It's been years since I've gotten through the Christmas season without being in some level of flare up. I usually get validation in the form of a speckled ANA and 80-90 SED in January or February and wind up on prednisone for a week to knock it back down. I've been doing this so long that I can feel about where I'm at day to day, and in order to avoid an ER trip at Christmas over a solid face plant from doing way too much, I have learned to readjust my days accordingly, slowing down more or letting go of something on the list, until I'm nearly down to a crawl, but still functioning.
I've spent a few Christmases completely nonfunctional and unable to even smile and get dressed without being a huge drag on everyone, so it was easier to hide in my house and cry and try to sleep through everything I was missing. I felt too ill to get into a car to go lay on someone else's couch, and I couldn't be nice on the phone if someone was handing me a million dollars. It's very hard to juggle all the extra social expectations on top of the extra demanding physical expectations the holidays bring. Yes, I've done it all- parent president of high school marching band, a variety of fundraisers, as much school support as I could handle while still working, and eventually had to bail on this and that until I was finally just missing everything. I followed all my doctors' instructions, including handfuls of pills, but nothing replaces rest, nutrition, and common sense. During holidays, all three of those fly right out the window.
Most of surviving holidays in flare up is about balance. People think they have to fulfill social obligations. I realized over time that other people would be shocked if they were asked to be supportive of social obligations if it meant risking their lives. Every time I go into flare up, I am risking my life when I do too much and start crashing. I have lived for years with flare ups, and they don't necessarily kill a person outright, but they do cause harm in the form of wear and tear on tissues, and a person must spend quality time rebuilding that shredded tissue if they want to live a good life. Inflammation from a flare up is hard on blood vessels, the lymph system, major organs (especially kidneys and eyes), and can affect the brain to the point of making terrible mistakes in traffic, and we all know how immediately life threatening that is.
Several big things happen in our bodies to keep our balance. Hormones regulate everything 24/7, special organs continually assess chemical and nutrient levels and send reports to the brain, and the constant feedback is how we stay in a good rhythm every day. We sleep, get up, eat, get busy, eat some more, enjoy something, and go back to sleep. When we get out of rhythm we don't feel well and get jet lagged and cranky. People who live with chronic illness of any kind get bumped out of rhythm very easily, the reports to the brain get a little frantic, the brain reacts with attempts to adjust this and adjust that, but when something isn't working very well to begin with, all kinds readjustment attempts can bump into each other, cascade into a mess, and then snowball out of control. Hormones and chemical levels on blood work look more like a first year programmer failing an exam than an experienced machine that evolved over millennia.
Someone with lupus and diabetes, like me, might feel really good one day. It's the holidays! This is fun! We go on an extra shopping trip, miss a meal, grab food on the fly, stay up late with friends, don't sleep well, feel gross and eat all wrong the next day, push ourselves to keep up, shove extra coffee into our systems, take extra pain pills, and before you know it, a couple of weeks of mistakes have crescendoed into the nasty realization that we are way off course and the only way to fix what's happening in our bodies is to stop everything right now and get back on track, or even get emergency medical intervention. Being exposed to flu or strep on top of all this can result in hospitalization for some spoonies. What a dismal way to spend Christmas.
I have learned to do a 'controlled burn' and a 'controlled crash'.
A controlled burn is like knowing you're going to wreck your day, so you pack for contingencies. I take a lunch box with my own food when I go shopping. I limit myself to only so many hours of activity and then GO HOME. I've noticed 4 hours is about my max, and assume the rest of the day is screwed, I don't try to cook or clean after I get home. If I'm stuck in and out of a car longer than 6 hours, I know I'm going to crash hard so I pre-plan my medication safety net. The key to pills is knowing they do not fix anything and don't give me super powers. They are a bandaid meant to transport me more comfortably to the end of my day, they are not meant to 'cure' or make my problems nonexistent. I have dearly paid for abusing medication to keep stubbornly plowing through life, and I'm on full disability now. I would have been smarter to let go of a few things on my list.
A controlled crash is more of a long-term plan. My holiday stress starts in November and goes for at least 8 weeks through New Year's. After that I'm pretty much in crisis and need intervention. If there were no holidays, the changing weather alone would still impact my life, so I can't just blame holidays. But because there are holidays, I know I'm going to destroy myself, and I know it could get really expensive and depressing to clean all the mess up with doctors and then being stuck at home. So since I know this, I can control just how messy it gets. I can keep plowing stubbornly through, or I can map out a plan with contingencies and loop counters for smaller fails. I can let go of lots of little things and make executive decisions to control my blood sugar and my fatigue level, or I can cast my cares to the wind and spelunk straight into hellish misery and subsequent regret.
