Day 166: WTHeck is going on?

I LOVE donating blood.  I've been doing it for years and try to do it whenever I can.  I'm nearly to the two gallon mark--maybe I've passed it already? I need to remember to check so I can get my license plate holder saying, "I'm a 2 gallon donor."  Call me a weirdo, but I like having that on my car.

Needless to say, I've never had an issue when donating.  Actually, I take that back.  When I was in college, I had an incomplete donation.  Turns out, if it's hot and you are a little low on water before going in, your blood can be too thick and stop flowing...right in the middle of a donation.  Yeah, that happened once, but I've never been turned away...until today.

I sat down behind the private curtains with the lady and she checked all my vitals.  Blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, all normal, and then she pricked my finger.  Normally, the tech has to squeeze hard to get a big enough drop to fill up the glass vile.  Not this time.  I noticed she was sucking it up as the blood drop slid down my finger. That caught my attention, but I didn't think it was a big deal.

"Do you usually have a problem with this?" she asked, as the little ball of blood didn't sink in the blue liquid.

"Not usually, but it usually hovers for a sec until in falls to the bottom.  Why?"

She walked over to a machine that was out of my sight, I heard it whirl behind me as I waited.  Soon, it beeped and the tech came back and told me I couldn't donate today but that I could come back in three weeks and try again.

This has never happened to me before and I'm a little frustrated with my body right now as it's freaking out on me.  I have noticed that I've been extra tired lately, I just thought it was the heat and my hubby's snoring.  Guess it was something more.  I've also been a bit more stiff and sore than usual too, I need to research Fibromyalgia more thoroughly.  I'm SO grateful I have the habit of working out every day or who know how I'd be feeling like right now.

Now more than ever, I really need to be stepping it up.  I need to be more balanced in my eating and adding more to my exercise regimen.  It's a reminder to never get complacent.  Health is ongoing and how we take care of our body needs to adjust as our needs do.  It's my journey and I now have an unexpected detour. No worries though, it's all a lesson on adjusting to the unexpected.

Day 160: Why is just as important as what.

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As I laid in bed this morning thinking about my current state of health and how frustrated I was, a thought occurred to me.  The same thing that is happening now, happened in my early twenties, nearly twenty years ago. (Yes, I just leaked my age, oh well...I tend to be an open book) Yep, at one point, I gained 40 pounds in 6 months during a time I was the most active in my life.  Noticing the similarities, I continued to analyse the timeline of my life.

I was a teen in the 90's.  I remember the HUGE craze then was a low-fat, high-carb diet.  I was in high school and I was very rigid with my eating.  I was also a size 6 who felt like I was a size 26. (If I could go back in time and kick myself, I would.) I remember eating very little fat, if any, and a whole bunch of carbs and Diet Pepsi. I remember my cycle was messed up and the Dr. gave me medication to fix it.  So during a time where my endocrine system and metabolism was developing, I was doing everything to work against it.

A body needs good fats to help build and strengthen every system needed to be alive and healthy.  I gave my body none, or at least I didn't give it the healthy kind when I had treats or a snack.  I also flooded my body with chemicals from soda and medicine.  What's sad is if I had been eating a balanced and healthy diet, I wouldn't have needed the medication to begin with. No wonder my body rebelled when I was 20, my endocrine system and metabolism were toast.  I had abused it without even knowing and it was ticked.

Now, twenty years later, I'm still dealing with the damage I incurred while I was developing in my youth.  I'm grateful that now I know better health habits so I can teach my children not just to eat better but why they would want to eat better.  I personally think the why is just as important as the what. You need to know what to put in your body so you can be healthy, but if you don't understand or know why, it's easy to make excuses.

I'm tired. * I don't feel good. *  Just this time. * It's a special day. * Tomorrow I'll do better. * Monday.

For me, when I know the why, the why will squash the excuses and reveal how lame and flimsy they really are, giving me a better chance of winning.

2/365 - Surprised!

I'm amazed at how quickly my body got out of shape. I swear I just worked out a few weeks ago and I didn't notice anything different from the norm. Last night when I hopped onto the elliptical I did a shorter and lower resistance workout than I'm used to. The workout didn't feel bad, but I could tell it didn't feel as easy either.

By the time I finished 15 minutes, I was sweaty and breathing heavy--certainly not how I used to feel walking off the machine.  I admit, I was a bit surprised. (I mentioned I lightened the workout since it has been a bit since I last did it, right?)

Although I was surprised walking off the machine, you can imagine my shock when I started to feel sore a few hours later. Seriously? I cannot believe I got out of shape as quickly or as badly as I did.  I'm relearning that taking care of your health is a daily thing, not just when you "have a goal" or when it's convenient.