Best Bloodwork Ever!

I had my annual wellness visit with my doctor today.  She was very pleased with the results of my bloodwork. My cholorestrol  and triglyceride numbers were all low and my ldl number was high. Everything was well within normal ranges. My blood sugar levels and A1C was all great. This is the best bloodwork I have had in years! Eating like a thin person has benefits! More winning by losing!

30 Pounds! 30 Pounds! I’ve Lost 30 Pounds!

Yes! Yes! Yes!!! It does feel good to know that my efforts at every meal are paying off. To see the number on the scales go down slowly, but steadily, is very rewarding. I seem to be losing about five pounds a month. Yes, that is a slow rate compared to many other diets, but I’m fine with it. My body has a chance to adjust to the changes that are a result of being a smaller (ok, less heavy) weight. My blood pressure is gradually getting better, my diabetes is more controlled, and my knees don’t hurt as much, to name just a few of the changes. A rapid weight loss would not allow for those gradual adjustments.

Anyway, I’m happy. Very happy.

25 Pounds! 25 Pounds! I’ve Lost 25 Pounds!

Yep! Another milestone reached! I’m so excited! It’s been just over a month since I reached my 20 pound loss, 36 days to be exact. About 1 pound/week. That’s ok with me  Because I am now in the senior citizen category, I don’t need this weight loss to be quick.  I want my body to have time to adjust to the changes as my weight goes down.  My blood pressure is improving already. In a few days I’ll have regular blood work done and I’ll let you know if my numbers (cholesterol, triglycerides, A1C, etc) are better.

For today, I’m going to bask in the glory of another milestone reached, and go shopping for clothes. In a smaller size, of course! I love winning when I have lost!

One and Two

As I mentioned in my last post, in my opinion there are two essential parts to being successful with conscious eating, or 'eating the way slender people eat'.  Those of us who are trying to eat consciously must consciously be aware of both parts at every meal and every snack.  Here goes:

1. Eating consciously means eating only until you are full.  I have had friends say to me, "But I don't always know when I'm full."  I understand that statement and most of my life have lived by the "I'm eating till my plate is empty" model, because I don't recognize this full feeling. 
     The truth is that our bodies will give us a signal for when enough food has been eaten during a meal.  In order to eat only until we are full, we must learn to recognize and acknowledge that signal no matter how much delicious food is still on our plate.  We must be willing to admit that it's there, even when we want to ignore the signal. 

2. Again, eating consciously requires that once you feel the signal for fullness that your body gives you, eating must stop.  In my opinion this is the hardest part, because sometimes we just don't want to stop.  Oh, man. There's still baked potato with all the trimmings on my plate. There's only half a slice of garlic toast left; surely I can eat that. That won't be much. In order to do this with integrity, you must stop eating once you feel that full signal.  If the food left on your plate can't be saved for whatever reason, it goes in the trash.  That's hard if you were raised with the starving children in China, as I was.  However, no matter what, conscious eating is not conscious eating, and you will never be slender, unless you are willing to throw good food in the trash.  It is a difficult, but critical lesson to learn.

Yes. This is hard.  But you know, so is living with knee problems, diabetes, back issues, heart problems, and a myriad of other health issues that are caused by being overweight.  Those of us who live our lives with too much girth can give you a list of ways that said girth has affected the way we live.  We choose our challenges. We choose our rewards.  Let's choose wisely. 

Slender Eating

My newest weight loss, as of this morning is 14.8 pounds, and my most recent blood work shows a decrease of .2 in my A1C.  Those are great wins! I'm now wearing a smaller size in my blue jeans (fortunately I still have them in my closet.) My clothes are feeling more roomy and fitting better.  All wins!

I'm headed in the right direction and that feels good also.  I encourage any of you who are have the same eating challenges I have to think about what in my opinion are two facts:
      (1) Naturally slender people generally have a certain natural 'skill', which is the skill of knowing when they have had enough to eat, and further, they have the ability to not eat once they have reach the 'full' sensation.
     (2) Naturally non-slender people do not innately have the above mentioned skill.  We will eat till the food is gone or they are 'stuffed' (you know what I mean by that), which ever comes first. We can snack even though they are not hungry. It only takes the presence of food (doesn't always have taste great either) to motive us to eat.

