Showing posts with label battle. Show all posts

soda addiction

There is some good conversation going on over here at Snack Girl (who I follow by the way).

Why Quitting Diet Coke Is A Good Idea & Some Suggestions For How To Do It

I never thought I’d do this

I never thought I’d do this.

I have to say… I was not this person.

When I heard people say, “Oh Equal is poison, you really shouldn’t use it!” I thought, “Yeah, whatever! If there is a problem with this stuff it will happen to me because I use so much of it.” And went haughtily on my merry way. Because honestly, if I listen to everything everyone says I would live in a bubble on air. The one issue with the internet is that there is so much information and much of it is contradictory. We need to learn to find information that resonates as true and be willing to vet the sources to confirm our facts. Remember the old warning “Anything that sounds too good to be true probably is.” (try teaching that to kids who start using the internet and are viewing these clever marketing ads tempting them to give information to win a non-existent prize.

I am going off on a tangent there.

I was saying that I’m not this person. I was the “I will eat what I want, when I want and as much as I want person. “ I didn’t ration myself or try to limit food. I tried to eat protein with sugar so I didn’t get a headache, but still.

I don’t exercise, I eat what I want, I have poor sleep habits.

It does catch up with you.

Perhaps pain and discomfort are the only thing some of us will listen to. I joke that God often needs a 2x4 to get my attention. Not because He needs to yell at me but because I force Him to that point. I keep pushing back and God cares enough to ride it out with me. (Thank you God!)

So… why am I changing?

I had headaches every single day.
I was on 2 asthma medications that were giving me bad side effects. (Including a 25lb weight gain and thrush. If you don’t know what thrush is; count yourself fortunate.)
I have no actual energy but I am hyper all the time.
I can’t focus.
I’m fat. I was OK with this for a long time, but my weight hit a point where I was now physically uncomfortable. Sitting in a restaurant, just being… I was aware of the weight and I was uncomfortable. So that got my attention.
Ultimately, this systemic candida outbreak was the clincher for me. As I read about it, I am overwhelmed by the information and the steps necessary to kill this tiny replicating demon. It is subversive and evil. However, the symptoms are bad enough that I was finally willing to make some of the bigger changes.

SUGAR

I’ve talked about what I’m giving up. Some of the changes I’ve made.

· Less sugar, lowering the amount in my coffee.

· Drinking more water.

· Going on supplements.

· Stopping soda.

· No longer drinking sugary drinks.

· No dessert and candy.

My life that sounds miserable when I look back.

I don’t feel miserable though! I feel excited.

I’ve made these changes slowly over a year. Taking on one thing at a time (sometimes several things, but I find that leads to failure pretty quickly). It’s been a one step forward, half a step back, 2 steps forward, 2 steps back… and so on. But at the end of this past year, I’m in a better place than I was and I’m only counting the progress.

a little progress

Why is it that progress makes me lazy!??

As soon as I lose some weight or get some good results, my first thought is, "Sigh, well now I can splurge a little because I accomplished something!"

I realize this is part of the problem that got me here; to my unhealthy and overweight self. I need to learn a new way of "celebration" that feels like a reward! A friend of mine was cute; I weighed in on Tuesday and lost 3.7 lbs -- insert image of me jumping up and down (you'll have to use your imagination though because you'll not see that as a gif!). She wanted to reward my hard work, but didn't want to sabotage my progress, so she gave me...

a small tube of toothpaste.

It made me smile!

I've been seriously watching the sugar intake. Down to 1 white sugar/day and have pretty much (still) stopped soda and now I've added dessert, candy, the ubiquitous deep fried evil that is called d o n u t s. I've not partaken in peanut m&ms or the various other candy stashed around our offices. I'm quite proud of myself! I am feeling better and I want more of this.

Now to kick the lazy reaction of success and let it be a motivator to try harder and see what else I can accomplish!

Do you do the same thing? Do you have a habit of rewarding yourself with food and what have you used as a substitution for that?

(on a side note: I think spellcheck has perhaps made us all lazy about spelling. I'm old school and still feel the need to type every word in full in IM's and texts. I will occassionally use "U" instead of "you" but it does irk me. I want everything properly capitalized etc. So I challenge myself on my spelling. I'm happy to report (because I know you are waiting so axiously to hear) that this post had no mispellings!)

failure

I'm getting frustrated because I don't seem to be able to commit to a new lifestyle.
I've made some progress. Things I never really thought I could change and I'm trying really hard to hold on to that! (very little dairy, no soda, less sugar, better snacks...at least most of the time) I give myself a round of applause for that.

