Progress Report

I'm behind in posting. It's getting harder and harder to devote so much of my day to being healthy. I lobe feeling better and losing weight, don't get me wrong - but this lifestyle change takes up a LOT of my time and the longer it goes on, the more things get pushed to the side. Things like cleaning my house, working on my business ideas, even taking care of my family. Finding a balance is hard. This isn't news to any adult alive, I'm sure. I'm still working on that balancing act. (Has anyone actually got it figured out? Because if you do, SHARE WITH US. You could sell that formula and make a fortune.) In the meantime, I haven't given up! I'm not doing it perfectly; but then again, who amongst us is perfect? I just take a page from Cub Scouts, and from what we tell our kids almost every day - just Do Your Best.

Technically I'm in the middle of week four... in a nutshell, week three was making time for relaxation every day and making sure you get proper sleep. I have found it's really difficult, for me at least, to make time for relaxation! I want to just rush through it and GO GO GO on to the next thing on my to do list. I think that's kind of missing the point though. Anyone else have this same problem?
Week four is to add in exercise you enjoy. Ideally cardio, strength training, AND 30-60 minutes of stretching at least twice a week. This is another thing that's tough to fit into every day life. I know exercise should be a priority but I'm still working on that. More on that later.

As I muddle through all this, here's a progress report. (Past progress reports can be found here, for reference.)

Weight - 219
Waist Size - 46.25"
Blood Pressure - haven't tested since last time
BMI - my BMI is 35.3. I'm still obese!
Waist To Height Ratio - .69 (This website says "Take Action!") Dr. Hyman says "this number is a better predictor of diabesity, heart disease, and risk of death than almost any other number."
Hemoglobin A1C - haven't tested since last time
Cholesterol - haven't tested since last time


Insulin- my sugars were creeping a little higher than I liked; fine during the day but getting too high for my fasting. I have added in one shot, my Levemir (slow acting insulin). I am currently taking 25 units each night. My fasting is better - some days ok, some days too high. Daytime blood sugars have still been fine. I continue to monitor regularly.

PLEASE keep going down! I've only had one spike up since I started this, and though it was short-lived it was not a fun time.

I'm right on the cusp of my lowest weight in a long time. For the past several years I've made it down to this weight (219), but never made it past it. I used to go to TOPS - Take Off Pounds Sensibly. I went for about three years. I can't tell you how many times I hit this weight while I was going. I used to bounce regularly between 219 - 225 or so. The beginning of this year saw me at my highest weight EVER - 236.4. Ouch. I've lost 17.4 pounds this year. 10.4 of that has been since August, when I changed my diet drastically. I'm scared I'm going to have some sudden random weight gain and it'll be really discouraging. I really want to get past it forever and never see it again. I haven't been below this weight in at least five years! My daughter (my youngest child) will be six in three weeks. I was right around 220 when I delivered her. I know I lost weight after I had her; I think I got down to about 210 sometime in her first year, and then I went back up to around 220. I stayed in the upper 220's for most of her life, until this year when I crept into the mid-230's. When I GOT pregnant with her I weighed 190. So my intermediate goals kind of coincide with my pregnancies and deliveries... ultimately I'd like to get to at least 175 and then re-evaluate where I'm at. On the way there, my goals are kind of as follows:
218 - because I haven't seen it since Oksana was one or so (5 years ago)
210 - because I haven't seen it since the first year of Oksana's life (5.5 years ago)

190 - the weight I was when I got pregnant with Oksana (6.5 years ago)
180 - the weight I was when I got pregnant with Drake (8.75 years ago)
175 - the weight my doctor told me I needed to be before we should talk about me getting pregnant again (about 9 years ago)

170 is the lowest I recall ever being as an adult. That's where I was when I met my husband (9.25 years ago).

And we'll see what happens after that.

Other indicators of progress:

I can't really SEE it myself yet - despite losing 17.4 pounds this year, since I see myself every day, I don't think I look much different yet. However, I just saw a friend yesterday who hasn't seen me in 2-3 months and she complimented me and said she could definitely see it. And other friends have told me they can tell too. That's always nice to hear.

