Major Blog Problems

Wow! I didn’t think I was ever going to get back into the blog. I entered my password a hundred times, changed it, over and over again and then tried entering three different passwords dozens of times and then all of a sudden it worked. Ridiculous. I’m not even sure if, after I sign out today, I can get back in. Plus, I had started a new blog called, “Kate Runs Miles” but I can’t get into that one either. Sheesh. Just in case, I suppose, if you don’t see me posting here, hit me up on Facebook (in sidebar) and I’ll tell you if I had to start a whole new, flippin’ blog somewhere else.

I’m a day late on my weigh-in. I am at 197.4 so I lost exactly one pound, which is great because my goal was 1/2 a pound. Awesome.

I’ll be here in WA state for 6 more days and then I get to fly home for about 7 weeks. I can hardly wait. Yesterday the neighbors told me that it was 62 at 7 a.m. They had the windows open and the air was blowing in warm and spring-like. Sigh. Doesn’t that sound lovely?

I may only get 2 days of running in this week. My plan is always 3 days, but the week has been filled with medical appointments for Mom, and me, for my yearly physical/follow up things, plus on Saturday, Jeff and I are going to spend the entire day working on a house for Habitat for Humanity-our first day of volunteering. It should be lots of fun! Maybe I could slip a run in on Saturday afternoon so I can meet my goal. We’ll see.

Mom and I went to a big Oriental store in Tacoma and boy did I hit it big. I found noodles I can have with veggies! Noodles made of sweet potatoes, or peas, or mung beans, or rice. And they are GOOD. It’s so satisfying to have a warm, cooked meal of veggies and noodles at night. I like it a lot. Raw food for breakfast and lunch, stir fry for diner. It’s amazing how many veggies you can pack in by having a quart-sized smoothie in the morning and a stir fry at night.

This morning I made my smoothie with swiss chard, kale, celery, collard greens, 2 c. of spinach, mango, pineapple and banana. Yum. I’m finding I really can’t stand salad without an oily dressing. So I just pass on them altogether and have cut up tomato, cucumber, zuchinni, etc with a little vinegar and sea salt. I feel like a little bratty kid, but lettuce or cabbage made that way makes me gag. Really, I don’t know why. But I can’t eat it like that anymore. I’d rather do the other veggies. I may have said this already. I never, ever go back into my blog and see what I’ve said in the past. I must be so incredibly boring to read.

Ok, I’m off to try to figure out what the heck is going on with the blog. If you don’t see me back here by next week at some point, please contact me on Facebook or at: wildmindgirl@gmail.com.

Great news about my blood pressure!

I had my colonoscopy on Wednesday. I earned a trip back to the procedure room because 2 years ago when I had my first one, I had 9 polyps and one was quite large. This time I had 3 small ones. Yay! AND I found out that my blood pressure has gone from 135 over 83 to 116 over 63!!! The nurse took my blood pressure and said, “WOW!” three times. Then she listened to my heart and said, “Yes, yes, yes!”

I’m happy, I’ll tell you what. Happy!

After starving for a whole 24 hours, then not being able to eat or drink until 2 pm, then eating only veggies and fruit the rest of the day, I lost exactly 1 pound. Ha. It is to laugh.

Anyway, I never weigh in on Thursdays like I said I would. I’ll be better from now on. I’m down to 198. 4 and I’m not making any effort to do anything different other than running and eating a vegan diet with LOW fat and no crap. I can’t believe how much fat there is in vegan diets. I believe 45% fat is about the number I read and it can be higher than that. All those nuts and nut butters and fake butter for cooking sweets.

So this time around I’m passing on that stuff. I’ve decided to do what Shauna is doing over on  The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl. I’m going for 1/2 pound a week throughout this whole year. No need for more. It’ll come off on it’s own if I just keep doing the right things. I’m not a big fan of starving, I like to be comfortable. 1/2 pound a week is really doable.

My running is going so well. I’m on week two of the “back to running” project and am doing a little over 3 miles a day, 3-4 days a week. I’ve been running 10, walking 1 but feel that’s a little hard on my lately non-exercised bod, so I’m going to change to run 5 for awhile.

My only running friend, (in real life) Jamie, in Albuquerque, asked if I’d run the “Run the Zoo” 5k with her on May 6, so I’m going to make that happen. It’s something fun to shoot for.

