Weekly weigh-in and reflection

Hi everyone and Merry Christmas!  I hope that, if you celebrate this season, you were able to spend some time with your family and friends.  Sorry about not posting in a couple of days but the busyness of the holiday got the better of me.  That and the crazy on-going saga with my blood sugar.  But first, on to my weigh-in ...

Our Optifast clinic is closed right now for the holiday, so I have had to resort to my handy dandy scale at home.  The numbers are three pounds less than the clinic, so I always add those pounds any time I get on it.  So, for this past week, I lost two pounds.  I'm perfectly happy with that now that I'm fully back on food and exercising a lot more.  I never expected that the weight would drop off of me like it did when I was on the Optifast products.  Let's face it, we had about 500 calories a day on the shakes.  Even though I was in ketosis while doing it, anything compared to 500 calories seems like a lot of food!

In terms of how I've been doing back on the food, it has been a real struggle to maintain a healthy blood sugar level.  As you may recall from my last post, my blood sugar level dipped down to 38.  Then, the next several days, here's how low it got again:

• Friday, December 21st -87
• Saturday, December 22nd - 81
• Sunday, December 23rd - 54
• Monday, December 24th - 53
• Today - 59

Friday and Saturday weren't bad, but, according to all my materials from Kaiser, anything below 70 should be raised immediately.  I started really looking at all the paperwork I have accumulated over the years on what is the proper food plan for someone who has diabetes.  My issue had always been numbers that were too high, but now I really need to look at what is too low.  Comparing my current food plan with what I was given in the past, the number of starches I have been eating is way too low, so I really need to look at what is best for my health.  I do have an appointment with my primary care doctor in the middle of January and since the clinic is closed for a couple of weeks on the day I go to my class, I'm starting to do my homework and playing around with what works and what doesn't.  What I do know isn't working is having blood sugars in the 50's for the last few days and the 38 I had on Thursday night.  That just isn't okay.  In fact, today, I was in the kitchen making Christmas dinner and I snapped at my mom when she came in to see if she could help me.  I knew I was off if I was snapping at her.  I did apologize and told her what my blood sugar was.  Thankfully I bought some regular soda the other day to have in the house in case my blood sugar dipped again.  It has 41 carbs per serving versus the regular 0 carbs of the diet variety [as a side note, how crazy are people who drink this full-carb stuff on a regular basis??].  So I drank a little bit of that and kept testing until my blood sugar got normal.  The problem has been that not only have the numbers been low, but they've taken hours and hours to elevate, including today.  It's all so weird for me to have this experience, but I'm constantly checking my blood sugar levels, monitoring and adjusting as necessary.

Through all of this, I have been in pretty good spirits.  I got reminded in our sermon at church the other day that God never leaves me.  He is always right there to help me and, trust me, I have been calling on His grace a lot lately.  I'm putting one foot in front of the other and just remembering to breathe through all of this.  I continue to have pain in my legs and body, which I am also trying to work through.  I have great people caring for me, though, between my physical therapist and acupuncturist, as well as doctors.  I am also going to look into massage.  It may be a little expensive, but my health is worth it.  That's what I would easily say to friends going through the same thing, so the rules shouldn't be different for me.  I'm sitting in a lot of gratitude today for the blessings in my life.  I am managing to find them, even though all the medical stuff stresses me out at times, even though I'm feeling lonely because I'm not in relationship right now and whatever else causes me concern.  The truth is that I have so much to count as a blessing and I refuse to let anything stop me from continuing to reach for more.  On to my question of the day ...

Question of the Day
What am I doing to approach a healthy life differently than what I may have done before?

When I decided to go on Optifast, it wasn't an easy decision to come to.  It took months of looking at various options for me.  Do I go back to Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous, Jenny Craig and other weight loss programs that worked for me but ultimately didn't work for me?  I mean, I did get a lot out of each program and definitely pulled away some valuable things, but I still found myself super obese at the end of the day.  So, when I finally decided that Optifast was the direction I would go because of all the medical support I would receive, I lept forward and never looked back.  It has been a wonderful experience for me until medical issues dictated that I stop using the products and get back on regular food. Now, here I am living life on life's terms.  I am taking food into my body and exercising/expending calories out.  Being physically active has now become an ingrained part of my life.  I actually enjoy getting the exercise in, whether that is going for a long walk or hitting the gym. I have also somehow picked up other healthy habits, like I willingly park far away from the entrance to a store so that I can get a walk in.  I don't need to circle a parking lot five times to get the closest spot possible.  More than the physical stuff, though, is I know that recovery from the overeating I have done in my life requires searching deeper in my soul, finding out why it is I ate the way I did in the first place and being open and honest about that.  I can't just pray that I become a normal eater and then *poof* it happens.  It does take some effort on my part along with prayer.  And that is why I have this blog.  It's not only to reach out to others who may be going through the same things I am or to have support from other people, but it's for me to personally grow beyond the addiction to the food to a normal, healthy life.  That is my goal.  I never set in concentrating on a certain size on my clothes labels or number on the scale.  It was always, always about being healthy.  Trust me, when you haven't been healthy, it's a dream just to feel normal in that respect.  Living a healthy life is very important to me so I continue to strive to do the best I can, physically and emotionally, and I know it's a process that will never stop.  It may evolve over time, but it never stops.