Clothes - yesterday I wore a pair of jeans that have always fit snugly on me. I could get into them but they were always really tight and never wanted to stay on my ass. They still kind of ride down a bit (I think that's just part of the cut of this particular pair of jeans) but I got into them with no struggle and they stayed on all day comfortably. Today I am wearing a pair of capris that are a size 16. They are a fairly elastic size 16 - I was able to wear them in the past when everything else was a size 18 - but I haven't been able to get into them in about a year. I haven't really noticed a difference as far as my shirts go yet, though I have noticed that most of the time when I look down, I don't see my belly sticking out past my boobs anymore. That's nice.
Current clothing sizes - shirts are still pretty much extra large. Pants are mostly a size 18.

Picture Time!

Me in March of this year, at our Cub Scouts Blue and Gold Dinner.

Me yesterday morning, helping to pack up books to send to a school in Africa so they can have a library. Those are the jeans I mentioned.

Me yesterday, holding a pipe wrench I brought to a friend's OMGWTFBBQ.

My Supplementation Plan

A few days ago I laid out the supplementation plan for week two from The Blood Sugar Solution. If you recall, I am on the advanced plan. I also have high cholesterol. For those playing along at home, that means he wants me to take:

1. Multivitamin
2. Vitamin D3
3. Omega-3 Fatty Acids
4. Magnesium Glycinate
5. Alpha Lipoic Acid
6. Chromium Polynicotinate
7. Biotin
8. Cinnamon
9. Green Tea Catechins
10. PGX (polyglycoplex; a super fiber)
11. Protein Powder (to add to a morning protein shake)
12. Probiotics
13. Acacia (heartwood extract) and hops extract
14. Fenugreek seed
15. Bitter melon gourd fruit extract
16. Gymnema leaf extract
17.  Red Rice Yeast
18. Plant Sterols

Hellooooo Nurse! That's a whole lot of stuff every day. Supplements aren't cheap either, and as we discussed previously, you have to do your due diligence to make sure you trust the source of your supplements or you might not be getting what you think you are getting. After checking into Dr. Hyman's available supplements, I learned it would cost me a good $350 a month to get all of it. It's going to be hard enough to work these into our monthly budget... $300+ is NOT going to work for us. Money's tight and while I am willing to put money into my health, there's only so much we can do. What did I do? I did what Virgos do best.

I made a list!

I wrote out a list of all the supplements I am supposed to take. Then I went shopping. I looked around at local stores. I looked into the brands available and tried my best to determine which sources would be most reliable. I checked prices locally and online. I asked my Facebook friends where they get their supplements and what sources they trust. I checked ingredients and did my best to find products that had as few unwanted additives as possible, and checked to make sure they were all gluten and dairy free. I looked for products that combined supplements on my list in the correct quantities, in an effort to purchase less items and take less pills per day.

In the end I decided to use Vitacost for my supplementation needs. Several of my health-conscious friends use them and have been very happy with the service. The prices are good. A friend works for them, has for several years, and she vouched for them as a company overall and as to the quality of their products.  So then I had to make ANOTHER list. They had several combo products with some overlap in products; I wanted to see which selections would net me the least amount of pills daily for the least amount of cash overall monthly, and still get me what I needed.

So I made a comparison chart.

In the end, they both worked out to the same number of pills daily... 26. Cost-wise it wasn't much different either, but one will save me about $10 a month overall. It'll add up so I went with that one. Currently we are budgeting $150 a month for supplements... less than half of what it would have cost me if I was buying directly through The Blood Sugar Solution. In the end I decided not to take cinnamon (I've read conflicting studies about its efficacy in diabetes, and I cook with it frequently anyway), the protein powder (because I'm not, as yet, drinking any shakes so it would be a moot point), and the acacia and hops - I don't even remember my reasoning on that one. I think I had some trouble tracking it down and at that point I was so damn tired of investigating all these supplements I just said 'these will do for now' and had at it.

Then I made yet ANOTHER list.

So then I placed my first order, set up automated shipping for future orders, and went out and bought a GIANT old-lady style weekly pill container. It's fun to be me. Above is my list of how many pills per day I'm supposed to take and when I'm supposed to take them. I only have to refer to this once a week, when I'm filling my old-lady pill container.

