So, the last time I did Medifast I remember being hungry and cranky and not liking the food. This time is different, probably because I've already changed my diet significantly over the past year. Whatever the case, I'm on day 3 of the 5&1 plan (you eat 5 of the Medifast meals throughout the day - every 2 or 3 hours) and 1 "lean & green" meal.
This time I like the food - the eggs are better, more egg-y. I like the hot chocolate and really like the veggie sloppy joes. I am going to have to come up with some recipes for the lean & green meal because, even tho our meals are very healthy, they are not giving me enough protein. So, working on that.
We're walking a mile a day now, most days of the week. Not up heart attack hill yet, I'm still so tired all the time. But that's more likely to do with whatever's going on in my guts. Speaking of, saw the GI doc this week. He has 3 ideas that he thinks it could be. 1 is post-infectious irritable bowel. Neato. Basically that would mean that I've just not ever gotten over being sick a month ago. 2 is a disease that is close to NASH (the non-alcoholic fatty liver) and basically is fatty liver that hasn't "irritated" the liver yet (so not as bad). And 3 is something to do with my body's ability to deal with iron. Being a vegetarian I was confused at first as to why I'd be having difficulty with iron and where I was getting iron from....then I remembered "leafy green vegetables"....aka pretty much everything I've eaten in the last month.
So, more tests to come this next week. I went to a lab that had someone who I consider to be the ROCK STAR of blood draws - not only did she find a vein that I couldn't even see in my arm, but she got 4 vials of blood in 45 seconds. FOUR!!! Last time it was barely 1 vial from my hand in 2 minutes. WAY better. (could've been the Xanax but I'm giving the credit to her)
So today I had blueberry oatmeal (YUM), eggs with spices and sri ra cha (YUM), Spiced pancakes (will be yum when I figure out how not to make sad little wrinkled up thin disc looking things, and am going to friends' for dinner where I'm going to test out my lean & green skills. I still get 2 more of the MF meals so I'm taking one of the caramel bars with me and when we get home I get to have pudding. Yup. I can like this plan. I still don't like the soy cheese that I bought, but today I ate 2 slices of it with a Wasa cracker for a snack and maybe it's because I know I can't have anything else or I was just lightheaded and hungry (not really) but it wasn't awful. Baby steps...
One day. One step. One pound at a time. (weighing in tomorrow so will have #s on that later)
~N
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Unexpected left turn
So, hi. I'm back again. Last post was in January where I was pathetically laying on my bed to exercise.
Now I'm walking every day for at least 15 min, usually 20. And I started Medifast again, first order comes this week or next. I have a great friend who is my health coach who knows me and who will help me do this. And I'm doing juicing at night to help my body heal. And I've lost 18 pounds in the last month.
This brings me to really what prompted all of this. A little over a month ago now I got the flu. I'd had some days off of work and went on a trip to see family. Late nights. Drinks. Not necessarily good for me food. Fun! Then I got back and was only at work for a day when I felt lousy. Lousy lousy. Headache, feverish, with all the fun of cold and flu. Sniffling, sneezing, stuffy, crampy, yeah, the whole 9 yards. I was out for a week at work and when I came back I was still only able really to eat soup and drink stuff like Gatorade and Ginger Ale. I figured, hey why not capitalize on this and just re-set my eating habits. We've been still eating pretty healthy at home, but I was back in my old habits at work and on the weekends - i.e. fast food and not moving. So that first week I lost 3 pounds and I figured it would come back with my appetite.
Except my appetite didn't come back. And I started feeling really tired and lethargic and generally just *meh*. That happened for another week with my stomach still feeling off and on like I was not done with the flu. The third week I started to exercise in the living room. Lifting weights in as many different ways as I could, 20 times each, and trying to do some sit ups to start getting my "core" back from under all that flab. By the end of that week I developed a stitch in my side. My right side. And by Saturday I was wondering if in fact my appendix was telling me it wanted to come out. Still not really hungry, no fever, but this pain in my gut. Especially if I ate anything and like a knife when I breathed in.
