Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The One with the Sonogram at the End


Contrary to what may be assumed by my posting a second blog- the rules haven’t changed. I still don’t have too much to say- certainly nothing very interesting, and there’s really no big point to this entry! Oh, and yes, there’s the first exclamation point!

Nonetheless… I’ve been hitting the gym on a regular basis over the last week or so (that is really quite an accomplishment for me). Unfortunately, as I’ve told many friends, all of Anderson, SC seems to be hitting the gym as well. After all, it is January 11th- and resolutions are still in full swing!  My thought is that over the next weeks and months the majority of Anderson will go back to their lazy ways… I’m just hoping I don’t allow myself to be lumped in with that group! Truth be told- I get on this kick frequently: go to the gym for a couple weeks, maybe hit up the Jillian Michaels workout DVDs, and it never fails… my momentum’s going, I’ve got a pattern, a habit, I’m motivated, and the dreaded virus we all call The Common Cold comes to visit! It’s happened the last 3 or 4 times I’ve started working out. Three out of four of those times it’s been associated with Jillian (nothing against Jillian- she has some extremely effective DVDs that wear me out!). So, this time, at least for now, I’m kicking Jillian to the curb and welcoming the YMCA into my life. Let’s see if Mr. Cold chooses to visit me in a couple weeks now.

In the beginning of December I had a routine doctor’s appointment. I hadn’t seen my PCP (primary care physician for my non-medical followers… well assuming I have any followers at all!) since right after David and I got married (about a year and a half). Nothing special going on to discuss- just a regular annual physical. I scheduled myself for some blood work the same day to check on things- hypercholesterolemia runs in my family. My doc is actually a Nurse Practitioner and she’s wonderful! She took time to follow up on things we’d discussed a year and a half ago, asked about my husband, and afforded me the time to chat with her about work, family, and life.

The next day her assistant called me with my blood work results. As expected, everything was great- except my cholesterol. She said she wanted to recheck in 4 months. FOUR months! I’ve got a mission now! This is the reason I am confident I won’t return to my lazy ways with the rest of Anderson after a few weeks/months.

I’ve been reading a book by Dave Ramsey (yea, the money guy) called EntreLeadership. It’s geared mainly toward businessmen, women and owners, but I think leadership always applies to everyday life. He has a chapter on goals and discusses how important goals are to learning, growing, and making the most out of your situation. In that, he discusses the way of effective goal-makers. Main point being- write your goals down, and have measurable checkpoints along the way to the ultimate goal. So, that’s exactly what I did. Now, unless I want to buy a home cholesterol screening kit (which I don’t) I can’t really track my progress on lowering cholesterol along the way to my April appointment. But, I can write down my goal (having done research and making sure I set a realistic goal), log the foods that I’m eating, and work toward that goal!

So- when you see me at the gym making weird faces (more on that later) and sweating, I’m not just trying to get in shape, I’m trying to protect my heart. Diet and exercise. You know, there’s a lot of other “solutions” out there. I can take some extremely effective medication and not even worry about eating my French fries and fried chicken sandwich- for goodness sake, I see this all day at work! But what does that prove?? Ancient history pretty much shows diet and exercise are the ways to go! 1 Corinthians 6 says “… your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you… You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” The context of this is obviously not my cholesterol, but somehow I feel like swallowing a small methylcellulose tablet while maintaining horrible eating habits just doesn’t do God’s temple justice. Diet and exercise.

Back to that weird faces thing- I had a friend visiting a couple of Sundays ago (ahem- Brittany Steen) who influenced me into watching The (dreaded) Bachelor. I must admit, I have gotten caught up in the hype time and time again over the last few seasons. However, this time, I wasn’t really all that excited for it. Nevertheless, here I was on Sunday evening with my husband, my friend and her fiancĂ© sitting in front of the tube watching Ben and his bachelorettes. Nothing significant came out of that episode- but we had some GREAT laughs! There was this one girl on there who made the WEIRDEST faces! They kept doing the separate room interviews with her (and yes, episode one and the tears were already rolling) and in between words she would make these ridiculous facial expressions. I can’t even describe them. I started to think maybe she had some sort of disease where you lose control of your facial muscles.

