I’ve lost about 25 pounds. I can see it in my face. I can certainly tell by the way my clothes fit, or don’t fit. I’ve had other people tell me I look thinner. Most of the time I’m pretty proud of myself. The rest of the time I can’t seem to escape the knowledge of how far I have to go.

I guess it’s kind of like the guy who is trying to tunnel out of prison with a teaspoon. You just have to keep digging day after day and measure your progress in increments. If you start thinking about how flimsy your tools are and how long the tunnel is that you have to dig, you’ll never get to the end. It’s the same thing with weight loss. If you celebrate every small milestone, you might eventually get to the big milestone. If you stop along the way and look at how far you have to go until you get to the end, you probably won’t get there.

Most of the time I’m a big picture girl. I like to look at the overall goal and plan all the steps along the way. When it comes to weight loss, however, I’ve had to quit looking at the big picture. The truth is that I have a lot of weight to lose. The other truth is that it won’t come off overnight. If I let myself focus on how long this could all take and how much I have to lose, I probably won’t ever lose another pound. So I don’t let myself focus on that. Instead I focus on how much better I feel and how close I am to losing that next five pounds and let the rest take care of itself.

A piece of writing advice that I’ve always liked says something like this: if you want to write a novel, don’t focus on the fact that you want to write 365 pages. Instead, focus on writing one page every day. At the end of a year, you’ll have a novel.

I think it’s the same thing with weight loss. Don’t focus on the 20 or 50 or 100 pounds you need to lose. Focus on losing one or two pounds a week. At the end of a year, you’ll have lost over 100 pounds. Focusing on the smaller goal eventually helps you get to the bigger goal, and keeps you from getting discouraged.

If I had to make a guess, I’d say that most people don’t think much about their heartbeat. It’s like breathing, you don’t have to think about each breath you take, it happens automatically. For most people, their heart beating is probably the same thing. Other than wondering if the rate has increased enough when they exercise, I’d guess the average person doesn’t pay any mind to what their heart does. It is simply there, beating regularly, day after day after day.

I used to be that way, even though I’d been born with a heart defect and had surgeries to correct problems. The way it used to go was pretty simple. I’d have a problem, I’d have the surgery and life would go on. I won’t say the surgeries were fun, they weren’t, but I always assumed that the surgery would fix the problem and I’d go back to being as healthy as I was before.

Then, afib showed up. So far no one can tell me why it happened. No one can tell me when it will happen. No one can tell me if it will happen again. I had an episode in March and went on some medication. Things were going fine for three months and then I had another episode in June. They tried some new medication and so far things have been fine. Most of the time I think positively and believe things will stay that way. Most of the time.

Still, I wear a divot in my left wrist because I take my pulse so frequently. I’ve put the blood pressure/heart monitor away because I was using it so often when it was out in plain sight. I worry every time I have a twinge or feel a little light headed or feel like something is off a bit which means I worry all the time. If I can feel my heart beating strongly, I worry. If I can’t feel my heart beating strongly, I worry. Obviously, I worry most of the time.

I’m working very hard toward getting back to believing I’m healthy and taking the strong, steady beat of my heart for granted. I’m proud to say that I’m in that frame of mind more often lately. I’m sad to say that the rest of the time I’m a nervous, stressed wreck. I hope that, as the months go on with no further incidents, I’ll go back to being more relaxed about this whole issue. Except, in a weird way, I don’t want to be more relaxed. Being attuned to my heartbeat has encouraged me to get healthier, to think more about what I eat, and to exercise more.

If being more aware brings me all those benefits, spending a little time monitoring my heartbeat is a small price to pay.

I’ve always been kind of a salt junky. I love salty foods. I’ve never been a huge one for sweets, but I love chips and crackers and dips and popcorn with lots of salt and butter. One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in dealing with my new diet is the fact that salt is limited. I never did use the salt shaker all that much, so my problem isn’t that I have to stop adding salt to my food. The problem is that there’s already so much salt already there.

