Cold Hard Facts

One thing I am really good at is procrastinating. I don't remember being this bad before the invention of the personal computer but I can always find just one more thing to check or one more game to play before prying my sticky fingers off the keyboard and applying them to task. I have a whole list of things that I would have liked to get done during this week I've had off work but I've spent more time relaxing and playing on the computer than actually working on projects.

Today I want to get back to riding my bike; I haven't been riding it at all over the holidays. I want to finish up the laundry, clean off my kitchen table (papers and things to organize and put away), find a new healthy recipe to try, go out and get some fresh superfoods (fruit and veggies), make my bed, shower, work on printing my Project 365 pictures and journalling of 2009, start reading a book Christine loaned me and take my Project 365 picture for today. That's all I can think of for now but I'm sure there's more. I haven't transferred my list to the physical world (other than writing it down here) so it's just floating around in my head. I do write my lists down once in a while though and that seems to make the tasks more real and it's rewarding to be able to cross things off when I do buckle down and work through the things that need to be done.

The house is mostly clean though because Ken and I got the last of the Christmas decorations cleaned up and put away yesterday. Ken vacuumed the house after we finished and I made a large pot of chili, filled with a whole lot of yummy superfoods. I love Christmas and all the celebrating but I also enjoy the fresh new start of a new year.

Ken was laid off on December 18th so we've been home together all week. I love him and love spending time with him but 24/7 is a little too much time together. I didn't matter when I had a houseful of company and was busy having fun over the holidays but now that we're mostly back to routine, I'm finding that I miss my alone time. I'm usually alone every Monday and Friday during the day (because I don't work those days) and for a few hours when he's snowboarding on Saturday. The weather has been too cold for him to go snowboarding this week but today it's "only" -15C and going up to -11C so he took advantage of the "warm" weather and went snowboarding this morning! I finally get to be alone for a few hours!

One of the reasons I started this blog was to have a place to be brutally honest with myself with regard to my health and to also have a place to record my progess as I attempt to make some positive changes in that area of my life this year. And with that in mind, I am recording the following cold hard facts. If you haven't stayed with me this far, that's just fine. :-)

At my annual physical exam on December 11th, 2009, I measured 5' tall. I've measured 5' 1 1/2" and perhaps even 5' 3/4" tall in the past, but this time I was exactly 5' tall. That's not very tall, especially when you have to spread 214 pounds over that frame! That's what I weighed on my doctor's scale on December 11th. The most I've ever weighed was 220 pounds, both when I was at full-term with my youngest two children and again without being pregant. I don't know when I first allowed myself to get that heavy but ten pounds melted off when my doctor discoved my thyroid was sluggish and put me on synthroid two years ago. I started taking 0.075 mg of synthroid on my 48th birthday: November 21, 2007.

However, even being on synthroid, I managed to sneak back up to 216 pounds. That's what I weighed when I began to pay attention early November '09. I wanted to prepare for my annual physical and hoped that a few weeks of crash-healthy eating and exercise would lower my weight and improve my blood and urine tests! But my doctor says you need about 3 months of making healthier choices for the results to show up so I doubt my few weeks made any difference on my tests.

My cholesterol hasn't been checked since 2006 but my doctor requested it be checked again this year. And it's up. These are my numbers from the tests I had done on December 4th:

Triglyceride 2.08 [should be less than 2.30] (mine is okay)
HDL Cholesterol 1.16 [should be greater than 0.90] (mine is okay)
LDL Cholesterol 5.61 [should be less than 3.40] (mine is too high)
Total Chol/HDL Ratio 6.7 (Average is 4.5; less that 3.3 is low risk and greater than 7 is high risk)

In comparison, here are my numbers from November 4, 2006:

TG 2.59
HDL 1.31
LDL 3.91
Ratio 4.9
Total 6.41

At my visit on December 11th, my doctor told me an interesting thing that I didn't know prior. She said if I'm looking at U.S. data on cholesterol, that I need to multiply my numbers by 38.6 to understand their numbers.

It's mainly my LDL (or bad cholesterol) that I need to bring down. I told my doctor about my superfoods project and she was happy, I would even say excited, with the project. She's giving me three months to make improvements and wants me to come back in April to be retested. I'm hoping to have a significant improvement in my numbers by then!

After taking the Christmas/New Year season "off", I reintroduced healthy food and began my superfoods 365 project on January 1st. My breakfast and early morning snacks were great on January 1st but I didn't do so well for the remainder of the day.

I ate a lot of superfoods yesterday though (* items are superfoods), but probably too much chili! I had oatmeal*, mixed with oat bran*, cinnamon*, raisins, brown sugar and milk for breakfast, a banana* for a morning snack and an orange* in the afternoon. I drank a few cups of green tea* throughout the day, one mixed with about a tablespoon of honey* just to get some honey in. I nibbled on the carrots* as I was preparing them for chili for supper and also picked at some almonds* that I have sitting on the counter.

The chili I ate at supper time was made with the following ingredients: olive oil*, black pepper*, chili powder, crushed red pepper flakes, ground beef, garlic*, green pepper*, onion*, celery*, mushrooms*, grated carrots*, kidney beans*, lentils*, brown beans*, canned tomato paste* and canned tomatoes*. I ate a large bowl with pita bread but ate more of the chili after supper. It tasted so good and even though I overate, I'm not feeling bloated or weighed down by it this morning.

I also ate a few things yesterday that I shouldn't have but I didn't make as many poor choices as I had the previous evening. The main thing I could have lived without and not have even noticed were the three almond roca candies I ate. I stayed away from the Bits 'n Bites that Ken enjoyed as a snack with our movie though. I knew that if I got started, it would be hard to stop - so I didn't start. That's one small victory I suppose.

The other thing I want to record here is the medication and vitamins I take daily. They are:

Prescription Drugs:
1 Synthroid 0.075 mg
1 Triazide 25 mg
1 Ativan (as needed) but thankfully I haven't been needing them often

Vitamins/Herbs:
2 Platinum super easy multi plus vitamin (formulated for women ages 45+)
2 odourless garlic 1250 mg
3 100% Wild Alaskan Salmon & Fish oil blend 1000 mg
2 Vitamin C (500 mg each)
2 Calcium (600 mg each)
2 Estrosense

Today I weight 210 pounds and my blood pressure is 134/82.

I wish there was a home test for cholesterol.

I didn't know I could be so long-winded. I won't have so much time to spend on my blog once I go back to work on Tuesday but - I think I love writing!