Going in For Surgery, Be Back Soon!

I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up. I am scheduling this to post after my surgery because I am way too nervous to talk about it but I wanted to let everyone know I may be gone for a few days. I will be going in Tuesday the 16th at 8:30 in the morning.

The last procedure caused an infection and ended with an extended hospital stay. So the best I can say is I could be back up and running, well walking slowly, by Wednesday if all goes well or if another infection happens it may be a few weeks before I am back.

All winners, emails, review posts, etc... will be taken care of as soon as I am back at my desk.

ReliOn Has Awesome Customer Service

It’s not very often you hear about great customer service. It seems people in general are more vocal when they are unhappy, which really isn‘t right. I recently had an absolutely wonderful experience when something of mine broke and I wanted to take a minute to tell you about it. 

I use a ReliOn Ultima to check my blood sugar occasionally. I don’t have diabetes but my blood sugar will get low and make me feel just awful. I usually check it before eating something sweet just to make sure that’s what was making me feel bad. 

At any rate the last time I went to check it my strips had expired so I purchased some new ones and when I tried to use them I got an error each time I put the strip in. Strips aren’t really cheap so I was a bit annoyed and decided to call. 

The very nice gentleman who answered walked me through a few things to try and determine why my machine was giving the error. After a few things he determined that the issue wasn’t something he could figure out over the phone. 

Now here is the part where they went above and beyond. In addition the replacing the strips I just bought they sent me a brand new machine. They sent it fast too, it was here in a matter of days. I also sent back the old machine and strips in a prepaid envelope so that they could try and figure out what happened. How awesome is that, that they actually wanted to figure it out?

My new monitor works perfectly. I wanted to make sure and give a shout out to ReliOn for standing behind their products so unconditionally.  It is a rare treat to feel important as a customer when you are dealing with such a big company. 

Happy New Year! and a resolution.

I don’t think I have made a New Year resolution since I was a kid but this year I am going to. This year I am going to get fit and lead a healthier lifestyle.

It’s a journey I started a few years ago when I hit a very low point or rather a high point at 230 pounds. I could tell you it was my health and my medications that caused it and that would be partially true, but I have to take responsibility as well. I used those excuses to let things get way out of control.


I’ll approach this the same way I did to lose the first 70 pounds with slow steady changes that I can live with. I can’t do any crazy exercises due to my health. In fact I can’t do more than yoga and walking but you can bet I should be and can do them more than I do now. I can also eat a lot better. I really have let all of my old habits come back and I guess that is why I gained back 15 pounds.

Don’t worry about being flooded with motivational weight loss posts and whatnot. I became scale obsessed last time and I don’t want to do that again. I will probably only update every month or when I hit a ten pound milestone, as checking your weight and measurements too frequently can be discouraging.

I hope you will enjoy following my journey and perhaps even join me on my path to finding my new fit and healthy self.

Happy New Year may it be all you dreamed of.

Coca-Cola Taste Test.

I’ve not kept it too much of a secret that I’ve done a lot of modifications to my diet over the past few years, some have stuck and others, well, not so much. In all I would like to think that eat a much healthier diet now and I actually do usually prefer the taste of fresh healthy whole foods over processed foods. As part of my diet for several months my husband and I both ate no processed foods, we felt wonderful and really didn’t miss anything too much. I’m not sure why or how but over time we added back a few things here and there.

I have always had a weak spot for Coca-Cola and it was one of the things that was added back into my diet eventually and possibly inevitably. Most of the time I limit myself to a few sodas a week and on my worst weeks I may have one everyday. When my husband told me that he read an article about a taste test between American Coca-Cola (with corn syrup) and Mexican Coca-Cola (with real sugar) I was really interested. Apparently most people preferred the American version.  I just knew I wouldn’t though, of course I wouldn‘t - would I?

I’m not going to say that either version would be healthy (well, maybe in moderation), but certainly sugar would be preferred by me just to avoid the extra processing. I was pleased to find both varieties at my local shop. I purchased both in glass bottles since some say the taste from a can is different and it was the only way both varieties were offered.

Now was the moment of truth. We labeled the bottom of two identical mugs, then he left the room while I mixed them around, and vice-versa. I wasn’t at all surprised that we were both able to easily identify the Mexican version. What did surprise me was that we didn’t prefer the taste. I guess we are just so used to the extra sweet syrupy one that the one made with sugar seemed almost harsh, certainly a lot less sweet.

Of course now that I know I have better option I will be drinking the Mexican version, and I am certain that over time I will come to prefer the taste. I found that with most of my food addicts after a few weeks I didn’t really want then as much as I thought I did.

Do you have both varieties available to you? I’d love to hear if anyone else tries the taste test and which you preferred.

Empty Nest Labor Day

The holidays sure seem different now that the kids have moved so far away. I hear that in time we will actually enjoy our new alone holidays but honestly at the moment I wonder if they are worth the effort. I mean we don’t really like grilling out, we just did it because the kids loved it. It is odd to think about what ‘we’ want to do with an extra day off, because we have always thought about what the kids would like to do. This Labor Day he is taking a nap and I am working on this blog post and will probably go bake something later. Even that seems odd, what do I bake now? I don’t even know what we like vs. the extra sweet stuff the kids always wanted. I may try something totally new. I’ll share the results and recipe if I do. I hope you and yours are having/have had a great weekend.