All About Me in 28 Days (Day 27)

One of the things that I have enjoyed most about participating in this ‘meme’ is that there is a bit of a balance between the easy and fun things to write about and some of the tougher subjects to articulate.  On one post in particular (day 17, I believe), I forced myself to be brutally honest about a fear that I was facing that was holding me back.  I found the process quite cathartic.

But, this topic is eerily similar to that one.  My biggest fear and my biggest insecurity are almost two sides of the same coin, as it were.  While I am very insecure about the changes that are inevitably going to happen to my body as I continue to lose weight for my health.  My biggest fear is about the state of my health.

Oddly, my fears aren’t about what suffering that I would go through if my health were to deteriorate.  I worry because of my family.  What would happen to them?  Particularly, what would happen to my oldest son, the Aspie?  As much as I love and adore him, I know that he would struggle most with any change to the nuclear family unit.  Heck, I struggle to understand him sometimes.  How could I expect a hired caregiver to even want to understand, much less accept him?

How can I live with myself, knowing that they will suffer over something that I have carelessly chosen to do to myself?  I mean, get real, a car accident is one thing, but to choose to not be able to be truly present and active in your family because you dig the twinkies?  That’s ridiculous!

But, it almost happened to me.  On January 28, 2010, I got really bad blood work results back from my Doctor after my annual exam.  Really bad.  He told me that I wouldn’t live to see 50 years old at the rate I was going and that the last few years weren’t going to be much fun.  I was 42.

It was my wake up call.  I have several significant risk factors that are out of my control (heart disease, diabetes, malignant melanoma, breast and cervical cancer, and leukemia ALL run in my immediate family).  So with all of this going against me, I had to ask myself why on earth I wanted to heap more potential ruin upon my life.

So, the following day, I went on a sensible, doctor recommended diet that the doctor approved of on the SparkPeople website.  I was instructed to stay on it for one month and come back in with documentation about every bite that crossed my lips for that 30 days.

I did.  And I hadn’t lost an ounce on a balanced, 1200 calorie a day diet with beginner’s exercise.  I was very disappointed.  But, my doctor, undaunted, told me that the results only indicated that I was ‘metabolically resistant’ and that he would recommend a different plan to me that often worked well for patients who couldn’t lose on a conventional plan.

Low Carb Food Pyramid

That plan, which was a moderate low carb plan has worked like gangbusters!  I immdiately lost 50 lbs over the first 6 months!  I plateaued at that time (needing to increase my exercise, but failing to do so).  Over the holidays, I cheated about 20 lbs. worth and I am in the process of re-losing that amount so that I can move steadfastly toward my goals.

But, at least I know what works and what it takes to do it!  That’s good enough for me!