Today during the day was still hard, but sometime in the late afternoon it got easier. I am not really wanting the drinks I am allowed. I ate some clear broth soup at Panera tonight, didn't much like it - it was the only thing on the menu that fit into my plan. My calories each day run about 700, 50-100 grams carbs - never more than about 19 ingested at one time, little fiber. I intend to up my calories to 1000, but it's actually a bit hard because of my limited food choices. Today at noon I was walking the floor wanting something with protein, but I did not want the protein drink. I was thinking of the soup, but I knew I'd be eating soup at supper and didn't want the extra sodium. Then I remembered the low-sodium V8, had that with a squeezed lemon, and was ok.
Tonight my husband came home from his trip. He knows I'm doing something different, but I'll wait to explain it to him after her gets some rest. I'd planned to post my reasoning here today, but I've run out of time. At least it appears to be getting a little easier!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Day Three, Still Hard
I woke up after only 2 hours sleep, stayed up awhile and back to sleep, woke again at 11 AM. Restless, no doubt the diet change. I'm hungry, just feeling it in the pit of my stomach, a lot of the time. When I intake something, then my stomach calms down for a little while and then starts up again. This too shall pass. I am hoping tomorrow on my fourth day it won't be as hard.
I decided to add some V8 soups to my regimen, largely because I need something hot. I had a box of V8 broccoli soup today - all the soups have a lot of sodium, 1100 or so grams, and this soup has 6 grams of fiber, probably all the fiber I had today. It helped a great deal just to be able to eat something hot and with some flavor of vegetables. I'm not chewing gum or eating mints or any other external aids, and I've had no cokes since the start on Monday. So I'm getting used to a lot at once.
I have taken no Novolog at all since I started, and my Lantis has dropped 8 units a day. That's because I'm spreading a limited amount of carbs out over the day and usually ingesting only 12-15 at a time. Total loss in 4 days is 10 pounds, much of which has to be volume and water weight. It's still encouraging, a little sign from above perhaps.
I'm a bit cold, probably from low carbs. For the third day in a row I hauled in supplies - this time purchasing two cases of the Oh Yeah protein drinks to ensure I get close to 50 grams of protein a day. Also bought more V8 Fusion juice and Starbucks frapuccino light drinks and V8 soups. I'm supplied for at least a month - as far ahead as I want to commit at this time.
This is very hard, but not harder than I thought it would be. Tomorrow I will discuss why a chose this route.
I decided to add some V8 soups to my regimen, largely because I need something hot. I had a box of V8 broccoli soup today - all the soups have a lot of sodium, 1100 or so grams, and this soup has 6 grams of fiber, probably all the fiber I had today. It helped a great deal just to be able to eat something hot and with some flavor of vegetables. I'm not chewing gum or eating mints or any other external aids, and I've had no cokes since the start on Monday. So I'm getting used to a lot at once.
I have taken no Novolog at all since I started, and my Lantis has dropped 8 units a day. That's because I'm spreading a limited amount of carbs out over the day and usually ingesting only 12-15 at a time. Total loss in 4 days is 10 pounds, much of which has to be volume and water weight. It's still encouraging, a little sign from above perhaps.
I'm a bit cold, probably from low carbs. For the third day in a row I hauled in supplies - this time purchasing two cases of the Oh Yeah protein drinks to ensure I get close to 50 grams of protein a day. Also bought more V8 Fusion juice and Starbucks frapuccino light drinks and V8 soups. I'm supplied for at least a month - as far ahead as I want to commit at this time.
This is very hard, but not harder than I thought it would be. Tomorrow I will discuss why a chose this route.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The End of Day 2
Up at 4 AM with slightly low blood sugar, drank some V8 Fusion light juice and stayed up until 7:30 AM and then back to bed and slept until noon. The first thing I thought when I woke up was I'd passed some hungry hours safely - which means I'm serious, and this is formost on my mind. Still very hungry today but making it. Another less than 800 calorie day. I'm not deliberately keeping the calories quite that low, but I want to keep them under 1000.
