Warm weather walking...a feat for the feet lol

Summer is finally here...for today at least lol...so i decided to go walking early this morning...after putting Zacy on the bus and cleaning the house and making the beds lol.

So I ended up leaving at around 10:00 ish...it was still a little breezy but i didn't need a wind breaker but absolutely needed a hat. I brought my water bottle with me and that turned out to be more of a bother than anything else. The main issue was where to put the bottle!? holding it gets long on the tooth and you feel total off balance because there's the issue of the weight on one side only. So every now and then I would switch the bottle from hand to hand. Should of brought two bottles lol...at least i would of been balanced.

Finally I got fed up with the whole thing and just tucked it in the back of my pants. Now I know why they sell the bottle belts! The weather and the walk was absolutely glorious. I walked 5km this morning watching mallard ducks nesting and some muskrat love lol.

My second issue that I'm presently dealing with is burning feet. I believe it's because my sneakers are too loose. I wear two pairs of socks and tighten my shoes before I leave but they are still burning.
Since losing weight my feet have become smaller or actually going back to normal size which was 8 - 8 1/2. For the past 15 yrs they've been a size 9 ....after the birth of Eric my feet started swelling.

So it's time for new walking shoes. I'm going to a specialized store that Anne told me about behind Fairview. I can't fool around with this.

I started Zumba!! I love it!! I just can't get over how klutzy I am. I thought i was a pretty good dancer....after doing the 20 minute express Zumba work out I can safely say I suck big time! lol but it was fun and what a sweat!!

Dr. Oz says that we should do a high impact type of exercises for a total of 60 minutes per week...so I decided to do 3 x 20 minute Zumba workout per week. Along with this is my daily walks and weight lifting and yoga.

My sciatic is still acting up but stretching it out and ignoring it is helping. What I have now is a type of hard stem splinter that embedded in my shin on Saturday. I thought i got it all out and I even dug in it with a needle to try to get the rest out but now it's hurting a bit. GROSS. It had puss in it aswell and i squeezed it all out and put polysporin on it. If this continues to get worse I will have to go to the hospital and get them to dig it out...Im not looking forward for that!

Frank wants to go for a walk to night so another3.5 to 5km walk tonight....life is good! :)

the ups and the downs...

I guess it's natural...normal...to have up and downs....I haven't felt this physically fit in a long time yet I'm feeling a little blue...under the weather.....actually I think the weather has a lot to do with it. Particularly the lack of heat.

Just when I'm about to put away all my winter gear and rain gear because the weather is getting warmer the weather goes and changes over and over again lol....you'd think i'd get used to it by now. So I'm keeping the hoody and the wind breaker close.

I was out at the Bog again today but to my total dismay I ran into the Beaver hunter. I asked him what he was doing here and he said he was hired by the township to cull the beaver population. Apparently the farmers in the area are upset because their fields are flooding. I asked if it was field of corn for feed or fields of corn for fuel.

He was laying out his traps....he had caught 13 beavers in all in two days. Also one poor muskrat and an otter were casualties of the traps. He also told me that as of next year he will no longer be allowed to catch and kill because the Bog will be a provincial park. I was puzzled. I thought it was now considered protected land.

I was all excited to show Vee the beaver damn.....so so sad.

I'm not going to let this go though...I will find out if it is protected land and if the township is illegally killing these poor beavers.

So now to try to get my groove back....lol....

I can't wait to start working in my garden....cleaning my pond and planting flowers....it's just that this in between time....this mucky gucky stinky time....so needed i know to help trees bud and plants grow. Thank goodness for the birds and the frogs...their songs make this time so bearable!

I can't wait to start my Zumba exercises - thanks Chris!. According to Dr. Oz I should be doing 60 minutes a week of high heart rate training. So 3 x 20 minutes a week is just the ticket I need. Along with my 30-60 minutes a day of walking...my yoga stretching and my daily weight lifting along with the Get lean video I am well on my way to being Xena lol!!

my ah ha moment...being finally there...

Being there...."there" a place in my mind of no return...no going back to the old way... That's one way I describe it. I remember hearing other girlfriends with weight issues talk about not being there yet. They were not at the place where they could successfully lose weight. Well...I now know what being "there"feels like. Im there and I want to stay there. I set realistic goals for myself. Ofcourse I'm hoping/thinking about later on...tummy tucks etc lol but I also understand that I need to stay there for that to happen...and I intend to.

