Last Easter, I wrote that I was beginning my Integrative Nutrition Health Coaching Program. Though I still have several weeks of work to do, today I finished my final requirement for graduation and I am so thankful that I have been able to do this. I have learned so much.

For this Easter, I had planned to both start working on a serious weight loss/health program and also to start working on the book I’ve mentioned several times. Easter seems to be a lucky day for me.

However, as I wrote in my last post, I was crazy sick with the prednisone reduction for my testing on Tuesday so it simply wasn’t an option. I’m still waiting on test results now (what the tech and I could see didn’t look great), but I am back on my meds and back to human, and, for that, I am grateful.

So, today, April 5th (my wonderful husband’s birthday) is to be day one.

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I’ve written often about the body changes that have come with my medication and also because of the inactivity due to my joint problems and pain and my broken feet.

However, this significant weight gain is now contributing to my joint pain being EVEN worse, as well as causing my blood sugar to be more elevated (hello, Type 2 Diabetes), my heart rate is continuing to run amok, and my risk of cardiovascular disease (which is four times higher already because of the RA) is much higher as well.

In short, it absolutely must be addressed – and now.

So, I decided to do so  – and write about it.

But not just the weight loss.

I want to write about living with autoimmune disease and natural health and navigating the healthcare system and what works and what doesn’t.

And I feel like a year is a reasonable amount of time in which to lose a significant amount of weight while I read the books I want to read and do the research I want to do and write what I want to write.

So here I go.

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Though I was already plenty motivated, during the delay between Sunday and today, a local news person, who is quite thin and only 43 years old, with no known risk factors for cardiovascular disease, posted this on her Facebook page:

 

This is so important.

So I am on it.

Be well, everybody. Happy Thursday.

Grace and blessings.