Remembering John

Last night, we drove to Wisconsin to celebrate.  We were celebrating the short, but beautiful life of my brother-in-law, John, who passed away on April 6, 2011 at the age of 45 as a result of complications of Type 1 Diabetes.  Yesterday, my sister hosted a memorial walk/run to raise money for Type 1 Diabetes research.  It was a hot, but beautiful event.

Two of my kids are not present because they ran, instead of walking, and placed in their age category!

Here are the details of the race:

The family and friends of John Brunstad invite you to join them for the John Brunstad Memorial run  on Saturday, July 14th at 6:00 p.m.  along the beautiful Red Cedar State Trail in Menomonie, WI.   John was an avid runner whose runs often included part of the Red Cedar Trail.  He took up running in his twenties because he knew it would benefit him in many ways.  One of the most important was to better manage his Type 1 Diabetes.   John was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) in 1980 at the age of 14.  He chose to control the disease and not let the it control him.  He took good care of himself managing his T1D very well for over 30 years.  This care included testing his blood glucose multiple times a day, using an insulin pump, eating well and exercising regularly.  However, it was this disease that caused his life here with us to be too short.  John passed away in his sleep on April 6, 2011 due to severe hypoglycemia.  Hypoglycemia is the sudden drop of glucose in a person’s blood because too much insulin is present in the body.  When glucose is too low for too long the brain cannot function.

John was a wonderful, loving husband to Beth and father to Rachel, Becca, Nick, Abbie and Phil, son to Loyd & Fern and brother to Barb, Debi, Sandi, Tammy, Jim & Laura.   He had a great sense of humor, loved running, gardening and spending time with family and friends.  He is dearly loved and deeply missed by many.  It is our hope this will be an annual event that will benefit worthy causes.  Proceeds from this year’s event will be donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), Stepping Stones of Dunn County and Friends of the Red Cedar Trail.   The John Brunstad Memorial Run fund has been established at the Community Foundation of Dunn County and is owned and managed by the Comunity Foundation of Dunn County.  All gifts to the fund will be distributed from the John Brunstad Memorial Run Fund in accordance with policies of the Community Foundation of Dunn County.

The Races

Starting at the head of the Red Cedar State Trail, you’ll enjoy  the flat, fast  crushed rock coarse.  The  rail parallels the Red Cedar River.  Participants enjoy some of the beautiful features of the trail including limestone rock formations, wildlife (possibly a bald eagle)  and lush woodlands. 

10K—This out and back race will take participants south to Irvington where they will go past the 3 mile marker, turn around and return. Enjoy the lush woods and interesting geological features.

2 Mile Walk/Run—This out and back walk/run will take you to the 1 Mile marker on the beautiful Red Cedar State trail.  Enjoy the views of  Gilbert Creek and the Red Cedar River as you enjoy this section of the trail.

Perhaps next year I will have the where-with-all to post this before the event in case you would like to attend.  It was a beautiful event.

My Thyroid is NOT my friend!

Six months after my second child was born, I got sick.  I wasn't sick in the classic sense.  Instead, I felt like I was disappearing.  That may sound strange.  I thought I was suffering from post-partum depression and a little sadness about giving up a very lucrative and rewarding career.  I was raised to be a working woman.  I know now that I did the very best thing for my children and love being their teacher.  But, I was actually sick, not depressed. 

Slowly, I needed more sleep, up to 14 hours a day, endured horrible headaches, lost hair, had dry skin, was constipated (sorry if TMI) and felt depressed.  I also had tingling hands.  If that wasn't enough, I started to feel like I was choking.  I wasn't choking, but I felt like I was.  It became very distressing and my husband insisted I go to the ER.  Something was choking me.  It was a goiter.  My thyroid had grown so large, my neck was swollen (didn't notice myself because I was 70 pounds overweight at the time), but it was also putting pressure on my windpipe, hence the choking sensation.  They tested my thyroid levels. Low and behold my TSH was incredibly high (double digits - 89) when normal is between 0.5 and 3.  I was prescribed a low dose of Synthroid and was given instructions to get to my doctor on the next business day.

The nurse-practitioner I saw was petrified and referred me to a surgeon to have my thyroid removed.  The surgeon read the report and sent me to an endocrinologist.  After a month wait to get in, I finally saw one of the best endocrinologist in town.  He did a blood workup and one of the most thorough exams I had ever had.  He called me a week later to explain my problem.  It was Hypothyroidism secondary to Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.  He increased my Synthroid dose, told me to schedule another appointment in 6 weeks and hung up.  I didn't get anymore information from him.  Thankfully, I felt much better pretty quickly.

