The return of colors /
To toast, or not to toast
Last weekend I bought myself a couple of new t-shirts to celebrate the spring, which seems to be coming early this year. The shirts are identical, long-sleeved organic cotton t-shirts and they are a warm and vivid yellow-green color that I have loved for as long as I can remember. Actually, they're not quite identical – they're two different sizes, a medium (which is just a little too big) and a small (just a little too little).
Whenever I find something I really like, I like to get two of them, just in case one ends up with jam on the front, or mayonnaise, or ink, or some other irrevocable disaster. In this case, I got different sizes because I'm still entertaining hopes of being able to lose about the same amount of weight again that I've already lost, and if I do that, then the big one really won't fit anymore.
One can always dream, anyway. My "no sugar" experiment is going fine – I decided not to outlaw fruit this time, just to give myself access to the vitamins my nutritionist assures me are to be found therein, but I haven't been craving it so I haven't been eating that, either. I don't know if I've lost any weight yet though; I haven't weighed myself since I started, and anyway, our scale is horribly inaccurate. It gives a different number every time I get on it.
The point is, I'm feeling good and not craving sweets. I think I forgot to mention that I had another A1C at the beginning of February, and it did go up a bit – .7%, which is not bad, considering the freedom I gave myself over the holidays to eat pretty much whatever I wanted (though in smaller amounts than I wanted). Still, I want it to NEVER go up again. If anything, I want it to go down a little, or at least stay where it was. However, even with this latest little rise it's still safely in the non-diabetic range, so I'm not going to beat myself up too much.
It's worth noting that within the first week of my sugar fast I was getting morning numbers in the 80s again (down from the low 100s), and this morning it was 76, which may be the lowest it's ever been – so there's no question that skipping the sugar is doing me good. Although lower is not necessarily better after a point. That 76 gave me kind of a start, to tell you the truth. I haven't had any problems going too low so far, and the medication I take doesn't cause hypos, but that – that seemed pretty low to me. The problem being, that if it gets TOO low, your liver may kick in and send you shooting up high again. The goal as I understand it is to try to minimize the fluctuations – no super highs, no super lows. Limiting my carbs to 75 grams or less a day seems to be doing the trick.
So maybe Easter will come and go and I'll decide to just keep doing this indefinitely.
Today I am feeling extremely hormonal, though, and definitely wanting to eat lots and lots of sugar. Bread, actually; that's what I want. When I was on my trip last week I was sitting in this cafe with some friends and literally could not take my eyes off the thick crusty slice of warm buttered toast this woman at the next table kept lifting to her lips, absent-mindedly, as if to take a big crunchy deliciously satisfying bite ... and then ... not biting ... she was talking on the phone. Then she would put it back on the plate. Then pick it up again.
Staring at that toast I felt like a pious, raw-boned ascetic who'd been just innocently walking past a window, only to catch sight of a beautiful luscious young woman behind the curtains, with soft hair and moist pink lips, trying on lingerie ... I know I shouldn't even think about such things! It can only lead to trouble. And yet, knowing that I really am not going to order a plate of toast for myself, and knowing that on a deeper, and profoundly self-loving level I'm really okay with that – I've chosen that – because I know it's what's best for me – is it really so wrong if I peer through the window for just a few minutes, and take a little pleasure in another person's enjoyment of the thing I can't have?
Because the point is not to punish or deny myself – it's just the opposite! I'm trying to be good to myself. And if I did have some toast one day, even a whole plate of it – and I mean real homemade toast, with sesame seeds, butter and a golden, crunchy crust – that would not be the end of the world. Maybe after Easter I'll have some.
In the meantime: I'm happy with my new spring green t-shirts. For months I've been wearing my winter uniform of one pair of jeans, one pair of boots, various assorted black long underwear, and one sweater each in black, brown and gray. When I put on the t-shirt the other day it was like jumping into the pool for the first time in summer.
Another thing: A few weeks ago on a Saturday night I was wandering around the grocery store and happened upon a pair of young blond sister missionaries. I couldn't resist introducing myself, and we had a nice conversation (including the obligatory but still somehow good-natured inquiries as to why I stopped going to church – interesting how the culture allows such personal questions from two people I'd never seen before!) that lasted about 20 minutes. After I turned into another aisle to continue shopping I noticed a strange, tight feeling in my face ... and realized it was frozen in a Molly Mormon-type grin, a grin so wide – well, it couldn't have been any wider. I'd been grinning at them the entire time, as they had been grinning at me, and not that there's anything wrong with grinning like that ... but it struck me as funny, I'm just not in the habit of doing it anymore. I usually keep my face more just ... relaxed. Pleasant, I like to think. But not grinning.
I remember the first few weeks in my new office after I moved back to Utah from San Francisco in 1990, I really noticed it then, too. It seemed like everyone was smiling – smiling hard – for no apparent reason, all the time. It might not even be going too far to say they were almost grimacing.
"What do they want from me?" I remember growling (inwardly).
P.S. One more color: new lipstick, Dr. Hauschka #6 – Fortissimo, a bright, true red! Not really the most flattering color on me, but I love it anyway ... all the better for smiling at you with – or crunching down on a slice of hot buttered toast!
