Men, you know you love him too – just more of an envious kind of love, eh? ;)

LL Cool J recently released a new program called Platinum 360 which involves an eating plan and workout schedule. He claims that it’s helped him get in shape while working on NCIS: Los Angeles. (I’ve been on sets before… Craft Services tables are a total nightmare for dieters!)

So last week, he was on one of my favorite shows, The Doctors. He was there to talk about his new diet and exercise plan, LL Cool J’s Platinum 360 Diet and Lifestyle: A Full-Circle Guide to Developing Your Mind, Body, and Soul .

Sounds to me like it actually takes the whole “common sense” stuff and breaks it down in a way that’s easier to “digest”. Ha. I kid.

Carbohydrates, Fat & Protein

CARBOHYDRATES
Bad Carbs = Simple Sugars (soda, candy, white rice, white bread).
Good Carbs = Whole grains, natural (fruit) sugars in moderation, veggies.

Seriously, kids. I mean, we all know that we need carbohydrates for fuel. We all know that we should be eating real oatmeal and not “Sugar Crunchies” for breakfast (or donuts, for that matter).

Eat a whole grain bagel with some peanut butter. Better still? Shmear some Laughing Cow Cheese on that baby. I SWEAR it’s just like cream cheese! I’m partial to the French Onion flavored wedges. One per bagel half and I’m in total breakfast heaven.

FATS

Women especially need fat in their diet, to facilitate hormone production. But everyone needs fat (a total fat-free diet WILL make you sick). Many vitamins and minerals are fat-soluble only, meaning they’ll only be absorbed into the body when broken down by the fat we eat.

Think of traffic lights. Red, yellow, and green.

Red = Saturated fats like deep fried foods, lard, some oils, full-fat dressings and sauces.

Yellow = Use caution, these are fine in moderation. We’re talking eggs, milk, cheese, stuff like that.

Green = Unsaturated fats. Think salmon, almonds, avocado. Yum!

PROTEIN

You must remember this from 7th grade health class, right? We need protein because it’s the building block for all your body’s cells, but especially muscle. Yes, your HEART is a muscle. Think about that. We’re not talking about you eating a whole chicken every day so you can bulk up and look like LL Cool J. This is basic body function type muscle strength.

Protein also helps prevent sugar spikes in your blood. Hello!!! Diabetics! Pay attention! Eat up the white meat turkey and chicken (skinless, please) and add in some tuna, nonfat Greek yogurt, low-fat cheeses. Stay away from the Atkins ill-advised bacon and fatty steak, okay?

Check this out: If your body doesn’t get protein in food, it’s going to steal it from your body’s muscle. Do YOU want to be sitting there 10 years from now with pain and weakness in your body? I don’t!

LL’s Number One Tip

Mix up your food based on your workouts. Shock your body. Confuse it, eat carbs then don’t. Eat fat, then don’t.

This isn’t a new revelation, people. Back when I was on Weight Watchers, with their POINTS system, there was a member-derived plan based on one woman’s success with it called the Wendie Plan. The POINTS system basically told you that you had a certain number of POINTS you could eat each day. POINTS basically were an easy way to count calories. Once you met your POINTS, you were done. Well, the Wendie Plan said that instead of eating say, 30 POINTS a day, you’d take the 210 POINTS you got each week and mixed it up. Have ONE cheat day a week.

Example:

Sunday – 25 (Low)
Monday – 30 (Normal)
Tuesday – 22 (Low)
Wednesday – 41 (Cheat Day – Super High)
Thursday – 27 (Low)
Friday – 35 (High)
Saturday – 30 (Normal)

You can do this with daily caloric intake just the same. LL adds in that you should vary up the actual types of food you eat, based on carbs, fat, or protein. So say on your cheat day, you’d have that double cheeseburger or the 2 pieces of fried chicken. But you need to workout extra on that day. On your light days, where you stick mainly to fruit and veggies or something, you’d take it a little easier on the workout.

I simply love this idea. Shocking your body keeps it alert and not knowing what’s happening next. The Wendie Plan works like a charm (when I did it, I consistently lost 2-3 pounds per week). I can’t see why this idea wouldn’t work too!

The Bottom Line

It boils down to common sense and portion control. I’m sick of hearing people whine about not being able to lose weight. It’s basic, people. Eat right, move your body, and damnit, walk tall!

