Weight loss journey

I have been on a plateau with my weight loss for a while now.  The nutritionist that was helping me decided that she couldn't continue to help me and I was down and depressed.  I have now gotten the opportunity to work with a new dietician and she is so encouraging.  She told me that anyone who successfully loses weight at my size has those plateaus.  She said my body felt like I was starving it and was holding onto everything and it sometimes takes 6 months or more for it to adjust.  I have maintained the 80 lbs lost and that we are going to get motivated and started going forward again.  I am documenting my progress with myfitnesspal.com and I am putting the physical therapy that I have just finished into play.  So with the thought of going forward I am going to post some goals so I can stay accountable:

1.  I plan to track my blood sugars 2 or more times a day.
2.  I plan to keep track of my food and exercise everyday on myfitnesspal.com
3.  I plan to keep a more positive attitude about the future and that God is helping me through this journey.

I think I have fell in love with making lists lately(lol).  Anyway, this is just a little bit of what is going on and I am holding myself accountable with this blog.

Diabetes

I have been diagnosed as a diabetic since I was about 21 or 22 years old. In all that time I have never really had extremely high blood sugar readings. That was until recently. I have had some lower 200's but not the extremes of 300-500 like some folks do. My hemoglobin A1C has been in the normal to slightly abnormal range with the help of medication and I have felt pretty good for the last 10 years about my blood sugar readings.

Normal ranges for blood sugar are between 70-120 and for A1C levels 4-6

My A1C(which is measured every three months) averaged around 6.

Until earlier this year or was it at the end of last year. Anyway I had been swelling alot and I noticed on one of my diabetic medications that prolonged use could do that to you so I spoke with my doctor and we agreed (or rather he said ok your going to do it anyway) to take me off that medicatio and try something new. Well I didn't do well on any other medications before and the only things left for me to try were new medications like Byetta(which I tried)and insulin. I have a phobia about needles and they would both have to be injected. Byetta twice a day and insulin once. Well the logical choice would have been the insulin right. Well you know me I had to choose the Byetta first and I hated taking it. I felt weird and sick to my stomach all the time. I hated giving myself the shots because they left bruises that hurt for days. So with anything I take or don't want to take I become passive aggressive. I just didn't take it and my sugars got higher and higher. I was sleeping all the time. Thirsty, tired and irritable and that is just a few of the things that were happening.

I went to the doctor a while back and we decided(or rather he said I had no choice) that I would take the insulin. At first I hated the idea but then I realized it doesn't hurt like the Byetta. The needle on the pen is smaller and I only have to take it before I go to bed which works great for me so I can remember to take it at the same time everyday. So far my sleepiness has gone away and I am not thirsty all the time. My patience is a little thicker and I am still tired but I haven't gotten my blood sugars all the way to where they need to be.

I have told all of this to ask for this. I am just realizing what a dangerous state I have been in. My nutritionist Siri wants me to really keep up with this better and I am going to try. I want everyone to pray for me that I will take this more seriously and that I will try harder and that I will succeed in getting my blood sugar levels under control.

I haven't really thought about the consequences of this disease before. I was so young when I was diagnosed and it has been ok for so long that I have sort of pushed it to the back of my head. I am not wanting to live in fear but awareness.

Nutritionist Today

I have decided to shake my routine up and really get serious. I have been struggling along with my eating. It is so hard to start eating 4-5 times a day when you are used to eating one large meal and I couldn't face having to decided what to eat and how much to eat that many times a day. It was getting on my nerves. So I talked to my nutrionist today and we are doing psuedo meal replacement. I will be having breakfast(with actual breakfast food which I hardly ever eat) 1 slimfast shake, then 2 later on, and finally a lean cuisine for supper. This way all portion sizes are already there and all I have to do is do the plan. I feel I have to make a drastic change because I have so much weight to lose. I started at (gasp) 652 lbs. I have decided I have to be honest with me and everyone and I have to make changes immediately. Of course I lost 13lbs and I will weigh next Friday for the third time and hopefully will have lost more. This seems to be a daunting task because my metabolism is so slow due to infrequent eating and a thyroid problem. I used to go between 18-24 hours between meals and I have not eaten for 36 hours and I wasn't fasting then. It always seems harder to do without food when you are fasting. As long as I didn't eat I wasn't hungry. I would get fainty because I am a diabetic but not really hungry. Sis. Ruby fusses at me all the time to eat. She would call and wake me up some mornings before and demand I get up and eat. She is so funny. She bosses me as much as my mom does. I need to listen to these godly women who are counseling me and telling me things for my benefit. I'll let everyone know how I fare on the new diet.