Whenever I find something I really like, I like to get two of them, just in case one ends up with jam on the front, or mayonnaise, or ink, or some other irrevocable disaster. In this case, I got different sizes because I'm still entertaining hopes of being able to lose about the same amount of weight again that I've already lost, and if I do that, then the big one really won't fit anymore.
One can always dream, anyway. My "no sugar" experiment is going fine – I decided not to outlaw fruit this time, just to give myself access to the vitamins my nutritionist assures me are to be found therein, but I haven't been craving it so I haven't been eating that, either. I don't know if I've lost any weight yet though; I haven't weighed myself since I started, and anyway, our scale is horribly inaccurate. It gives a different number every time I get on it.
The point is, I'm feeling good and not craving sweets. I think I forgot to mention that I had another A1C at the beginning of February, and it did go up a bit – .7%, which is not bad, considering the freedom I gave myself over the holidays to eat pretty much whatever I wanted (though in smaller amounts than I wanted). Still, I want it to NEVER go up again. If anything, I want it to go down a little, or at least stay where it was. However, even with this latest little rise it's still safely in the non-diabetic range, so I'm not going to beat myself up too much.
It's worth noting that within the first week of my sugar fast I was getting morning numbers in the 80s again (down from the low 100s), and this morning it was 76, which may be the lowest it's ever been – so there's no question that skipping the sugar is doing me good. Although lower is not necessarily better after a point. That 76 gave me kind of a start, to tell you the truth. I haven't had any problems going too low so far, and the medication I take doesn't cause hypos, but that – that seemed pretty low to me. The problem being, that if it gets TOO low, your liver may kick in and send you shooting up high again. The goal as I understand it is to try to minimize the fluctuations – no super highs, no super lows. Limiting my carbs to 75 grams or less a day seems to be doing the trick.
So maybe Easter will come and go and I'll decide to just keep doing this indefinitely.
Today I am feeling extremely hormonal, though, and definitely wanting to eat lots and lots of sugar. Bread, actually; that's what I want. When I was on my trip last week I was sitting in this cafe with some friends and literally could not take my eyes off the thick crusty slice of warm buttered toast this woman at the next table kept lifting to her lips, absent-mindedly, as if to take a big crunchy deliciously satisfying bite ... and then ... not biting ... she was talking on the phone. Then she would put it back on the plate. Then pick it up again.
Staring at that toast I felt like a pious, raw-boned ascetic who'd been just innocently walking past a window, only to catch sight of a beautiful luscious young woman behind the curtains, with soft hair and moist pink lips, trying on lingerie ... I know I shouldn't even think about such things! It can only lead to trouble. And yet, knowing that I really am not going to order a plate of toast for myself, and knowing that on a deeper, and profoundly self-loving level I'm really okay with that – I've chosen that – because I know it's what's best for me – is it really so wrong if I peer through the window for just a few minutes, and take a little pleasure in another person's enjoyment of the thing I can't have?
Because the point is not to punish or deny myself – it's just the opposite! I'm trying to be good to myself. And if I did have some toast one day, even a whole plate of it – and I mean real homemade toast, with sesame seeds, butter and a golden, crunchy crust – that would not be the end of the world. Maybe after Easter I'll have some.
In the meantime: I'm happy with my new spring green t-shirts. For months I've been wearing my winter uniform of one pair of jeans, one pair of boots, various assorted black long underwear, and one sweater each in black, brown and gray. When I put on the t-shirt the other day it was like jumping into the pool for the first time in summer.
Another thing: A few weeks ago on a Saturday night I was wandering around the grocery store and happened upon a pair of young blond sister missionaries. I couldn't resist introducing myself, and we had a nice conversation (including the obligatory but still somehow good-natured inquiries as to why I stopped going to church – interesting how the culture allows such personal questions from two people I'd never seen before!) that lasted about 20 minutes. After I turned into another aisle to continue shopping I noticed a strange, tight feeling in my face ... and realized it was frozen in a Molly Mormon-type grin, a grin so wide – well, it couldn't have been any wider. I'd been grinning at them the entire time, as they had been grinning at me, and not that there's anything wrong with grinning like that ... but it struck me as funny, I'm just not in the habit of doing it anymore. I usually keep my face more just ... relaxed. Pleasant, I like to think. But not grinning.
I remember the first few weeks in my new office after I moved back to Utah from San Francisco in 1990, I really noticed it then, too. It seemed like everyone was smiling – smiling hard – for no apparent reason, all the time. It might not even be going too far to say they were almost grimacing.
"What do they want from me?" I remember growling (inwardly).
P.S. One more color: new lipstick, Dr. Hauschka #6 – Fortissimo, a bright, true red! Not really the most flattering color on me, but I love it anyway ... all the better for smiling at you with – or crunching down on a slice of hot buttered toast!
Labels: diabetes
2 Comments:
hey, nice new design!
I love in that t-shirt color!
can you tell me about this dr. h??
I like the new banner, too.
And...I like toast (as you know!). You really, really, really do need to treat yourself to some high-quality buttered toast at some point very soon.
That's great, though, that going w/o sugar is not proving to be too much of a problem (all the more reason to reward yourself with some toast).
Also, when I was in Utah I noticed that grin you are talking about. After a while, it became a bit eerie seeing everyone walking around beaming all the time. One person in particular, the receptionist at our hotel (I still remember her name--Amber) was so smiley and pleasant I began to think of her as some kind of pod person!
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