Catching up...and how!

Wow. Just wow. It has been far too long since I've updated this blog, and this is the one out of my four that I really should have been keeping up with all this time.

What else can I say except I think I finally have it right. I have cut back on so much food and have gone back to resistance training at the gym, and it has really helped so much. I was never huge in the first place, but I have gone down about 20 lbs from when I started all this, about 5 or 6 lbs away from my goal, and I'm probably about 5% away from my ideal body fat percentage.

I guess this all really started when my cousin decided she wanted to rejoin the gym (we used to go together when I first signed up there many moons ago) to get into better shape for her wedding. This was in late June/early July last year, and she was getting married in September. Of course as they were finalizing her membership, they pushed sessions with a personal trainer on her, and on me since we were supposed to be going together. We were kind of reluctant, but decided that if we wanted to see some results by the wedding, we'd need a crash course, and personal training would get us there.

In time my cousin found that she was getting pretty busy with her wedding preparation and couldn't come to the gym as often, and eventually not at all. I, however, had a stubborn motivation to stick with it, and I kept going to the sessions, even renewing them as they expired, and doing more and more cardio on my own.

I also stopped drinking diet pop, juice, and milk, and drink tea sparingly. I no longer eat cereals or muffins for breakfast, bread, rice, potatoes or any kind of starchy carbs with my meals except for a few large-flake oats with breakfast and some quinoa (which isn't even really a grain) with my other meals. I never touch junk food anymore, although I miss the salty snacks dearly, and people think I am stuck-up or something because I won't eat their desserts. I stick to mostly chicken or fish, and veggies and salad. I usually only have a fruit a day with breakfast. I'm also taking whey protein (since I lift weights) and a calcium citrate/vitamin D3 supplement.

The only vice I still have is my new-found love affair with almonds, the raw, plain kind. It's hard to find nuts in the store that don't have a lot of salt on them, but I can get a nice big bag of them at Costco for $10. That and I like my glucose tabs just a little too much.

All of this has been a lot of tough work, and there are a lot of things I miss, but I've never felt better and I wouldn't change or stop what I am doing for the world. At least I hope so.

Finally got rid of some little enemies!

Yesterday was a day I had been counting down to for quite a while.  I finally had 7 pilar cysts removed!  Briefly, they're cysts that form on one's scalp.  If you want the gory details, check out the Wikipedia entry.

A couple of them were quite big and really had to go, but I was just too chicken to get them removed sooner.  Then, around this time last year I went to get referred to a plastic surgeon.  It was only done yesterday after all that time because there was a mix-up with my referral, and then I got a little lazy and didn't follow up until a couple months ago.  After that, though, everything happened pretty quickly, and everyone in the office were so nice and professional, so how could I be mad, really?

Now it's over with, and once the pain from the dozens of staples in my scalp goes away (and they get taken out), I can sleep on my back without anything getting in the way, and I don't need to be embarrassed to go to the hairdresser anymore!

Still, I really wish I could wash my hair right now.

And if you think having 7 of them taken out at once is a lot, consider this:  the doctor told me the record he had was 52!  That's pretty gross.

Hot Yoga!

For the past week or so I've been going to hot yoga.  I never thought I'd be able to do something like that, but I'm not against trying something new.

After going the first few times, I'm still not sure I'm able to do something like that, but it is pretty good.  I've never sweat so much in my life!  I always seem to get stuck close to the humidifier so that makes me sweat double!

I am not very flexible, though, my balance isn't that great, and on top of that I have to do this before I can have any supper, so it's like 90 minutes of torture, but I think it's worth it.  The bad part is that it's so expensive.  I'm on a $40 unlimited for the a month kind of deal, but after that, it's like $175 a month.  You must be joking!

Maybe after it's over, I'll take my sister boxing...she says she'd like to try that.

So I've set a little goal.

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a bit of a LEGO freak, so what I've decided to do is to reward myself with some for losing some poundage.

I say when I drop about 8-10 pounds (trying to get to a certain weight, not losing a certain amount of pounds), then I will purchase the following Green Grocer set:

I have a few of the larger, modular house sets like this, but not this one yet.  It's the cheapest one out of the two I don't have so I'll go with this.  If something drastic happens, then I may go for the other one later!

Coding the Glucose Meter

You know what's funny?  Every time I go to buy a box of test strips at the drug store, the pharmacist reminds me that I have to code my meter to make sure it matches the number on the strip bottle.  This is done to compensate for the variations in the amount of chemicals in each batch of strips.

That's great, except that the number on the strips has been the same for at least the past six months or more, no matter which location I get them from.  I used to look forward (like the nerd I am) to changing the number with a new box of test strips.  It's kind of like the lottery.  The codes for my brand go from 1 to 39 (or is it 45?  One or the other.) but it's been stuck at 25 for the longest time.

I never get to have ANY fun anymore, even the small things! 
I DO realize I need a life, yes.

10 Years!

So today is the 10th anniversary of my diagnosis with diabetes.  I can't say it's been a rough ride.  I got used to it pretty quickly and it never really gave me any major problems.  I've also never used it as a cop-out for anything, blamed it for anything, or blamed anything for it, even though some people think I do.

I could have been a little more vigilant with my diet and exercising, but on the whole I am still pretty healthy, and hope for at least 10 more years!

Remember your stuff!

Last night at the gym there were a couple forgetful ladies in the change room. 

On my way in, there was a lady frantically opening all the lockers, because she couldn't remember where she put her stuff.  I think that was just dumb because she should have had a lock.  One, it would keep her stuff safe, and two, it's something she can use to distinguish her locker from the others  A lot of people do leave their things without a lock, and I haven't seen anyone taking what wasn't theirs, but a lock is always extra security.  Anyway, I left her that way when I went to work out, and I didn't see her after, so I can assume she found her things.  Hopefully.

Getting back from working out, there was a trio of girls getting ready for their exercise, but two of them (two!) forgot their running shoes!  They were deciding whether they could work out in flats as I left.  I dunno, if it were me, I would just go home.  It takes me 10-15 minutes to get to my gym by car, and that's long enough.  If I had to go back and forth to get my shoes, I wouldn't even bother.