Eating More Two…

My second round of blood tests came back.

Good news as far as cholesterol but no downward trending of my blood sugar.

I thought it odd.  My doctor friend, Terri, was flummoxed and I freaked when she sent me a couple of blogs spotlighting apparently healthy people with slightly elevated glucose levels and their holistic (or cranky) ways of dealing with it.

She said, “No freaking allowed.”

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No freaking allowed

She told me, “Think of it as a homeschooling research project.”

She persisted, “Become familiar with a few medical terms, bone up on human physiology …learn something new.”

I gradually climbed down from the window ledge,

“But please run it by me first before you choose to follow any of their suggestions,” she cautioned.

I eyed the ledge…

“Enough of what I think you should do,” she continued, “why don’t we pray and find out what God wants you to do.  Let’s ask if He can reveal what He is  showing you in all this…”

A good idea for a pair of Christians!

So we did.

I prayed as I folded myself into Yoga asanas,

I thought while I walked along the roadsides,

I meditated as I watched the cows chewing their cud,

Ruminants

I weighed myself at Daughts’ house…

“God’s showing me I need to eat more,” I told Terri, “or else those 17 mile an hour winds that have moved onto the lane are going to bowl me over!”

But what was safe to eat?

I could beef up on toast and marmite, potatoes with lashings of butter, pasta and French fries.

I could finish the Easter cake safely stashed in the freezer,

Dessert

inhale bowlfuls of salted caramel ice cream,

drink heavenly frapuccinos a couple of times a day and

finish off the cadbury chocolate eggs taunting me in the candy bowl,

I could pack on the pounds in no time but apparently that’s not the way to add mean, lean poundage to my lithe, fit frame.

“Continue with the healthy diet you’ve cultivated,” Terri advised, “just add a few extra meals.”

My stomach convulsed.

My body was happy with the way I was eating,

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Baked salmon, shrimp, cauliflower, ranch beans and a salad

but it was obviously expending more calories than I consumed.

I wasn’t going to cut out my walks because my heart needed the exercise.

I had to continue with Yoga because with all this worry about weight I needed its calming effects and the experts recommended it as a form of strength training and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat.

There was no getting round it, I had to up my one main meal a day to two or even three.

My stomach clenched!

I can’t imagine eating all day like my cow friends in the field.  I am way too busy to snack, snack, snack!

Give me a handful of nuts, some fruit and a cup of yogurt and I can go long hours without feeling hungry.  Piecemeal eating does not work for me.

I like the feeling of empty, I use it as a reliable indicator to eat. If I snack all day I run the risk of skipping meals or, in my case, my main meal.

And then it hit me during one of my ruminations…I think God is also showing me I am at odds with the quantity of food I eat.

For years it’s been like this:  quantity versus quality…and quantity wins every time.

I was in total control,

I had great will power and if the scales inched up, I cut back and skipped meals to drop a few pounds.

I substituted meat and two veg. for a glass of wine, a large salad for a Fry’s Chocolate Creme, a Sunday roast for a bagel and cream cheese.  I drank no milk because of the calories but ate scones with clotted cream and jam.  I fasted all day so I could splurge at the carvery and round the meal off with millefleurs, cheese and biscuits and expensive ports.

Although I ate lots of quality foods it was liberally mixed with sub quality fillers,

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Quality lost amidst the fillers

and because my high level of activity and fabulous (skin tight) genes expended all the energy I was ingesting I rarely overloaded the scales.

For ten months I’ve been eating to satiety following the same pattern as before, herbal tea for breakfast, a small lunch of fruit, whole nuts to snack on and a large evening meal.

But I’m beginning to see that no matter how I look at it a cup of greens does not equal the energy value of a cup of M&M’s.

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Shame!  How many cups of veggies or do I have to eat to balance that equation?

My stomach lurched.

I started slowly by adding some blue cheese in my lunchtime salad at school and sprinkling hemp hearts on cold brussels.

But in the evening there’s only so much food I can fit on my plate at one time.

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Full plate…pork on a bed of spring mix, black rice, peppers, tomatoes and cucumber, peas & corn sprinkled with hemp hearts.

Thank you Lord for showing me that I do need to practice what I preach and for ensuring that my children view my appetite as good,

“Mum, I love that you eat everything…” Ian said to me at Daughts’ wedding last year as I tucked into a scone with lemon curd.

They all eat super healthily, some even growing their own vegetables and salads.  They’ve introduced me to black rice and coconut oil, liquid aminos and vinegar with the mother included.

“Eat little and often, it’s good for the digestion,”  says Simon.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Daughts claims.

“I eat sushi now,” said PerriPoppins, “it’s nice and light and leaves plenty of room for Oreo lasagna!”

My mother commented during a stay at our house,

“Goodness, your children do nothing but eat…and it doesn’t seem to spoil their meals.”

I think I need to reach back and take a leaf out of their childhood books.

My homeschooling doctor friend, Terri, told me to carve out time to make Fat Bombs,

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Guacamole & Bacon Fat Bombs

and she’s right if I want to stay away from the pizza and beer!

Thank you Lord for saving me in so many awesome ways,

and thank you Terri for prompting this discernment.

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Terri F

2017-05-19 13:02:18 Reply

It really is crazy how much “more” we have to eat when we replace pizza with a salmon filet. Fries with spinach. Wine with water. I guess for most of us, this is a good change and helps our weight. But for a small group of others, whew, the amount of food that needs chewed is way bigger than before! I told someone fighting bladder cancer that she needed 6-8 cups of greens/cruiciferous veggies every day; peas routinely; citrus; sunflower seeds; Brazil nuts; good tomato sauce and so on—things with nutrients found to be beneficial in bladder cancer. She’s a thin woman (always has been), and she said, “I just can’t eat that much food!” It was a challenge for her and we talked about how she’d sometimes just have to eat when she wasn’t hungry. (Not something routinely recommended!) Her cancer did great. I think, now, her challenge is the falling back to less nutritious foods and patterns since things are going well health-wise. Anyhow, I have confidence your sugars will come down as less “fast-acting” carbs are consumed over the next year or two and the blood sugar control mechanism gets itself re-regulated after years of dealing with foods which give fast bursts of glucose with no fiber to buffer. Take care!

    Vivienne

    2017-05-19 15:18:50 Reply

    Thanks Terri! It’s fun to know that I no longer have to ‘watch’ what I eat since all I eat now is good and healthy…a mindset that may take a while but will be well worth it! No more taking this bod for granted, time for some tlc. Never too late! Be blessed.

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