2012 Resolutions Recap

As we wind down this year of 2012, it's time for me to don the proverbial big girl undergarments and revisit those resolutions made back in January.  Confession is good for the soul, they say.  So, let's see how we did here, and maybe that will help me focus in order to develop some worthwhile resolutions for 2013.

2012 Resolutions:
1)  Lose Weight.
Okay, so, I did manage to get a good start on this one, praise the Lord.  I'm not all the way where I need to be, but I'm down 18 pounds!  (In a spirit of total and full confession, I was down 18 pounds at the start of December.  I have backslid a bit during this month, I hate to admit).  But, I have clothes in my closet that no longer fit well, and it's because they're too big instead of being too small!  That's a huge blessing.  Here's a picture from Christmas 2011 taken before Jmk and I headed out for his office Christmas party:

And, here's one from this year:

Why, yes!  He HAS lost a lot of weight himself!  He's down 28 pounds so far.  I'm so, so proud of his success.  And, yes, you're right.  My bookshelves are quite stuffed full of unorganized things.  :-)  Better Homes and Gardens is not really beating my door down for my decorating style.  ::grin::

What have we been doing?  Putting down the fork.  ::shrug::  It's not fun, and it's not complicated.  If you take in less calories than you burn during a day, then you lose weight eventually.  The type of calories you take in matter, of course.  But, when you track everything that goes into your mouth, then you tend to eat the foods that give you the most bang for your caloric buck.  And brownies just don't have the bang.  ::sadness::  :-)  I've got another few lbs to go yet.  (maybe another 5 or so?)  I want to be at a place that allows me some wiggle room during the holidays as well as get me down into a solid size.  I'm sort of in between two sizes right now, and I want to get fully into a single one.  Know what I mean?



2)  Exercise More.
I definitely did exercise more than I did in 2011.  But I definitely did NOT exercise as much as I meant to.  I need to be doing something 3 days a week at a very minimum.  Not for weight loss, but for health reasons and for strength.  I had spurts during the year where I would totally be on the treadmill 4 or 5 times in a week, and then spurts where I'd slack off for 6 or more weeks at a time.  So, I guess you could say I sorta kept this resolution and sorta didn't.  :-/


3)  Get back my side splits and a 90 degree arabesque.
Hmmm.  Well, I'm *this* close to the side splits.   I have no one to blame but myself for that one.  I simply didn't stretch consistently like I should have.  I have no excuse; I just didn't do it.  Fail.  But, I am close enough for government work with regard to the arabesque.  I'd call it about an 88 degree arabesque.

I'd definitely say I need my leg up a couple more inches and get my standing leg to turn out better.  (Turnout has never been my strong point).  And, my left shoulder needs to get down.  And my entire torso needs to be picked up more.  And that left hip needs to get down into place.  And...  Aaarrrgggh!  I have to stop before I decide that I didn't get anywhere near the arabesque I wanted.  It's better than it was a year ago, and I need to remember that.  I wish I'd thought to take a picture of it then so as to have photographic evidence of the progress.


4)  Finish the Couch to 5K program.
::sigh::  Man, being honest on here stinks!  No, I never finished the whole program.  I got closer than I have in the past!  I finished through week 7, and then school started back in the fall.  And once my mornings were spent schooling, I just couldn't seem to get myself together enough to take time to exercise after lunch.  I really don't know quite how to make exercise time fit into my day, even now.  But, as I'm trying to formulate my 2013 resolutions, knowing that that is one of them, I must figure something out.  I must!  I can't wait till the wee one is older and all that.


5)  Feel like I'm able to dance a swing with my youngest brother.
Well, I actually do think that I could make it through one now.  I'm not nearly in the type of shape I ought to be in, but I do think I'm in better shape than I was at the beginning of 2012.  And, I think I could get through a swing with him without feeling ill.  Ha!  So, I'll call this one a success.


I think that having these public resolutions this year were somewhat helpful for me!  So, I'll give this another go in 2013.  In complete honesty, my greatest success (the weight loss) was possible because Jmk was/is doing it with me.  We work so well as a team, and when we do things together, we always seem to be more successful.  We definitely have more fun!  So, thank you honey for being the most wonderfulest husband ever.  :-)

I'm still thinking about 2013 resolutions, and when I get them pulled together, I'll definitely share.  Share yours with me and I'll be your cheerleader!

Thank you, Lord God, for the unmerited blessings you have bestowed on me during this past year.  Thank you for the support and kind words and needed encouragement that you sent through others that reminded me of my goals.  Thank you for the good health that you gave to us this year.  Thank you, Father, for Your mercy and Your grace.

The Thyroid Thing

So, back in November, I briefly mentioned "the thryoid thing" and talked about how I was grateful for a good checkup.  So, I'll elaborate on what that was all about, as much as I need to elaborate on medical stuff that isn't that big of a deal.  :-)

Way back in the summer, I decided to do a cleanse to help jump start an honest-to-goodness diet that I intended to go on.  Think of a parent who gives their child a big push on a bike to get them going, and then the child continues pedaling after that - that's what I wanted the cleanse to do for me.  Well, along with that, I thought that it would be a great idea to get some blood work done first.  Check my cholesterol, my glucose, and etc.  Also, I thought it would be good to compare those results with new tests after the 3-week cleanse had been completed.

