Days with Doreen - Chapter 1

Let’s talk about LIFE.  Ugh, that four-letter word.  But life happens, and we can’t do anything about it, it impacts us, affects us, and stresses us out.


My life is pretty ordinary.  I’m married, I have a daughter, a dog and a cat.  I work (outside of the home), I volunteer (A LOT) and so on and so on.  You get it right?  You probably have a similar life, things that take up your time, your thoughts, and your heart.


In addition to my ordinary life, I have an aging parent, for whom I (and my husband) are primary care givers.  That means that while my mother lives in her own apartment, I go over every morning to make sure she takes her medications and has breakfast and then I “pop in” on my way home to make sure she eats supper (which I’ve made). I take her shopping, to her hair appointments, do her banking etc. When I am away or unable to, my husband does it (he’s pretty amazing, I’ll tell you about him sometime). 


My mother has, to quote her doctor, memory deficits.  NOT Alzheimer’s, but likely some form of dementia (although I can’t express enough how much I hate to use that word, so I don’t).  She also has mobility issues.  But she is almost 90 so the fact that she can still climb the stairs in her building as opposed to using the elevator, makes her mobility not a huge deal to either of us.  As for her memory, her short term is essentially gone, but ask her about something that happened 30 years ago, and she can tell you who all was there, what they were wearing and every other detail of the event. 

Two years ago, she moved from our hometown to be closer to my family, so we could make sure she is looked after.  We were very lucky, she was able to get a apartment, only one block away.  We were able to get her a doctor almost immediately (it took almost 5 years and a trip to the ER before I was able to get a family doctor). But, as we expected, the time has come, where we have had to re-evaluate her current living situation and make some decisions.


I used to pick her up once a week and take her to my house to do her laundry.  She has a laundry room in her building but if she was able to take her laundry down, she would only forget about it once she got back to her apartment.  So she would come to my house and do her laundry, and if she forgot it was there, I could finish it.   But even that is getting difficult for her, so now I pick it up, do it and take it back to her.


She will tell you that she eats 3 meals a day, she can’t tell you what they were but she swears she has eaten.  She’s not is lying or covering up, she really believes that she has. At first, I would make meals for her and take them over for her to reheat.  Until the day I found one in the oven from the day before or maybe two days before. Then there was the day I arrived and found only the dirty dishes from the night before and am fairly certain she hadn’t eaten at all the day.  So I started counting the dirty dishes every day and “popping” in after work to heat up her dinner.


We have quite a little afternoon ritual when I “pop” in.  I arrive after work, make her a rum & 7 (she LOVES her rum & 7), make myself a cup of tea, we watch Dr Phil or Family Feud, I make her a second rum & 7, and at 5:30, I can heat up her dinner and she will eat it. I know it sounds like I am negotiating with a child but it works for us and if it gets the job done, I’ll play the game.

So why then, if we have such a good routine going, are my hubby and I looking to change it?  If it isn’t broke don’t fix it, right? But these visits can take up to 45 minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.


Plus, we’ve had a few incidents recently that is really driving our decision.


On one of my morning visits, I knocked on her door but she didn’t answer.  That has happened before, I usually get there before she gets up or she is up in the bathroom, so I let myself in.  Usually she will hear the door and call out, but this particular morning she didn’t, it actually took several minutes to wake her. My heart was beating out of my chest, I was terrified.


Then a few weeks ago, she had a little tumble.  Nothing serious but she did hit her head on the side table.


And finally, she has taken to unplugging her Lifeline and taking the call box to the bedroom when she goes to bed.  There are two issues with this.  One of course is that the Lifeline isn’t plugged in so she doesn’t have this emergency service if she needs it.  But really more importantly, when she unplugs the Lifeline, she is also unplugging her phone, because it is plugged into the Lifeline.  So then, she has neither Lifeline nor the phone. 


My husband worries that having her here 24/7 will be stressful for me because I will not have any “time off”.  But I love my mother, we have always been very close and it was my idea for her to move here. I would do anything for her. And I contend that having her live with us, where I know she will eat and be looked after is far less stressful than allowing her to live on her own and not know what I am going to find every time I go over.  For me, it was a no brainer, she is moving in.


So stay tuned, Days with Doreen, is going to be a different kind of journey, but in the end, I know it will be one I will look back on and cherish.

Healthy Mac & Cheese

Who doesn't love Mac & Cheese?  For most of my friends it is a staple, a comfort food.  In my house we had it almost weekly.  It really was the dish that initiated my love of pasta (until my brother married a lovely Italian lady, now her pasta dishes, please).

Since I stared my journey, I have limited the amount of pasta my family eats. It used to be once a week (or more) to maybe twice a month.  Pasta was always a quick easy meal that fed my family and provided lunches for at least one more day.  So taking these quick easy meals out of the equation was a blow to our regular routine.

