Continuing Keto.....

     I ended last week's blog by discussing the lipedema that impacted my mother and currently impacts my sister.  I think I have the same issue and will pursue that with a doctor because my mother suffered from it in the end, and I don't want to go through the same thing if I can avoid it. Her skin actually began weeping, and it was hard for her to walk because her legs became extremely heavy.  My younger sister is dealing with a similar situation right now, and she's three years younger than I am. I'm doing much better because I am much more active than either my mother or my sister. However, I still have accumulations of fat in certain areas of my body that do not go away no matter what. I have been able to lose inches, but I've done it by starving myself, and I think I lost muscle rather than fat when I did. Of course, that's my theory, but I intend to figure out what's actually going on. In the meantime, I'm taking advice from my cousin, who encourages me to work harder to build muscle. I've been using free weights consistently, but I need to think about building more muscle in the areas where I have fat deposits. I developed a regimen for building muscles in my glutes and quads that I am doing daily, and I'll continue to do that and see what happens. In the meantime, I have an appointment with the doctor in August, so it will be interesting to see what we can figure out.  We're still having a wonderful time here. Steve and I play golf every week, and this past week nearly met our end on the ride home. We have an old van that we used for years to pull the boat.  Now that we are using the truck for that, we keep the van around because when we have guests, it comes in handy.  Also, we store some things in it, like golf clubs, the golf cart, and other items.  We use the van when we play golf, so we take it out at least once a week. We were zooming along on our way home and passed a pear tree that Steve decided he wanted to check out, so he pulled over to the side of the road. When he returned to the van and started it up, he pushed in the break, which had no tension. It went straight to the floor.  He immediately realized that the brake line had broken. I started imagining what it would have been like had we been on the freeway or, God forbid, on the downhill slope into Birch Bay with no brakes! As it turned out, we navigated back into a parking lot, using the emergency brake to stop. I called a tow truck, and it showed up pretty quickly. Of course, now Steve insists on fixing it, which will be a killer job. He's already started the work despite my attempts to get him to send it to the shop. Once he decides to do something, it's like trying to stop a moving train.  It is impossible to deter him, no matter how difficult the job is or how old we get. He seems like he'll never stop this kind of thing! Ultimately, it's because of his hard work and skills in many areas that we have what we have, so we're very blessed. However, we're also old, and he needs to cool it. In the meantime, we are plugging right along and enjoying our beautiful weather here in Birch Bay. We're hoping against hope that there will be no wildfires in neighboring British Columbia, but fires are highly likely, given the facts. It's very dry here because we lack the rainfall that we usually get, so the odds are we will face some wildfires this summer. Sometimes smoke from fires hovers over the bay, and we hope that won't happen this year. I'm still sticking to keto, and I feel well. The diet combined with the exercise I do every day keeps me healthy, so I'll continue this lifestyle for as long as possible.  I feel blessed.