Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

As many of you may recall, I lost my older sister Anne two years ago last Sunday. She was a victim of an illness that is still so misunderstood. We still don't understand what causes the disorder and why the victims take the illness as far as they do.

No one in my family knew that Anne was developing anorexia when she was a teen until it was deeply embedded in her brain. My parents did get her to a hospital and she was on the path to recovery. The trouble is, the thoughts were already there and she relapsed on and off for 25 years.

I thought because I ate so healthy, I would somehow be immune to the common colds and flus. But as I found out this past Saturday, it doesn't matter how well you eat… you still need to avoid the germs that make people sick.

I appreciate the advice people have given me. I've been having water with finely chopped ginger in it, green tea, drinking lots of water. At least I seem to be feeling a lot better, except for the headache today.

I mentioned before New Years that I would post a picture of my progress. Click on the image above to see the full image.  In the first segment you will see what I was at 264.6 lbs when I started the weight-loss challenge. In the other two panels you will see me 40lbs lighter on New Years eve.  You can see the same orange shirt I wore fits much more loosley and is no longer pushing out from my body by my stomach. (Middle panel I pulled the shirt tight against my body to show the waistline of my old pants.)  My old pants were extremely tight on me (44's) I was just about to move up to 46's and then decided to join the weight-loss challenge.

I will post my eating regime, as promised in my last post, when I get another free moment to do so.

Many of you might be thinking about starting an exercise program to get in shape, It can be overwhelming for a beginner and many people end up getting discouraged and quitting after the first few weeks of exercise. I would like to encourage everyone to stick with an exercise program, so I thought it would be helpful to read what a fitness expert has to say on the subject. I'd like to thank Mat Montgomery, Health & Wellness Director at the Torrington branch of the Northwest CT YMCA, for providing answers to the following questions.

Somebody please remind me… why do we live in New England? I forgot the reason… maybe I don't remember why because it's like 0 degree temperatures outside right now. Maybe it's because we warm up for a day, go back to severe cold weather, then warm up again, then the snow melts, then we get extreme cold, then we get snow again, then it warms up again, then back to freezing cold! I guess there's a lot of good reasons to live in New England… I just can't think of them right now!

I thought I would offer some tips on shoveling snow and staying warm. Remember to take it easy when shoveling. Every now and then we hear of people having heart attacks while shoveling snow. According to the American Heart Association, those that are at risk are people who are in poor physical condition, or those with existing heart disease or a personal history of stroke. We also have the danger of the extreme cold weather.