So I put it to the people I love and trust - my FB friends list. I got all kinds of votes - rib out from exercising (wouldn't THAT be cool I worked out SO HARD my rib popped out!), not appendicitis since the pain didn't show up when I moved my hand away, it got better actually. And then someone said "gall bladder" and I said "hmm". I know that gall bladders can act up (called "cholecystitis" for you med-types) if you eat big meals with fat and yummy/bad-for-you stuff so I thought "well this would not fit me - the biggest meal I've had in 3 weeks was a subway sandwich!" But when I looked online I found that in fact one of the markers of an attack is the pain in your upper right abdomen when you breathe in.
At the insistence of my husband and because I hadn't gone in when I had the flu earlier I decided to go to the doc. Luckily my doctor's office has a late clinic on Mondays so I went after work a week ago. And the cute doc said "yep, looks like gallbladder to me. You need an ultrasound." OK, there are at least 2 kinds of ultrasounds. The kind where they put jelly on your belly and look at your insides - usually done to look at babies - and another kind where they insert something in somewhere else and look at your insides. I have had the not-so-neat one before and I was REALLY glad to know that this was a jelly-belly one. It was cool. I went and laid on this comfy table and she put jelly on my belly, it was warm even, and I got to see all kinds of stuff! I am fascinated by what's inside my body. I really am. Not enough to be a nurse or doctor, you'll understand that in another paragraph, but enough to ask "hey, what's that?" I got to see my kidneys, pancreas, gallbladder, liver. Very easy procedure. No babies. *whew!*
Then I had to go get some blood taken. In January I'd talked to my doctor about a blood test to see about my thyroid and to make sure I'm not pushing Diabetes and I'd put off the blood test. Fortunately, or not, for me the place I had the ultrasound also did labs. So, feeling all nice and comfy after looking at my innards I went to see Dan in the lab. Poor Dan. I did warn him. I told him "look my veins are crappy and hard to stick and I am a big baby when it comes to this stuff so I hope I don't pass out on you". That should have been his cue to RUN, not walk, from his room. They have to take my blood from my hands because my veins are really really little, who knows why, I say they're smart - they're HIDING! Anyway so he gets this tiny needle in my hand and I'm staring VERY intently at a plant and breathing and thinking "I got a damn tattoo I can DO THIS". Then he pulled the needle out.
I am not sure how to precisely describe what happens to my body when I have blood drawn. Dan did a perfectly fine job. I didn't even bruise. But immediately upon removing the needle I started to sweat. And when I say "sweat" I mean run-your-ass-off-on-a-treadmill sweat. And I was pretty sure I was going to puke. So I asked for some water. I had not eaten anything and I knew that they made sure people had OJ or something after giving blood and even tho he said "wow, your blood does NOT like to come out" he did get some of my precious blood. So Dan brought me water and I sat for the next 10 minutes (perhaps 5 hours but I'm pretty sure it was 10 min) doing deep breathing, holding my head in my hands and making low moaning sounds. Not only was it extremely embarrassing for me, but it panicked poor Dan. Well maybe "panicked" isn't the right word. I would hazard a guess that probably nothing could panic that man. But anyway, 10 min later and 2 "Reader's Digest" stories later (he read them to me, probably in hopes that I would focus on the words and not pass out - I can tell you one was about Mrs. Paul's fish sticks) I was able to walk out of the office and go to my car. Where I immediately drove to Subway and got an OJ and an eggwhite flat bread breakfast sandwich.
Wow this is taking longer than I thought. So that was last Thursday. On Friday I expected the doctor to call. Nope. So I called the office and was told that my results were in but "the doctor will have to call you". This is not something a patient wants to hear. Not "oh yeah it's fine". But "we have to have the doctor call you". So Monday comes, I've been fretting all weekend and trying to pretend I'm not. I actually tried to work in the yard for a bit. I weeded for almost an hour and then stood up and realized "oh hey I'm probably going to pass out or puke". So that was the end of that.
