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This past week has been stressful at work with all the goings on. Good things, very good, but stressful just the same.

At home, all I've been doing is packing up the kitchen, dining room and living room and moving things downstairs in boxes - with Aaron's help of course. It's been fun but very time consuming and labor intensive. Getting alot of exercise though.

With this anemia, I'm cold all the time and so tired. I am not as dizzy and my neck feels better now that it's aligned so I'm sure that's helping. I'm still taking the One A Day Plus Iron supplements so I'm doing better. Today at work I had on a thick blouse and a sweater. I wore it outside and I know people were looking at me funny but oh well, I was COLD!

Ok, so the diet update. I actually am so frustrated by trying to watch what I eat and not seeing the good results that I Googled: "Can Type 2 Diabetics Lose Weight?" Here's what I came up with:

Lifelong changes in eating habits, physical activity, and attitudes about food and weight are essential to weight management. Unfortunately, although many people can lose weight initially, it is very difficult to maintain weight loss. People with type 2 diabetes may have a particularly difficult time. Here are some general suggestions that may be helpful:
1. Start with realistic goals. When overweight people achieve even modest weight loss they reduce risk factors in the heart. Ideally, overweight patients should strive for 15% weight loss or better, particularly people with type 2 diabetes.
2. A regular exercise program is essential for maintaining weight loss. If there are no health prohibitions, choose one that is enjoyable. Check with a doctor about any health consideration. 3. Hunger pangs should not be taken as cues to eat. A stomach that has been stretched by large meals will continue to signal hunger for large amounts of food until its size reduces over time with smaller meals.
4. Be honest about how much you eat, and track calories carefully. Studies on weight control that depend on self-reporting of food intake frequently reveal that subjects badly misjudge how much they eat (typically underestimating high-calorie foods and overestimating low-calorie foods). In one study, even dietitians underreported their calorie intake by 10%. People who do not carefully note everything they eat tend to take in excessive calories when they believe they are dieting.
5. For patients who cannot lose weight with diet alone, effective weight-loss medications are now available, including sibutramine (Meridia) and orlistat (Xenical). Orlistat may have particular benefits for patients with type 2 diabetes. This drug may delay or even prevent the onset or progression of diabetes. It may also improve cholesterol levels, regardless of weight loss. Sibutramine is also helpful in weight loss but should not be used by patients with high blood pressure or kidney or liver problems.
6. Once a person has lost weight, maintenance is required. To maintain a healthy weight, make careful decisions about how many calories you consume in food and how many calories you expend through physical activity. Such thinking will eventually become automatic.

Well, I'm glad I found this website. It's from Health Central (MyDiabetesCentral.com). I guess I just needed some reassurance that it's harder for Type 2 Diabetics to lose weight and maintain the weight loss.

My recipe for last night's dinner was my own creation of a cross between lamb stew and beef stroganoff. I cooked lamb and beef in the crockpot Sunday with seasonings and water. Then last night I made some eggwhite noodles, and put some fat free sour cream in the stew and mixed everything together. Aaron added some merlot to the pot and we had a really nice stew. It wasn't the best, but it was really good. There is so much flavor in the M-A diet. We're really liking it.

We just began watching Michael Symon's Cook Like An Iron Chef on the Food Network. He made lamb a few different ways last night with some fresh mint leaves in his sauce and it looked so good I had to run outside and cut some mint leaves from the garden so we could munch on them while we watched. That was kind of cute.