Cast? Noooooooooooo

Well, my good news is that the doctor released me to go back to work. My bad news is that I'm in the hated plastic air cast for at least a couple of weeks. Ugh. I know it could be much worse, but man, I HATE wearing that stupid cast!

During my time off I was researching different things about tendon injuries and how to heal them. One thing I came across was using diet to reduce inflammation. This interested me because not only do I want my feet to stop hurting, I also need to lose weight. In the past year since I missed a bunch of work for my tendon tear, I stopped exercising (doctor's orders) and gained a lot of weight. I was depressed about my feet hurting all the time and started eating more and more restaurant food, prepackaged food and junk food. My diet soda consumption is at an all time high. It is time to change my evil ways.

I just had an extensive blood panel done through work and other than my weight being too high and my good cholesterol being too low, all of my numbers were good. I need to change NOW, BEFORE my numbers start crashing! I started a vegan diet as a bit of a science experiment. I KNOW it will help me lose weight, the experiment is if it will actually help with inflammation. Will the diet itself help my feet feel better? I think it's worth a shot.

I have WAY more research to do, but starting yesterday, I quit drinking diet soda and switched to tea. I've heard quitting aspartame can be brutal and I don't want to quit aspartame AND caffeine at the same time because I just missed 4 days of work and don't want to miss more. I also eliminated meat, dairy and eggs. At the moment, my diet is centered around fruits and vegetables, oatmeal, quinoa and beans. Lots and lots of beans. I can also have whole grain pastas, rice and breads. I'm going to start out really trying to keep vegan, but seriously, this is about my health, not about not eating animal products. I will still wear leather boots and I'm not giving up my furs. Kidding... I have nothing made of fur. I'm not going to pay big bucks for egg-free bread (if bread is made with eggs- I have no idea.) Anyway, I'm being radical right now in an attempt to lose weight and completely change my eating habits. I doubt I will remain vegan or vegetarian forever unless it truly makes me feel so good I can't go back. I think it's easy to say I'm skeptical about the benefits of this diet, but this is something that if I don't go extreme and instead try to do in baby steps it's not going to happen.

Today is my baby boy's 9th birthday. How is that possible? My tough, strong baby who always knew what he wanted has turned into a tough, strong kid who always knows what he wants. Logan works hard and tries hard; he is neat and organized; he likes rules and takes pride in being good. Logan has always concentrated on his interests and this year they really turned to sports- especially baseball and football. He prefers playing sports, but when he watches them on tv he doesn't watch passively, he studies the players' moves and tries them out. Logan is very interested in weather- especially tornadoes and thunder storms. Instead of watching fire extinguisher safety videos online, Logan now watches storm videos. He knows all the different kinds of clouds and points out tornado sirens on top of buildings. He reminds me so much of the risk manager at the park district it just makes me giggle. Logan, I couldn't be more proud of you or love you more! Happy birthday!

And one last thing... I had an amazing morning of "car birding" yesterday. I was still in the bandage and surgical shoe, so hiking around wasn't an option. Meghan and I drove to Banner Marsh, Emiquon, Rice Lake, Chautauqua, Sand Ridge and Spring Lake. We birded mainly from the nice warm car, only getting out to walk short distances. Banner and Emiquon were the big winners. Banner was teaming with dozens and dozens of swans. They were everywhere! Banner is usually home to several pairs of mute swans, but we scored yesterday and found at least one trumpeter swan. Emiquon was filled with thousands and thousands of coots. Miles of coots. I looked up what a group of coots is called and it is a "cover." The coots were indeed covering Emiquon. There was also a nice mix of pintail, northern shoveler and green wing teal, along with mallards and dozens of white pelicans with probably hundreds more too far away to see more than white dots. We also saw common snipe, grebes and a few bald eagles. Oh, and a snow bunting! It was a very fun morning.