Healthy & Fitness - September 2014

[Nancy]

I do not give much thought to this study and that one with opposite findings. For me diabetes is genitic. Everyone on moms side has type 2.
Dson & I both have type 1.

Had yet another low just before my bed time dose so had to wait had a snack so I took 2u. Less so bs #us up today. Sigh tewak tweak tweak. Waiting to have breakfast. Hens & chicks have been fed.

Even dogs get diabetes it is not from diet sodas in them! LOL!

[Norma]

Harriet, I am thinking long and hard on this whole artificial sweetener and diabetes link. There are a lot of talk and studies out there going on regarding this. I have seen people other than the lady yesterday on HLN giving their opinions on it. Well, whatever, we are off artificial sugar now. My one cup of coffee every morning will now just have my 1 tsp. of the real stuff and I will go from there. Mr. Guy is rethinking his C rystal L ite too. He drinks so much of it every day and I have really questioned that. He has also been diagnosed with type 2 too. I am thinking of all the type 2 diagnoses that are coming up all over the place seemingly from out of nowhere. Hello!
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On the probiotic - I think I will be very happy I started this. I have a good feeling about it. (Mr. Guy is so funny. He said last night "Have you noticed any changes since you started taking it?" DUH! I just took my first one yesterday morning. He is so anxious for me to be straightened out too that he over does. As we all know it is not fun to see our spouse having medical problems.
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We are coming up on 3 months since he had his left knee replacement and he is doing mahvelous! The walker, cane and shower bench are things of the past. We are so glad. It took up our whole summer, but that's ok. He is without pain now that he suffered with for so long. (First hurt it in high school playing football. Both junior and senior years.) Simply let it go because he didn't want to bother with it. He does have a high threshold for pain, but oh my. I don't know how he did it. Especially for over 31 years jumping in and out of a bread truck onto cement and asphalt. AARRGGHH!

[Ramblinrose]

Kathryn... I can't drink ice water the way I can drink water at room temperature. The cold water hurts my stomach. And like you have already decided to do I was going to suggest cutting up apples...because they tend not to spoil...and eating them when you are at your coffee hour. I do that cause the crunch and sweetness of an apple helps me stay away from DOUGHNUTS

Norma..are you and Mr. Guy gonna start back on Atkins again??? I know you both had good success with that.

I am down again this morning....still have 2.4 lbs to go to win my diet bet. Think I have 12 days left till the end. Gonna be close, but will just stay focused and do what I've been doing. I did adjust my mornings by adding a Wasa cracker and five prunes. Has helped my "plumbing" and hasn't seemed to effect my program. Wasn't sure what it would do, but felt I needed to add more fiber. Cereal just seemed to bloat me up and cause more problems so I gave that up.

Today is my luncheon with my girls. Where we eat serves wonderful salads...I usually get the chicken one and ask them to not add the cranberries. I will carry my peach with me and eat it after my salad. This place is also a bakery...very delish I might add...and they include a mini-red velvet cupcake with a dap of white icing with every meal. I either give it to someone else at the table or take it home for Sweetie to eat.

[FelineFriend]

I'm off ALL caffeine, even caffeine in green tea, for a month, and at that time, if there is no change in the terrible pain in my left breast nodules, it's up to me if I want to do caffeine again or not. I told my Dr. I might do green tea and/or English breakfast teas, at that time, but the jury's out on that one.

I ordered this book from the library and I saw a show on PBS about the program, which made so much sense to me! The book is: "WHAT ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR? THE CHOPRA SOLUTION TO PERMANENT WEIGHT LOSS, WELL-BEING, & LIGHTNESS OF SOUL," by Depok Chopra.

I am to lose weight, move more, exercise more. I will be seeing my Dr. once a month through Feb. 2015, for a check, for the med I'm tapering off of. NOW somebody tells me! He said it's a powerful tranquilizer! Wow. I only was told it was harmless, it was the lowest dose possible, and safe. NOW I'm told it's highly addictive, not a good drug for people to take so willingly and I can have withdrawal getting off of it. Hence the monthly checks. I'm experiencing "anger", for one thing, and headache, sometimes, but the headache can be, too, because I have not had ANY caffeine since Wed. the 17th! Yeah! GO ME! Anyway, I now need to get more exercise in, eat healthy, lose weight, and do Dr. orders.

I think it's pretty neat how I'll be weighed in once a month for the next 5 months, too. This may be a drudgery to some, but I'm using it as my "motivational tool"! I'm not saying, "Oh, no! He's going to weigh me every month for 5 months," but I'm saying, "Oh, this is GREAT! I GET to be weighed each month for 5 months! THIS IS SO MOTIVATING! I NEED TO BE A VERY GOOD GIRL!" So I'm turning the frown to upside down and use this for the positive.

