I’m sitting here chowing down on the remains of last night’s dessert: warmed rhubarb crumble with ice cream. Well, technically, I am also sitting at my desk, typing a blog post on my laptop, but that’s not the important thing here. Except, I guess it actually IS pretty important, because if I wasn’t doing that, you would have no idea what I was doing and if you don’t, then I wouldn’t be able to segue into my point …
Which is what, exactly?
Okay, let me backtrack a bit. I don’t know if I mentioned this previously, but my doctor recently told me to get my bloodwork done, as apparently, I hadn’t had a full workup since 2009. (And whose fault is that, DOCTOR?!? I have a checkup annually, and you’re supposed to be on top of these things. Don’t you ever look at my file? And while we’re talking about that, I actually believe that I HAVE had bloodwork done since then, but I think the results were never entered into my file … which would be the fault of your medical assistant – and likely your ditzy part-time one, not the full-time one who is most excellent and never misses a thing.)
Anyway, I got the bloodtests done and a few days later, I got a call from my doctor’s assistant (the full-time one, not the airhead part-time one, so I trust what she said) asking me to come in to talk to my doctor. “It’s nothing too serious,” she added.
Ha. Like THAT mollified me. After my fifth friend was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of weeks ago, EVERYTHING is serious to me! As far as I was concerned, I was suspected of having some dread disease and more tests were needed and then a treatment plan would be required and then I was going to die a hideously painful death in a few days anyway.
But really, all it turned out to be was that my cholesterol level was up. I was told that this is quite normal as one ages (so why, exactly, did I need to come in to see her then?), and that there were a couple of things that she wanted to encourage me to do in order to avoid medication as long as possible.
She wanted me to exercise more. My response to that was, “More? More than five times a week?!?” She asked me what exactly I was doing. I told her that I worked out at a gym four days a week usually, and went to a Pilates class once a week. She nodded and typed a note into my computer file.
She wanted me to eat more vegetables and less meat. “I only eat meat maybe once or twice a week,” I informed her. “I don’t like meat a whole lot, so I mostly cook vegetarian.” Again, she nodded and added another note. She asked me about the other food groups and didn’t seem to like the fact that I eat a lot of fruit and that I eat something from the grains food group most days.
Then she wanted me to lose weight, 10% or 15% of my current body weight, to be precise. She said if I was already exercising and eating reasonably well, losing weight would bring down that cholesterol level and then I wouldn’t need medication.
But isn’t exercising and eating reasonably well what one usually DOES to lose weight? Don’t those things go hand in hand? Isn’t it as simple as eating less and/or better plus more exercising equals weight loss?
Apparently not, because I haven’t lost any weight since I started this more intense exercise regime, at the beginning of August.
It’s a mystery to me. Also, my doctor didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned that I was actually overweight anyway. Still, I am going to try to change my eating habits a bit.
And that’s why I’m eating rhubarb crumble and ice cream. Maybe that will jump-start my weight loss.
Thank you, 
Thank you, Fhina, at 
Thanks to Pauline of 
I found this over at 
Thank you, Mrwriteon, at 
Pinklea 