It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am addicted to food. I suppose I could be more specific and say all dairy products (love that cheese, butter, milk, and ICE CREAM!) and all products that are sweet. But basically, my weight tells the story, if it's food. Anything I've eaten has been in excess.
I've lost weight before. When I was first diagnosed as hypoglycemic, I had to go to the hospital to have a dietitian make me out a diet with specific caloric intake with specific foods to be eaten at specific times so that my blood sugar would be level and specific amounts to still have me losing weight. The amounts were way less that what I had been used to eating. She had me make a fist and told me that is the size of my stomach. She told me that I should never eat more than that sized amount at a meal. I lost 100 pounds.
Yes, I gained them all back in the ensuing years. I would lose some, then gain more, then lose some, and gain more. Inching up a bit at a time. I'm still not at my top weight, but in January I lost all desire to lose. I would get an ice cream cone at McDonalds and be finished with it by the time I was to Dairy Queen, so I would get another one. Blue Bell's beckoning fingers just lifted me out of traffic as I turned the corner to go by Krogers and couldn't make it. I'd hide the pint containers in the trash, but Mike found most of them. Then there was the candy. I used it in my teaching...not for discipline/bribes, but I really used them for games or simulations we would do. At specific times, I could taste one M n M and next thing you know, it was handfuls and handfuls popped in my mouth at the same time till I finished the Party Pack. Then, of course, I didn't have them the next time I needed them, so I had to buy more. Repeat. Repeat.
February came and there were valentine chocolates! Can't resist them. What also came in February was a letter from my doctor telling me that if I didn't come in for a blood test, he would not renew my prescriptions anymore. Yes. I had been to the doctor in December and since I was a sugar-holic then, I said I would get my blood work elsewhere when I was fasting. He gave me the orders and over the next few months I thought I would have the self-control to get my blood sugar down so he wouldn't say anything. NOT. I never got the blood test as a result.
So, in February, I went in to get a blood test, and in February, he put me on Victoza, a medicine given by daily injection to bring down blood sugar.It worked, and it worked almost immediately. I woke up and was wide awake, no sleepiness hangover I always had. I was stoked.
I had been told that if I ate sugar or overate, that I would be nauseous. I did not have any sugar at all. It was $15 a shot and I certainly did not want to waste money by messing it up with sugar. I did, however discover that even eating a larger-sized salad, did cause me to be ill, so ill that I was throwing up so badly that I had to be sent home from school. But, I thought that eating better, and less of it would help me lose weight. At least that is what I was told and what it advertised.
Ha. The first 2 days I practically ate nothing and gained 3 pounds. Very discouraging. So the weight lose thing wasn't going to work for me, but I was still determined to eat more healthy. I knew my body was ridding itself of all the poisons I had stored, because I had to drink more water to keep from feeling like I had a UTI, plus my face was breaking out in a red rash with each pore full of puss that you know I had to squeeze. I have acne like I never had as a teenager.
Then I noticed my eyes aching. I couldn't read the scriptures at night because my eyes were blurry. I would close my eyes when I could, to keep out the light and relieve the strain of being able to focus.When one Friday and Saturday came I was panicking that I was going blind. The eye doctor was not open, but I was really feeling like in one more day I would be blind. I was imagining what my life would be like. I covered my eyes because they were too painful to open and prayed...then I heard the commercial for Victoza on TV tell one of their side effects--blurry and double vision. Once again, the Lord rescued me in a time of need. I prayed to know what to do. I ate fruit for the first time ever since taking Victoza, and my vision got a bit better, but it was still not good.and my eyes ached. I knew I needed to get off Victoza. In two days, I had gone off Victoza and 2 days later, I went to the doctor.
I am off Victoza, but on a sugar-free diet. I went to the eye doctor and in 3 months, my vision had changed drastically from the glasses I had received in December, so I have a new pair coming. I have a cataract in my left eye (my good eye) and a puckered retina in my right eye. I really feel like an old lady with those.
The moral of this dilemma is please, please, don't eat sugar. It is my poison! It will manifest itself and the alternative is not as good as just eating healthy foods in the first place. And....don't eat junk food. It will come out on your face as well as your figure. (My acne continues as I lose weight.) And don't eat so much that you stretch your stomach out. That will make it hard to fast and to lose weight. But please, don't do sugar. I will never get my sight back to what it was...and if I don't get rid of the fat on my body and the sugar it accumulated, I will have to deal with another medicine for Diabetics that will have side effects. It is not worth it. Please change your diets and the diets of your children.
P.S. If there are typos, it is because I can't focus on the screen.
p.p.s. The doctor said that me being outside everyday for recess without sunglasses caused the cateract.