Since January 6th I have been giving myself small attainable goals...clocking my weight loss at every 5lbs...walking down the street and back (1.6km) then walking to Vee's and back (2km) then to the miniature horses and back lol (3.5km) and finally to the end of the road and back (5km).

Then Veronica and her dogs showed me the bog and ever since It has been part of my daily walk. I love the bog...the sounds and the aliveness of it all. In the Winter I was seeing deer and rabbits. In early Spring it was ducks and geese and some muskrats...but yesterday..... the sound was right out of a Walt Disney movie! At first Frank and I thought it was a tractor...then he said it's impossible..it's a swamp. We stopped and listened for a while and finally figured out the sound..it was bullfrogs and frogs and birds and beavers...everybody was busy at work building, remodeling, renovating...the works! lol.

In the bog there's a farmer's road that leads out onto the County road. That has been a goal I have been training for...to hopefully go up the dirt road to the County Rd back to our Road.....I had May/June in mind but yesterday Frank and I decided on a whim to just do it! and we did!!! I was so proud of myself. 12km!! in one shot! Lately I've been doing 10km a day but spliting it up in two walks of 5km each.

I do know that Im going to have to invest into new sneakers. The ones I have now are fabulous but are getting tired.

So now my new goal is instead of following the county road back to our concession, I will cut through the back onto concession 5 and go down the side road onto ours. This should easily add another 2km to the 12km. WOW...Im amazing myself. I wasn't even out of breath! This is awesome. All this walking has added up.

I have been reading Dr. Oz's YOU on a Diet. It's an awakening. It has helped me make better choices...actually it has helped me make the right choices. He explains the inner workings of our body so incredibly that, being a visual person, I can see everything unfolding in front of my eyes lol....guts and all.....or I should rephrase that to fat and all.

I'm still waiting to meet with the dietician....so in the meantime I'm winging it with Dr. Oz's help lol.

Stress and blood sugar level

http://www.diabetes.org/type-1-diabetes/stress.jsp

Above is a link to the American Diabetes Association...lots of great information about STRESS and the diabetic person.

Your body behaves as if you're under attack when you are under stress.

"When stress occurs, the body prepares to take action. This preparation is called the fight-or-flight response. In the fight-or-flight response, levels of many hormones shoot up. Their net effect is to make a lot of stored energy - glucose and fat - available to cells. These cells are then primed to help the body get away from danger".

In people who have diabetes, the fight-or-flight response does not work well. Insulin is not always able to let the extra energy into the cells, so glucose piles up in the blood.

In people with type 2 diabetes, mental stress often raises blood glucose levels.

I had a burn out back in 1990 and it took a while for me to get back to my new normal as you really never get back to what you were before. It's been a work in progress and you just have to be able to recognize your "stressors".

For the past five years or so I know what my stresses and stressors are. The cancer diagnosis, the diabetes diagnosis, the home office and a very close relative.

So as good as I have been doing lately I was sent into a tailspin over the weekend and it has done a number to my glucose level. Even though it's still a great number...it still shows what stress can do. My regular glucose level is 5.8 and after my stress attack my level was at 6.5 for two days. Today it returned to normal but I'm still dealing with some tingling and numbness.

It's almost impossible to live "stress-free" you'd have to literally live in a bubble...but that doesn't mean you can't try to lessen the blow. With my yoga and daily walks - it didn't hit me as hard as it usually does but I still feel off.....nothing that a great massage or reiki session or both won't cure. This is my next step. Then it's meditation again. It does help and being an artist visualisation comes so easily to me.

For me it's all part of letting go of the past. Letting kids grow up and make their own mistakes...it's difficult....I don't want them to get hurt some things just have to be learnt by themselves.

I am so blessed to have a fabulous husband and two wonderful boys. My close circle of friends are so essential to my well being and they support me in my effort to get healthy! and of course my siblings and parents. My father calls me almost daily to ask me about my walk...how far I did etc....It's all so motivating....

So instead of dwelling on what I can't change, I have decided to put all my energy to something I can change...me.... I love me!

blood sugar and lifestyle change

When I was first diagnosed with diabetes type 2 my fasting blood sugar was 19. An excellent blood sugar level is anywhere between 6-8. I was three times the norm. In two weeks I was able to bring it down to 8.3, with one Metformin twice and day and through diet change and exercise. The main lifestyle changes that I have made is cutting out all the "whites"....white flour, white sugar, white pasta. The other HUGE change is that I'm exercising. My daily walks are not only really good for my physical body...they are incredible for my spiritual and emotional self. Now my waking blood sugar is 5.8 which is excellent! AT one point I had to take myself off the Metformin due to the fact that since I was also dieting and exercising my blood sugar was too low and low blood sugar is not fun either. When I met with my doctor and I told him about taking myself off the diabetic drug he really suggested that I instead cut the amount to 1/2 a pill twice a day because studies have shown that it works wonders with pre-diabetic people - it helps move the sugar around, it's great for the eyes and facilitates weight loss. BONUS! lol

