Hubby and I live very well. By that I mean we live a happy, contented, and easy going life, however recently we both got a big shock. He had a TIA. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a transient ischaemic attack, or in lay terms, a mini-stroke. He’d had his usual busy morning working outdoors, then rushed into town, and while at the hardware store had a temporary loss of vision and felt confused. He managed to get himself home, but it only took a few minutes to realise what was happening and I had him back in the car and at the local hospital within 15 minutes.

Four days later, all of which were spent in intensive care with every test imaginable, plus 18 ECG’s, he was released. Fortunately, there is no residual damage. He now has a handful of preventative medications, a big change in diet, and a quieter life. And thankfully, after a few medication adjustments, he is now doing well.

Now the purpose of this story is about living well, and what that really means. All too often, if everything is going along fine, we chug along happily without giving too much thought about the choices we make for our health. We even ignore small warnings like indigestion, a bad back, a sore neck, tiredness or grumpiness, until something goes wrong. Then everything changes.

And it’s certainly changed for Hubby. He needs to take his blood pressure every day now, and of course, I decided to check mine too. Well ~ what a shocker! It was sky high. Now that could be because I’d had a stressful few weeks, but even so, it was far too high … three days in a row! On the third night, I had what felt like a panic attack about my health. To say I am generally very healthy would be true, however, I’ve had a crook two years with ongoing trigeminal nerve neuralgia. While I am always in a place of appreciation and gratitude, it makes me feel generally unwell so I haven’t been bouncing off the walls with energy and exuberance for quite some time. It’s hard to be bright and perky when you don’t feel well. And of course, that has had me in a place where I haven’t really been looking after myself. What I needed was a wake-up call, and I got it.

The first thing I thought was: lose weight woman and do it quickly! I don’t eat a lot, and being almost vegetarian, nor do I eat rubbish, all of which keeps my weight stable, but I am a bit of a snacker. Even so, I didn’t think there was much room to make many changes. And since a car accident 23 years ago getting my nicely rounded frame into the Lycra and exercising is not an option. However, when I sat down and started working it out, there was actually a lot I could change and still be eating the food that I loved, but with a much lower calorie count. For a short few months, it was not going to be hard to follow a food plan which would do the job. And it was not hard to start walking around the house more either.

But … I was in for a big surprise. As Hubby now virtually has a salt-free diet, I decided to do the same. Salted savoury food, not sugar, is my guilty pleasure, so much so that I wasn’t even prepared to start counting up the sodium content of my diet. Having done the research for Hubby, we only need 2300mgs of sodium per day, which equates to 1 teaspoon of salt. Not much is it? And when you start adding up the sodium in pre-packaged foods, it starts to get a bit scary! But you know what? Within a few days of keeping it within 2300mgs, my blood pressure was normal again. What a relief, and so easy. And apart from the 3 stress-related kilos that dropped off while Hubby was in intensive care, the weight is coming off too ~ 2 kilograms (4½ pounds) in the first 5 days. What a triumph and that wasn’t hard either. It only took 3 days to stop craving my snack foods and now I am coasting along with ease.

Of course, not having to cook different food for Hubby anymore helps a great deal. He now eats my food with a bit extra on the side and all the cheesy toast, bacon buns, pasties, pies, sausages, biscuit and cake temptations are gone. Even though I rarely ate them, it’s a great support when there’s no rubbish food wafting past one’s nose. My goal is 15 kilograms by the end of May, and now that I’ve put it out there, I can only but succeed because I know the Universe has my back. I’m in the flow!

And to celebrate ~ one always needs to celebrate in times of triumph ~ I have started wearing dangly earrings again because they make me feel really cheerful. And I also bought a bangle as a symbol of my goal. It caught my eye while in town today because it summed up my philosophy of life. It was engraved with the words, ‘Live well, love much, laugh often’. When I put it on my wrist, Hubby quipped that it was the ‘bangle with an angle’, and so it is. Hubby and me … we love much, we laugh often, but to really live well we have to take good care of ourselves as well.     

♥ Inara Hawley © 2016