I also want to do the Cupid’s Chase 5k again in either Albuquerque or Las Cruces, but I’m dragging my feet on it. For one, it will cost me $125 to drive the truck to and from Albuquerque. I could see my kids and run with Jamie, so I’m considering it. For two-I’m scared to run the Las Cruces one, even though it’s only an hour away from home. I need to cowgirl up or man up or something. When I go home I’ll go into Cruces and run the course and see what I think. I really, really hate doing things for the first time. Ugh.

I’m not going to be able to hire Pamela the trainer. She’s raised her prices quite a bit (she’s good) and we’ve got major bills that came along with developing the property, so I’m on my own. I seem to be doing just fine though.

I feel so much more like myself again now that I’m back in the 190′s. I have 4 pounds to go to get to my “safety zone” 5 pound buffer. I feel like I can breath a sigh of relief and trust myself again.

Speaking of new things, tomorrow Jeff and I are going to do our first day of volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. It’s another “first” thing. Jeff will be there though. One of my new goals for 2012 is to really step through my fear and just do the things I’ve always wanted to do. Feel the fear, but do it anyway.

 

 

 

Starting a new year

I can hardly believe I’ve been running for a year now. Honestly, I thought it had been years. I had to sit down and calculate to see that no, it’s just been a year.

As you can see, I changed the name of my blog. I think that works great. I can stay here on this blog but feel like I have a new start. And I do. I love that about life. You can always just begin again.

I’m down to 199.1 again, so I’m working it! I’m eating raw fruit and veggies for breakfast and lunch and then for dinner a salad and either lentils, baked potato or beans of all kinds. I track my calories now on Fit Day, because if you click the “daily nutrition” link under “more”, it shows you exactly how much protein, vitamin E, A, etc you’ve had for the day. I constantly meet or WAY exceed the daily requirements in all but selenium and b12, so I supplement those.

I eat all the time. Seriously, it’s crazy. I eat, eat, eat. And I keep losing. I have five pounds to go to get back to my safe and comfortable 5 pound range. Then I’d love to keep losing. I figure I have all of 2012 to make progress and I feel much more like myself, so I can be patient. Just not eating sugar, flours, processed food or extra fats has been a massive improvement that I’m proud of.

You’d be surprised how much fat you get just eating fruit, vegetables and legumes. Yesterday 12% of my calories out of a 1800 calorie day were fat and that’s great. My goal is 10% and I usually keep it between 10-12%. I feel great.

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been walking an hour a day, a couple of times, 2 hours or more. This week I dusted off the Couch to 5K app on my smashed-screen iphone and started it again. I’m also doing yoga, which I like, but I have to sort of force myself and that surprises me. Running is so easy for me. It just fits. Yoga I have to make myself do. I’m hoping it gets easier in the “wanting to” department.

I’m in Washington state for the next 2 and 1/2 weeks. I’ve been here for a week now, enjoying seeing my husband and visiting with my Mom. Jeff is on his Christmas break from Boeing right now, so we’ve been having fun hopping the Seattle buses and heading to Pike Place Market and walking all around town. It’s alternating between raining and partial sun but honestly, it’s better here than it has been at home in New Mexico.

I was home for 3 weeks and during that time it uncharacteristically rained several times for several days until we had gotten 4″ of rain (in the desert!) and many inches of snow. It’s been a crazy December at home.

I’m going to stick with the Couch to 5K program 3 days a week as I develop my strength again. It feels so good to be back on track. 2 months of no exercise has wreaked havoc on my weight and my muscles.

I know I keep saying we’ll have internet out at the property soon. It’s just that I keep coming and going never seem to be at home long enough to get it done. This next time when I go home, I’m going to stay for 3 months and first thing I’m doing is to go into town and get those guys to come out.

I’m getting tired of travel and of taking care of everyone else. I’m looking forward to a solid 10-12 weeks of work in my little art studio/cabin. I have planned a large series of pieces to paint and am looking forward to doing more settling in at our new place.

My husband will be traveling almost constantly this next year, so it’s going to be a little rough. I’ll join him in Michigan several times, and also here at my Mom’s, where he stays half of each year on business. But for both of us, this is going to be a year of personal growth and we’re looking forward to it. We hate being apart, but we only have 11 months to go after this year is over so we’re going to make the best of it.

 

 

 

Happy times

I figured out how to get a picture up and to get it in the right place!

Things are good. GOOD. I feel amazing and have had no boils for 6 days. It’s way too soon to say if the MRSA is gone, but my energy is back, full force, for the first time since October. Soo glad. And that’s a massive understatement.

