Lose-a-thon and This month's Health Goals - Equality Weight Loss Challenge

Friends and Family,
I have begun the Equality Weight Loss Challenge as of July 1st, and so far so good! I am asking that my friends pledge to donate a certain amount for every pound I lose such as $2 per pound. If I lose 10 pounds, you would go to http://www.righttomarryaz.org/and donate $20, if you pledge $5 and I lose 5 pounds you would donate $25 etc. I have been losing just under 10 pounds a month and am dedicated to eating healthier and ramping up my work outs gradually, so be forewarned, it could very well be 10 pounds lost by the end of July. It will most likely be 5-10. Or you can just go to http://www.righttomarryaz.org/ and donate a flat amount which would be awesome also. 

A little history. This walk started out as part of Right to Marry AZ as an attempt to spread awareness. It has grown to be more than that, as their sight says now, "It's about more than marriage" You can learn more here: http://www.righttomarryaz.org/2012_walk 

Please consider donating or pledging. And if you're going to be part of my lose-a-thon and donate a certain amount per pound lost, please let me know so that I can contact you when I weigh in for the final day of the challenge and you can make your donations then :) Peace, Love and Health be with you!

My goals for this challenge are as follows:
Drink 8 to 12 (8 oz) glasses of water a day
Eat "twice as many vegetables, 1/2 as many carbs" 
Work out 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week, alternating between cardio and strength training.
Lose 5-10 pounds


And the big overall goal is to get healthier. To me, getting healthier would mean that my blood glucose and cholesterol would be under control with less medicine, and preferably no medicine. I am working alongside my doctors to reach these goals. Please help boost my motivation by pledging to my Loseathon! :)

May peace, love and health be with you,
Sean-Michael Gettys

Meal and Exercise Plan

Since I last posted to this blog, I have been officially diagnosed with diabetes. On the up side, I think they caught it soon enough to be treatable without insulin. I'll find that out on the 16th when I see my new Endocrinologist. On the down side, the medicine makes me feel really sick. I have more energy as my blood glucose numbers go down and as i have committed 100% to eating healthy, but I feel super nauseous to say the least. Still, I do see the blood glucose numbers seem to be going down and over time hopefully they will continue to do so. In order to do the most I can to help that happen, I'm going to be taking all prescribed medicine and seeing all my doctors, working out including riding my trike everywhere I can, planning meals ahead, eating/cooking healthy 100% of the time, and taking my blood glucose 3 to 5 times a day.

This morning I sat down and scheduled exercise time. Patch has been wanting to get out to the gym for a while now, but hasn't been going by herself and I hadn't been healed up enough. Now that I'm healed up enough it just seems to keep being one of us saying we should go to the gym but then letting something else get in the way. So I asked her to sit down with me every week when she gets her schedule and plan gym dates. Today we did that for the first time and it totally stressed her out for some reason. But we did plan basically every other day (except Mondays) to be gym days, and the days in between (except mondays) I'll ride my trike or go for a walk and hopefully a friend will walk with me on occasion.

In an effort to keep track of what i'm eating, my blood glucose levels and exercise, I resumed use of sparkpeople.com and bought a diabetic friendly cooking magazine that has some delicious sounding recipes. Last night we had chicken fajitas, and tonight we're going to have spicy turkey tacos.  I'm going to look through the freezer and see what types of fish we have for tomorrow night's menu. I'll keep updating this blog with our menu and any recipes I can.