I just got home from my doctor appointment and I’m feeling really overwhelmed. My over all cholesterol level went up quite a bit. I went from roughly 150 to 217 since my last check earlier this year. My LDL went from 70 to 135 and that’s definitely not good. My triglycerides are also up as well my blood pressure.

None of this is catastrophic but it’s definitely not a good thing and I don’t feel good about it.

There several factors here that are likely behind this.

• Stress
• Depression
• Less exercise
• Poor choices

The biggest contributor to this is likely stress. Stress is a huge problem in my life. This has been a particularly rough year with the loss of my grandparents and it got exponentially worse when I became a single parent once again.

Stress is fuel for my Depression and that leads to making poor choice. I have been stress eating, especially in the last couple of months. I’m not able to exercise like I had been doing because I don’t have time to myself and I can’t leave Gavin home alone.

I own my poor dietary choices and I am addressing them immediately. I’m guilty of stress eating and eating more junk food than I normally do.

The walking thing is going to be a problem until I find a way to get a treadmill. That’s the ideal, perfect world remedy to that scenario. Unfortunately, I just bought a car and that’s significantly chewed into my budget. That’s also adding to my stress.

I’m seriously overwhelmed right now but I know that I was able to get to where I needed to be before, and I can do it again. How I’m going to address some of this remains to be seen. None of it is insurmountable, just very challenging.

I absolutely must reduce my stress and on top of that, manage the residual stress better. My blood pressure was a borderline today and she suspects that’s stress as well as being nervous about the appointment. I have to chill out but I’m finding that difficult with everything happening around me. The fragile balance has been disrupted and finding it again isn’t easy.

The bottomline is that my kids need me and I have to take better care of myself in order to be here for them longterm. All I can do is control or take back control over the things I can. The rest I’ll have to figure out.