I keep seeing people post online about their new distributor status where they're selling some health product (I notice a lot of protein shakes!) and they've either helped someone loose weight and here's a picture of how great they look (before and after pics of course) or how they just lost 5 lbs or 8 lbs and how they love eating healthy and how this snack of a handful of blueberries is so yummy. (I'm sorry, but still, a handful of blueberries is NOT satisfying to me.)

I had to stop following those links because it's depressing me. I don't know if I'm failing or if my journey is just that different. I kind of already know it's both. Not completely on the failure part, I have made some progress; just not enough. I'm just not motivated enough.

So this is the part where God might give me a little shove in the right direction because I've prayed for Him to help me be motivated. And that shove might be some kind of medical issue that basically requires I exercise -- shudder.

I just know exercise is the answer and yet I don't want to do it. I find it boring and I just plain don't want to do it! Yes, I know how juvenile that sounds and realize that at some point I am going to have to lift my lovely yet large derriere off the chair and go move it around. I wish there was some breakthrough I could have (other than perhaps a large 2x4 hitting me to get my attention) that would put me in the right frame of mind for such activity.

I guess I keep on trying.

journey...and a battle

I’m not a lifelong dieter. Now, if you could see me (and my weight) you might think to yourself “duh” but there it is. I’ve always believed that dieting doesn’t work. If you are fair, you will agree with me because all those dieters just keep going on and off diets and end up with 3 sets of clothing depending on the size they are today. I have actually stayed mostly the same size for my adult life.

I was thinner before my first child. Gave birth and within a year was down a size lower than I started. No diet. Just youth and a part time waitressing gig that I think worked off all the weight. (sigh) I looked good. So good that I got pregnant again. I’m still trying to lose the baby weight. The joke is that my second child is 12 years old.

I have steadily added some pounds over the past several years. About 25 lbs. That is a scary number. I believe it is due partially to age and partially to the addition of steroids to control asthma. Those things are killer! I managed to get off the steroids (with the help of the magnificent Kaci-acupuncturist and herbologist) and lost 15 of those lbs. I’m going to be brave here and tell you what I weight. 209! For a short person, I carry it reasonably well (I stick with a large bust being a distraction), but still that’s way too high. (another DUH)

So dieting doesn’t work. Life change does. So I am trying to do life change. Not easy. (Maybe I should name this entry DUH.) I have always just eaten what I wanted to. I never thought I was an emotional eater or had an eating disorder or anything like that. I was a PMS eater, but hey, who is going to mess with a woman with PMS and her chocolate?

So on this journey of what feels like denial… All. The. Time! I’ve learned some things about myself.

I am an emotional eater.

I have used food to reward myself for a very long time. I’m grateful I’m not heavier than I am. I’ve learned that I am a broken person. Perhaps more broken than I realized or maybe just broken differently than I realized. I have a very lonely marriage and I am now seeing that I fill that loneliness with sugar. So far, it’s worked pretty good. Sugar makes me happy. But aging, I’m seeing that I’m tired all the time. I don’t feel good, all the time. I have a headache, all the time. And as I search for ways to combat this, it turns out everything is connected.

PCOS, Candida, Adrenal Fatigue, Mood Disorder, PMS, Thyroid Issues, Tiredness, Headaches, High Triglycerides, Allergies, Asthma

I could go on. They are all caused by each other. They are all the effects of each other. And guess what! They all are made worse by sugar and diet.

This is quite honestly overwhelming. I didn’t realize how much I love sugar. How dependent on it I am. Emotionally and physically. It seems like I can’t overcome this. Not that I’m going to give up, it’s just each step I make never seems enough. At some point I am going to have to make some bigger commitments. I keep wanting to bargain with myself.

I realized the other day when I was trying to have a “fast” from sugar I suddenly thought about just eating whatever I wanted and it was a desire to really binge and I thought… wow! Where did that come from? I’m not really a binger (more a steady streamer). My heart just breaks for people who live like that and are constantly struggling with binging food. It also scared me because I certainly don’t want to be in a position where I enter another problem with food. That’s just what I need.

So, just sharing what this journey is like. I found a website about a woman’s plan for removing candida and she said something encouraging. About how she felt deprived for the first 6 months but is now feeling joyful and alive. The problem is looking past the step I’m on. I am a researcher, but when I research the people all say that you practically have to give up every food I eat, that even peanuts aren’t good for you or broccoli if it hasn’t been grown properly and it all just freaks me out and I think – I’m just not willing to live that way.

Yes, you hear growing hysteria in that last sentence. So I come back and focus on today and this hour and what step I’m on. What can I do now?

It’s not just a journey…it’s a battle.

Kicking & Screaming My Way to Health