No loss this week, but no gain either, and I am okay with that. I told myself before I started back on this journey, that I wasn't going to beat myself up for imperfections. Or at least what the old me would have perceived as imperfections. Maintenance is okay, it means I am still on the right path and doing the right things. In the past I would have been upset to not "lose" at least something every single week.
I posted the picture above that I found online, of our vacation destination in July. Pretty isn't it? I know I set a goal of being at 200 for vacation, but that's 8 pounds and now 3 1/2 weeks away. I am not the type to do fad diets or fasting or starvation, whatever you want to call it. I try to eat right most of the time, and I try to move more. It's a simple formula, and there are no blaring headlines about dropping two sizes in two days, or losing 20 pounds in two weeks. And once the weight loss is over- once I reach my ultimate goal of 140 one day- then the rest of my life will be about maintenance anyhow. So, not losing or gaining anything this week, is acceptable.
This is the first week where I've realized that my cravings for junk food are diminishing to the point where I've actually noticed it. Now that fruits are considered zero point foods on Weight Watchers, I've been trying to eat a lot more of them. Like most people who struggle with their weight, I would certainly rather have an Oreo Blizzard or a bag of Cheetos, instead of a piece of watermelon or bunch of grapes. But I would also like to wear a size 12 instead of an 18. For me, the two don't go together.
As for my triglyceride number, I have been racking my brain to try and figure out how I can go from years of normal numbers, to something so high my doctor told me I crashed their computer program. Yet, all my other numbers were fine, even my blood sugar. Something in my diet had to have changed drastically, so it has to be something new and something I do a lot of. A day after my test results, I came across an article about agave nectar, then started doing research online about it. It seems that agave, although it's touted as an alternative to white sugar, is almost all fructose (sugar is glucose). I found multiple articles stating that fructose was harder for the liver to process and therefore was known to raise cholesterol and triglycerides (but does not raise blood sugar). And of course, it was my liver that just put me in the hospital in April too.
One article said only a small amount occasionally was okay. About two years ago, I switched over to agave nectar for my coffee. So I am using a couple of spoonfuls every single day! I printed out all the findings, and when I go back to see my doctor after my next round of labs in mid-July, I'm going to show it to her. This is really the only thing I can think of, that I have added to my diet recently in a large quantity, and every day. Other than that, everything else I eat or drink is pretty much the same. So hopefully by retiring the brand new bottle I just bought, to the shelf in the pantry, I will see my numbers go down. And of course, this is all a guess anyhow. My doctor told me to stop using creamer in my coffee and stop eating yogurt, but I've been doing both of those for decades now and they never caused high numbers, so I doubt that suddenly creamer and yogurt caused my triglycerides to shoot up from the 90's to the 600's. Hhhmmm.
So the agave is gone from my diet and I continue to take the fish oil. I will keep on moving, whether on the treadmill or walks in the neighborhood or simply just my normal chores around the house and yard. So far it all seems to be working, and I'm down 17 pounds since getting out of the hospital in April. Nothing drastic enough to be on the cover of a magazine, but 100% the right direction for me.
SANDY
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