Friday, October 10, 2008

Clean Bill of Health

I've been visiting the doctor recently. Three visits in the past 10 days. I'd have to say that's a record for me who probably hasn't been to the doctor that many times in the past three years!

Why, you might ask, would a doctor-resistant individual such as myself go see one three times in ten days? Well, peer pressure was the most influential factor over my decision. Also feeling so crummy/shaky/hot that I felt like I was about to pass out pushed me over the edge and right into the clinic. I've been being "nagged" for a while now that I should get checked for diabetes. 
Reasons: 
1.)My grandpa had it & my mom has it. 
2.)If I eat my favorite Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch or Cocoa Krispies for breakfast I will, without fail, get shaky/hot/pass-out-feeling within two hours. 
3.)That scenario started playing out with more and more frequency until it was almost constant. 
4.)I'm overweight

So, hi-ho-hi-ho, it's off to the good doctor I go to be poked and prodded. Ok, she's a nurse practitioner, not an m.d., and she didn't really poke and prod. She did ask a lot of questions and made me go to the mean lab lady who did poke my finger and take about 2 drops of blood from me.  Then two days later I was back with another not-so-mean lab lady who stuck a needle in my arm and stole two vials of blood from me (but nicely). And then finally this morning back to the clinic for my results. And they are....

(drumroll please)

I'm healthy as a...uh...ummm...well, I'm healthy, ok? No diabetes. Thyroid is a-ok. Cholesterol is wonderful. Woo hoo! At my first appt she said that whether or not I end up diabetic, I really should start counting carbs (instead of the calories I'd been counting). She explained it this way: When I eat a lot of carbs, my blood sugar jumps up. Then my body has to send out a ton of insulin to take that sugar away, then when my sugars level out, I feel shaky/hot/pass-out-feeling, so then I'd eat something again to bring the sugars back up, and it's a crazy, spinning cycle. Besides which, after a "crash" (which is what I call the shaky/hot/pass-out-feeling thing), I'd be exhausted as my body recovered from the trauma. So generally, I felt like crap all the time. 

So she advised me to start counting carbs and try to stick to 30-45 grams of carbohydrates every two-three hours. Doing this would give me little bumps of sugar, so only a little insulin would be kicked out, so I wouldn't experience the crash. Sounded logical to me, and I was already used to counting calories, so I figured it was worth a shot. (Thank you to sparkpeople.com for making that easy to track!!!)

OK, so now I know that counting carbs is a LOT different! I mean, 1+1 still =2 and all, but it's a whole new way of eating. Things I used to eat cuz they were fairly low in calories are actually high in carbs and vice versa. So I can't just go into the kitchen and grab something. I have to look at the nutritional info first, do some calculating, decide if that little bit of food will satisfy me for 2-3 hours, and then prepare and eat the food. And it usually doesn't satisfy me, but I have to tell myself that I can eat again in just a couple of hours, and that helps my brain/stomach be ok with the tiny portions that I get.

For instance...last night I was able to measure out 1/2 cup of chili and a half a piece of cornbread and eat that with 5 crackers and 3/4 tablespoon of syrup. Let me tell you that a 1/2 cup of anything is not very much food!  But that was about 45 grams of carbs, so that was what I got. The amazing thing is, that while I wasn't satisfied by any means, I wasn't starving like I thought I would be, and I made it to the next meal just fine. (Whew!)

The good thing about all of this? I've lost 4 pounds in 10 days and I haven't had one "crash" in that same amount of time. In fact, I actually feel like I have a little more energy than I did before. So I'm going to keep this up and see where it goes. After all, it is "doctor's orders" lol.

Now if I can just get this depression thing kicked, I might be ok after all. I did have her give me an assessment for that too, by the way and I came back mid-range. Since I'm not a big fan of medication, we opted for me to try and get more exercise to shoot out some endorphins and maybe light some candles whenever it's gloomy out and to get into the sunshine whenever it's out too. She also gave me a recommendation that my husband is sure to like, but we'll see about that. (wink wink lol).

Cassie is off to homecoming tonight (we let her off her current grounding cycle for this special night). She's never gone or wanted to go to homecoming before at her old school, so I'm excited to see her get involved in the new school. She even dressed up for every single dress-up day at school for it! Amazing! She's got a new boy that she likes and he's been to the house a couple of times. He seems ok....for a boy. In general Dar and I aren't big fans of 15-16 year old boys because they all seem to think our daughter is pretty and fun and cool to be with. Ugh! I mean, we know she is, but we're her parents so we're supposed to. We just don't like members of the boy-club noticing these things about her! lol

Dar's working tonight at Domino's, so it'll be Chris and I this Friday night. Unless, of course, he finds a friend to hang with, then I might actually get a whole night to myself! That would be amazing! I might even have time to clean my house, or scrapbook, or watch a movie, or even just go to bed early. We'll see what happens.

Now I'm off to work...ads to design and phones to answer.

Love ya'll!

1 comment:

DM Selly said...

I appreciate that you are following our blogs, but I am curious as to how you know us or have heard of us? Do you go to our church?

Thanks,
Dawn