Tag: health

Life

One breath at a time

Mary C

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When I arrive at my pulmonologist’s office I am thrilled to see my doctor who has been treating my chronic bronchitis and Kartagener’s Syndrome since I was 21. Thirty-one years. We greet each other behind our masked faces, eyes light up in recognition it has been nearly seven years since we’ve seen each other. My bad. I think I have a handle on my disease and then I land in the ER with pain from a lung infection gone awry. But seven years is a good run with no hospital visits as I’ve gotten much better at taking care of myself, until I stop.

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Healthy Life

Kicking my sugar habit (part 2)

Mary C
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Motivation for my nutrition journey

This is part two of my story on quitting sugar. Part one is here.

Greece was still two months away when I started talking to a mom who was on her own journey to lose weight. She was also doing it for health reasons and immediately I was intrigued. I don’t usually go in for programs where you pay money for shakes or other products to help you lose weight. I’ve never tried weight watchers, although I know many who successfully use it but to me it sounded like too much work to count points, etc. I was also at a point where my psoriasis was completely out of control and since I had used diet to get it under control before, I thought that would be the best way to go about it. It’s a very limited and rigid diet, however, so it was tough to get started.

Back to my friend and her program. Another friend had turned her onto Arbonne after successfully using it to help her lose weight and heal after a prolonged health issue. I talked with her at length and decided to give it a go. Arbonne has a 30 Days to Healthy Living starter kit. The products are vegan friendly (and thus compatible with my psoriasis diet) and have a host of good health benefits one of which was it proved promising for quitting my sugar habit. In mid May, I took a leap of faith and ordered the starter kit, eager to get going. I also purchased a Nutribullet to prepare the shakes which require frozen veggies and fruit along with the protein mix, probiotic powder and fiber supplement.

Continue reading “Kicking my sugar habit (part 2)” →

Healthy Life

Kicking sugar (part 1)

Mary C

1A6E17FC-6EDC-4A93-8B78-882D34811C67.jpegIt’s been three and a half years since I gave up alcohol completely. I had a lot of stops and starts before that but the conditions had to be right before I could admit that I had no control over how many more drinks I would put in my body after I put the first one in. It’s been one of the very best decisions I have made for my life. Life didn’t get better right away but many days at a time later, I have a wonderful life today even with all its ups and downs.

Early in sobriety I was told it was okay to substitute sugar for alcohol. If you crave a drink, have a sweet instead. You don’t even have to give me a reason to treat myself to sugar because I have been a lifelong fan. Twizzlers, sweet tarts, gummy bears, sour patch kids, tootsie rolls, swedish fish, ice cream (mint chocolate chip, please), and the list can go on and on. I have no problem with chocolate, though. I always had a stash of candy in my night stand and if it got low, off to the drugstore I would go.

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Life

2018 Goals Check-in

Mary C

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Back in January, I wrote out a lengthy list of things I wanted to accomplish or do better in 2018. I got myself a brand new fancy notebook (I definitely have a problem with buying notebooks and journals) and promptly lost it under a pile of papers and books to read. So much for getting organized! I dug it out last week to see what I wrote and how I was doing with it. Continue reading “2018 Goals Check-in” →

Writing

30 drafts!

Mary C

Egad! Thirty drafts in my folder. I haven’t posted here in nearly two weeks but I have so many uncompleted thoughts in my drafts. I don’t know what the issue is but I’m profusely embarrassed or at least somewhat disheartened that I’ve put writing on the back burner again.

In early January, I spent about 20 minutes on my resolutions. I wrote them in a brand new fancy notebook with a brand new fancy pen and then haven’t looked at them again. I know somewhere in there is a promise to write more. Especially on Fridays when I’m off from work. I did manage to do this two weeks ago and got started on a new novel that came rushing out of me faster than I could type it. I spent a couple of hours just hammering out the words. I reread them and thought this could really go somewhere and then the next day I thought it was complete shite! That was also the day I locked myself out of the house.

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Life

Teach me to run

Mary C

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I have been toying with the idea of becoming a runner in 2018. It’s a lofty goal because for the last 50 years I have absolutely abhorred the idea of running. The first memory I have of running dates back to about fifth-grade gym class when our teacher asked what everyone’s dream destination was. Do you know what’s coming? Well, we didn’t. Everyone yelled Florida, home of sunshine and Mickey Mouse. What came out of his mouth next was horrifying and chilling: OK, you’re going to run there. What?!

His brilliant idea was to find out how many miles to your dream destination (nearly 1400) and then over the course of the next several weeks (years!) we would run there mile by mile in a loop that encircled the playground and sports field next to our school. It’s amazing how many of us decided our dream destination was Hague, NY a nine-mile distance that seemed more reasonable, if not as enticing.

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Life

Hesitating over the publish button

Mary C

Warning: this is a super long post. I’m sharing something I wrote for my writing class about a time when I was judged. I have this weird disease and I’m sick a lot. But if you were to look at me you’d think I was perfectly healthy. I reread the piece and made some edits but I’m not 100% happy with it. I almost think I should re-do it from scratch because I feel I’m leaving something out but then again I don’t think I will ever get it to what I want. These are just a few snippets of what it’s like.

“You look completely normal but you’re a freak.” I eyed the seventyish, red-faced doctor who just spoke those words to me. Who is this guy with the tufts of white hair escaping from his balding head, a white lab coat near to bursting against his portly girth and where did he leave his bedside manners? I didn’t respond other than to give him a look I’d honed over the years when people discovered my insides didn’t match my outsides. No one had called me a freak before, though. At least not to my face. I didn’t take much insult, having heard many variations of surprise like this before.

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Writing

Stand up and write!

Mary C

I am now a proud user of something called a CubeCorner 36 which is basically a standing desk.  When I googled it to link for the link, I was brought to a picture of a desk a bit different than the one I have in that it is white and a little wider. I love things that are white because they make me think of clean design and it’s a bit more of a contrast to my black monitors. I’m a bit jealous I didn’t get a white one, but since the office paid, I will not complain.

 

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My desk is like this but black

 

How does the desk work? It goes up and down by holding a couple of handles on either side and then you pull up and forward to go up and push away and down to go down. Going up is pretty easy but putting it back down was a bit of struggle at first. I’m either getting better at it or the joints in the desk are loosening up.

I didn’t know if I should jump right into standing so I did a little reading on the topic before commencing this activity. A few sources recommended starting slow, maybe 20-30 minutes at a time which I’ve been gradually increasing over time and now stand about 2 hours a day in 30-minute increments.  I think the goal is to spend about 3 to 4 hours standing each day which is about half of the workday.

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