Joy, Life and More

It's been about four months since my journey toward better health and beating diabetes began. So where am I now? At the end of October, three months since I took the A1C test which diagnosed me diabetic, I retook the test. This time it was a simple finger prick and a small amount of blood. I was lucky that the lab in my doctor's office had a machine which didn't require them to send out the sample. The phlebotomist was nice and told me I would get the results in a few minutes. In all honesty, before I took the test, I told myself there was a chance my results might even be higher than 6.4% despite all the things I had been doing to get it down. The problem with diabetes is if someone in your family has the disease, the chances of getting it goes up, and someone in my biological background had diabetes (side note: I was adopted as a baby but my mom told me my biological grandmother had diabetes). Of course, this is not an excuse why I have diabetes. I know my lifestyle...

This is a late review as I am about to get my November box but I wanted to post it just so you have an idea of what this subscription is about! Let's be honest. There are so many subscriptions out there ranging from beauty to food to clothing to just about anything you are looking for in a monthly box. Sometimes it seems like all the subscription boxes are the same except for the different ranges of price. It takes a lot for a box to fill a niche and to me Love With Food is just that kind of box. Love With Food is a monthly subscription box which contains organic or all-natural snacks. In a word or two, it contains healthy snacks! But these snacks are great if you are looking for healthier options and it gives you a chance to try out a variety of items without having to purchase a whole box or bag of one snack. There are three different options with this subscription. The first is a tasting box which contains about 8+ snacks and can cost about $8 to $10 if you purchas...

I wanted to address the cost of being healthy versus the cost of not being healthy. When I was first diagnosed with diabetes, many thoughts went through my head. Would I need to take medication? Have I signed myself up for a lifetime of insulin injections? Do I need to sign up for a gym? Would I need special food? How much is this all going to cost? Let's be real here. Being healthy cost money right? When you visit the doctor, it will cost you money. Then when the doctor prescribes this pill or that pill, it will cost you more money. This is all aside from the money you already pay out for health insurance. Of course not to mention all the tests you need to take to make sure you are healthy (or not healthy). Pretty soon you figure out how much it is going to cost you to stay healthy and maybe it makes you feel ill. But think about it this way. If you don't go to the doctor, get sick and land in the hospital, how much will that cost you in the end? The average cost of one ...

I haven't put up one of these in awhile but wanted to highlight my October 2015 Birchbox ! I also made ACES (exclusive Birchbox VIP program), which meant I spent way too much money on their website :) so I am now able to get first dibs on subscription box choices. This month Birchbox offered several mascaras as one of the sample choices in their regular subscription box. They also offered two guest curated boxes instead of one in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month! These boxes were by the Estee Lauder Companies and filled with products which support breast cancer research. In addition, Birchbox also committed funds which will go toward one year of breast cancer research. I chose one of the curated boxes because I liked the variety of products it offered and I felt it would fit in with what I was looking for in beauty this month. The Power Pose box contained five products from the brands Estee Lauder, Clinique, Darphin and Smashbox. I have not tried all of them yet bu...

So where do you start when you have diabetes, need to lose weight and start exercising regularly? I am no expert but for me, sadly, it had to be an incentive. My incentive was I didn't want to have diabetes! I didn't want to "shudder" inject myself with insulin every day. This was incentive enough for me! As I already said in my prior entry, I started using MyFitnessPal (MFP) to track what I ate, calories and all that good stuff. It was a learning process the first week. You can easily put in your starting weight and the weight you hope to be at some point, and it will tell you how many calories you can eat each day. My challenge was I also had diabetes and high blood pressure. Not only did I need to watch my sodium intake but I also need to consider how much carbohydrates and sugar I was consuming. When you use the free portion of the MFP App, you can only indicate what percentage of your diet should be carbohydrates, fat and protein as well as limit the amou...

When I started this blog, I didn't want it to stagnant but it's come to that mainly because I haven't posted in awhile. I have two boys, ages 5 and 9, and I am 46 years old. I had my children later in life because I didn't get married until I was 35. My husband and I planned on having children as soon as we got married because we didn't know if there would be problems getting pregnant because of our ages. But we were able to get pregnant after a couple of miscarriages and now have two healthy boys. Speaking of health, I've always been overweight. There I've said it. Ever since I was young, I've always favored being heavier than I should be I think. I'm not sure but it seems that way. I know for sure I've never been skinny and been able to fit into normal clothes. Sure I've tried to lose weight over the years but without much success. To be frank, I haven't really been trying and it's shown. I've gained a significant amount of ...

Just when you thought Hellmann's couldn't step up their game, they came out with a new squeeze bottle! It's the same great mayonnaise (disclaimer: we only use Hellmann's in our household) but in a no fuss or mess squeeze bottle. Influenster sent me a free Hellmann's Squeeze Bottle to try out and review. If you don't know what Influenster is, then you are missing out! It is a website where you can get free products to try out and review. Anyone can join though they do measure your social impact through connecting with your various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Products are sent to you to review with various activities to complete during a certain time period. The more activities you complete, the more chances you have of getting more products! The Hellmann's Squeeze Bottle is a great way to dispense mayonnaise without having to dig into a jar and making a mess. It sits with the cap down in the refrigerator so that the pr...