Born in 1953. When I was around 47, I suddenly had all kinds of really bad joint pain. I could barely walk...feet, legs....got frozen shoulder, too. Health care folks thought osteoarthritis, but the bone scan was fine. Then, they thought fibromyalgia. I started gaining weight because I couldn't move very well and had no energy. Fast forward...I started taking potassium supplements when I tried the Atkins diet for a few months. The pain went away. Rewind...up until about that time, my GYN had me on aldactone, a potassium-sparing diuretic, to help with PMS. I had stopped taking it when I had to switch providers. So, I guess my body was missing the potassium. Back to the future...3 years ago, I caught a respiratory virus that sent me to the ER. My heart went wacko on me. I was born with mitral valve prolapse w/regurgitation. It hadn't really bothered me until I caught that virus. The virus lasted almost 5 months! I was put on atenolol, a beta blocker and promptly gained a lot more weight, was out of breath, no energy, etc. from that experience. So...DH insisted that I retire from my job (June 2006) to take care of myself. Everytime I turned around, I had something to follow-up...suspicious mammos, biopsies, etc. He told me my job was now "to get healthy". Bless him. For the last few years, I've been trying to figure out how to make myself healthy. Last year, I was able to slowly wean myself off of atenolol. A pulse over 100 was normal and I have low blood pressure. Tired person! I also started taking kelp, which cleared up my sinusitus and tinnitus within the first few days of taking it. Don't ask me why I needed it. I was just researching my multitude of problems and decided it wouldn't hurt to try it. As soon as I retired, I made myself exercise and get outside as much as possible. I tried all kinds of diets. My weight stayed locked on the same number no matter how little I ate or how much I exercised. My body temp was usually around 97.1, but I'd have bouts where it would drop down in the 96 range and I'd get chilled. Thyroid tests showed 3.0, so my doc won't treat that. On January 9, 2008, I tried something new. Trader Joe's came to town, so we started purchasing 100% of our food from them and have almost completely stopped eating out at restaurants. I was already in an exercise routine, but I just mixed it up to add frequent bursts of intensity among steady exercise...stationary bike, Bowflex weights, crunches, yoga, walking the dog, etc. I have an outdoor bike, a kayak and a swimming pool, so I'm also accustomed to doing those when the weather permits. I just spent 3 hours this morning in my garden, moving shrubs around. I started keeping a daily dairy (spreadsheet) of EVERYTHING that I eat to try to stay between 1200-1300 calories per day and also low fat. I rarely go above 45 grams of fat for an entire day. When I bring home the groceries, I enter every item's nutritional content into that spreadsheet to help me easily track what I eat. I use measuring cups and spoons to make sure that I've got my portions matched to the nutritional portions. I stopped drinking "brand name" diet sodas. I drink TJ's diet soda with no preservatives, no sodium. I no longer crave sweets at all. I don't get hungry at all. It is so easy to eat the right portions. DH is experiencing the same thing, although he gets larger portions and more calories. I take TJ's high potency vitamins for women -- you take 5 pills a day instead of one pill -- spread out over the day. I take potassium due to my particular problems. I get vitamin D because I do get sunshine, even in winter. Our house is passive solar, so even on a cold sunny day, I can sit out on our front porch and toast. The results? I've lost 12 lbs, but I stalled at 6 lbs for several weeks and have stalled again at 12 lbs. I tend to increase my exercise, so I'm hoping these stalls are due to muscle weighing more. Anyway, I still need to lose 10-20 lbs. I have lost 4 inches in my waist! To get out of the first stall, I started drinking green tea 4 times a day. That helped to boost my metabolism up to a temp of 98.3. My husband has also started drinking the green tea, too. He is also losing weight, btw. What we've BOTH noticed...our skin and hair looks and feels so much younger. We both have a lot of energy. We feel great with no aches and pains. We feel like our circulation is better. My bp is around 88/60 and my pulse is down to 65-70 beats per minute. This sounds strange, but my body feels "quiet" now that my pulse is under control. I feel "light" inside my body like my organs have more room. Could it be the lack of artificial stuff and preservatives in the food? Could it be that restaurants (we don't do fast food) are really surving food so full of calories and fat even in small portions? Anyway, I'll see how the weight loss goes over the next year. I got interested in the green tea from going to the Real Age website and catching Dr. Oz on TV. Hope this helps someone else. IMPORTANT: I got my physical in January before starting all of this. So, my doctor knows what I'm doing, what I'm eating and the supplements that I'm taking.

After teaching the Myers Briggs personality tests for many years, your personality type, PLUS life experiences and influences = who you are and how you act and react. You can take the tests on-line to see which one of the 16 personalities you are. As they say in "Please Understand Me" Character & Temperament Types - by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates - "Different drums, different drummers." Any number of diseases, conditions, surgeries (like open heart or brain surgery), chemical imbalances, chronic pain, as well as medications and any number of things, can alter or change people to a certain extent. Most people with strong personality traits (such as thinker, judger), which are sometimes misconstrued as negative, pessimistic, or cynical because they see things as black and white, with little that is gray, will mellow as they age, but you don't change them entirely. Those personality types are just as important as any other because we each bring something different to the table, so to speak.

My husband's mother had grown children....maybe even a grandchild or two, when she married his father, who had grandchildren...probably even great grandchildren, and after they got married, they had six children in six years. She was 38 when he was born....four more after him, and his dad was 68, and 72 when his last was born. The baby had spina bifida and died shortly after birth, and his mother died from breast cancer a couple of years later. I was almost 34....had no trouble getting pregnant and no morning sickness or complications during pregnancy and only gained 25 lb. Had a c section and was in the hospital for five days, and lost all but 7 when I got out. My mother, who was 42, also said she never had any nausea or other problems. My mother was 42 but probably looked older. She was thin and had premature gray hair. After I was born, in a Catholic hospital, by the way, she didn't see me for several hours. One of the sisters came into her room, which was a room with 4 beds, and said, "Have any of you had a baby and not seen it?" My mother said, "I haven't seen mine." The sister said, "Hmph!! No old woman like you has had a baby!" My mother said, "Well, I guess I ought to know if I had a baby or not!" I am quite sure my father was there, and he was a very over bearing type of person, and I can just imagine smoke coming out of his ears, because shortly, the mother superior came running into the room....my mother said her rosary or whatever she had hanging on her outfit (sorry, not Catholic...I don't know) "just a'jangling". She said, "Yes that is Mrs. Stout's baby.....give it to her right now!!"

No kids, although I plan to start raising goats next year... (ducking!!!) My cats were all born in the 2000's. 2001, 2005, 2006, 2006. Hmm, they are all getting up there in cat years, I note...