Cranberry-izing!

I was rather sick this last weekend. Friday evening I felt a sore throat coming on. I thought I would do a workout in hopes that I could burn the sickness right out of me. I did a 2.5 mile run on the treadmill and another 30 minutes on the elliptical. Saturday morning, I woke up with a sore throat AND a headache. Well, the burning it out with exercise theory didn’t work.

Next, it was the honey with tea and just taking it easy. Earlier in the week I had been planning on going for a climbing bike ride of at least 50 miles but I decided against that. I stayed home instead. During the day, I divided my time between reading, painting, and watching movies. I even had a big bowl of chicken noodle soup for dinner. I was starting to feel better by bedtime. I thought I might have the thing beat.


Wrong! Sunday morning came and I could add chills to the list of maladies; and the headache had gotten worse. All I felt like doing was sleeping. So I slept most of Sunday away. I finally did get up when a lady called about purchasing a porch painting. I dragged myself up then showered and changed. I delivered the painting, and swung by a fast food place to eat something. Also, an ice cream shake sounded so good to me. Again, I was feeling a bit better by bedtime.


Monday morning, I woke and headache was mostly gone but sore throat was still there. I opted to skip the early morning bike ride, and slept a bit longer. On my way into work I purchased a HUGE bottle of cranberry juice; my fallback for getting better. I drank about half the bottle during the day making frequent restroom visits. It’s like when you are trying to drink more water; only in this case it was cranberry juice. It was like everyother moment I sat at my desk I would do something then take a drink of cranberry juice.  Do something else, and take a sip.  I was rather surprised my eyes weren't turning the color of cranberries!  BUT I was feeling much better as I left the office that night. Then, I went home and did a workout at the gym to burn the rest right out.

Today, I woke with just a hint of a sore throat. I’m finishing the rest of the cranberry juice just to be on the safe side. But I’m really hoping that all this “cranberryizing” will knock the rest of this sickness out of my system. Keep your fingers crossed!

An Update & Indulgences...

I’ve lost a total of 2 lbs. this week which rather surprises me with the indulging that I’ve been doing. For example last night at Mimi’s Café after ordering a small appetizer for my meal.  I, then, ordered the chocolate bread pudding. OMG! Talk about decadent! It arrived at the table with two different sauces – a rum sauce and a chocolate sauce. Then the bread pudding had chocolate chips mixed in and they were to that just melting point.  YUM!  Now I’ve never been too big on chocolate but bread pudding with a bit of a rum sauce I LOVE. But if you add a bit of chocolate on top of that and its pure genius!

Now I will admit that I did do a 23 mile bike ride before consuming the OMG chocolate bread pudding but I DON’T think that was quite a fair calorie exchange. The scale might have been slightly tilted heavy on the dessert side. I did however purposely choose to have a smaller appetizer so that I “could have” said dessert. But I was still rather surprised that I was down 2 lbs. after such rich dessert consumption. Oh, and I also had a beverage with sparkling wine with cranberry juice; called a Hibiscus. It was very refreshing after a bike ride, but that was another indulgence I probably should have forgone.

My activities for this last week to help combat the general war of weight loss and has assisted in bringing me to a total of 20 lbs less? Well, there was 110 miles of cycling, 5.75 miles running, and 1 hour on the elliptical machine. I guess it was enough to tip the scale in my favor but still I can’t help but think what I might have been down if I would stop partaking of such food items.  But ultimately, I blame that dang blackboard that listed the Special dessert of Chocolate Bread Pudding.  Talk about a sucker for a marketing ploy!

Losing the Cold Wars...

Since late Friday afternoon, I’ve been fighting a cold. I felt better Saturday morning and met Diane for a swim. Ouch! Can you say, “BIG Mistake!”? I only managed to swim ¾ of a mile and felt like I was going to drown twice; an accomplishment of sorts?  The rest of Saturday and Easter Sunday went by in a sleep infested haze. Monday morning arrived and I was still feeling crummy. I called in sick; my first sick day of this year. (Not that I was going for a record or employee of the year or anything like that. Not quite my style.)


This cold has been making the rounds in the office, and on its fifth round it sucker punched me bad! It was SO unfair. I officially blame it on this April weather we’ve been having. How can a body adapt? I was watching from my desk yesterday afternoon and within an hour’s time the weather had gone from cold cloudy gloom to rain to sleet to hail to snow to sleet and back to rain. Hello! Mother Nature could you please just choose one for the day?! Of course, she (Mother Nature) finally chose on cold and partly cloudy by the time I went home which was a good thing because I had the clothes to dress for that.


Fighting this cold has been an uphill battle much like the battle of the bulge.  Only this battle I'm a zombie walking with arms out and arrows are being thrown down at me.  I'm too un-alert to avoid them and when each arrow hits I get an extra ache or pain that wasn't there before.  But at least as I go uphill I'm getting a bit more and more alert; not the walking dead as much. 



My Arsenal of aids to help me get better.

So I’ve been taking extra vitamins, night time cold medicine, day time cold medicine, Thera- Flu medicine, drinking hot beverages ( herbal teas and of course, coffee), and consuming plenty of soup; variations of chicken noodle like soups. Added to all of this I’m drinking plenty of cranberry juice; about a cup of cranberry juice with almost every meal. My philosophy on cranberry juice is that it’s the cure-all for what ever may ell me. Most times when I get a cold the first thing on my grocery list is a big bottle of cranberry juice; everything else is an after thought. I guess I could be a commercial for the cranberry industry. I can just see if now me on TV saying,”… You want to win the Cold Wars? Drink plenty of cranberry juice!” Naw! Maybe not.