Friday, June 21, 2013

Definition of TMI...

I hesitate to share the following, but in my effort to keep this whole journey real - I will.  However, be forewarned - it's not a pretty picture to think of... and probably TMI, ok?  You've been warned.

In my effort to lose weight, I have been doing a lot of walking.  I try to walk at work, outdoors, on the treadmill - wherever and whenever I can.  Now that the weather has gotten so much warmer, I especially enjoy heading outdoors to walk a few laps around my building at work or out and around my neighborhood.  I think most of you would agree that heat + exercise = sweat.  Well, let's just say that while it didn't show on my face, I was sweating A LOT under my clothes - unbeknownst to me.  Yep, even at work.  Ewww, right?  I guess you're thinking body odor right?  Nope.  Rash.  In the belly roll.  Never in my entire life as a fat lady have I ever had this happen!  I was instantly horrified, disgusted and embarrassed all at once.

This... this thing has a name - "intertrigo" - basically it means a rash between skin folds.  If you look up images on the internet, you may be pretty grossed out at what you find.  And if you do decide to check out images, don't have kids around because many of the images involve the genitals.

So, you probably aren't wondering how any of this felt, or what specifically I went through, but I'm going to talk about it anyway.  You can always skip this particular post, right?

Well, it was pretty simple really - I went to scratch an itch there between the ol' belly fat and it hurt - OUCH!!.  So, I grabbed a mirror and checked it out.  OMG!! I have never been so like "Ewwww, GROSS!" about anything on my body ever before.  There was this 3-inch area of very red, oozing, shiny skin - I've never seen anything like it.  And what's worse was it smelled horrid.  I once had an infected ingrown toenail - I'd say the smell is similar.  I knew something was very wrong.  I jumped online and searched until I narrowed it down.  It seems this is a fairly common problem, not just in fat folks either. Whew!  It's curable.  (And it may not involve a doctor visit.)  The first thing was to get a shower!!!!  Then get that area as dry as possible - I used my hair dryer on the "cool" setting.

Next, I got in my car and drove to Walgreens.  I perused the female yeast infection products, the jock itch products and the athlete's foot products (anti-fungal).  They all seemed to have common ingredients and I knew from my internet search what to look for, but I didn't know which would work the fastest and most importantly - work for me.  I honestly didn't want to buy the female yeast infection stuff because they involve these tubes that are meant to be uh, inserted... and I didn't really want to buy a jock itch product because, well... I'm not a dude.  So finally (seriously, it took like 30 minutes), I asked the pharmacist.  She was very helpful as I embarrassingly explained my situation.  She pointed out a few products discreetly and I bought one.  It's called "Lamisil."

So, me and my Lamisil headed home.  I dried the area with the hair dryer again and cautiously applied the cream.  I expected it to burn, sting, light my ass on fire - but no - it was very anti-climatic.  Can a medicine actually work if it doesn't burn like hell?  I was skeptical.  However, when I got up in the morning, the red area wasn't so inflamed and it didn't hurt near like it did the night before.  Wash. Rinse. DRY. Reapply.  That's the mantra, twice a day.  After it heals, keep the area as dry as possible from now until I no longer have a belly roll.

Oddly enough, I saw a commercial on tv today with Shaq advertising this new Gold Bond Spray Powder.  I'm thinking - ahHAA!  Thanks Shaq!!

And thank you so very much to the Well-Rounded Mama blog for ALL the excellent info on this Intertrigo business!  I hope I never have to visit you for this reason EVER again.

I sincerely hope that I haven't just embarrassed myself for all time.  And I hope you'll forgive me for that TMI - I'll try not to let it happen again.

Have a great and wonderful weekend!  And if you live anywhere near the Colorado wildfires, please stay safe and know that there are people praying for you.





Thursday, June 20, 2013

Whole Wheat What?!?

Can you believe that I had to overcome a second day in a row of donut temptation?!?  oh yeah!  I went to a meeting this morning and what do they set out?  You guessed it - donuts!  Seriously?!?  Why can't I get away from these things?!?

Well, today was ok - I ate well, drank lots of water, walked a bit but not quite enough.  It's just after 11 and I don't know if I'll get those 2500 fuel points - I'm at 2297 now.  Idk, maybe I'll walk around my room a bit to burn a few extra calories.

So, the topic of the day is whole wheat pasta.  There was a time when I couldn't stand the mere thought of eating whole wheat anything.  I don't know, it just tasted... different.  Well, I've changed my mind.  I'm now ok with it.  In fact, I probably won't go back to the other stuff - I don't even know what to call it - white? enriched? regular?

After a small bit of research, I found that many folks don't like "wheat" products because they can be bitter.  In the past, whole grain or whole wheat foods were made from the bran of hard red wheat - which could cause the bitterness to transfer to the food.  Today, many food companies have switched to soft white wheat, which doesn't have the bitter taste, but still has that whole grain goodness that we've been hearing about for so many years.

I even switched to a whole wheat bread - though it doesn't taste like the wheat bread I tried 10 years ago!  I love Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Whole Wheat Bread because it's so soft like white bread and tastes great!!

Anyway, I guess my taste buds have finally come around because I've been trying whole wheat penne pasta, whole wheat lasagna noodles and tonight, whole wheat spaghetti!!  I'm so proud =D

How about you?  Have you struggled with switching to whole wheat foods?  Did you force yourself to eat it or did you already like the taste/texture?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Donuts... bad

Met all goals today - woot!  I did A LOT of walking today at work and didn't have to do so much at home.  I'm very tired though and yet, can never seem to get to bed on time.  It's like I get this 2nd wind around 9pm - weird, huh?