Take yesterday for instance. I’ve mentioned before that I’m also working to balance my blood sugar. That requires eating a bit less sugar as well. One of my new strategies for accomplishing that goal was to substitute foods that didn’t contain sugar for those that did. I had the brilliant idea that I would make some fat free pudding and use some fat free cool whip and have a nice low sugar treat that I could eat in place of ice cream. It seemed like a brilliant idea until I read the back of the pudding packet. A 1/4 cup of pudding has over 300 milligrams of sodium. That, clearly, won’t do.

It is a sad but true fact that most grocery stores don’t carry an extensive line of low sodium products. You may find some low sodium canned vegetables and perhaps, if you’re lucky, some low sodium soups or chips, but most products will be the full sodium versions. I don’t buy a great deal of prepared food for just this reason, but there are some things I do like to buy. I don’t have enough patience to make my own spaghetti sauce, and I don’t believe I’d even begin to know how to make my own English muffins. Luckily, I have found a few online stores that cater to those on a low sodium diet.

If you’re on such a diet, check out these stores. They do have some great products.

Living Low Sodium

Healthy Heart Market

HeartWise Foods

I’m starting to wonder about the nutritional content of library paste. In the last few days it has come to seem like everything else I might want to eat is bad for me. I’m getting a little discouraged.

When I first started dealing with afib one of the things they told me was to watch my fluid intake and to go on a low sodium diet. That seemed relatively simply. I didn’t eat out a lot and I didn’t eat a lot of processed food so I thought I was in good shape. Then I started reading how much sodium was in things I thought were good for me, and I realized I needed to make some changes. It wasn’t always easy, but I did revamp my diet.

A while later I started noticing I was getting shaky and tired a lot. My doctor had told me my blood sugar was a little high. I started cutting back on sugar and investigated the glycemic index. Once again I started revamping my diet and learning to eat in a new way. The good news is that paying more attention to the glycemic index and eating more carefully seems to be balancing out my blood sugar. The bad news is that, yet again, there are foods that are verboten, and those foods are the ones I like most.

Sometimes I wonder if knowing as much as we do about health and how food and drink and other things effect our bodies is such a good thing. I could, if I wanted to, spend half my day deciding what to eat and when to eat it. All I want is to be healthy, and I’m willing to do what is necessary to accomplish that. I guess I just wish it were a bit simpler sometimes.

So, for what it’s worth here’s my plan. I am going to watch my sodium. I am going to try to use the glycemic index to incorporate more low glycemic foods into my diet. I am going to work to fit more exercise into my schedule and I am going to add more weight training to my exercise routine. What I won’t do is become a Nazi about all this. I will do the best I can do and feel good about it. I won’t beat myself up if I have that piece of chocolate or handful of chips. As of right now, I’m eating better and more mindfully than I ever have in my life.

That, I hope, will count for something.

I went to Applebee’s tonight. The choice of restaurant wasn’t made by me and it wasn’t one I would have chosen, for one simple reason. It is impossible to find nutrition information for Applebee’s meals.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m on a heart healthy, low sodium diet. I want to make food choices that are within my diet parameters and healthy for me. I need to know how much fat and salt are in the foods I eat, or at least to be able to make a reasonable estimate. When I go to Applebee’s I have no way of doing that.

On the Applebee’s web site they have this to say about why they don’t offer nutrition information:

We do not provide nutritional information on other Applebee’s® items – with approximately 1,900 locations in the U.S. alone there are many different vendors, which makes it extremely difficult to obtain nutritional information for our items.

You’ll forgive me if I’m a little skeptical about that statement. Other restaurant chains have as many locations and offer as many different types of food and they can manage to release their nutrition information. Take, for instance, Outback Steakhouse, which I have mentioned on this blog before. They can manage to have a whole section on their web site which talks about nutrition and how to eat for specific diets.

Even fast food places are getting into the act. Wendy’s has a nutrition calculator which lets you add different foods from their menu to see how many calories and how much fat and sodium each combination contains. Even McDonalds includes nutrition information on their web site.

In today’s health conscious world, I’m guessing more people are going to be looking for information that will help them eat healthier. I know, when it’s my choice, that I’ll be going to restaurants that will give me the information I need to make an informed choices about what I eat. I’m guessing a lot of other people will too.

