100 Reasons to Work Out

I found this on SparkPeople today and I thought it was sort of cute.
100 Reasons not to skip your workout.

Because it makes you feel confident

Because it helps you get stronger

Because exercise helps combat depression

Because you'll feel proud of yourself

Because you have goals you want to reach

Because you'll feel bad if you don't

Because you want to move forward, not backward

Because it burns more calories than not working out

Because it improves your heart health

Because you want a great butt

Because it prevents diabetes

Because you want to be a good example to your kids

Because you want to feel good in your clothes

Because it reduces your risk of cancer

Because your body was made to move

Because you want to be an athlete

Because you want to look better

Because it lifts your mood

Because you want to stand taller

Because it reduces back pain

Because it feels good

Because it makes you feel accomplished

Because you spend most of your day on your butt

Because swimsuit season is always coming

Because strong is the new skinny

Because dieting only works so much

Because it strengthens your bones, too

Because it helps you lose weight

Because it allows you to eat more food

Because it's the best way to spend "me" time

Because it helps you de-stress

Because it's cheaper than therapy

Because you want a strong core

Because you want to take care for yourself

Because you take pride in your body

Because it strengthens your legs

Because it helps your clothes fit better

Because you want to push yourself

Because you are capable of more than you ever imagined

Because moving your body feels good

Because it keeps your mind sharp

Because it helps you beat belly bloat

Because it helps you sleep better at night

Because it gives you energy

Because you want to stay healthy as you age

Because you want to look younger

Because you want toned arms

Because it improves your balance

Because it burns off last night's dessert

Because it boosts your immune system

Because sweat is sexy

Because you want to live longer

Because you want to get better at your game

Because you want to catch someone's eye

Because exercisers earn more money

Because you're more likely to eat better when you exercise

Because you want to shave time off your running pace

Because you want to breathe easier

Because you want to see the scale drop

Because exercise improves your sex life

Because you are worth it

Because being fit makes everything in life better

Because you promised yourself that you would

Because you deserve a better life

Because it'll help you drink more water

Because you want to do real push-ups

Because it reduces your health care costs

Because you'll miss fewer days of work

Because you want to create a new future for yourself

Because it'll help you like what you see in the mirror

Because it makes clothing shopping more fun

Because you want to look and feel incredible

Because exercising can be fun

Because it'll give your skin a glow

Because it's a good way to spend time with your friends

Because it'll help you prevent the middle-age spread

Because it reduces your blood pressure

Because you don't want to let yourself go

Because you don't want to squeeze into an airplane or rollercoaster seat

Because it strengthens your spirit

Because it's a cheap way to entertain yourself

Because you'll be able to reward yourself

Because you need a reason to wear those new workout clothes

Because you're tired of being tired

Because not working out is not going to get you very far

Because it's a great way to spend time outside

Because you made a commitment to yourself

Because you're tired of starting over

Because there will always be another wedding, vacation or reunion

Because you're not a quitter

Because it improves your cholesterol

Because it boosts your metabolism

Because it prevents age-related muscle loss

Because if you can do this, you can do anything

Because a fit body is a healthy body

Because it beats sitting on the couch

Because  everyone has at least 10 minutes to spare

Because you want to be stronger than your excuses

Because not working out isn't working out for you

Because the only workout you ever regret is the one you skip

Week 18

I don't have a whole lot to say about week 17. I met most of my goals, or at least came very close!
I didn't get my 175 minutes in - but I got 168. I figure that is close enough. I meant to go for a run yesterday to get up to 213 minutes, but I ended up feeling exhausted, up too late on Friday night. And I went over my calories Friday. I also spent a lot of the day shopping, because I needed a new bedspread and I wasted a LOT of time at Target.

I'm sort of disappointed in myself for how I did on Friday because it was a pretty bad night for me health-wise, and it showed. I'm four pounds higher than I was mid-week, but I'm blaming this on having my period and probably some sodium bloat. Just gotta keep going. I just am kind of losing the same five pounds and re-gaining them and I know WHY... it's not a naturally-caused plateau, it's the way I'm spending my Friday nights.

