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19 February 2018

It is amazing what my mind has done for so many years and not come up with "healthy".

When the doctor told me years ago that I had fatty liver and suggested altering my diet, etc., I told myself, "I'm not that heavy! How does he know my liver is fatty or not?". I dismissed it.

When the doctor told me my cholesterol and triglycerides were too high and I needed to change my diet, I told myself, "Ahhh...that's what pills are for! Why change my diet when I can take a little pill once a day?".

When my jeans were too tight, I started wearing sweatpants. I told myself, "It's cold in Alaska! Sweatpants are practical!"

When I got rid of the full length mirrors in the house, I told myself, "Those cheap mirrors are always distorted. That isn't what I really look like!".

When my chin started looking double, I told myself, "Ahh...bad genes! You are starting to look like your mother!" and quickly started wearing turtlenecks or mock turtle necks to hide it.

When I started looking ONLY at my eyes when I was putting on mascara; only at my brows when I was shaping them; only at my teeth when I was brushing them; only at my hair when I was doing it...I told myself, "Why look at your whole face when you're only dealing with part of it?".

When I refused to let anyone take a picture of me, that should have told me that I needed to do something about my weight. Instead, I just told myself, "Who needs a picture of me anyway? There is nothing special about me to commemorate!" rather than being honest with myself about WHY I didn't like to see myself in photos.

When a new doctor asked me how I felt about having gastric bypass, I told myself, "What? Me?".

Being honest with yourself is a MUST! I think I've finally learned that!

(2 comments)

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!

(6 comments)

17 February 2018

Wishing you all a great weekend!

I started really pushing myself on drinking water yesterday. The scale was down a pound today...finally! I weigh myself dressed for a couple of reasons.

1) I'm too lazy to take off my clothes to do it and it's cold in Alaska! :P

2) I know the scale will show a lower weight, but don't want to "fake myself out" by removing clothes.

That may sound really dumb, but I don't walk around naked in public so I might as well weigh in clothes.

I thought about doing a couple of things last night:

1) Using a smaller glass for water than my giant mug. I think I will feel more successful emptying out a smaller glass than looking at a huge mug with a pint of water daring me to drink it.

2) Changing my goals. I'm considering rather than showing I need to lose 80 pounds total, changing it to 5 pounds at a time. Again, like the water, emphasizing the small successes more often rather than looking at a huge goal to achieve.

I will definitely changing the water glass today, but I'll think about changing the goals a little more.

Any thoughts about goal changing to reflect small victories??

(12 comments)

17 February 2018

Weigh-in: 240.0 lb

lost so far: 1.0 lb

still to go: 60.0 lb

Diet followed reasonably well

(5 comments) losing 3.5 lb a week

16 February 2018

I thought about not journaling today and then thought better of it. If I don't write what I'm thinking, I will lose track of things. Being able to go back and read what I've written before helps me through the ups and downs of this journey.

So, yesterday was a "down" day. I felt like I was stuck and not getting anywhere.

Today, I went back and looked things over.

I have successfully gotten off two of my four diabetes meds! That's BIG!

I have lost 5 pounds in a month! That's BIG!

I have come through the raring head of panic/anxiety to regain some stability! That is BIG!

I still need to work on eating MORE. It sounds so stupid to say. It is a hard concept to wrap my head around...having to eat to lose weight. But, realizing it is BIG!

I am still working on drinking more water. Realizing I need to push myself to drink is BIG!

So, all in all, I have made some giant steps and that is positive!

I thank you all for being here to help me stay on track and keep "my eye on the prize".

(7 comments)

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