I got my shipment of supplements a couple days ago and am slowly working my way up to taking all of the pills. I'll let you know if anything weird happens. (Like last night, when I woke up in the middle of the night with CRAZY painful diarrhea. Possibly from increasing the fiber amount all the way to max? We'll see how today goes. Not making any supplement changes today to see how my body behaves!)

Step Out To STOP Diabetes

Click here to view my team page for Chicago's Step Out walk!

 If you read this blog with any regularity, you know I have diabetes, and you know I've struggled with a lot of health problems because of it over the past couple of years. Aside from my personal struggle, I have family members struggling with this disease. Friends. Friends' family members. It is scarily prevalent in our society today. We need drastic changes.

It is with this in mind that I am now inviting you to join me in my quest to prevent and cure diabetes once and for all. Chances are, you also know someone who has been affected by diabetes and you already know how important it is to stop this disease. By making a donation on my behalf, you will be helping the Association provide community-based education programs, protect the rights of people with diabetes and fund critical research for a cure.

If you are unable to make a donation at this time, you can still help. You can register to be a member of my team and join us on the walk. You can spread the word to your friends and family and ask them to help as well.

With your help, we will fight for a future where a parent does not have to hear that their child has diabetes. A future where an adult does not have to face the uncertain times ahead after receiving a diabetes diagnosis. A future where you and I will know that we had a part in making this possible.
I truly appreciate your support. Together we can Stop Diabetes! Thank you.

Week Two: The Blood Sugar Solution

"Nutritional supplements are an essential and effective part of diabesity treatment." - Dr. Mark Hyman

 Week Two of the plan is Optimize Metabolism with Nutritional Supplements. Dr. Hyman says "nutritional supplements are an ESSENTIAL and effective part of diabesity treatment" because "emerging scientific evidence has proven the importance of nutrients as essential helpers in our biochemistry and metabolism". He goes on to discuss how large-scale deficiencies of various nutrients have been well documents in our population. Obesity and malnutrition often go hand in hand, especially with our modern diets, because they sheer amounts of processed, sugary, high calorie, white foods are generally deficient when it comes to supplying nutrients... and they require vitamins and minerals to metabolize, further depleting our body's stores. He lists several additional reasons we are nutrient-deprived in this day and age.

His reasoning for recommending such a variety of supplements, and also his reason why studies into specific supplements often vary in results? "Nutrients work as a team. Broccoli is great for you and can help prevent and cure many diseases, but if all you are was broccoli, you would get sick and die. Nutrients work together to maintain the proper balance in your body."

He goes on to point out that while drugs are regulated, supplements are not. You might get cheap / poorly absorbed forms of the nutrient, or the dosage in the pill may not match the label, or it may have additives or allergens, and so on. He, OF COURSE, sells his own TRUSTED brands of supplements. It's all on his website. Go ahead and check it out; it'll cost hundreds of dollars each month to follow the plan. Bully for him. My advice is to do your own research and find supplements you can trust AND afford. Here's an article that discusses ways to make sure your supplements are safe, including looking for various certifications from some of the regulating agencies out there.

What supplements should you take?
If you are on the Basic Plan (and really, he recommends these for everyone, and to stay on these for life):

1. Multivitamin - will contain all the basic vitamins and minerals you need
2. Vitamin D3 - deficiency is epidemic; it influences more than 200 different genes that can prevent and treat diabetes and metabolic syndrome
3. Omega-3 Fatty Acids - improve insulin sensitivity, lower cholesterol, reduce inflammation, prevent blood clots, and lower the risk of heart attacks
4. Magnesium Glycinate - helps glucose enter the cells and turn those calories into energy for your body
5. Alpha Lipoic Acid - powerful antioxidant and mitochondrial booster that has been shown to reduce blood sugar and heal a toxic liver; may also prevent diabetic nerve damage and neuropathy; can improve clearance of glucose from the blood by 50 percent
6. Chromium Polynicotinate - important for proper sugar metabolism and insulin sensitivity; can help you make more insulin receptors
7. Biotin - enhance insulin sensitivity, lower triglycerides, reduce expression of cholesterol-producing genes, and improve glucose metabolism
8. Cinnamon - helpful in controlling blood sugar and improving insulin sensitivity
9. Green Tea Catechins - helpful in controlling blood sugar and improving insulin sensitivity; can increase fat burning and metabolism
10. PGX (polyglycoplex; a super fiber) - profound effects on insulin, glucose, and hemoglobim A1C; reduces the absorption of sugars and fats in your bloodstream and helps control appetite, weight loss, blood sugar, and cholesterol; can lower your insulin response after a meal by 50 percent
11. Protein Powder (to add to a morning protein shake) - rice, soy, hemp, pea, or chia - some are anti-inflammatory and support detoxification, can lower blood sugar and cholesterol.
12. Probiotics - to counter the damage modern life does to our gut ecosystem