Starting week 18 right with a morning at the grocery store and a green smoothie. I made it with almond milk this time and I have to say, it was really awful. Haha. I chugged it down, but I think I'll need to stick with the fruit juice I've been using to help make it taste less "green" and add more sweetness. I could add honey, I suppose, but it just tasted bland and chalky. I also left out the half-banana that I usually put in, so that could've affected the taste. I think tonight I'm going to make up some new smoothie packs with the frozen fruit I just bought.

I'm a little anxious in general. Partly it is caused by this all-staff "training" tomorrow that the directors threw together and I've been asked to speak. I'm not going to go into much detail about the massive drama that has been going on at work for the past few months. As I've mentioned I've liked the changes in my particular job, but the agency as a whole is sort of in a weird place, to say the least. Anyway, I've been asked to speak about this sort of "committee" I've been on since last August (forced onto, really) and I don't actually have ANYTHING positive to say about my experience on said committee. I haven't prepared anything to say and there are a couple other people on the committee who also don't really want to speak. A handful of the people on the committee either didn't attend most of the meetings or have quit. We weren't really asked to prep anything, but I really despise public speaking, especially on a topic that I don't want to be forced to put a positive spin on. I'm not sure exactly what they want from us but ... whatever.

Hmm... really had to push myself to do my workout today. I almost didn't do it at all. Glad I did, of course, but it was tough. I'm still having problems with my right foot.

Creativity wise I haven't been super great. I haven't been writing in my book much. I'm sort of having these ideas for my bedroom... It's really really tiny, literally only wide enough to fit my bed and a lamp next to the bed (it's technically a studio apartment, but the owner of my condo installed a partial wall for privacy). I'm thinking of taking the bed out entirely (I really hate this bed...), having the mattress on the floor, and making a sort of "pillow room" surrounding the mattress with comfy decorative throw pillows and even creating some kind of canopy or tent of some kind... who knows. I'm trying to sort of figure out because there's a lot of stuff UNDER my bed and I need the storage space since my apartment is so tiny, so I'm trying to maybe downsize some of my stuff... at any rate, I got a new bedspread because all the batting inside of it got all torn apart and bunchy, but I loved that bedspread so I cut it open and stretched the fabric over some canvas. One I've hung over the couch in my living room and I think I'm going to create another for the bedroom. I want to also hang some paper lanterns in the bedroom/pillow room.That's about as creative as I've gotten so far. The bedroom is really the only part of my condo that I haven't ever gotten "right" -- I love what I've done with the living room and kitchen but the bedroom has always been ugly to me (part of it is this ugly brown shag carpeting that I can't take out, which is why I'd love to cover it with pillows... I could get a giant area rug, I guess...)

Here's my menu plan/workout plan for the week.

SUNDAY
Blackened tilapia fish tacos with avocado and onion
Workout: Step aerobics (63 minutes)

MONDAY
Burger made with 96% lean ground beef, light swiss, tomato, and onion on a sprouted bun and sweet potato fries
Workout: Rest day

TUESDAY
Thai-style stir-fried tofu with veggies
Workout: Cardio kickbox (25 minutes)

WEDNESDAY
Veggie and rice burritos
Workout: Gold's Gym cardio workout (40 mins)

THURSDAY
Leftovers
Workout: Spark Cardio Blast (30 minutes)

FRIDAY
Jimmy John's veg sub
Workout: Rest day

SATURDAY
Something frozen or leftovers
Walk/run: 55 minutes

Total minutes: 213

Mid-week happy update

Just wanted to drop in and say what a great week I'm having, since I rarely post happy things on this blog! I feel like I'm always talking about how my ankle is bugging me or complaining about work.

Scale victory: I've luckily lost the weight that I gained, and I'm really happy about that. I'm actually now at my lowest weight since the beginning of the year! I've lost 22.8 pounds total since January 1st.

Work has been less stressful this week; it was really, really awful last week. That's one of the main reasons I'm happy - I've had time to catch up on some other parts of my life that have needed attention. I got to sell my broken car to a woman at the repair place for $300, so that's great, and I called my insurance agent today to get the car insurance switched over to my new car.

One thing I'm pretty proud of myself for is scheduling a doctor's appointment. I haven't had a physical in about 7 years, and it's time. Well, it was time a long time ago, but still. It isn't until July because that's the next opening my PCP has, but part of me is looking forward to it. I'm going to do my best to ask for what I need, mainly some mental health assistance with my anxiety. I can't believe I've lived with this anxiety and panic for 12 years now and have never really sought any sort of medical help for it. I'm looking forward to seeing what my options are, and hoping my PCP can prescribe rather than having to make another appointment with a psychiatrist which can take several more weeks, but hey, that's what I get for waiting this long.

