Saturday, February 14, 2009

Week One- again


Where to begin...


For those of you who are paying attention to details you will already know that I have now gone over 100 blog entries. I don't know what is significant about that other than it is odd to think of how much of my life has been poured into those 100 entries. They contain an ocean of tears, a mountain of pain and a ravine of confusion. But they also have a beacon of light shining straight through them all and that light is a cord that has connected me to you all and that has given me so much strength. I thank you for that and only hope you feel like you have gotten something out of it in return.


In fact, I was going to mention to everyone, please feel free to leave comments on this blog. Many of you ping me on Facebook but you can leave any thoughts, comments, questions here as well. I am sure you have had some questions or maybe wanted to know more about something I mentioned....ask me here. You might be helping someone else out my asking.


So I am back on the diet full strength and this was week one. I think I mentioned before that the program I am on was called Smart for Life and has since changed its name and products around and is now known as Natural Weight for Optimized Living.




They are still in transition on alot of things but I can say that the cookies are much tastier now. They are smaller and you get more of them and they have more nutrients in them so I am taking fewer supplements, which is good. My favorite flavors so far are the PB&J, the chocolate muffin top and reg old chocolate chip.


Part of being on break was it was also a chance to let my body reset before the final charge to the finish so I had my blood checked last week and just got my labs results back.


When I started the diet my cholesterol was 240 and now is it 163 (normal is under 200) .


My LDL was 166 and now it it 115 (normal is under 130).


My HDL was 20 and is now 34 which is still low..should be over 45.


Triglycerides were 163 and is now 85 (normal under 150).


Also- while I was on my break I still lost 13 lbs of fat and gained 8lbs of muscle for a total overall loss of 8lbs.


So as much as it is exciting to talk about buying new clothes- and it is, I ended up going back to the store and buying a few more shirts. Remind me to talk more about this later....The bigger picture is I am clinically MUCH healthier than I have probably ever been in my life.


In fact, on the heels of this good news I checked in with my lymphodema therapist and told her where I was at with the diet and how much physical activity I had been doing. She said I could begin to cut back on wrapping my legs every night to 3-4 per week and see how my legs do with that.


I have been skipping every other day this week and I have to say it feels very very odd. I have kept them wrapped 24/7 since last July and have grown accustomed to the bound-up feeling. It's a pain but also oddly comforting. When I slipped into bed with bare legs touching my sheets it felt like I was being very naughty and breaking some kind of major rules! It was actually hard to sleep at first it just felt so odd. I can only think that it is like an animal that is on a leash, you can take the leash off but for awhile it won't move, still feeling the ghost of the leash around them.


I am happy to report though that so far so good with the every other day thing. There has been no swelling at all when I leave them unwrapped and I am going to check back with my therapist in a month and if it is still doing well maybe I can scale back even more!! I am still wearing the compression stockings during the day because as nice as it is that I can relax my routine a bit- this is still a chronic disease and I will never be fully rid of it. But that's....ok.


It feels weird to be back in the grind of doing my daily routine with the cookies. I get 3 bags of them for my daytime eating. I did well with exercising during the break (35 mins a day on the treadmill) the doc doesn't want me to drop that so I am doing 10 mins a day while my body gets used to the new cookies and I will ramp back up to where I was. Because of the exercise I do eat some extra protein during the day. I have either 2 oz of deli meat or a cup of tuna before I go home and get on the treadmill. Then my dinner is the same as it was before 6 oz of lean protein and 2 servings (1 cup) of veggies.


So after being back on the diet for a week where am I at? I lost 10 lbs this week and am now 244lbs down 175lbs total.


It's crazy. Totally crazy.


I don't know what is was about taking a break. If it was a physical rest or a mental rest but I feel such a major shift now and my body looks so different. That's why I went a bit overboard buying a few new clothes but I can't keep wearing my 26/28 clothes when I am now a 14/16 without looking at best sloppy and at worst homeless. I flat out refuse to buy a new jacket (I live in AZ after all) but the one I have literally falls right off me....what can ya do?


So that is my down and dirty update....there will be a few more sub-postings to come but this is the high level stuff.


Enjoy!

No comments: