#2015HereICome … Sunday morning weigh-in showdown!

For years, I have logged my weight first thing on a Sunday morning. I do sometimes weigh in during the week as well but it’s probably not a good thing to do if the results checked on a daily basis are likely to throw one off course.

I can say with honesty that I do not get all upset if I have gained weight. I will ALWAYS know why I have gained!! 😦

Readers who honour me by subscribing to this blog will know that my Odyssey has been a ‘mixed bag’ of a spectacular (if I say so myself!) success of 25kg lost and then a stumbling, erratic climb in weight. All indications are that the fancy shmancy scale will show that I have regained everything plus more this morning. Hating to disclose that!

The reasons for losing my way on the Odyssey are legion and would fill a dozen posts. I will spare you all that pain!

In future posts though, I will refer to the various factors that caused my wandering off the path; that is what an odyssey is, not so?  🙂

Have a great Sunday xx

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Listen up 2015! Here.I.Come!

I’m enjoying a short period of less hectic days and this will continue for a couple of weeks. Bliss! Trying to get office stuff done quite promptly in the morning and then indulging myself for the rest of the day.

As for many of us, 2014 was a mixed bag – the proverbial good, bad and the ugly. I wrestled the entire year with my weight and worrying health markers.

A battle plan is in progress for 2015 and I will be sharing all here on this neglected blog. Not easy to bare one’s soul for the whole world to see but I will be doing this anyway.

I would so love to have you join me as the odyssey continues……

This pic sorta says it all!  🙂

Low Carb Milk

We cannot obtain low carb cow’s milk in South Africa. No worries. Here is the recipe I use for my beloved tea. So quick & simple. I use about 50ml in a cup of tea. Never in coffee! For that I use Clover cream!

Camilla's Low Carb Milk

• Servings: 5 x 50ml
• Time: 3mins
• Difficulty: falling off a log
• Print

• 1/4 cup full cream milk
• 3/4 cup distilled water (I use bottled water too)
• 1 Tablespoon heavy cream (I just use Clover)
• dash of salt & sweetener to taste

Shake all ingredients together in a shaker and chill. This has 3.2 g carbohydrate; perfect for LCHF. If 1 cup of water is used, it takes more like skim milk.

That’s it! Enough already!

Hear ye! Hear ye! Public Announcement!

It really is enough now.  Exactly what is ‘it’ and what is enough already? Weight. Hypertension. Blood Glucose (and the edible kind). Fatigue. Insomnia. Indifference. Oh grief, I could go on and on.. and on …

It’s what my dietician called ‘the slippery slop’. Perhaps I should pen that as ‘The Slippery Slope’. Because it really, really is a Slippery Slope people. Actually, no, scratch that completely. It’s the Slippery Gorge. And do please check out the synonym verbs for Gorge hereunder!

The infamous and notorious (there is a difference) Odyssey takes to the road again tomorrow morning. Let’s be clear on this, tomorrow 19 August 2013 at 07h00 my Odyssey takes to the highway again.  I am mortified to admit here on this horribly public forum that I tested FBG and BP this morning and both are notably elevated. Elevated from my usual readings that is – which were last done on 23rd June. That is the mortifying part – the interval between these routine checks. Won’t be permitted to happen again.  I am not mortified about the readings themselves, they are simply proof of severe self neglect. My excuses for this severe self neglect will become clear as I continue to bore you all in the days and weeks to come 🙂

Gorge (per the ubiquitous Google)

Noun A narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it.

Verb Eat a large amount greedily; fill oneself with food: “we used to go to all the little restaurants and gorge ourselves”.

Synonyms noun. ravine – throat – gully – gullet verb. gormandize – gobble – devour – guzzle – cram

Odyssey : Interrupted…..

“ I try to take one day at a time,

but sometimes several days attack me at once “

I used the above quotation in June in the series of posts on quotes that resonate with me.

Well  at the moment I have to say that several months have attacked me all at once recently. Since June I have been bombarded with truly huge challenges on all fronts; business-wise, health-wise, personal-wise, feel free to  imagine any ‘–wise’ you can think of and  it has challenged me! And (never begin a sentence with ‘and’ Eileen!) the concerted attack continues unabated.

The result is enormous stress or I should say  events that are causing very stressful  loss of focus on all  mission-critical fronts and will continue to do so until the end of the year.

The catalyst for all of this can probably  be laid at the door of our impending re-location to  a lovely leafy little suburb called La Rochelle.  It will be our second  suburban move since moving to Cape Town in 2005. We currently occupy two apartments in a nice old building and we are in the process of packing up both; together with a garage which is crammed full of ‘stuff’ both business and personal.

Our home apartment is not so bad – the cupboards are pretty neatly sorted. A dear kind person has offered to just pitch up on moving day and load all our garments ‘as is’ on their hangers into her car and transport them to our new home. Cool! We are profoundly grateful to her.

My books are mostly packed and ready to roll. My chests full of craft & hobby paraphernalia must still  be attended to but I am leaning towards just transporting the drawers ‘as is’ as well.

Our business apartment is not so simple and we are presently surrounded by literally dozens of boxes packed and labelled, packed and not labelled, not packed  and ………..  ya getta da picture I am sure.The result of  darn nearly five years of not sending archive paper back to our clients. Of course, the clients have been quite happy to leave their stuff with us – saves their space!!  The garage has many more such boxes waiting to be shipped and  we only have 3 weeks to go to D-Day.

I better get to end of this post and go do something useful ! 🙂

We are determined to move with as little junk as possible and  the physical strain of all this angst  is getting to us a bit. We are not getting any younger  so it’s a case of pacing ourselves and  forging ahead in an orderly fashion. List-maker that I am, there is not much that will miss my attention even as thinly spread as we are at this time.

The loss of focus on the health and wellness  aspect of the Odyssey is hugely upsetting indeed but as Dr Anna says “ Do not beat yourself up about it” .  I will just renew /redirect focus as soon and as often as  I can. In between the (organised?!) chaos, I am still trying to keep up with all my health newsletters, still checking out the “Metabolism Miracle” option, getting to gym  occasionally and hiking on mountains and in forests every so often…… What more can I do with everything else going on?!

Talk again soon I hope…… keep well and be in touch please if you can….

Weight loss : a mini-breakthrough

Well, it was a damn long time coming. What a battle! As of this morning, I have edged past the 25kg mark for the first time – 25.2kg down to be exact. As I said, a mini breakthrough but a breakthrough it is.

My weight loss has fluctuated between 24 –24.8kg for the last 2 months. I know the reasons for this very well. Lax portion control, little exercise, insufficient water and occasional mini-binges all contributed to the patchy downward progress.

June was a month of bi-annual medical checks I have which form part of the diabetic care protocol. At the beginning of the year and at mid-year, I have various tests done to check my health status.  Doctor, pathologists, ophthalmologist, podiatrist and dietician all had the dubious pleasure of my company last month. I will talk about it in a later post.

Diabetes really is a dread disease in that uncontrolled – or even just poorly controlled glucose levels wreak havoc with virtually every body system. Unseen and undetected until too late. That’s fact and not just me becoming neurotic or a hypochondriac! While I am very aware of my health diagnoses/challenges and am doing (action!) all I reasonably can to reverse the situation, I have no time to sit around contemplating my ‘health navel’!

Between health, business and personal challenges, I seldom have time to scratch myself! I do not schedule enough ‘me time’.  I call it down time or time out. I am looking at that quite seriously and would recommend it for everybody.

As part of my mid-year checks, I consulted a dietician about the prolonged weight plateau. Yeah. Another one. Another dietician I mean. Did I learn anything new? No. Didn’t expect to. What I did get was a slightly revised eating plan which cuts kJ to 5200 per day. (About 1222 calories). Rather strict plan for sure. Cuts carbs and leaves protein/fats much the same. Am I following the recommendations to the letter? Not quite but I have had a shift in weight and that’s the bottom line isn’t it?!

The other perennial recommendation is to increase exercise. Any regular physical activity is crucial for overall health improvement – any physical activity at all.