So I have been in search of the perfect, HEALTHY, pasta dish.  This one comes pretty close.

Ingredients
- 1 box (375g) Whole Wheat or Catelli Smart Pasta (my family are not huge ww fans)
- 2 cups 1% milk
- 200 gram bag of low fat, shredded cheese (Sharp is tasty but your preference)
- 3 tbsp. whole wheat flour
- 1 lb ground chicken, cooked
-1 can diced tomatos, no salt, drained

Cook pasta according to directions. 
Drain tomatoes in strainer. When you drain your pasta, pour it into the same strainer your tomoatoes are draining in, the hot water will heat your tomatoes through. Add both back to pot and throw in ground chicken.

Sauce
In a saucepan, ver medium heat, add milk and flour, stiring constantly until it starts to thicken.  Add cheese, stir until melted. Pour into pasta mixture.

Serve with side salad OR, what I like to do is add steamed broccoli and cauliflower to the pot.  This makes a well rounded dish with a serving protein, carb, dairy and veggies. YUMMY

Do you want to be the catterpillar or the butterfly?

One of my favorite quotes is “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly”  That is exactly how I feel about my fitness journey.  I, like a lot of women, have dieted and worked out (or attempted to) for most of my adult life.  And like a lot of other women, I have not had too much success.

So why was this going to be any different?  Have you ever heard the expression, “if you want different results, you have to try different things”?  If I was doing the same things I always did, why should I expect my results to be any different then they always were? And surprise surprise, they weren’t different at all.  In fact, except for very moderate weight loss, there were no results to speak of after almost 18 months.  So clearly something had to change.  My doctor agreed, he said that I had to exercise more.  WELL. . .I am the least active person you could ever hope to meet, so the level of exercise I was doing was far and above anything I ever did before.  But it wasn’t enough.  According to my doctor, if I could talk on the phone while on my treadmill, I wasn’t working hard enough.  This gave me some food for thought.  I realize now, I was still a caterpillar.

The problem was I was doing all the things I thought I SHOULD be doing but not doing anything that was really going to change me.  So I started reading, I started watching and I started really working out.  I mean really really working out, the kind of workouts where I had to practically crawl up the stairs and have my husband or daughter dry my hair because I couldn’t hold my hair dryer above my head. I learned the difference between dieting and clean eating (I don’t use the word diet anymore; in fact, I HATE that word).  And with these realizations started to emerge the butterfly.  
I was starting to shed the cocoon I had come to live in (BTW the cocoon weighed about 52 pounds). And I stood taller (and I am already 5’7), I walked prouder.  I know I carry myself differently.  The caterpillar crawls around, trying to be inconspicuous.  The butterfly flies high, wanting everyone to see her.  

Now, my world wasn’t over, I would have merrily continued on my life journey, but a caterpillar doesn’t know it’s a butterfly until it actually becomes one.  I didn’t know I was a butterfly; I was a fairly content little caterpillar.  What I know now is that my butterfly was always there just waiting for me to set her free.  And I know there is a butterfly in every one of you, the choice is yours, will you carry on as the caterpillar or will you set free your butterfly?   

Welcome to My Journey

Some of my friends know already, but this is not something I have shared openly up to now. Just over a year ago, I began a health and fitness journey that literally changed my life.
Truth be told, my journey started more than two years ago, but I was stuck in neutral for a long time. I would yo-yo, losing a few pounds and then gaining them back. I did this for almost 18 months until my doctor advised that, due to chronic and unmanageable anemia, I should quit dieting. My doctor told me that I should lose weight (I was 233 lbs and classified as obese) that I needed to practice portion control and increase my physical activity. Well seriously, what doctor doesn’t say that? And if I could practice portion control, I wouldn’t need to lose weight. Am I right? Add to that, I was never physically active (I did well to get on my treadmill a few days a week) and my 50th birthday was only a month away.

It was not long after that that I saw an infomercial for a program that was all about portion control, healthy eating and a fairly simple workout routine. It was just what I was looking for and it practically fell right into my lap. It sounded so easy, too easy. But it came with a 30-day money back guarantee, what did I have to lose. . .except weight. So I ordered it, after all I could always send it back (but let’s be honest, I was never going to send it back).
Fast forward to today, I have lost 52 lbs, I am no longer classified as obese, my anemia is controlled and I am no longer on iron supplements. At (almost) 51, I am in the best condition of my life, so I decided to become an online health and fitness coach, to share my journey and to inspire and help others become the best versions of themselves.
Does my story sound familiar? Does it pique your interest? I would like to invite you to follow my journey, as it’s far from over. I am still overweight, I need to lose about 20 more pounds and I would like to get my blood pressure down to normal range without medication. I would like to participate in a 5k run, maybe even a 10k, and someday I am going to do a real push up. You can find me here, on Instagram and Twitter (guiderjen for both), feel free to drop by anytime.