I'm however, not "happy" about withdrawal symptoms, but it will pass.

My DH's Dr. says there's nothing wrong with artificial sweeteners for Diabetics and HE'S a Diabetic Dr.! Says it's better than SUGAR! Dunno what he thinks of High Fructose Corn Syrup. I look at it as poison! It causes so many health problems!

I take a probiotic, too. I think it really helps a LOT. When I go on antibiotics, first thing Dr. says is "Double-up on your probiotic and eat more yogurt, too." I do and it helps.

Norma, It's great Mr. Guy's doing so well after his knee surgery!

Nancy, I agree with you that Diabetes is genetic, too, because IT IS! Dmom has it, a Dgaunt had it, so there's a chance I may get it down the line, too.

Kathryn, I know thyroid causes coldness of the body, but so does weight loss. The body gets to a certain point, below their thermostat set point and it FREEZES! It happens to me and there are LOTS of folks and even forums about it on the Internet, too! Maybe you lose weight?

I'm off to eat a healthy breakfast and do stretches, standing yoga/Pilates moves, stretch the calves/ankles and then walk!

Have a nice Friday today, Everybody!

[Ramblinrose]

Way to go FF... a while back I had to be weaned off of meds too and the side effects were NOT as bad as predicted. Maybe that will happen to you.

Can you drink de-caf coffe or herbal tea??? I drink my herbal teas most days now and really look forwards to it. I tend to sit down on my couch and it has become a calming time for me.

OOOOOOhhhh my Perry Mason just came on...this is when I jump on my gazelle and multi task. Its a gift from me to me. So GLAD they put the show back on in the mornings

[Lady Maverick]

Weight is steady. Tread continues downward. I'm 1.1 lbs lighter than I was last Friday. I really like comparing the weekly. I get to celebrate over and over. Somewhere in my brain, I know it is the same 1 lb loss that I celebrated yesterday (plus another .1) but I get to celebrate it again today. Susccess = celebrations = motivation to continue. WIN-WIN-WIN

Hum....interesting that 2 of us had Dominos pizza without a weight gain. We don't normally eat Dominos pizza because it isn't located in our typical driving area.....but I think another test is going to be done. If I get time, I want to research the sodium count of domino pizza compared to others.

I can't remember if this is what I read that got me started my easy exercise habit that has stuck. I enjoyed reviewing the process this morning and confirming that I am following it correctly. I have a couple parts of building the treadmill exercise habit that I need to tweak. Reviewing the process lowered my expectation. This article said to focus for 6 months on firmly establishing the consistent habit. I didn't remember it being that long of a process, but when looked at from the BIG picture, 6 months isn't a short time if the habit sticks for the long term.

[FelineFriend]

RR, I can and DO drink and ♥ herbals teas. They're so relaxing. I don't care for de-cafe coffee. I've read they use something unhealthy for our bodies in the processing of it. It also disagrees with me.

I've tried Dsis' cereal last night, for an after-dinner snack, prior to 6:45 p.m. so I wasn't eating all night. So far, so good. It's working like Dsis said it did for her.

At the Dr. office, I saw a packet called "Weight," about 20 feet away from me, while checking in, on the counter. The M. A. said they're free, I could take one, there was a free DVD in it, but it's for a drug, but that I'd get good information out of it. I watched the DVD and it was good. Yes, they talked about being obese, I'm in the "overweight" BMI range now. This DVD talked about a drug, too, and those surgeries some get. But listening to them, talk about different people to started moving again, why, and how and their diet changes, was so nice to hear. I've not read the booklet with it yet, but will today. I ran out of time yesterday.

I'm going to go have QT and walk while DH is running errands. I might have some herbal tea, too.

LadyMaverick, THANK YOU for posting that article! It's just WHAT THE DR. ORDERED!

Have fun watching Perry and doing the Gazelle, RR!

[Harriet]

Skippable -
I have a TA-DA of veterinary proportions! (drumroll) Tobias has lost a pound - 5 % of his body weight. This was important to vet and to us because as he struggled through his urinary tract problems, with hospitalization he was already at a high weight at 18. BUT the new way of feeding of adding in a dry urinary-tract food caused weight gain. At that time, we just had to deal with the most urgent problem first. So he shot up 2 pounds. Of course, he's a big boy in his prime, very long and tall, and can easily leap onto the dryer to help me with the wash every day. But he should never have hit 20 pounds. So I amended the food, increasing the canned portion (also urinary-health type) and lowering the dry by 50 percent. It took a couple months (and you can imagine how it feels to be on a diet when you are at the mercy of others for every morsel). But he is halfway to goal. Yay!