We hear people addressing depression and self harm in the form of cutting and whatnot, but we don't hear a lot about depression and freaking ourselves out with blood sugar spikes in the 300s when we reach for the comfort food other people take for granted. And then, if we have autoimmune responses, the inflammation that a glucose spike causes can trigger a flare up, and here it comes, the joint pain, the aching all over, the nasty headache, the difficulty moving around and sleeping and keeping up. And then comes the regret or self pity while our brain chemicals freak out and depression knocks us flat. And then comes over medicating or drinking, waking up with either way too high or way too low glucose levels but we're too depressed and late for work to check, and then comes a nasty morning traffic accident. I know of two morning traffic deaths in the last year directly related to blood sugar levels, both of which left orphaned kids behind. That was NOT a controlled crash. Yeah, now you see what I mean by controlled crash.
Everybody's got something at Christmas. Some people have cancer, some have funerals to go to, some are homeless, whatever. It's normal to go through depression at holidays and feel bad, but we must realize that sooner or later, everyone goes through a really bad Christmas. Or several. My mom was airlifted to a hospital on Christmas day one year. One of my children was in a hospital several hundred miles away on another Christmas having emergency surgery. Other Christmases I've been too ill to shop or wrap presents. So before we start our controlled crash and burn plans, the first thing we must embrace is that part of the PLAN is to plan on depression. Allow time outs for depression.
Normal up and down depression is nature's way of telling us we need to slow down because we're doing too much and then kicking ourselves for not keeping up. Stop that! Plan out a picnic for your depression. Make it a regular date thing. Don't shove it off and pop a pain pill when you've got time to waste a couple of hours. Let go of the world and crash on your couch. A lot of little crashes beats a nasty big one every single time. I have noticed over a couple of years that allowing for normal depression swings has a very positive impact on my more severe clinical depression. Depression, for me, is a lifestyle, so I include that in my self care plan. The key to this working is to let go of all guilt. Guilt is a control mechanism that people and society use to force behaviors. I would never dream of making someone feel guilty if they didn't play the Christmas game right, because I can imagine them crying later if I ran over their feelings and forced mine on them. We see it happen all the time. We also think Christmas day is THE DAY to be with family. What about the other 364 days? Doi. That kind of thinking isn't worth your health, capiche? We love each other every day all year long. Let go of that silly guilt. Enjoy a couple of hours of down time.
-*-*-Side note to caretakers- I know you don't get down time. I was DPA for years for my disabled mother, and my sister raised a terminal child. Find a way to do nice things for yourself. It's ok to ask other people to help you do a controlled crash and burn once in awhile.-*-*-
The next thing to embrace in a controlled crash and burn is forgiveness. If you think something has to be perfect, imagine falling and getting a concussion and not being able to finish making something perfect. Was it worth it? I'm here to tell you nothing brings reality home like a good set of stitches with lots of blood soaking everything. If you think something can't get done without you, imagine this is the year you shock all your friends being the youngest person they know having a heart attack. The world won't stop just because you do. Stuff gets done whether it's you doing it or not. Want to be around to see it get done? TAKE A BREAK. And eat something healthy with magnesium in it. Magnesium deficiency is one of the first things they check for when they do ER tests for possible heart attack. Ask me how I know this. Forgive yourself for not being superman or superwoman, forgive others for not reaching your expectations, and chillax. Just because you didn't die yesterday stressing out doesn't mean you won't have a stroke today over the very same thing. My mom had hundreds of TIAs before the big strokes started. She was right side deficit for years from stress and uncontrolled diabetes.
The next thing to embrace for controlled crash and burn is limits. Set reasonable time limits, glucose level limits, activity limits, and stick to them. I don't know about you guys, but I find it really embarrassing to wind up in an ER on holidays. I feel like I'm ruining other people's Christmas and stressing them out more and I really don't like the extra attention. That alone is usually motivation enough for me to stay on track well enough not to super crash. I've never been hospitalized, even with all my stuff, which seems to amaze a few people. I grew up very independent, raised by a father who still doesn't believe in doctors, and people who see me going to doctors all the time without knowing my history don't have a clue how difficult it is for me to get out of my house and keep trying to find ways to solve my problems with medical intervention. I feel like a guinea pig, I've hated all the tests I've had to go through, I loathe the fear (I usually have to be sedated for a simple MRI), BUT I am very very good at living with autoimmune flare ups and diabetes because I know how everything in my body works. I've known too many people who shrugged odd pain or feelings off and found out later they were in advanced stages of cancer or having severe diabetes complications or suddenly having heart attacks that nearly killed them.
One of the best inventions on the planet is a little tiny flip spiral. You can buy those in packs. Every day I flip to a clean page, put the date at the top, and then write the time when I do glucose or blood pressure checks and every pill I take. Make it a habit. It very quickly becomes second nature, and then you start noticing things. Maybe those two pills shouldn't be taken together. Maybe glucose readings are better at certain times of day. Maybe that headache or anxiety attack or cranky feeling you get starts showing up about the same time every day, and you notice it seems to be happening within so long of certain meals or activities. Or every single weekend. Once you notice a pattern, you can control the pattern. It's very liberating not feeling hostage to chaotic cosmic whim, life going out of control again, freaking out in the wee hours over something. It's very empowering to experiment with data and results over time.