My family and friends have been so incredibly supportive. My brother was telling me that when he was told he had high cholesterol he immediately cut out all fats out of his diet and he told me that he feels so much better. He was right. I cut butter out of my diet. I use olive oil instead. I season it with garlic and herbs. Delicious for dipping my whole grain French bread (yes- they now make them!).

I love my morning coffee....and I use to take it double double. I tried it with sugar twin and I just couldn't get pass the metal taste. So like my brother told me - drink it black...you can really taste and appreciate the coffee grinds...and he was right! It's all mind over matter. I no longer crave sugar or white bread. I think that eating or grazing as my friend Helen says every three hours helps so much. When I say every three hours I don't mean a full course meal lol but either an apple or other fruit, a handful of walnuts, a good helping of vegetables or yogurt.

I've introduced arm exercises and my yoga teacher Hannah has lent me her tape which she uses. I was so happy. It's a weekly routine, 2 days on one day off and it uses small weights and a chair...all in 30 minutes daily. I have a fabulous amount of wonderful friends and family which make it for a positive support system - which has helped me plough through this disease. It's so doable!

The Yoga Glow

When I was first diagnosed with diabetes type 2, I decided to immediately enrol in yoga with Hannah. Hannah is a fabulous instructor that has been practising Yoga for over 50 years. She is so nurturing and the energy around her is glowing with positivity and content. That's my take on Hannah...and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this. The class is so peaceful and full of positive energy. Everyone wants to be there, and boy do we ever sleep well at night!

I ended up being late for the first class...and I almost went back to my car when I saw them all sitting about to begin but I decided to go in anyway...best decision I could of made. It's an intermediate class......so I was in for a lot more bending and twisting but because it's integral Yoga it's gentler. Hannah is a fabulous instructor and she has helped me catch up with the rest of the class and encourages me to try everything. I enjoy being in her presence......she exudes peacefulness....

I've lost approximately 40 pounds since January 6th of this year....it sure shows in Yoga. Many positions that my stomach stopped me from doing are now easy to do. My balance is so much better.

I highly recommend yoga to anyone wanting to gain flexibility and movement....so essential in our everyday lives.

I can do shoulder stands...I need to be by a wall though to push myself off but eventually I hope I will be able to do them without the use of a wall. I used to do all of this as a teenager...but I never knew that we should always do the opposite movement after...so after a shoulder stand you do the fish. I wonder if this somehow had a hand in my weight issue. The shoulder stand massages the thyroid.

We started our new session last night. I know that Hannah takes the summer off.....I'm panicking at the thought of not doing yoga with Hannah this summer but...there is another instructor in town that I might check out or I'm really thinking of taking belly dancing! woohoo.....hopefully my belly will be a lot more presentable by then! Then once summer is over it's back to Hannah!

One of my dreams would be to go to a Yoga Retreat in Costa Rica and practice and meditate on the beach......

Walking in snow and poop lol

Today, Veronica and I along with Hailey and ChiChi went for an 8km walk....to the Bog of course....our favourite haunt. It was freezing today! Lots of big fluffy snow flakes and a very cold western wind. As we were heading out the farmer with his manure trailer passed us so we followed him with his flying cow poop. Dodging juicy cow poop...new country sport lol!

The Bog was alive with geese and ducks. The dogs fell in the water and I nearly twisted my ankle in a small depression made by the thaw. You can see where moose have stepped right through the grass and earth. There's holes everywhere so after that we kept our eyes peeled! Veronica usually rides her horse Domino through the Bog but she says that it's too early in the season as the ground is still shifting due to the thaw. Very cool things you learn along the way.

Im feeling great..except for the sciatic nerve on my left leg... ii's giving me some issues. I stretch it out after each walk and tonight is my yoga class so lots more stretching to be had! fun fun :)
I will be asking my teacher Hanna if there are other exercises I should be doing for the nerve pain. I feel it all the way in my ankle.