I went running!!!!!!!! I started off with 2 mile walks for several days and honestly, I was shocked I had the energy. Each day it’s been better. Yesterday I walked 2 miles in the morning and in the afternoon I felt grand and went out exploring all the weird, semi-abandoned homes in the valley here:

This one is made of papercrete and is sort of a dugout home.

After I left that place, in my hiking boots (!) I just wanted to run, run, run. I ran super slowly for 1.25 miles at a run 30 seconds/walk 30 seconds pace. I felt beamingly happy.

Then I realized something that made me laugh out loud. 1 year ago I did my FIRST run, in those same hiking boots, through the snow in 5 degrees below zero weather. Very appropriate

This is the high desert and when it finally decided to rain, it pours. We got 2″ last week and will get 2″ more over the next 2 days. Then it returns to the 50′s and sun all week long. Oh yes, last week we had a blizzard too! We got about 4″ of snow and it dropped to 9 degrees. Crazy.

Now that we’re living out here, I’m confined to our new 19′ camper. I waded over to the garage, crossing over boards I had to lay down as to not sink into the mud. I’m able to “be outside here” and look at the lovely mountains while it rains.

I’m in here looking for the dozens of yoga DVD’s I have. I cannot find them and I’m going mad.

I’m going to start working again with Pamela Hernandez of Thrive Personal FitnessThrive Personal Fitness -for 3 months. She helped me so much last year.

I guess that’s all I have to say today. I’m crossing my fingers that things keep getting better and better.

Progress

I’m typing this on my iPhone, which usually means pictures end up in funky places. Bear with me! We should have Internet out here in 3-4 more weeks.

So, I’m down a pound and am really on track. I’m sticking religiously with my diet, the Alkaline diet, because keeping far away from sugar and high acid foods keeps MRSA in check and I’m darned if I’m going to die from this. Antibiotics are not working and I’m not willing to live on them and as a result, die, because when I really need them they won’t work.

As a former massage therapist, yogi, and all around lover of all things woo woo, I was delighted to find Earth Clinic on line. I’m sorry I can’t link to it tonight, Google it though.

I found people from around the world who have been helpless treating their MRSA with antibiotics that don’t work. I’ve learned amazing things there from people who are living and thriving after 10 years with this bugger. I’m learning how to eat, rest, treat skin eruptions homeopathically so they go away in 2 days instead of SIX weeks.

I realize now that because of much stress and way too much work, my immune system was crapped out. It’s a wonder I didn’t catch something sooner.

Somewhere on this post you’ll see a lovely bowl of quinoa which is one of my mainstays now. I love it and it’s packed with protein.

I was stuck inside, sick, for 2 days while a blizzard raged outside. In New Mexico! I’m on an upswing at the moment. I’m hoping my diet and the buckets of vitamins and supplements I’m taking are helping. I’ve had equal good days and bad days and that’s a huge improvement.

I’ve walked 2 miles 4 days this week. I kept my food log 6 out of 7 days and I lost a pound. I’m doing very gentle yoga, 10 minutes, twice a day. I’m meditating for 5 minutes a day.

I used to do Reiki in my massage practice for years, but haven’t in ages. Today I realized it’s time to really learn Reiki and put it into daily practice.

Im really proud of myself. Things have been really scary lately but I’ve got my second wind and am determined. It’s changing who I am in a good way. I’m finally realizing how good it is to slow down and get back in touch with all my woo woo ways.

Going Home

I’m going home tomorrow. This has been the longest 3 weeks of my life and I’ve gone through a lot in my life. But this past 3 weeks tops the cake. I’m so glad to be going home to New Mexico tomorrow morning that I feel like weeping.

I also feel incredibly guilty for leaving my Mom and for leaving my sister with all of my Mom’s health care issues. Her Dr’s want me to leave, need me to get away from her. It’s very interesting to be treated like a leper. But I know that MRSA can kill, so what am I going to say about it? People are right to be nervous to be around me.

For once in my life I’m trying not to read any more about MRSA than I need to know to take care of myself and to get really healthy and strong. To read more is to be stupid because there are many ways to die and I chose to not live in that place-or to die in that place.

I’m going onto an Alkaline Diet, which to be honest, I still don’t know much about, but will share when I do. Keeping the body Alkaline helps keep the MRSA in check. All I know at this point is that there’s NO sugar and it’s super healthy. It looks a lot like my diet now, but if I can do anything to get rid of stuff that could be harming me I’ll all for it. I’ve been hitting the sugar big time this past month and that’s not like me at all and it’s seriously hurt me because all along I’ve had the MRSA and didn’t know it.

