Getting Healthy - Writing Challenge, Day 2

This year has held so many ups for me...there honestly haven't been a whole lot of downs.  Sometimes my downs in the past haven't been things other people really knew about - they weren't necessarily big, life-changing events, so much as my own frame of mind and how I felt about myself or where I was going (or not going) in my life.

This year, I've felt good.  Sure, there are moments when I doubt myself.  There are days that I just feel like I'm in a funk, and I can't easily shake it.  I think everyone has those days.  But so far this year, I've had so many less down days than in the past, and it's been great.

Part of that has been because I've taken better care of myself.  I don't remember having to go to the doctor even once this year.  I usually hold off as much as possible at any given time when it comes to going to a doctor anyway, but I truly haven't had anything that I wasn't able to kick on my own this year.  Most of the year I focused on eating healthier.  I focused on moving more.  I wouldn't say I was hitting the gym or doing home workouts - I did a few times, but the thing I stuck with the most was just movement in general.


I bought a Fitbit in February (click the picture above to see the one I have), which made it very easy to track how active I'd been at any point in the day.  I didn't just focus on steps though.  I also focused on my heart rate - since I have IST (inappropriate sinus tachycardia), my heart rate can randomly jump when I'm just sitting at my desk at work, making me feel dizzy and nauseous.  If it gets high enough, it can make me pass out.  It's not happened at work before, but it's happened at other times over the years, long before I actually knew what was causing it.  So, when I decided to get a Fitbit, I was pretty adamant that whatever I got had to not only measure steps; it had to also measure heart rate.  I don't have these attacks very often at all; I can sometimes go years without one.  But if something were to happen, I'd like to be able to document it, and since I have a history of my heart rate now when I'm wearing the Fitbit, I have that.

I started tracking my meals, snacks, anything I put into my body, with the Fitbit app.  I utilized the whole package.  Because I'm tracking what I'm eating, I'm tracking calories in.  And since my Fitbit tracks heart rate, it's more accurate with how many calories I burn.  So not only am I keeping track of my heart health, it's much easier to track my calories in vs. calories out.  I need to lose weight, not just because I want to look better, but because there are a lot of health issues that run in my family, and being overweight helps none of them.

I also track how much water I drink each day.  My goals is to drink 80 oz. per day on a normal day.  I'm not always great at hitting that.  The past couple of months I've seriously slacked on tracking everything, honestly.  I'm working on that.

But the water part is something that affects my IST, too.  The doctor who diagnosed me explained that there isn't a cure for it.  It's a problem with the sinus node that controls the rhythm and pace of your heart; sometimes it just gets temporarily out of whack and increases my heart rate.  Staying hydrated lessens the risk of having an episode.  That, along with knowing the signs of an episode coming on (sudden dizziness, nausea, tunnel vision - all usually within a couple seconds), are really the only things I can do to help it.

Like I said, it doesn't happen often, but staying hydrated helps prevent it.  And if one were to happen anyway, I just have sit down wherever I am so that if I do faint, I don't hurt myself - that's what led to getting checked out in the first place and learning all of this.  One thing I've found that helps when I'm in the middle of an episode and feel like I'm going to faint is focusing on my breathing.  Deep, slow breaths.  It doesn't always prevent the fainting spell, but it has kept it at bay in the past.  I don't know if it just naturally forces my heart to slow back down, but it does seem to help.

The Fitbit I have also tracks my sleep stages.  It does seem to be pretty accurate from what I can tell, so it's cool to see that and compare it to how I feel and function the next day.

So, with the help of Fitbit, I've been working on getting healthier throughout the year.  I've gone through a slight hiatus of logging food but have still been watching what/how much I eat for the most part, and I haven't walked as much recently - it's been so hot most of the time I just haven't been able to talk myself into it - but I've definitely still been able to tell a difference.