Hence, a huge part of my controlled crash is data entry in a tiny flip spiral. I can tell you that I've missed taking my thyroid pill two days in a row only twice in so many years and both times I was extremely miserable. That alone snowballed several days into a ridiculous debacle, because thyroid has huge impacts on sex hormones, blood pressure, and diabetes. The headaches were out of this world, my heart thumped real hard, and the fatigue crash was pretty scary, not even going to mention menopause symptoms going off the rails. Yeah, two days was all it took for me. And I know this definitively because if a pill is missing in the spiral, I didn't take it. This has been a crucial strategy for me because I had significant brain fail for several years and my short term memory was a joke. I could have caused myself serious harm taking my pills wrong, and many people do. Medical mistakes are more common than you think. Not all prescription pill deaths are Hollywood actors overdosing. Click this if you think I'm being too dramatic. Prescription Drug Overdose in the United States Yeah, don't want that kind of crash and burn, either. You're seeing more and more why I'm calling my way a 'controlled' crash and burn.
I use my little spiral to help me set limits. If I can see cause and consequence patterns, I can control outcomes. If I can see that my fasting blood sugar is over 100, I know better than to eat sweets for breakfast, which starts the cascade for a really bad day with a nasty headache later and feeling sluggish through the afternoon, grabbing more junk and coffee, and then not being able to sleep, which in turn starts the next day off negatively before I even get started. If I have several rough days in a row going off track, I know it'll take a couple more days to get control back, and if I feel a flare up coming on, I know I need to rearrange my schedule for the week or wind up going out of control and calling my doctor. I can glance back through my little spirals and easily spot the days and weeks that went out of control.
I live on this edge in my body every single day, where things can go out of control real fast. I plan my life meticulously. That sounds like a drag, but it's actually pretty easy when I follow a few little guidelines I've made for myself. Take breaks, set limits, forgive myself, and pay attention to what I'm doing to myself. The easiest way I have found to control the cascade is to count my carbs in the first place, faithfully take my thyroid pill, and assume I'll need breaks even if I think I'm feeling fantastic. For the most part this has worked really well, but I still make some pretty big mistakes.
So a couple of days ago I made eggnog. I know I have to stop at 1/2 a cup and no more for at least an hour, preferably two hours. I wasn't feeling well because I had overdone, my brain fell out, and without even thinking I drank 2 cups of eggnog within an hour and popped my one pain pill for the day (doctor ordered anti inflammatory), then fell asleep on the couch. An hour later I woke up in crisis, disoriented, brutishly nasty headache, blood pressure spiking 187/112, weird things happening like one of my arms being ice cold with nasty spiky nerve pain shooting out my blanched white fingertips while the other arm was hot and my hand was bright red like I had been badly sunburned. My pulse was fine and my arms worked fine, so this was more like a nervous system reaction to something, but it clearly didn't seem to be any kind of allergic reaction. I finally thought to check my blood sugar and couldn't believe how high it still was fours hours after the eggnog (I usually go back into the 90s within 2 hours, so I must've gone really high),so I didn't eat the rest of the day. I'm guessing the glucose spike triggered an autoimmune reaction in my nervous system. This is not a new thing with me. Two days of severe headache and other nerve pain later, I'm kind of feeling ok again but dragging like I ran a marathon. All because I drank some eggnog two days ago.
The rest of my Christmas holiday absolutely must be revised now to a more tightly controlled crash. I feel like I'm in flare up now, my energy level is almost nonexistent, and it's up to me to get my team (family) in on not letting me hit the wall now before Christmas. No extra surprise favors from gramma on top of what I've already mapped out, no more exciting hustle and bustle, the plan now is to coast and stay on track with small meals and lots of rest. NO GUILT.
It's easy to forget all this when I'm feeling pretty good. It's easy for my family to forget all this when they see me feeling pretty good. But I've been kinda cranky lately, which is my typical warning sign that epic fail is ahead. I have to remove myself from the game board immediately. I did pretty good this year getting stuff done up to this point, and I'm going to focus on that and not moan about what I didn't get done. Getting 'done' with stuff before holidays isn't worth risking our lives. Capiche?
I've had years of practice. It never gets easier. It never stops being scary. But at least it's not hopeless any more. It's no longer a crazy scary scream ride that I'm clinging wild eyed through. It's more like a merry go round I can step off of and watch from the sides. I don't have to feel sad about it, because I've learned I can still enjoy it while I take a break. I don't have to be involved to enjoy the holiday. I can be glad I'm still here to see it happen.
That, my friends, is a controlled crash and burn. It is my Christmas gift to you if it's still a big crazy ride for you and you are alone screaming through the night on the internet looking for answers and feeling like your Christmas is spiraling in flames. Take a deep breath and put 'tiny flip spiral' on your shopping list. You're about to change your life.
If you're still in the mood to keep reading, I found this forum convo very helpful.
Is Having Blood Sugar in the 400's Dangerous?
This one is more techy.