Addendum to Butterfly

I can't believe it but all day the day I wrote the previous blog and ever since then I have come across butterflies. I don't know if they were always there or if God is putting them in my way to help me remember what I learned but it really is remarkable how something so small has such a big impact on you. I mean I was searching a discount catalog sight for bargains and out of the blue up popped a butterfly quilt. I was in kitchen not bed/bath section so this was really funny and then when I logged onto myspace a bumpersticker picture was flashing of a butterfly. How odd is that. I guess I will just have to thank God for reminding me and learn what I need to. I have a hard head and sometimes it takes me a while to get important life lessons. I pick up knowledge like trivia and that sort of thing really easily but important things take me a while to grasp. This journey(the weight loss one) has already brought me to and through so much. Some of the things I am learning are:

1. To love myself and to make myself as important as everyone else in my life(I feel really selfish doing this so this might take a while)
2. To listen to how God is leading me, this I am learning day by day
3. To appreciate what God has already given me and the opportunities he is putting before me
4. To pray in everything, I have a hard time praying for myself. I think most people would find this odd but I have learned to pray to God about my situation instead of always praying for everyone else and believing God knows what I want. I have learned He likes us to ask him for things. It shows we need Him.
5. To embrace the love He has for me, It is so hard for me to take compliments and to accept any help and I believe God is putting me in this place to show me that I can count on Him and that He will always take care of me. I feel like I have always been the one to take care of everyone and everything, any big sister knows how I feel, and now God is showing me who I can count on and I can count on Him and surprisingly my family, both natural and spiritual.
6. That sometimes the truth is right there staring you in the face and you are too wrapped up in everything going on around you to realize it.
7. I have learned that I have not been who I really am for a long time. My niece Rayvn has helped me remember who I always was because she is so much like me and I have decided I liked myself then and I want to recapture at least the good parts of me and start living again instead of existing.

Thank you for reading this diatribe(word I just learned the meaning of today, long discourse). I appreciate all who read this and I feel your prayers for me.

Family Christmas

Yesterday my family celebrated Christmas. The kids couldn't wait to open their presents and Jaxon started opening them up before everyone got there. I wanted to share my plan for yesterday. I talked to my mom and found out what was being served and then I planned what I would eat accordingly. My mom brought a plate to me and I ate in the livingroom with the kids playing while everyone else ate around the kitchen table. I know this didn't help in distancing myself from others but it helped me achieve my goal of not overeating. I ate mostly protein and vegetables and didn't eat potato salad or bread. I enjoyed a sugar free dessert and savored the taste of all the other food I allowed myself to eat. The only set back was when two of my sisters started eating dessert in front of me. I asked one of them to not bring anything else in and then the other one came in so I asked her to go back to the kitchen. No one really liked that I did that but I need to be true to myself and I couldn't handle the temptation of fudge and cake. I hope by this time next year I am able to walk around and enjoy being with my family without having to plan ahead but if not I will make it. I have to keep telling myself that I can win this fight with God's help.

Loneliness and Hope

I have made some interesting revelations about myself in the past week or so. I have made myself alone. I know that whole sentence sounds funny but I have. I have felt rejected so many times and instead of enduring that kind of hurt again I have withdrawn and not let anyone in. The weight has also been a way to withdraw or isolate. I have felt like ok if people are going to reject me I will give them a reason. I will be fat and then they will not like me because of that and not because I am bossy or not funny or too serious. I have used the pounds to put a wall up around my heart physically, mentally, and emotionally. All of this comes at an emotional time for me. November 16th was the two year anniversary of my best friend, Doug's death and December 11th was the 25th anniversary of my dad's death. I have to move past these things. Neither of these special men would want me to stay mired in the grief I feel for them this time of year. I have decided to celebrate their lives this year and to also enjoy this season of hope and love now more than ever before. I have to open up to people and writing this blog, though sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, has been a way to do that. I have known Krista for years now but we have never really talked or anything and Valerie I have known of for years also and I have never really talked to her either but somehow I have been able to open up to the two of you. I know other people will eventually read this and that's ok but I have allowed someone in and that feels like a major accomplishment right now. This past week has been horrible on my weight loss journey. I have let down in taking my blood sugar and I have not written any food in my food journal but I feel like I have grown a little because I have been dealing with the past and dealing with the reasons I have reached the weight I have.
I received a wonderful blessing in my nutritionist appointment yesterday. My nutritionist was joined by a personal trainer that works with her in helping people manage their weight and reach their goals. The personal trainer saw right through all the carefully developed facade of my outward appearance and saw how I was just covering up my hurt and pain and not letting myself be vulnerable and trusting. I almost started crying which I hate to do in public. My sister Chrissy did start crying and that made it worse for me. I have got to learn to feel my feelings. Sounds really odd doesn't it. To feel your feelings, what else can you do with them. I have become a master at covering them up and hiding what I really felt. I have dealt with anger and depression in the last couple of weeks and as the weight is coming off I have to deal with what got me to that place in the first place and that has been a difficult thing to do. Not dealing with my feelings has only gotten me to the place of having anxiety attacks and anxiety related seizures. As I deal with the feelings the anxiety has come over me but I know now that I will get through the anxiety attack and I will make it out the other side.

