Food, food and more food

    (This is me at 11 years old.)


I am going to go off on a bit of a tangent here.  Sort of.    I was thinking about this last night and thought about how much I love blogging about food and healthy stuff and how much I hate talking about things like my health and my weight and my body. And I know the realities behind all these things...age, physical disabilities, lack of motivation to make a change...

  I spent the first half of my life clearly underweight. At 18 years old, I finally hit 100 pounds because I was pregnant. I had always been a skinny kid with the metabolism of a hummingbird. I could eat anybody under the table (the same way I drank them under it in later years). lol  In school, I went through the lunch line twice every day. I ate everything in sight. I was the kid the other kids hated because I LOVED vegetables of any kind, ate them all.  There was nothing I didn't like when it came to food. And because I ate so much other good stuff, I probably ate a little less of the not-so-good stuff, but it didn't matter really what I ate. My body burned it all like rocket fuel.

(Here I am at 27 years old.)

 After having a baby I wasn't really skinny anymore, but more of a decent weight. I weighed generally between 115 and 125 most all the time. This is a good weight for a  5' 1/2 inch young woman. I was healthy and active and life was good.  8 years later, I had surgery for cancerous in situ tumors in my uterus. They did a complete hysterectomy and took ovaries and all.  I was down for a while, and had to learn to live in a new body that had important parts missing.  I took HRT for a while, but stopped it as the side effects were too much.  I went the more holistic route, used wild yam cream for hot flashes, took extra vitamin E , etc. I survived.  But my body really took a hit. I started gaining weight and settled around 145-155. Which of course was huge, for me, but it was also something new and different. lol It was too much weight, but I somehow carried it off. I didn't look like a model, but I didn't look like a slob either.


 At  48,  I was in a catastrophic industrial accident that almost killed me.  I got hit by an 80,000 pound side lift fork truck and crushed into a wall. It fractured my hip, crushed my pelvis, ripped all the muscle away from my bones around my hips and pelvis, it miraculously  did not damage my kidneys.  I almost bled to death before they could get the bleeding stopped. I had 3 blood transfusions in 2 days. My blood pressure was 30/40  and they couldn't get it back up. I couldn't move my legs for a while and was scared I was paralyzed.

  I couldn't walk without a walker, crutches, cane for over a year. I slept in a hospital bed with an inflating and deflating mattress.   I was in physical therapy for 2 years.  I have saddle paralysis across my pelvis and I have joint problems and lumbar weakness and sacral root nerve damage, which means that I have little control over my bowels and bladder.  My hips and pelvic area are not straight or aligned like they should be, so there's all the implications of that.  (TMI ???)  lol

 Here's a head shot of me at about 52.  In 4 years, I had gained about 40 pounds.  I started, for the first time in my life, to try to lose weight.  Some of it would work for a little while (Atkins, Weight Watchers) but I would get discouraged or get sick from the weird eating habits or something. I would stop and just give up. I hated the way I felt a lot of the time, but not enough to really do anything  about it. I'm not sure what I thought  (think) I should do.  The one main thing is this: I cannot get enough exercise due to the physical disabilities.  I am not a big eater. I can eat or not eat, and the weight stays the same.  I am a healthy eater. Mostly. Doesn't make a difference.  My metabolism has stopped dead in it's tracks.

This is me now.  With my newest great nephew, Aiden Micheal.  As you can see, I'm big as a house. I stopped coloring my hair. I am an old woman.

 My joints are painful, I have osteoarthritis in them.  The extra weight I'm carrying makes it even worse. I have painful areas of bursitis as well.  These 2 things make it hard to get around. So, all the problems I already have are exacerbated by the fact that I can't move even more. It's a catch-22.


 A friend of mine in Florida (who doesn't really need to lose weight) started talking to me about a food plan she was doing called the Fast Metabolism Diet.  She says if you  follow it religiously, you can lose up to 20 pounds in 28 days.  It's all whole foods, organic whenever possible. That hooked me, because I am so tired of stupid eating plans like all bacon and no apples.  lol  This one is 3 phases, M-T, W-TH, and FRI-SAT-SUN. You eat certain foods on each phase and it is designed to jump start your metabolism. My friend says she feels like a million bucks since starting it.  Part of that is because she has to eat vegetables and fruits, something she rarely did. (Yeah..I don't get that either)  lol  Well, today is Friday, and I have been doing it since Monday, and I have lost 5 pounds.  Considering the fact that I have been on 7 days of  prednisone, I consider this nothing short of a miracle.  I am drinking lots of water, and abstaining from all wheat, corn, soy, dairy and sugar.  And caffeine.  I am eating lots of organic vegetables and fruits, lots of healthy lean meats and  went through a very minor detox from the sugar and caffeine. I am eating at least 5 times  a day.  I am doing some kind of exercise every other day. And I haven't been real diligent about that. (oops).

   Today is day 8.  I feel better. I haven't lost any more weight this weekend, but I didn't gain any either. I woke up this morning, promising myself that I will do a better job of the exercising, because my heel and knee are actually feeling better. I am on a new anti-inflammatory that is helping a LOT. The weekend eating in phase 3 of this diet is a lot more liberal and maybe that is why I didn't lose any more pounds. Others in the forum I joined say the same thing, and the old-timers  tell me that it's typical and not to worry, just stay on the plan.  And for today, I've decided to believe them.


 So...I don't know if I'll keep posting about this as it goes along, but it all goes according to plan, I'm sure I'll be so stoked I won't be able to contain myself.  lol  It is a 28 day plan, and then if you have more weight to lose, you just turn around and start it again. So I'll be on it for about 3 years.  LOL  (kidding).  I know that it takes 21 days to change a habit.  The habits I am having to change are not eating regularly, sugar and caffeine,  and more lean meats than fatty meats.  And more fruit. I didn't realize how little fruit I eat until I started this. We always have fruit...I just rarely eat it. Now I am eating healthy fruit 5 days out of the week.  Wow.

  Thanks for listening. It makes me feel better to put all this out there so I can look at it. 

  Bon Apetit !