I am back off sugar.  I had a few days of eat­ing with­out wor­ry­ing about sugar con­tent.  It was nice to not have to think about every­thing before I put it on my plate.  It was also nice to drink a latte and a mocha.  Yes, I did say *and*.  I had a latte and a mocha in my 2 days on sugar. 

Unfor­tu­nately, I felt (and still feel) pretty bad.  I felt more tired again.  I felt like I had a harder time get­ting my words to come out like I wanted them, and the yummy treats I had dreamed of hurt my stom­ach.  They also didn’t taste as good as I had remem­bered.  I have com­mit­ted to another 3.5 weeks with­out sugar (except for my Christ­mas party on the 11th, Nicki is bring­ing a world famous cheese­cake).  I decided that I needed to con­tinue elim­i­nat­ing sugar (par­tic­u­larly in between hol­i­days) until I no longer looked for­ward to the hol­i­day as an excuse to go all out.

I think the only thing I am really miss­ing is a good way to make my steel cut oats in the morn­ing.  Frozen fruit tends to be a lit­tle sour in there, and I need some­thing to give it a lit­tle bit of taste other than the oats taste.  Any thoughts?  Oh, and I don’t like bananas very well.

I have been off sugar for a week now.  I am still doing this seem­ingly crazy thing.  I’m a lit­tle proud of myself for stick­ing with it.  I’m not always a stick with it kind of per­son.  Some­times, I like to get my toes wet and be done with it.

These past cou­ple days have actu­ally been a bit harder than the first few.  I’m not sure if I had my start up momen­tum that got me going or what.  Lately I’ve been feel­ing like I’ve done enough now and it’s time for a brownie.  I have resisted, but it’s a lot less fun and excit­ing on day 7 than it was on day 1.  I am notic­ing a bit more energy, although it hasn’t been a dras­tic change so obvi­ous I can­not deny it.  I’m impa­tient.  I know. 

One thing I am miss­ing is good fruit right now.  I live in North Dakota, and sadly, this time of year is not exactly the best for fruit.  At a time when I’m also miss­ing sweets in gen­eral, I am wish­ing for bet­ter qual­ity and bet­ter selec­tion when it comes to the fruit I’m choosing.

All in all, it seems to be going well, and I think I am accom­plish­ing my some­what unex­cit­ing goal.  Onward and upward, I am keep­ing on for at least another week (to Thanksgiving).

For a while now, Jason and I have been tak­ing steps to cre­ate a health­ier lifestyle for our fam­ily.  This includes reg­u­lar exer­cise, car­ry­ing a water bot­tle (and using it), watch­ing less tv, and now for me elim­i­nat­ing sugar from my diet.  Today was day one, and I’m happy to say it was a success.

For a while now, I have been what I con­sider to be exces­sively tired for an extended period of time (12 years).   There are many pos­si­bil­i­ties that could be caus­ing my lack of energy.  After explor­ing a few of them with lit­tle suc­cess, I have decided to delve into the ones that take a bit more work on my part.  One of those is elim­i­nat­ing sugar and refined car­bo­hy­drates from my diet.  In addi­tion to being sleepy a lot, I also take an asthma med­i­cine that is linked to increased like­li­hood of thrush, and before my asthma was diag­nosed, I took many rounds of antibi­otics in order to treat my appar­ent sinus infec­tions.  Com­bin­ing all those fac­tors, there is a pretty good chance I have a yeast imbal­ance in my body.

A cou­ple of the peo­ple I fol­low on Twit­ter have been talk­ing about sugar and yeast.  After mak­ing the deci­sion to jump in and do it, I chose today as my first day.  I’m not doing a full can­dida diet.  I’m start­ing small.  Well, small­ish.  My plan is to avoid refined car­bo­hy­drates and elim­i­nate sugar for at least the days from now until Thanks­giv­ing.  Ide­ally I would like to keep this up until closer to Christ­mas so I don’t get back into the sugar habit between Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas, but for now, I’m stick­ing with a smaller goal.