Food and My relationship to it

I have always had a love/hate relationship with food. I love how it tastes and makes me feel but I hate that it controls so much of my life. In talking with my nutrionist today I have to come up with ways to distract myself from food and to focus my energy on something else. I have had a difficult week with feeling bad and worrying about my sister. I know I shouldn't worry but that is on thing God has not removed from me so I just have to keep fighting on. I turn to food for comfort and for security. I need to turn more to God and I also need to find an outlet for those feelings and another way to sooth my nerves and ease my troubled mind. Blogging has become therapy for me. I know there are only a few people who read this blog but I think mostly this is for me and the help it s giving to me. If someone else gets something from this then I am happy but I know it has helped me to make progress and I hope I continue to.

Control

I sort of flipped out over the weekend. My whole time was spent obsessing about food. My nutritionist had given me guidelines to go by in choosing my daily food intake. She had also put down that she wanted me to eat up to 6 times a day. Most people would probably think who hoo I can eat six times a day. Not me, I was like I have to face eating and choosing what to eat and when to stop six times a day. I sort of freaked and ate way too much and then today when I talked to her we changed plans. I am going to work on being mindful about what I eat, I am going to try to change some of my bad habits and I am going to keep writing in my food diary and taking my blood sugars and working a little at a time. I felt it was a control issue. Having a meal plan meant someone was controlling what I was eating and I wasn't in control anymore. I know what I have been doing in the past hasn't worked but I am not ready to be on a diet anymore I want to change habits and make wise choices myself not do what someone else tells me to do. That to me is not changing me it's controlling me and I have to be in charge of what I eat. I figured out since I am in the wheelchair I have lost control of all other aspects of my life but the food part. I know in the past I have been too controlling in my life and I have had to learn to give control over to my family and to God but the one little area of my life I was still controlling was what I eat. My nutritionist was so understanding and she is letting me tell her how I need her support now. I know that control is a habit I have to break but I am not ready to do that yet. Maybe someday I will be able to let go completely and stop being a control freak. I know that the part of me that is compulsive and a perfectionist has to be addressed and dealt with. I know I have to deal with guilt and other things. I know with the support of my family, friends, and nutritionist but most of all God I can conquer the problems and learn how to control my being controlling. Funny huh!

Change- yourself and others

I have been doing alot of thinking and soul searching in the last few months. I have been trying to change myself. I truly believe we can change no one but ourselves. I have never understood people that start dating someone and then say I see so much potential in that other person and I know I can change them or make them better in some way. I have never felt I should be in a relationship with someone I want to change. God can change people but I don't want to be in a relationship with someone that I want God to change. I feel that people need to accept others for who they are warts and all and love them like they are. If you have fundamental differences with a person like religion or the way you want to raise your children or what you think is right in general then you don't need to be with that person even if you are already in love with them. Some say love is enough but I believe that after the first bloom of love there has to be respect and you have to have shared goals and dreams. This is coming from a single woman but I have watched so many people go into marriage and relationships thinking that if they would only change this or that that everything would be perfect and those tiny differences have ended up causing them to divorce. I hate to hear people say I don't know what happened, all of a sudden things were different. I think people see through rose colored glasses lots of time. I have been in relationships with people who I have had differences of religion and ethics with I have tried to make those relationships work only to realize I would have to give up to much of myself and what I believe in to make them work. I see so many people hurting because their spouse changed after they were married. I think alot of people go along with what they think the other person wants just to get them and then it's like I have them I can be myself now. I want God to put me together with the person he wants me to be with. I want God to send someone to me that believes the same way I do and has the same morals and ethics and basic compatibility with me that I need. I don't want another me I want someone to compliment me. And if it is God's will that I don't marry then I am fine with that. It has taken alot of changing myself to get to this point.