He does note that it's perfectly acceptable, and even recommended, to find products that combine these items as long as they are high-quality and you are taking the recommended doses of each.

If you are on the Advanced Plan, you should take all the supplements listed above and also add these:

1. Acacia (heartwood extract) and hops extract - regulates critical signaling factors that control your genes, which have been clinically shown to improve insulin sensitivity and fat metabolism
2. Fenugreek seed - assists in insulin function and helps lower triglycerides and raise HDL cholesterol
3. Bitter melon gourd fruit extract - helps reduce blood sugar in diabetes
4. Gymnema leaf extract - lowers blood sugar levels and may help repair the pancreas

He recommends taking the Advanced Plan supplements for one year, then getting your blood tests redone, repeating the self-assessment quizzes, and evaluating your progress.

Finally, he has a section discussing even MORE supplements you can take if you have conditions frequently associated with diabesity, such as elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc.

This chapter of the book also discusses the intelligent use of prescribed medications. He cites a study called the Diabetes Prevention Program, which found that medication did not work nearly as well as lifestyle changes, and this effect lasted for even 10 years after the study ended. His goal is to use The Blood Sugar Solution to help patients (with their physician's guidance) reduce or even eliminate many of their prescribed medications, since many of them have limited benefits and significant risks.

The cheat sheet section for week two in the book.

So that's week two... supplements! In addition to following the food rules from week one, of course. As I mentioned yesterday, starting all of them at once gave me quite the stomach ache. I recommend adding them in slowly. I'm going to start adding in one a day... and if I feel any ill effects, hold steady until my body has time to get used to what I'm on, or possibly eliminate the ones I don't seem to be tolerating well.

OW MY PANCREAS

I was going to blog about week two's chapter in the book and the new requirements; largely, the vast amount of supplements he wants us to take.

Instead I will leave you with this advice:
When someone tells you to start taking a buttload of supplements... DON'T start taking them all at once. I don't care what he says. It's a major shock to the system. My entire digestive system is trying to crawl out of both ends of my body simultaneously. Stagger their start dates or something. Your body will thank me.

http://youtu.be/0vFVnTMwt3w

 ... For all the other 'go slow, reintroduce things slowly' type advice in this book, I'm really surprised he is totally gung-ho about having people shove all kinds of (likely) new substances down their throats all at once! How are you supposed to know which one you're having a reaction to, if indeed a reaction occurs? And even if NO reaction occurs... it's a pretty major systemic change.

I'm cutting them all out again until my stomach feels better and then I'll add them in one at a time, see what happens.

Major Off-Roading

I've kind of got a little bit of this going on right now. Or at least that's how I feel.

I've been pretty off my game the past week. I haven't journaled about my diet since last Thursday, and I've definitely been half-assing the diet in that week as well. Here's what's been going on:

For starters, I have a generalized anxiety disorder. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that in this blog or not. One of the positive things I HAVE noticed is that my anxiety seems much more controlled and lessened since I started this diet. That's pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it's not completely GONE. One of the areas I've always struggled is with achieving balance in life... balance in all my goals, mostly. If I spend too much time focusing on ONE goal I start to get anxious that the others aren't being achieved. In the past I would just get overanxious, shut down, and do NOTHING. I've learned through therapy to roll with the punches (or the mood swings, if you will) a little better though, and when I feel that anxiety start to come up I have gotten much better at shifting gears. That's kind of what happened last Friday. I was starting to get really anxious because I was focusing all my time on my diet and taking care of the family, and my house was falling into massive disarray. So I took Friday to chill out a bit and focus mostly on whipping the house back into shape. I stuck to the diet pretty faithfully, I just didn't blog or journal or make complicated meals (leftovers, yay). Unfortunately this carried over into some of the other days... with not being a HUGE fan of some of the foods I have to eat on this plan, it is hard for me to scrounge up foods on the fly right now. I'm still working on building up that repertoire of easy and satisfying freezer meals, snacks, quick foods, and foods on the go. Without having those resources in place, and with 33 years of bad-food eating habits in place, it's very easy to go backwards and grab things that aren't great for me.

