Well, I knew it would happen and it did.  I gained 1.2 pounds this week, but I shouldn’t complain because it could have been much, much worse.  I think the exercise must have helped a bit.

I’ve been doing great for the past few days.  I went for a walk Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and today.  I didn’t go for a walk yesterday.  I felt that since I had to be up way earlier than usual, that I needed the extra hour of sleep more.  I haven’t binged since Sunday, thank God.  I almost feel like a member of some kind of AA group saying, “I’ve been binge-free for three days.”

I had my health risk assessment done yesterday.  What total BS.  My blood is still boiling about the whole thing.  I asked the nurse for a third answer (since I’d been given mixed answers from two other people) about what info my insurance company will receive and how it will be used and for the second time was told that they would receive no identifying information.  However, she didn’t explain the catch.  And that catch was that once you got done with your evaluation and went in to fill out your online “risk assessment,” that it would require YOU to give the information to your insurance company.  Of course they don’t receive it - from THEM.  Grrr. 

While filling out the online assessment, I kept expecting to come across a question asking if I’d be willing to give up my firstborn child, or sign in blood, or tell them my innermost hopes and dreams.  It was that intensive.  I’m sorry, but this information is between my doctor and myself.  The other thing that aggravates me is being told “what I need to do.”  Especially from people who have no idea about me or my situation.  After I got my scores (which were great and I’ll go into more detail in a bit), the nurse went through them with me and was trying to tell me stuff like, “now to keep this number in the good range, try not to eat much red meat.”  My response, “what if you already eat very little red meat?”  She just kind of gave me a dumb look.  And then on another she said, “now to help raise this, eat lots of veggies and fruits and exercise.”  My response, “duh.”  I mean, this information might be great for someone who hasn’t been focused on losing weight for the past 2 1/2 years.  So when I call and speak with my “health coach,” I have a feeling that it’s going to be very hard to be civil.  They’re going to see, “okay, she needs to lose X many pounds to reach the healthy weight on my BMI chart.  I’ll tell her to eat veggies and exercise more.”  They can’t see that I’ve already lost almost 160 pounds and that my doctor doesn’t think I need to get that low because of my extra skin.  There’s so many other factors that could affect someone’s health that they don’t take into consideration.  And it’s frankly none of their business.

The thing that aggravates me is that we’re not really given a choice about all of this.  If they wanted to offer this as an option for people that want to get healthier, I think that would be a great thing.  But by raising the premiums and then saying that you can lower them $20 a month by doing this, they aren’t giving you a choice.  Anyone on any kind of budget is going to feel forced to do this.

Okay.  My vent is over.  As I said, I’m just completely annoyed by the whole thing and had to get it out.  In the long run, it really isn’t that big of a deal, I guess.  I just feel that Big Brother just keeps getting more and more power and I keep remembering that article I read a while back about how companies have to measure their employees’ waistlines in Japan.  It’s only a matter of time here.

The company that actually ran the tests keeps our results so that they can compare next year and see  if we’ve made progress.  Come on, are they going to spank us or tell our mommies if we gain weight or our scores suck next year?

On a happier note, my results were fantastic (in the nurse’s words).  I don’t know what kind of scale they used, but it weighed me five pounds less than my home scale did before I left for work that day.  I also like their BMI chart because it has me two points down from what I had myself.

• Blood pressure 126/80 
• Total cholesterol 135 (should be under 200)
• HDL 50 (the best is about 55-60+, but she said mine was excellent.  She said that most of the people she’d seen that day had been around 35)
• Cholesterol/HDL Ratio 2.7 (should be under 4.5) 
• Glucose 87 (should be under 100 for fasting)
• Overall score on the online assessment is 90 (out of 100) for being in excellent “wellness”

So overall I did pretty great.  In fact, I’ve even improved since February of this year.  In February, my total cholesterol was 169 and my HDL was 48.  My ratio went from about 3.6 to 2.7.  Not too bad!  I guess while my weight hasn’t dropped tremendously this year, I’ve at least made myself a bit healthier, and I’m going to keep working to make those numbers even better.