Lupus and Diabetes
"People with lupus or diabetes – or both – can improve overall health and relieve a number of symptoms just by making healthy choices. A plant-based diet with lots of vegetables, legumes, and plant oils is critical. Adequate rest is also important. And exercise is crucial, both to control weight and insulin levels and to increase energy and improve mood. A healthy diet and a commitment to a treatment plan will strengthen the body and help the immune system return to a state of balance – and will make the treatment plan itself more effective."
One more thing- I can't repeat enough what a difference getting more protein in my diet has done for my overall physical and emotional health. Your tissues cannot heal properly without adequate protein and you will always feel 'off'. Pills can't fix that.
Get that spiral!!! Good luck.
~secret code stuff~
Currently (2023) my most updated blog is everlasing.
Spaz is a useful side blog for sorting other stuff out.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Why isn't my weight loss program working?
This will take a month to read, so grab a sandwich. If you are needing moral support with a weight loss plan because it sucks plugging in numbers, here you go. I'm your tour guide through what went wrong (for me, that is).
Last month I started a loseit account. I have spent the last 41 days figuring out how to make it work (better phrase- how to correctly use it) and I think I have finally got the numbers set right. One good thing came out of it even though my net loss this morning is only 1 pound- I haven't gained any new weight, yay!
I originally lost 50 pounds in 2011 very simply by stopping at 1500 calories every day and avoiding everything bread, rice, and potatoes, like my doctor told me. Back then I had lots of incentive- I was so disabled I could barely walk across my own house. let alone get out and do anything on my own. You might get the idea from this that I was absolutely huge, but not so, just simply so ketoned up from diabetes that my fibromyalgia locked up like cement and pain and meds finished me off. All it took was cutting the carbs way down and stopping at 1500 calories to change my life. People hate hearing "changed my life" from enthusiastic newly emerged butterflies, but when it's your turn to hover close to death, let me know how it goes with hating everything instead of fighting to survive.
My problem with a weight loss plan is numbers, forms, and way too much information. You guys have heard me mention my glitchy brain, well, it was so bad last week that I had to call an 800 number for help filling out simple personal info for a billing problem. I explained that part of my disability is cognitive and that I am easily confused with forms and manage to answer the simplest questions wrong. I know that's hard to believe given how I never stop typing, but it's true. I've even written about how the publishing forms for the book I still haven't submitted yet freak me out to no end, which is hellishly ironic.
Ketones have a way of stacking up so that your body can't take out the trash very well, as it were. Diabetics who don't or can't control well always have ketones in the way of everything they do. One of my doctors made a note about my ketone level in 2008 but waved off a diabetes diagnosis. Another doctor in 2011 turned my life around with a diagnosis, but by then my brain fog was so bad that I was a goofball. Even though my blood sugars were never officially caught above 200, I'd already had the breathlessness and fruity breath for a couple of years, to the point of needing a daily inhaler just to breathe, so I personally don't think a low level ketone problem isn't diagnostically assumable to not affect whole body function. The doctor who waved me off just kept throwing prescriptions at me while I felt mired and sinking in tar.
Brains function on glucose. How does the brain use food as energy? Counterintuitively, this doesn't mean that the more sugary soda pop you drink, the smarter you get, as we read in that article.
The brain is an energy-hungry organ. Despite comprising only 2 percent of the body’s weight, the brain gobbles up more than 20 percent of daily energy intake. Because the brain demands such high amounts of energy, the foods we consume greatly affect brain function, including everything from learning and memory to emotions.
Just like other cells in the body, brain cells use a form of sugar called glucose to fuel cellular activities. This energy comes from the foods we consume daily and is regularly delivered to brain cells (called neurons) through the blood. Studies suggest the quality of the foods consumed over the lifetime affects the structure and function of the brain. For instance, the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids found in fish provides structural material to maintain neurons. Studies also suggest omega-3 fatty acids are essential for the transmission of information between brain cells. In contrast, foods that are rich in sugars and saturated fats have been found to promote oxidative stress, which leads to damage of cell membranes.
The food you eat also affects molecules in the brain that support cognition. Some foods, such as those with turmeric, support cognition by helping to maintain molecular events related to energy metabolism. Recent studies suggest lifestyle choices that affect the metabolism of nerve cells, such as diet and exercise, may in some cases provide a noninvasive and effective strategy to counteract neurological and cognitive disorders.
Brain fog is a real thing, and although not medically diagnostic, has crept into a number of medical observation articles related to chronic illnesses. A diabetes diagnosis carries more weight than chronic illness. Is Diabetes Treated as an Acute or Chronic Illness in Community Family Practice? Some of you with diabetes might not be aware that a rapid very high spike or very low drop in your blood sugar is life threatening. It is sensible to assume that diabetics live with some pretty hefty brain fog and have difficulty managing their lives. I know I sure did. Even when we have a healthy day or week and are able to fool the world and pass for normal, we can experience 'brain fail' in the middle of being our brilliant selves, suddenly our thoughts wink out and we stumble over what we were saying, we must follow a list, and once in awhile wonder how in the world we didn't just have a nasty traffic accident. Diabetes is a big deal on a daily basis because a crippled metabolic process logically cripples a brain completely reliant on smooth metabolic processing.