Unfor­tu­nately for me, I seem to have missed the Sugar Free Chal­lenge that hap­pened dur­ing a week in Octo­ber.  Because I’m doing this on my own, I decided to make a smaller goal than what I orig­i­nally wanted.  If any­one reads this and is inter­ested in par­tic­i­pat­ing, let me know!  Sup­port would be great and the more the mer­rier applies here.

Through­out my entire life, I have had eczema.  It has ranged in sever­ity from annoy­ing to unbear­able.  I have had it on my legs, arms, feet, hands, neck, face, and ears.  Yes, I’ve even had it on my ears!

Now, at the time of year when it’s nor­mally at its worst, my eczema is gone!  About 9 months ago, I saw a doc­tor about it, and she rec­om­mended that I try to elim­i­nate (at sep­a­rate times) wheat and eggs from my diet.  Since I had already eaten dairy free for such a long time after hav­ing A, we knew it wasn’t dairy caus­ing my eczema.  Well, I didn’t fol­low her advice.  I couldn’t ever get started.  I would plan to start, and then I’d decide to do it a dif­fer­ent day.

Mean­while, over the past year and half or so, Jason and I have been try­ing to decrease the num­ber of processed foods we’ve been eat­ing.  We’ve also been eat­ing many more fruits, veg­gies, and whole grains.  In the past few weeks, I’ve been mak­ing our bread, spaghetti sauce, and soups.  The other thing that I have changed (more than Jason or the boys) is that I have stopped eat­ing most meat.

Over the past year and a half or so, I’ve been a part of a group of women who have dis­cussed sev­eral times the ben­e­fits of eat­ing well and using high qual­ity, whole foods.  One of the women went to a com­pletely whole foods, mostly organic diet.  She has also found that her eczema cleared up.  So, while I’m not guar­an­tee­ing a con­nec­tion, it seems like a pretty strong con­nec­tion, and I plan to con­tinue eat­ing this way.

My first thought is that I love Christ­mas cards! I look for­ward to the week­end after Thanks­giv­ing, because my cousin’s wife usu­ally sends us our first card either Fri­day or Sat­ur­day. I love read­ing the let­ters and see­ing how peo­ple have changed, either their looks or their lives. I also like hav­ing a chance to recon­nect a lit­tle with all of our friends and family.

Then, I started putting ours together. It wasn’t the time or the effort that it took that made me start think­ing about Christ­mas cards. I started won­der­ing just how many resources were used to cre­ate and deliver a card. Then, I won­dered what peo­ple do with them after Christ­mas is over. I keep mine, but I don’t know if every­one else does.

So, I thought back to the begin­ning of our Christ­mas cards, and here is what I came up with. First, I ordered the boys’ clothes off the inter­net for the pic­tures. Of course, their clothes are made in China. Ship­ping to US and to me. Then, we drove 70 miles (each way) to my sister-in-law’s house for the pic­tures. Then, we drove another 140 miles to pick up the pic­tures. That’s almost a tank of gas for us. After that, I drove 20 miles (ten each way) to pick out Christ­mas cards. They, too, were made in China. I am not tak­ing into account the address labels or return labels, because I didn’t make spe­cial trips any­where for them, but using 85 of them on our Christ­mas cards means that we won’t be using them on 85 let­ters in the future.

I know that paper will break down, but if half of the peo­ple throw away the cards, then it seems to me that I have used quite a few resources for just a few days of enjoy­ment. I could send the cards out before the week of Christ­mas, and then peo­ple would be able to enjoy them for 3 weeks, but that’s another topic for another day.

Jason and I were talk­ing the other night, and we have some ideas for changes in our lifestyle for 2009, so don’t be sur­prised if Christ­mas cards are one of the things that we change. I love love LOVE send­ing and receiv­ing them, so please don’t think I’m say­ing any­thing else. I am cur­rently brain­storm­ing ways to make that a more envi­ron­men­tally friendly process.

Check out this web­site! The first 5 peo­ple there will get car­bon neu­tral­ity for the day!