So get that fat dog out on a leash and get out into the neighbourhood so that he can pick up his pee-mail!

Snippets to smile at … and to think on

 

How did the cow jump over the moon?

No-one told her she couldn’t!

Taken from Riva Greenberg’s Diabetes Stories website.

I am one of those bolshie types. I don’t like being told what to do.  I’m pretty sure there aren’t many people who do – like being told what to do that is! 

Maybe there is more of my Dad in me than I think.  Dad was a chain smoker. I mean a CHAIN SMOKER. He would light one cigarette with the still glowing stub of his last ciggie. Not filter tips either. As a child I used to see the red glow of his cigarette in the dark whenever I ventured out into the passage on my way to the loo in the dark hours of the night.

The real (and phantom) pain he suffered all his life from an amputated right arm during World War 2 was often given as the reason for his chain smoking.

One day, on one of the regular family Sundays my parents used to host on the farm, an aunt told my father that he was addicted to cigarettes and that he was incapable of giving up the habit. For that reason, he should accompany her to a Smokenders meeting during the coming week.

Typically, my bolshie Pater snorted derisively that he could give up at any moment he wished. My equally bolshie aunt retorted that he could not possibly give up decades of chain smoking ‘just like that’.

With that, Dad – by now really riled up – took his smoke out of his mouth & stubbed it out furiously in the ashtray that lived by his chair.  “ That’s the last cigarette I will ever smoke!”, he declared angrily. The whole family laughed which did not amuse my old man at all!

And – do you know what – it was! The last cigarette he ever smoked. He suffered; gee how he suffered but would never really admit it. He made my Mom give up too. (Although she started up again behind his back and for many years she thought he didn’t know it!) Til the day he died years later he never put another cigarette in his mouth. Sadly though, the damage had been done.

I’ve never been a follower. I tend to lead from the front; rise to the top; stick my neck out. Dish out orders my kids would say no doubt!

But, you know, sometimes – just sometimes – I could be leading in the right direction! Sure hope so anyway!  No-one has told me I will not reach my goals. On the contrary, I have received support all the way.

I surely do need the motivation and encouragement as I battle some unexpected obstacles……. Maybe you have some too …….. take heart, we are in this together!

 

 

I am really upset … 3 Poor self care and diabetes complications

Those of you following this blog will know the story about my friend T who works for a friend/client of mine. At Christmas time he scraped his foot while swimming and by March his foot had been amputated.  He is still getting around on crutches while he awaits a prosthetic foot.

I was upset once again yesterday when I was told that T was admitted to hospital last Thursday with deep vein thrombosis in the remaining ‘good’ leg. He remains hospitalised at this time and I will contact his son later this morning to get the latest update. The grave danger and possible consequences in this situation do not have to be spelled out.

What really, really gets to me is that this whole unfolding crisis could quite probably have been avoided completely. It need never have happened.

T really needs to supplement his pension income, his employer wants to accommodate this but also has to deal with T’s lengthy  absences from work. It has placed my client in a  difficult situation which will have to resolved one way or another.

When we blithely ignore the warning signs that our lifestyle is causing our bodies to deteriorate, we are literally toying with our  lives. There are thousands of medical conditions that can befall us over which we have no control whatsoever. Surely it makes sense to take charge of what we can control and influence? But we just don’t do it.

I am relentlessly driven by a number of things to continue on my odyssey back to optimal (optimum?!) wellness. I cannot just let it go. I cannot just let things slide – much as I am so often tempted to do. I deviate from the path – badly sometimes – and yet I cannot throw in the towel.

• I value my financial independence and the lifestyle that this affords me.
• I dread the day my children have to step up to the plate and provide for me financially.
• I fear being dependant on others to care for me physically. I cared for my dying mom-in-law for over a year before she died and it was a harrowing experience for both of us. Well do I remember the two of us crying bitterly in each other’s arms as I changed her filthy disposable nappy yet again. The anguish she suffered from the pain and loss of dignity is something that still lives with me  26 years later.
• I am angry at myself for the stupidity I exhibited over many years in not looking after my health and lifestyle.  I still exhibit this same stupidity ; work and stressful deadlines still predominate in my life.