That's a lot of stuff I've just written to explain this- Plugging numbers into weight loss plans on the internet is hard. Looking up every jot and tittle for calories and carbs is hard. Forcing eyes to work that much harder, doing simple math, keeping track of what we were thinking and doing while we work on the end goal of plugging in a variable IS HARD.
I aced my way through a college algebra class on my first try. If I say using an online weight loss program is hard because of chronic illness brain fog, it's hard.
The people who need help the most must work the hardest to achieve what other people take for granted. It's not fair, no. It sucks, yes. Is it worth it? I can say honestly that any blinking in the light is definitely worth it.
Here's the thing. My first mistake was feeling frustrated with the built in calorie counter and guesstimating my caloric intake because it was easier and faster on my eyes and my brain. My second mistake was feeling frustrated with the built in exercise calculator and, again, guesstimating. My third mistake was assuming I was getting enough nutrients every day and I doubled my original workout schedule. I had originally been walking 30 minutes every other day with occasional stretchy band and other core strength maintenance. When I joined loseit, I started exercising every day.
I lost 2 pounds. Then I went up one pound. Then down one pound. Then back up one pound. Then down 2 pounds, Then up one pound.... I basically got caught in a loop, and nothing I did changed it. After 4 weeks of laughing about being caught in the same 3 pound revolving door I got a little angry and started snooping around the groups yapping and even contacted a moderator. He told me to adjust my calorie calculator and linked me to a BMR calculator. I adjusted. No change. By the end of 4 weeks everything stopped and I laid in bed for 3 days.
I was lucky. As I laid there I realized 1- this didn't feel like the old depression from several years ago where all function stopped and I took to my bed for weeks, 2- my brain is working even better than ever, what is going on???, and 3- it's making me cranky to lay here and I don't seem to be sick, so something must actually be going on. I have many years of experience with chronic illness, and this didn't feel like that. What did it feel like? After some thought I decided it felt like I had very simply just run out of energy.
My beginning plan with loseit was for around 1200 calories. That is what their calculator gave me when I plugged in my height and weight and how quickly I wanted to lose X amount of pounds. I was obviously way under the 1500 calorie plan my doctor gave me in 2011, and this time I was exercising. A lot. Way more than I used to, which I find thrilling after so many years of being a super wimp. Anyway, obviously something was way off if I wasn't losing weight.
I found a better BMR calculator. I noticed that it linked to a really good BMI calculator. And that led to this-
Once you know the number of calories needed to maintain your weight, you can easily calculate the number of calories you need to eat in order to gain or lose weight:
Calorie intake to gain weight
Calorie intake to lose weight
AND the number of calories we need to eat doing all that exercise without killing ourselves...
Do all of those in the same order that I linked them. After I discovered I needed more than 1200 calories just to sit around and watch TV all day, I also ran into articles that talked about how when we don't eat enough, our bodies get really good at hanging onto every shred of stuff it gets, so I'm pretty amazed that 3 1/2 weeks of double my workout on way too few calories didn't budge my weight down more than 3 pounds the whole time. That means my body is incredibly efficient. Our bodies are wondrous things, even when we're chronic.
So I went back to loseit and adjusted my plan again, and I noticed this time there there was a tiny embedded link (squint squint) that lets you set your own daily calorie budget after you've set your time schedule, assuming you know your BMR requirements. The inbuilt calculator then automatically adjusts your daily log and from there...
Ug. From there, the only way the calculator can work correctly is if I stop guesstimating. Especially when I find atrocious mistakes in their calorie catalog. Don't know who input this particular data, but evaporated milk does NOT have 150 calories in 2 T, good grief. Time to pull my brain out of my pocket and read labels and create my own calorie catalog, which loseit allows, thank goodness. That actually makes it easier later because it keeps track of the foods you like to eat, and if you eat the same things over and over, just point and click once you've got the numbers set correctly.
But that wasn't enough. Loseit also calculates nutrients, and you can pick and choose which ones you'd like to keep track of. Like protein. It occurred to me that 3+ weeks of heavier exercise on fewer calories probably put me in a severe protein deficit, and I was right. I found an awesome protein calculator and found out I needed way more than I thought, so I started changing some of the things I was eating. Reaching a protein goal without going over a calorie goal is harder than you think, and I learned real fast that even as an aware carb counting diabetic, I was still eating way too many carbs and sacrificing other nutrients at the calorie line. My old habits had snuck back in. Carb calories are harder to lose than any other kind, which is why the South Beach diet is such a success.
So on top of counting my own carbs and calories, now I had to start counting my protein. It's really hard to create your own calorie catalog when the weight loss plan's built in calorie catalog isn't very helpful, but I found this super awesome nutrient catalog site that makes it way easier.