One day I will be meeting the dietician from the hospital which I was referred to. The waiting period is 6 months...honestly..lol Im at month 4 .... so by the time I see her I'll be able to teach her a thing or two about living with diabetes. I'm on my second apple and second yogurt of the day. I've had my peanut butter whole grain wraps and for breakfast it was oatmeal with black coffee. Through out the day I have about 10 - 12 glasses of water. My next snack will be nuts and low sodium low sugar V8 and then supper will most likely be cereals as I don't want to eat heavy for yoga. Nothing like burping up supper in class haha!

The addition to of the Bran Buds has done wonders to bring me back to being regular..all protein does not make my bowels happy.....I needed to give them a push! and boy does it work. I add it to my Muesli and to my yogurt. Ground flax seed is added to my oatmeal or yogurt in the morning.

I usually eat a regular supper....as regular as I can have it. What ever they're having if it's within what I "can" eat. I sometimes have to customize it and frankly, it turns out to be better!

The Starchoice guy is here! yeah! TV....but I will miss the quietness.....

I get that when I walk :)

Wet walks and sugar...

Well today I was waiting for the sun....even a glimpse of the sun to come out...making for a nice walk...like last week. Well that was not going to happen and I just sucked it up dressed in many layers and out I went. It was COLD. Not the winter blast cold but the chill to the bone humid cold. I think that's the worse kind of cold. Only the worms, a couple of geese and I were out on this damp fall like day...but I still managed to do my 5km WOOHOO! lol

I heard a car slowing down behind me...it was my neighbour. He pulled up beside me and said "You are really serious about this aren't you?!" lol...yes I am I replied....and I thought about that during my walk. I really am serious. I can remember the days that I would dream up of any excuses not to walk. Not the issue now.

So turns out that yesterday's sugaring off was easy peasy. It really helped that the food looked and smelled like crap HAHA!! yeah!! Thank God it wasn't Chez Cora's!

The Bonus was that our family was all together - minus my sister who was ill and my daughter who was unable to attend. The cousins were all there and between the horse carriage ride and the toffee on a stick they had a ball! Was worth the highway robbery price they charged.

So now on to sugar. I was a sugaholic lol...and chocoholic. My friend Darlene found a whole bunch of Russell brand sugarless chocolate...the peppermint paddies being the BEST!
Joel..my Yoda said to be careful with them as they are still sugar alcohol and it plays a trick with your system. So I prefer to get my sweet from yogurt and fruits...particularly apples and bananas - but let me tell you those chocolates come in handy from to time. I love red grapefruit but with the issues of interaction with medications I try to take one in the middle of the day not in the morning. It's all in the mixing.

My friend Jan used to tell me all the time that sugar craves sugar and once I would reduce or stop sugar all together my body wouldn't crave it. She was right. It was like magic. I had been suffering from extreme over the top yeast infection...the worse I have ever gotten. Someone told me to visualize how cotton candy when introduced to heat becomes a huge web wrapping around a cone....and that's how I could visualize the yeast infection and the heat being the sugar. Once I stopped the white sugar totally it only took about 5 days and the yeast infection cleared. OVER...FINISHED... Incredible.

Im so happy I decided that I was worth all the effort. My friend Anne has been telling me for years that it's just not about diet and/or exercise but it's about changing my lifestyle. She would explain it to me so well as she explains everything...once a teacher always a teacher lol...and when I was finally "There" I finally was able to understand her. I had gone over last weekend and she asked me what I was eating and suggested other food I could introduce into my eating plan keeping the diabetes in consideration. Anne explained the nutritional value of each food. God I love her!!!

Tomorrow....the Star Choice installer is coming over -between 9-5pm....you'd think he worked for Bell ..lol....so my walk will be early...right after Zacy gets on the bus. We haven't had television now for over a week. I can only handle so many already viewed dvds before I snap!
Actually it has been really nice here with only the radio going on easy listening.

According to the weather network tomorrow and Wednesday they are announcing snow flurries and from Thursday to next Monday it's sunny and Monday being 12C.....yeah right...lol
Last week they were predicting that today was sunny......so the only thing that i can say for sure is that you can never depend on the weather...LOL

My Daily walks...and sugaring off today...lol

I have been walking for 4 months now. It's been a daily routine since January.
I have been hearing about walking for 3 years now. My friend Jan is a walker. She walks to her mom's...she walks to town, she walks around town.....to and fro...she walks and walks and walks....

She has been trying to motivate me to walk......it finally kicked it....3 years later....I could kick myself in the butt ( not the legs or foot....I need those to walk lol)

So now I walk and I finally understand how much she loves it and why she loves it. I live in the country and I have the pleasure to meet many farm animals on my way...I greet them all....cows and donkey, miniature ponies and horses....and of course the farm dogs.... There are days that a walking stick is needed....just in case lol...

