Invisible Illness Awareness Week

I never knew anything like this existed!

http://invisibleillnessweek.com/

Aside from his fading scar, my husband's coronary artery disease is invisible. My CFS is invisible, as is my hypothyroid, hypoglycemia, partial deafness, asthma, and degenerative disc disease and other arthritis and neuritis problems. And now that my labwork is showing I have an autoimmune disease, add that to the list.

I think I'll be spending a lot of time on that web site the next few days. 

Off to Buy Another Exercise Video

The weather this summer has been BRUTAL, and again next week we're going to break heat records.

For the first time in about a decade I've been using my rescue asthma inhaler because my peak flow readings have been dropping, I get the feeling of not being able to take a deep breath, I get short of breath just sitting there, and I have so much mucus that those little creatures in the Mucinex commercial are vacationing there.

Because of all this, I'm having a difficult time getting my daily cardio workouts in. I've gone back to gentler workouts, like Richard Simmons' BlastOff and Silver Foxes,

Leslie's Gentle Mile and older adult workouts, even Linda Izzolino's More to Love Fitness (which just whipped my fat ass this morning because I moved up to 5 pound weights instead of my usual 3). I still do my qigong, usually Robert Bates' Fun With Qigong

or even Thich Nhat Hanh's Mindful Movements.

But I want more. I get bored easily and need variety in my workouts. Which is why I'm finally going to order Jeanette DePati's The Fat Chick Works Out DVD and possibly her exercise/bio book, too. She has 2 very short clips (less than a minute each) on her web site that show the workout itself (I really wish it was at least a minute each), but I also found this interview clip of her on YouTube that shows her giving an outdoor class:





If this weather - and asthma symptoms - continue I'll probably be making a visit to the doc to have him change my meds around again. I hate doing that - this combination has served me well for over 10 years now - but I guess I need a steroid boost to make it through these air quality alert, high heat & humidity days. Yecch!

Sad, Confused, Wheezy, and Soon to Be Hungry

So depressing to see the sale go up again, but what did I expect after a week-long binge.

And why did I binge? Because it was vacation and the foods I ate were "forbidden" ones - mostly bakery donuts. I ate my regular breakfast and lunch most days and enjoyed a few days of burgers with the boys, and most of those I ate low-fat veggie burgers. We ate take-out just once — Chinese food, and I chose one of the all-vegetable dishes from the "healthy" menu — and because we didn't hit any mall or movie theater during the week there were no extra snacks. We didn't even do a big traditional meal for Thanksgiving but had burgers with the holiday side dishes (stuffing & cranberries, and my snack later that night was a bowl of Brussel sprouts).

My official gain for the vacation is only 3 1/2 pounds. I used to gain or lose that in one night, depending on how salty the food was that I ate the night before, so why am I so obsessed over it this time? Is it because I really enjoyed eating the same foods as my family for a change? That I ate those treats without any thought of guilt and now it's all come crashing down on me?

Maybe I really should make an effort to re-read the Overcoming Overeating book as the group is doing on Friends of Overcoming Overeating. I really need to absorb the message again.

And I really should toss out that scale!

I think part of my problem is the fact that I've been a bit short of breath and phlegmy from my asthma the past few days. I stopped taking my Singulair at the start of vacation in an effort to see if that medication was the cause of my fatigue, since my doctor says it can't be from my thyroid and fatigue is one of the side effects. I also really didn't get much exercise in this vacation. Usually we're roaming miles through malls or the streets of Manhattan, but this time we had a lot of little pissy things to do closer to home and no money to spend in malls. I really can't do one of my exercise videos while my husband is asleep just a few feet away on the other side of the wall, so that could be a reason for the breathing problem, too. And the weather. We had some rain outside, dry heat inside, and both bother my asthma. So why am I blaming this on my weight?

So this morning I took my Singulair first thing in the morning and already did my Mindful Movements video. I'll be grabbing my oatmeal breakfast as soon as I finish this post, will have my usual salad, rice & veggies for lunch, and dinner is Greeny Beany Soup with a loaf of some sort of whole-grain bread. Even last night I had my traditional banana as an after-dinner snack, but if I feel like some banana bread, I have some slices in the freezer, and I'll eat one without guilt.There's really no way that I want to throw myself back on the dieting merry-go-round. I might not lose much weight, but I'll have my sanity. Well, at least getting a little closer to finding it, that is.

Then again, I do have a doctor's appointment soon, and if I weigh more than the last visit I'll never hear the end of it. Maybe that banana bread better stay in the freezer.