I'd also like to announce that for the 5th week straight I've succeeded in resisting the temptation of donut Wednesday (donuts at work EVERY Wednesday - uggggh).  Another victory YEAH!!

I did some calculating today and so far I've averaged 1.9 pounds lost per week.  Not bad for mostly walking for exercise.  So, I've decided to set a short term goal of reaching 199 pounds by my birthday at the end of August.  It's very difficult to think that I was 10 pounds less than that last year at this time, but it is what it is.  I just need to be sure not to let that happen EVER again - as in NEVER!!

Let me just close with some research I did today on donuts... (I have to keep telling myself how unhealthy they are so that I don't cave!)

They are #2 on the list of foods we should NOT eat (French Fries made the #1 spot) as reported by diseaseaday.com.  I have no idea how reliable a source they are, but the list makes sense and I think I've heard it before but repetition is good:

1) They're FRIED - everyone knows Fried Food = Bad For You
2) They're full of SUGAR - causes weight gain, risk of diabetes, etc.
3) They're made of WHITE flour - least nutritious part of the grain
4) They contain TRANS FAT - raises your chances of heart attack
5) They contain a lot of CALORIES - at least 200 calories/donut (there are better calories to be had!)
6) You usually CAN'T STOP at just one - they taste good, so it's easy to go back for more.  Donuts are not breakfast food - it sends blood sugar up which soon after crashes and leaves us hungry for even more.




Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Got that Bike gear thing figured out!

YES!! I love the internet - anything you want to know can be found!  Check out Bicycle Network for a really cool intro to gears... and a lot of other awesome bike info.  But if you don't feel like clicking the link, check out the pic below (from a fellow blogger) and I'll summarize by saying

1) The big gear on the front, paired with the smaller gears on the back would be for downhills and fast paces (aka "high gear")

2) The middle gear on the front paired with middle gears on the back are your avg riding gears;

3) and the smallest gear on the front paired with the largest ones on the back is used for climbing hills (aka "low gear")

There is a lot of variance in all that, but you can probably picture the general idea, right?  I'm sure lots of folks out there just understand it right from the beginning, but I was not one of those people.  But now, I can't wait to put it all into practice!!


Meeting Goals:

Today was a fairly good day.  I ate according to my plan, drank more water than usual and will probably (hopefully) make around 8K steps today - it's 6pm now (Blogging early = Going to bed on time!).

On the training side lately, or at least since getting the Nike FuelBand, I've been going for fuel points instead of the 10,000 steps.  It seems I typically don't have time to get in that number of steps each day. Also, 8,000 steps seem more reasonable.  I don't want to set unattainable goals for myself, although I still try for 10,000 - I think I've only done it a couple of times.  Fuel points are easier - the band just measures my activity throughout my day.  Right now my goal is set for 2500 - I usually have to walk around a bit in the evenings to reach 2500.  As I get more active, I can raise the goal OR vice versa!



Monday, June 17, 2013

Now You See Me /Weigh in


Weigh-in results first........... lost half a pound (ok, actually it was .6 of a pound).  Yay?  Well, of course YAY!! It's a half pound in the right direction and with the crazy week I had last week, I am pleased.  PLUS TOM did show up and I figure that had something to do with the small loss as well.

This weekend was fun.  I did manage to stuff my face with popcorn (my weakness) at the movie theater - we saw "Now You See Me".  We thought about seeing "After Earth" but with all the bad reviews, I'll wait.  Also thought about "Man of Steel" but with it being Father's Day weekend, we figured the dads would go for that one.  I still want to see it though.  Anyway, "Now You See Me" was fantastic!!

Today, I fixed my daughter's bike - broken pedal - and aired up the tires on mine.  Then, this afternoon, we headed off (in the sprinkling rain) on a geocache search.  About a mile into our adventure, the rain started coming down much harder.  If only we had worn our  jackets, everything would've been fine to keep going, but we didn't even think to bring them.  We got cold, fast.  So, I lead us to a small park where we stood under a pavilion waiting for the rain to lighten up a bit.  We didn't have to wait long - maybe 5 minutes.  While we were waiting, I decided to check on how close we were to a cache site and I kept getting errors on the app - BOOOooo!  So, we changed our outing to a bike ride only instead of geocaching =D 

On this ride, we only did 2.26 miles and it took about a half hour including the rain delay.  I did have to get off and walk the bike up a fairly steep hill - that took about 10 minutes.  I used the free "Map My Ride" app and it reported 2.26 miles in 22 minutes for an average of 6 mph.  That includes the walking though.  I'm sure we were much faster peddling!  I'm going to look around for a relatively flat area to ride next time AND I'm going to figure out these gears!!!  Anyone else ever have a hard time learning gears?  What gear do you start in?  Which is for going uphill and which is for downhill?  I know I can keep playing with them to figure it out, but it's difficult to see the rear axle to tell on that one, not to mention kinda dangerous if you aren't watching where you're going!!  

I will post what I find in case anyone else is or has ever wondered about shifting gears on a bike.

Hope everyone has a great week!!  Talk to ya tomorrow...

Oh and in case you didn't notice, I added a couple new areas to the site.  Meal Plans and Easy Recipes links are now directly under the main picture.  I'll be adding to those as I have time, but this week's meal plan is posted - head's up, it's pretty much a duplicate of Week 1.  
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