 a couple weeks ago was my birthday and I did not get a very good birthday gift. Not at all. So keep watching to find out what I am doing with that birthday surprise and what the progress is. It's Kyla Denayo and I am back for an update about what's going on for my birthday surprise. This is a special segment which I'm calling health at 38 and it's going to be in a playlist. You can watch all of the videos and find out my progress and find out what's going on. And so as you know from the last video I got some surprising news after I had my annual physical for my birthday. And with that surprising news I had to go on a low-fat diet and also watch my sugar intake because I'm prediabetic. So because of those things I've changed my diet. I'll share with you what cholesterol is and what's going on with that right because I did spend some time and look into it just to see and I'll tell you how I'm feeling. So the reason I'm going to tell you how I feel is because I've decided not to record my meals. And that's because I have a lot of past history with eating issues and just being obsessed with writing down every calorie I take into my body every day. And it's just not a healthy thing for me. And because of that I am not going to use a tracker like my fitness power or anything where I would list everything that I eat for the day where I would keep track of all the calories that I'm taking in. I've just decided to have a smoothie every day and I'll put that recipe up here because it's it's nothing scientific. It's just what I enjoy eating. It's two scoops of protein powder and then I also put in half a green apple, a tart green apple, half a lemon but I've been lately putting in a whole lemon that I just peeled and that's been really good. A cup of almond milk and then a cup of cold water and then a handful of spinach. So completely scientific. That's what I've been putting into my little ninja blender. Blend that up and drink it and it's it's actually really good. The one thing I would change is I'm using vanilla protein powder and so I already have on the list that when this is almost gone that I will buy an unflavored protein powder because I think that'll be even better. But I've been enjoying it. My daughter actually drinks it as well when I blend that up I'll pour some in a little cup for her or she'll drink it out of my cup so she's really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying it. So that's been fun. And I also signed up for a plant-based meal service so that I have those plant-based meals that are already prepared. I just have to heat them up and eat them. So I want to tell you how my energy level is filling. Tell you how I've been feeling in the last week. Right not a ton of time but enough time for me to notice a couple of things. So the first week I've had zero energy and I don't really know what's going on. I don't know if my body is like wait you know what I mean? What is this? And it's probably a mental thing more than anything but I've had absolutely zero energy. I wake up feeling sluggish. I'm like craving my coffee by the time I get to it. And I've been trying to drink black coffee but I just put a tablespoon of non-dairy creamer in there because I am watching my dairy intake. And so I've just been tired. I've been having almost two cups of coffee every day because my body has been so exhausted and that's a big surprise for me. But I'm getting some of the best sleep ever and then when the nighttime hits I am actually tired. So that has been really good and I've really been enjoying that. But what I've been noticing is that when I eat real food, I eat not the frozen waffles that I typically eat or not a handful of cheeses or whatever, I'm full for hours. Okay hours like I cannot emphasize that enough. One day I had my smoothie at like maybe 10, 10, 15 in the morning and I was looking up and it was like 3.30 and I was like can I, can I get hungry? Please, please body? Can we be hungry? And that's because I like to snack. I like to nibble on things all day. I want to munch around here. I want to munch around here. And I think especially being home with my toddler, she eats quite frequently but she's also eating smaller meals. And so I don't know if she got that cadence for me if I got, I don't know but I like to eat all day and I haven't been able to do that because I'm full. Right now in all that time from the 10 in the morning into like three, I'm still drinking water because I'll be like oh you know I feel kind of thirsty or whatever. In fact most of the time I've been uncomfortable because of how full I am. So that, that was a big surprise to me. And now because I don't want to freeze half of the smoothie and then try to drink it the next day, I just enjoy being full all day for those or I've been switching it up and having the smoothie in the evening because if I have that at six o'clock then I'll just be full for the rest of the night. So that's been different. Okay and then the last thing here that I want to mention that was the surprise to me is how easy it has been to make different decisions and make better decisions. So the first week that all of this happened I had to take a big trip for work which means I wasn't preparing my own food. I was in a hotel and I was grabbing stuff on the go and so I found myself in a lot of situations where we were either out to eat or we were just ordering food for the office and I needed to make good decisions and I have been making very good decisions. Clap for myself because I have been making really good decisions. So if we're ordering something like Chinese food or Thai food, I'll just get veggies that are cooked in a black bean sauce or some kind of a tomato based sauce. I'm getting veggie rolls. I'm getting veggie sandwiches with mustard on them instead of mayo and things like that. So it's actually been pretty easy for me to make some choices that are a lot different and choices that are better for myself with me and it's probably the case with everyone but I'm just really noticing it now. Once I have something in my belly, I'm fine right. I'm thinking about food. I'm thinking about food. I'm thinking about food but once I eat something and that hunger is satisfied, I can then go on. It's not like oh no I have to have three donuts. It's more so my body needs energy. Give me something to eat and so if it happens to be veggies on veggies on veggies with mustard on whole grain bread whatever and I eat it and my body feels satisfied then I can go on with my day. I will I'll discuss this in another video where I get into a lot of my health background and what eating has been like for me in 38 years but I will say the fact that my doctor told me I had to change my diet and I also am going back in three months to get blood work done so that we were going to check all of my levels and see if there was any change in my cholesterol and my pre-diabetic levels and if not she was going to prescribe me medication. She was very serious and so I am taking this very serious because I was traveling I wasn't able to work out. I know she was saying that she wanted me to also increase my exercise and so I wasn't able to do that but I have been making smarter choices when it comes to eating and I hope that that will offset until I am ready to start working out. As you see I am back home so now I can get back into the gym and start doing a little bit more and I will say I am taking this very very well because she's serious and I don't want to be on a prescription so if you watched the video this far thank you I sincerely appreciated. Please like the video that really does tell YouTube that you're enjoying the content and then they will share the content with other people. If you know anyone that's had to change to a low-fat or plant-based diet please leave a comment let me know how they did let me know if it was you and if you're really enjoying and I will keep you updated on what's happening next. See you next week. Bye