This past weekend, I went to Diamond Days, which is a weekend-long event that takes place in the town where I grew up. Jordan and I have met my dad there for the past three or four years; he tends to travel up this way for DD since it coincides with Jordan's birthday (or at least it did up until this year). I always run into some people who still live there. But mostly it is just a nice time to walk around the booths and head over to the children's area.
This year, as I did last year, I stopped by the medical van to get my blood pressure, body fat, and bone density tested. It did not start out well. The tester, who I am guessing had to be at least in his upper 70s, seemed not to know what he was doing. I was convinced, after about three minutes of his pumping up my arm, that my eyeballs were going to pop from my head and that my arm was going to burst. After all that, he tells me he could not get a read. I told him I was in so much pain, I might be dead, so maybe that was why. Sure, I have a low tolerance for pain (not many people can say they actually wept during a sonogram, after all), but this was a bit much. When he tried it again, with only a little less arm inflation and pain, he announced my blood pressure was 119 over 62. My diastolic blood pressure (I just looked that up) has never been that low, and I am pretty sure after his torture, it would have been up, so that was kind of useless to me.
Then I moved on to the body fat, which involved getting on a scale and holding on to some hand grips. For me, this also meant emptying every last thing out of my pocket (including one of Jordan's barrettes), taking off my shoes, and removing my sunglasses from my head. Despite this, I still did not get a weight I wanted, so I am convinced my shorts, polo shirt and t-shirt weighed 7 pounds. The somewhat positive thing is I weigh about a half pound less than I did last year (of course I might not have practically stripped down then), and my body fat was a tenth of a point more than last year, so I am no worse off, and my body fat is on the low end of the acceptable range for women. I'd like to think that if my body fat were high, that might have motivated me to start exercising and eating better. But if seeing myself in a bathing suit last week could not do that for me, I am not sure what could!
When I moved on to the bone density test, I was in for a shock. I have thinning bones! How can that be at 36.5 years of age?! The range for thinning bones is between -1.1 and - 2.5, and I was at -1.1. Last year, I was at .2. What happened?! I can only hope this woman was as clueless as the arm squeezer, but probably not. I stuck my foot in this apparatus, just the same as last year. I do eat more meat, and no longer eat yogurt and/or drink a glass of milk every day, not to mention I am lucky if I take a multivitamin more than a couple of times a week.
This was my wake-up call. Today and yesterday I had three servings of milk products. Let's hope I stick with it. Now if only I could get motivated to work out again. But I have to tell you, the thought of thinning bones is far scarier to me than some cellulite.
This year, as I did last year, I stopped by the medical van to get my blood pressure, body fat, and bone density tested. It did not start out well. The tester, who I am guessing had to be at least in his upper 70s, seemed not to know what he was doing. I was convinced, after about three minutes of his pumping up my arm, that my eyeballs were going to pop from my head and that my arm was going to burst. After all that, he tells me he could not get a read. I told him I was in so much pain, I might be dead, so maybe that was why. Sure, I have a low tolerance for pain (not many people can say they actually wept during a sonogram, after all), but this was a bit much. When he tried it again, with only a little less arm inflation and pain, he announced my blood pressure was 119 over 62. My diastolic blood pressure (I just looked that up) has never been that low, and I am pretty sure after his torture, it would have been up, so that was kind of useless to me.
Then I moved on to the body fat, which involved getting on a scale and holding on to some hand grips. For me, this also meant emptying every last thing out of my pocket (including one of Jordan's barrettes), taking off my shoes, and removing my sunglasses from my head. Despite this, I still did not get a weight I wanted, so I am convinced my shorts, polo shirt and t-shirt weighed 7 pounds. The somewhat positive thing is I weigh about a half pound less than I did last year (of course I might not have practically stripped down then), and my body fat was a tenth of a point more than last year, so I am no worse off, and my body fat is on the low end of the acceptable range for women. I'd like to think that if my body fat were high, that might have motivated me to start exercising and eating better. But if seeing myself in a bathing suit last week could not do that for me, I am not sure what could!
When I moved on to the bone density test, I was in for a shock. I have thinning bones! How can that be at 36.5 years of age?! The range for thinning bones is between -1.1 and - 2.5, and I was at -1.1. Last year, I was at .2. What happened?! I can only hope this woman was as clueless as the arm squeezer, but probably not. I stuck my foot in this apparatus, just the same as last year. I do eat more meat, and no longer eat yogurt and/or drink a glass of milk every day, not to mention I am lucky if I take a multivitamin more than a couple of times a week.
This was my wake-up call. Today and yesterday I had three servings of milk products. Let's hope I stick with it. Now if only I could get motivated to work out again. But I have to tell you, the thought of thinning bones is far scarier to me than some cellulite.
Comments