Health Update

If you have read my recent entries, you may have noticed that I only exercised once this week. It has become very frustrating to try to exercise because of the sciatic pain I am experiencing on my right side. Generally, I don't talk about my health concerns because I don't want to hear the inevitable comment: "You really should see a doctor about that." I am uninsured so that isn't an option. Anyway, I am pretty sure that this pain is weight-related because the only other time I had it was when I was pregnant. So now I am caught in a depressing cycle. I need to lose weight to get rid of the pain. I need to exercise to lose weight, but if I exercise longer than 15 minutes the pain gets worse. Grumbling is for old folks, so I'll stop.

In other health news, ABM had a false start with South Beach last week so he is going to start over on Monday. I'm not a big fan of low-carb diets, but in my current mood I think that I could stick it out for at least a week to jump-start my weight loss. I can't see giving up bread and potatoes forever, but I do recognize that currently my diet is very high on carbs. This is an average day for me:

Breakfast--1 packet of instant oatmeal followed by two cups of coffee (lots of sugar and cream!)
Lunch-- Six ounces of meat and two vegetables at the caf (usually fried or covered with some sort of sauce; one of the veggies is usually a starchy one like potatoes or corn)
Dinner-- This is where it goes downhill. I eat whatever is available that doesn't involve cooking (the kids eat dinner with the MIL). Rarely is there any meat involved unless it is a hot dog. It is more likely to be candy, chips, ice cream, bagels, Ramen noodles, or English muffins. If ABM brings home some takeout, then it will be egg rolls and lo mein.

As you can see, I am pretty resistant to cooking. For me, cooking is something you do to impress your guests at a dinner party :-). I know that low-carb diets (and healthy eating in general) involve a bit of food prepartion. No matter what plan we try, I think this is our biggest obstacle. Convenience foods don't fit our budget and neither one of us wants to cook when we come home. The only way I can see this working is if we make the ultimate commitment and clean out our cabinets. As long as we continue to buy lots of snack food, we'll never cook a real meal. I don't know if I will get ABM to go for it, though.