Yes, this makes the assumption that you’re not on medicine or have a health issue that prevents you from losing weight. If that’s the case, talk to your doctor and a nutritionist. But if you’re a reasonably average human being, with lots of desire and no medical reason behind your excessive weight, then laziness (which yes, I’m quite subject to myself) is your only cause.

You know how. It’s just a matter of doing it.

If you remember from the last Diabetes Update, my blood sugar level was 194, and I’d lost 7 pounds. The doctor had put me on Januvia, and told me that he needed me to lose more weight, faster.

Well, May 27th and my FBS (fasting blood sugar) had dropped 24 points to 170! I was so excited about that, though the doc said it was good, but that had I lost more weight it would’ve been a better number. Yep. The weight thing.

I’m not struggling with the food, I promise you. I’ve been doing very well, not completely excluding anything, but rather focusing on adding the good stuff to replace most (seriously, 99%) of the bad stuff. It’s really, honestly, with head hung in shame… the exercise.

So I bought Core Rhythms. Yes I did. I’ve been ridiculously busy and haven’t had time to try it for more than 15 mins since it arrived, but I can already tell I’m going to love it. Likely much more than the treadmill, that’s for sure. I feel like a gerbil on that thing.

So anyway, while the weight is steadily at 245 (yes, actually a 4 lb. gain from my lowest since starting this trek) I’m hoping that by continuing the good eating and incorporating the workout DVDs, I should finally start to see some serious weight droppage.

I’m madder than hell at the producers of The Biggest Loser… let me just share that with you. Bitter? You bet your big fat butt I am.

Okay, so my next appointment is mid-July, on the 14th, right before the three-month mark that I’ve been on the Januvia. So that means I’ve got another 6 weeks to do some serious damage control. I know what you’re thinking: “But Lara, more than 1-2 pounds per week isn’t healthy.”

Guess what? The contestants on TBL weigh in every week and a half (10 days, not 7 as the show would make you think), and if they are being medically supervised (as I am) to lose that enormous amount of weight that they do, I think I can handle 3-4 lbs per week without fear. My goal for July 14th is 20 lbs. which would put me at 225. I’ve done it before without even trying, and now I’m going to do it again. I think once I do that, I’ll have a good jump start behind me and I will be able to continue this without giving up.

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• “It tastes so… blah. I need more flavor!”
• “It takes too long to make.”
• “I don’t eat breakfast as it is, and you want me to eat that?”
• “Instant oatmeal is easier/more flavorful/faster/etc.”
• “I can’t ever get the consistency right. It comes out like glue/soup.”

Guess what, kiddies? I’ve used each and every one of those excuses myself, my entire life. Until I got my Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis, I pretty much refused to give it another chance. Granted, while oatmeal is proven to lower cholesterol my cholesterol levels are fine, and there’s no clear and present danger to my heart, the bottom line is that I need to lose weight and I need to do it right. Oatmeal is going to help, and I’m here to tell you: Cooked oatmeal really isn’t all THAT bad.

Why Oatmeal Will Help You Lose Weight

Old-fashioned oatmeal (sorry kids, not the instant kind) is absolutely packed with dietary fiber, which is the stuff that makes your world go ’round if you’re on a diet. The more dietary fiber you consume, the less fat you absorb and the more you flush out your *ahem* system.

Clearly, the better your digestive tract is working, the less time you’ve got food and toxins building up in your body. The less time for fat to absorb into your bloodstream. No, oatmeal isn’t going to make you crap your pants like Alli or Olestra, but it will keep things moving the way they should be. Know how your grandmother had faith in bran muffins? Yeah, that.

I could also get into the whole Glycemic Load stuff – if you’re interested, the oatmeal itself has a GL of 13. As comparison, brown rice has a GL of 17. The lower the GL, the longer it takes to digest the food which means a longer stability of metabolism and blood sugar levels. Also, the longer you stay full, the less you eat, the more weight you lose. :)

So anyway, how does one actually cook old-fashioned oatmeal quickly, and make it taste good?

Here’s what I do:

1. 1 cup old-fashioned oats (yep, out of that big round cardboard box) into a bowl.
2. 2 packets of Splenda
3. dash of salt (maybe a little more than a dash)
4. LOTS of ground cinnamon (I’ll explain this later)
5. 1/2 tbsp light butter (sometimes I will omit this)
6. 3/4 – 1 cup 2% milk (depending on the day, how chewy I want it to be; chewy uses less)
7. stir it up and pop it into the microwave for 2 minutes
8. add fruit or flavorings, stir up again, and enjoy!

