Saturday May 27 2023-

A Healthy Challenge for my Life

This healthy challenge is not from any particular diet or exercise. It is what I came up with after reading and learning more about my illness.

The challenge is to exercise in the morning and at night. Exercises can be walking, yoga, lift dumbbells, cycle, lymphatic exercises or any other exercise that I find on YouTube. The amount of time for exercising will be 30-45 minutes daily allowing one day to do less if needed.

The second part is to eat for my illness. It will be mostly a Paleo diet, and limit bread intake and desserts. And no more coke or Pepsi when I get a migraine. Instead I will drink more water and tea. When I get a migraine I will drink water and have mint tea.

The third part is to work on finding more joy in life. I have been through a lot of stress and trauma. It’s time for me to take my life back and find some joy.

The challenge will be for a month and I will reassess.

Morning Exercise

I have been walking and exercising daily since February. But this healthy challenge is to be more conscious of my exercising, getting outside and walking more and eating for my illness.

Today I woke up this morning at 5:00am, my cats and my dog likes to get me up early. I drank my tea and once 6:15 arrived, I took my medication and put on my workout clothes and started my day with a morning walk. It was cool out and sunny. Those are the best days to walk. I love the cool breeze on my skin. Then I came back home, cooled myself off with some water, then I did lymphatic exercises I found on youtube. After the exercises I sat at my cycle and did about 8 minutes of cycling. I use the cycle that you can put under your desk. I would love to have a full size cycle, maybe some day.

Lymphedema and Lipedema

Below is a photo of my legs, you can tell how swollen they are. I have Lymphedema and Lipedema along with rheumatoid arthritis. Pants are very difficult to find that fits good for both my legs and waist. I only have one really good yoga pants that I had for many years that fits me really good, and the others tend to not fit right. Having lymphedema, you have to find pants that are loose and does not cut off at the ankle. I wear compression socks daily and my compression socks have to include the ankle, so I either wear a full length sock or toeless socks, they both go up to the knee.

Compression Socks

I tried medical grade compression socks, and probably should be wearing those, but they hurt at the knee, it left a very noticeable hurtful red mark. I felt it was better to go without compression socks than to wear those! So I choose Doc Miller compression socks, those are the only ones that I can manage to put on without my fingers hurting (rheumatoid) and it does not leave a hurtful mark at the knee.

When a person has lymphedema and lipedema, they have to be conscious of exercise and eating habits. This is the part that can be very aggravating. Most women have lipedema, some men will be diagnosed with it. It is considered a hormone fat disease, Hormones are my enemy! Lipedema is not commonly diagnosed, but it is commonly out there. Most don’t know they have it, because most medical doctors don’t know about it, or they will say to just “loose weight.”

Loosing weight is the issue but it is not that simple. With lymphedema and lipedema exercise and eat healthy is not the issue but our body absorbs fat differently. So there is a different build up of fat than compared to a person who can loose weight.

Diet or is it just eating for my health?

So this leads me to eating habits. I don’t think I have bad eating habits, sure I love desserts and chocolate and I can have my days of wanting “bad” food. But I really eat a lot of veggies and fruit. I am not a big fan of meat, so that is always a smaller portion.

Lipedema diet that is recommended is Keto. I again, don’t like meat. So basically I will have chicken and fish. Another thing about the diet is it recommends cheese and dairy. I can not have dairy products, because it will cause swelling with the rheumatoid and it’s hard on my digestive system. Also I have a gluten intolerance. I will try eating cheese in limited amounts. The diet I’ll follow will be Paleo.

I might try intermittent fasting.

Breakfast

Below is my breakfast, it is left over rice, quiche with dairy free cheese and kiwi with sweetened green tea.

Should I stop eating sugar? Probably yes. But I really only have sugar in my tea. I don’t eat much sweets like candy or desserts. So I feel a little is a reward. But maybe through this process I will eventually cut it down more.

What I Did Today

After walking and eating my breakfast, I took time to look over my calendar for my bills to be paid, then I started working. It is Saturday and I work in the morning. I am a self-employed counselor and art therapist. So work hours can be daily, but not necessarily all day. Like I tell others, hey if you are single and have to eat expensive gluten free, you will figure out how to make enough money to cover your grocery bill! After work, I made lunch.

Lunch

I am going to try eating cheese, let’s see if I have only 3 slices of cut cheese, if it gives me issues. Time will tell.

Well I had some cheese and it kinda upset my stomach, but I do have times my gastro/digestion gets bad, no matter what I eat. So I will try this for a few more days and see if it happens each time I eat it.

I had bruschetta and an orange with ice tea for lunch.

Here’s my lunch: Classic Bruschetta with gluten free sourdough bread

• 2 roma tomatoes, diced
• basil leaves- I used a small bunch
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper

also needed:

• 2 sourdough bread, gluten free

For the bruschetta: mix all ingredients and let it rest for 15 minutes

Toast: put on 3 Tbsp olive oil with dairy free parmesan cheese onto the bread. Instead of turning my oven on, I toasted it in the skillet.

After lunch, I sat down and worked on my cross stitch, Rue Paris. You can see my past posts about Rue Paris. Sitting is something that helps my legs, because I can put them up on the ottoman and help the fluid to move the other way. But moving is also something that is recommended, so I make sure I get up from my stitching. I have a dog, so that is helpful to get outside again and take a small walk for her.

Dinner

Dinner consisted of chicken asparagus parsnips leftover bruschetta and a few slices of cheese. And for my drink was ice water

Evening Exercise

Here’s my legs. Very swollen and stiff. My feet are swollen but they actually look good this evening!

I did a 10 minute lymphatic exercise. And then decided to rest under a weighted blanket. I’ll probably be in my bed for a while because my cat normally wakes me up.

That’s the first day, my goal is to do this for all of summer and then access what I do next. Each month I will assess my progress and make changes.

Caroline

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