One Day Campaign

I found out today that I have been listed on a list of the top 100 pedi­atric health blogs. Wow! That’s very excit­ing! Thanks, Kelly! I’m #78.

Since I have been hav­ing a harder time think­ing of top­ics related to breast­feed­ing, I was won­der­ing if you have any spe­cific top­ics you want me to write about. My posts tend to be broad and shal­low, so I can go into more depth in an area if there are any requests. Let me know.

I’m still wait­ing on the results of my pul­monary func­tion test. My appoint­ment for that test was on Novem­ber 5. When I asked the tech about how long I should expect to wait for the results, she said that I could prob­a­bly expect them within a week. Well, it’s now been a week and two days, and I’m still wait­ing. In the mean­time, my cough is get­ting bet­ter. I was able to sleep in my bed last night for the first time since Octo­ber 23rd. It was nice to be back in my room. As much as I don’t like feel­ing sick and cough­ing, I really don’t like sleep­ing in a bed that’s not mine for over 3 weeks.

I was hop­ing that this would be fairly eas­ily resolved. I thought maybe I’d be lucky. I’d do the PFT test, and they would get a clear result. I’m actu­ally still pray­ing for that. I do think it’s more likely from what I’ve read and heard that the result will be incon­clu­sive mean­ing that more tests are needed. I find that to be pretty frus­trat­ing. For one, I want to know what’s going on with my body and fix it. The other rea­son is that I haven’t given up hope for being able to run the half marathon in Fargo in May. It’s a pretty slim chance, and the door is clos­ing on my chances the longer I have to wait. I still have that as my ulti­mate goal, though. If I end up not being able to do the half, I do know a few peo­ple who have decided to run the 5k, so that is my backup plan.

I told Jason today that life is kind of funny. When I was run­ning, I was hop­ing that some­thing would hurt or stop me from being able to run. Now that I’ve had to take a break, and it looks like this is going to be a harder goal to achieve than I orig­i­nally though, I really want to do it!

I’m plan­ning to call my doc­tor on Mon­day to see if she’s heard any­thing. I hate to be a bother, but I’m won­der­ing if maybe some paper­work got mis­placed some­where or some­thing. It just seems like 7 work days is a long time to wait for results of a fairly sim­ple test. For all of you who pray, I would appre­ci­ate any prayers in this area.

For a while after my last post about run­ning, I was get­ting that ques­tion pretty fre­quently. Lately, not as many peo­ple have been ask­ing. I was glad, because I have taken a run­ning hia­tus unfor­tu­nately. My last run was with Jason when we stayed at the in-laws’ house on Octo­ber 25th.

Since then, I’ve been sick. Ugh. It started out as a ter­ri­ble sore throat. I couldn’t swal­low. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to eat. It hurt so bad. Then, my sore throat turned to a cough. For those of you who know me, you know that this isn’t a rare thing for me. I have a ten­dency to get sick pretty fre­quently, and nearly every cold or ill­ness I get turns into a cough. For years, at least the past 20 years, I’ve attrib­uted the fact that I get sick so often to a poor immune sys­tem. Lately, though, I’ve been won­der­ing if it’s some­thing else. Aller­gies? Asthma? Some­thing else all together? I don’t know.

I had an appoint­ment with my doc­tor last Mon­day. At that appoint­ment, I talked with her about this cough. She agreed that it wasn’t nor­mal, and it was some­thing we should try to fig­ure out. Last Wednes­day, I went to the hos­pi­tal and had a pul­monary func­tion test done. If you are like me, and you don’t know what a PFT is, I’ll tell you. Basi­cally, I sat in a lit­tle glass box. First, I had to breathe into a mouth­piece. Then, the tech­ni­cian pumped some sort of gas into the lit­tle box. I did some more breath­ing. Then, she opened the door, and I did a few more breath­ing exer­cises. Each time, she got a chart and some num­bers on her com­puter. I’m still wait­ing for the results of the test, but from what she said at the appoint­ment, I’m guess­ing the results will be incon­clu­sive. If that’s the case, I’m going to end up going back to the hos­pi­tal for another test that is specif­i­cally to diag­nose asthma.