I kid you not, I’ve got the process down to less than 4 minutes. I’ve even seen so-called “nutritionist blogs” out there saying that it can take 10 minutes to cook this kind of oatmeal, to which I call “Horseshit!”

Oh, and about the whole cooking it in the milk thing… One of my friends claims he prefers to cook his oatmeal stovetop, in just enough salted water for it to absorb into the oats, and then add a splash of milk to it after it’s done. I’ve never tried it that way, as I said, I like my oatmeal chewy, not soggy or soupy, and that’s the only thing I can imagine would happen using water.

Here are some of my favorite things to add to my oatmeal in step 7:

• 2 tbsp canned pumpkin puree
• sliced banana
• blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, or any combo of them all
• 1 tbsp creamy peanut butter
• a dozen semi-sweet chocolate chips

I’m not a fan of raisins, but I do like craisins (dried cranberries). Problem is they have so much sugar in such a concentrated form. I rarely do the chocolate chip thing because of that too. But for a treat, a change of pace, it can’t hurt once in a while.

I seriously eat oatmeal almost every morning for breakfast. If I’m not eating that, I’m eating some kind of Egg Beaters omelette or something, but the oatmeal actually takes the least amount of time and is quite versatile.

The cinnamon thing…

Ground cinnamon has been shown to actually lower blood sugar in diabetics because it enhances your body’s sensitivity to insulin, which regulates the blood sugar. I swear to you, I put it in just about everything now. I even added it to chili once!

So, how do you do oatmeal?

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So on my last post about my diabetes battle, where I mentioned that I’d “only” lost 7 pounds, a beautiful reader by the name of kirwin left a comment that totally put some things in perspective for me:

I know it’s not the numbers you were hoping for but seven pounds is seven pounds. Consider this: that’s a newborn baby. You did AWESOME, and you are heading in the right direction.

Keep it up. It’s the tortoise that wins the race.

To that end, because I’ve never in my life thought of measuring weight loss to the weight of your average, healthy baby… and because one of my dreams in life is to be a mom… I’ve decided to add the “baby meter” in a way that’s unlike any other baby meter you’ve seen!

I’m going to be naming these babies… and sending them out in the world to live outside my body! Once you give birth, you can’t put the baby back in. You have to name the baby. I see it like I’ve been nurturing these babies far longer than a normal pregnancy… in fact, it’s been about 18 years, so they’re due to get a life of their own, outside my body!

I’d like to introduce you to my first born…

Meet Elardabeth! She was the first 7 pound baby born during my battle against diabetes. Thanks kid, but you’re on your own now!

So for those of you who got to this page by clicking on the “What’s with all the babies?” link on the home page, now you know! I’ll be updating this page with all the babies and their names, every 7 pounds I lose!

Babies I’ve Set Free

Elardabeth

As you might recall, this morning I had my 6-week check-in with the doctor regarding my diabetes diagnosis that I got on March 9, 2009. I’ve got a few things to report, some good, others not so much.

• I did lose 7 pounds since my last visit, 6 weeks ago. It’s not the numbers I was hoping for (or that my doc was hoping for) but it did prove to him that I’m taking this seriously, so that’s a good thing. He said a pound a week was okay for a normal person trying to lose weight, but he wanted to see a big initial drop, which I didn’t have.
• My fasting blood sugar (FBS) was 194. That’s about 10 points higher than it was the last time, so I’m really kind of upset over that. I’ve been doing really well with limiting carb intake, despite a few wagon trips.

Because of the above two points, he’s put me on a prescription diabetes medicine called Januvia. It’s supposed to suppress the appetite, lower blood glucose levels, and all around help when used with diet and exercise to lose weight.

I’ve read about drugs like Metformin and Janumet (a combination of Januvia and Metformin) used as oral prescriptions for those with Type 2 Diabetes who are having troubles with just diet and exercise.

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been 110% perfect with the diet or the exercise, however I’ve got another appointment in 5 weeks for another blood sugar test and a check-in with the doc (May 26th). I’ve also set the appointment with the CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator) for May 6th.

