Reboot 2014

Why wait until New Year's?  The holidays will be rough, but this isn't about weight loss or anything.  I'm here reminding myself not to lose control, though.  It's a problem.

Doctors
I'm not afraid of doctors.  I simply hate them.  I find them arrogant, narrow-minded, and judgmental.

Case in point.  Bio screen turned up blood pressure that was actually high enough to scare me.  Trust me.  That is beyond scary for a normal person.  So, made an appointment with a doctor.  We had to hunt down a new doctor because I didn't like that last one I had, the one before that, or, actually, any doctor I've ever had (except the OB/GYN my sister recommended who turned out to be awesome, but who cannot, of course, help with this problem.)

So, I go to this new guy.  Blood pressure was down a little from last week.  Good.  Not quite so scary.  Still securely in HYPERTENSION ALERT! category, not just "concerning".  He was nice.  Really nice.  Great guy.  Seemed smart.

He looked at me, made a judgement, and then began talking arrogantly as though he knew my life, and then when I tried to explain things, he narrow-mindedly pursued his judgement.  He started by saying "If you add salt to your food..."  Okay, a good doctor starts with "Do you add salt to your food?" Because the answer is no.  I have pretty much NEVER added salt to my food. So I tell him this and then say I look for low sodium soups and when I make homemade soup, I buy low sodium broths.  I say I realize they still have a lot, but I don't have them often.  Then he says "well, those soups have a lot of salt.  So do lunch meats.  Pretty much any processed foods."  Again, did he ask what I eat regularly?  Did he really acknowledge that I already knew they had sodium, but I don't eat them often?  No.  So he talks about salts in processed foods, none of which I eat, btw.  I have lunch meat, like, once a month and soups maybe once a week in the winter.

I could go on, but basically the whole appointment went this way.  He didn't ask me ANY questions.  he just talked AT me.  I had to interrupt him to tell him I had lost a bunch of weight, but I had surgery, got depressed, gave up, and gained back most of the weight.  He said "because fad diets don't really work.  You just gain it back."  Well, y'all here know it wasn't a FAD diet! Right!?  It was so insulting!

So he put me on a water pill to flush my system of water and sodium hoping that will help.  Well, I do hope it helps because it's cheap and it's not something your body adjusts to so that you can never get off of it like other blood pressure meds, but a part of me hopes it doesn't work so I can say "See?  It wasn't just about the sodium!"

I asked him about side effects and he mentioned peeing a lot and such so I specifically asked about potassium because that's usually a concern with water pills and he said "it's a good idea, but this one's pretty mild" so I'm thinking okay.  We'll see.

But I just know, KNOW that when I go in next week that he's going to be all proud of the weight I've lost.  Notice he did not mention that side effect, but it will happen.  I just wonder if he's going to try to spin it like "doesn't that make you want to lose more?"

Oh yeah, and he never asked me if I get any exercise.  He just lectured me about how getting out for even 10 minutes at a time if that's all I can handle will do a world of good.

I wonder if he walks 1 1/2 - 2 miles every day.  We walk a minimum of 30 minutes if we don't know the distance we're going (we do the mile and a half in about 30 minutes at home) which sometimes includes hills or terrain that slows us down.  Either way, it was rather narrow-minded of him to assume 10 minutes might be hard for me, don't you think?

Refocusing my efforts
Btw, the rest of my test results are on the high to mid level green HEALTHY so kiss my grits, everyone who thinks fat automatically equals UNhealthy!!  Based on weight alone, they say I'm a risk.  This is my frustration.  It's the things like cholesterol and blood glucose that should be putting you in "high risk", right?  Not the weight ALONE?  Okay, the BP, but they referenced the weight first in my report.

As I said, I'm not really going for weight loss, though, but once in a while I've been letting myself lose it a little.  I'm going to slow down and enjoy.  I want to feel better so I can do more, but I have this foot injury that's been slowing me down a lot.  It's getting better, but I am reminded of my age by how long it is taking.

I'm recording all my stuffs on SparkPeople.  It didn't work for me before, but I had already been doing great on my own.  I feel like maybe it will be easier to reboot with the app's assistance and I figure maybe I can record what I eat (I'm not really changing my eating habits this week.  I want a week to gauge myself.) and the sodium is low, I can stick it in his damned face.

$$$$!!!
Not to mention, I was a new patient so they wouldn't count it as preventative care?  WTF!  $105 later for him to listen to my breath sounds and insult me.  Plus come back in one week after charting my BP and taking the water pill to see how it's going.  Probably another $105.

I miss $30 co pays right now.

And if he says I have to come back in another week, I will tell him to Fuck Off and I'll leave.