Frustrated!

My blood sugar has been wonderful. When I left the Doctor's office last Monday she said that she would probably be changing my medication depending on my blood work. The level of meds I'm on right now is what was prescribed back when my A1C was like 12 or 13. It is 5.6 now and every other day I have a low blood sugar moment because of it and it is starting to make me crazy. I didn't see my regular doc because she is moving practices and they have subs in right now. They have a different one every day. I have made about 20 calls at least since my blood work came back in an attempt to get my meds adjusted. 90% of my calls end up routing me to the radiology voice mail. When I finally do get to talk to somebody, I keep getting they will talk to the doctor who is in and call me back or they left a note for the doctor and when as soon as they get to it I will get a call back. Everyday, nobody calls back. In the mean time, I eat dinner, 2 hours later my blood sugar is at 71 when it should be somewhere around 160 2 hours after a meal. Almost every day I have to eat more carbs and snack here and there just to keep from flacking out. I am to the point where I am actually afraid to try to do any exercise. In the last week I have had low blood sugar moments 4 times, 2 while I was sitting at the computer and 2 while I was watching tv. I am not doing anything to cause my sugar to drop. I am positive it is because of the dosage of meds I am on.
I have been stuck at the same weight for almost a month and I want/need to exercise if I am going to break out of this plateau. No exercise and extra calories to fix my sugars is NOT helping me on my journey.
I am SO FRUSTRATED right now!!

Got my blood work back!!

DOING THE HAPPY DANCE!!!
A1C - 5.6 (normal range)
Total Cholesterol - 129
HDL - 34
LDL - 59
Triglycerides - 179
Liver Enzymes - 20 and 24 (optimal range)

Snacking for diabetics 101

That is a nectarine and light string cheese, an orange and an egg and then an apple and more string cheese. I go for a carb and a protein about every three hours or so. These are the ones I brought to work today. You can pic more exotic fruits and cheeses, but these are quick and easy to toss into my lunch kit. If I was at home I would make it something fancier for sure as to make the foodie in me happy. Maybe some smoked Gouda and red grapes or some herbed goat cheese on crisp apple slices instead of crackers for example.

Blood work yesterday

Had my Doctors visit yesterday. It is time for my blood work. Won't know the results for a couple of days I guess. Everything should show some improvement. *fingers crossed*

I need this and I mean right NOW!

and it needs to come with these......

and it needs to last a week and I am not even joking one little bit.

Wow.

Cheat Day Yesterday

We took a cheat day yesterday. Since I have been cutting out the gluten I wanted someplace where I could have pasta but not wheat so we went and got Thai food. It was so great. What we do is only get one entree and split it so that you only get half the bad stuff. We also got coconut soup which I adore and my sugar has been so good here of late I splurged and got a Thai Tea, something I haven't had in so so long. Back to the grind stone again today. Just checked my sugar about an hour ago, it was 89. Yay. Now if I could just manage to skid of this mini plateau! We got one order of Pad Thai and split it, one large soup and split that and one order of spring rolls and split those too, I just used the spicy sauce and not the sweet sauce they gave me.

113 today

My blood sugar was 113 this morning. I am not sure how much I weigh as I am holding off until Friday for that. I don't feel like I have lost any weight though, but here is hoping for a pleasant surprise. :)

1/2 Cup of brown rice and an egg

Since I am not eating bread and am eating brown rice much more instead there are only so many things you can do. Just eating a half cup of rice and an egg seems like it could get boring real quick, but honestly I am always coming up with new ideas to keep it fun and interesting and yummy. I have already posted my egg sushi, still eat that several times a week and still love it. The last two days I came up with another 2 breakfasts but really these could also be dinner.

First is Omurice. This is basically a rice omelet that is very popular in Japan. They can be as simple as just eggs, rice and ketchup. I used some of the fixings I have for okonomiyaki already in the house. I seasoned the rice with a small amount of okonomiyaki sauce and a rice seasoning packet that has seaweed bits and salmon bits and sesame seeds,I put some chopped chives from my patio garden in the egg. I cooked it in the largest skillet we have so the egg would be as thin as possible then put the rice on the right hand side of the pan and rolled the egg up towards it in about 3 moves until the rice was covered and then topped it with the same stuff I put on the top of okonomiyai.

343 cal, 30 Carb, 15gm fat

The second egg dish is Huevos Rancheros. I made this with canned re-fried black beans that I spruced up with onions, garlic, ground cumin and chili powder, brown rice that I put some chopped chives and cilantro from my garden in along with a small amount of olive oil and salt and pepper. I put them on the plate side by side and spooned out two tablespoons of chipotle salsa on top of where they met and sat an over easy egg on top and then sprinkled the entire thing with goat cheese crumbles. The earthy flavors of the chipotle peppers and goat cheese really brought this dish together.

367 cal, 43gm carb, 12gm fat

Both of these were very filling but could easily have been made more by adding a salad on the side with dressing that comes in the spray bottle which would only add about 30 more calories to the meal.

Get Out!

Here is a tip: don't bring junk into your house or you will eat the crap out of it. I know this because I had decided that we could buy some semi bad snacks, such as Baked Lays or Cheetos and then just eat them sparingly. Yeah right. That was fail. If it is in the house I am too stupid not to default to it and ignore the good stuff. Old habits are hard to break. So yesterday we stocked up on fresh fruit and veggies, take that chips and crackers!!

