Category Archives: January 2012 challenge

NO-Comfort Zone week ending July 29

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So last week, I was a bit down due to eye stuff, but this week beginning to bounce back a bit. First off, I was invited to be one of four featured readers at Hot Ottawa Voices, Aug. 14 at Tree Reading Series in Ottawa. (I am hoping to release my second chapbook that night too!)

Second, I went to see my family doctor who told me I am doing wonderfully with my blood sugar control. That’s good news because it takes away the guilt I was feeling last week. So the eye things are not something I could have avoided by staying off chocolate and ice cream (well, perhaps, if I had done that twenty years ago!) So a friend and I have gotten together to form our own little support group and to get back on track with our CHIP program. That is the Complete Health Improvement Project. We tried it out a couple of years ago, and it worked well, but I think neither of us were as committed to becoming vegans (or at least vegetarians, or even flexitarians) as we are now. However, over the five weeks last time, I lost 7 pounds, dropped some points off my blood sugar and cholesterol levels and cut way back on animal proteins in my diet.  The CHIP program was developed by Dr. Hans Diehl, from Loma Linda, and you can check it out here: http://www.chiphealth.com/

Diets in Review gives this program an excellent rating. http://www.dietsinreview.com/diets/chip/

No-Comfort Zone Challenge week ending July 22, 2012

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Ok, so not a lot of comfort this week!  I saw my optometrist, and it looks like some eye issues were not all in my head…ummm…well, I suppose if you consider where the eyes are, that isn’t exactly true. But you know what I mean.

It wsn’t good news, but if I keep on the healthy eating and start exercising and lose weight, I can either prevent further damage or slow it down. (Diabetes does things to you, even when you don’t feel it) I have some changes in my eyes caused by Type 2 diabetes, is what I am trying to say. This is the first time it has shown up in my eye exam. I just have to keep focusing on the things I can do so I don’t make it worse through my own continuing denial and self-indulgence.

Healthy Eating Pie Chart

Healthy Eating Pie Chart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cuz I tend to be an emotional eater, and often react to bad health news with more bad eating.  Chocolate in some form usually comes to mind.

On a more positive note, though, I have been faithfully checking my blood sugars and blood pressure and trying to eat properly. I’ve dragged out all the books again, and intend to really get a handle on what I can and cannot eat. And making sure my quantities are healthy too. At some point, I will add a few indulgences back occasionally, but not till I break the pattern of a little is good, so a whole lot is even better…

So one of the hard things to deal with is the guilt that if I had done a better job of looking after myself, maybe this would not have happened. Still, the numbers don’t support that. Maybe the eye issues would have started later on. But chances are they would eventually show up to some extent. I can only be glad that we seem to have found it early.

I will also go see my family doctor this week to let her know about this. I suspect I am looking at insulin injections since I can’t take the medication in tablet form. One type is hard on the kidneys, which I believe were damaged by the C Difficile I contracted several years ago. The other med has sulfa to which I am allergic.

Oh yeah, the C Difficile… well in 2008 I somehow contracted that. It’s a superbug. I had a 5% chance of surviving. So I suppose, instead of worrying about these other things, I should focus on the fact that I could have been dead. Or, that could also be what scared the bejayzus out of me, and why I am so afraid of health things.

Anyway, on a more positive note, I am doing a brief presentation this week coming on Yusef Komunyakaa at Tree Reading Series. And taking a workshop with Stuart Ross as well.

No-Comfort Zone Challenge Week ending July 15

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So for this week, the effort was to concentrate on healthy behaviours, and for the most part I saw some progress. Yay!  No chocolate (except for one cupcake last night at a 60th birthday party for a friend, poet and musician and museum guy and editor and…Monty Reid. Congrats Monty!)  Oh, and one very small sample of a chocolate ginger pear riesling sauce. Yum. Purchased a jar, but have not opened it. I’ve monitored the BS and the BP numbers almost every day, only missed Thursday. Added veggies and some salad type things, and no dessert yesterday when I had lunch out with friends.

And I tried the “coffee on the deck in the mornings” thing, but my Siamese cat, Tojo, (that’s a soft j, sort of like Tozho)  was making too much noise with his operatic efforts. Now that the weather is good (i.e. not winter), he wants  to go for walks all the time, even in the heat. He isn’t allowed to go off on his own, and I am not interested in walking hours and hours. Walking a cat isn’t like walking a dog, either. Lots of stopping. Lots of getting the leash tangled. Lots of grass eating, followed by the inevitable regurgitation (yuck!) I keep thinking that if I don’t let him go out in early spring, he will forget about it. But my brother got there first this year so it’s too late. Besides, I feel bad that he lost his best buddy Scooter last fall. He’s never been the only cat before. Anyway, for the upcoming week, I think a healthy focus again. And praying for rain. No rain in a month, just heat and more heat. Most of the lawns are completely turned to straw.

On the poetry front, I have done my first and second draft of the poem due soon for The Light Ekphrastic, and submitted my Geist Erasure Poetry Contest entry. That had been languishing for several months since I had created  it when the contest was first announced.  (Can’t really say I “wrote” it, since it is an erasure piece.)

No-Comfort Zone Challenge week ending July 8

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This week I have done not one, but two submissions to print journals. So now I just wait and see.

For a little while, I will be focusing on whipping some more poems into shape.  And to work on not doing marathon computer sessions. I become so focused on things at times that I forget to eat, to drink water, to get up and move around. That’s one of the reasons that I need to work on balance.

English: veggies

English: veggies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week I am going to try more healthy behaviours!  No chocolate, more veggies, and eating breakfast. Because I jump onto the computer as soon as I pour my first coffee, I get immersed in emails, internet, all those distractions. I think the first thing then is to do something different while enjoying that first cuppa.

English: A photo of a cup of coffee. Esperanto...

(Wikipedia)

Right now it’s very hot here in eastern Ontario, but still bearable in the mornings, so I think breakfast on the deck is just the thing!