I spent the day investigating the drinks I might drink and acquiring them - the new V8 Fusion Light drinks and the V8 Fusion juice + green tea drinks are delicious and low in calories. They have about 13 carbs, which is almost exactly the amount I want to put in my body every couple of hours. But no protein. I stopped by Walmart and a Vitamin Shoppe and purchased a few protein drinks - you can get a protein drink that is quite high in proteins and low in carbs that tastes pretty good but is a bit pricey at $2-4 a drink. As I get more experienced, I may mix protein powder into existing drinks. But right now I don't want to ingest anything that isn't really good tasting. I'm a beginner, so I need beginner baby steps.
The rest of my time was spent on improving my charting spreadsheet workbook. I now have it where it is tracking everything for each day, charting results, doing weight projections, looking at insulin trends, etc. with probably 5 minutes a day of input - no manual manipulation to speak of except to create a new spreadsheet tab each day. I have found in the past that this is very helpful in keeping me motivated.
In two days I've dropped 7 pounds - not all real weight of course. I was artificially high from eating too much salt on Sunday, and I've gone from 2500+ grams of salt a day to about 800. So there's been a big water dump. It's still encouraging. My worst case projection if I can stay under 1000 calories a day and burn 2500 calories according to my bodybugg is that it will take me about a year and a half to normalize. But my body has not been known to follow 'the rules', so we will see.
I was taking 20+ units of Novolog (short acting insulin) and 80 units of Lantis (long acting insuln) daily. That has dropped to no Novolog and 72 units of Lantis because of the restriction of my carbs to less than 100 grams a day. Can't be bad news.
I'm still very hungry - did I mention that? I drink something about every 1.5 to 2 hours, and somehow that holds me a bit longer. Tomorrow is another day.
I spent the day investigating the drinks I might drink and acquiring them - the new V8 Fusion Light drinks and the V8 Fusion juice + green tea drinks are delicious and low in calories. They have about 13 carbs, which is almost exactly the amount I want to put in my body every couple of hours. But no protein. I stopped by Walmart and a Vitamin Shoppe and purchased a few protein drinks - you can get a protein drink that is quite high in proteins and low in carbs that tastes pretty good but is a bit pricey at $2-4 a drink. As I get more experienced, I may mix protein powder into existing drinks. But right now I don't want to ingest anything that isn't really good tasting. I'm a beginner, so I need beginner baby steps.
The rest of my time was spent on improving my charting spreadsheet workbook. I now have it where it is tracking everything for each day, charting results, doing weight projections, looking at insulin trends, etc. with probably 5 minutes a day of input - no manual manipulation to speak of except to create a new spreadsheet tab each day. I have found in the past that this is very helpful in keeping me motivated.
In two days I've dropped 7 pounds - not all real weight of course. I was artificially high from eating too much salt on Sunday, and I've gone from 2500+ grams of salt a day to about 800. So there's been a big water dump. It's still encouraging. My worst case projection if I can stay under 1000 calories a day and burn 2500 calories according to my bodybugg is that it will take me about a year and a half to normalize. But my body has not been known to follow 'the rules', so we will see.
I was taking 20+ units of Novolog (short acting insulin) and 80 units of Lantis (long acting insuln) daily. That has dropped to no Novolog and 72 units of Lantis because of the restriction of my carbs to less than 100 grams a day. Can't be bad news.
I'm still very hungry - did I mention that? I drink something about every 1.5 to 2 hours, and somehow that holds me a bit longer. Tomorrow is another day.
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Long Road Back Day 1
It seems that on the net it is called fasting if you are just intaking liquids. This isn't fasting to me, I'm not sure what it is. But that's where I'm headed for two reasons: 1) to help my gastroparesis 2) to restrict my intake seriously and accurately. My idea is by restricting calories to just under 1000 with just a few drinks will enable me to spread my carbs out with small doses of 12-15 at a time, perfect for diabetes control. By only intaking a few foods, I can keep perfect records and thus know exactly how my body responds in terms of insulin control and weight loss. And by deemphasizing food, I will have a chance to turn away - to mourn the loss of food but welcome the gain of additional years of a joyful life.
So here's day one, much of which has been spent getting set up for record keeping and such. I keep charts and accurate records in Excel, and in the past they have been a great source of knowledge and inspiration to keep going. Today I spent some time setting myself up for a few months and getting some macros set up to automate most of the charting effort - plotting carbs, blood glucose, weight loss, etc.
