The Ang - Alive! I am changing my life one day at a time. Follow along and see if you can keep up!

So I had been having pain on the outside of my right foot for awhile now, a couple months or so, and decide I had better go get it checked out. Went to see my awesome doctor and he did the standard test and got x-rays. After waiting in the room watching and dodging the flies (horseflies in the doctor’s examine room is unnerving to say the least) he came in and showed me the little dark line showing that something wasn’t right. He was very adamant that I see the break on the x-ray and tried three different ways to show it - I did see it but I don’t think he believed me.

He told me that I had a fracture in my fifth metatarsal as well as a strain on the ligaments there. He called it an avulsion fracture which means that the ligament actually pulled hard enough to fracture the bone - fun times! I can’t remember a specific incident causing this but I’m pretty used to foot pain given the amount I’ve been walking recently so it may not have registered at that time.

So then we had to come up with a treatment plan - he wanted me to wear a post-op shoe and come back in one month. I wanted to start rehabbing it sooner so I asked about physical therapy, at first he thought that could wait until after a recheck in a month but I pressed on. He threw out different ideas of doing an MRI or Bone Scan, maybe seeing a foot and ankle specialist but finally we settled on starting with a physical therapy assessment and going from there.  I still have to wear the post-op shoe for the time being - probably 3 to 4 weeks.  He said after a few weeks I might be able to move back into regular shoes.

So on December 1st I go back in and have my foot x-rayed and we see how it’s healing. I have my physical therapy assessment on Thursday morning and then I will have a good idea what the next steps are.

The biggest thing in all of this is that I’m not going to let it get me down and I’m going to be my own advocate for my treatment and health.  I’m not going to question in a manner that says I don’t trust or believe the professionals but I’m also not going to be afraid to ask questions. This is a new kind of confidence that I have found.

I have decided it’s time to start attempting a blog update on a daily basis, as much as possible. I have let myself slack off on this so it’s time to focus. Here are your updates!

30 Day HFCS Challenge - this is going well but not perfect. Without thinking about ingredients, I ordered a nice bowl of creamy tomato soup from Panera Bread. Finally went back and checked and found out they use HFCS in their soup. I was not expecting that to be the downfall but I guess their soup is just glorified ketchup - good job Panera!  I have been reading a lot of labels and so far I haven’t been too worried about regular corn syrup but then I started wondering, if you use a corn syrup blend - are you required to say that part of it if HFCS? I will need to do research on this.

90 Day Daily Burn Challenge - this challenge is going quite well, I did have a week or so where I was maintaining but I’ve had no major weight gains. There are only 15 days left and I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I’m actually currently number 1 out of 234 competitors and have lost a total of 34.3 lbs. This is more than I had expected to lose, that’s for sure. I will start doing weekly updates again to finish out the challenge.

NaNoWriMo - I have decided to attempt the National Novel Writing Month challenge and will, within the month of may, write 50,000 words. This is going to take time and dedication but I have a story brewing in me that needs to get out. I’m already up to about 1500 words and should crank out a lot more this evening. I need to use my weekends to do large writing sessions since my weeks vary and time might be harder to find. Check out my page here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/515581

If you’ve seen “Supersize Me” or the follow-up TV series “30 Days” then this is basically where the idea of doing a 30 day challenge comes from for me.  I’ve been wanting to do something for awhile and finally came up with my first challenge.

For the next 30 days I will consume no high fructose corn syrup to the best of my ability and knowledge. I hope this will provide me with two things, something to keep me motivated to eat healthy and something that will help me learn about food and food labeling.

At this point I am only avoiding high fructose corn syrup and not regular corn syrup, just to make that clear. I plan to journal the process when it seems relevant but probably not every day.

At this point I’m thinking it won’t be too difficult because I’m already avoiding most processed foods. One biggest hurdle will be Halloween and avoiding the various candy treats and etc.

This challenge begins tomorrow - October 18, 2009 and will end November 17th, 2009. (Or it may go one forever, depending on how this goes)

Today marks the halfway point for the 90 day challenge and things so far this week are looking great.  Last week was a little rough though because of a couple sick days and then an injury to my knee. Thankfully the injury was short lived and a couple days of rest took care of it. I think I must have just gone too far on my Saturday morning walk (7.5 miles) and ended up limping part of the way home. Still not sure what happened but I think I just pulled a muscle or something. It’s back to it’s normal problematic self.

For the week I did end up dropping to my second goal weight - another 10% lost. It did go back up but I expected that. For the week I am down 2 pounds, couldn’t ask for better results.  It’s a little frustrating that it goes this slow but it’s just safer and healthier in the long run.

I did eat out more than normal because I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to cook. Mostly got comfort type foods that would be easy to eat - mashed potatoes and stuffing. I’m doing a lot better this week because I just feel better.

I’m ready to see what the next half of the challenge brings. As of today I have lost a total of 20.6 lbs - woo hoo!

I am doing a 5k walk this Saturday to raise money for lung cancer research. There is still time to donate - please consider doing this, any amount would be awesome.

http://is.gd/2LujQ

Are you wanting to start a walking fitness program but not sure where to start? Check out the Walk for Life 10-Week Program from About.com. They will send you a daily email with a walking plan plus other articles and advice. This is geared toward beginners but they do send some advanced walking options.

This last week actually went quite well and I was able to really feel normal, whatever that means. The system is working for me and I’ve done it long enough that I can anticipate things and make changes before they happen.

Over the last week I have lost 3.5 lbs and for a short period of time I was even number one in the challenge. (I’m currently at second, last time I checked) This is huge because 5 weeks ago I was in last place.

I started doing the EA Sports Active 30 day challenge on the Wii, I was able to borrow it from a friend that is going to be out of the country for a little bit. I’ve done 5 days on that and it’s a pretty good workout. I’m also borrowing Wii Fit from another friend and I’m finally getting into using that. I have to decide if I want to purchase them or not for myself. I might miss it once I have to give it back.

I have not been back to the gym and I’m starting to wonder if I should even keep paying for it.  I have plenty of other exercise things going on right now but come winter I might want to be able to go.  I have to force myself to go check out the second location and see if that will work for me.

I found this article on New Scientist and while it gets a little technical at times it makes a good point.  Good read about food labels and their possible inaccuracies. (Link goes to the “to print” version)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327171.200-the-calorie-delusion-why-food-labels-are-wrong.html?full=true&print=true