So on Monday I get a call from the clinic. And I hear words I really had not expected to hear. "Hepatocellular disease", followed by the fantastic "fatty liver". She said "I'm not sure why it says this but it's got both on there." And I have my pen and paper and I'm writing the words and thinking "ummmmmmmm, WHAT?" and she says "and you need to make an appointment with a GI doctor." So I work that out and then hang up and stare at the words on the paper.
And look at the picture on my wall of me and my boy, only married just over a year now. Knowing I'm going to have to tell him, and I start to cry. And then I think about telling my mom and my dad and my little brother and my friends. Oh man. I really start to cry and freak out. So I texted a friend who has been there for some of my most seriously screwed up times and we both kind of let that sink in. And then I start researching online. So it turns out you don't have to be an alcoholic (which I am not, despite what my AMAZINGLY judgmental family in one area of the country seems to think - based on my posts on FACEBOOK! gah) to get liver disease. In fact of the 2 likely candidates for what's going on with me neither has to do with alcohol. One is called Non Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) and the other is the fantastically named "Fatty Liver Disease" which another friend that I texted pointed out was a harsh and rude name.
My vote is, and my guess is the Fatty Liver disease. Turns out that when your liver, which filters out everything you put in your body - from foods, to drinks, to medicines - gets too full of fat to filter, it gets inflamed. The good thing is that this is treatable and reversible. With.......diet and exercise! The bad thing is that if you let it go too long you can in fact get cirrhosis which basically means your liver won't work. So I had a few days of crying and being sad. Hubby was REALLY upset, still is actually, he's in the kitchen juicing vegetables right now to help cleanse the liver. And my awesome friends and family are also concerned.
The thing is - I don't know what the specialist is going to tell me next week. I'm guessing I'm gonna have to "give" more blood (I got a Rx for Xanax so I don't just pass right out then and there) and the only way they can really tell between these 2 diseases is a liver biopsy (yes, it's just as fun as you'd think). So I have to wait to find out.
But in the meantime this house has gone thru some major, MAJOR changes. The alcohol is gone. I love to drink. I would say I probably had 3-5 drinks on a weekend once or twice a month but on holidays? Yeah we had a tradition in my house where we "killed" a bottle of tequila on Christmas. Just the 2 of us. That's not going to happen any more. My beloved cheese is gone. I went out and bought a couple of different types of soy cheese to try. One that I unfortunately got 2 packets of is NASTY. The other's not bad. Neither is cheese. But they will have to do. I bought almond milk for things like my oatmeal and coffee (I'm NOT giving up coffee, sorry) and have been very careful about picking things out that are low to zero fat. I'm down 18 pounds since last month, and while I know not all of this is because of eating healthy I know that drinking water, juicing, cutting out sugar and fats, are all good for me. And we've been walking every day. First day was slow, I'm so tired and lethargic. But It's almost a mile. And it's SOMETHING. I'm going to bed at least 2 hours before I usually do just because I'm so tired.
And I'm choosing to say that this is going to be a positive stepping stone - a point at which we will look back and say "yeah we chose to be healthy after that". No matter what the doc says next week. I said at the beginning of this blog that I didn't want to end up having a stroke or being really sick....well.....I'm on the cusp of that. And I REFUSE to give up. Now more than ever the one day at a time mantra means something important to me. So will keep on...
One day. One step. One pound at a time.
~N
Now I'm walking every day for at least 15 min, usually 20. And I started Medifast again, first order comes this week or next. I have a great friend who is my health coach who knows me and who will help me do this. And I'm doing juicing at night to help my body heal. And I've lost 18 pounds in the last month.
This brings me to really what prompted all of this. A little over a month ago now I got the flu. I'd had some days off of work and went on a trip to see family. Late nights. Drinks. Not necessarily good for me food. Fun! Then I got back and was only at work for a day when I felt lousy. Lousy lousy. Headache, feverish, with all the fun of cold and flu. Sniffling, sneezing, stuffy, crampy, yeah, the whole 9 yards. I was out for a week at work and when I came back I was still only able really to eat soup and drink stuff like Gatorade and Ginger Ale. I figured, hey why not capitalize on this and just re-set my eating habits. We've been still eating pretty healthy at home, but I was back in my old habits at work and on the weekends - i.e. fast food and not moving. So that first week I lost 3 pounds and I figured it would come back with my appetite.