One small consolation is that sanity has now prevailed long enough for me to appoint a temporary office assistant. After only 3 mornings with us, the ‘advent of Nicky’ is changing my office landscape and I will talk more about this in a later post.

Weight loss: we must know where we are headed

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.””

— Lewis Carroll, author

Reducing my weight and maintaining at goal weight is the single most important element of my journey to optimum wellness. With my weight at a normal level, the other ills I have will come right. Well, if not ‘come right’, they will certainly be the best results I can achieve given my specific circumstances.

Damn it all to hell! I have said it before and I will say it again. It’s all self inflicted. By upping the ante as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am placing a much higher value on self care.

By doing this, I will be better able to cope with a stressful, busy life and better plan for the more rounded lifestyle I yearn for.

The first thing I am doing, as of this morning, is re-looking at portion control. W & I have been eating far too much and this is one of the main reasons why our weight is not shifting as rapidly as it was. With W-L and the very comprehensive food list booklet they provide, I am able to instantly see what size my portions should be. So, I have no excuses. Period.

The other day, I saw a list of portion sizes compiled by Dr Ingrid van Heerden (DietDoc on Health 24.com). I am sure I made a copy of it. I’ll dig it out and post it later in the day.

Chow for now. Have a good one.

Weight Loss : I’ve got to up the ante

It’s now exactly two weeks since we returned from our wonderful break at Pinnacle Point. A fading memory I am afraid. 😦  We had to jump right back into the fray and catch up on time lost while we chilled out.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with the whole scenario; with the way that we live our lives in our house. This work, work, work is not a good place to be. We should be relaxing and I suppose I should be relaxing doing crochet or something or maybe gossiping with the other tannies in our quiet apartment block. Nah, just can’t see that ever happening.

I, for one, am right up there with my kids checking out the latest Blackberry, muttering about what in the cloud data backups are costing me, taking on new payroll work for small businesses. I would just like to have a more rounded life and in truth am striving towards that goal; without any notable success at this time!

What has happened since returning to Cape Town two weeks ago? Well, on the weight front nothing much at all and therein lies the problem. Having lost 23kg, my metabolism has settled down and decided that this weight is quite OK, thank you very much. So, another dreaded plateau. I have 7kg to go to the W-L goal set for me and I still want to go at least another 5kg down after that!

I feel good! I’m told I look good (but not when I am still working in my dressing gown mid-morning!) I am much smaller than I was, of course. I had the most amazing experience just before we left on holiday. I simply had to go to Woollies and find some denim pants to take on holiday – the old ones were all hanging like sacks on me. Great feeling actually! 🙂

Not having a clue what size to buy, I confidently took home two pairs of denim pants in size 18. Bearing in mind that I had been wearing size 22 stuff, this in itself was a major victory for me. Got home to find that the jeans as well as the pull on elasticised denim pants were both far too big!

As I hate trying on clothes in shop fitting rooms, I went back, changed the pants and came home with size 16’s. Tried them on. WOW!  The fitted jeans were fine – even a little loose. The elasticised pants were too big!  So back to the shop again to came home with size 14’s. Anyone who has worn size 22 clothes and now wears size 14 will know exactly how I felt!  I was and still am over the moon about this very tangible evidence of my progress so far.

SO FAR

Two very crucial little words for me. I have come so far and am justifiably chuffed with my efforts. But now the real test must begin. The last 7kg’s will be difficult to lose and hence the expression below :-

“ If you up the ante, you increase the importance or value of something, especially where there’s an element of risk as the term comes from gambling, where it means to increase the stake (the amount of money bet). “    Wikipedia

The element of risk for me is, of course, the real possibility of deteriorating health issues due to too slow intervention on my part. I must place a much greater emphasis on where I am heading and pick up the pace substantially.  I will have to worry about all the loose, wrinkled, floppy bits that will only get worse once I have arrived at my destination! The value of goal weight as the basis for optimum wellness has to be the most important element of my odyssey.

So, onward and downward again – are you joining me? You are most welcome!