I’ve re-dedicated myself to using SparkPeople to journal my food consumption – It’s got to be a permanent factor in my life right now, because when I don’t use it, I can pretty much safely assume that I’m going over the 1200-1400 calorie limit.

I’m also going to be forcing myself to get on the treadmill every day. I don’t care what it is that has me “busy” – there’s nothing as important to me as getting on that damn machine. Period.

So there you have it – Maybe I should be going to the doc once a week, for a weekly motivation boost?!? LOL

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Granted, thus far the study has only been done on mice, and we all know that means that it may or may not yet apply to humans. But what they did was take subcutaneous fat (the layer of fat right below the skin) from the buttocks and moved it to the abdomen areas of the mice. The result was a drop in body weight and blood sugar levels in those mice. Researchers believe there is something in this kind of fat that improves the metabolism of glucose.

What they do know is that women with a larger backside and smaller stomachs have a lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes than women with large amounts of abdominal fat. It all goes back to Dr. Oz and his grotesque display of that “omentum” on Oprah a few years back.

Belly fat in the omentum is probably the most dangerous. It’s only job is to provide fuel to your internal organs, but when you have too much and are not eating properly, it’s delivering toxic fuel to those organs. Fuel loaded with chemicals and poisons that aren’t good for your body. It’s almost the equivalent to putting sugar in your car’s gas tank. Fortunately with the body, as opposed to a sugared tank, you can actually reverse it before it kills the car.

If you’re interested in learning more about how your body works, especially when you’re dieting, you need to grab a copy of You: On A Diet by Dr. Michael F. Roizen and Dr. Mehmet C. Oz. It’s on my reading list for sure.

So get out those “Apple Bottom Jeans” and wear them with pride, ladies! (But get your bellies flat first!)

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Before I get into that, I’d like to share with you some pics of zoo animals enjoying their birthday cakes, courtesy of HuffPo:

Gee, one who doesn’t know me might wonder why I focused on zoo animals there for a second… LOL Anyway, back to the meat (haha, “meat”) of this post…

There are many things that plague my brain on certain occasions. Birthdays, holidays, friends and family giving birth, people passing away, nothing really ever happens without my brain taking me on a whirlwind voyage through my own life.

Many times I find these thoughts sad, though there are many times I think about all the things in my life that I’ve done, places I’ve been, and people I’ve had the pleasure to know and it makes me smile. I’ve decided that today, for just one day, I’m going to work really hard at focusing upon those things alone, and try to forget about the fact that I’m getting older and have so many dreams unfulfilled yet.

32 Years, 16 Favorite Memories

Pardon me, but this list is lengthy. I was shooting for 32, but I have birthday events to take part in… :)

