Step by step

Another small step along the path:  I mailed off the check to the nutrition program yesterday.  Now the ball's in their court--waiting for them to call me to set up my first phone "appointment."  I'm interested in what they might have to say, as I've just been counting calories and paying attention to protein intake so far.  Oh, and trying to up my vitamins.  I have lost 5 pounds since I started about 10 days ago, which isn't a bad beginning.  I know I need to lose at least 20 pounds to get to the 5% with a little "cush" room for the doctor's office scales.

I got my blood test results back also.  Here are some of the current results:

• Cholesterol = 188 (an okay number)
• HCT (hematocrit) = 35.4 (not good--should be at least 37 to be in normal range)
• Glucose = 92 (okay)
• Hemoglobin Alc = 6.1 (not good--diabetes is 6.5 or higher)
• Iron level = 46 (okay)
• Iron saturation = 15 (not good--should be between 20 and 55)
• Vitamin B-12 = 476
• Folate = over 20.7

Yikes! The doctor's note says only "iron saturation is low" and directs me to see my regular doctor.  I'm glad I have started taking an iron supplement already!  I did suspect I'd be anemic, since I have been on and off for many years (perhaps jointly from heavy periods and not paying enough attention to my vegetarian diet).  Anyway, I will definitely talk to her about some of the other numbers as well, so I can be doing all I can to prepare for eventual surgery (I hope).

On a more positive note, I've been "treadmilling" it on a pretty consistent basis!  Made it up to 20 minutes at a fairly slow speed, but considering just a week or so ago I was hard-pressed to do 8, that seems pretty good to me.

That's the news from here!  Oh, I haven't seen much of my garden snail friends--we have had a record-breaking streak of "no measurable rainfall" here in Seattle!  I think we are at 46 days total.  Anyway, I hope they are just keeping it cool and will return when it's wetter. :-)