As far as food intake goes, I have dribbled out 12-15 carb drinks all day long, so far up to about 400 calories and 60 carbs. I took my regular basal insulin dose but held off on fast-acting insulin even though my blood sugar was 140 when I got up this morning - I knew from past experience it would probably drop if I didn't intake more than 15 carbs in a wo hour period. And sure enough, it did drop gradually all the way to 95 even with a drink of something every couple of hours.
My first attempt at a protein powder was a bust! My friend Tim gave me a mixed drink of low-sodium V8, green tea, and protein powder last night. I tasted it last night and it was OK, but this morning it just looked like an unappealing lumpy mess. Tried adding some lime juice, no help. Perhaps I shouldn't have premixed it. I will try is again in a day or two. So I threw it out and just had V8 and lime juice instead, a regular drink I have. Later I had some Starbucks Frapuccino Light drinks - surprisingly low in carbs and very tasty slightly frozen (and very little caffeine), and I just tried a V7 Fusion green tea & mango drink that is quite delicious.
Bottom line: I'm a little hungry, a little cold, but getting pumped to do this. I ran a computer projection, and if I am able to keep the liquids to less than 1000 calories a day and keep my activity up to about 2500 calories a day as measured by my bodybugg, I could be out of morbid obesity in a year - maybe even close to a goal weight, though that seems an impossible dream. I've been down this road before with only limited success - but not with a willingness to go all in like this. I'm pretending I'm having a stomach bypass, LOL, or perhaps I'm in one of those expensive mountain clinics.. I am willing to trade the delights of food for a longer life. God help me to do it.
So here's day one, much of which has been spent getting set up for record keeping and such. I keep charts and accurate records in Excel, and in the past they have been a great source of knowledge and inspiration to keep going. Today I spent some time setting myself up for a few months and getting some macros set up to automate most of the charting effort - plotting carbs, blood glucose, weight loss, etc.
As far as food intake goes, I have dribbled out 12-15 carb drinks all day long, so far up to about 400 calories and 60 carbs. I took my regular basal insulin dose but held off on fast-acting insulin even though my blood sugar was 140 when I got up this morning - I knew from past experience it would probably drop if I didn't intake more than 15 carbs in a wo hour period. And sure enough, it did drop gradually all the way to 95 even with a drink of something every couple of hours.
My first attempt at a protein powder was a bust! My friend Tim gave me a mixed drink of low-sodium V8, green tea, and protein powder last night. I tasted it last night and it was OK, but this morning it just looked like an unappealing lumpy mess. Tried adding some lime juice, no help. Perhaps I shouldn't have premixed it. I will try is again in a day or two. So I threw it out and just had V8 and lime juice instead, a regular drink I have. Later I had some Starbucks Frapuccino Light drinks - surprisingly low in carbs and very tasty slightly frozen (and very little caffeine), and I just tried a V7 Fusion green tea & mango drink that is quite delicious.
Bottom line: I'm a little hungry, a little cold, but getting pumped to do this. I ran a computer projection, and if I am able to keep the liquids to less than 1000 calories a day and keep my activity up to about 2500 calories a day as measured by my bodybugg, I could be out of morbid obesity in a year - maybe even close to a goal weight, though that seems an impossible dream. I've been down this road before with only limited success - but not with a willingness to go all in like this. I'm pretending I'm having a stomach bypass, LOL, or perhaps I'm in one of those expensive mountain clinics.. I am willing to trade the delights of food for a longer life. God help me to do it.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
My Last Chance Journey
This is the story of my last chance journey to good health. I have no idea if this will be of interest to anyone - even me! - but I do know that I would like to have found such a blog as I've been searching for an answer to my problems. I am a happy 64-year-old woman who has much to be thankful for - a wonderful husband, no money worries, stimulating friends and interests, a comfortable home. But I've fought obesity since I was a baby and obesity has won over and over again. I've had brief success with Weight Watchers in my 20s and with South Beach in recent years. But mostly I've been obese, and I have a huge number of health problems - many of which could be eliminated or reduced in seriousness with the loss of 100 or so pounds.
South Beach is a wonderful program, and I lost 85 pounds on it a few years ago. I wasn't hungry, my health improved immediately, can't say enough nice things about it. But I am an extremely efficient body and very slow loser - it took over 3 years to lose that amount of weight, and it was easy to start putting it on again with increasing health problems. I will say that many of my South Beach friends do manage to keep some or even most of the weight lost off, and even I am not quite up to my original high weight.
