-daughter wants me to try the Birmingham Hospital Diet Plan with her which is just a three day diet so I think that I am going to try the Birmingham Diet Plan for three days a week, and then the South Beach Diet Plan for the other four days each week until I either give up or arrive at my ideal weight whatever that is. I am starting the three day Birmingham diet first thing in the morning, and I have listed what I plan to eat tomorrow below, and I will let you know how well I followed it.

Note: I am used to having two 12 ounce cans of Coke each day, and I have never really been a coffee drinker so to give up my Cokes and drink coffee in its place I am going to have to add cream and sugar to my coffee. I have found that I cannot tell the difference between Splenda and real sugar in the coffee though, and Splenda does not add any calories. However all the creamers that I looked at seemed to have 20 calories per teaspoon. I finally picked Coffeemate's Chocolate Creamer, and I really liked the creamy chocolatey taste that it gives to my coffee. I am adding three teaspoons of the creamer this week which adds 60 calories to each cup of coffee, and I plan to try to cut it down to two teaspoon next week as I get a little more used to the taste of the coffee.

Day One Breakfast
1 Cup orange juice
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
1 Piece plain toast
Coffee

Day One Lunch
1/2 Cup tuna with vinegar or lemon
1 Piece plain toast
Coffee

Day One Dinner
3 Ounces Meat
1 Cup Green Beans
1 Cup Carrots or Beets
1 Cup Vanilla Ice Cream