Yesterday, in the pouring rain I went for a walk. My water resistant coat is not water resistant...lol...I found out the hard way. The wind was whipping the raindrops on me like bullets. All of a sudden while walking by the huge field a literal cloud of white and Canada geese lifted off into flight. The sound was deafening....and I never felt so alive!! It was beautiful to see them!


Today we are meeting my family at Sucrerie Lavigne....a sugar shack!....I called them last week to ask them if they had any diabetic friendly meals.....I know....it's an oxymoron but I still wanted to know if there way ANYTHING I could eat...turns out that they do not cook they eggs or meat in maple syrup. I asked her if they had any fruits...she was stunned....NO she said. Ok....Can I bring my own fruits? She asked me if one day of eating sweets was going to kill me.....after the initial feeling of wanting to say...F off.....I said it may not kill me but it will make me feel horrible and this feeling could last days....so yes....it will kill my week...

I feel like this is a test of my will....and I can say with all confidence that I will pass this test with flying colors! I no longer crave sugar...shock of all shock... I crave apples and peanut butter whole grain wraps...

next hurdle....Easter! lol....

My new life with Diabetes type 2

Well it's been an interesting 4 months....I was diagnosed with Diabetes type 2 on January 6, 2009.....the day time stood still lol.....I can laugh about it now but I wasn't then....I was in shock...but during that moment of shock and awe, I finally found that I was finally there....finally at the point where I needed to be to dedicate myself to take positive actions to change my life style from sedentary to active....

My friends will tell you how I cocooned myself in the week after diagnosis. I needed to regroup and understand what I had and get over beating myself up for doing this to myself....what a grieving process I had...that this was self inflicted....my father was diagnosed in his 70's and loser me at 47!! that was a huge wake up call....combined with the fact that my regular doctor was not the one to "break the news" to me but a young intern who did not know me from Adam and there was no relationship and I was a patient who needed to know that my blood sugar was much too high and if I wanted to continue to live I needed to change NOW....that's where time stood still and I had to wrap all this information around my brain and it was too late for denial.

So after my diva moments where I cried and mentally beat myself up I decided to research this disease. While I was researching I continued to peruse my usual haunts on the web where I ran across a thread with information on diabetes while traveling to the Caribbean....(I still have to enjoy life lol) So I decided to pm the poster...Oncearound and that turned out to be the best decision I ever did......He gave me the most useful, positive, enriching information and he made it user friendly....my hero....my Yoda lol.

So here goes...a quick synopsis of what I accomplished in 4 months and where I stand presently...

January 6th 2009 I was told that my fasting blood sugar was 19...

I spent about 4-5 days sulking about all of this...lol....then decided to take action....

Met my Yoda and learned the most valuable information I could ever get from any Doctor.

I started to walk....1.6km the first walk...I thought i was going to die. I had weight to lose and a heart to get healthy. I had let myself go and had major poundage to lose lol

On my second walk I ran into my neighbor Priscilla, who I've been admiring for the past 4 years walking past my house twice a day...everyday...and I wanted to know where she got her passion from....so I finally asked her...and she told me after her stroke is when she started to walk....I was amazed...I also told her that she was my inspiration.

Then something strange happened...almost X Files strange lol....I got hooked to walking!! YEAH...Queen of the Couch Potatoes got hooked to walking....so I started walking every day....1.6km turned to 3.5 km then when my neighbor Veronica asked if she could walk with me well 3.5 turned to 5km then to 7 and even 9km!! Couple of days I was positive I was going to die right there and then...lol but i made it back home. Veronica was so gracious...she's mega top shape woman - tall and slim built and she would slow her pace down to mine and never said a word....our walks sometimes took 2 hrs...lol but there was a stretch where she had to work a whole two weeks and when she finally was able to walk with me she couldn't get over how much faster I walked....

Now on to the bonus of walking! ...not only do i feel great and alive and positive .....not only is walking my new drug lol....the bonus part is I've lost 40lbs!! something I thought i would never be able to do.

With my new eating habits...no white sugar, no white flour, no white pasta, no butter and lots of whole grain and nuts and good proteins and fruits and vegetables I feel like a million bucks! Portion control and keeping hydrated with at least 12 glasses of water is key.

My family is benefiting from all this new found energy I've acquired...my hubby Frank is walking with me on weekends and on his days off....I'm able and willing to go on bike rides with my boys...I'm feeling alive and very well and having a fabulously supportive family is key.