All my life I’ve been a bit of a rebel…sometimes it was a good thing. It has allowed me to find my own path in life and get me to a place where I feel comfortable with myself and my life choices. I did it my way and I’m perfectly okay with that. Other times it’s been a bad thing like when I stayed in relationships that I knew I should have dropped a long time before I actually did it. Those choices ended up costing me and those I care about alot of pain and hurt.

At this point in my life I think I’ve been rebellious so long that I almost do it subconsciously.  When I first discovered the Keto diet I it was through the keto subreddit. I saw all these posts of people who were having all kinds of success. It was a lifestyle that was the antithesis to what I had alway been told was the correct and healthy way to eat. But it seemed like all these people were having great success and enjoying what they were eating. Also it didn’t require me to feel like I was starving myself which was a bonus.

I spent the next few weeks reading various studies, books, and watching videos. It was enough to convince me that I needed to try this. My husband was raised by a very health conscious mother and when I began telling him about it he was very skeptical, as this whole entire lifestyle went against everything she had taught him and, what was and still is the accepted way of eating from most doctors, dieticians and nutritionists.  However, he agreed to give it a go with me and that started our 8 month Journey.

We both lost about 40 pounds during that 8 months and couldn’t believe how well it worked. Then his parents moved in, at that point they were both Sugar junkies. I’m not blaming them but it certainly is hard to avoid sugar when it’s always around. We ended up gaining a good portion of our weight back. It was awful. Eventually they moved out but we didn’t jump back to doing the right thing.

Then in June of 2018 I was diagnosed as having Type II Diabetes. I was prescribed both Metformin and Insulin. But I really didn’t want to start taking medication. With everything that I had learned while doing Keto previously I knew I can beat this if I just changed my lifestyle. I also read the Diabetes Code by Dr. Jason Fung who advocated not only for a low carb lifestyle but intermittent fasting as well. So I immediately decided to go back to keto and I did not start taking medication. My Doctor wanted to see me again in 3 months, well I never started on the medication and began low carb immediately with only some fasting. At the visit where I was diagnosed my A1c was 10.5% and when I went back in 3 months it had dropped to 6.9%. My Doctor was shocked, she said she never saw numbers like that. Well what did I do, I became careless yet again. Because yes it makes total sense to celebrate lowering your blood sugar by having junk food and raising it again….

I know what I need to do, I know I can heal my Diabetes, but I’ve had the hardest time making myself commit. I think what I’ve realized is that subconsciously I was fighting against it because It’s something I know I have to do and yet my nature is to rebel against it. Well apparently I now need to rebel against my own rebelliousness, because honestly at this point my life depends on it. Diabetes can kill if you don’t do something about it, and I really need to do something about.

So this semester one of my classes is accounting. It’s been a pretty tough class for me, but I’m persevering. I honestly found the textbook confusing, luckily I managed to find some tutorial videos on YouTube which really helped me to better grasp the main concept. I think part of what makes it more difficult for me is with my Graves disease it can be hard for me to remember things sometimes, so I’ve sort of struggled with remember things like which types of accounts are expenses or liabilities etc. I spent pretty much all day yesterday doing accounting schoolwork. It was tough, but I pushed through and managed to get A’s on them so at least my hard work is paying off. I think if I would’ve known how much work it was gonna be for me I would’ve taken the class on campus where I could’ve had direct access to a teacher, but I suppose it’s too late for that now. Anyway, I’m gonna just keep pushing and thankfully have Mark to help me with this stuff.

For years I’ve been searching for a way to incorporate fresh fish into my diet. My problem was that I didn’t like the way fresh fish, was so umm Fishy…lol. Well after some searching I found a delicious marinade that we used with Atlantic Salmon yesterday and It was amazing. For the first time ever I really enjoyed fresh fish! We are also going to try this marinade on cod. Anyway I’ve shared the recipe as we made it down below.

I don’t often spend money on myself, In fact I find it a very difficult thing to do. I always feel like when I do I’m splurging or it’s something I could do without. Mark has spent year’s convincing me that it’s okay to occasionally splurge on myself. So I’ve lost some weight and all my pajama bottoms are falling off me, at this point I have one pair of summer bottoms that aren’t So I decided to get myself some new ones. It’s quite an accomplishment for someone who a few years ago wouldn’t even think of spending $15.00 on herself for some random item.

On another note, I’ve been trying to eat better again. For some reason I’ve been finding it really difficult to do this time around. After much thought, I’m wondering if I haven’t been subconsciously rebelling against the fact that I really need to do so now because of my diabetes. I’ve always hated being told what to do and now I know I really need to do this for my health and my mind is basically saying “SCREW YOU”.  So now, I’m going to button down and try to get back to intermittent fasting as well as eating better. I know I can do it, I did it for 8 months before and lost 40 pounds. It’s just a matter of sticking to it.

School has been okay so far this semester. I have two pretty easy classes, Microsoft Word & Microsoft PowerPoint. My Third class is Accounting. That one isn’t as easy but I’m definitely finding it interesting. It will be neat to see how I can integrate some of what I learn into my regular life, aside from using it in the field.

Last night as Mark and I were parked in front of the T.V. relaxing, we were wandering through YouTube and I was recommended a  video from KOMO 4 a Seattle news channel called “Seattle is dying“. Apparently since we moved away the homeless problem has become particularly egregious there. This reminded me of previous news I had read about here in Cincinnati about a homeless problem.

I’m willing to bet these homeless problems which are apparently on the rise everywhere actually represents the reality of the economy unlike what the media presents as representative which would be how well Wall Street is doing. Business doing well in no way tells use how everyday people are doing, especially when those business have the ability to do stock buy backs and inflate their own worth through those buy backs.

I also think the rise of homelessness is representative of the growing opiate crisis we have here in this country.  But until this country decides to start treating addicts for the medical crisis they are in instead of locking them up in jail we’re going to continue to have problems in my opinion.

Mason Brown bringing that ?? check out this banger!

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