Also wanted to share a couple great recipes that I've made this week... I've had some fun with cooking new dishes. One of the three new dishes I've made so far this week was okay but not a winner, but these two are:

Vegetable and Rice Burritos with Quesadilla Cheese -- a recipe from the newest issue of Cooking Light. I absolutely loved this and will probably get into that obsession phase that happens to me with some recipes where I make it every week for a month. It was so quick and easy. I did add some spices to the mix because that's how I cook - namely some chipotle chili powder, and probably some garlic (I add extra garlic to everything.) I also added some mashed avocado because I love avocado, but of course that increases the calories. I used queso fresco instead of quesadilla cheese (I found the quesadilla cheese, but it was 3 bucks more expensive than the queso fresco). I ate the leftover filling with sweet potato tortilla chips. Delicious.

Spinach and Mushroom Ricotta-Stuffed Shells - Not the healthiest, or lowest-calorie, option that I've ever made. There's lots of cheese in this. I'm a Wisconsin girl though, so there you go. The larger-than-normal calorie size comes from an extra-large portion size, though, so you could easily make it smaller. I calculated the calories to be about 560 for a fourth of this dish, but again, it's a huge portion, and that's way fewer than if you ordered something similar at a restaurant. You could easily have this serve six (although there are 20 shells, so you'd have to get creative...) I will probably saute the mushrooms and spinach briefly next time because they tasted a bit "raw" to me in the finished dish, and sauteed mushrooms are pretty much the most delicious thing ever. But as far as dairy-stuffed carbs go, this was really quick to put together due to not having to cook anything but the pasta beforehand. I got all the prep work while the pasta was boiling. I wish I would've been able to find whole-wheat shells, but I couldn't. This is one of those luxury comfort-food dinners that I'll want to make every single week, but probably won't. The other thing I really liked about this was that the filling was that it wasn't runny - it was thick enough to pick up with your hands and shape into an oval, kind of like a meatball, and just place inside the cooked shells. Typically with stuffed shells I make a gigantic mess trying to even out the filling, but I just divided the filling into four roughly equal piles and made 5 little ovals out of each pile. With my leftovers tonight, I also made a really quick broccoli-mushroom-garlic-grape tomato stir fry with olive oil and some Italian seasoning. Sooo good.

Getting really excited for my friends coming to visit over Memorial Day weekend and getting some time off. (I really can't complain, I was in Florida in February, but it wasn't really a good vacation.) I'm also hoping the weather gets much better... I'm sick of cold and rain.

Week 17 and some discouragement

I had another really bad week, which is pretty much the standard for April, isn't it? I don't know exactly why I've not been doing well. I've maintained that four-pound gain, which frustrates me, but it was definitely my choices that made it. For the first week in a long time I didn't hit my 150-minute minimum exercise goal - I only got to 133 and that was all in the first half of the week. Then I just basically blew it.

I was in a pretty crappy mood this week and work was tougher than usual. Lots of angry people to deal with. Then I took my car in for an oil change and was told that oil was leaking all over my car - the coolant was filled with oil, as was the entire engine. Basically, to make my car safe I'd have to replace the entire engine. I've had this car since my junior year of high school and it's a '95 so it's not totally unexpected. I've also put a few hundred dollars into it recently, which is frustrating. I was really upset about losing this car, because I'm pretty broke (always!) and buying a used car is always sort of a gamble. So I was REALLY upset and I had two of my friends come over and cheer me up - but using homemade daiquiris and junk food was not the best idea. The following day I went out with my coworkers to a bar and had three drinks (over the span of three hours) and ate nearly an entire basket of onion rings by MYSELF. THEN, later that night I went out with another friend and we ate total shit at Denny's in addition to some wine... and then even later in the night (like 1 a.m.) I ate his leftovers. Faaaantastic. Seriously, I know I would do SO much better if I would just lay off the booze because I just stop caring and the second I eat something when I don't know the calorie content, I'm just done for the day.