So, to bring this back to the orig­i­nal topic of run­ning, I don’t know what’s going to hap­pen there. I was up to 2.5ish miles before I got sick. Most 10K and half marathon plans start around 3 miles. I would still really like to be able to run in the 2009 half marathon, but at this point, I’m not going to push it. I am hop­ing that fig­ur­ing out what is caus­ing this cough will also help my run­ning. I had got­ten to run­ning about 2.5 miles, but my sta­mina was pretty spotty. Some days, I could make it. Some days I felt like I was going to die after 15 min­utes. I wasn’t ever phys­i­cally tired enough that I felt like I needed to stop run­ning, but I some­times felt like I couldn’t get enough air. I’d really like to be able to say that I ran a half marathon, and I’d like to do it with Jason, but at this point I just want to fig­ure out what is caus­ing my cough.

Well, since I let the secret out last week, I fig­ured that I should con­tinue to update any­one who is inter­ested on how my run­ning is going.  Jason ran a 10K race on Sat­ur­day, and I took the boys to find him on the course and wave to him, and then we met him at the fin­ish line.  He did so well!  I was so proud of him.    (Because my hus­band rocks!)  In addi­tion to feel­ing proud, though, I also felt moti­vated.  If he is already run­ning 10K races in under an hour, I need to get myself in gear and get work­ing on my training.

Between my post last week and his great time in the race, I had the extra moti­va­tion I needed last night to com­plete my 3rd work­out of the week.  Gen­er­ally, I run Mon­day, Wednes­day, and Fri­day or Sat­ur­day depend­ing on our week­end sched­ule.  Monday’s run went pretty well.  I ran about 1.5 miles, and then I took a short walk­ing break before I fin­ished the last mile.  Wednes­day was TERRIBLE!  I’m not sure what hap­pened.  I felt tired almost as soon as I started run­ning, and I only made it to about 1.75 miles before I ended up walk­ing the rest.  Ugh, it was dis­ap­point­ing and frus­trat­ing.  Then, on Sat­ur­day, we went to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s house for my niece’s fourth birth­day.  We got home late, and I had a greasy piece of yummy pizza for sup­per fol­lowed up by some birth­day cake and ice cream.  I was pretty sure that Saturday’s run was going to mir­ror the one I’d had on Wednes­day, but I decided to give it a try (as spurred on by the 2 pre­vi­ously men­tioned moti­va­tors!).  I ran the first mile and a half at my usual pace of 4.2 miles per hour.  Then, since I was feel­ing good, I decided to run the next half mile at 4.5.  I went back down to 4.2 for .75 miles, and then I did the last .25 miles at 4.5.  I was really happy about that run.  I felt good while I was doing it.  I ran the entire dis­tance.  I increased my speed a lit­tle, and I made my goal!

After that run, I decided that I needed to get seri­ous about mak­ing a plan.  Jason had used the Hal Hig­don 10K run­ning plan for his race yes­ter­day.  He felt like it pre­pared him well, and he was quite sat­is­fied with it.  I decided to (again) fol­low his lead, and start­ing a week from tomor­row, I’m going to start that plan, too.  I’m a lit­tle ner­vous about it, but I’m hop­ing that things will progress grad­u­ally from here on out.

Since my other post, I’ve had a few peo­ple visit with me about running.

“Doesn’t it make your feet hurt?”  Sur­pris­ingly, no.  In the begin­ning, I had hoped it would so I would have an excuse to quit.

“I’ve tried run­ning, but I just don’t enjoy it.”  I started run­ning in June.  I def­i­nitely did not enjoy it in the begin­ning.  I’m not quite sure I would say that I enjoy it now either, but I can say that it does feel good.  It makes me feel strong and, I know it’s good for me.

I’m not say­ing that every­one should run or that I’m for sure going to be able to run the half marathon in May, but I do think that there’s some­thing to be said for mak­ing a goal and stick­ing with it even if it is *very* much out­side your com­fort zone.  That’s essen­tially my goal.  I think the 13.1 miles are secondary.