Rachel's Health & Nutrition Blog

Weight loss efforts still in full swing.  I confess, however, that I have abandoned giving up soda, at least for now.  I am not drinking it as much as I was before, but still have about one a day.  I was finding that I was still getting the caffeine-withdrawal headache and drinking so much tea was making my iron levels too low to give blood!

 

Quite the dilemma...

 

Anyway, last week I visited the ENT physician to have my ear looked at.  The same ear that has been bothering me off and on for almost two years.  It had kind of taken a back seat when the joint pain saga started, and I finally got around to going.  Long story short, he has no idea what is wrong with my ear, except that I have some hearing loss in the low frequencies and what feels like a "bubble" in my ear.  I'm supposed to get an MRI to see what's up.  In the meantime, he put me on a 5-day course of prednisone to see if there was something allergy-related going on.

 

While having no effect on my ear, the prednisone did have a somewhat unexpected effect on everything else: it virtually eliminated my pain.  So for 5 days I was a mad woman: cleaning, walking, shopping, and just feeling fantastic.  The down side~ I couldn't sleep worth crap!  I think I got about 3 hours a night for those 5 days.  I've been off since Monday, and I still feel pretty good, so we'll see what happens.

 

Fighting the munchies today, but I shall prevail! 

About two weeks ago, I began a new weight loss program.  My hubby (www.fatmanonadiet.com) had signed up for a service called MyFoodDiary.com where you put all of your meals, etc into an online journal.  Now I'm doing it too.  It's $9 a month, but $9 well spent in my opinion.  In two weeks I am down 6 pounds.  Hubby has lost about that much too.

 

It's really amazing how keeping a record of everything you eat really makes you aware and forces you to make better choices.  Not only does MyFoodDiary keep track of caloric intake, but it monitors how much sodium, saturated fat, and trans fat you take in, for example.  It also gives you a flag if you've met your daily requirement of certain vitamins and met your water intake goal.  Very motivating!

 

It also takes into account any kind of activity.  Even if it doesn't burn a great deal of calories, it still counts.  Vacuuming, mopping, all my favorite activities are included.

 

 

I've officially been off soda for 5 days now.  There are so many other delicious, non-sugary beverages out there.  There is a large pitcher of iced green tea in my refrigerator, and lots of sugar free lemonade on hand.  I don't even really miss it.  I actually enjoy not feeling "burpy" all the time, if you know what I mean.

 

I have tried a couple new recipes this week as well.  First was a Springtime Pesto Pasta Salad.  Quite good.  Next I made a salmon spread with low fat cream cheese and light sour cream.  It's pretty yummy as well.  I will attempt to post the recipes and pictures next week.

 

 

Well, here we are.  It's April.  What's my excuse?  I have none.

 

This has been a very busy time for us at work, and therefore my personal issues have taken a back seat.  I have not put any effort into eating right or getting any exercise.  Next week I feel like I might have an extra minute to take a breath, so I'm going to sit down with my husband (www.fatmanonadiet.com) and make a plan.  Man cannot live on fast food alone.  And that is exactly what we've been doing.  No wonder I feel like garbage.

 

I'll be back next week with a new set of goals and what I'm going to do to achieve them!