So. Shrug. I’m going home. I’m scared. I’ll say that. I don’t know why exactly. I only got to see my husband for 4 days and now we’ll be apart another 3 weeks, that’s part of it. The electricity and new well at our property in Deming is still not QUITE done. The 3 day job on the well has turned into almost 2 months. It’s done now, with good clean water, but we opted to put electricity in instead of solar power and have spent the last 5 weeks waiting for the electric people and the well people to work together to finish up. It MIGHT all be done when I get home. If not, I’ll use the generator for a few days and bring water in-in spite of having an almost $10,000 well-with the electricity not hooked up I can’t get the water out.

I haven’t been keeping up my Rancho Manana blog this month due to just feeling awful. It’s going to be another 4 weeks or so before we get internet out at the property but I’ve figured out I can go to the library in town for wi/fi so I’ll make sure and do updates more regularly now-at least here. I really need it.

I always try to stay within 10 pounds of my goal weight which was 189, but lately, with no exercise, I’m up 13 pounds overall. So I have my work cut out for me.

I’m able to walk now. Thank goodness. My Crohn’s Dr. upped my meds by 1 pill a day and encouraged me to go ahead and try to keep running with just a little increased dosage to see if I could successfully run without pooping my guts out all across the countryside. Bless her for that.

So my goals for this next week:

-Weigh in next Thursday
-Run 30 seconds/Walk 30 for 1 mile and then walk another mile (Or as much as I can do.)
-Daily yoga, even just a little.
-After I land in Albuquerque and make the 4 hour drive home, stock up on healthy foods before I make the long drive out to our place.
-Keep a detailed food log all week on Loseit!

Now that I’ve hung around the 189-190′s range for a long, long time, I don’t like it. Well, plus the fact that I gained some pounds, but nevertheless, the 190′s don’t feel good. My new overall goal is to get into the high 170′s. I may hang out THERE for another 2 years too!

Update

So yes, I have MRSA. And yes, I’m very upset about it. Apparently over 18,000 people die each year in the USA from untreatable infections caused by MRSA-more than people who die from Aides. Not good figures there.

I have researched and found out all of the things I need to do right now, nutrition-wise and homeopathic-ally, to keep me off of antibiotics. I’ll do them all to the best of my ability, including, believe it or not, a vegan diet with NO sugar, no breads, nothing that quickly turns to sugar and feeds the infection, easy on the fruit. So basically, I suppose I’ll not have to worry about being overweight again.

And no, that’s not all. I had my check-up with my Crohn’s Dr. today and it turns out that my running for the past 11 months and my serious up-stepping of the Crohn’s over that past 11 months, perfectly match up. Running with Crohn’s, or any autoimmune disease, can and often does make it worse. So that explains a lot. They raised my dosage of pills a bit and told me to try that before I gave up the running altogether.

So, it’s been a stupid, stupid frickin’ day.

I’m committing to yoga, as much as I can do right now, and that may be my new lifestyle, which would be good on so many levels. And I adore yoga. I adore running too, but at this point it seems like Yoga may give me more of what I need in the state that I am in at this moment, and I suppose for the rest of my life. Sigh.

I’m having to stay away from my elderly Mom who’s on cancer treatments because MRSA can kill someone who’s immune system is seriously depressed. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do for the next 3 1/2 weeks I’m scheduled to be here. I can’t take her to any appointments. I can’t be around sick people while I am in a flare-up because it’s quite contagious. So I’m not sure what we’re going to do. Pay an exorbitant plane ticket change fee maybe.

It’s been an incredibly hard couple of months.

I’m eating well, that’s all I can say about that at the moment. I’m grasping to find positives right now and I know that I will, but right now I feel like the rug has been yanked out from underneath me.

I’m Back

Yeah. I need a place where I can talk. I have not deleted my new running blog but have made it private and will ignore it for now. When I cannot run, what the heck is there to talk about?

I’m all over the place and am seriously struggling. I hate dealing with my family. They constantly disappoint in a big time way. In staying here in Washington State for 5 weeks, helping Mom out as she goes through cancer treatment and I fear I will go out of my mind.

It was sunny today but it rained all last week-except for the 2 days it snowed-and this next week is going to be rain, rain, rain, every day.