Every day about 5:30 in the evening I feel like I fall into a sort of black hole. My energy levels drop. I get tired. My interest in doing anything but sitting on the couch is almost nil. The thought of exercise seems like a cruel joke, and not a very funny joke. If someone would roll a cot up to my desk at work I would happily take a nap.

The problem with this energy drain is the fact that I still have a lot to do in my day. I usually work until 6:30 or so. My plan after I leave work is to go home, exercise, eat dinner, clean up and then do whatever work I have to do that night. Maybe I write blog posts. Maybe I work on other projects. The plan is that I put in an additional couple hours of work and then go to bed. Except lately the plan hasn’t been happening.

By the time I get home at night I’m starving and tired. I usually have a light supper which only leaves me tired. I either have to force myself to exercise, which only leaves me more tired, or I skip the exercise. I have trouble keeping my eyes open when I’m working after dinner, but can’t seem to fall asleep when I finally go to bed. The whole thing is most perplexing.

I know that part of the problem is some of the medication I’m on. The pills cause fatigue and drowsiness. I also know that my sleeping patterns aren’t always the best for leaving you well rested and energized. I also have to wonder if my diet plays a part. I have pared back my diet, and I’m wondering if I’ve gone a bit too far. I’ve noticed I generally feel better when I eat something a bit more substantial in the evening. Maybe I need to look into adding a little more to my evening meal.

I would really like to find a solution to this problem. I have a lot I want to accomplish in the evenings and being a sleep deprived zombie just isn’t getting the job done. If any of you have experienced this problem and conquered it, I’d love to hear your solution.

I recently wrote a post about saving on exercise equipment, gear and videos for another blog that I write, A Frugal Housewife. In the comments on that post a couple of people mentioned that they have a hard time getting motivated to exercise. The truth is, I have a hard time getting motivated to exercise too. I’m never going to be one that enjoys a good sweat. If they invented a way to lose a hundred pounds while sitting on your sofa and reading a book, I’d be first in line to try it. Unfortunately, the best way to lose weight is still to eat right and to sweat and move your body. Since some of you, like me, are having trouble getting motivated, I thought I’d share a few of the ways I get myself motivated when I’m feeling less than energetic.

1. Exercise works. I’ve lost about 25 pounds so far. People are telling me I look thinner. My clothes are fitting much better and in some cases are getting too big. I never achieved these kind of results from sitting around and wishing I was thinner. Whether I like it or not, getting out and moving my body does get results.

2. Exercise makes me healthier. Cute Cardiologist told me that my heart function had greatly improved at my last appointment. He attributes a lot of that to my exercise routine. The heart is a muscle and it works like any other muscle. Use it and make it work and it gets stronger.

3. Exercise allows me to eat what I want with less guilt. Notice I didn’t say no guilt. Still, exercise gives me more leeway in what I eat. It also helps ensure that I won’t have an attack of the screaming guiltys is I have a piece of chocolate or a handful of microwave popcorn. It’s true I can’t eat everything I want, but I can have a wider choice of foods if I choose to exercise.

4. Exercise causes endorphins. We all have days when we feel a little down. Exercise helps pump up the chemicals in your body and brain that make you feel happy. Exercise also helps reduce stress and anger.

Finally, I wanted to share the main reason that I’m motivated to exercise. It is, simply this: If I exercise most days I can say the hell with it when I have a day where I really just don’t feel like it. Unless you’re an athlete or training for a major sporting event, you don’t have to exercise every day. That, somehow, makes the days that I do exercise seem like a little bit less of a chore.

Today at work I happened to pass a colleague who was leaving the kitchen as I was going in. She had a brimming bowl of what looked like canned chicken noodle soup in her hand. My immediate reaction was disgust. I wonder if she knows how much sodium is in that soup, I thought. How can she eat such a big bowl, I wondered. In that split second when we passed each other in the doorway I made three or four value judgments about a lunch that wasn’t even my own.