However, my system goes through spurts when I feel yucky and figure it is my thyroid.  More often than not, I am right.  One of the sad, sad side effects, which the doctors didn't explain was how the thyroid works in the body.  The thyroid is responsible for metabolism.  Every cell in the body relies on thyroid hormones for regulation of their metabolism.  So, when you are not producing enough of those important hormones, your metabolism suffers.  Fun stuff when you are trying to lose weight!  Or maybe not?

I have been having one of those yucky spurts lately.  I usually start to feel like I am disappearing again.   I haven't had my thyroid levels checked in 9 months, so it was time.  Well, my weight loss of late can be explained by the fact that my levels WERE off, except in the other way.  I was over-corrected and my TSH was at 0.12.  So, my "easy" loss of five pounds was more likely a side-effect of  hyperthyroidism.  My meds are corrected.  Disappointing from a weight loss perspective, because I know it will be harder but at least I am feeling better.  Those five pounds lost just seemed too easy.  Now I know.

I will not allow anything to dominate me

I was struck with how God sends me messages. 

I was a glutton yesterday.  My dearest friend, with whom I co-school, sent cookies to our daughter's book club, which I host at my home.  She made some date sandwich cookies which contained no eggs.  As many of my readers know, I am allergic to eggs, so most baked goods are off limits to me.  So, a whole platter FULL of delicious cookies that I COULD eat broke me.  I splurged.  I don't know how many I ate, but it was probably more than 10.  I didn't eat them all at once.  One or two here and three before bed with a glass of milk.  Ugh!

Then, I opened up by Divine Intimacy book by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. to #305:

Lord grant me self-control and gentleness, fruits of the Spirit. - Gal. 5:22

BAM.  Right in the forehead.  So, I figured I better keep reading:

"All things are lawful for me'; but not all things are helpful!  All things are lawful for me'; but I will not be enslaved by anything" (1 Cor 6:12).  Here St. Paul is rebutting the claims of those who, under the pretext of freedom, want to enjoy everything and to experience everything.  The liberation for the  prescription of an oppressive law brought about by Christ and confirmed by the Apostle cannot be synonymous with licentiousness.   "Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires" (Rom 13:13-14).  "All things are lawful" to the Christians "to the pure all things are pure" (Tit 1:15), but on condition that this benefits his own and others' welfare and does not make a slave of anyone.  The freedom of the children of God is in quite another sphere than that of immodesty, greed or anger.  "I will not allow anything to dominate me" is the program to be followed by anyone who wants to become master of himself, in order to submit himself to the one rule, the liberating dominion of God. 

So, that is my motto..."I will not allow anything to dominate me", especially food.

I wish I could say I held my weight loss, but I didn't.  I have gained back the last 2.5 lbs.  Still down 2.5 lbs.

I will be writing next about my struggle with thyroid disease, which is also been a problem lately.

Portion Size -vs- Calories

I am specifically trying to work on portion size, but the devil side of my subconscious plays with me saying, "But that is soooooo low cal.  You can have two or three times that amount and you won't gain any weight." Or even better, "That was SOOOOO good.  A little more won't hurt."

I had that struggle at lunch today.  Trying to piece together a lunch from left overs, I mixed leftover veggies and Israeli couscous with chicken broth and a poached  chicken breast.  There were probably four cups of "soup", but I was convincing myself that since it was so low calorie, I could probably finish it all, totally forgetting that I am really working on portion control right now, not calorie counting.

That is the problem I have with rules.  I have to focus on ONE thing or I rationalize myself out of doing the right thing.  So, I stopped at two cups and put the rest in the fridge for tomorrow.  Admittedly, even two cups of that soup was probably a better choice than home made cream of tomato basil soup and toasted cheese sandwiches, a meal with which I have much less self control.

Thanksgiving Day Weigh-In Results: 2.5lbs this week, 5lb total

I've had another good week!  I haven't added any more rules.  Just eating only when hungry.  I did eat a little more today than I should have.  But, I will wait for the tummy growl before I eat again, which will be tomorrow, I'm sure.  We had home made pizza for dinner and I should not have finished the slice.

I am tempted to try Coke Zero.  I haven't had a Diet Coke for 8 months.  I went cold turkey from a 6 can a day habit.  I'm looking for more drink options.  I have a bad habit of going for a cup of "cappuccino" mix, which is 70 calories a cup.  Not horrible, but I can't drink black coffee.  I really, really don't enjoy it.  I haven't done a lot of research on Splenda, so I will do that before I try Coke Zero.

