It's Been 3 Weeks

Hasn't it?  I need to get a little more involved.  (Although, I must say, I feel abandoned by my cohorts...)

Keeping track of your blood glucose levels is interesting.  What have I learned so far? 

• My blood glucose is high in the morning.  Like, just shy of 180.  My brother says it's because overnight, your body burns things off that release stored sugars while you sleep.  Personally, I'm wondering if that's not why it's so hard for me to get up in the morning.
• My blood glucose is lower after eating 1/2 of a sandwich (15 grain, whole grain bread, ham or turkey, etc) and either a piece of fruit or a bunch of carrots than it is after eating a salad with a vinaigrette.  What?  That makes my head hurt.
• Drinking a can of soda (Mello Yello) does not spike my blood glucose, but a bottle of A&W Cream Soda?  Well...that's a different story...  Drat.  Maybe it was that fried chicken sandwich from Wendy's?
• Taking B-complex vitamins can turn your urine flourescent yellow.  I think it's also irritating my bladder.  (I'm sure that's TMI, if there's anyone out there actually reading this.)
• Eating small meals several times per day has done nothing for my weight.  What am I eating?  Half a sandwich and an apple between 630 and 700 for breakfast.  The other half of the sandwich and maybe another piece of fruit for a snack, around 930.  Another half of a sandwich and some baby carrots for lunch at 1230.  Another half of a sandwich (no accompaniment) around 330.  Small, veggie-heavy dinner around 630. 
  (You're  wanting the math, right?  Hmm...  It's roughly 270 calories per sandwich, about 100 for each piece of fruit and 50 for the carrots.  That's 790.  If I have a soda, that adds 120 (Total: 910), meaning I need a little over 300 more (minimum) total, easily accomplished at dinner with a bag of broccoli with a pat of butter (roughly 100 calories) and whatever else I fix to go with it.  (Which a chicken breast or most any other normal serving size of meat will get it there.)  So, yes, I am getting between 1200 and 1500 calories per day.)
• I'm still tired.  Or maybe I'm just feeling kinda blah.

Activity levels are still down, which is my fault, I know.  I am still taking dance, but that's only ONE class per month.  I need more.  I'd like to get a Bowflex Treadclimber, but we keep asking ourselves questions,  like, where will we put it?

I am intending (still) on signing up for the Biggest Loser 5K Walk/Run in Panama City.  Got to do it today or tomorrow; it just sucks because I just got paid, and it already feels like I'm about to be broke.  Am I the only one who feels that way?

For anyone who stumbles across this blog and reads...feel free to throw in some words of encouragement!  :)

Got To Get Serious.

I went to the doctor yesterday.  Yeah, I went to the walk-in clinic, as I had done at the beginning of June.  In June, the doctor there told me that she'd give me a 3 month prescription of my heart medication (I have mitral valve prolapse, and if you have it bad enoough you have a leaky mitral valve, you take a drug to keep the heart palpitations down.)  She said she wouldn't give me more without a cholesterol test.

Financially, September is not being a very good month.  My child (and I!) return to dance classes, which means beginning again to pay that dance tuition ($110/month, give or take).  I paid off my car (almost $100 more than my usual payment, but it's paid!)  My child also needed two more pairs of dance shoes and a new dance bag ($151).  She wound up sick and at the doctor's office ($40).  I have a relatively regularly scheduled appointment later this month ($45).  But I was out of my medication.  I had to go.

I fasted, as had been requested, and she went ahead and drew blood to test everything.  Initial result: a1c is over 7%.  I now have a glucose meter, a prescription for a diabetes-type sugar-reducing medication, and instructions to return in 1 month.  Hmm.  Not what I wanted to hear.  At. All.

So, now I must escape from the potential depression that threatens to build.  I must get serious.  She gave me 6 months metformin, and I don't want it renewed.  She doesn't think she will have to renew it. 

So...

Goal #1: Reduce weight by 5%.

Reading online says that even as small as a 5% reduction can reduce chances of this becoming full-blown diabetes by something like 58%.  Currently, I am weighing in (by the house scale, which I will be going by) at 217.4.  To reduce my weight by 5%, I must get down to 206.53.  11 pounds.  That should be doable within a month or two, depending.  I have set a calorie goal, I have gone out and bought some healthy things to eat.  I must get up in the morning and do some kind of aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes.  I want to do the Fluidity program on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and whip out a Richard Simmons video at least the other days, if not every day.

My next goal will be to go down by another 5%, which will be 196.2.  I want to be at least here by December, when Cristin and I are planning on trekking down to the Biggest Loser WalkRun 5K in Panama City.

I think 5% goals should be doable, right?  One goal at a time...

Now, to get my cohorts back on-board...