I’ve noticed that I make such judgments more and more these days. I tend to evaluate food based on whether it is “good” or “bad”. The “bad” foods are anything high in sodium, fat, calories, or sugar, basically most everything that tastes good or is enjoyable. The “good” foods are the foods that nutritionists tells you are good. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains and that sort of thing.

Quite frankly, I think making judgments about what I put into my mouth is a good thing. I spent too many years eating mindlessly and using food to mask emotional pain. Thinking about what I eat and why I’m eating it is a good exercise for me. The more thought I put into what I eat, the more likely I am to continue to eat the right things and to lose weight. Those are both good thing.

What worries me is when my food judgments spread to other people. If I’m not putting it into my mouth, I’m not entitled to have an opinion about it. I spent too many years having my own food intake monitored by people who said they were trying to help. I don’t ever want to inflict that sort of annoyance on anyone else. My food choices are mine to judge. Everyone else’s food choices are absolutely none of my business.

I promise I’m going to remember that.

There is a saying I’ve heard a million times. It goes something like this: “Inside every fat girl is a thin girl and a lot of chocolate.” I suppose the same could be said of fat guys, but like other things in our culture there is kind of a double standard when it comes to body size. Men can be overweight and they’re husky. Women can be slightly pudgy and they’re fat.

If I had to guess I’d say that there are very few people, especially very few women, who consciously set out to be fat. A lot of those women may say, as I did, that body size shouldn’t matter. A lot of those women may claim, as I did, that as long as they’re healthy they don’t care how they look. A lot of those may, as I did, condemn the men whose eyes glide past them to the size three blonde at the next table. Whether we like it or not, the ideal body image for women is not one that is overweight. Reality may hurt, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s reality.

To tell you the truth I’m not sure what my ideal body image would be. I’ve been, to varying degrees, overweight for a number of years. For me, fat was protection. If I’m overweight, I can’t attract men who might hurt me. If I’m overweight, I have a ready excuse for why I can’t compete in the beauty pageant of life. If I’m overweight than I can always fantasize about how awesome my life would be if I were a size six, without ever having to recognize that I’d still be facing a lot of the same problems I deal with now, I’d just be wearing smaller clothes.

My ideal body image also generally has nothing to do with how my body really is formed. In my mind I’m tall and slim and graceful. In reality I’m short and curvy. Basically I’m all boobs and booty and while both of those things might get smaller they aren’t going to go away entirely.

Right now I’m mostly just trying to concentrate on getting healthy and seeing losing weight as a nice side effect.  I don’t have issues with getting healthy.  I do have a few with losing weight and achieving some form of my ideal body image.  I will, however, say this.  Someday I’d like to be the women in the doorway that all the men are looking at with appreciation.

Someday, I will be.

Most of the time my body tolerates the meds I take to manage my afib. That’s a good thing because I probably be taking these medications, or something similar, for the rest of my life. Given that fact, I’ve worked to alleviate what side effects I can and I’ve learned to live with the rest. They’re just a fact of my life.

Most of the time the side effects are pretty minimal. I have a slight blurring in my vision occasionally. I get light headed from time to time. I have a certain level of fatigue that is a constant companion no matter how much I sleep. Given that these medications help control my heartbeat and keep me living my daily life, I figure these side effects aren’t really that high a price to pay. Most of the time I’m right about that.

Every once in a while, however, my body goes into rebellion. It’s usually when I’ve pushed myself a little harder than I should have for too many days in a row. When that happens, my body decides it will make me slow down and rest and the fatigue gets overwhelming. Forget about exercising, I don’t even want to move from my seat on the sofa. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. The thought of a nap is almost irresistible.

Today happens to be one of those days. Fortunately, I’ve finally learned to roll with things, and I’ve come to recognize that these days are my body’s way of getting me to take a time out. I tend to push myself, largely because I’m afraid if I don’t I will slip back into old unhealthy ways. I guess I’ve finally come to realize that taking a time out isn’t unhealthy, it gives my body time to refuel and regenerate, which can only be good for me in the long run. I guess, for today, I just need to relax and let my body run the show.