Treadmill accompaniement: Revolutionary Love, Stranger Things 2

Starting weight (AM/no clothes)
10/14/17: 242
10/21/17: 237.8
10/28/17: 241 
11/04/17: 235.8

Blood sugar (AM/fasting)
10/14/2017: 151
10/21/2017: 113
10/28/2017: 116
11/04/2017: Forgot to check this AM, A1C: 7.1

Steps:
10/14 - 10/20: 44,857
10/21 - 10/28: 64,204
10/29 - 11/04: 

Picture L on 10/14/2017  / Picture R on 11/04/2017

I work in a medical facility, so I went to urgent care down the hallway, and got my heart checked out.  I'm ok, chest pain attributed to hypoglygemia.

It really threw my whole body out of whack, I felt really sick and kind of shaky for about 3-4 days after Sunday's hypoglycemic event.  I had a hard time keeping my blood sugar up, and was eating more, and not so great to compensate.   So I felt really reassured that nothing physically really wrong showed up, and that it was something I could push through.  The Doctor advised staying on the metformin and not taking the glimepiride for now and seeing how it went.  I wasn't healthying myself to death. 

They did an EKG, and I didn't realize that you have to be mostly naked for them to put all the electrodes on you.  So that's weird knowing that a woman I work in the building with has seen my boobs.  But I actually wasn't that self conscious.  I know she's seen much worse, and probably the most of what she cares about, is that I wasn't dirty, didn't smell, and she didn't have to shave any body hair to attach electrodes to me.  

My regular Doctor, had scheduled me to get my A1C done.  It had been about 10 months since I had it done.  Basically this facility (not associated with the one I work at) doesn't call people to remind them every six months or so, and it's really hard to get time off work for appointments, so I procrastinated.  Anyhow my A1C was 7.1, which was good, in January it was 7.4.  Not a tremendous change, but better then going backwards. And I hadn't been trying like I was trying now, so I felt it would improve more in the near future.  The urgent care Doctor was like, hey that's great, good going, these lifestyle changes are great.

The woman who called to tell me the results, really wanted to rain on my parade, she was not impressed by my 7.1.  And was really quite snotty about it.  She just had this tone, and said, the Doctor said that we like to see it at 6.5, and you need to focus on exercise and diet.  Reading it, it doesn't sound horrible, but the way it was delivered, made me feel objectified.  When she said "you need" it was in the way you would say "you people."  Like I was a fat person she was trying to bully.    And then she said they wanted to put me on Lipitor, because I had a cardiovascular risk of 3%.  And I asked...3% out of?  And she said 100%.  Maybe I misheard her, and she said 30%, because 3% seems a bit hasty to throw Lipitor at?   While lowering chances of heart attack and stroke is an idea I'm on board with....I really don't want to be on ANOTHER medication, with more side effects.  I declined, till I could speak with my Doctor further.

I hate it when people talk about diet and exericise, like I've never heard of it before.  I know that some people really are that clueless, that fast food, sugar, and corn syrup aren't doing good things for your body, I know some people can't identify which vegetables are which and how to prepare them, but....the average overweight person, is informed.  I may choose not to think about it that hard when I'm not feeing great, or eating too great.  But I know the facts.

Some medical assistant telling me to exercise and watch what I eat, isn't going to turn the tides though.  It's as the saying goes, beating a dead horse.  I believe, for the majority of overweight people, it isn't about the physical, but about the emotional and mental, there are issues and deeply rooted experiences, that led to this outcome, and have to be addressed and worked at, to really effect change.  

I personally think, their are also two seperate issues, that are quite intertwined, there's the aspect of the relationship to food, and then the aspect of the relationship to weight.

Regarding food - I think a recent medication change has made things a little better, not long ago it used to be that when I ate, for instance ice cream, I could feel it release dopamine into my system.  In part I was seeking that high when I didn't feel mentally great.  I don't get that now, so my dopamine/seratonin receptors must be balanced out better.  But those cravings as you can imagine, were strong like an addicts, because they were working with the same chemical need. But usually food was a coping mechanism, it was something that felt good, when nothing else felt good, a distraction.  It was a reward for accomplishments, it was a kindly pat on the back for bad days.  Many things were an occasion for eating food, that was not to satiate hunger.   And this started when I was a kid, I grew up where junk food was used as a reward, and when I was old enough to supply junk food for myself, I definitely sought out that comfort.

Relationship to weight.  So....I'm going to say something that's disturbing, I felt a warning was in order.  Are you warned?  My Dad is totally fat phobic, and believes that looks are everything, only he believed that we weren't the chosen ones, we were the failures, and he ingrained this into me.  Once when I was in kindergarten and having a hard time making friends, my drunken Dad was watching TV, and I was getting hysterical, and screaming that I was fat and ugly, and I took a knife from the drawer and kept threatening to stab myself.  My Dad just said, go ahead, again - drunk, and really terrible at Dadding.  Eventually my courage failed me, because I knew it would hurt a lot.   This is not normal behavior for a 5 year old.  I think it does explain a lot.  I was a totally regular looking 5 year old, I was not fat in any way.  But I carried those feeings inside, and also it lead to a life long habit of thinking that everything bad that happened, everything I wanted that I didn't get, every person who I liked, but didn't like me back, it because of how I looked and how much a weighed.

I think I could have gone one of two ways, I could have become obsessed with being thin, and anorexic, or obsessed with being thin, and obese.  But with my Dad's influence, I usually believed that I couldn't ever look acceptable, and I felt like I didn't have any control to turn the tides, I was marked with the Scarlet letter F for fat.  Weight was something that happened because my body was hateful.  Mentally, I knew that eating badly and not exercising contributes to weight gain, I knew how to lose weight, but it just never seemed like it was something I was capable of, because of my lot in life. 

When I was about 10, my Mom joined this aerobics class.  And I would go with her, and got to do the class for free, because I think they thought it was cute that I was doing it.  And it was physically a hard class, like I really felt the burn, but afterwards I would have all these endorphins and I could feel changes in my body, when we had to run laps during PE, it felt so easy.  I lost a bit of weight to, and I was enjoying that.  And then one day I went, and  suddenly my mind just said no, it's hard, I don't feel like doing it today, and I just sat on the sidelines and never did the aerobics class again.   Nothing happened, no one had said anything, no one had discouraged me or made me feel bad about exercising, I just hit a wall somewhere inside myself.  I think this wasn't just my Dad's influence, but also the fact that I was severely bullied, and called fat every day, and it really had broken me down inside.

I feel like, I've been trying to overcome that wall my whole life since, I got a taste of success, I was in control and attaining something I wanted. There was no reason to stop, and I stopped, because pushing through didn't fit my perceptions of myself, I was a person who failed at things, not a fighter, or someone who powered through.  

I'm trying to keep this in mind, so I don't sabotage myself, and keep steady on the course.  This week, despite its rocky start, the scale started to go down again, and that was some needed encouragement.  I *might* be one of the winners for this round of dietbets, there's a chance at least.