Types of Losses

Well, to get the sad news out of the way first...

My last remaining grandfather passed away last Monday. He'd been bedridden for close to a year now and had been ill for a week or so, so it wasn't entirely unexpected but it was still sad to lose him. It is especially hard on Mama, as it was her daddy and all of the girls in her family are daddy's girls. He was a remarkable man of God and I will miss him, though I am thankful to have had him in my life all these years and I'm happy to know that he is with his Heavenly Father at last!

In the midst of all the grief and sadness, I didn't really weigh myself or even really pay all that close attention to what I was eating. It started the Saturday before he passed when I drank my emotions from a bottle of Coke. I did choose low carb when we went out to eat later that day but the Coke...man, I hated that I let myself succumb. Then, the Sunday before he passed, I went to lunch with Daddy, who was feeling somewhat low due to his own health problems and I had another Coke...along with fried chicken strips (lowest carbs at Hardee's) and French fries. I didn't eat all my French fries, though, and I saved my cookie for later, so I called it good. Still wasn't thrilled with myself over the Coke, but I gave myself another pass.

Then Tuesday, I didn't go to work but I had to run an errand for my mother so I waited until close to lunch to go and then stopped by BK where I got the whopper jr. with onion rings...and a Coke. Foodwise, the whopper jr. and the onion rings are lower on the carb spectrum than other things but again with the Coke.

And then Wednesday night, we went to a different Hardee's prior to my grandfather's visitation and I got the chicken strip box again...and another Coke.

We had lunch at my aunt's house after the funeral Thursday and...you guessed it...I drank another Coke. I chose wisely from the food selections but couldn't/didn't stop myself from the Coke comfort.

But that was the last day of it. Not to say the grieving has ended, but giving myself a pass and claiming I'm "grief drinking" Coke is over. I'm not going to beat myself up over any of it but I also refuse to let myself sink back into that habit and use my grief as an excuse.

In the middle of all of that, though, my air conditioner went out and it took a week for the repairs to be completed. So my appetite at home was fairly dead. I didn't cook at all last week and fortunately, Mama cooked for me a couple of nights (visited them to "steal" some a/c)...she cooks low carb/low fat already so that wasn't an issue. Plus, I had the comfort of being with my parents a lot, so that helped me not stress/emotionally eat.

At any rate, I finally stepped on the scale again Saturday and to my shock and amazement, I had lost another three pounds. I brushed it off as water weight since my period had ended and the bloat was gone. But after three consistent weigh-ins, I'm calling it an actual loss. Not to mention the fact that the pants I'm wearing...my sized down pants that were a little snug the week before last are already getting a smidge loose on me. I do have one pair of sized down pants that are still a smidge snug but even they feel a little better than they had been when I first pulled them back out. So I don't know, y'all...this might actually all be working.

I am SO GLAD that I've been working on changing my mindset, though. In the past, I'm pretty sure I'd have let it all...the grief, the Coke slips...all of it...derail me entirely. But I haven't. I'm back to consistently healthy eating. I'm back to not routinely drinking Coke. I'm back to making myself move more, because, lets face it...I didn't move much at all last week between the 83-86 degree house and the fact that I wasn't at work most of the week. But I started back Saturday really pushing myself to keep moving. Keep active.

I'm thinking that I might go in for another A1C test in September to spot check and see how my actual glucose level is doing. I want to know if I'm actually on the right track for my health and not just for a little bit of weight loss. PLUS...I kind of want to walk into the doctor's office and step on the scale and say BOO-YA since I had no direction or any real sense of encouragement from him to even TRY to work on my weight and glucose levels. The more I think about it, the more I'm fairly certain he had already written me off as a lost cause and figured there wasn't any reason to try to educate or encourage me. He probably just assumes that the next time he sees me he'll be writing a prescriptions for metphormin (diabetic drug). Which makes me even more determined to beat this thing and get in his face about it before switching doctors. But since I'm nonconfrontational, I probably won't get up in his face about it. But if my A1C has come down at all the next time I go, I will smile smugly at him...and maybe give him a raised eyebrow. haha

I really am praying that the weight loss and the fact that I physically feel better 99% of the time is a sign that I'm on the right track though. Everything I'm doing right now feels sustainable, as in, I can see myself eating/drinking this way for the long haul. I also see other small changes that I need to make...exercising more, reducing sugar in smaller ways, drinking more water...that I feel, once I get in the habit, I can see it being permanent.

Speaking of permanent changes, though, one of the frustrations I ran into this week had to do with other people. So I've been keeping my facebook page updated with some of the bigger accomplishments...when I hit 25lbs lost in March and then the 10lbs I lost back at the first of July. When I downsized my clothes, etc. I'm not as full disclosure there as I am here, but I get excited by the accomplishments and leave a post about it. Well, more than one person asked me this week when they saw me in person "What are you doing to lose weight?" Of course I didn't go into the long explanation I simply told them "I'm low carbing it." Every time I said that, the person who asked responded with some variation of, "Oh, I tried that. It worked while I was doing it but I just couldn't give up (insert carb addiction here) and gained it all back." Effectively, they were telling me that I'm going to fail because they did. I know they were looking for a magic pill type answer and were disappointed when I gave them an answer they've heard before. But honestly, they should know by now that there is no magic cure for any type of weight loss. And by dismissing me and my hard work, they are contributing to the lifelong problem I've always fought with...carrying a sense of constant failure.

Of course I didn't come back at them and say, "Look, I'm doing whatever I have to do to stave of lancets and testing strips and amputated limbs and blindness." I just nodded sympathetically and commiserated with them about my struggle with Coke and then seethed about it later.

But here's the thing, folks...whatever you've tried and failed at, don't be a discouragement to someone else who is trying to do healthy things with their body. Whether or not they, too, fail doesn't matter. What matters is that we encourage each other in whatever we're striving for. Say something like, "Oh, I've had success with that," and just leave it at that. No need to add the "but I failed" with the implication that failure is a forgone conclusion for everyone.

And you know what? I might fail!! I'm realistic enough to know that life has a way of knocking us down. I mean, my financial goals got kicked in the teeth by an expensive a/c repair but I'm not giving that license to give up entirely. I'll just do the best I can with this new situation. And if I fail...truly fail...with reversing the prediabetes and gain all the weight back, I'll deal with that too. But I won't be dragging anyone else down with me.