10 Minute Solution: Fat Blasting Dance Mix

Lately, I've been really busy due to school, with the last few projects being due before exams. So I haven't been able to fit in a lot of working out (plus I slept in the two days I was planning on biking to school this week). But the one thing I have had time for: a 10 Minute Workout! Which is why I've found this dvd to be great. I've found that you can almost always fit in a 10 minute workout; it can fit into your schedule when the longer ones can't.

I have to admit, I haven't really tried most of the workouts on this dvd (well, I tried them awhile ago, but only once each). So I can't really say much about them. But the one workout from this video that I've done a lot of this week is the Ab Attack. I've done it on its own, or else at the end of working out either on the exercise bike or after playing some DDR. I might be imagining things, but I think I might be starting to see a little improvement...hopefully all those isolations are starting to pay off!

Workout Update

Well, I think I've gotten back into the workout groove, and all I feel is....tired. This has been a long week due to school (it's the end of the school year, so projects are all due now), and fitting in a workout has been tough. But I've managed to fit one in most days this past week, and I feel good about that. But at the same time, I haven't been getting enough sleep and I've been feeling that all week now.

Other than finish my last big paper this week, (and try to get another draft of my thesis proposal handed in) I'm hoping to get my bike out! This has been a long winter (well, except that there wasn't any snow) and I've been itching to do some real biking for a few weeks now!

Peanut Butter

Ok....I think I might be addicted to peanut butter.

It's not a hard-core addiction (yet). I read about one lady (I think it was in Fitness magazine) who takes jars with her wherever she goes. Thankfully I'm not as hard-core as that. However, I do enjoy eating peanut butter by the tablespoon. Not on anything, just straight from the jar.

I had some about an hour ago, and man, I could sure use some peanut butter now. I've been fighting the urge to go get some more since about 5 minutes after eating it.

So what is it about peanut butter that's just so good? If anyone has any ideas, or just wants to share their stories about it, feel free to comment!

Water

One thing that I have been doing the last few months is making an effort to drink more water. And I am amazed at the difference in the way I've felt!

First of all, I feel really dry if I drink pop. Before I could easily down a couple glasses of say diet 7up. But now, I can drink one, and even then I'll often feel dry afterwards. The same goes for Mike's Hard.

I also used to drink lots of skim milk. Over the last few months, instead of say two glasses per meal, I'll drink only one glass at breakfast, and another one at supper. So now I'm a lot closer to meeting Canada's Food Guide daily recommendation of dairy.

I've also been happy to find that tea seems to work like water, which is perfect for when I need something to warm me up! Although I do still get the odd hot chocolate when I go out for coffee with friends, I seem to be drinking more tea instead, which is also better for me (less sugar=less insulin used, also less calories).

Another thing that I've noticed is around my period. The first day or two, I used to get bad cramps. But now, if I do get cramps, they're easily managable.

So all in all, I think choosing water was a really great thing for me to do!

Fun With Sensors, Part 2

Well, this is three days later. The second sensor did manage to last all three days. And so I went onto the Carelink website (https://carelink.minimed.com/patient/entry.jsp?bhcp=1) and uploaded all the data from the sensor. It's so cool! You can see exactly what your blood sugar did! (And here I thought it was just cool to see it on the meter - seeing it for all three days is awesome!!!!)

Playing around a little bit with the various reports that the website can generate, I got it to generate a report that shows what percentage of blood sugars were too high or too low! The only problem that I had was that it will not give me the data from today. So I'm going to have to re-upload everything after midnight tonight to get that information.

The two problems that I had these last two days mostly concerned the transmitter (thankfully, the sensor was fine). The first was that it kept coming off of my body - I used the sticky-stuff that they gave me with the transmitter to attach it. This stuff was too small, and didn't want to stay. I solved that problem by buying larger stuff, called Tegaderm. Two pieces kept the transmitter in place no problem (while I had gone through about 5 pieces of the other stuff). The second problem that I had was where I put the transmitter - it was right over a part of my abs that move a lot (especially while dancing). I think that might have been part of the first problem - the location was just too terrible. Next time I'll have to be more careful with where I put the transmitter so it will be more comfortable.

Fun With Sensors

So the one and only time that I have used a sensor for my Real Time Transmitter was back before my old pump died. I lost all the settings (and all the data) because I didn't know how to get it off of the old pump. I found out that to get the data off, you have to go through the Link Blood Glucose Monitor. To do so, you have to turn a setting on in your pump. By the time I found this out, my old pump wouldn't let me change any settings so the data was lost forever.

So this time around, I know how to get the data off of my pump AS SOON AS the sensor is finished. The only problem I'm having is actually getting the sensor to work.