But what has happened is the health problems have overwhelmed me, mainly the addition a year ago of gastroparesis. When I eat healthily - fiber, veggies, good fats, low glycemic carbs - I am nauseous most of the time. The doctor put me on a gastroparesis diet, which is everything you shouldn't eat to lose weight and as a diabetic (which I am): sugar, starch, mostly liquids. Thus far I have been able to eat most anything liquid if low in fiber, limited amounts of white bread, rice, and pasta, cheese, peanut butter, and tomato sauce. I would have eaten little of these things on South Beach, and as soon as I started eating them I started gaining weight. Now I am back up within 25 pounds of my highest weight and scared to death.
To get this out of the way, here are all the things wrong with me: diabetes (insulin-dependent as of May 2010, largerly caused by 10 years of being a type 2 diabetic and exacerbated by six months of the gastroparesis diet); high blood pressure (controlled with meds); high cholesterol (controlled with meds); fibromyalgia (for 35 years); carpal tunnel and ulnar tunnel problems with arms (improved with ART techniques of a physical therapist); moderate neuropathy in feet; gastric reflux (controlled by meds); arthritis (not too bad), osteoporosis, asthma, allergies (controlled by meds), heart stent. I take 16 medicines and refused gastroparsis medicine because of the black-box warning and potential dangers of taking it.
What has pushed me over the edge is the conflict between gastroparesis treatments and obesity and diabetes treatmments. I no longer know what to do. Incessant googling hasn't helped much either.
The reason I'm writing this blog is my obesity and associated problems is the one thing in my life that I haven't conquered. It seems to have been the impossible dream, and yet seemingly so simple. I simply do not understand WHY I cannot overcome obesity. I am a high achiever and disciplined person in other areas of my life - so why can't I do this? I will take the sadness that obesity has brought me to my grave as I feel I've shortchanged myself and my loved ones. I'd like to try one more time, and this is it. I will post starting tomorrow my last quest to good health, what I'm trying, and how it works.
South Beach is a wonderful program, and I lost 85 pounds on it a few years ago. I wasn't hungry, my health improved immediately, can't say enough nice things about it. But I am an extremely efficient body and very slow loser - it took over 3 years to lose that amount of weight, and it was easy to start putting it on again with increasing health problems. I will say that many of my South Beach friends do manage to keep some or even most of the weight lost off, and even I am not quite up to my original high weight.
But what has happened is the health problems have overwhelmed me, mainly the addition a year ago of gastroparesis. When I eat healthily - fiber, veggies, good fats, low glycemic carbs - I am nauseous most of the time. The doctor put me on a gastroparesis diet, which is everything you shouldn't eat to lose weight and as a diabetic (which I am): sugar, starch, mostly liquids. Thus far I have been able to eat most anything liquid if low in fiber, limited amounts of white bread, rice, and pasta, cheese, peanut butter, and tomato sauce. I would have eaten little of these things on South Beach, and as soon as I started eating them I started gaining weight. Now I am back up within 25 pounds of my highest weight and scared to death.
To get this out of the way, here are all the things wrong with me: diabetes (insulin-dependent as of May 2010, largerly caused by 10 years of being a type 2 diabetic and exacerbated by six months of the gastroparesis diet); high blood pressure (controlled with meds); high cholesterol (controlled with meds); fibromyalgia (for 35 years); carpal tunnel and ulnar tunnel problems with arms (improved with ART techniques of a physical therapist); moderate neuropathy in feet; gastric reflux (controlled by meds); arthritis (not too bad), osteoporosis, asthma, allergies (controlled by meds), heart stent. I take 16 medicines and refused gastroparsis medicine because of the black-box warning and potential dangers of taking it.
What has pushed me over the edge is the conflict between gastroparesis treatments and obesity and diabetes treatmments. I no longer know what to do. Incessant googling hasn't helped much either.
The reason I'm writing this blog is my obesity and associated problems is the one thing in my life that I haven't conquered. It seems to have been the impossible dream, and yet seemingly so simple. I simply do not understand WHY I cannot overcome obesity. I am a high achiever and disciplined person in other areas of my life - so why can't I do this? I will take the sadness that obesity has brought me to my grave as I feel I've shortchanged myself and my loved ones. I'd like to try one more time, and this is it. I will post starting tomorrow my last quest to good health, what I'm trying, and how it works.
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