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March 03, 2004
you really don't know until you try
i was talking with my regular lunch companion today about the effect my dietary changes have had on my life.
going back to the fruit thing... it occured to me at lunch today that the hypoglycemia might have been part of my whole problem with fruit. it just never seemed like food to me-- at best, it was something to have in addition to the other things i needed to have-- at worst, it was a snack that was going to make me feel even worse after, if i ate it alone when i was hungry.
and i think, too, that the hypo had a lot to do with my being such a picky eater. i've known that for a while. when you feel like you're collapsing every time you get hungry.. well of course you don't feel like being particularly adventurous. ever. every meal has to be counted on to rescue you, and risks-- trying something new-- seems like a bad idea. i always felt like this was a character flaw on my part-- that i should be more adventursome. that that was an admirable quality to cultivate. but it never occured to me that that quality might naturally come about if i fixed my food problem.
dave also commented that i don't stress and obsess over meals the way i used to. i can't quite remember how he phrased it... something to the effect that i used to worry about it a lot. i really did. on any given day, almost nothing would "feel right" to eat, and i'd feel guilt over the things that did "feel right". (and i should give dave props for being pretty patient with me over the years in this regard.)
i've also had the growing feeling, for maybe the last two months, that i may have achieved real moderation. i am losing weight, but very, very slowly. since i've heard some freaky stories about people with unstable weight developing fatal blood clots, that's just fine with me. i don't adhere strictly to atkins; i don't feel deprived. and i don't feel like going nuts with any one particular food. i just don't feel the need. i think fixing the hypo problem probably has a lot to do with the binge/guilt cycle being finally, i hope, broken.
it's kind of startling the implications. my initial goal in kicking sugar and eating meat again was to just not spend three evenings a week trying to recover from a late-afternoon hypoglycemic crash. i didn't think beyond that, but it turns out that that was only the start.
Posted by lisa at March 03, 2004 04:52 PM | TrackBack
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.