Saturday we go for our family Thanksgiving, one state away.  The good news is that there isn't much I will want to eat there.  I'm choosing to be choosier these days and make choices to eat only food that tastes good and that I crave rather than just eating to satisfy a mood.  I am also not making the food behave.  I am behaving by portion control.  I have had two small McFrappe's this week and a bag of M&M's.  I also enjoyed half of a rosemary olive oil Bruegger's Bagel slathered with cream cheese.  The key was eating only half.  Half was enough for me.  The one year old enjoyed the rest of it. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 1 results: 2.5 lbs down!

I stuck with my plan this whole week of only eating if I was truly hungry (tummy growling or hunger pangs).  That meant no between meal eating AT ALL unless I was truly hungry.  I know not everyone can rely on hunger signs.  Thankfully, I don't have a problem with knowing when I need to eat and not eat.  That doesn't work for everyone.  My sister and I did the same "weighdown workshop" ten years ago and it did not work for her but it did for me.  I am a rather distract-able person, so calorie counting and food journaling don't work for me.  I firmly believe you have to go with what works for YOU.  This method works for me.  There are some rules, but not a lot.

Here's the first rule. You don't eat unless you are hungry.  Second rule is that you cut sandwiches, pizza slices, etc., in half to make sure you really are hungry for all of it.  Portioning at restaurants is absurd.  In order to justify charging you $7 for a burger, they make it HUGE because it cost them about $.50 more to make it huge, but reality is they need to pay for lights, electricity, staff and rent which bumps up the cost of the burger much more than the supplies to make the burger.  When you are at home, you use smaller servings.  The other rules are: you eat whatever you want (you behave, don't make the food behave by eating only low fat or low cal foods) and drink when you are thirsty (and make sure you are truly hungry not thirsty before you eat).

I will update weekly.  To reach my goal weight, I need to drop my body fat by 8% and/or lose about another 25-30 pounds.  I'm already down 40 pounds from last year.

So, first week - 2.5lbs off...I'm sorry.  I'm not willing to reveal my actual weight.  You'll have to just use your imagination!

The Diet Experiment

I'm about to embark on a diet experiment.  I'll call it the stomach growl diet.  I did it about 10 years ago and lost ten pounds a month.  It's been on my mind for a while and I finally decided to give it a go again after reading this.


The trick is whether I have the self control to wait for my stomach to growl.  I learned this when I was doing the "Weigh Down Work Shop" by Gwen Shamblin.  I hate missing meals with my family, so I need to occasionally have a drink of milk if the tummy growls before dinner is done.  I will also need to get more sleep.

Wish me luck!

Herman Munster, watch out!

I posted about my new shoes here.    A USA Today article looks at whether they work or not.  I have to believe it is just a case of "your mileage may vary."  I have seen tremendous results in my body with no other explanation than I wore the shoes.  They are SO comfortable I now own 3 pairs.  Not the expensive Sketcher brand, but TheraShoes distributed by K-mart.  I couldn't pass up the BOGO 50% sale a few weeks ago.  I now own an outdoor pair, an indoor pair and TheraSandals.

My husband called them my "Herman Munster Shoes."  He has a pair now, too.  He has bad feet, thanks to genetics.   He finds them quite comfortable and wishes they made a decent pair of TheraSandals for men.  Right now, it's only flip flop types which he despises.  So, now my normally 6'2" hubby lurches around at 6' 4 1/2 " thanks to these babies and if it helps his feet, all the better.

What I found more interesting was that my two older kids wanted a pair too.  They have them as their "indoor shoes."  My kids could do with a little core muscle work, so I figured there was no harm in having them wear them inside, not for active outdoor activities.  They are not allowed to carry the baby when they are wearing them, so I'll be watching for a pattern of running to put their TheraShoes on when I ask them to help with the baby ;-).

For me, I'm just looking for comfort with the possible side effect of a stronger core.  So far, I have lost 18" since I got my pair on May 6th (almost 2 months).  In that time I have lost 5 lbs (I'm working on that...I've plateaued the last 2 weeks), so some of that might be due to weight loss, but it certainly can't account for all of it.

Ed. Note: I forgot to give credit to my husband for passing on the article from USA Today.  Thanks, honey!

No Longer Obese...

The scale finally tipped to a number that indicates I am no longer obese!

