Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Hello

Hi Everyone,

Today I'll do a little intro about me.
I am a mom of 7 kids- 5 boys, 2 girls. That may or may not sound overwhelming, but I promise at time it was. In reality there are only 3 still at home as soon as child 4 leaves next week for college. Unless of course you count the 22 year old that sleeps and stores her clothes here. I also have 2 grandkids, their dad and one of my other sons are in Iraq on an extended desert camping trip with a couple hundred of their best friends. They all look great in their dress blues and white hats, not that they wear them on their camp-outs. No, they are stored at my house as well.

I work full time at the local high school as a student advocate. Basically I work with the students to make sure their grades, credits and attendance are where they need to be in order to graduate. A school counselor without the letters behind my name and zeros in the paycheck. But that will change as soon as I graduate in May of 2011 with my masters in school counseling. Unless the principal changes his mind, I will be moving from my current office to the counseling office.

I used to be a dancer and danced everyday. Then I had kids and started a different kind of dance. And I gained weight with each pregnancy. I was able to take off most of it, except the extra 40 lbs I gained with baby #1.

I started having a lot of pain in 2005. I was diagnosed with two forms of arthritis- Rheumatoid and Ankalosing Spondolitis. At one point I was taking 11 meds a day. And I was still always sick and tired. Oh, and when I got up in the mornings? I never, ever felt rested. This past April I was diagnosed with sleep apnea because my airway is not formed correctly. I stop breathing an average of 11 times/hour all night long and have since I was born. So now I sleep with a lovely Darth Vader sounding machine to force my airway open.

I began noticing a difference in my body based on the foods I ate. I did some research, talked to people, read things, and asked my doctor about my plan of changing my diet. I found some good cookbooks to help me make the changes, bought a recumbant stationery bike and a tread mill, a new exercise dvd and had big plans.

We all know about plans. The changing diet wasn't a problem because the pain of not was too much. But the bike and treadmill and dvd? too easy to ignore unless I go downstairs to do laundry. My solution? Teach the kids to do their own laundry.

Really, though, in the last 6 months I have gone off of or reduced the dosage of most of my meds. I now only take 3/day, 4 if you count my allergy meds that I take. I have two that are weekly and one of those has been reduced with the goal of phasing it out by the end of the year.

I wanted to join you here so that I have more accountability for exercising and moving more. My plan is to be on the treadmill- with it and me moving- for 30-60 minutes/3 times a week. Do the dvd work out for 2 days/week. And lose 30 lbs by this time next year and be able to climb Mt. Timpanogos and watch the sun come up.

So that is me in a nutshell. Or just me, the nut.

4 comments:

Christine Thackeray said...

The exercise gets me too. Yesterday I didn't but day one I did. Well, yesterday I did sit ups and stretching but that was it. Good luck but that's a pretty steep goal. You may want to ease into it more so you are fueled by success and then increase after you've had a vew good weeks.

I'm going to make dinner and go swim tonight- promise.

Shauna said...

Oh I love Mt. Timpanogos. Such beautiful scenery! I have only actually made it all the way once and it was torture. Is it easy to describe the nutritional changes you made? I'd be interested in hearing what works for the others on here. Good luck with your goals!

Chris-where/what time do you swim?

Tristi Pinkston said...

So glad to have you here, Sandra! Yeah, I know all about plans. Know them, laugh at them, ignore them ... been there, done that. :)

Shauna said...

Ooh one other thing-Congratulations on getting your medications under control. Medications are a lot of trouble, sometimes the side effects are worse than the symptoms the medicine is supposed to make better.