1. I once did a bellyflop on a 14 foot alligator who’d escaped her enclosure. The point was to try to stabilize her so the zoo foreman could jump on and bind her jaw, so she wouldn’t snap when we moved her back in. I honestly think she wouldn’t have anyway, as she didn’t really flinch or anything when the 15 of us picked her up and carried her around to the gate. But it was thrilling to me, for about 15 seconds anyway.
2. I’ve been in two movies, neither of which have been released. However because of this, I do have a profile on imdb.com. During one filming, I hung out with Mykelti Williamson (who played “Bubba” in Forrest Gump) and during the other I had conversation over lunch with Anthony Michael Hall and Chris Penn.
3. My first ever music concert was Janet Jackson (Rhythm Nation Tour) but my most memorable was Billy Joel (River of Dreams Tour) where he held my hand during the entire first half of  “She’s Always A Woman”. Later in life, I was told by a very dear friend that he always thought of me when he heard that song, despite my never telling him the story about the concert previously.
4. I was in Civil Air Patrol (CAP) from the time I was 12 until I was 17. My friend Lucas joined because of me, and we took a flying lesson together. It was a Cessna. Was probably one of the coolest feelings ever.
5. I spent 6 weeks in Italy when I was 15 years old, as part of a summer foreign exchange program. For four weeks, I was living with the greatest host family known to man, who took me on a tour of the whole country. The last two weeks was less fun for me, as it was at an “acting camp”, but I totally made the most of it. I was in a mansion in Perugia with 10 partying teenagers who would steal wine from the cellar and drink into the wee hours. An indicator of my “old soul”: They partied while I slept (or tried to), so I could have the morning to myself with tea, toast and marmelade, the sunrise and the wild horses.
6. My first (and only, thus far) trip to Vegas was last October (2008). I went for a blogger conference, and spent the majority of my time there with either my client (who went with me and shared a room) or with my friend/client Darren Rowse and the b5media crew. It was 4 days and wasn’t nearly long enough. The bonus? I came home only $40 in the hole.
7. My first trip on an airplane was when I was 10 years old. My father owned a travel agency, and this was the first of many vacations I got to have as a kid that took me on a plane. We went to California, and the first place I wanted to go (unlike most kids that age) was the San Diego Zoo.
8. I’ve worked closely with over 100 species of exotic animals when I was a zookeeper, many of which are endangered species. Animals that most people don’t even know exist. I know the scientific names for most of these animals, and can tell you precisely what they eat, how they live in the wild, and other information that most would consider entirely useless to my current occupation. Sometimes knowing this stuff is what keeps me alive inside.
9. Jack Hanna (a very famous zoologist – he’s been on the Tonight Show, Good Morning America, and Maury on hundreds of occasions, and had his own show at one point) once called my house after I somehow got in touch with his secretary. I called and they put me right through to her, and she didn’t understand how (I guess they weren’t supposed to do that), but was so impressed that she made sure Mr. Hanna got my phone message. He called on a Sunday morning at 8am, and helped answer questions I had about my Senior Essay for 12th grade English class. He is the reason I was ever a zookeeper, as he told me which school to go to, and how to go about doing it. I told him that if he ever needed an assistant on his voyages to Africa, to give me a ring.
10. It’s a silly memory, and you may have had to be there, but when I was in 4th grade I had a huge crush on a boy named Jason (in fact, I crushed on him well beyond 4th grade). We both got in trouble during lunch for talking because he was making me laugh (which is a trait I’ve forever desired in a man) and we got sent up “to face the curtain” which was on the stage in the cafeteria. I think they used that as a way to embarass us into good behavior, but it didn’t ever really work. He continued to make me laugh, and our teacher made us hold hands walking back to class from lunch, because we’d gotten in trouble. I remember both of us pretending not to enjoy it, however upon turning the corners on our way back to class, he’d then pull me closer and give me a kiss on the cheek. Every. Corner. Was so damned cute.  I wonder about him a lot.
11. I’ve had a lot of really great first kisses. Every girl has these chick-flick ideas of a great first kiss, and I’ve had some that really were chick-flick quality. Sure, there have been some really awful ones (that in fact, never got better even with 2nd or 3rd or 10th kisses if I ever let them get that far) but I can’t help but blush and smile and get the warm fuzzies when I think of a few key first kisses that literally made my knees buckle.
12. One Spring Break during zoo school, I spent 3 days at the National Zoo in D.C. with a gorilla named Mopi. All my friends were in Mexico or something, and I was hanging out with Mopi. We interacted between an enormously thick piece of glass, but I journaled the entire thing like I would if I were Dian Fossey in the Virunga Mountains. At the end of the trip, one of the primate keepers who had noticed my extended presence took me behind the scenes to an orangutan (I think his name was Willy) and I hand-fed him celery. He would take it and then blow raspberries at me.
13. I fondly remember what I called “Daddy-Daughter Days”. It was usually on a Saturday, because back then Mom was a retail store manager and she often worked those mornings. He’d make me scrambled eggs (with ketchup, which the thought of makes me gag now) and I’d sit in my cardboard-box-playhouse eating them during Saturday morning cartoons. Later in the day, we would go fishing or something cool like that. We’d either head across the street to the creek, or over to a “special fishing spot” we had. One of his favorite pictures of me is when I caught my first fish.
14. A few years ago, my friend Tina and I (with our moms) went to a magazine model search competition. We interviewed at the same time, side by side, with different judges. They chose 7 (there was a mother-daughter team they felt they just had to include, but it was only supposed to be 5 winners) out of hundreds that showed up. I remember sitting in the room while they announced winners, and they got to choosing the last person and we all figured we hadn’t gotten it. The two judges I interviewed with were fighting over who got to announce the next winner, because they were both so excited. I listened as they said, “She’s a volunteer firefighter, a certified zookeeper…” and my eyes widened, my mom and I both teared up, and I finally heard my name. I remember only thinking, “Don’t trip… don’t trip…” on my way up. The next day we had a huge fashion photo shoot, however the issue never made it to print because the magazine sold out to another company that discontinued the model search.
15. I once almost spent the night with Josh Duhamel. (Fergie’s husband now, he played “Danny” on the crime drama “Las Vegas”.) We met at a Make-A-Wish Foundation benefit, and Tina was dating his best friend and then “All My Children” co-star, Cameron Mathison. ‘Nuff said. *blush*
16. When I was in elementary school, I was part of what was then called the “Gifted and Talented Program” (Which has since been demolished because apparently it’s not “PC” to acknowledge smart kids) and we had a kind of science fair. My mission was to build a bridge out of toothpicks, that could withstand 100lbs. of weight. Other kids had a mission to wrap an egg in something and drop it from various heights without the egg breaking, etc. Despite my task having nothing to do with eggs, my mother made me wear a costume, that looked like a fried egg. I was the only kid who showed up in any kind of costume. I think I was a little too young to be truly embarrassed by it, but looking back, it was probably a highlight on a list of embarrassing events in my life. I would’ve won the toothpick bridge contest had I had the guts to put all the weight on it, but I chickened out. Believe it or not, yes, looking back on this memory does in fact make me smile.