The Transmitter came with an insertion device which I'm terrified to use. So I've manually inserted both sensors. The first time went alright - I was with a Diabetes Educator who talked me through it. This second time, however, was like the first time I tried putting an infusion set on by myself: it went wrong.

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong this time. I thought everything was going alright. But within the first minute, it started bleeding. Not a whole lot. But I guess it was enough to screw up the whole sensor.

Two hours later, my pump demanded a blood sugar to calibrate the sensor. That seemed to go alright, but then it kept telling me that the sensor had failed. After seeming to be alright, it demanded another calibration. Then it told me the sensor failed again. At this point, I knew the sensor wasn't going to work, so I took it off, and decided to try again today.

Today, I almost did use the insertion device. But I chickened out at the last minute - I don't want to screw up and waste another sensor. So I manually inserted it again - thankfully this time it didn't bleed.

Of course, this one didn't go perfectly either. I didn't connect it properly, so it kept failing. I took the protective coverings off so I could properly connect it. It seemed ok for a bit, but then it told me the sensor failed. Hopefully now *touch wood* it's going to work properly!!

Dance Off the Inches: Sizzling Salsa

I bought this dvd about a week ago, and I finally tried the whole thing yesterday (I did the Step Guide the day after I bought it, but never got around to actually trying the workout until yesterday - I haven't been feeling well, plus I tried another dvd which I also bought - but more on that another day!). I tried salsa about a year ago with a friend, and I thought this would be fun to try. (It was an impulse buy from Walmart when I went shopping with a friend).

Being my first time trying it, I didn't do the moves perfectly, but it was a lot of fun! The moves weren't too hard (and doing that step guide earlier helped a bit!) and I really felt like I'd had a good workout when I was done. (Actually, I could really feel it just half way through, so that was a good sign).

Another thing that I liked about this dvd was that Marie Forleo was one of the dancers. Marie is thus far my favourite dance instructor out of all the dance dvd's that I own. I thought her being on here was just a little touch that made this dvd that much more awesome.

All in all, I'm quite happy with this buy!

Low Blood Sugars

So today, I was biking for about 25 minutes. I had done glucose before starting and it was fine, neither high nor low. I set my pump so the basal rate was 0.0 for the next half hour (that way it wouldn't give me insulin as I was working out).

30 minutes later, I had burned approximately 200 calories, and I ended up having to drink somewhere between 50 to 100 due to an insulin reaction!

This has come up a number of times as I've been working out: I end up having to consume like half of the calories I've just burned!

At least this wasn't as bad as the time that I kept drinking orange juice because I didn't want to stop playing Dance Dance Revolution.....

SELF Challenge

Well, my next thing to try is the SELF Challenge. I signed up for it before I signed up for the Jump Start Diet, but it didn't start until Feburary 28th (I think). So earlier today (well, yesterday), was my first time checking in. I was happy to see that one of my friends is also going to do the Challenge with me!

There are two parts to it: the work out and the meal plan. I think I'll be ok with the workout part - it'll be no problem to report how much of whatever I do because I already record my workouts in my exercise log. And this will even calculate the calories you've burned! But I think I'm going to have problems with the meal plan. I don't really know how many calories are in anything, and I doubt I'm going to follow their meal plan suggestions (I admit I got a bit mad that orange juice comes up a few times between their breakfast and snack suggestions - I love orange juice, but can't drink it all the time because it sends my blood sugar shooting up too high).

It'll be interesting to see how I do with this one: it's another one of the check in and report how you're doing things like the Jump Start diet was. But I think with this one, you don't have to check back every day - just every few days. (Well, I hope so - as that's probably what I'll end up doing!)

SELF Jump Start Diet

Well, yesterday was my official last day using the SELF Jump Start Diet (found at http://jumpstartdiet.com/). How it works is you sign up, and each day you're supposed to log in in the morning to get a tip. Then you try it for the day, and at the end of the day you rate what you thought of it. This goes on for 31 days. You can track the tips as you go along, so you can see which ones you liked, and which ones you followed.

This seemed like a really good idea at the time when I signed up. However, I quickly realized that I was going to have a hard time doing this. You see, I like my sleep. So I tend to get up in the morning and rush around then out the door. I rarely had time (or wanted) to turn my computer on to check for the day's tip. On top of that, there would be days when I couldn't be bothered to go on the internet at all, so I didn't even track the tips! (It was a good thing I keep a food/exercise log, so I was able to go back and see which tips I followed!)

My top rated tips were: curb TV snacking, downsize your dishes, and go for "free" foods. My favourite was using smaller dishes - I've noticed that using a smaller plate really does help you eat less!