I pray that I can have the will power to continue the down hill descent to a healthier weight.

Almost no longer obese...

In case anyone has noticed, the ticker on the right side keeps going down. I'm excited to say that when I stepped on the scale today my weight went down enough to cause my BMI to drop to 30. Below 30 is considered only "overweight" and I'm excited to say I know I will be there soon.

I'm 27 lbs away from normal. I can do that. I've dropped 35 pounds since October, which is an average of 1 lb a week. At this rate, I will be normal around Christmas. Wish me luck!

More on weight loss...

This has to be quick as I have 1,000,000,000 other things I need to do why my dear hubby takes the kids to the park.

I'm slowly lowering my weight. I'm down 7.5 lbs in 4 weeks which is a healthy loss. And yet, I'm frustrated. In our "instant society," I want it now. I want to be thin now, never mind that it took me several pregnancies to get like this with really not much of a break in between.

What is hard is seeing others who get "help" lose it fast. I'm not a patient person by any stretch of the imagination. What's harder is our society bent on indulgence and indulging those of us trying to lose weight. No wonder our nation is fat. No wonder it is so hard to lose. You can get a triple and a frosty at midnight or a large fry and McSandwich. We don't eat out very much. But the temptation is there for the taking when I'm tired, don't have many groceries in the house, to drive thru for food rather than go to the store and make something healthy.

One of my favorite bloggers, Rod Dreher, feels he is also struggling. In this post, talks about how hard it really is to lose. Lent is always a good time for me to try and lose weight. Now I just have to work on not grumbling about it...

Pray for me, friends. I want to grumble more than I have here, but I won't!

Plateau

I'm at only 1/2 pound less than I was two weeks ago. This is frustrating. I do know I feel better and the scale says my percentage of body fat is going down - 3% from when I started. I feel like I'm eating much better, however, and isn't that a start in the right direction?

Yesterday, as I was making lunch, I got a call from my medical insurance company. They have a new program where, free of charge, they coach you through lifestyle changes. I signed up. I don't get any "counseling" until next week. My coach will call me to establish goals and then give me some help with ways to achieve them. My goals have already been set:
1) continue to lose weight
2) reach a BMI of below 30 ( not obese ) by Christmas
3) reach my goal weight by my husband's birthday in April
4) keep the weight off
5) Don't believe I'm actually going to publish this, but I would like to try to run a 5k before I turn 45.

I also want to get my family back on a better track. Pregnancy fatigue and postpartum weakness have led to bad eating habits here. Since I've been pregnant or post partum for much of the last 12 years, that's lead to bad eating habits for ALL of my children's lives. So, I'll add that as a goal:
6) provide better food choices for EVERYONE

Weight Loss and Exercise

I was directed to a new study written up in Time Magazine from "and sometimes tea" blog. This is interesting because the weight loss approach I took to lose 70+ pounds 9 years ago did not include exercise. In fact, the creator of the weight loss program said you don't need exercise to lose weight.

The Compensation Problem
Earlier this year, the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE — PLoS is the nonprofit Public Library of Science — published a remarkable study supervised by a colleague of Ravussin's, Dr. Timothy Church, who holds the rather grand title of chair in health wisdom at LSU. Church's team randomly assigned into four groups 464 overweight women who didn't regularly exercise. Women in three of the groups were asked to work out with a personal trainer for 72 min., 136 min., and 194 min. per week, respectively, for six months. Women in the fourth cluster, the control group, were told to maintain their usual physical-activity routines. All the women were asked not to change their dietary habits and to fill out monthly medical-symptom questionnaires.
The findings were surprising. On average, the women in all the groups, even the control group, lost weight, but the women who exercised — sweating it out with a trainer several days a week for six months — did not lose significantly more weight than the control subjects did. (The control-group women may have lost weight because they were filling out those regular health forms, which may have prompted them to consume fewer doughnuts.) Some of the women in each of the four groups actually gained weight, some more than 10 lb. each.

What's going on here? Church calls it compensation, but you and I might know it as the lip-licking anticipation of perfectly salted, golden-brown French fries after a hard trip to the gym. Whether because exercise made them hungry or because they wanted to reward themselves (or both), most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment. Or they compensated in another way, by moving around a lot less than usual after they got home.
The findings are important because the government and various medical organizations routinely prescribe more and more exercise for those who want to lose weight. In 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association issued new guidelines stating that "to lose weight ... 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary." That's 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week, a level that not only is unrealistic for those of us trying to keep or find a job but also could easily produce, on the basis of Church's data, ravenous compensatory eating.