And actually, anyway, the car dying ended up being sort of a blessing. My dad's retired now and so he spent some time looking at used cars for me. I knew I would be getting a shitty one because I can't afford to spend more than $4,000 basically. So we went to go look at one that my dad had found online, but got frustrated because even though we had called in advance about 10 minutes before going out there to look at the car, when we arrived they told us that the car was being repaired and we couldn't look at it. So we went to another dealership, and I ended up getting a *brand new* car! I was not expecting to do that AT ALL. When I told the guy my budget, he said they didn't have any used cars for under 6 grand, but that I should consider leasing a new car. They had this awesome deal that allegedly ended yesterday, where you can lease a brand new car for three years with no money down, for $200 a month, and then an option to buy at the end. And leasing it for three years and then purchasing it actually ended up being cheaper overall than just buying it new. They essentially guarantee everything, so no worrying about the history of a used car (when we got the car that died, we had to replace the transmission just a couple months after getting it)... anyway, I ended up with a 2012 Honda Civic, and I'm in love with it. Plus it gets 39 mpg, which will hopefully lead to big savings on gas. And I'll just be happy to not put any more money into the car that died.

I'll miss my shitty '95 Oldsmobile but it's hard to think about that car when I have a new one! It feels so weird because I've never had a car that wasn't just a pile of crap. I'm going to work on creating a new budget, which means that I'm going to get less fancy with my meals and where I shop. I think I'm going to stop shopping at Trader Joe's almost entirely (there are a couple things I get there that I will still buy, but typically when I go there I just feel like doing all my shopping in one place and I end up spending a fortune.) We have a super cheap grocery store here that is horrifying to shop in because it is so busy and warehouse-y, but I'm just going to have to suck it up and go there all the time now.

At any rate, I figure Earth Day is as good as ever to start a new challenge. I'm going to go up until Memorial Day weekend (May 25). I have two friends from out of town visiting that weekend, and I know they'll want to go out and drink and such, so I'm gonna give myself a little bit of a break then. I want to lose more weight before they come here because I haven't seen them since November! I think the only thing I'm going to do differently in this challenge (and I've never actually SUCCEEDED at one of my "challenges" so we'll see how this goes!) is to up my exercise to 175 minutes a week minimum instead of 150. I'd like to eventually get up to 200 minimum. I always "schedule" myself for 200 minimum but there's always one workout that I end up missing for whatever reason.

So, simple challenge rules...

Earth Day Challenge
1) No alcohol. This is the main one I haven't stuck with, which leads to not staying within my calorie range. I'll do well for a couple weeks but then I'll go out with my coworkers or something and end up not refusing the beverage. I just know that as soon as I get some booze in me, I won't do my scheduled workout, I won't feel good the next day, and I will probably overeat.
2) Stay within my calories at least 6/7 days of the week. (My other challenges involved me staying in calorie range every single day, but SparkPeople recently reduced my calories due to my weight loss, and I find that some days I am just too hungry and need to go over by a couple hundred or so.)
3) Work out 175 minutes/week.
4) Track all my food.

I started making green smoothies some mornings for breakfast and I'm really liking them. My only problem is that they're so high in sugar. I usually use 4 cups of baby spinach and then some kale (usually just a handful of leaves), one serving of frozen mixed fruit, a banana (I'm going to start using just half a banana, but I want to use at least some because it really masks the green taste) and then 100% fruit juice. I think I might start using milk or soymilk or almond milk instead, though. I never drink milk straight so it never occurs to me to buy it, but I think some plain unsweetened almond milk would be good. That would cut down on the sugar some, as I know fruit juice is basically just a ton of sugar.

I mentioned in the title of my post that I'm a little discouraged. I just keep getting pain in my feet. It feels like there is always something making my workouts ridiculously uncomfortable. Today while I did my step aerobics, I felt great exercise-wise (like, aerobically I could keep up very well) and even my achilles tendons felt ok (they're a little stiff now but didn't bug me much during the workout) but I got this fairly intense pain on top of my right foot. It feels like a tendon from my right big toe to the top of my foot. It feels totally fine NOW, walking or even jumping on it, but it was really really hurting during that workout. I'm hoping it isn't sore anytime soon. I did finish the workout and burned 530 calories, but it was sooooo unpleasant. I really didn't want to stop because I hadn't worked out since Wednesday.  Sigh.