Except my appetite didn't come back. And I started feeling really tired and lethargic and generally just *meh*. That happened for another week with my stomach still feeling off and on like I was not done with the flu. The third week I started to exercise in the living room. Lifting weights in as many different ways as I could, 20 times each, and trying to do some sit ups to start getting my "core" back from under all that flab. By the end of that week I developed a stitch in my side. My right side. And by Saturday I was wondering if in fact my appendix was telling me it wanted to come out. Still not really hungry, no fever, but this pain in my gut. Especially if I ate anything and like a knife when I breathed in.
So I put it to the people I love and trust - my FB friends list. I got all kinds of votes - rib out from exercising (wouldn't THAT be cool I worked out SO HARD my rib popped out!), not appendicitis since the pain didn't show up when I moved my hand away, it got better actually. And then someone said "gall bladder" and I said "hmm". I know that gall bladders can act up (called "cholecystitis" for you med-types) if you eat big meals with fat and yummy/bad-for-you stuff so I thought "well this would not fit me - the biggest meal I've had in 3 weeks was a subway sandwich!" But when I looked online I found that in fact one of the markers of an attack is the pain in your upper right abdomen when you breathe in.
At the insistence of my husband and because I hadn't gone in when I had the flu earlier I decided to go to the doc. Luckily my doctor's office has a late clinic on Mondays so I went after work a week ago. And the cute doc said "yep, looks like gallbladder to me. You need an ultrasound." OK, there are at least 2 kinds of ultrasounds. The kind where they put jelly on your belly and look at your insides - usually done to look at babies - and another kind where they insert something in somewhere else and look at your insides. I have had the not-so-neat one before and I was REALLY glad to know that this was a jelly-belly one. It was cool. I went and laid on this comfy table and she put jelly on my belly, it was warm even, and I got to see all kinds of stuff! I am fascinated by what's inside my body. I really am. Not enough to be a nurse or doctor, you'll understand that in another paragraph, but enough to ask "hey, what's that?" I got to see my kidneys, pancreas, gallbladder, liver. Very easy procedure. No babies. *whew!*
Then I had to go get some blood taken. In January I'd talked to my doctor about a blood test to see about my thyroid and to make sure I'm not pushing Diabetes and I'd put off the blood test. Fortunately, or not, for me the place I had the ultrasound also did labs. So, feeling all nice and comfy after looking at my innards I went to see Dan in the lab. Poor Dan. I did warn him. I told him "look my veins are crappy and hard to stick and I am a big baby when it comes to this stuff so I hope I don't pass out on you". That should have been his cue to RUN, not walk, from his room. They have to take my blood from my hands because my veins are really really little, who knows why, I say they're smart - they're HIDING! Anyway so he gets this tiny needle in my hand and I'm staring VERY intently at a plant and breathing and thinking "I got a damn tattoo I can DO THIS". Then he pulled the needle out.
I am not sure how to precisely describe what happens to my body when I have blood drawn. Dan did a perfectly fine job. I didn't even bruise. But immediately upon removing the needle I started to sweat. And when I say "sweat" I mean run-your-ass-off-on-a-treadmill sweat. And I was pretty sure I was going to puke. So I asked for some water. I had not eaten anything and I knew that they made sure people had OJ or something after giving blood and even tho he said "wow, your blood does NOT like to come out" he did get some of my precious blood. So Dan brought me water and I sat for the next 10 minutes (perhaps 5 hours but I'm pretty sure it was 10 min) doing deep breathing, holding my head in my hands and making low moaning sounds. Not only was it extremely embarrassing for me, but it panicked poor Dan. Well maybe "panicked" isn't the right word. I would hazard a guess that probably nothing could panic that man. But anyway, 10 min later and 2 "Reader's Digest" stories later (he read them to me, probably in hopes that I would focus on the words and not pass out - I can tell you one was about Mrs. Paul's fish sticks) I was able to walk out of the office and go to my car. Where I immediately drove to Subway and got an OJ and an eggwhite flat bread breakfast sandwich.
