Wow! (Round 2)

About a year ago, I posted Wow! ...or, Should I Say, "OWWW!"... Today, I m adding to the Wow! of my life experiences.

What I have done all of my life was/is to wake up (at some point of my day), eat my breakfast, and then brush my teeth and other morning routines like shower, shave, etc.

Well, today, my current routine has changed for various reasons.

1. I have a test planned for Covid-19 to makes sure that I am "clean" for tomorrow's surgery.
2. Given my 'planned' surgery for tomorrow, I need to stop eating before 8 pm, tonight.
3. I have stopped taking my supplements due to the surgery (supposed to be clean for 7 days, prior to surgery).

As I type this, we are in the car and heading to the location for the virus test.

Prior to this, I brushed my teeth. Moments after brushing my teeth, I thought about the fact that if I didn't eat breakfast, that would effect my hunger through the rest of the day and tomorrow due to the necessary fasting for surgery.

...excuse my absence for a bit... It's pretty difficult to type this out while on the road (using my phone) to the test...

Well, I'm back home and back on the laptop and running Conan the Barbarian in the background...

Now, according to the note they handed me, the test results will show up on MyChart is 5 days... 

From my personal experience, without the ability to confirm or deny any viral infection, I can only compare my physical condition to those that may appear if I am infected. According to CDC:

These symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus are:

• Fever
• Cough
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Chills
• Repeated shaking with chills
• New loss of taste or smell.

So far, I have been clear of all of those symptoms! As well, with my experience this morning, I am even more sure of it. 

Over the last couple of months, I have been intermittently fasting through the day(s). Generally, my intake of food has happened between noon and 8 pm. As a result, waking up and brushing my teeth/mouthwash happened 4-5 hours before eating anything.

Today, with my upcoming fasting due to surgery, I decided to shift my intermittent fasting from 12 pm-8 pm to 8 am-4 pm. Of course, I decided to make the shift after I brushed my teeth. That meant that I made and ate my breakfast with a relatively clean mouth. Let me tell ya... while I grew up with the mindset that it made more sense to clean my teeth/mouth after eating my breakfast (as opposed to going through the day with the remnants of the crumbs from my breakfast) and going through the rest of the day with a clean(er) mouth, I'm turning to the idea of brushing my teeth first.

Not a big factor in the survival with life, but..

At any rate, there has been NO loss of taste or smell!

A Change of Pace; Round 2

My current plan is to drop almost all of my vitamin supplement intake for multiple reasons:

1. For at least a week, prior to surgery, I am not supposed to be using ANY supplements. After 6 surgeries, I'm still not sure why I can't use vitamin supplements.
2. The cost of buying supplements.
3. The waste (given my minimal disabilty income) of purchasing single vitamins (A, C, D, E, etc.) and a multivitamin is a little much.

Well, my first reason is probably my least impactful. back in March, when Surgery 7 was originally scheduled, I stopped my vitamin intake. When the surgery was canceled, I went back on my use of supplements. The main reason that I'm thinking of this is that I will eventually have to stop using the supplements prior to the surgery - whenever it finally happens.

The second reason is a little more impactful. With the current situation, income is very limited. The last thing that I need to spend it on is my supplement intake. 

The third reason is just by my own choice. I found a good multivitamin through Vitacost. It uses 2 capsules per day, according to nutritional info. My goal was, and still remains, to use one per day just to insure the intake of the vitamins. It also increases the number of days that one bottle wil last.

So, after I run out of my current stock on hand, my plan is to stick to the multivitamin and the vitamin D until the week before my surgery final occurs. After that, I will re-evaluate how things are going...

A Change of Pace

With the thrill of Covid-19, lots of things have changed while some remain the same... (Now, I have The Song Remains the Same going through my head!)

Today, two days earlier than expected, I received my recent order from Amazon: a case of Bai Puna Coconut Pineapple, Organic Chia Seeds, and Organic Stevia Powder. While I have consumed both the Bai Puna and the chia seeds, this will be my first attempt to use stevia powder. Sure, I hve consumed several things with stevia as a sweetener all ready included on the list or ingredients. The difference is that I don't add sugar/sweetener to anything. For instance, the tea I drink is always unsweetened.
One of the things that I like to drink, though, is Kevita's Lemon Cayenne water kefir. That uses stevia as the sweetener and it delivers only 5 calories per 8 oz. serving. I really like the limit in sugars, the taste, and the probitic effect that the kefir provides. I don't really like the price that one bottle costs, though. The best price that I can find it for is about $3. Not really expensive, but...

So, here's my plan! I'll brew some tea - either green tea or Bigelow's Lemon Ginger tea - and add some lemon juice, cayenne, and the stevia powder. I'll be lacking the benefit of the kefir but I'll gain the benefit of the lemon/cayenne. Bigelow's Lemon Ginger IS marketed as probiotic. It includes the ingredient of Ganeden BC30 probiotic (follow the link to learn more about that).
The RIGHT thing for me to do would be to squeeze my own lemons (and use grade B maple syrup) for the Master Cleanse, but that's not my current goal. I simply want to add the benefits of the lemon/cayenne beverage to my consumption without the price.
For dinner tonight, I'll be consuming about 5g of net carbs for the whole meal... chicken, cauliflower, cheese, and lemon ginger tea with the said added ingredients.

I definitely plan on increasing my lemon/cayenne tea over the next, couple of days. So, we'll see how well the added stevia powder works for me - I may just not like it...