In other news, that orange I just finished was freaking awesome! I have noticed that while I have always liked fruit, for some reason these days I am digging the hell out of it. I think my taste for it has changed or something. Before I liked watermelon but now I LOVE the stuff. Craziness.

In other other news, I made a hummus wrap with a sheet of nori instead of a tortilla, it was pretty damn good!

Going Gluten Free

Yesterday was my first day of on purpose gluten free. I went to Trader Joes and grabbed a few things. They have some cereal and some different kinds of pasta I want to try. I also had the most wonderful chocolate bar ever. It was 70% cacao with caramel and black sea salt from Hawaii. TO DIE FOR!! Can't have that kind of thing often, and I shared it with Geena but when I have something like that, I want to go all out. And it was divine :D

My sugar was 138 this morning,not because of that candy bar though. I ate two other carb snacks and no protein with it just before bed. That always happens when I do that, but still 138 is not really high for somebody with type 2 diabetes. I was 244.8 on the scale today. Not gonna weigh again until about Monday or so. I want to be back under 240 by the end of next week. That is my goal. My next goal after that is to be below 230 by Dragon*Con. The next goal after that is to be below 200 by Xmas.

Egg Sushi for breakfast at work

Instead of rolling it and eating it I always just throw all the ingredients in my lunch kit and roll it at work. I keep a bottle of soy sauce on my desk for just such an emergency!
Pic 1 is the nori (seaweed) sheet with brown rice, a boiled egg, soy sauce and some furikake (rice seasoning that has sesame seeds and other things to flavor rice) laid out and waiting to be rolled up!

Next the sides are folded in and it is ready to roll up

.

NOM!

Aqua Woman!

<------Ok, so apparently this is me. I couldn't help it, I ended up going to pee so many times yesterday at work that I couldn't help but get on the scale when I got home just to see. It said 245. So yeah, I peed out 3 pounds of water yesterday. I figured that was what the problem was. So what the heck? Does wheat make me retain water? Is that even possible? Is that even a thing that can happen if you are gluten intolerant? Whatever the case, it makes me feel better and helps me to understand just how much I can't eat the bread products anymore. My sugar was 111 today so that was rocking.


* Later Edit * - Ok I just read 3 different articles online at Livestrong.com about wheat gluten intolerance and how it causes inflammation, joint pain and fluid retention. I also read an article that talked about gluten and diabetics that said it is very common for people with diabetes to be gluten intolerant, which makes sense because when you are gluten intolerant your body doesn't process the proteins in gluten and that is what is causing the problems with gluten in the first place. Everything makes a bit more sense now. I will be avoiding it like the plague now.

Oops, indeed.

So yeah, I got on the scale today. 248.2, my sugar was 141 this morning, which actually surprised me considering how bad I have eaten in the last 2 weeks. Things have calmed down somewhat as far as stress goes, but the situation that caused that is still underlying so I don't know what I will do but my eating got way out of control and even though I tried to have it not happen it was almost like it was doing it on it's own, which I know that it wasn't, I was just allowing all that to happen. I really dropped the ball. I didn't do any of the weekly prep work that I usually do and that makes it very easy to default to the bad. I did all my prep work last night so most of the week is set up already.
I am really hoping that most of that weight gain is liquid. I do feel more swollen and inflamed. When I get up off the sofa or out of my desk chair, the first few steps make my legs ache. My legs ache when I go to bed. That wasn't happening even just 3 weeks ago. I also have been eating wheat products and I am now firmly convinced that I have a wheat issue. Even with whole wheat. I have decided to just cut it out of my diet as much as I possibly can. I might try some gluten free products to see if there is a difference, but not for a while.
I have also decided not to weigh myself again until Friday in an effort to see how much drops off between now and then. If I lose like 5 pounds then I will know that I have gained water weight and not actual fat weight. Even though I have not been sticking by the diet 100% I haven't been going crazy so I am positive that I haven't eaten 10,500 extra calories in the last two weeks and that is the extra calories I would have needed to eat to gain that much weight back.
Anyways, nose, meet grindstone.

Sigh

I have had a very stressful past couple of weeks. My partner has been out of work and that and a couple of other things have just sent me on a spiral. I have been eating my Xanax like candy and I usually don't take them even once a week. My eating patterns have been all over the place and I am very afraid to get on the scale. In fact I have avoided it for about the past 4 or 5 days. That is never a good sign. I am trying to grab hold of the wheel and yank this car back on the road. I'm nervous.

Legs and back are stiff and sore....

We have a couple of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) machines at work. They are pretty great for exercise. I remember reading a few stories online a couple of years ago about people who had used the game as part of their exercise routine to lose weight.

I really like it because it is a game you kinda forget you are exercising even though it makes your heart go pitter pat. Yesterday afternoon I played for about 20 minutes, which is about 9 songs and today my body is yelling at me. Must have done some good. :D

Back Fat

One of my biggest hates is how the fat grows and hangs on my back. It has always done this. I remember in the Army a Sgt asked me did I lift weights because my lats made me look like a football player. Those were not lats,that was my back fat, even then.
The pic on the left was taken a couple of years ago. The pick on the right is was taken this AM. Still fat, but much smaller. Happy.

This is the difference that 45 lbs makes

This pic on the right was taken over the weekend when we had friends over for a BBQ. I didn't even know this was taken. I can see that I have lost. Same basic body shape, just taking up less air space. 45 more and I will look like a stick, no?
The shorts I was wearing in the pic on the left are 2 sizes larger than the ones on the right and I need a belt now to keep them on.

Also, I am in desperate need of a hair cut.