Here's my menu and workout plan for the week:


SUNDAY
Vegetable and rice burritos with quesadilla cheese
Step Aerobics, 63 minutes

MONDAY
Waldorf chicken wrap
Rest Day

TUESDAY
Spinach Mushroom Ricotta Stuffed Shells (I may have to move this because I dropped my entire jar of pasta sauce all over my kitchen today, breaking it...and don't know when I'll stop by the grocery store... fabulous)
Cardio kickbox, 25 minutes

WEDNESDAY
Leftovers
Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, 40 minutes

THURSDAY
Spicy Nutty Chicken with broccoli
Spark Cardio Workout, 30 minutes

FRIDAY
Jimmy John's vegetarian sub
Rest day

SATURDAY
Leftovers
Walk/run, 50 minutes



Total workout minutes: 208

Week 16

I did terribly this past week. Like, worse than I have ever done. It showed, too. I'm now up four pounds from my lowest weight that I hit... sometime last week. I expected I'd gain no matter how good I was since I'd been sick and probably lost a lot of water weight, but four pounds is more than I expected.

I was consistent with my exercise, got in 220 minutes or so for the week, but only because I ended up hiking for an hour and a half at Devil's Lake yesterday; otherwise, I wouldn't have even reached my 150 minute goal. The hike felt good though, I'd had a really bad headache on Friday and felt nauseous, and I think getting some fresh air helped. I burned almost 700 calories so that's nice.

I was feeling pretty crappy all week and there were two days when I don't even want to KNOW how many calories I ate... I really went crazy though on Friday and I really felt terrible about it all weekend.

But back on track as of yesterday. And today is the start of a new week. Here's my menu plan. I'm not posting my exercise plan because I wrote it down on my board at home but I'm not home right now, so... I can't remember! After I finish this blog I'm gonna go for a walk/run, but I'm a little nervous because we're supposed to get really nasty storms. My normal route is 3.6 miles or so, but it gets me pretty far from my house, so I don't want to get caught in the rain... I'll just have to maybe stay close this time and go a different way.


SUNDAY
Apple Maple Bacon Turkey Burgers with tomato, lettuce, and red onion on a whole-wheat bun

MONDAY
Whole wheat BBQ chicken pizza with bell pepper and onion

TUESDAY
Blackened chicken salad with avocado

WEDNESDAY
Portobello mushroom sandwiches

THURSDAY
Glazed tofu with brown rice and broccoli

FRIDAY
Going out w/ coworkers to the Echo I believe, probably not for too long, but I'll either eat there or have leftovers when I get home

SATURDAY
Jimmy John's vegetarian sub

I found this cute idea for Smoothie Packs on Pinterest, and I've decided to make myself a green smoothie for breakfast in the mornings and then bring some sort of protein snack to work to eat mid-morning. I'm just going to try it for a few days this week (I really only have enough ingredients to make 3 or 4 smoothies) and see if it tides me over. I try to eat my veggies but I really don't get enough greens, and I don't think I get a whole lot of vitamin B, so I figured this would be easy. I made one this morning, and with four cups of spinach in it, it was slightly taste-able, but mostly overpowered with fruit. I just used Trader Joe's cherry/berry frozen fruit blend, some 100% juice, and the spinach (my bananas weren't ripe enough, but I do love the consistency that they lend to smoothies so I am going to freeze some when ripe.) I'd love to try it with some kale or other greens too. I then had some sunflower seeds later on in the morning and it did tide me over until I had lunch, so not too bad. I think tonight I will portion out servings of fruit into the plastic baggies as suggested and maybe even some bags of spinach to keep in the fridge so I have everything ready to go in the mornings. I'm not there now because my landlord is there installing a new garbage disposal (mine broke about a month ago) and I'm socially awkward beyond all reason.

Oh, creativity-wise, I have been doing a little better. Been writing a lot in my book and today I made it out to the craft store for some more canvas and paint, and a shadow box project I'm going to try to do. I have a couple ideas...

Week 15

Luckily I am feeling better-ish today, but I'm still not there. Today I pushed through one of the hardest workouts I have done in a while. I did my standard long step aerobics workout, the one that I have been saying has been a lot easier recently? Ugh, not so much today. I know I'm not 100% because I haven't worked that hard in a long time. Burned almost 700 calories and felt pretty awful through the whole thing. Had to even pause it once - mostly to put my ankle support on because my right tendon was hurting a lot, but still. Kinda wanted to throw up afterwards. 