Another challenge: yesterday was my birthday. YAY! We went out all day on Saturday to celebrate... we hit the Bristol Renaissance Faire (one of my favorite places) and then Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. I did OK on the diet but allowed a few small cheats to sneak through the cracks. Tuesday night I had a Partylites show / birthday party at my house, and mostly stuck to the diet but cheated with corn tortilla chips and a little cheese. (I also, in a moment of weakness, bought and ate a cupcake at Jewel when I was shopping for the party.) Yesterday, my actual birthday, a friend took me out to lunch and my family took me out to dinner. I cheated with corn chips again, a little cheese, and some barbecue sauce (mmm ribs). A few cheats here and there are definitely going to add up. Though I think overall I handled the birthday landmine fairly well.

A third challenge: we ran out of food money. Eating fresh, healthy foods IS expensive, and I don't have a good handle yet on some of my money-saving food ideas. I am working on learning:

• how to buy in smaller amounts so less produce goes to waste
• how to plan my recipes (which I'm still building up!) seasonally
• how to plan my meals so that I'm using ALL the ingredients I buy (for example, if I have a recipe that uses two stalks of celery, trying to plan a few more recipes in the next couple days that use the REST of that bunch of celery I bought)

I'm not quite there yet though. It's going to take time, and I recognize that, but in the meantime I am exceeding my food budget by quite a bit. I've been subsisting on $400 a month for our family of four. That's not cutting it anymore.  For processed foods, I could coupon quite a bit and get good deals and sometimes even free food. While fresh food coupons DO exist, they are rare. We already discussed changing the budget next month to allow more food money, but for this month (until the 15th, at least) I'm down to the 'scrounge in your pantry' stage. Which isn't working incredibly well overall. I got rid of most of the bad foods but there's still a few things lurking that I may have to delve into because I just won't have any other options until next payday. I'll do the best I can.

This leads me to another challenge: I do keep some foods in the house for my kids and husband. I am learning that some foods do not tempt me and other foods, unfortunately, DO. Things I have snuck bits of in the past week include ice cream, generic Cheetos, candy, and a Twinkie I filched from my mom's house. It's like logically I know these things are bad for me but before the logic center of my mind can process a strong rebuttal, my body is already going

and then it's too late. So this is another learning process... what treats I can and can't have for them in the house while I'm struggling through this. What I'm going to do about going to my mom's house I just don't know. It's pretty much a known fact that dieting 'willpower' is a myth. 

To attribute dieting success or failure to willpower, researchers say, is to ignore the complex interaction of brain chemicals, behavioral conditioning, hormones, heredity and the powerful influence of habits. Telling an overweight person to use willpower is, in many ways, like telling a clinically depressed person to ''snap out of it.''

 I'll just keep looking for ways to fight this war inside myself until I've managed to change my brain chemicals, conditioning, hormones, etc. as best I can.

So. Anyway. There's been some backsliding. I've noticed some health backsliding as well, some of the old symptoms coming back up, and I DO NOT WANT that. This is real life, and this is a HUGE process; I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I'm just going to pick myself up and get back on track. The Blood Sugar Solution book says:

Getting and staying healthy in our modern world is a heroic feat. It is a subversive and revolutionary act. We have to navigate dangerous food landscapes, resist carefully designed temptations at every turn, fight marketing that goes right after our primitive hard-wired survival impulses, and fend off food pushers, saboteurs, and a thousand distractions online, on television, and in other media.

A HEROIC FEAT. A A revolutionary act! I like that. I enjoy a good challenge. I started journaling again today, and I'm going to count today as the official start of Week Two... which I will blog about next time!