Part of my morning routine is to surf the web for tasty tidbits of information. This morning, I ran across an actual tasty tidbit! Following a link from my Facebook to the Atkins Facebook page, I found yet another link from a forum page discussing Low Carb Easter Dinner options. A few in particular I think I will be trying (though not on Easter) in the very near future! Diet Dr Pepper & Diet Coke Glazed Ham, doesn't that sound yummy? But, back to the link I followed from that site. The link was for a recipe called "Mashed Brussels Sprouts", though they aren't really mashed, just cooked until they fall apart with butter! This gal's blog is now on my list of "morning links" though!
She made a post regarding The Biggest Loser and what it is doing to how we "normal" folk are starting to view weight loss. I personally hate the show...but to each their own, I find the general audience is either extremely overweight people (I fit into this category, in my opinion...my BMI is still sitting around 44, but that's down from the 48 I started at!) or the "skinny people" that believe us "fatties" are just too lazy to get out there and lose the weight. For the latter, I can see how a show with two (or more, don't they have 4 trainers now?) super skinny exercise freaks screaming at big blubber balls (something I call myself on occasion) in the gym "making them exercise" could be fun...while the "larger" crowd watches for inspiration, I get that too. Anyway, back to the blog post I'm trying to talk about!
This post, Biggest Loser Damage..., is excellent! I would tell the poster that, but I can't remember the login info for my Wordpress account! My own personal experience in the stall vs. losing cycle is a long one. I have weeks where I lose 4-5 pounds, but they are generally followed by a week of gaining most, if not all, of it back. I've cycled like this since October, I know what is causing it and is getting better. Because I'm a Diabetic ("person with Diabetes" if you want to get all PC about it...), I need to treat low blood sugars as they arise, so I keep small cans of soda (regular, full of sugar kind) on hand as well as fruit juice. I use these to treat lows, an 8 ounce can of Sam's Choice (Wal Mart brand) Root Beer has 33 grams of carbs, all sugar! If you know a doctor anything like my doctor...they'll tell you to drink half of one of those cans of Tree Top Apple Juice and that is more than enough to treat a low...I have never in my life been able to do that, I just keep dropping until I get a large enough "sugar dump" to stop the crash and reverse it. So, on weeks when I need to readjust my insulin because of the healing my body is doing from 30-ish years of carb overload, I end up needing more sugar than I'm getting from my low carb foods. Those weeks I gain...then with my insulin readjusted, I lose the next week!
Pre-low carbing, I was taking, on average, 180 units of fast acting insulin every day (I take Humalog, Novalog works just as well)! That worked out to 4 boxes of insulin pens each month (each pen holds 300 units, each box holds 5 pens)! I refilled my prescription on January 15, 2011 for my normal 1-month supply...as of today, April 21, 2011, I still have 13 of the 20 pens I got that day! So, I went from 6,000 units a month to having used approximately 2,100 units in 3 months! This is also not counting the open pen I have been using for about 2 weeks now! As a type 1 Diabetic, I'll never be "off" insulin...my own body doesn't produce any, until a cure is found, I'm stuck playing the insulin game (I don't believe there will be a cure in my lifetime). But, I love seeing my insulin needs drop like that! My doctors just kept raising the amount I was getting telling me I was developing "insulin resistance" because of my weight, and not really helping when I asked for help or suggestions on what I could do to help reduce the weight! I asked if a portion of the weight gain could be due to my medications (I take Blood Pressure meds as well as meds for High Cholesterol) to which I was told "no". Please remember to do your own research before you believe what a doctor tells you...in my experience they are wrong on average as much as the rest of us! It turned out that both of my medications had a side effect of weight gain! Gee, that might explain a 100 pound gain over a year...maybe! Not that some of the gain wasn't my own fault...but just remember to "google" any new medications and judge for yourself if the side effects are worth it for you, there are usually other medication options. I should mention that I still take a very high dose of long-acting insulin twice a day, but even those amounts have dropped in the past 6 months! I take Lantus (it's supposed to be a once a day, 24-hour long-acting insulin), it was marketed as a once-a-day injection, but everyone I know has to take it twice a day. Either all of my friends are as "weird" as me...or someone in the R&D department was a little off in their calculations...
Okay, enough of my "soapboxing"...but please read her post, she says it much better than I do!
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