Merry Christmas to the Red Cross

[nosrednayduj]

I successfully gave blood today. I tried a month ago, and I failed because of low hemoglobin. It turns out if you warm up your hands, you get a better score. I had forgotten this since the previous time I had given blood was in July, and so last month I just went there with my cold hands and I failed. This time I spent the time after checking in and before being called walking around, shaking blood down into my hands, rubbing them together, and so forth, and I raised my score from 12.3 up to 13.9. (12.5 is the cutoff.)

My blood came out really fast, because lately I've been having high blood pressure. Went to my doctor a couple of weeks ago and she said that my blood pressure was kind of high and I should start paying attention to that. I have in the past had the experience of "nurse takes it upon check-in, and it's high, and after chatting with the doctor for half an hour, it's normal", and this did not occur this time. I did gain 6-7 pounds from stress eating over the last few months, and that doesn't help. So I'm pretending to lose weight by trying to substitute low-calorie foods whenever I want to have a handful of chocolate chips. Haven't been doing it for long enough for it to have any effect, so I haven't weighed myself since I started. My current substitution is pumpkin seeds, with hull still on, so pretty much "salty wood". I still have a couple of pumpkins left to process, so I'll be able to do this for a little while. (Yes, salt is not great either, but I'm not eating very many of them at a time, and I mostly eat a low salt diet.) I've also been taking my blood pressure a couple of times a week and recording it. I have an appointment in 3 months with the physician's assistant to report on my results and also bring in my machine so that they can calibrate it. Anyway, if this does not correct itself with weight loss action, probably we're looking at drugs.

She was also slightly concerned about my A1C, which is just over the edge (5.8), and has been for the last several years. My doctor retired last year, so this is a new doctor to me; my previous doctor was much more nonchalant about A1C on the edge. However, weight loss will also help with that. So let's hope I can succeed. I might have to actually go on a diet, which is annoying.

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I knew someone who measured out 100 calories of M&Ms into Ziplock bags and put them into the freezer. When she wanted chocolate, she took one out and only ate that much. A tiny step?

[nosrednayduj]

My diet plan is to make a log of everything I eat. This means that when I eat something I have to write it down, and sometimes that makes me skip it. Sometimes I also try to look up calorie counts and stuff.

Sadly, the thing that works the best is having some sort of toothache that makes eating difficult. Not a recommended diet plan.

[apparentparadox]

I can recommend "Invisalign braces" as a diet aid. Kind of expensive, though! During the process, you wear the Invisalign things in your mouth all the time, except when you're eating. Then, after eating, you have to brush your teeth and put them back in, wearing them for 22+ hours a day. It was much easier to skip a snack rather than having to take the braces out, eat, brush my teeth, put the braces back in, so that was enough incentive to not snack so much. Lost a bunch of weight.

Now that I just wear retainers while sleeping to keep my teeth in place, I am back to snacking more during the day.

[nosrednayduj]

Heh. Similar to "my teeth hurt and it's too much trouble to eat" diet, I suppose. Did you keep the weight off?

[apparentparadox]

I did for a while even after I wasn't wearing the braces all the time, but after about a year, I started to get back in the habit of snacking. Still less than I was before the whole thing, but not at my low point.