I've worked out two days in a row. I'd like to say I've broken some kind of personal record in the recent weeks but, I always manage to get at least 2 days together. It's that third, fourth and fifth day that elude me. We'll see what is in store for tomorrow.
I have a Doctor's appointment in a week and a day. Nothing like that looming ahead on the calender to get your butt in gear for the mad dash to try and budge the scale at least a few pounds downward, especially if it has been about a month since you've seen her last.
I was diagnosed as a diabetic about 9 years ago. The very next day, my father died (ironically enough due to complications of diabetes). Let's just say I went all ostrich and buried my head in the sand for the next near decade. Oh sure, I came out a few times, tried to get my life back on track... the motivation would only last a month or so. The weight is so much harder to come off when you have Type 2 Diabetes, and while it is not impossible of a task, it was impossible for my mind set at the time. So, in to the sand my head would go again.
What brought my head out of the sand this time? Pain. I've always had nerve pain in my feet. For those of you who don't know me, well I would rather go into labor with another child than deal with this neuropathy in my feet. At least I know that labor would be over at some point. But with nerve pain, the burning, stinging, tingling, prickling, numbing fire that lays just beneath the surface of the skin is ever present and ever constant. I knew that my feet had been hurting worse over the last few months, worsening by the day. I also had no prescriptions for nerve pain medication because I hadn't seen a doctor in quite some time. So while going through some old boxes from when we moved to this house back in August, I found my blood testing kit. I took my blood sugar and it was 375.
I cried.
I've never had blood sugar that high, even when I was diagnosed. I cried because of how I had completely worsened my condition by not doing anything about it. By not realizing the seriousness of this disease, or by not caring how serious it is. I think you can go into a diabetic coma at 400. Heck, I don't even know! That's something I should know. Needless to say, I made an appointment the very next morning. (Beginning of April).
So in addition to an A1C of 9.6 (which is better than the 11.4 I tested at a decade before), I have teensy weensy high blood pressure. Too low levels of good cholesterol and too high levels of bad. No surprise or shocker there. My medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy. I remember as a kid and adolescent, looking into my parents medicine cabinet, and not finding normal things like Tylenol, Bandaids, Antibiotic Ointment ect, but pill after pill bottle of things I had no idea what they were for. It looked like a pharmacy. When we traveled, my parents always had a travel bag set aside for medications. And not a little one that you could fit into your purse or duffle bag but a bag of it's own to keep both their medications in. I wonder if my brain accepted this as normal and so now that I'm an adult, I have followed in that same path. My medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy.
I remember Dr. Hanna telling me I was a diabetic but that I was young enough I could manage it and most likely put it into remission. Like it was some sort of cancer only I had the power to heal myself of it. I wish I would have listened. Just add that to my list of regrets in life. Let's hope that I can get myself on track that at least the second half of my life will be healthier and longer than my first half.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
A year and a half? Really?
Sometimes I think that I only keep this blog around to visit every few years, change layouts, spiff it up, make promises that I'll never keep and then fade back into obscurity. It's weird to think that I was such an avid, dare I say, active online journalist back in the early 2000s (circa 2001-02). I look back to those old entries from my time spent at Diaryland and I can't believe that I ever had time to post something almost every single day! Of course, I was a lot more disciplined with my commitment to losing weight and only having 1 child at the time, and being a stay-at-home Mom might have contributed to my having more time back in the day.
Side note: I look at Diaryland now and all the journals that I used to read are defunct now. It seems that between 2003 and 2005 there was this mass exodus from the grandfather of free online diaries. Poor Andrew. Sadly, I just think he charged too much for his "gold" membership that were features given for free from Blogger and other online diaries at the time. Blogger seems to have held up pretty well through the years though and lucky for me, they don't delete journals that have owners who are all too willy-nilly with their consistency on when they put entries up.
But ANYWAY....
So I don't even know what to call what I'm doing right now. Maybe a desperate act of a last ditch effort to not go into my 40s being overweight. Or maybe I'm just trying to improve on my health that I have run into the ground for the last 8 years. Sometimes I still think that I haven't gotten it. That it hasn't clicked for me. That my goal should be health and not being slimmer. It's such a fine line to walk when the pursuit for a healthier life often leads you to the results of being slimmer. I think I tell myself all the time that I want to be healthier but in being honest with ya'll and myself, yeah, if I had to work really hard to improve my health but I would forever be this size? Not a real upside for me there.
And here is the part where you guys are going to want to strangle me. I have a man in my life and I want to look good for him. What? Did I just say that? As women we are so often taught we do not need men to validate us, we don't need men to have babies, we don't need men to provide for us, we don't even need men to take out the trash and lock the doors at night. The thought of trying to be slimmer for a man might just set women's liberation back 100 years. I am blessed and lucky that I have a man who loves me for who I am. He doesn't push me to lose the weight. He supports my efforts in being healthy but most of all he supports me in doing what it takes to just FEEL better in my own skin. I just want to love being in this body. Right now, my reality is that I just don't. It's created two wonderful children and well it's the body I have and I need to respect it and take better care of it. Is it so wrong if I add onto that a desire to look good for the man I love? I'm a very sexual being and frankly, I'm just not feeling it with the weight on. I'm just not at a point in my physical state that I can do all the things I want to do in the bed or out so, the options? Either complain about it, put myself down for STILL being fat or move on and just get with the program and surrender to the process no matter how hard it might be. I have to surrender to this process and the amount of time it is going to take.
