Tachatna's Journal, 18 February 2018

Happy Sunday, everyone! Hope your weekend is going well.

I'm a night owl person (hubby is a morning person!). I don't know what 7 a.m. is unless it is a continuation of the night before and staying up all night! The benefit of being up late at night is being able to think when everything is so quiet. Last night I started thinking about my relationship with food.

Eating is a necessity for me and not particularly a pleasure...well, unless it's all about maple bars and cake!

I grew up in a family where my mother was a terrible cook!!!!! My father liked meat well done..practically charred. It was a time when people didn't do frozen food. Veggies were canned. Fruit was canned. Both of which were slimy, icky!
I can remember having to sit at the dinner table for hours washing down individual peas and carrots with a swig of milk just to get them down without gagging.

I love raw veggies...celery, lettuce, tomatoes (my father used to grow tomatoes each summer fed with "liquid chicken"...his term for chicken droppings mixed with water) and carrots. We never had fresh veggies other than those. But, raw veggies are not my first choice either.

Toast was my breakfast unless there was chocolate or angel food cake available!

Lunch was bologna sandwiches and sometimes tuna. Grilled Velveeta sandwiches were a treat. We never had other cheeses in the house other than cheddar (which my father called "rat cheese" and only he ate).

Dinner was charred hamburger patties, petrified roast, burned pork chops. Sometimes we would eat fish that my father caught, but it was a rare treat. These would be accompanied with slimy canned peas and carrots, string beans or spinach. There would be a baked potato (the skin so hard it had to be cut with a steak knife).

There were always potato chips, cookies, cake and crackers for snacks...cakes from a mix because my mother couldn't bake either. Since we never had a jar of peanut butter in the house (my mother hated it), it wasn't unusual for me to eat a whole bag of potato chips after school.

That was the extent of my food experience for 18 years!

I weighed 105 pounds when I got pregnant with my daughter. I tipped the scales at 200 the day she was born. In those days, they didn't care about pregnant weight gain. I stayed at 180 after her birth for 5 years. I got pneumonia at that time and lost 50 pounds. I don't recommend that to anyone by the way!

Fast forward two decades and I met Jan. He introduced me to different foods gradually...Mexican, Chinese, German...things I'd never tasted before. He's a terrific chef, by the way!!! I gained 50 pounds in our first couple of years together because I discovered that eating could be pleasurable and outdid myself!!! I never learned to moderate amounts and continued to eat too much at one time so I didn't have to eat regularly.

We went to Weight Watchers together. He lost 100 pounds and I lost my 50. I didn't think I would ever put it back on and told myself "if you gain 5 pounds, lose it before it becomes 10!". Obviously that didn't work out.

I love the kinds of foods I didn't have growing up. I love mac and cheese, cookies, donuts, ice cream, pizza, hamburgers with fries. I love soda with real sugar. My dislike for eating didn't change, but eating the things I loved in large amounts once a day (with a snack at night) got me right back to needing to lose 100 pounds. I don't like to eat meals. I like to eat when I'm hungry and curl up like a snake and hibernate! We called it "snake syndrome" around our house.

Diabetes came around for me because of bad genes and the way I ate..loading up on high carb things and not eating what was good for me. When Metformin started causing me to have horrible diarrhea, I started on insulin and found my wonderful life of eating once a day was manageable and that is how I ended up deluding myself that it was okay to be insulin dependent.

I looked back on all of that last night. I remembered it all. Now, I am trying to turn it all around at age 68. I have a tendency to be OCD about things. I have always gotten "stuck" with one craving or another. I realized last night that my OCD tendencies can actually work in my behalf if I make them HEALTHY ones rather than snake syndrome!

My biggest challenge is to eat regularly. I think it always will be. The goal is more important than the old habits. One of these mornings I'll wake up and actually look forward to breakfast!

Diet Calendar Entry for 18 February 2018:
1187 kcal Fat: 63.85g | Prot: 127.74g | Carb: 18.03g.   Breakfast: Boiled Egg, Boiled Egg. Lunch: Skinless Chicken Breast, Skinless Chicken Breast. Dinner: Chicken Breast, Chicken Breast, Tomatoes, Chop't Cucumber, Lettuce, Lettuce, Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing, Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing, Crystal Farms Shredded Cheddar Cheese. Snacks/Other: Popsicle (Sugar Free). more...

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Comments 
That's a real struggle. Thank you for your honesty and opening up in a public format like this. Each of our relationships with food is different and their is no one answer for all of us. We have to figure out what works best for our body. One thing that has helped me remember to eat, is to set timers. I was once a one big meal a day person too. My work schedule made it very difficult to stop and eat. I found easy snacks that enjoyed that were around 200 calories. Greek yogurt (I like the ones with the crunchy stuff on top), protein bars, almonds, fruit, etc. I would have ones that I could take with me and every 2-3 hours I would eat something. By the time I got home, I wasn't as hungry and would eat less for my "big meal." now, I regularly eat several times a day with out having to set timers for myself. I just try to stick to my calorie goal. Good luck with your journey. Don't be too hard on yourself. (: 
18 Feb 18 by member: CoachKitty
I'm OCD about measuring and weighing everything I eat and logging it. It is annoys me when I eat out that I have to make a best guess in my diet diary. I get quite obsessed about healthy eating too and avoiding junk food. I'm finding that to my advantage with my diet. I think it's a good idea of yours to try and turn your OCD into something positive 🙂 
18 Feb 18 by member: Doobrie
you had a busy night! putting all into words you can see that you are doing very well getting off 2 meds, working through the panic that came up with the changes...and you will continue..I'm really proud of you, what you are doing..working through the changes and actually eating more than once a day..I hope it will get easier...and someday you will ask me for breakfast...we'll both be healthier...458  
18 Feb 18 by member: janstromberg
Your very strong and with Jan by your side you'll succeed❤️ 
18 Feb 18 by member: 8Patty
Actually, One meal a day isn’t unhealthy for you. It’s perfectly fine if that’s all your body wants. It’s the food portions and choices that need to be moderated! LOL If you are insulin dependent or have been insulin resistant I suggest reading or listening to, “The Obesity Code,” by Dr. Jason Feng someone has loaded it on YouTube, or most libraries have copies.🤷🏻‍♀️ The way you described your mother’s cooking I could have sworn you were talking about mine! Salad was the only decent vegetable offering in our house and even that was iceberg lettuce! 🤦🏻‍♀️No fish! Or chicken, my dad hated them. No rice, same. Bread and butter on the table with every meal. Balloon bread (white!) but real butter! LOL creamed corn was a vegetable and slimy spinach from a can with vinegar! Uck! ( I stopped having to eat it the third time I threw it up!) 🤷🏻‍♀️ 
18 Feb 18 by member: smprowett
You can do this! Great idea to use your OCD as a tool to stay on track. 👍 I am 57, my husband 63 and his is the first time in both our lives that we are eating for our health and not solely because we like the taste of certain foods. We can do this now because we are retired, kids are grown, we live in another state, and we have the extra $ for good food and supplements. We both eat Keto, me more than him. Been eating this way since last October, both down 20 lbs, but more importantly, for me, is the pain from fibromylgia is way way down. So, being kind to yourself, value yourself, is actually the best thing you can do not just for yourself, but also your loved ones. You have all the answers and strength to make this change and be successful. Thank you for sharing your story, very inspirational.  
18 Feb 18 by member: Becc@

     
 

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