Last night I woke up out of a sound sleep at 2am with my heart POUNDING.  It wasn’t like the pounding of anxiety or even being frightened.  It felt like my heart was trying to fly out of my chest — on the right side.  I had to wake up a little bit before I realized that my heart isn’t even on that side of my body, but nonetheless it scared me. 

I haven’t been following my healthy living plan very well this week.  I accidentally bought peach tea on Monday instead of unsweetened and didn’t realize until I had a sip.  After that, it just went downhill.  Sometimes it was little things like eating rigatoni whose sauce was sure to have added sugar in it.  Other times, I just visited my coworkers that give out candy and grabbed some.  I have been working out less this week too.  I had to stay late for a meeting at work on Tuesday and by the time I got home, it was too dark to walk.  On Thursday, the snow was falling so heavily, I figured it would be dangerous to walk on the road.  On Friday morning, I never got my e-mail with my strength training video on it.  To be honest, I have been pretty self-loathing about my inability to follow my diet and exercise plan this week.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me!  All of the pain caused by my weight, needing to lose weight so I can have another baby, and needing to lower my cholesterol should be enough to motivate me to lose weight, exercise, and eat healthy!

When I awoke in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, I immediately felt like I wasn’t doing enough to fix my cholesterol levels.  My sister did some research on diets to reduce cholesterol and it seems that the only one that actually shows anything definitive was the Mediterranean diet, of which I knew very little.  A few internet searches showed me that I wasn’t going to like it much.  One of them had a sample diet.  There was a salad for dinner almost every night.  I’m not a big fan of salads for a multitude of reasons.

I went online and found a few books on the Mediterranean diet.  I looked at the one that was the best seller.  It was even rated for 4.5 stars.  I read the one-star reviews.  They complained that all of the food took a really long time to cook and required ingredients that were not readily available in most grocery stores.  I live in a rural area, so the odds were, the same thing would happen to me.  I found another book instead that has recipes that can be made in 30 minutes. 

I bought and read the book today.  It also had a brief explanation of the diet at the beginning.  It’s pretty simple.  Half of the plate should be vegetables of some sort, a quarter should be protein, a quarter should be whole grains.  Fruit can be for dessert.  They also said fish and seafood should be consumed at least twice per week, beans/legumes should be consumed daily, poultry is fine, and that red meat should be only once a week.  Most of the dairy allowed are eggs, greek yogurt, and goat cheese. Sugars are kept to a minimum and occur only in fruit and honey.  The only bread seems to be pita bread and “crusty whole wheat” bread.  I’m not sure where to find it, but I suppose I could figure out how to bake it if I have the time.  I also put out a Facebook post, announcing to my family that I would be following this diet and to do what they can to help me stick with it. Right now, we’re working with the food we have until I get paid again.  Nonetheless, I did okay for dinner tonight: parmesan encrusted pork chops, balsamic broccoli and mushrooms, and white rice (we don’t have brown). A new week is starting, so I just need to pick myself back up again and keep on going.

Starting weight: 239.0 lbs
Current weight: 237.6 lbs