Because of these two facts, I believe that the only way for us (non-slender people) to become permanently slender is to practice and hopefully learn the skill of 'slender eating'. 

Darn That Facebook

They look soooooo good. Eye candy. You know what I mean. I'm referring to those delicious looking recipes that uninvitedly appear on our Facebook feeds. Many are loaded with cheese, sugar, heavy cream, etc. There are also many nutritious recipes also. However, the ones that quickly catch my eye are recipes such as 'Red Velvet Cheesecake'. Oh yea. Delicious.

I love to cook for family and friends. I love to cook foods that are rich and sweet. The problem is that it is vertually impossible for me to cook those types of dishes and not partake in their rich goodness, which can completely blow my diet and make my diabetes worse.

Therefore in order to keep my diet headed the right direction, I must find satisfaction in cooking dishes that are not going to be a diet buster for my. Perhaps it's time for me to put myself first in this aspect of my life.

Is It Necessary to Have a Why?

Major projects are not easy. They are seldom accomplished in one sitting. They require commitment, and focus. The first and, I think the most essential requirement, is a clear and concise reason for doing the project in the first place. Why do I need to do all this work? Major projects that go from conception to completion have a definite reason, a definite 'why'.

Losing weight is definitely a major project. To take this project all the way to completion, to stay the course, and to not get distracted along the way, requires clear and concise reasons. These reasons, these 'whys' must be strong and compelling because they will be one of the 'tools' that will help keep us moving towards our weight loss goal.

Here are my 'whys':
* my overall health and wellbeing - I know I will feel better and be more productive and active if I lose weight. That will make me a better grandmother.
* my diabetes and other health conditions will stay under control and perhaps go away if I lose weight.
*

Hard? Let's Talk About What's Hard

You know, I have always talked about how hard it is to maintain control of my weight and what I eat. Yes, it is hard. Most people never maintain their weight loss because the "call" of sugar, salt, and carbs is so great, and weight lost eventually becomes weight gained.

But it is not nearly so hard as what I saw this weekend. This is hard. I saw a dear family member lying in a hospital bed, bloated to the point of almost being unable to move because dialysis has been unable to keep up with the fluid his body is collecting. He has a blood clot in his leg because he lives his life in a wheel chair. All this is due to diabetes. Living with this is hard.

Another family member is nearly blind and is also on dialysis due to diabetes. Living with this is hard.

In comparison, eating so as to avoid having to live like this one day is not hard. I know that I will have future moments of weakness. I know that I will not always have the picture of the way some of my family lives clearly in my mind.

However, I do hope that from this point on, I will be able to keep my perspectives straight. Avoiding brownies and other such foods so that I can avoid dialysis or blindness, is not hard. Living this those serious things is very hard.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Are You Living in the State of Denial? I have been.

You know, living in the state of Denial (our 51st state?) is not a bad place to be. It is peaceful there. Reality doesn't bother you......, well, except for those nagging thoughts in the back of your mind that just won't go away, but they are easy to ignore, at least for a while. You can do what you want, just keep denying, denying, denying.

Yep. That was me. For a long time, actually. What was I denying? Well, if you remember, I am diabetic. I was diagnosed over two years ago. I have never taken diabetic medicine, just 'controlled' it with my diet. Yea, right.

It was easy for me to convince myself that I really wasn't diabetic, because many times I tested my blood sugar and had normal readings. Soooo I began to eat whatever I wanted, and I quit testing. The State of Denial.

I'm not sure what made me decide to emerge from my extended vacation in that state. Perhaps it was because I had decided to get tests done, mammogram, colonoscopy, endoscopy, pap, etc. I don't know.

Anyway, I bought some test strips. The ones I had had expired...... I tested my blood sugar. It was 167. Not horrible, but not good. I tested my husband's blood sugar. He had eaten exactly the same thing I had eaten four hours earlier. His was 116. Sigh. I could deny it no longer.

If I wanted to be healthy, I had to realistically face, accept, and deal with this disease. Yep. I had to change my address from the State of Denial to the State of Reality.

