getting back to life its ownself

Stepping out a little. Jan and I attended a couple of plays by the local repertory company and that was good fun. Before one we went to an actual restaurant. We shared a salad and each had a separate entre. The entre was too much for each of us. And to top it off we each ordered the same, so it would have been easy to split. Blindly splitting an entre is something we appear loath to do in unknown situations, but we need to start because each of us is eating much less.

A note on a side effect of a low sodium diet.  The low sodium diet I am on has substantially changed my taste buds. Not only am I now hypersensitive to salted foods, I have lost my taste for wine! Horrors! I opened a very good bottle of wine the other night as a test case and it tasted not like wine to me at all. I did no more. Yesterday, I tried a glass of sparkling rose and it tasted better (and better). I want to be really careful about how much alcohol I imbibe in these early days, well, later days, too. But as we all know, a 5-oz glass each day is heart healthy.

Hidden sodium.  With help of the sodium police (herself, that is) we are rigorously staying below 2000 mg per day. The average American ingests about 8000 mg per day. Eating in restaurants produces some challenges.  Sodium lurks everywhere.  But by scrutinizing menus on the computer, one finds that most chain restaurants now provide full nutritional info on their foods. One of my simple pleasures at home (and in AZ) is to eat lunch out each week. I have a two pairs of friends with whom I eat on each of Tues and Thurs. These turn out to be gab/rant fests which seem good for the soul. Then I have other friends--not quite as calendar driven--who often fill one or more of the remaining weekdays. I don't want to give these up.  But lets look at the challenge.

Take Jimmy Johns (JJs) as an example. They do sub sandwiches which I very much like. First off, sodium is high in most breads and it is through the roof in deli meats. What to do? Well, an examination of  JJ's menu shows that many of their sandwiches approach the sodium limit for the day. Many are 1500 mgs or higher. However, one can also find the Big John, which is a roast beef sandwich for 1150 mgs. So on a Thurs, if I am careful with the rest of the day, I can still be below 2000 mg. Calorie counts  with these foods, while important, are not really an issue. I have also found some acceptable dishes at Olive Garden.  More as I explore.

Some low sodium testimonies. The sodium police have been greatly helped by purchasing a number of low sodium cook books. At least a couple of them are introduced with what I am calling "miracle stories". One is written by a man whose heart was so completely failed that he was on a transplant list and given only a few months to live. He adopted the lowest sodium regimen he could and has lived for a couple decades without a new heart. If memory serves, his heart totally recovered. A second was written by a 21-yr-old woman who had failed kidneys. She was on dialysis 3 times per week. A low sodium diet and her kidneys recovered. These are at least food for thought (no pun).

More torsemide (i.e., Lasix).  Maybe I am just slow, but I noted a gradual increase in my weight over the past 2 weeks. I attributed this to inaccurate calorie counts. (Carefully counted out desserts are on my diet when I get only around 1500 calories of food on a given day and I had dessert several days in a row.)  Additionally, there were the difficulties of evaluating the restaurant meal out this past week. And on the same day I also lunched out. So, my perception was that I was probably busting my diet a little.  But I got an overnight gain of more than a pound two days ago. Also, I still have build up of trace edema in my feet and ankles each evening. This gathers over the day--starting when I get on my feet each morning. Yet, it is largely (?) gone the next morning. 

Looking back at my notes I saw that I last took a torsemide pill on 17 July. At that time I had jumped 2 lbs overnight from 216 to 218. That torsemide, the second in several days, did not lower my weight. I figured that I was void of extra water. By 30 July my weight had crept up to 222 with a 2-lb jump in one day. I took a torsemide. Overnight my weight dropped 6 lbs! And this morning it is 215.4. Also my ankles and feet feel thin! So, my calorie counts are probably pretty accurate and weight gain is water retention. I will have to believe in those counts and be more ready to accept weight gain as water retention. (Except for a substantially higher frequency of whizzing the torsemide seems relatively benign.)

Working out.  Second one this morning. Increased weight and/or reps on each exercise and increased cycle time to 15 min. Feeling good!