My Plan For Health

...And I hardly felt a thing. Though I did look away and sing "la la la" to distract myself. The kind nurse sang along.

I got my seasonal flu shot last night at the Agricultural Administration Buidling, and I saw many nurses and volunteers who were worn out after a long day. One commented that this was the biggest turnout for flu shots that she’d ever seen. Still, I hardly had to wait in line at all, as there were so many nurses on duty.

This year, getting a seasonal flu shot is more important than ever. That’s because different strains of the flu can combine to form new strains — inside your body. The Los Angeles Times explains how this happens in an article that traces the origins of the H1N1 swine flu:

When a flu virus infects a cell, it breaks down into its eight component genes and invades the cell’s nucleus. Once inside, those genes make hundreds of copies of themselves. Then they exit the nucleus and repackage themselves into new flu particles, which go on to infect additional cells. If a single cell is infected with two strains of flu at the same time — which can happen easily — genes from both can be bundled together to form a new virus.

And new research shows that getting the seasonal flu shot can offer some protection against swine flu, because the shot wakes up your body’s immune system and gives your antibodies a boost.

With all our fears about the swine flu, it’s easy to forget the danger that the normal seasonal flu poses in this country. In trying to allay people’s fears about the swine flu vaccine, this article in The New Yorker makes the point that the seasonal flu is also a killer:

In fact, the new H1N1 virus is similar to seasonal flu in its severity. In the United States, influenza regularly ranks among the ten leading causes of death, infecting up to twenty per cent of the population. It kills roughly thirty-five thousand Americans every year and sends hundreds of thousands to the hospital. Even relatively mild pandemics, like those of 1957 and 1968, have been health-care disasters: the first killed two million people and the second a million.

Click here for an interactive map of flu shot locations on campus.

Ohio State employees can sign up for a free flu shot here. Remember to bring your BuckID!

Adult dependents may also receive free shots, but only on one remaining date: next Tuesday, Oct. 13. Something important to keep in mind is that your dependent will need to have your OSU employee ID number when he or she fills out the form to get the shot.

Meanwhile, free shots are available to OSU employees — but not dependents — at participating Kroger pharmacies.

Bonus: This week’s onCampus newspaper cautions us to take care but don’t panic, and offers a Q&A on the university’s flu prevention efforts. As always, you can check http://flu.osu.edu/ for updates.

I've updated my data page.

It’s the start of a new quarter, so I wanted to post an update on how my health is evolving. You’ll see a review of summer quarter on my data page.

The good news is, I’ve lost 17 pounds so far this year.

The (bad? neutral? other?) news is that I lied about how much I weighed when I started this venture.

Well, maybe not lied in the strictest sense. If I may reveal my Catholic upbringing for a moment, I would tell you that it wasn’t a lie of commission so much as a lie of omission.

The truth is, I didn’t know exactly how much I weighed when I started, because I didn’t want to know. I guessed 240 lbs. as a ballpark figure.

So when I weighed in at 231 lbs. at a checkup last month, I thought I’d lost 9 lbs. in total. Not bad, but not as much as I wanted for 9 months work. Then my doctor congratulated me on losing 17 lbs. and asked me how I did it. I didn’t believe her at first, so she turned her computer monitor to me and showed me my chart. I weighed 248 lbs. in January (a weigh-in in which I distinctly remember looking away from the scale and sort of humming to myself, while asking the nurse not to tell me the number) and 231 lbs. in September.

So then I had the conundrum of wanting to brag about losing 17 lbs., but having to admit that I was 248 lbs. at the start.

Here it is, out on the table. I lied. Lied lied lied. There you have it.

Other changes are afoot… Though my weight has stayed the same since last month, my clothes are still getting looser, so I think (hope) that maybe my body composition is changing. People keep telling me that I look slimmer, but I’m not certain whether they are just saying that. This morning my husband told me I look “more hourglass-y,” which is a good thing.

I know that I would probably get healthier faster if I changed my eating habits, which I have not done at all this year. I’ve just been working out a lot and hoping for the best. Steven Devor, associate professor of exercise science, offered to give me a little nutritional counseling some time ago — and I’m aware of formal nutritional counseling programs at Ohio State — but I’m having trouble getting past the “I don’t want to” hurdle.

C’est la vie.