Tuesday, December 29, 2009

More End of the Year Reflections

Yesterday I posted one reflection that I have made this year as I have been on my struggle towards living a healthier lifestyle, and I am going to continue to write a couple of reflections and lessons learned until the new year starts!

Today's reflection is about-acid reflux and constipation. Yes, you read correctly. Boy have I learned a lesson about these two topics! This might be kind of gross, if you are one of those fidgety type of people.

As I have fell off the wagon a couple of times, I have noticed that when I gain my weight back and get to a certain weight (256 pounds to be exact), I have severe acid reflux. In the past six months this has happened to me about three or four times.

The first time this happened, I was in a hotel and the only thing that would alleviate the heartburn was tums, pepto bismol and pepcid. And believe me, I popped the pills like crazy because I was desperate. And then...I couldn't poop at all. I mean, I really couldn't poop. Nothing. I had to go and get a laxative and I was so constipated and compacted that I...well, you REALLY don't want to hear all of the details. Trust me! Oh, and by the way-don't ever get a laxative if you are constipated because all it does is just push what you can barely get out of you. Instead you need to get a stool softener type laxative.

Later I looked online and I found out that overuse of antacids might cause constipation.

As if I didn't learn from the first time, this holiday season I have hit that magical weight again and last week I started having acid reflux again. I was in so much pain and so desperate that I started popping the meds that I mentioned before and lo and behold-I was all stopped up again! But this time it was worse because I had also been stuffing myself with holiday treats and I'm sure that the tons of fatty food and cheese plugged me up even more!

Well, this time I tried to unplug myself naturally, by eating tons of high fiber foods, beans, and taking metamucil. Nothing was working. It was so horribly painful the first time that I went to the bathroom and I either tore something or have a huge, broken hemroids because...well, just trust me.

For days and days I took fiber pills, ate high fiber food, drank metamucil, ate tons and tons of beans and veggies and nothing has really been working. I am still in severe pain and honestly might go to the doctor if the bleeding doesn't stop soon. One thing that I have noticed is that my stools are softening up just a tiny bit but whatever I busted inside of me is just making me miserable with pain.

I started walking again and dropped two pounds and the acid reflux suddenly disappeared. I have noticed that after thirty minutes of walking that I need to immediately go to the bathroom, although it is very difficult and painful to pass stools. I am going to keep up with the walking and high fiber until my poor little behind feels better.

Lessons learned:
  • Losing even a tiny bit of weight curbs my acid reflux. Why don't I just keep on losing it so that I don't have to deal with this again?
  • Walking helps me go to the bathroom when I am constipated. They've always said that exercise keeps us regular, right?
  • I should never take antacids again unless I also do double duty fiber therapy at the same time. But if I keep my weight down and eat well, I won't have to take anything.
  • If I eat well in the first place, I will keep myself regular and won't have to deal with this nonsense!
Now that I've grossed some of you out-have a great day!!

End of the Year Reflections

I've been offline for a while, having also fallen off the wagon, and since then I have learned something during my quest towards being healthy:

I have depended too much on other people to exercise with me and eat healthy with me. For a couple of months my boyfriend would walk with me almost every day and would eat healthy food with me. Then he hurt his back. After that he had some family issues that he attended to, so he was unable to walk with me. There were actually weeks that I only saw him maybe once a week, so I wasn't able to eat very healthy with him. And what did I do when he was unable to walk with me? Well, I just didn't walk.

Over the past couple of days I have been thinking that I have got to learn to just exercise by myself and not depend on anyone else to help me lose weight. I've got to do it alone. If someone happens to be free at the moment and is able to walk with me, then that's great. But if not, I still need to do it on my own.

So for the past three days I have finally dragged myself out alone to walk and although it is not my ideal way of exercising, it's something that I am going to have to get used to because I think that my boyfriend is sick of walking with me and wants to resume his own workout routine.

So that's my reflection for today-I have a ton of other reflections, but I will blog about them tomorrow!

Friday, December 11, 2009

My Newest Obsession With Food

I haven't been online much-I have been off doing who knows what. I'm trying to balance my work life with my business that I am trying to get started, as well as spending quality time with my boyfriend. Well, the boyfriend has been sort of neglected lately.

Last week I went on a trip to San Francisco for work and while I was at the conference an interesting thing happened to me. I suddenly became obsessed with taking pictures of the healthy food that I am eating and then uploading it to facebook. It's the strangest thing! And I also just love looking at the pictures on facebook. Hmm.

So tonight my boyfriend made me a salad and I of course took a picture of it. I'm sad that the picture didn't do the salad any justice because it doesn't look as good in the picture as it looked in real life. Well, I can assure you that my boyfriend is the king of the salad makers and he spends hours and hours chopping up all sorts of vegetables that he throws into his salad. Here was tonight's salad:



I am going to keep my eye out for healthy food that I am eating and keep taking pictures! This ought to hold me accountable!
Blog Widget by LinkWithin