I JUST scraped by this week with exactly 150 fitness minutes. Not sure how that sort of magically worked itself out, but it did. I'd planned for more, but clearly, getting sick got in the way again. Oh well. I also gained  a pound and some overnight; I know some of that weight I lost was water weight. Bummer, but whatever.

I've just been lethargic and lazy, despite having spent so much time on my couch while sick. I know I'm just still recovering so I'm trying to give myself a break. Made it to the grocery store after much self-debate but aside from that and the workout haven't done much productive today. I am hoping to work on my book for a bit tonight though.

I've been pretty lazy about cooking recently too - less adventurous, pretty basic stuff. I'm ok with that though. Haven't had much of an appetite lately so it's been hard for me to menu plan; nothing looks that good. 

SUNDAY

Skewered singapore chicken and pineapple with bell pepper

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, 40 minutes 

MONDAY

Veggie bagel (whole-wheat bagel, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, chopped bell pepper, provolone, cream cheese)

Cardio kickbox, 25 minutes

TUESDAY

Portobello mushroom sandwiches (2 servings)

Rest day

WEDNESDAY

Waldorf chicken salad wrap

Wii fit, 40 minutes

THURSDAY

Leftovers/salad

Walk/run, 50 minutes

FRIDAY

Veggie sub

Rest day

SATURDAY

Not sure… will be grocery shopping

Step aerobics, 63 minutes

Total minutes: 218

Sigh

You know how I said the universe didn't want me to exercise? 

No lie. Seriously. 

I got sick. *again*. After two days of lying on my couch and googling what various cancers and diseases I had that were causing the intense pain in my stomach, I settled on simple gastritis likely caused by practically overdosing on ibuprofen from my LAST round of illness. (It should be noted that I despise it when people self-diagnose, but I am a gigantic hypocrite and do it all the time.) My throat was still a bit sore on Monday and Tuesday when I was at work, so I kept taking ibuprofen. I was basically taking tons of the stuff every day for a whole week because it kept my sore throat away and made the general achiness of the cold/flu go away. Apparently my stomach wasn't a huge fan.

I'm still not 100%, but am back at work. I even managed to *sort of* work out yesterday, but could only make it a half hour and it was fairly low-intensity. I've wasted so much time being sick and I was just seriously fuming on my couch. I'm pretty neutral about my job these days - which is a huuuuge increase from absolutely, 1000% loathing it for the last year and a half - and I actually missed being there. Luckily my coworkers are great and I didn't come back to shittons of work to do, either, so that was a relief.

Hopefully this is the last of it and I can get back to feeling healthy.

The one positive of all of it (aside from finally beating Donkey Kong Country on my classic controller for the Wii) was that I lost a couple more pounds. One symptom of gastritis is lack of appetite, and I felt so gross anyway, so I was under my calories almost every day this week, which I think is fine since the only activity I really did was moving from my couch to my bed and back again. 

This means I've hit my 20 pounds lost mark... in fact, I'm down 21.8 pounds since the beginning of the year. Not shabby.

I haven't noticed any real change in my body, which isn't shocking considering how much I weigh. I mean, I notice little teensy changes, but I don't think there's been anything noticeable at all, which again, is fine. I feel like I might be getting a teensy bit more definition in my waist, but who knows. I don't really care a whole lot about that right now... I know that's the stuff you're supposed to care about more than the number on the scale, but it doesn't bother me. I know I'm generally making good decisions.

Anyway, so until yesterday I hadn't worked out since the previous Sunday... so I'd had 3 rest days in a row. I'm not going to have time tonight because I have to go to my dad's, but I might try to do a quick 25-minute cardio kickbox... but that's pretty high intensity and I don't know if I should or not. I really do want to reach my 150 minute minimum this week, despite being sick earlier this week, and I can do that if I do my long step aerobics video tomorrow plus just a little bit more (like 5 mins of something else.) I might just do that instead of trying to work out tonight. I have a little bit of a headache and I should probably just relax. I didn't get to bed until almost 2 a.m. last night because my sleep schedule got so out of wack and I was sleeping so MUCH. 

Anyway, let's hope this is the end of illness and I can just get back to my regularly scheduled life. Being sick is such a drag.