I had started training for a marathon and was doing great. No more. At least not for now. I’m not sure what’s going to happen on that front.

In June I accompanied my Mom to the hospital multiple times, once for a day surgery. It’s most likely that I picked up MRSA at that time. I find out on Monday what the culture reads. I have been pretty sick, off and on since July, with boils popping up here and there in horrible places. I’ve never had a boil in my life. Now I’ve had 7. The pukey stomach and extreme tiredness that comes with it is no picnic and it usually keeps me from doing much of anything. I finally carved time out of the medical schedule to go to the Doctor myself so I’m on antibiotics (which I hate taking) and am hopeful that though the Dr. is pretty sure it’s MRSA, that it will turn out to be NOT.

It’s been so difficult to bounce between not running, not doing anything, and running. I can’t get my legs under me because every time I start to feel great and start running, things go south.

I have one sister who works full time who does everything for Mom when I’m not here (when I’m at home in New Mexico). My other sister lives next door to my Mother, in my Mother’s house, and she won’t lift a finger to help, or to call my Mother or to text her or send her an email. Mom was pretty bad off last week, in the hospital for 4 days. My younger sister and I spent 7 hours in the ER with her and then spent every day and afternoon by her bedside. My other sister AND her family, never helps, doesn’t have a clue if our Mother is still alive. She is no longer my family, that’s how bad it is. It’s been hell. Sheer hell.

In addition to Mom’s medical issues and mine, my Mom is a cook to the nth degree. What I WANT to eat and what I do eat are very different things sometimes. It’s such a struggle and I need some support.

Starting a New Blog and Ending This Blog

It’s been so great to blog about my weight loss here. I’m a completely different person now and I’m ready to move on now in a completely different direction. I’d rather focus on the now and the future! I’ve long wanted to write a blog all about my running obsession.

I can’t thank trainer, Pamela Hernandez of Thrive Personal Fitness, enough for putting the bug in my ear that got me back into running!

If you’d like, join me at my new blog at: Katie Runs Miles

August

Hi everybody. I sure am having a hard time blogging lately. We’re heavy into traveling and honestly, it’s not the first thing I think of in the morning. Get up. Blog. No, I’m thinking more along the lines of coffee and getting to work on my painting.

I’ve sold three paintings this month, so, woo hoo! I honestly think that losing so much weight has given me the confidence to step out in all areas of my life. I’m coming more into my own in the art world. Obviously that makes me radically happy.

I’ve been really getting into Yoga lately and have been bouncing back and forth between running and walking every single day. I was working on a 10K program but this week was really enjoying walking 5-9 miles a day on a trail near where we’re staying, so I let the running go this week so I could explore. Lately I’ve been doing run 3, walk 1 because I’ve doubled my workout time to a little over an hour. I feel no need to go out and run flat out. I just don’t care. I like just creeping up on running a longer distance without worrying what anyone will think about how I’m doing it. I love making my own rules. I figure that ultimately I’d like to run 5 and walk 1 through the whole distance, however long that distance is.

The other day I was out walking and I went in a new direction because there was a dog loose in the way I normally go. At the end of the road a HUGE pit bull raced out the end of the very long driveway of a very expensive home. He ran right for me. Pit bulls are not my favorite dog. If you have one and you’re one of those people that say, “Oh, he’s so sweet, he’d never hurt anyone,” I don’t want to hear about it. This dog raced up to me, barking MADLY and lunging at me every which way. I screamed “NO!” four times and took my back pack off, holding it up against me to protect myself. I’m so embarrassed to say this, but I knew that if that dog got it’s jaws on me I wasn’t going to be able to get free. I was terrified. I threw my head back and I SCREAMED…AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! No lie. I screamed like I was being murdered. I figured that maybe, just maybe, someone would hear me.

A youngish woman came out and called him off and I was so furious, I just turned around and started walking away, shaking like a leaf. She called out, “Did he jump on you?” I said, “No, he just scared me.” And she said:

“He wouldn’t hurt you. He’s very tame.”

If I could have slapped her, I would have. But you know what? She was busy. What was she doing? Screaming at her bloody dog, calling him back over and over again as he kept trying to go after me. I just kept walking, thinking, oh yeah, he’s so tame, he’s so sweet, he would never hurt anyone. I should have called the police.

I’m not scared of dogs. I was bit badly by one when I was a child, so you’d think I would be really scared. But honestly, I know that most dogs back off and are just posturing when they bark at you. Not this one, he meant business.

Hubbies home!