Day 44 Tuesday

BP today: 144/80 (Yippee)

Hi,

How I have been handling this calorie counting is making me examine my whole life and style of living. I am having to admit that I usually do things my own way, which is not what the Lord counsels in His word. I am not exactly sure what to do about that, except to pray and ask for the Lord's help. I was going to go into a long explanation but, the truth is, I am run by my appetite. I live to eat and making the switch to eating to live is very hard for me.

I have made the changes recommended in "The 30 Day diabetes Cure."  I am not eating very much processed food, at all. I am eating more fresh organic veggies. I have not eaten much red meat. In fact, I was flabbergasted to discover that the "vegetarian smeller" is now operative. The "vegetarian smeller" is what I experienced about 20 years ago when I was a vegan for a span of about 4 years.


When you change what you eat, things begin to smell differently. The main difference is that the meat department in the grocery store now smells putrid and rotten to me as I walk by. I can smell the rotting flesh, because I have not been eating it. It is very bad and makes me walk quickly by because of the stench. But if I am in the habit of eating meat, then it does not even smell at all to me. And since making the change, I have not eaten but a very little red meat, I have not been able to find the grass fed beef so have not been eating much beef at all. I have tried a little "organic" beef, but it was pretty bad stuff. I recently cooked a pot roast that I had in the fridge for a long time, but that is the last of the beef I had on hand. And when I thought that I could just buy some "regular" beef, I could no longer stand the smell and walked away. I'll be going to Whole Foods on Friday with a friend and will see if I can stand the smell of grass fed beef. I kind of doubt it.

I have been eating mostly eggs, cheese, and tuna for my protein, with a little chicken, now and then. I tried a little salmon, which was OK but the bones kind of freak me out. I get cage free eggs, feta cheese, jack/colby mix, and canned tuna for salads, but only eat red meat occasionally and eat pork even less than that. I am eating more beans for filler, some mixed nuts from time to time, and counting calories. The end of the day is the hard part for me. It does not matter whether I start the day with breakfast, or not, when the end of the day comes around, I never seem to have enough calories left on the list, to satisfy my appetite and I pretty consistently go over the count my doctor wants me to meet. But I rarely go over, or even meet, the number that  my body burns each day -- according to my doctor's measure.

So, in essence, I am eating less calories than my body burns, but not as less as my doctor wants me to. And there is some "mechanism" in me that goes into high gear eating at the end of the day. It is not exactly the eating machine, but I would be hard pressed to explain the difference while it is happening. This much I know, the eating machine goes on all day long 24 hours a day and is Never Satisfied no matter what I put in my mouth.  The thing that is currently happening at night does get satisfied when I feed it. I'm thinking that that could possibly be "normal hunger" -- and maybe I should not worry about it so much. I am still usually (not always) eating less than my body burns and if the theory is correct, I should still lose some weight because of it.

I do sometimes have some whole grain, which I cook myself. Either my mixture of brown rice, wild rice, and flax seeds, or popcorn. But have finally figured out that I really only need to do that on days that I exercise and deplete the carb store in my body and brain. This week I did, one day, eat a whole spinach quiche and then a day or so later bought some Atkins chocolate coconut bars which are supposed to be "low carb", but have enough presence of mind not to do that kind of stuff very often, because I really am not able to control my consumption of them. Once I start, I may pause, but the next meal will be the same thing, until whatever it is gone. So if I just don't buy it, I don't have the problem.

I was glad to see my blood pressure is still improving, despite my calorie counts and flubs. That is kind of amazing to me. And I am seeing that each time I do my strength training, according to "The Fat Burning Machine" program, I am getting a little stronger. I have to modify the squats because of pain in my right knee, but I do them to the point the pain starts and then go back up. It is not very low, indeed, but I do them. The thing that is most amazing to me, because I have always been satisfied with the well defined muscles in my legs, is that the hardest exercise for me to do is the leg extensions. On the FX machine that I use I do my chest pulls and the pull down with my arms on the same settings and device as the leg extensions and have no problems doing them with my arms -- but it is nearly all I can do, to do 10 leg extensions with my legs. But I do them. At least I do not have to consider myself a complete wimp because of that.

I am drinking more water, but leave that to each day, to see how many, and don't really pay too much attention to the numbers for this. I just drink when I think of it without trying to force something artificial on myself.

So... that is where I am. I hope you are doing well.

Be back soon,

--Marcia