Health Update

Today was one of my less than productive days. This morning after checking my email (and blog comments), Jeff (one of the blog readers) mentioned that the pain I've been having in my groin area might be the start of a hernia. After checking a couple of medical websites, I started to stress out (something I do very easily). I finally called my health care provider. The earliest slot was a Monday "walk in" appointment. The next step was for me to cancel my rowing lessons. I was prepared to "try it" and see what happens, but with the idea of a hernia operation (involving surgery) firmly planted in my head, I was in no mood to risk any physical activity. I cancelled because I would be missing the first lesson and with a waiting list, I didn't want to hold a spot that someone else could use. I can always sign up at another time. Anyway, after cancelling the lessons, I was a bit depressed, so I didn't do much else for the rest of the day except watch a few YouTube videos, clips, and slept the day away. I finally got out of bed about 4pm.

I was hungry having not eaten anything all day. I only had a cup of water and a vitamin. The problem was that I didn't have much in the way of fruit. I've been able to fill up on fruit, but not the vegetables. I'm going to have to moderate my fruits much better. I went through about $40 dollars worth of fruit in a couple of days. I have a big appetite and I would usually have a full plate of food. Now on this liquid diet, I've been trying to fill up a stomach that is very, very used to being very full. the other problem is that the vegetables are not really tasty. My so-called liquid diet has been a bit out of balance with me consuming much, much more fruits Not even a little. Spending decades on sugary, fried, salty, and greasy foods, it will be a while before I can tolerate a vegetable drink. Today, with 3 apples and a handful of spinach made the drink somewhat tolerable, unfortunately, it only produced about 8 oz of juice.

Dietary Changes
I'm adding whole fruits to my diet(as in eating not just juicing them). Considering I haven't been totally on a liquid diet this week. I cheated with eating grapes, peaches, pineapples, and raisins, so the "addition" isn't a big change. Next week, I'm adding oatmeal and cream of wheat to my diet. I will continue with drinking ENSURE to fill up, but I will have to drink much less. I went through a couple of six-packs in two days. I also need to add plain tea to the diet. I should have been drinking tea (as part of the liquid diet), but I got lazy with boiling water. I will dust off my double-insulated thermos -- I might have mentioned it in a previous blog entry (months, or years ago). With the double-insulated thermos, I only need to boil water once, and it will keep it pipping hot for about 6 hours (and keeps cold drinks ice cold for 12 hours). It also has a convenient pump on the top.

I think that's about it. Below is a slideshow I made of the photos of my juicing machine. I don't know if I gave a review of the machine, but if I didn't here it is:

I really like the machine. I like the idea that I can get a good dose of vegetables on a daily basis (something I haven't really been doing). I also like that the machine is relatively quiet. The blender is much, much noisier. The cleanup of the juicer is fairly easy. I originally timed the cleanup of the juice at about 16 minutes. Today, the time was closer to 12 minutes. The half of the time clean comes from cleaning the shredding/strainer disk. The cheap brush provided really isn't doing the greatest job. I'll probably have to use one of my extra toothbrushes to clean the shredding/straining disk. Oh, I noticed that the juicer really should be clean soon after using. Today, I wanted to go to the store. I was smart enough to leave the shredding/straining disk soaking, but leaving the machine with the pulp in cause condensation of the pulp juice into the area under the pulp-collection basket and spinner. I think the juicer is fairly easy to clean if you don't let the food sit in it too long. I can see it becoming a nightmare to clean if the food hardens and dries out.



Post Date - Saturday, July 10, 2010. 1:08AM