I know if I had more time, I could come up with 32, but I figured that half as many would suffice. :) Besides, I’d expect many to be bored reading all that as it is… LOL

Here’s to another year of life, and dammit, this one’s gonna top ‘em all!

A Little Back Story

Two days prior to the “Day of Dawn” for me, I’d been sitting at my desk and noticed that my left hand had these weird, jerky twitches going on. Not like your everyday eyelid twitch or that rhythmic thumping twitch, no… it was the fingers on my left hand moving around in strange, unbalanced movements. I got a little weirded out so I called the doctor’s office and they set me up for a 2pm appointment.

Now, I need to explain here that prior to all of this mess, I’d never EVER been much of a breakfast eater. I’d wake up around 6 or 7 and drink coffee with 2% milk and equal until about noon-thirty before actually putting something in my mouth that required chewing. I had a feeling they were going to draw blood, so I didn’t even eat that day until after the appointment.

So by the time I got to the doctor’s office and the subsequent lab for a blood draw, I had gone 21 hours without anything but that day’s coffee in my gut. More on that thought later…

The next day I get the call that my doc wants to see me to go over the bloodwork results. Okay, so there’s clearly something wrong, since if everything were okay he’d have called to tell me that and told me to keep an eye on the twitching stuff and let him know if it gets worse or more frequent.

I go into the office and the PA comes in and asks me why I’m there. (In case you’re wondering, I’m not a big fan of any of the PA’s at this office, but whatever…) So I tell her and she leaves and comes back with that finger pricker thing but never says a word. I see her putting it together and I mention that I really hate it. Like, I have a ridiculous reflex against it, have since I was a kid. It’s uncontrollable by myself alone, so I’m hoping she can hold my hand steady enough.

She couldn’t. Or rather, she didn’t even bother to really try. She kind of cupped my finger in her hand like she was holding an egg.

I wound up with an inch long gash on my finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding for hours after I left the damn office.

Doctor comes in and tells me that my cholesterol levels are “perfect”, my proteins and all that other stuff are normal, but my blood sugar was really high, at 183. This slash test just now (also about 18 hours since the last time I’d eaten, by the way) showed 186. He was sending me for a Hemoglobin A1c, which tests for the percentage of sugar bonded to proteins in the blood, and which is a defining test for Type 2 Diabetes. He said that 6% or lower was normal, 6-7% was borderline, and 7% and above was definite T2.

So back over to the lab I go, pulling up the sleeve of the other arm and since I know the hematologist, having a discussion with her about how I’m now officially nervous.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I came home and my mother came down to spend time with me. I made a stir-fry dinner with brown rice and we talked about all the things the doctor said. Basically what he told me was that right now, regardless of the test results, the only thing he wants me to focus on is a 1200-1400 calorie per day diet, low in carbs and zero refined carbs, and 30 minutes of exercise every day. Heart-pumping exercise that is, to get the heart rate up.

I’m thinking, “Okay, I can do this. I’ve been wanting to do this, and now I have to do this, and I can do this.”

