My New Wellness Plan

Our health insurance will pay us just to do a health assessment, so today I slept in and went to my assessment. I had to fast for 12 hours, but that’s not so hard when you sleep in. What I really missed was the coffee. The nurses measured and weighed us, drew some blood, and took our blood pressure, then they gave us the results… and mine were kind of a downer. My blood pressure is good, so that’s something, but my triglyceride numbers are not so hot. They suggested I talk to my doctor about going on a pill. I’d rather see if I can get those numbers down with a serious lifestyle change, and this is why I am telling you, my 5.6 gentle readers, all this – so you can keep me honest.

The website maps out a partial plan for you, like it wants me to lose 10 pounds in two months and burn 500 calories a day through exercise. Oddly enough, it did not say anything about avoiding sugar or refined flour. So here are my daily/weekly goals:

• Burn 500 calories a day – this takes a lot more exercise than you’d think
• One alcoholic beverage per week
• One dessert per week
• No more juice – it’s fruit or nothing
• Whole grains instead of refined flour

It doesn’t sound so hard in theory, but in practice I have not been able to follow through. Now maybe I will be scared straight by my numbers and will actually get the exercise and avoid the temptations. This means no more pretzels (sigh!), and so Handy Woman said she would not bring them into work anymore, since I am their biggest fan. I generally only eat scones once a week, but since they technically are a dessert even if I treat them like breakfast on Saturday mornings, I’m going to have to forego my weekly scone unless I’ve had no dessert all week. Since I often go out for coffee with readers of this very blog, you can help keep me honest. It won’t be easy, but I think it is still possible to get my numbers down without taking any drugs.

Famous Hat