It's true that after six months of working out, most of the exercisers in Church's study were able to trim their waistlines slightly — by about an inch. Even so, they lost no more overall body fat than the control group did. Why not?

Church, who is 41 and has lived in Baton Rouge for nearly three years, has a theory. "I see this anecdotally amongst, like, my wife's friends," he says. "They're like, 'Ah, I'm running an hour a day, and I'm not losing any weight.'" He asks them, "What are you doing after you run?" It turns out one group of friends was stopping at Starbucks for muffins afterward. Says Church: "I don't think most people would appreciate that, wow, you only burned 200 or 300 calories, which you're going to neutralize with just half that muffin."

Working out is hard to do with 6 kids under 12, including a newborn. I expect I will exercise, but it won't be hard core. It will probably a DVD or brisk walk. I understand the need to be healthy and that is reason to exercise. Exercising to lose weight, well, you just read it. It doesn't necessarily help.

By the way, I lost 4.5 lbs last week. That would be 12 lbs lost in 9 weeks. I need to slow down the weigh loss to 2 lbs a week. Losing more than 2 lbs a week can lead to toxins being released into breast milk and I don't want my desire to lose weight effect the Wee One.

Speaking of weight loss...

Are you wondering what I'm talking about? Erin over at Bearing Blog has a REALLY great series on weight loss that I've followed for the last year. After a visit to the doctor yesterday with my beloved Dr. Ade and seeing my OB's GREAT nurse, Barb, I found out that nursing moms can eat as little as 1200 calories a day.

One of the things Dr. Ade suggested was NOT drinking milk, but water, instead. I'm not much of a water drinker or milk drinker. Sadly, I was drinking 3 cans of DIET COKE a day! Bad, bad, bad. I have been reading a ton about how bad DC is for you, including exacerbating ADD (a problem I've had all my life) and affecting bone density. So, I'm cutting back. Here's what I'm trying to do. I am trying to wean myself, which is hard when you have a newborn. Coffee doesn't do much for me anymore. I need caffeine. I'm looking for some alternative.

My hubby drinks Awake , which he swears by for both morning and after lunch grogginess. I, alas, cannot use awake because it has fish byproducts in it. Oh, I guess I could try. The EPI PEN shot would really help keep me awake, wouldn't it? HAHA...okay, not so funny. But, the key to Awake is the ingredients. No caffeine, just vitamins and amino acids. Interestingly enough, B12 is one of those vitamins. My beloved Dr. Ade thinks that I might be deficient. If a shot of B12 will help, bring it on.

Anyway, I'm down 9lbs from 6 weeks ago and I am going to work VERY hard at changing my habits (another thing Erin and I have talked much about). I have a BMI of 34, folks. That puts me at OBESE. I have 25 lbs to go just to not be OBESE. Now before everyone starts the, "Oh, but you just had a baby..." stuff, please keep in mind I lost 72 lbs post partum with Little Woman. She was a crazy nurser, every 2 hours 'til she was 2. Maybe that's how I lost 72 lbs! But, don't worry. I will not let the Wee One suffer. I monitor output almost as religiously as they do with newborns, so I won't let her be effected. Anyway, she sleeps through the night already (good from a rest perspective, bad from a fertility perspective) and nurses hourly during the day. I don't follow a schedule, but feed on demand. She has rolls and a double chin, so, trust me, I will not lose weight at her expense.

So, I'm sorry, but I will probably bore you with posts about weight loss. When I lost 72 pounds previously, it was using Gwen Shamblin's Weighdown Workshop. I liked the program, but didn't like her very much. Her religious beliefs, while Christian, did not include belief in the Holy Spirit. My faith firmly believes in the Trinity. But, that doesn't dismiss how good her program was. It was faith based and sound. She is a registered dietitian. Her program did not include exercise. I liked that part of it because, Little Woman was a needy baby. It wasn't easy finding time when she needed to nurse every 2 hours and Little Man was not even 2 yet. So, this fit. Wee One does need to nurse regularly and Tinkerdoodle still needs me much, being a little over two, so I'm going her route this time. I will exercise WHEN I CAN, but, it won't be as much a part of my weight loss as it was Erin's.

Oh, and the excessive posting today is again in thanks to Dr. Ade. I now have a nifty new wrist brace to help with my CTS (Carpel Tunnel Syndrome) and typing is possible now without pain or problems!

Stay tuned for more...