Days are going to go by anyway, years are going to go by whether I want them to or not. I can either be doing something productive or I can be gaining 15 lbs. in 18 months. It's time to nip this in the bud.
Although I do have to say 15 lbs in 18 months is probably the slowest weight gain I've had in my entire life!
So, short term goal? I'm looking to be under 200 by the last weekend of October. That's when I see my guy again (it's a long distance relationship) and I think that's a good, reasonable goal. If not, I'll re-evaluate.
I've signed up for Lost It! which is a website that will track food and exercise and I'm looking to download an app on my phone that helps with meal planning and grocery shopping lists. I need all the help I can get. I plan to work out 6 days a week for the first 6 weeks. I'm working out to the first "The Biggest Loser" DVD they came out with after Season 2. (Yes, it has been sitting on the shelf that long. Don't judge.) At the end of this self-imposed boot camp in 6 weeks, I'll move on to something else but I just need to commit to this process for 6 weeks. That's my goal. 6 weeks.
In addition to this online journal, I have an organizing calendar date book that I'm going to be keeping track of everything. I'm not going to feel guilty or beat myself up if I don't post stuff here, as long as I'm still on track and keeping tabs in my date book. I won't be a slave to Blogger, but I do hope that it will offer me that place to reflect on my thoughts and maybe, should I gain a loyal reader or two, some accountability. Even that is a double edge sword. You post your life online and you honestly open yourself up to the opinions of people that don't have your best interests at heart. That can often be painful and non-productive.
I guess I won't know what this journey, this time, is going to be like. I'm curious to know, and a little bit scared. Scared I won't be successful again and maybe a bit scared I will.
Side note: I look at Diaryland now and all the journals that I used to read are defunct now. It seems that between 2003 and 2005 there was this mass exodus from the grandfather of free online diaries. Poor Andrew. Sadly, I just think he charged too much for his "gold" membership that were features given for free from Blogger and other online diaries at the time. Blogger seems to have held up pretty well through the years though and lucky for me, they don't delete journals that have owners who are all too willy-nilly with their consistency on when they put entries up.
But ANYWAY....
So I don't even know what to call what I'm doing right now. Maybe a desperate act of a last ditch effort to not go into my 40s being overweight. Or maybe I'm just trying to improve on my health that I have run into the ground for the last 8 years. Sometimes I still think that I haven't gotten it. That it hasn't clicked for me. That my goal should be health and not being slimmer. It's such a fine line to walk when the pursuit for a healthier life often leads you to the results of being slimmer. I think I tell myself all the time that I want to be healthier but in being honest with ya'll and myself, yeah, if I had to work really hard to improve my health but I would forever be this size? Not a real upside for me there.
And here is the part where you guys are going to want to strangle me. I have a man in my life and I want to look good for him. What? Did I just say that? As women we are so often taught we do not need men to validate us, we don't need men to have babies, we don't need men to provide for us, we don't even need men to take out the trash and lock the doors at night. The thought of trying to be slimmer for a man might just set women's liberation back 100 years. I am blessed and lucky that I have a man who loves me for who I am. He doesn't push me to lose the weight. He supports my efforts in being healthy but most of all he supports me in doing what it takes to just FEEL better in my own skin. I just want to love being in this body. Right now, my reality is that I just don't. It's created two wonderful children and well it's the body I have and I need to respect it and take better care of it. Is it so wrong if I add onto that a desire to look good for the man I love? I'm a very sexual being and frankly, I'm just not feeling it with the weight on. I'm just not at a point in my physical state that I can do all the things I want to do in the bed or out so, the options? Either complain about it, put myself down for STILL being fat or move on and just get with the program and surrender to the process no matter how hard it might be. I have to surrender to this process and the amount of time it is going to take.
Days are going to go by anyway, years are going to go by whether I want them to or not. I can either be doing something productive or I can be gaining 15 lbs. in 18 months. It's time to nip this in the bud.
Although I do have to say 15 lbs in 18 months is probably the slowest weight gain I've had in my entire life!
So, short term goal? I'm looking to be under 200 by the last weekend of October. That's when I see my guy again (it's a long distance relationship) and I think that's a good, reasonable goal. If not, I'll re-evaluate.
I've signed up for Lost It! which is a website that will track food and exercise and I'm looking to download an app on my phone that helps with meal planning and grocery shopping lists. I need all the help I can get. I plan to work out 6 days a week for the first 6 weeks. I'm working out to the first "The Biggest Loser" DVD they came out with after Season 2. (Yes, it has been sitting on the shelf that long. Don't judge.) At the end of this self-imposed boot camp in 6 weeks, I'll move on to something else but I just need to commit to this process for 6 weeks. That's my goal. 6 weeks.
In addition to this online journal, I have an organizing calendar date book that I'm going to be keeping track of everything. I'm not going to feel guilty or beat myself up if I don't post stuff here, as long as I'm still on track and keeping tabs in my date book. I won't be a slave to Blogger, but I do hope that it will offer me that place to reflect on my thoughts and maybe, should I gain a loyal reader or two, some accountability. Even that is a double edge sword. You post your life online and you honestly open yourself up to the opinions of people that don't have your best interests at heart. That can often be painful and non-productive.
I guess I won't know what this journey, this time, is going to be like. I'm curious to know, and a little bit scared. Scared I won't be successful again and maybe a bit scared I will.
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