Welcome to my blog: Juvenated!

Please "follow" me, leave comments and suggestions, and take the polls at the bottom of the homepage! They change often.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Biggest Loser

We all think we need to lose weight. Come on, admit it. You catch yourself staring in the mirror sometimes wondering if you have it in you to lose those few extra pounds you want gone for summer. There are HEALTHY ways to get rid of that excess weight, but being diabetic makes that a little bit tougher. With diabetes, exercise is difficult in many ways. You must stick to a strict eating habit before and after workouts, you must continually check your sugar throughout your workout, and you must keep hydrated with non-carb, as well as carb, drinks. Working out, or any physical activity at that, can impact blood sugar readings. The increase of physical work can drive your sugar lower than normal. While working out, because of the adrenaline and other hormones pumping through your body, it is difficult to sense low blood sugars. This is why it is important to regularly monitor your sugar. However, with proper care, strict diet, and regular exercise, it is very possible to lose that extra weight, shape up, or simply stay in shape with diabetes.

I know this is a short post, but I just wanted to touch on the importance of diabetes care while working out. Good luck in your workout adventures and be sure to take care of yourself.
-Ash

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

I Hear Wedding Bells

For those of you who have the pleasure of knowing myself or my boyfriend, you will know that we are pretty serious. In fact, we have already talked about moving in together, getting engaged, getting married, having kids,etc. We want the whole life together. Anyways, a big thing that has been on my mind since diagnosis was my wedding day. There is so much that can go wrong with a wedding, and throwing diabetes into the mix just adds more stress. I have two main concerns when it comes to my wedding day concerning diabetes.

Concern #1: What if I'm having a bad diabetes day? Every diabetic knows that there are some good days and some bad days. I am scared out of my mind that on my wedding day I am going to have out of control blood sugars, bad pump site, or other diabetic issues. I am also petrified that as I am at the altar with Andrew, my sugar will go low and I will have to stop to drink juice. HOW EMBARRASSING! However, I know if something of the sort did happen, Andrew would understand and would shrug it off like nothing happened.

Concern #2: Where to put my insulin pump? Well, let's just say I have been doing a lot of thinking and I will be having pockets on my wedding dress. I am not dealing with leg straps and I am most certainly not going off my pump for a day. Bad experiences last time I did that with prom.

Anyways, some of my fears have been worked out. I still fear that dreaded low at the altar, but hey...life goes on.

-Ash

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

WORK WORK WORK

I know it has been like forever since I have posted, but I have just been really busy. So, I figured I would take my few free moments to blog and update you on what has been going on in my life. I have had some major breakthroughs in my life and have had some exciting news as well. Topics of discussion: diabetes (of course), my boyfriend, new job opportunities/current work, volunteer work, moving home, college, and I'm sure I will think of more. So let's begin.

Diabetes. My diabetes has been wonderful! I have had more frequent lows, but I am willing to pay that price because my sugar levels have been awesome! They have been mid-100s and below the majority of the time. It is a mix of the effort on my part and the support from my wonderful boyfriend. Which brings me to topic number two.

Andrew. Andrew and I have been through a lot since May 3 (my last post), but ultimately it has brought us closer together and even happier. We both aren't stressed about issues between us and we can simply be in love now. I want to take this time to make everyone aware that this is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I will do anything for him and I know he would do the same for me. He has some exciting news as do i, which brings me to the next topic.

Work. Andrew has decided he wants to be a firefighter, which I think is awesome. It is a very rewarding profession both financially and emotionally. So, we have been spending time studying for the test and he has been working out and stuff. As for me, I have two possible new job opportunities for next semester. One is a teaching assistant position for the AIDS class I took last semester and the other is a position in the childrens portion of the library on campus. I will continue working at the candy store, but that would make THREE jobs and lots of income which is what I need. As for the candy store, my boss is working me close to full time which is also helping out with expenses I have this summer.

Volunteer. Also in my spare time I have been volunteering for my mom's school. I work with the 2nd graders in their classroom, perform office duties, and basically do what people need me to do. Just trying to get ahead with some experience before my student teaching.

Home. I have moved home from college for the summer. It was rough packing everything up and moving it here and to be completely honest I still have not finished unpacking. It is just such a gross task! Anyways, this lets me spend more time with Andrew which we both like, but I have also learned it makes me not eat as much! Haha. But we have to do it all over again in August because my roommate and I got an apartment.

College. My exams went fairly well and I finished my classes with pretty good grades. One A, four Bs, and one C. I am taking two online courses this summer that start June 27. They are Child Development and Intro to Folklore. They should be pretty interesting. I have my courses for next semester all set up as well. I am pretty excited.

Coaching. I told you I would find another topic! I am a volleyball coach for 5th grade at St. Als in Bowling Green. Myself and the other coach, Taylor, will be beginning this in August. I am pretty excited about this because I have always wanted to coach volleyball. I miss it so much.


Well, I am off to go wedding dress shopping. No I am not getting married...yet. Andrew's sister is getting married in November and she has asked me to be in the wedding. Therefore, I must find a dress and everyone is going tonight to look. Happy blogging.

Ash

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Fun Exercise Re-Post

I know most people won't do this, but it is worth a try. And if you actually complete all of these steps, it would seriously make my day!
1. Go to gmail.com and make a gmail account if you have not already.
2. Come back to my blog homepage and click "follow" if you have not already.
3. Make a blogger account (even if you are not going to blog), so that you can leave comments (because my activity requires that).
4. Open this link and scroll down to where it says Additional Resources and click on Diabetes Simulator
5. Complete this project for a full day (or even a half a day if you can't take a whole day)
6. When you are done, come back to this blog post and leave a comment telling me you did it and what your reactions to this are

I know you are not required to do this, and it goes out of your way, but please try this for me. If you don't want to do the whole project, at least read what the link has to say. Thanks guys!