My first blog!

So I thought I'd give this a shot--heck, everyone else is blogging! Here's the deal. I'm a 52 year old RN who is wonderful at the "do as I say, not as I do" shtick. Like a lot of folks, but especially women, I struggle with trying to do too much. When something has to slide, it's usually my health habits--making healthy meals, exercising, etc. Stress drives me straight to the cookie jar, sometimes LITERALLY, when I am on the road doing my home health job and I find myself pulling into 7-11 for something I really don't need.

I'm going to keep myself honest with this blog, maybe post a food log, celebrate my successes and examine the not-s0-successful moments in my quest. Here are some goals:

• lose 45 pounds
• get my blood sugar down to a consistent 100-120 most of the time
• get my blood pressure down below 120/80 without prescription drugs
• learn better, healthier ways to manage my stress
• be more consistent with my spiritual life

I would love to hear from anyone working on similar issues. Let's do it together!

Successes Today:

• Tonight, I had a veggie smoothie for dinner. I have a Vitamix and I highly recommend it. It pulverizes darn near anything. Since I also have some dental issues, biting into hard things is risky. So, into my turbo blender went half a cucumber, three celery stalks, some bloody mary mix, a handful of raw spinach, some raw carrots and some Greek yogurt. Also a little lime juice. It is really amazing how good this tastes.
• I had a veggie smoothie for breakfast, too! That one had cottage cheese in it, too.
• I exercised! I'm trying an exercise plan from one of the Zone books. 30 minutes a day, with walking (I did the treadmill) while watching a program and doing some strength-training during the commercials. Pretty painless!

Not so great:

• I had TWO donuts this afternoon just because I heard a patient talk about them. However, I am getting better at not doing this type of thing every day. So I'm not going to beat myself up over it.
• Drove way too far out of my way to go to Outback for lunch to have grilled scallops for lunch, only to discover that they are only open for lunch on SUNDAY. So I had mac and cheese at a little pizza place in the same mall. Tomorrow, Red Lobster instead.

My tentative food plan for now is smoothie for breakfast, smoothie for dinner, something reasonably healthy for lunch, at least during the week when I'm working. ONE (count 'em, ONE) meal a week when I can eat whatever I want. Other meals need to be decent.

That's enough for today. More later!