I'm only a couple of days into all this new more correct stuff, but I've already got my energy back. I've been eating my calorie budget and my body is so relieved to be getting more food, especially now that I've added more protein. All systems are going back to normal, my nerves are calming down, and I feel more capable of handling the holidays coming up.
One question- if I was so worn out from a calorie deficit, why was my brain working well enough to puzzle this stuff out when I hit my lowest point? I was very surprised by this. I'm going to guess it's because I had managed to get my ketones down lower than I've had them in a very long time between restricting calories and extra exercise, which made what glucose I did eat go straight to my brain. Ok, truth- I don't know. I've lived with brain fog so long, I'm just really surprised I was able to plug my brain in and think my way through this jam. And now I'm sharing it because I know some of you need a more step by step moral support to stay plugged into a program that isn't making any sense, right?
It's possible to do a weight loss program all wrong and actually hurt yourself, like I was doing. I was getting warning signs galore, like anxiety attacks out of nowhere, blood pressure surges, skippy heartbeats, and weird charley horses moving around all over my body. If I'd gone to a doctor for that stuff I'd have been handed more pills, which would've only masked them without solving anything. I'm lucky my body finally just said stop and I laid in bed for 3 days resting. If your body is STOPPING, that's a pretty big sign that you need to stop doing something you're doing or that something else is going on that needs attention, like illness.
I know people say drinking more water helps prevent charley horses or working out more keeps you from getting sick so much, but these things don't help if you're not getting enough protein to stay healthy or enough calories to even be a couch potato. If you are diabetic and feeling frustrated with an online weight loss program, take a break and spend some time digging a little deeper. If 'normal' people are also frustrated and inputting data wrong, you know it's going to be even harder for us. It's ok. Main thing is that we're all still learning and you're not alone feeling frustrated!
Last month I started a loseit account. I have spent the last 41 days figuring out how to make it work (better phrase- how to correctly use it) and I think I have finally got the numbers set right. One good thing came out of it even though my net loss this morning is only 1 pound- I haven't gained any new weight, yay!
I originally lost 50 pounds in 2011 very simply by stopping at 1500 calories every day and avoiding everything bread, rice, and potatoes, like my doctor told me. Back then I had lots of incentive- I was so disabled I could barely walk across my own house. let alone get out and do anything on my own. You might get the idea from this that I was absolutely huge, but not so, just simply so ketoned up from diabetes that my fibromyalgia locked up like cement and pain and meds finished me off. All it took was cutting the carbs way down and stopping at 1500 calories to change my life. People hate hearing "changed my life" from enthusiastic newly emerged butterflies, but when it's your turn to hover close to death, let me know how it goes with hating everything instead of fighting to survive.
My problem with a weight loss plan is numbers, forms, and way too much information. You guys have heard me mention my glitchy brain, well, it was so bad last week that I had to call an 800 number for help filling out simple personal info for a billing problem. I explained that part of my disability is cognitive and that I am easily confused with forms and manage to answer the simplest questions wrong. I know that's hard to believe given how I never stop typing, but it's true. I've even written about how the publishing forms for the book I still haven't submitted yet freak me out to no end, which is hellishly ironic.
Ketones have a way of stacking up so that your body can't take out the trash very well, as it were. Diabetics who don't or can't control well always have ketones in the way of everything they do. One of my doctors made a note about my ketone level in 2008 but waved off a diabetes diagnosis. Another doctor in 2011 turned my life around with a diagnosis, but by then my brain fog was so bad that I was a goofball. Even though my blood sugars were never officially caught above 200, I'd already had the breathlessness and fruity breath for a couple of years, to the point of needing a daily inhaler just to breathe, so I personally don't think a low level ketone problem isn't diagnostically assumable to not affect whole body function. The doctor who waved me off just kept throwing prescriptions at me while I felt mired and sinking in tar.
Brains function on glucose. How does the brain use food as energy? Counterintuitively, this doesn't mean that the more sugary soda pop you drink, the smarter you get, as we read in that article.
The brain is an energy-hungry organ. Despite comprising only 2 percent of the body’s weight, the brain gobbles up more than 20 percent of daily energy intake. Because the brain demands such high amounts of energy, the foods we consume greatly affect brain function, including everything from learning and memory to emotions.
Just like other cells in the body, brain cells use a form of sugar called glucose to fuel cellular activities. This energy comes from the foods we consume daily and is regularly delivered to brain cells (called neurons) through the blood. Studies suggest the quality of the foods consumed over the lifetime affects the structure and function of the brain. For instance, the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids found in fish provides structural material to maintain neurons. Studies also suggest omega-3 fatty acids are essential for the transmission of information between brain cells. In contrast, foods that are rich in sugars and saturated fats have been found to promote oxidative stress, which leads to damage of cell membranes.
The food you eat also affects molecules in the brain that support cognition. Some foods, such as those with turmeric, support cognition by helping to maintain molecular events related to energy metabolism. Recent studies suggest lifestyle choices that affect the metabolism of nerve cells, such as diet and exercise, may in some cases provide a noninvasive and effective strategy to counteract neurological and cognitive disorders.
