As you all know, I haven't been doing very well since the Wildman Weekend. I've just been making exceptions all over the place to my Sweet Sixteen List: overeating, eating the wrong things, etc.
Yesterday, my downward spiral continued. I was working on deadline with a work project and couldn't leave the house. I didn't have any fresh healthy foods on hand. I hadn't stocked the pantry or fridge because I thought I'd be fasting, but I'm not fasting. Fasting can accelerate healing and weight loss for me, and it can also be like pressing the reset button for me when I'm doing badly. But I find myself simply unable so far to fast.
So I ate trout (of course since the freezer has been full of it). For my vegetable, I was going to pick some plantain weeds and cook them up, but I got busy (translate lazy) so I warmed up an old can of Campbell's vegetable beef soup with an old dented can of green beans added to it, and that was my pitiful excuse for a featured veggie of the day.
See? More exceptions to my Sweet Sixteen List. Like eating canned foods I would normally not touch. It seems when I bend the rules in one place, I bend them everywhere.
Later in the day, all I had on hand in my empty pantry was a can of Progresso chicken noodle soup, so I ate that and added (gasp!) canned commercial (translate GMO) corn to it.
Things are progresso-ing badly for me. Clearly.
For most people, I realize, this would be a good eating day. It's not like I was eating donuts and pizza. But I'm really trying to stay away from canned foods and GMO foods and non-organics. That is key to healing my gut biome and stabilizing my hormones and thyroid.
Plus, I could tell I wasn't eating "clean" because my ravenous hunger was back and I was having trouble resisting things that were even worse.
When I eat right (no processed or canned foods, tons of fresh organic veggies, healthy fats, small amounts of grassfed meats, sprouted nuts, seeds and legumes, etc.) I am not hungry.
When I eat right (no processed or canned foods, tons of fresh organic veggies, healthy fats, small amounts of grassfed meats, sprouted nuts, seeds and legumes, etc.) I am not hungry.
Now that I know my natural, healthy state is to eat healthy and be full and not feel hunger, hunger is now becoming a warning sign to me that something is not right. For awhile there, I wasn't feeling that ravenous, driving hunger. Til the Wildman Weekend and the exceptions to my Sweet Sixteen that followed me in the days afterwards.
You know what else I was doing wrong? I was out of my metformin for my diabetes and had been out for four days. I was also out of test strips and had no idea how high my blood sugars were getting. Not good at all.
The only thing I was doing right was eating trout.
Oh and I had begun trying out my new resistant starch regimen (4 tbsp of Bob's Red Mill unmodified potato starch in cold water once a day). It's supposed to feed your clostridia in your large intestine and cause butyrate production which reduces blood sugar, normalizes insulin and brings about weight loss, in addition to a host of other benefits. It also intensifies dreaming. If you don't dream, you'll start dreaming. If you already dream, you'll probably progress to lucid dreaming. (And I hadn't been remembering my dreams but a few days into the resistant starch routine, I was dreaming again).
But trout and resistant starch don't make up for ignoring my blood sugar meds, making homemade gourmet chocolate with organic sugar, and sin of all sins, eating canned processed soups and (gasp!) that fast food I ate the other day in town. The cardinal sin of omission, though, has been to not eat my platefuls of fresh cooked veggies.
Today, I told myself I wasn't going to eat til I went out to the store and got blood sugar meds, test strips and healthy food. So I did.
In the parking lot at the store, I tested my blood sugar. After 4 days without meds, it was only 137. I was surprised. I would have expected it to be in the 200s. But then again, I've been eating SUPER healthy for well over a month now, I've lost 25 pounds, and I've been avoiding all the hormone disrupting plastics, canned and processed foods for the most part (until the last few days).
At the store, I got grassfed London broil, organic grape tomatoes, avocado, onion, garlic, cucumber, Caesar salad in a bag with fake crabmeat to throw in (I know, it's my weakness), pineapple and papaya (to digest that London broil).
I had enough healthy food for 2-3 meals.
But no, I got home and I was ravenous. I ate the whole 16 oz London broil, the whole Caesar salad with the whole bag of crabmeat, all the grape tomatoes, and both avocados (with some onion and garlic) blended up into a guacamole. Only the cucumber, the papaya and the pineapple survived my rampage. I feel certain they will not last the night. I'm still working on deadline and I'll be up all night and I know I'll eat more.
What is going on with me?
Part of this is stress. There are some personal things going on in my life right now that are extremely devastating (something to do with some family members and a couple of friends who are in deep trouble). Part of this is falling off the wagon on Wildman Weekend (it's always been hard for me to transition from being bad to being good). Part of it is I've always been a binger when I'm upset. Part of it is I let myself get malnourished again when I let bad/unhealthy/trigger foods in my house and failed to keep the right foods available.
After eating all that food tonight, I checked my blood sugar again. It was 129. I still hadn't taken my blood sugar meds. In almost 5 days now.
That made me sit up and think.
Why aren't my blood sugars higher? I just ate a ton of food. I know most of it wasn't sugary, but just that massive amount of protein will turn into sugar in your bloodstream. It was mostly healthy food but waaaay too much food to not elevate my blood sugar more than this--especially when I haven't taken blood sugar meds in almost five days and I've eaten things like homemade chocolate bars with organic sugar.
Now, this is a puzzle.
It's either this resistant starch experiment I just started, or it's all the stuff I've been doing with my Sweet Sixteen List. Either way, something is changing in my body. If I could mess up like this and still have relatively normal blood sugars after a huge meal like that...something is very right in my body.
From all my research, I've been learning that insulin and blood sugar levels are the KEY to weight gain and weight loss--even if you're not yet diabetic. If you can keep your insulin levels low, you can keep your weight low.
The resistant starch (the Bob's Red Mill unmodified potato starch) is supposed to help with that, as is everything else I've been doing on my Sweet Sixteen List. Something (or all of it) is working.
I still haven't taken my metformin. It's been a few hours since I've eaten my huge meal. I just checked my blood sugars again. It's 94. Without blood sugar medicine. It only got slightly elevated after my huge meal and then within two hours went back down to normal. All by itself. Without metformin. Clearly, I am onto something.
I'm so encouraged. It's so motivating to see these low blood sugar levels. It makes me want to jump back on the wagon and try harder.
It's so wonderful to think that--in spite of my past week of not doing perfectly--I have made a huge turnaround in my health. Something inside of me is healing.
Dare I believe that somewhere, deep inside, my body is using the tools I've been giving it to repair itself?
Fasting would accelerate it, but I'm doing good even without the fasting. I think I will just relax and allow the fast to start when I am able to fast and not push it.
But in the meantime, I'm going to keep trying to do my best at doing the things I've been doing. I'm going to keep following my Sweet Sixteen List, keep giving my body tons of veggies and unmodified potato starch to feed my clostridia and keep them producing butyrate, and keep trying to incorporate the fasting then exercise.
I'm going to keep trying.
Something I'm doing is working.
Wow.
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