Do me a favor, folks.
Go to this link, read the rules, and nominate The Next 100 Pounds as your favorite blog in the Best Health or Wellness category. You have to make at least three nominations for yours to count, so if you don't have any other favorite blogs, may I suggest:
Dr. Grumpy for the Best Humor category.
Stonekettle Station for the Best Weblog about Politics Category (but only if you're progressive or open to hearing views not your own, please, because otherwise this site might give you an aneurysm).
Veterinarians Behaving Badly for the Best Pet or Animal Weblog category.
I'd really appreciate the vote. I don't do a lot of publicizing of this site, and it'd be great to get more hits.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.
If you've been following along, you know that over the holidays I was experiencing a worrying amount of fatigue, so much so that I finally made a doctor's appointment. Ironically, the day I visited the doctor was the day I started to feel MUCH better, and have continued doing so. But my EKG was completely normal. My heart's in good shape; my blood pressure was great; the bloodwork just came back completely normal which means my greatest worry of all, that my Type II Diabetes was reasserting itself, was not founded.
I'm still planning on going in for a physical to rule out anything else, but on reflection, I'm pretty sure it was the effects of longterm stress. This year has marked a big change in lifestyle for me, with a lot more travel and a great deal more rushing around; for five or six gigs in a row I literally ran off the stage at the final performance and jumped on an airplane to get to my next gig, sometimes flying overnight to make it. It's no news to anyone that the economy sucks and that has had some major implications for my industry --- opera companies are continuing to close left and right, and the ones that are hanging in there are heavily into cost-cutting mode. We've had our share of tension over jobs and money in my household, like just about everyone else in the world. And to be perfectly honest, there's been a sort of Catch-22 centering around the stress of weight gain and lack of motivation to work out, which in turn contribute to the general stress level.
But, the important thing is to keep working on it, and I feel I have been doing that, and am finally starting to get back on track. Yesterday I cooked up a big mess of kale and it was so good that that is all I had for dinner. I ate two bunches of kale and it was delicious. I bought lots of veggies at the grocery store on Sunday, and am bringing no refined carbs into the house whatsoever.
So there is it. There is nothing magical about it --- it's a day in, day out slog and sometimes it's better than others. Find the tools that help you and don't be discouraged if you have a bad moment --- it doesn't have to become a bad day. And a bad day doesn't have to become a bad week. And even if it does, you can recover from that. All you have to do is start over, as many times as it takes.
Every one of them counts.
I have the same problem was suppose to get physical but really try to avoid Doctors at all cost . Congrats on everything turning out good.
Posted by: Michael | January 13, 2012 at 08:38 AM