Brain fog is a real thing, and although not medically diagnostic, has crept into a number of medical observation articles related to chronic illnesses. A diabetes diagnosis carries more weight than chronic illness. Is Diabetes Treated as an Acute or Chronic Illness in Community Family Practice? Some of you with diabetes might not be aware that a rapid very high spike or very low drop in your blood sugar is life threatening. It is sensible to assume that diabetics live with some pretty hefty brain fog and have difficulty managing their lives. I know I sure did. Even when we have a healthy day or week and are able to fool the world and pass for normal, we can experience 'brain fail' in the middle of being our brilliant selves, suddenly our thoughts wink out and we stumble over what we were saying, we must follow a list, and once in awhile wonder how in the world we didn't just have a nasty traffic accident. Diabetes is a big deal on a daily basis because a crippled metabolic process logically cripples a brain completely reliant on smooth metabolic processing.
That's a lot of stuff I've just written to explain this- Plugging numbers into weight loss plans on the internet is hard. Looking up every jot and tittle for calories and carbs is hard. Forcing eyes to work that much harder, doing simple math, keeping track of what we were thinking and doing while we work on the end goal of plugging in a variable IS HARD.
I aced my way through a college algebra class on my first try. If I say using an online weight loss program is hard because of chronic illness brain fog, it's hard.
The people who need help the most must work the hardest to achieve what other people take for granted. It's not fair, no. It sucks, yes. Is it worth it? I can say honestly that any blinking in the light is definitely worth it.
Here's the thing. My first mistake was feeling frustrated with the built in calorie counter and guesstimating my caloric intake because it was easier and faster on my eyes and my brain. My second mistake was feeling frustrated with the built in exercise calculator and, again, guesstimating. My third mistake was assuming I was getting enough nutrients every day and I doubled my original workout schedule. I had originally been walking 30 minutes every other day with occasional stretchy band and other core strength maintenance. When I joined loseit, I started exercising every day.
I lost 2 pounds. Then I went up one pound. Then down one pound. Then back up one pound. Then down 2 pounds, Then up one pound.... I basically got caught in a loop, and nothing I did changed it. After 4 weeks of laughing about being caught in the same 3 pound revolving door I got a little angry and started snooping around the groups yapping and even contacted a moderator. He told me to adjust my calorie calculator and linked me to a BMR calculator. I adjusted. No change. By the end of 4 weeks everything stopped and I laid in bed for 3 days.
I was lucky. As I laid there I realized 1- this didn't feel like the old depression from several years ago where all function stopped and I took to my bed for weeks, 2- my brain is working even better than ever, what is going on???, and 3- it's making me cranky to lay here and I don't seem to be sick, so something must actually be going on. I have many years of experience with chronic illness, and this didn't feel like that. What did it feel like? After some thought I decided it felt like I had very simply just run out of energy.
My beginning plan with loseit was for around 1200 calories. That is what their calculator gave me when I plugged in my height and weight and how quickly I wanted to lose X amount of pounds. I was obviously way under the 1500 calorie plan my doctor gave me in 2011, and this time I was exercising. A lot. Way more than I used to, which I find thrilling after so many years of being a super wimp. Anyway, obviously something was way off if I wasn't losing weight.
I found a better BMR calculator. I noticed that it linked to a really good BMI calculator. And that led to this-
Once you know the number of calories needed to maintain your weight, you can easily calculate the number of calories you need to eat in order to gain or lose weight:
Calorie intake to gain weight
Calorie intake to lose weight
AND the number of calories we need to eat doing all that exercise without killing ourselves...
Do all of those in the same order that I linked them. After I discovered I needed more than 1200 calories just to sit around and watch TV all day, I also ran into articles that talked about how when we don't eat enough, our bodies get really good at hanging onto every shred of stuff it gets, so I'm pretty amazed that 3 1/2 weeks of double my workout on way too few calories didn't budge my weight down more than 3 pounds the whole time. That means my body is incredibly efficient. Our bodies are wondrous things, even when we're chronic.
So I went back to loseit and adjusted my plan again, and I noticed this time there there was a tiny embedded link (squint squint) that lets you set your own daily calorie budget after you've set your time schedule, assuming you know your BMR requirements. The inbuilt calculator then automatically adjusts your daily log and from there...
Ug. From there, the only way the calculator can work correctly is if I stop guesstimating. Especially when I find atrocious mistakes in their calorie catalog. Don't know who input this particular data, but evaporated milk does NOT have 150 calories in 2 T, good grief. Time to pull my brain out of my pocket and read labels and create my own calorie catalog, which loseit allows, thank goodness. That actually makes it easier later because it keeps track of the foods you like to eat, and if you eat the same things over and over, just point and click once you've got the numbers set correctly.
