Enlightening on the journey

A diet journey is the quickest route to knowing yourself. After ten months on this new way of life I still find there are unexplainable things about my eating habits. I have known for years and years that hormones and insulin rule my appetite but, that has never been made clearer than it has in the last few months.

At first this was all about losing weight and getting healthy. I counted calories and the weight came off. Somewhere about 5 months into it this became a self analysis and awareness program. I held the same weight all summer but I continued learning things about myself through those months. They were not wasted months on this path to health!

In September I began losing again and I've now lost 11 pounds. But I have to say that the real internal searching began in September. I began to notice things about my eating patterns that were totally foreign to me. It's a funny thing really, but I am more focused on learning about why I have days that Im ravenous and days that I'm not hungry at all, than I am about how many pounds Im losing. Im more about awareness of the health issue than I am the scale.

Here's an example of what Im talking about. Every time I go on a trip I weigh in the following morning to see how Ive done weight wise. Then the morning after that I weigh in again and always, without fail I weigh more after the first day at home than I do the first morning I get home. I now expect a gain in that first day at home after a trip. I dont know why it happens but it just does.

I have also discovered that sugar triggers my migraines and that now that I've been away from sugar for most of ten months, when I get ahold of it I get instant migraines and on far less amounts than I had previously.

These last two days have brought still yet another phenonomon. I came home from four days of a family reunion wherein the food flowed readily. I weighed and discovered I had actually lost a pound during those four days. It didnt surprise me. I had been very careful and there was also the fact that I didnt have to go in the kitchen and cook like I do here at home. That always helps. So I weighed and I had lost.

The second day I weighed and I gained. That I expected for reasons stated above. It just always happens. That would have been Monday. This morning which is Tuesday, I weighed again and again I gained. Im sure I will gain again tomorrow and here's why.

I have been craving sugar like the world is coming to an end.

Now Im not worried about the weight gain. I'm in this for the long haul and it will come off. I really dont have times anymore where "my head isnt in the game" as they say. Its always in the game. I never zone out. Thats why the gain doesnt worry me. But the reason behind the gain intrigues me. No thats not right either. I know the reason behind it. What is intriguing is the reason behind my sugar craving.

This is like a big game of chess. All the pawns and knights must move correctly or my insulin is triggered and once insulin comes charging out there is no control. Im serious about that. Its the exact same thing as shooting a gun. Once the bullet begins traveling down the barrel there is no stopping it. It goes out and does its damage. Insulin in the hypoglocemic is the same thing. Many people mistakenly think they have no will power. Its not about will power for us. Its all about the insulin. I repeat; once the inulin levels are raised you cannot control what you eat. All the kings horses and all the kings men cannot stop you from eating.

This is what happened to me this evening. In looking back at it I think the problem was that I wasn't fortified with enough protein. I went to run errands and ended up getting hungry. I stayed hungry for about two hours and I mean really hungry. I met my husband at a restaurant for dinner and there I had a salad, grilled salmon, and 2 pieces of red potato. Then I had about 4 french fries. But here's the catch. The salad had the sweetest most wonderful honey mustard dressing on the side. Yes, I was good and ordered it on the side. BUT... I ended up dipping my potato into it and dipping my salmon into it and dipping my sons 4 french fries into it.

By the time I arrived home I was craving sugar so badly I couldn't help myself. I had about 8 little fun size candy bars. Yes, 8 of them. Even as I sit here and write this I can feel the sugar haze falling over me. Does that make me wish I hadn't eaten them? Yes, on an intellectual level but on another level I still really want more sugar. This my friends is my nemesis INSULIN. I recognize him but I'm powerless to stop him.

Tomorrow I will awaken with very low blood sugar. I will eat protein and I will recover. My weight will be up again but this is just a glitch. What I have learned, however, is invaluable on this journey. Actually I knew it before but this has been a reminder, and that is to never let my blood sugar fall to the hungry stage and if it does, never, but never, touch sugar when I'm like that!

Tomorrow is another day on this journey of self awareness. It really is exciting in spite of set backs on the scale. But you know what? I learn more from those set backs than I do when the weight comes off in a consistent manner. So it's onward and downward. Here's to good health and knowledge and getting to know ones self.