So, my chiropractor ordered some tests, and when the results came in, she called me and said "Um, Leah, your cholesterol is great, everything looks fine, but your TSH..." (a marker that indicates thyroid malfunction) "...is way too high".  (Where a normal level is 0.3 to 3.7, my level was 28).   "You need to schedule an appointment with your GP".

I did so, he immediately said "start synthroid, we're not checking anything else, and here are some samples and it doesn't really matter how you take them".  ::insert questioning face here::  Well, I had Dr. Googled all weekend prior to that appointment, and even though I had to start with "what is a thyroid and where is it in your body", by the time I saw this first doctor, I had at least learned that you HAVE to take thyroid medication at a specific time and in a specific manner.  So, I left his office, called my mother-in-law who used to work for a GP herself and said "um....  this isn't right is it?"  To which she said, no it isn't at ALL.  She gave me the name of a different GP to see, and I made an appointment.

However, before I made it to that appointment, I did some MORE Dr. Googling.  (Google must be the bane of some physicians' lives.  It can really help educate patients, but it can also cause some stubbornness!)  I got to reading about how sometimes the thyroid simply gets overworked, along with the adrenals, and that there are times that supplementation, proper diet, and lifestyle changes can help to stimulate function naturally.  Well, sign me up for that!!!  I much prefer that route of medical intervention as opposed to a lifetime of pill-popping.  Thus, I postponed my GP appointment, to the chagrin of a number of people.  ;-)

But, I needed to try that route first.  It was important to me. I HAD to know if the problem could be fixed naturally.  I had to!  So, I worked with the chiro to get proper supplementation, finish the cleanse, and do the things that would help if this was a problem that could be fixed in this manner.  She had had prior success with other people who had thyroid issues, and I figured that this was my best chance, if it could work.

Unfortunately, that wasn't going to be the case for me.  My numbers continued to degrade despite big efforts.  And so, I made a new appointment with this wonderful GP, and he looked at my test results and said "how are you not lying in bed unable to function?"  I actually kept getting that question from nurses, too.  You know, that's one of the things that bugs me about my situation.  I never really felt like anything was terribly wrong.  So, how am I supposed to know if things get off again if I'm not too symptomatic in the first place?  Regardless, he started me on Synthroid (incidentally, it was the same dosage as the other doc.  But, this time, I had proper instructions, and the new doc didn't tell me to break samples in half to get the proper dosage.  That, btw, isn't a good idea with this medicine), but he also asked me to get an ultrasound of the gland to make sure that there wasn't anything "weird" going on in there that needed to be addressed.

So, I have the ultrasound and they discover nodules in the thyroid which is a fairly typical thing.  However, the GP says that when there is at least one nodule of a certain size, he refers to an endocrinologist.  I had one big enough to warrant that, so off I go to the endo.  I get to his office, and he does another ultrasound with a biopsy to make sure that there isn't anything amiss.  By God's mercy, there isn't anything wrong, and I leave with a definitive diagnosis.  Hashimoto's Thyroiditis with Hypothyroid.

Like I told my Dad, if you're going to have a chronic problem, this is the one to have!  It's sort of like rheumatoid arthritis, except that instead of your body attacking your joints, it attacks your thyroid.  The medical establishment doesn't have any explanation for it, and honestly, because there is medicine so readily available to control symptoms, there will probably be very little research done to determine causes and how to fix the problem instead of just bandaid the symptoms.

Fast forward to now, all is well!  I take a pill every day, and my last checkup indicated that all seems to be fine.  Like I mentioned previously, I'm not sure I will know when my levels are going off track until it gets particularly bad.  But, then, I also know how quickly "things" can be gotten back under control with proper medication.  So, the Lord has blessed me with a medical issue that is so mild, so manageable, and so not a big deal!  I'm really, really grateful for that.  And that, my friends, is all there is to know about that Thyroid Thing!  :-)

Thoughts on prayer and faith

I read a devotional recently that touched me.  For those that don't have time to click on the link, the gist of it, for me anyway, was how important it is to turn to God in prayer, especially when you've messed up.  It referenced Jonah and how while he was in the hell of the great fish's belly, he didn't curse his situation.  Instead, he cried out in repentance to God.

It reminds me of my children.  They will do something wrong and will get into big-time trouble.  But, just as soon as they get over their initial punishment, they seek out the punishing parent for comfort and for forgiveness.  That is exactly what I am supposed to do with my Lord.  It was a good reminder of why and how we are to have the type of faith that a child has:  faith that trusts no matter what.  Here is an excerpt from this devotional:

When we find ourselves suffering for our own sins, we are sometimes tempted to avoid God. Out of a sense of guilt, or pride, or embarrassment we turn away from God rather than turning to him in prayer.

But, as Jonah observed, afflictions are sometimes sent to draw us to God, to deliver us from our sinful path: “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD.” The very affliction is what brought Jonah to cry out to God.

God has never yet turned away any sinner who prayed to him in repentance. Jonah found that, even as he suffered “in the belly of hell” he was able, through prayer, to come to God in his holy temple.