Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

My dad and step mom have been visiting the past week. I went with them as they visited a number of family and friends. One thing I observed is I do not ever want to end up like so many in my family. This is why my healthy whole food plant based lifestyle is a priority.

First of all, my dad has giant cell arteritis. He is on steroids and a monthly injection. He gets tired easily and has to deal with chronic aches and pains.This is an inflammatory condition. My gut instinct is that he could feel a lot better if he were to adapt a plant based lifestyle, but he has no intention of changing.

I never take my health for granted. Just seven short years ago I was morbidly obese, pre-hypertensive and most likely pre-diabetic.

So when I hear lines like this is the best cholesterol readings my doctor has seen or that I'll most likely never develop diabetes (unless I were to suddenly revert to my old habits), I feel so happy.

It has been a while since my last update.  Back on October 20th of 2015 I wrote about my desire to get back on the wagon to lose 91lbs. I mentioned how I haven't been feeling all too well and I was also at my heaviest weight of 274lbs. Knowing I had something wrong going on, I still decided to ignore it for a month or so without taking my own advice about seeing a doctor to check out what was ailing me.  Eventually, I saw a doctor and was able to get myself back on blood pressure medicine along with a statin to manage my cholesterol. Once back on the medication, after not having been on it for well over 2 years, I figured I was ok to continue my eating habits for a short time, sort of as a "last hurrah" before I kicked in my weight loss regime with the start of the new year.  With a follow up visit to the doctors to run some blood work to determine whether or not the medication was causing any havoc in my system, that is when the bomb dropped.  The abuse of my body had taken its toll.   It was discovered I had a high fasting blood glucose reading. (138) My A1C had me dipped into the insulin level of a diabetic. (9.6) Aside from all of this I also had an ear infection that was going on for some months and would not fully go away. 

I wasn't surprised and I almost suspected that something like this was happening based on how I did not feel well even after restarting the blood pressure and cholesterol meds. It was enough to give me a kick in the pants when it comes to making some key changes in my life.  Millions of people live with diabetes and many die due to complications of the disease.  This fact alone is enough to narrow my focus where I am to engage in battle against the disease as well as lose weight. In times past there was some wiggle room for excuses such as the "I can start up my diet tomorrow" which would roll from day to day, had turned into a "holy crap, you have no choice having two young children, you need to get your butt in gear and try to rid yourself of this disease so you can watch them grow up!".  Realistically, I realize I may not be able to get rid of diabetes if it is discovered that my pancreas is no longer creating sufficient insulin. Still, I need to give it a shot and see if I can conquer the disease that so many seem to fail and fall victim. Fortunately, it appears to be Type 2 where the cells in my body may be resisting the insulin my body may be creating.

I was at McDonald's today, not to order food but to get unsweetened iced tea, an excellent value and tastes good in my opinion. I have my own stevia packets in the car as opposed to sweetening it with Equal or Splenda. Anyway, whenever I'm there, it drives me crazy some of the choices people make when ordering there. I don't say anything to them, but it does give me good incentive to blog about how to make healthier choices. Here's an example.

A woman in front of me was ordering a cheddar something or other burger and asked if tomatoes are extra. The worker told her it would be 30 cents more so she didn't bother getting the tomato with it. She decided to save her money and go for... KETCHUP instead! Now how many of you would think that ketchup is the same as having a slice of tomato? I hope most of you will realize that ketchup is mostly high fructose corn syrup and like 30 other ingredients, very little tomato. It is not a healthy alternative.

When I graduated college, I've had jobs that required sitting all day at the computer. I would sit hours and hours getting my work done without any movement at all. At lunch, I would hardly exercise at all. It's no wonder that I eventually got very obese.

There is nothing wrong with working an office job if you remember to get up and move every once in a while. If you just sit still for too long, not only are you getting little or no exercise, but you put yourself at risk for getting cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.