Nancy, I told HRH your opinion, and he says to tell you his maternal family has a history of Type 2 and he wonders if that has to do with why he has to fight back "pre-diabetes" diagnoses all the time. His grandmother had it and several uncles/aunts, but he wasn't told about that until he brought his own concerns up with his mother, so it's very discouraging that the family wouldn't communicate more. But now that he knows, he has told dr. Maybe if somebody would have talked about it, he would have known in advance and benefited from some knowledge.

About watching tv with exercise:
Don't forget computer such as YouTube. If the favorite show goes off, maybe it will still be available on computer to watch at a certain time. I don't happen to exercise with it, but was able to find old (new-to-me) BBC early episodes of How Clean Is Your House, and have my lunch with them. If something that odd and rare is there, lots would be. And of course there is always the idea of putting a DVD set of an old favorite onto your gift wish-list.

Norma, also walking on concrete pushing bread rack/dolly, toting it all, plus lifting in and out, stocking it, probably up and down with squatting or kneeling (more likely kneeling I'd imagine). So, anyway (whew), what a blessing to be pain-free.

FFriend, I had breast pain as a young woman. Back then, they said get off the caffeine and also recommended Vits B-6 and E. But I'm thinking the two vitamins may have had to do with PMS bloating causing some of the pain.

Artificial sweeteners chat - for what it's worth here is the link to the first article I could find on the study, 2 days ago. The original research was published in Nature the same day, but is not on the net yet I don't believe, plus would probably be written in less understandable science-talk. I think the main point the researchers are claiming is that the sweeteners mess with the gut flora, which can be proven in "mice and some humans" and then say the exciting thing is that it merits more research, so nothing is written in stone yet.

[FelineFriend]

CONGRATULATIONS TO TOBIAS! 5% loss of weight is super-duper for a CAT! (Humans, too, actually.) I'm glad he's lost. It's good for cat health, too.

Harriet, Would the B-Complex vitamin I'm taking be of help for less breast pain? It's a thought. I think I've got Vitamin E in other vitamins, for the eyes or something. Thanks for the tip!

I walked 30 minutes, have been doing 1 LOL and part of a Conga. So I'm being more active than I was yesterday. Yesterday I saw the Dr., had NO coffee nor iced tea, and I got home from the Dr. appt. around 12:30 p.m. and napped twice. I even went to bed at 10 p.m. and slept until about 7:15 a.m. I was up in the wee a.m. hours, a couple of times, for a minute, but slept well. I think the lack of coffee's making more relaxed, but I am a bit jittery when I hear loud sounds. It's probably a side effect of coming off the med, which tranquilizes. I only have 5 months to go before I'm entirely off it. I'll be 63, I'll probably weigh less because of monthly Dr. weigh-ins, too, so this IS a win-win situation, IMHO.

I have a problem being active in the evenings, especially when the sun goes down and it's dark outdoors. I want to nibble-nibble-nibble and snack, too. I don't want to be a sloth and eat all night. I will try to work on craft-type stuff in my bunny room, while listening to music and can always shower before bed, which keeps me moving, and away from the kitchen, too. Also, if I get in the habit of doing yoga/Pilates stretches before bed, I do believe I'll sleep with less pain. Not all the time, but sometimes being in bed makes me stiff and the osteo and FM act up and sometimes, even the scoliosis spine get to aching. But these are all things, which DO improve, with weight loss.

Harriet, It's good that study's not chiseled in stone yet. It's always good to read different viewpoints of different studies anyway because it makes people think and often times they become more proactive. So it can be a good thing, too.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

The problem with studies is that they can be affected by uncontrolled inputs.

In my case: I gave up aspartame (on doctor's orders at the height of the hepatitis.) Six months later, I had gained and the liver doctor told me to go back on it but I decided not to. A year after stopping I was up 10 lbs. A year after that, I was up another 10. Now I'm definitely obese. So am getting concerned about my health.

But during that time I gained 2 years, had major physical issues (including 2 weeks in the hospital on a clear diet and still didn't lose weight) and gave up my gall bladder and had two bouts of pancreatitis.

So, is the weight gain due to switching from diet to HFCS soda. Or aging. Or limited physical movement and loss of muscle mass? Or stress eating? Or pain eating?

Too many variables to come up with any proof that diet drinks are good or bad for me. So I'll stay off them and, for this month, stay off HFCS and see how things go. The habit of drinking soda is starting to fade so I don't miss it as much. But I'm drinking a lot less liquids these days in total, so I'm not sure if that is good or bad (I'm having a hard time getting 8 glasses of non-caffeinated drinks in a day.)

The weight is also coming off but, I note, really I've only lost one pound since I started journaling at the beginning of August. I had gained 3 during August so journaling, in my case, certainly didn't help with weight control, let alone, weight loss.