Wow this is taking longer than I thought. So that was last Thursday. On Friday I expected the doctor to call. Nope. So I called the office and was told that my results were in but "the doctor will have to call you". This is not something a patient wants to hear. Not "oh yeah it's fine". But "we have to have the doctor call you". So Monday comes, I've been fretting all weekend and trying to pretend I'm not. I actually tried to work in the yard for a bit. I weeded for almost an hour and then stood up and realized "oh hey I'm probably going to pass out or puke". So that was the end of that.
So on Monday I get a call from the clinic. And I hear words I really had not expected to hear. "Hepatocellular disease", followed by the fantastic "fatty liver". She said "I'm not sure why it says this but it's got both on there." And I have my pen and paper and I'm writing the words and thinking "ummmmmmmm, WHAT?" and she says "and you need to make an appointment with a GI doctor." So I work that out and then hang up and stare at the words on the paper.
And look at the picture on my wall of me and my boy, only married just over a year now. Knowing I'm going to have to tell him, and I start to cry. And then I think about telling my mom and my dad and my little brother and my friends. Oh man. I really start to cry and freak out. So I texted a friend who has been there for some of my most seriously screwed up times and we both kind of let that sink in. And then I start researching online. So it turns out you don't have to be an alcoholic (which I am not, despite what my AMAZINGLY judgmental family in one area of the country seems to think - based on my posts on FACEBOOK! gah) to get liver disease. In fact of the 2 likely candidates for what's going on with me neither has to do with alcohol. One is called Non Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) and the other is the fantastically named "Fatty Liver Disease" which another friend that I texted pointed out was a harsh and rude name.
My vote is, and my guess is the Fatty Liver disease. Turns out that when your liver, which filters out everything you put in your body - from foods, to drinks, to medicines - gets too full of fat to filter, it gets inflamed. The good thing is that this is treatable and reversible. With.......diet and exercise! The bad thing is that if you let it go too long you can in fact get cirrhosis which basically means your liver won't work. So I had a few days of crying and being sad. Hubby was REALLY upset, still is actually, he's in the kitchen juicing vegetables right now to help cleanse the liver. And my awesome friends and family are also concerned.
The thing is - I don't know what the specialist is going to tell me next week. I'm guessing I'm gonna have to "give" more blood (I got a Rx for Xanax so I don't just pass right out then and there) and the only way they can really tell between these 2 diseases is a liver biopsy (yes, it's just as fun as you'd think). So I have to wait to find out.
But in the meantime this house has gone thru some major, MAJOR changes. The alcohol is gone. I love to drink. I would say I probably had 3-5 drinks on a weekend once or twice a month but on holidays? Yeah we had a tradition in my house where we "killed" a bottle of tequila on Christmas. Just the 2 of us. That's not going to happen any more. My beloved cheese is gone. I went out and bought a couple of different types of soy cheese to try. One that I unfortunately got 2 packets of is NASTY. The other's not bad. Neither is cheese. But they will have to do. I bought almond milk for things like my oatmeal and coffee (I'm NOT giving up coffee, sorry) and have been very careful about picking things out that are low to zero fat. I'm down 18 pounds since last month, and while I know not all of this is because of eating healthy I know that drinking water, juicing, cutting out sugar and fats, are all good for me. And we've been walking every day. First day was slow, I'm so tired and lethargic. But It's almost a mile. And it's SOMETHING. I'm going to bed at least 2 hours before I usually do just because I'm so tired.
And I'm choosing to say that this is going to be a positive stepping stone - a point at which we will look back and say "yeah we chose to be healthy after that". No matter what the doc says next week. I said at the beginning of this blog that I didn't want to end up having a stroke or being really sick....well.....I'm on the cusp of that. And I REFUSE to give up. Now more than ever the one day at a time mantra means something important to me. So will keep on...
One day. One step. One pound at a time.
~N
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