But, then it hit me. While at the gym on the EFX I was looking around, checking things out, scoping out my environment, listening to my husband’s iPod shuffle and it hit me! I felt like such a fool! I think when I workout, about all kinds of random things from what’s showing on the 3 televisions hanging on the wall, to what in the world kind of music combination my husband loaded on this shuffle, to conversations I’ve had recently, to why I’m so tired after only being on the machine for 3 seconds, you get the idea… While the songs on his shuffle switched from “You Deserve” by Hillsong United to “Low” (Apple Bottom Jeans) by Flo Rida I laughed out loud, literally.

That, my friends, is when IT hit me! All this time I’ve been on the EFX my mind has been rolling through thought after thought, and with each thought I have felt my facial expression changing up until that point when I laughed out loud. This girl I’m referring to on The Bachelor definitely wasn’t working out during her interviews- but she clearly had a lot on her mind (with all the cat fights and man-stealing going on). I wonder if anyone was watching my face while I just glided along on the elliptical… they would think I had an internal battle going on. Legitimately.

That was Day One at the gym- and I can assure you, every day since then has been the same thing. I don’t care if people are looking at me! I’m enjoying my time with my thoughts, my senses, my observations, and, of course, my husband’s completely ridiculous combination of music. Literally- one minute I want to close my eyes, lift my hands and praise Jesus and the next minute I want to bust out in some crazy dance moves. The joy of the iPod shuffle that you don’t load yourself J

In keeping with the complete randomness and enormous length of this post, I’m moving on. Well, I guess this is kind of on topic since it also is a decision I made mostly because of my health screening. I have decided to eat at home more often and cook for myself and my husband as often as he’ll say he’ll be home! So far in our marriage we’ve had probably 99% eat outs and 1% eat ins. And honestly, those might be optimistic percentages (no surprise my cholesterol’s not in check).

So, in true baby steps my mom and I cooked a ham when she and my dad were visiting after David’s surgery. We kept some of it in the fridge and wrapped some up for the freezer. I have been heating that up for David and preparing sides to go with it for a nice well-balanced dinner. I didn’t have to do much to cook that ham- but he LOVES it- so I count that as success #1. The main dish is the hardest. The extras are easy- just some steam-able veggies, or whip up some mashed potatoes and you’re good to go. Even though prep time takes anywhere from 15-45 minutes, sitting down and eating takes approximately 6, and cleanup takes another 15-20, it’s so worth it. I feel like I’ve accomplished something great for me and my husband. I kept us from heading to fast food world, I created an atmosphere for discussion and quality time, and so far, my husband has enjoyed his meal. What more can a gal ask for?

Tonight I ventured out more than reheated ham. If any of you are veteran chefs, you will laugh at my definition of “venturing out.” But, judge not- I’m learning! Honestly, half the battle is finding the recipe! I think I could follow almost any recipe, it’s just finding one I think we’d both enjoy.

We had some chicken breast in the freezer. Step one- thaw it out! With that as my goal I perused some recipes. I got this evening’s recipes from weightwatchers.com. I prepared a baked chicken with rosemary, parsley, and fresh lemon with sides of mashed potatoes, and fresh steamed broccoli with a teriyaki and sesame seed sauce. My husband and I are still in the “spare her feelings when it comes to cooking” stage- so I’m still learning his responses to my meals. After telling him he better just be honest cause if he acts like he likes it and doesn’t really it will be a staple meal for us time and time again and then later on down the road he’ll just have to admit he actually didn’t like it the first time… David said the chicken was “okay” but not because of preparation flaws- he wasn’t sure if he liked the seasoning combinations. I gave him fresh lemon slices and he squeezed the juice onto the chicken and then he liked it a lot more. Hey- he at a lot of it, so it couldn’t have been that bad! I know he likes the mashed potatoes- those are tough to mess up. Then, he tasted his broccoli, and I knew it was a hit! Without being prompted he said how good it was! So, lesson one- if it’s REALLY good it will be acknowledged before asked.  Success #2.

If you made it all the way down here to the end, maybe you just kept reading cause you were wondering about my title and hoping I’d explain something at the end. Sorry, I have no sonogram for you, there’s no baby growing inside of me. But, in keeping with the title, I will talk about my wonderful friends who do have babies growing inside of them! You can find one of their blogs on my list of blogs I follow. Our great friends Julie and Jonathan are having a baby girl due March 1st. I’m (not so) secretly hoping she’ll be born on February 29th! I mean, seriously, how cool would that be?!?! And our lovely friends Ellen and Patrick are having a baby boy in April/May. Both of these women are amazing and are doing so wonderfully with their pregnancy.

Noticing a pattern to my blog titles yet?