But that wasn't enough. Loseit also calculates nutrients, and you can pick and choose which ones you'd like to keep track of. Like protein. It occurred to me that 3+ weeks of heavier exercise on fewer calories probably put me in a severe protein deficit, and I was right. I found an awesome protein calculator and found out I needed way more than I thought, so I started changing some of the things I was eating. Reaching a protein goal without going over a calorie goal is harder than you think, and I learned real fast that even as an aware carb counting diabetic, I was still eating way too many carbs and sacrificing other nutrients at the calorie line. My old habits had snuck back in. Carb calories are harder to lose than any other kind, which is why the South Beach diet is such a success.
So on top of counting my own carbs and calories, now I had to start counting my protein. It's really hard to create your own calorie catalog when the weight loss plan's built in calorie catalog isn't very helpful, but I found this super awesome nutrient catalog site that makes it way easier.
I'm only a couple of days into all this new more correct stuff, but I've already got my energy back. I've been eating my calorie budget and my body is so relieved to be getting more food, especially now that I've added more protein. All systems are going back to normal, my nerves are calming down, and I feel more capable of handling the holidays coming up.
One question- if I was so worn out from a calorie deficit, why was my brain working well enough to puzzle this stuff out when I hit my lowest point? I was very surprised by this. I'm going to guess it's because I had managed to get my ketones down lower than I've had them in a very long time between restricting calories and extra exercise, which made what glucose I did eat go straight to my brain. Ok, truth- I don't know. I've lived with brain fog so long, I'm just really surprised I was able to plug my brain in and think my way through this jam. And now I'm sharing it because I know some of you need a more step by step moral support to stay plugged into a program that isn't making any sense, right?
It's possible to do a weight loss program all wrong and actually hurt yourself, like I was doing. I was getting warning signs galore, like anxiety attacks out of nowhere, blood pressure surges, skippy heartbeats, and weird charley horses moving around all over my body. If I'd gone to a doctor for that stuff I'd have been handed more pills, which would've only masked them without solving anything. I'm lucky my body finally just said stop and I laid in bed for 3 days resting. If your body is STOPPING, that's a pretty big sign that you need to stop doing something you're doing or that something else is going on that needs attention, like illness.
I know people say drinking more water helps prevent charley horses or working out more keeps you from getting sick so much, but these things don't help if you're not getting enough protein to stay healthy or enough calories to even be a couch potato. If you are diabetic and feeling frustrated with an online weight loss program, take a break and spend some time digging a little deeper. If 'normal' people are also frustrated and inputting data wrong, you know it's going to be even harder for us. It's ok. Main thing is that we're all still learning and you're not alone feeling frustrated!
Saturday, October 18, 2014
ebola? panic? human cattle panicking and not learning a thing?
Cool stuff from the last couple of days.
This is cool because I wrote this. Yes, I'm a Burt Gummer fan. Click the pic for more info.
This is cool because I've talked about getting a scalp tattoo if I ever lose my hair. Click the pic to see more info.
This is cool because it's a real rifle and because of the links I found directly afterward about Ebola preparedness in the United States. Click these pix for more info.
See, the first rule of any epidemic is STAY HOME. <-- That preparedness plan is from 2006. It's still viable. If you're really that worried about ebola, don't wait till you think you've been exposed to suddenly bolt and take to the hills, or go on a cruise. Any spoonie who is already a carrier for something like CMV will tell you this is not enough.
Despite having pandemic preparedness guidelines in place since at least 2007, people are still unaware of how disease actually spreads (you wouldn't believe how many people still don't wash their hands) and that running around looking for food and medicine during a fever is the fastest way to infect your fellow man.
Did you know that HIV, MRSA, VRSA, and C diff are infecting people across the U.S. every day? These are just as scary as ebola because DEATH.
This is cool because I wrote this. Yes, I'm a Burt Gummer fan. Click the pic for more info.
This is cool because I've talked about getting a scalp tattoo if I ever lose my hair. Click the pic to see more info.
This is cool because it's a real rifle and because of the links I found directly afterward about Ebola preparedness in the United States. Click these pix for more info.
The rest of this is me being a cool drill sergeant all over your butts.
See, the first rule of any epidemic is STAY HOME. <-- That preparedness plan is from 2006. It's still viable. If you're really that worried about ebola, don't wait till you think you've been exposed to suddenly bolt and take to the hills, or go on a cruise. Any spoonie who is already a carrier for something like CMV will tell you this is not enough.
Did you know that HIV, MRSA, VRSA, and C diff are infecting people across the U.S. every day? These are just as scary as ebola because DEATH.
Let's don't use this as an excuse to spread disease, please.
I could go on. This is how spoonies see the world. I have lived with this kind of fear for 20 years because people around me think coughing their lungs out and barfing in public is no big deal. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Or maybe it kills the person you were standing next to in a line at a theme park.
STAY HOME IF YOU ARE SICK. And please, for the love of anything you hold dear, stop asking the general public to look at your sore that won't heal or touch other people's owies without washing your hands first. The rest of the world thanks you.
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