Diabetes and Stomach Band Surgery

The report, which was about using stomach band surgery, often called lap band surgery, as a treatment for diabetes, got my attention. The results of a study done in Australia, showed that those who had lab band surgery had their Type 2 diabetes go into remission at a rate of 5 times more than those who treated their diabetes in traditional ways, i.e. diet, exercise, diabetes medication.
It was a small but definitive study, and its is getting quite a bit of attention in our national news. A manufacturer of lap bands funded the study, but had no input at all in how the study was conducted or its results.
There are many questions still to be asked and answered which will undoubtedly be the focus of future studies. For example, who would benefit the most from the surgery? How long will the lap band enable diabetes to remain in remission? Is the costs and risks of the surgery outweighed by the benefit of avoiding the health complications brought on by diabetes?

Yes, this report got my attention. However, it wasn't the study and its results alone that made me stop in my tracks. It was a comment made by the doctor presenting the information.
He said, "Diabetes is a very aggressive disease. It causes people to die at a much higher rate from heart related problems than the regular population." He continued on by discussing other serious aspects of the disease and the shortened life expectancy that diabetes brings.
That got my attention. Higher death rate. Shortened life expectancy. Aggressive disease.
I knew all of these things, but to hear them come so emphatically from this doctor's mouth brought it all to a new level of reality for me.
The other thing that got my attention was that diabetes can be cured or brought into remission for many of us simply by weight loss. In my mind that comment brought my weight loss, again, to a new level of necessity.
Another thing to win by losing. Lose weight---gain a longer life, and no diabetes complications because that disease is in remission!!!

My Sister and Diabetes

My sister, I'll call her Susan, has just been diagnosed with diabetes, Type 2. Apparently she had been diabetic for quite a while, because she is bleeding behind the retinas in her eyes. The retinologist said that she had classic signs of retinopathy, damaged caused by diabetes.
This diagnosis is not surprising because diabetes runs in our family. What is stunning is that she maintains that she has had not symptoms.

My thoughts about this diagnosis and lack of symptoms for Susan come in the form of a lesson for all of us. You see, I believe the symptoms were there and had been there for a long time. For the last several years, Susan has been totally focused on caring for Daddy and Mother, and other personal things in her life. Because of her ‘tunnel vision’, she either was completely unaware of the symptoms or pushed them aside because they seemed unimportant compared to the other concerns with which she was dealing.

The lesson? It is those quiet nagging things in our lives which are so easy to ignore that will one day become an all consuming crisis for ourselves and those who love us. We need to pay attention to what is going on with our bodies and deal with our own health issues in a timely manner, even while life seems to be swirling around us in a chaotic fashion. Easier said than done.

Is it Bad Carbs vs. Good Carbs? Or is it No Carbs?

About 15 years ago I lost 75 pounds by eating only sugar free, low fat foods. I didn't even think about carbs. I kept the weight off for almost 3 years before gradually gaining it back. :(
When I was diagnosed as diabetic, my doctor recommended a very low carb diet. I wasn't impressed and really had no desire to follow it. So I didn't. However, I did cut back on my sugar intake which was enough to keep my blood sugar under control most of the time. Good enough? Not really because I was still eating too much and gaining weight.
So when Lisa told me about the diet her doctor had put her on and that Adam's doctor had recommended the same type of diet, surprisingly, I was ready to embrace it.
Their doctors recommended a "no processed carb diet". They eat no breads, crackers, rice, pasta, etc. No even the 'low carb' processed starches. They eat meat, dairy, veggies, and fruit. At some time in the future they may add whole grains.
As I begin this same diet, I am reevaluating the things I have previously known and believed about healthy dieting.
Included in this post are some websites about carbs. I suggest that you check them out for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

http://www.goodcarbs.org/#dont_avoid_carb

http://www.wellnesschiro.com/Confused_about_Carbos.htm

This is my 3rd day on this diet and so far, things are going well. However, this morning I did open the door to my pantry and came face to face with a Pringle's can. I quickly decided that whatever I needed in that pantry wasn't important and closed the door. Yea!!!!!!!