Dr. McDougall's Online Discussion Board

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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.

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!

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)

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.

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!

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!

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