Last night was my kickoff meeting for a weight loss contest that I signed up for. It’s put on by my city (St. Charles, MO) and it’s sponsored by a few hospitals and businesses. When I first heard about this I jumped at the chance to sign up!
It’s an 8 week challenge and the person with the biggest percent of weight loss will win. I’m not sure what you win yet as they will announce that at the first weigh-in May 9th. This past fall when they held this contest the prize was a 2 night stay at one of the fancy downtown hotels and a BodyBugg. I really don’t care about the prize though. I just want another challenge, a chance to compete, something to spark the drive.
The kickoff meeting was OK, although I am a bit skeptical on my blood pressure results. They said my blood pressure was 132/86. This kind of made me mad. Last year before I started this weight loss journey I was eating anything and everything bad for me and not exercising at all. I had my blood pressure and cholesterol checked then and it was 120/80. How in the hell did my blood pressure go up?!! I am eating 50x better than I was eating this time last year, I hit the gym 5 to 6 days a week and I lost close to 50 pounds. Not to mention that I dropped my resting heart rate from the 80’s to the 50’s.
I could feel a panic attack coming on!
The only thing that calmed me down was the 3 ladies standing behind me in line. I overheard one of them say that she has never tested that high with her blood pressure and she gets it checked by her doctor monthly. The other two ladies chimed in and said the same thing. This prompted me to turn around and say mine seemed high also. Now just to be on the safe side I am going to have it checked again very soon, because if I don’t my panic attacks will come back and I haven’t had one in over 6 months. I also do not believe that my blood pressure was that high. If it was that high it was probably from them sticking me 3 freakin’ times in the arm to grab my blood! Oh, and I would also like to point out that the lady who was taking my blood pressure had a name tag on and her position was marketing coordinator. I would have felt better if it was nurse, Doctor or even nursing student.
Ok….calm down Vin…BREATH!
All ranting aside, I’m sure they wouldn’t have let anyone draw blood or take blood pressure that wasn’t qualified to do so. I was just a bit mad at that point.
It was a pretty cool meeting. I received my weekly weigh-in location and all the other info I needed to prepare for the start of this.
I really think I have a good shot at winning this. It won’t be easy but I have an awesome support group behind me (all of you)! My biggest challenge will be getting my binging under control. It’s been a bit tough as of late, especially at night but I think I can gain control.
Well, wish me luck. Hopefully by July 1st I will be able to post on here that I am the St. Charles Biggest Winner!
Dude you have won already. Now its just a matter of how bad you are going beat your competition. I'm here to cheer you on, help, tell bad jokes; whatever you need.
ReplyDeletein the clinical world, we call it 'white coat syndrome' when people's BP's are higher at the doc's office than at Wal*Mart. no worries. also, good that you noticed that you were upset, and a bit anxious, and both of those can have a tremendous impact on BP.
ReplyDeletecongrats on this win, and i look forward to hearing about your journey!
be well,
gene