Compliance Project

[Idgie]

Thank you!

Today didn't go as well. I did great until my second blood-sugar crash of the day. Both times, I crashed after eating, which is so frustrating because eating is supposed to be what helps, but I got a combination of fear, bad judgment, and some kind of rationale that I probably haven't been eating enough calories, and I ate a lot of food for dinner. I mean, other than a small amount of oil and a small amount of mayo, it was all McD friendly, but it was a lot of food, more than I wanted or needed, and I was eating it out of fear.

I am not beating myself up about it. I am being kind to myself and letting myself be sad and scared about this hypoglycemia. Since I don't have diabetes, there is much less knowledge and advice out there about how to treat my condition. So I need to have faith that improving my health with McD eating will make things better in the long run, even if it's not a cure-all in the short term. I've also decided to go back to tracking food in my food tracker, and taking my blood sugar at regular intervals, so I can make sure I'm getting enough food and see if I can identify any triggers for the lows, which can be scary.

(It's rare to have hypoglycemia when you're not diabetic, but I had it as a child. It went away after puberty, and now that menopause has hit, it's back with a vengeance.)

Food today:
MWL B: sweet potato with mango salsa
McD S: salmas
MWL L: sweet potato with mango salsa; melon chunks
McD S (after 1st crash): pretzels and hummus; banana
MWL D: borscht
Off-plan binge (after 2nd crash): pecans, dates, radish cakes, veggie burgers, mayo

[Idgie]

Today I will start tracking all my food and my blood sugar numbers. I'm gonna do that on SparkPeople because it counts macronutrients, but I'll summarize here every day. I'm a little annoyed/sad that I have to deal with this hypoglycemia thing, but I can cope.

1: shredded wheat and almond milk
BG before eating: 91
Calories: 400
% calories from fat: 16
BG after 1 hour: 142
2 hours: 111

2: curry and barley
Before: 83
cal: 281
% fat: 19
1 hr: 100
3 hrs: 90

3: curry and barley
cal: 281
% fat: 19
1 hr: 95

4: can of veg soup
cal: 180
% fat: 0
2 hrs: 81

5: veg Chinese dinner (but I had a few bites of partner's non-veg food, so I don't count this day as compliant)
Before: 81
cal: 745
% fat: 22
1 hr: 129
2 hrs: 105

Not really enough info to see the trend, but we'll see how it goes for a week or two. And I could only estimate for dinner's numbers because we had restaurant food. That doesn't happen that often, so it shouldn't be a huge issue.

[Idgie]

1: shredded wheat and almond milk, cup of tea
before: 88
cal: 438
% fat: 12

[Idgie]

Felt really yucky all day. Thought to check my blood sugar after dinner, and it was 85. After eating! So I imagine it was lower still when I was feeling crappy. I need to give up the idea that I can just eat crap when I feel like it and all will be well.

I'm sad and frustrated, but I'm also determined.

To be clear, I'm not sad about eating yummy McDougall-compliant foods. I'm sad that my body is not being perfectly responsive to eating well, and that I have to think about this stuff all the time. I love the food. I'm just sad about being unwell. I'll be okay. The way I deal with stuff like this is to double down on my efforts to treat myself well, which means in this case that I"ve steamed a bunch of sweet potatoes and thrown away some crappy food I was keeping in the house.

[moonlight]

Idgie,
I so feel your frustration. You’re on the right track, keeping the good food prepared, eating it first usually takes the cravings away. My husband keeps non- compliant food in the house. It can be so hard d. The good news is once you get over the hurdle of resisting non-compliant foods for a while, is that it won’t be such a struggle. Hang in there. One potato at a time

[Mark Cooper]

A treacherous food environment can be SO challenging! Hang in there!

[bunsofaluminum]

How frustrating, your BG to be so low! But you're smart to keep track for a while and see what the trends are. Discover what's causing that plummet. Low blood sugar isn't a good feeling AT ALL.
The steamed sweet potatoes sound really good!

[moonlight]

Hey Idgie, hope you’re having a good day!

[Idgie]

Thanks, everyone! I'm doing much better on the food now that I decided not to cut myself any slack. I was sick for a couple days and I went to the doctor, who was impressed with my heart and blood sugar numbers, so there's that. Feeling a little better today. Partner has been making a pot of vegetable soup every time we run out, and that's a huge help to eating well. For lunches, I've mostly been eating brown rice and/or sweet potatoes, with some oil-free corn crackers thrown in there sometimes. Just had two bowls of veg soup for breakfast. I'm gonna try to go back to posting daily now that I'm feeling better.

[Idgie]

From my March weigh-in thread post:

Good morning, all! I'm weighing at 289 on the new scale. No idea how that compares with the old scale, so let's just call this a new start, since I can barely believe it's March already anyway! (You'd think after 50-plus of these short Februaries, I'd be used to it!)

My low weight was 276 on December 1st, and now it's 3 months later and I'm up 13 (roughly -- new scale) from that. I don't mind being fat, to be honest, but gaining weight is a good sign that I'm not eating well, because when I eat well, the weight just melts off. So this is a reminder to me to head in the other direction.

Morning BG: 98

Food today:
B: veg soup, cup of tea with half the sugar as usual -- weaning myself off sugar this week, and will go to no sugar next week. Not gonna tackle salt at this point
L (planned): brown rice and sweet potato
S (planned): brown rice and sweet potato
D (planned): partner is making more veg soup -- we're kinda living on the stuff lately, and that's fine with me!

[Idgie]

It's kind of embarrassing to have to keep putting Day 1 in the subject line, but I shouldn't be embarrassed -- it means I keep coming back to this and making the changes meal by meal, right?

Anyway, food for today (planned):

B: veg soup and tea
L: sweet potato and mango salsa
S: leftover McD-compliant pizza from yesterday
D: not sure what partner has planned, but it will be on-plan

Actual:
B:
L:
S: the pizza with a little non-compliant salad dressing
D: whole-wheat pasta with tomato sauce
S: off-plan (toast with butter and jam)

[Idgie]

Plan for today:

B: Oatmeal with fruit
L: Red lentil chili & brown rice
D: Partner will make dinner
S: Salmas and/or brown rice

Actual (I'm literally cringing as I post this):

B: Veggie burgers with mayo and fried onions
L:
D: (veg soup)
S: Oh, lord. Let's see. Salmas and brownies at work, and then at home a sandwich with mayo, toast with butter and jam

Okay, writing that out it's not as bad as I felt like it was in the moment. Better than spending all day eating burgers and fries. I can do this.

[bunsofaluminum]

It's wonderful that you have someone in your life making soup for you! <3 and I'm GLAD you post Day 1 over and over...you keep coming back, is right. And even so, your flubs aren't complete loss of control or anything. It isn't like you go away for a month and THEN come back to Day 1

Keep on going!

[Lyndzie]

Idgie, have you seen amandamechele’s journal? It’s a true source of inspiration. She started over more than once, and has had amazing success. You can, too!

[Idgie]

Thanks, all! Yes, I love Amy's journal! She's a trooper!

Plan for today is just to make it through one whole day without going off McD. Just one day, and not even MWL. I can do this! And then this weekend I'm going to prep lots of MWL foods -- sweet potatoes and brown rice, mainly, but also some raw veggies and soup.

Plan for today:

B: Soup and tea
L: Lentil chili and brown rice
D: Partner is making McD-compliant enchiladas
S: Salmas

Actual:

B:
L:
D: partner was sick. I had a big salad and a bunch of grapes
S: woke up with a blood sugar crash. Had some veg soup