It has been quite a week with good and bad. As word has probably spread, Pepper passed away Monday. But Diana and I both had some big steps towards our future careers.
Pepper had lost a good amount of weight recently and took to purring a lot more. Diana thought about taking him to the vet, but we had hoped he had just shaped up. After all, he played with Kalika a lot, and being, I think, the alpha with a kitten to watch over now might kick in some instinct to not be a fat slob. Apparently that wasn’t the case. However, he was still active, never complained, and never gave us any indication something was wrong other than the weight loss. From his position when I found him outside, apparently it was quick and fell as he was walking. So far, it’s been sad, but everyone has handled it well.
On the other end of the circle of life, Diana had the chance to be a doula for a friend of hers. As typical with babies, she wound up going to the hospital at about 1:30am. The baby was born healthy around noon. Definitely a long night and day for Diana, but she got in a nap the afternoon afterwards, and then that night slept about 11 hours. But it was a great experience and renewed Diana’s interest in being a doula.
The weight loss is still going well – I am feeling immensely better than when we started. However, I have been having more hunger issues. Usually I’m getting a little hungry right about the time for next meal, and that’s fine. I’m fine with that even off the diet (and keep telling the kids that they should be hungry before a meal). But sometimes, like right now in fact, I’m hungry sooner and stronger. That’s not as much fun, especially while cooking the kids dinner and cleaning up all those yummy smelling left-overs. But we manage.
Today’s class was on nutrition and there was even some stuff that I didn’t know, and I thought I was moderately informed on that subject. Plus there’s a few really funny people in the class (“You’re a glycemic index!”). So it’ll be an interesting time every Wednesday night. We also got some recipes for making a couple Thanksgiving dishes that we can swap out a couple Optifast meals for. We might try it at one or both of our Thanksgivings. We’ll see.
As for my weight, well, I wound up losing 11.4 pounds! Better still, my blood pressure dropped 24 and 16 points from my physical just before starting the program. From 146/100 down to 122/84 in just 2 weeks! Still need to get the diastolic down, but it’s a great start. I guess losing 11 pounds and quitting my job makes a big difference right when my doctor was starting to talk about blood pressure meds.
Thanks for all of the support and encouragement! It definitely helps!
Ken Marable's Blog 
I’m so sorry to hear about Pepper. I would have written before, but I hadn’t heard about it until this morning.
Congratulations, Diana, on doing so well at your first doula job?encounter? attendance? What is the correct terminology?
And congratulations, Ken, on the weight loss but especially on the health improvement! I’m thinking the only way to stop the cravings when it’s time for cooking dinner is to teach the kids to cook.
This was the first birth I attended as a volunteer. I guess. That works, right?
Another thing that might help is to eat your dinner meal about 20 minutes before beginning to cook. Supposedly, it takes about 20 minutes for your tummy to tell your brain that it’s been fed and to feel full. At least that’s what “they” say. Amazing how your brain lets your finger know instantly when you’ve stuck it in the running garbage disposal, but it takes 20 minutes to tell your stomach it’s been fed.
Believe me, I know how wonky brains are! Some paths are extremely fast (even reacting before you consciously know) but others are weirdly slow. Not sure what is up that. I’ll have to ask someone to fix that.
But eating before cooking does help, thanks!
Great job on the weight loss and blood pressure Ken!!! I didn’t realize it could improve so quickly. Gives me hope! I actually had our yearly health screening at work this week (they knock $10/month off our premiums if we participate). After the pain of my first ever blood draw from my hand, I was even further discouraged by my results. The only thing that improved in the last year and the only non-warning item was my triglycerides. I knew I had really let myself go this past year, but didn’t expect everything to be worse. My sugar was even 2 points above normal & my sugar has always been on the low side – with our family history that was a major red flag for me. I’m blaming the halloween candy left in the house, but still realize I definitely need to make some drastic changes!!! Time to use that gym membership I pay for!
I was so sorry to hear about Pepper – saw it on Diana’s Facebook. We ran into something similar with Lexi on the weight loss – since she had always been a little on the heavy side we weren’t overly concerned with it. But, she did eventually give us some signs something was wrong. So hard when they can’t talk to you!
I’m guessing you are one of the funny people in the class??? 🙂
Great job on the blog, sorry I’m a little slow to reading it. I’ve clicked on the “send me site updates” box below so I get reminders to check in here. Not used to the blogging world
Yeah, it is surprising how these health problems creep up on you. Despite being overweight, all of my numbers (other than insulin the one time it got checked) had been normal. But at the last one when they started talking blood pressure medication, that surprised me. So I’ve very happy that is settling back down.
And actually, others in the class were leaving me behind. When the lady next to me used the Ellen trick of saying “You’re a [blank]!” (filling in the blank with some word she didn’t understand), it really kicked things off to a strange start. Then when we got into natural and artificial fiber, with discussions about “you best avoid my office after I try one of those fiber bars”, it was surprising we barely managed to fit in the topics we were supposed to cover.
Lastly, as for blogging, I tend to talk too much for Facebook and don’t call people enough, so this seemed like a handy way to keep whoever was interested informed. Plus, I had fun with it back at Samantha’s choir camp. So I figured I’d give it a try even if blogging is so 2004. 😉