4letter word: slather some margarine on that wonder bread

(** WARNING ** This possibly comes under the heading of Too Much Information, so if you don't care that much about my health, just move right along. I won't even notice you're gone, because ... well, you'd have to read it to find out. ha.)

So today, my doctor's orders are that I can eat white bread, white-meat chicken, chicken noodle soup without vegetables, tub margarine, 1 or 2 eggs, and nilla wafers.  That's up until 2:00.  After that, I can have jello that isn't red or purple, hard candies, gatorade, honey, sugar, and clear liquids.  Lots and lots of clear liquids.  and that's it until tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.

Is that not the nuttiest diet you've ever heard?  But it's just for 24 hours, because tomorrow I'm going in for a colonoscopy.  They're recommended when you hit 50.  If you're not in a medical family, you can probably ignore this, but I am, so I'm doing my duty and going.  I'll let you know how it is, but I promise to spare the details.  I bet Debbie knows what I have to do tonight, but I'm polite, so I'm not talking about it.  Just be assured that you will almost certainly have a more pleasant evening than I will.

So, that's not technically about the 4-letter word (diet).  The 4-letter word update is that I had my checkup with my regular doctor today (it's medical week here at Chez BeaN).  You may remember that last fall my cholesterol was WAY too high and my doctor gave me six months to try to get it down through diet and exercise.

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE............

The good news is that I lost four pounds, and since I gained weight over the holidays, that is even better than it sounds.  Since I'm in this for the long-haul, that is great.  I don't want to starve myself to lose ten pounds in three months and then gain it all back when I go back to eating normally.  I want to learn better eating habits, and I really do eat more healthily now.  So a 4-lb loss tells me that this will work eventually.  I just have to keep doing what I'm doing. 

The bad news is that my cholesterol did. not. change.  In fact, it was slightly higher-- 264.  And my bad cholesterol is up, from 178 to 185.  Without completely re-vamping my life so that all I do is exercise and fix raw foods, I don't see how I could do any more with diet and exercise to combat this.  The doc says this is clearly genetic, and since at least one of my sisters has high cholesterol, too, it's not a huge surprise.

So I have to start taking a statin.  I'm kind of bummed about this.  But if I don't like it, if the side effects are bad or it doesn't do any good, then I can stop.  No one is holding a gun to my head.  Dean says that statins are no big deal and I'm being a baby to dread it (well, he didn't say that, but he might possibly have inferred it). 

So that's it for me.  I'm off to eat another piece of white bread before 2 p.m.