So the next day I get a call from the doctor’s secretary or PA or whatever, and she tells me that my A1c came back at 10.6% and she is going to make me an appointment to see their CDE (Certified Diabetes Instructor). Um, but the doctor said he doesn’t want me on a meter, doesn’t want me stressing over anything at all, just to focus on calories, content, and exercise. I tell her this, and she says, “Well, let’s set you up with the appointment anyway and if the doctor says no, we can cancel it.”

That, folks, is another long story, but the bottom line is that I didn’t see the CDE, and when I spoke to the doctor about it the other day, he was fine with it.

So Here I Go

I’ve been tracking every morsel that goes into my body with SparkPeople and have really tried to get on the treadmill every day. I’ve not succeeded, but every single morning I tell myself that I’m going to do it. It’s been over two weeks, and I’ve lost 4 pounds thus far.

I’ll be writing about this whole process in great detail of course. My next appointment with the doctor is on April 21, 2009 but don’t worry, I’ve got lots to say even before then… ;)

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Retired racing greyhound rescue has been a major fixture in my life for about 10 years now, and I seriously don’t know where I’d be right now without them. My dad and I are the US account holders for an international rescue group based in the UK. I used to attend adoption clinics and show off my beautiful “children” and talk about how they make amazing pets, they’re great with kids, and how we affectionately call them “45 mile-per-hour couch potatoes”.

There have been times in my life where I’ve felt really low – we’ve all had moments like that. I’ve had several “major life changes” and honestly, the only time I’ve ever felt truly at peace, even for a moment, was when I was with animals of some kind. (For those of you unaware, I also used to be a zookeeper – which sort of took the place of my not being able to have greyhounds at that time.)

Some might say I have a stronger affinity for animals than most people in general. A connection, so to speak. That’s fine and dandy, but I don’t care who you are – looking at an animal like a retired racer, knowing the horrors it may have come from, and see it look you directly in the eye after it spent years too scared to do that with any other human being… damn, that feels good.

Greyhounds don’t look like they weigh all that much, but I’ve got an 85-pound boy lying next to me that begs to differ with you. Next to him is his 75-pound “sister”. Try sleeping in a full size bed with these two and tell me that you’re lonely… I dare you.

Sure – they don’t speak English, but their faces speak volumes. They don’t have opposable thumbs, but they love to put their heads down and nuzzle right into you. They’re not the greatest guard dogs in the world, but they love to snuggle which makes you feel pretty safe and warm.

Adopted animals almost seem to know more about our emotional states than even we do. Have you ever noticed, if you’re around a dog when you’re sad, that it seems to show concern for you? It may come up and sniff or lick your face, or shove it’s head under your hand somehow knowing that by petting it you’ll feel better? It might even just come and curl up on your lap, or next to you, and rest it’s head on you.

The best though, is when the animal doesn’t even have to know you’re in need of a silent confidante. It just goes about it’s day, only to act naturally to make you laugh…

[images: Lara Kulpa]

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There are lots of things to think about when you’re thinking about money. It could be related to your job, your spending, your savings, your family, your health, or any other number of factors, but the bottom line is that you have to be educated about money and finance in order to improve your emotional connection toward your financial health.

I’m going to kickstart this topic with some really great sites and books that I’ve found. Yes, the majority of these are geared toward women (sorry, guys) but that doesn’t mean that the principles don’t apply for both sexes! Don’t worry, I’ll be back, reporting on ways to improve your financial health, but for now, go read these, my lovelies!

• The Skinny Debt Diet from my dear friend Stephanie at Back In Skinny Jeans. What a FANTASTIC idea!
• The Women’s Institute for Financial Education (WIFE)
• Rich Bitch – I LOVE the sense of humor behind this, and there’s a forum too!
• The Small Business Administration (SBA) Programs for Women Entrepreneurs
• Budgeting and Money Management Book List
• Mom’s Budget – This site’s been around for 8 years and has some GREAT tools and resources for anyone looking to organize their finances and save money.
• Suze Orman – She’s loud and brash but that’s probably why I LOVE her.
• Personal Finance For Dummies, 5th edition and Personal Finance Workbook For Dummies
• Oprah on Money – You gotta hand it to the Queen of Afternoon Talk Shows!
• The Motley Fool Personal Finance Workbook
• Amazon’s Finance for Women Reading List

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