Wednesday Already???

Man this week is flying by!!

Short post tonight...just the facts.  No walk this morning due to early morning errands that ran until 2pm.  No walk at 2pm...I convinced myself if I did, I would surely die of a heat stroke.  Got home and put some chicken in the oven that I'd been marinating in the fridge.  Tuscan and parmesan spice blends with olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  I went ahead and poured the marinade over the chicken and put the lemons in there, too.  I also added some fresh mushrooms and a few leftover stalks of asparagus to make sure they didn't go to waste.  I am really loving marinating with fresh lemon...the fresh taste just can't be beat.  So sunny and delicious.

Biz's Burger Salad post inspired me for tonight's dinner.  I already don't eat my burger on a bun when making them at home, but added a few cucumbers and carrots on top of the normal tomato, onion, lettuce and dill pickle.  Along w/ a swipe of mayo and my all important ketchup.  Totally delish.

So I told Dwayne that we needed to walk more than a mile at the park in the evenings.  3 laps is one mile.  He said he's concerned the dogs wouldn't be able to do 2 miles in this heat and humidity, so we're stepping it up slowly to see how they do.  I think the dogs will be fine, but I'm so tickled that he's still walking with me every day that I'll do whatever it takes to keep him happy.  So slowly it shall be.  Tonight we walked 4 laps instead of 3 and will do so the rest of the week.  Next week we will bump it up to 5 laps, and so on.

Tomorrow morning I have to head back to the tanning salon to do the red light therapy for the NLD on my legs.  They told me it will take 90 days for a full restorative cycle and to see a major difference.  Then they told me if I buy this $99 bottle of "effector" to rub on my legs, that it will cut that time in half.  Hmmmm.  45 days.  Is it worth it?  I don't know yet.  The fact is, I've been living with this crap on my legs for 7 years now.  It's doubtful that I'm spending $99 on a bottle of anything.  But we'll see.  I may get impatient and buy it.  When she saw me waffling, she gave me a $20 tanning pass that she said I could use as a coupon towards the effector, so now it's $80.  Maybe if she can get it down to $50, we'll talk.  :)

Major Carb Adjustment

Well, here's the deal.  I was diagnosed with diabetes & also hypothyroidism when I was 30 years old.  I am now 42, will be 43 in July.  I have been on and off of pills for the diabetes all these years but I've never taken very good care of it.  There was a time when I lost the first 100 lbs. that I had the sugar under control and my numbers were stable and under 120.  That was a very short time period though, just a few months if I remember correctly.

Due to my ignorance and stupidity I now have all sorts of issues that I believe are caused by the diabetes.  I am hoping with reigning my numbers back in and keeping them under control once and for all, that maybe some of my "issues" are reversible.  Some may be, some may not.  Shame on me if they're not.  If you are reading this, have diabetes, and are not taking care of it because nothing hurts (yet), please, PLEASE heed my advice.  Don't be a moron.  That's my new motto now...with everything.  Don't be a moron.

My labs that came back a little over a week ago were bad enough to scare me into getting serious about my health.  I believe most of our health problems can be tied to what we eat and drink.  No, I am not a health nut (obviously!), lol.  I am not a homeopathic wannabe.  I just think it's common sense.  I am not anti-pharmaceutical but I probably could be if I did enough research, like my mother.  Speaking of mom, she has been riding me for what feels like years to jump on the flaxseed wagon.  She finally wore me down the other day and I went and bought a bottle of flaxseed oil and a bag of whole flaxseeds.  But I will save the rest of that conversation for tomorrow's post.  Today is about the evil carbs!

When I got my labs back, I knew I had to make changes but realized I had no idea where to start.  Cut the carbs, yes.  But what number?  How many?  How badly was this newly reformed carb lover going to have to suffer?  Yes, I know it is ridiculous to have this illness for this long and not even know the basics of how to deal with it, but I've already admitted to my stupidity.  I went to the American Diabetes Assoc.'s website to look up how many carbs to eat.  Recommended amount was 45-60 per meal.  So if you ate the absolute most allowed, you're eating 180g a day???  I thought surely they got that wrong, must be a major typo, and set my own limit at 50g/day about a week ago.  I stuck to that as my limit and most days have been way under.

Then I had a conversation with a fellow blogger and diabetic today and told her about the numbers I found on the ADA website and didn't she think that was ridiculous???  Um...no.  I learned that "normal" people eat 250-300g of carbs per day, so 150-180g is considered lower carb and perfectly fine for a diabetic.  In fact, she said she has a friend who is a diabetes RN and they strongly recommend not eating any less than 125g as a bare minimum. 

Woot!!  Momma's having her tuna salad on PITA BREAD today!!!  Let's just understand that I am a sandwich FREAK.  Have always loved them...mostly for the bread, partly for the convenience.  Let's face it....rolling up your low sodium ham or low sodium turkey and putting it on a Dixie plate to eat next to your carrot sticks is just not the same as having a sandwich.

So anyhoo, I had some Joseph's pitas and the net carbs are 4g each.  I got really crazy and split my tuna salad between TWO pitas, just because I could, for a grand total of 8g of carbs today.  I had an egg white scramble w/ ham and veggies for breakfast, so no carbs there.  So at 2pm today I realize I still had 142g of carbs to go, if my new goal was going to be 150g.  How did I make that happen?  I made chicken and dumplings for dinner.

I wish I could have added some yummy veggies to this like diced carrots, celery, onion, even zucchini but alas, the hubs does not eat veggies.  Only lettuce, as in Caesar salad.  So when I make a dish to feed both of us, it has to be sans vegetables or he won't eat.  There are many nights that I make us 2 separate things if I want a one pot meal that includes veggies and I'm sure you'll see pics of that in the future.

That's about it for today...it was pretty quiet around the house.  Just me and my babies on a rainy day.  I'll leave you with a pic of my precious Scarlette....being nosy and spying on the neighbors.  :)