Healthy weight loss

The new lifestyle is still paying off!  I have lost five more pounds!  That's 25 pounds total, folks!  YES!

Ok, let's face it, that's just a start, I have a long ways to go and, anyway, weight loss is not my primary goal.  Being healthy is my goal.

So guess what? I'm feeling healthier too!  How about that?  My blood sugar readings have gone down, thank you very much. I'm moving around more easily, which is very important to me.

You know that tired old saying "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels?"  Pfft.  Because chocolate tastes pretty good.  Focusing on weight loss is not going to motivate me to eat right, it just isn't.  But the idea of not dying young, not incurring some life-threatening disease, yeah, THAT is motivation to skip the chocolate and sugar and meat.

I want to suggest again that everyone view the documentary called "Forks Over Knives".  I watched in on Hulu, for free.  It's available lots of places, just google it.  It's got a lot of facts and figures but lots of WOW moments, too.  Like seeing a man adopting the Forks Over Knives plan and being able to ditch all but one of the multiple medications he had been on.  Like the woman who had breast cancer and her doctor sent her home to die.  Then she found the doctors who advocate Forks Over Knives.  Years later, she is healthy and hale and cancer free. (I'm not saying FOK cured cancer. No.  It made her healthier, though)

And, the one that hit me closest to home was a young single mom who had been diagnosed with diabetes.  So, she was going to be on insulin. She had kids to raise. She was overweight.  A couple months on the FOK plan, her diabetes was under control, she had lost weight and she had energy and verve.  Yeah, that's what I want -- verve!!

Last year, my blood sugar reading was a smidge over the top number.  A smidge, like .1, that's all.  My doctor prescribed Metformin, which helps control blood sugar, and sent me to a diabetes educator.  She spent an hour and a half showing me all the dangers of diabetes and, over my objections, fitted me out with a blood sugar monitor, to be used twice a day.  WHY?  I'm .1 over the limit.  How about I try changing my diet first?  Welllll, it seems that when someone is obese (which I am) you're so much more likely to get diabetes, that's it's a good idea to just scare the hell out of you, slap you on meds and punish you with twice-daily bleedings.

I went with it for a few weeks.  My readings were uniformly regular, and right in the healthy range.  Imagine that.  Soon I was freaking out.  I would dread that stab in the finger, I don't really like seeing my own blood and if my  "numbers' were the least bit elevated I was panicking.

I was convinced they'd have me on insulin injections if I didn't toe the line.

In total frustration I went back to my doctor and told him I was stressing out.  He looked puzzled and said "You don't need to check your blood sugar daily.  I just wanted them to give you some information so you would be aware.  Stop taking your blood sugar readings if it's upsetting."

Oh boy.  Torn between anger and relief, I stopped doing the readings.  And I was pretty darned miffed at having went through that for weeks, for NOTHING.  Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing!

Since I started the FOK plan, I do occasionally pull out the blood sugar meter and check my levels.  They are lower than they were last year, of course, so that means they are very good.  My goal is that I can quit taking Metformin and just control this with diet and exercise.

I know some people really do need the daily blood tests, they do need insulin, they are in grave danger  if they do not control their diabetes.  But do we have to scare every overweight person with the specter of a lifetime of diabetes, even when they are not showing signs of diabetes -- other than being overweight?

When I visit my doctor, and I've done this for years, I explain to him that I realize I'm overweight, hell, I'm obese.  It's not a surprise to me.  I have had heart tests, my ticker is just fine.  I have high cholesterol, yes.  I have high blood pressure.  I am not dying, nor am I close to dying.  Both the cholesterol and the blood pressure are likely to be controlled through diet and exercise.  I'll take the meds for those problems, but if FOK can help me control those issues, I want off those drugs!

I had a hysterectomy a few years ago and my doctor warned me that my weight might impact my recovery from surgery.  What? How's that again?  The surgery was vaginal, so there would be no cutting through my layers of flab.  I don't have asthma or anything like that.  How would weight impact my  recovery.  He really didn't give me a good answer but he asserted:  That weight is gonna kill you!

He was sitting a foot away from me, in a rolling desk chair.  By the time I got done explaining to him just how offended I was by his weight-blaming, he was backed into a corner and saying "well, that's a good point" and casting desperate looks at my husband.  After the surgery, as soon as the doctor came to see me, I told him "And my weight didn't cause any problems, did it?"  He laughed and said no, it didn't.  HA! And I loved my doctor, he was gentle and my surgery was amazingly easy. He just follows the health community's "FAT IS A KILLER" line.

Don't assume all your problems can be measured in pounds.  If you want to lose weight, bully for you.  It's probably a wonderful idea.  But if you lose weight by eating unhealthy, processed foods, are you getting healthy or just putting bad food into a smaller body?  When you have tried those fad diets, have you kept the weight off?

Watch the documentary, think about what you REALLY want for your body, then make a decision to become a healthy person, who just so happens to lose weight and feel better all over!