Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

I graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor's in Dietetics. I majored in nutrition because I wanted to know why I was fat.  From the time I was 10, I had a weight problem, an energy problem and OH, I hated to exercise.  Right before I went to college, the first national Dietary Guidelines were issued in 1977 - the ones that Ancel Keys had so much influence over and published without any proof that what they were recommending was true. (See the following: Fat Head by Tom Naughton; Cereal Killers: The Movie, Statin Nation, Dr. Sarah Hallberg)  So began the obesity and Type 2 Diabetes epidemic.  We have been one big f&#$%ng science experiment and it FAILED. 

For the next 3 1/2 decades, I ate less fat, ate whole grains, fruit & veggies & moved more, got frustrated, gave up, felt like a personal failure, tried again: cut fat, cut calories, exercise like a madwoman, get frustrated, quit, etc.  Michele May calls this the Eat-Repent-Repeat cycle.  

There is nothing worse than an obedient little girl trying to be "good" and follow the rules and

    be met with failure,

    blame that it must be my fault,

    I must be "cheating",

    I'm not working out enough

    and finally just giving up. 

I ate whatever I wanted, and was happy for a few years, then became type 2 diabetic (T2). Now, having a degree in Dietetics, I knew more than the average Joe about standard diabetes care protocols.  This was my downfall. I knew better than some doctor who never studied a lick of nutrition, so I took what they told me and thought I was implementing it correctly.  Since high school, I had always been within 5-10 pounds of the same number on the scale.  Then I became T2 and was told to eat 5x/day, 45 - 60 g carb per meal and 2-3 20g carb snacks.  I was diabetic, they said and my body was resistant to insulin, so I was destined to just get sicker and fatter. Then I had to go on insulin.  All this time, my inner rebel insisted I knew better than the doctors trying to help me and I stubbornly didn't hear what a few of the docs tried to say - which was I was INSULIN RESISTANT. That's really what was wrong with me, but I had a mental block the size of Mt. Everest...but I can't go back.

Granted, there has been a lot more research on insulin resistance and optimal treatment for T2 in the past 10 years, but I ran an 8.2-8.7 A1c for far too long.  The more I tried to get serious, the more fat I cut out of my diet, the more whole grains I ate, the more beans, vegetables and fruit I ate and the fatter I got, the more insulin I needed and I experienced utter, complete failure.  In November of 2013, I was desperate. I felt like crap all the time, had no energy and could barely function at work, let alone at home. I didn't participate in my family life, I was too tired.  They grew up and went off to college and I feel like I missed their last years at home. It sucked.  My long-suffering husband was always there for me, he never said a word as I got fatter and fatter, more and more tired (I called it lazy, but I really just couldn't do anything).  On November 20, 2013, I said a prayer of desperation to my angels, guides and patron saints. I begged them to intercede for me and ask God to help me figure out something.  While surfing the net later that night for more updated treatments for T2 - which I assumed meant weight loss - I stumbled up on Michael Mosley's 5:2 Fast Diet. It was intermittent fasting - 2 days a week, you eat 500 calories, the rest of the week, you can eat whatever you want up to your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure - lots of online calculators can help you get this).  My TDEE was over 2200 calories, more than I had tried to eat for years, so I gave it a try and lost 30 pounds in about 6 months.  When I tried to hack my golden goose by going below my TDEE (which changes as you drop weight), it backfired on me.  Finally, people started noticing I was losing and it scared me off the plan. I regained all of it and more - the typical reason that diets fail 95% of the time.  Fast forward to 2015, my youngest had gone off to college and I was working long hours, not sleeping (4-5 hours if I was lucky), eating processed and restaurant food instead of cooking - a recipe for disaster. Even worse, since I "knew" about diabetes, I would adjust my insulin without my doctor's approval/recommendation. I gained and gained and gained. 

In December of 2015, I scared myself - I couldn't go up stairs without panting and getting dizzy, my blood pressure (as measured at home) was 150/110. I emailed (!) my doctor and asked what I should do (duh!!), she had me come in and really listened to me when I told her I just couldn't deal with feeling like this anymore and I was worried about the blood pressure. For the first time in my life, a doctor did NOT say "let me give you another prescription for blood pressure" - I think I was almost maxed out on the THREE I was already taking.  When I had been in during the summer, another doctor in the practice told me I had to cut carbs to 0, that was the only way to get better.  Pfft... said my inner 1984 dietetics graduate, everyone knows you have to have carbs if you're diabetic, so I ignored her (gained another 15# by December too).  I don't know what was different this time, but this doctor said if I didn't treat the insulin resistance with low carb and exercise, I was never going to get better.  Better? Diabetics don't get better, they were lucky if they could delay or prevent complications, but early horrible death was inevitable. That was the message I always perceived. You hear what you need to when you're ready, I guess.  This video - also linked above - is what put me firmly on the LCHF wagon. (TED)

This time, my doctor said she wanted to work with me. I had 5 weeks before I went back to work after the semester ended to work on learning about a low carb lifestyle - not diet - it has to be a forever commitment.  I am nothing if not a good little patient, so I took my 268 pound self off to do what I do best - read, cook and find out what this was about.  Of course this was two weeks before Christmas, but not a cookie or a cake passed my lips.  I didn't want them because I felt better.  Additionally, my son came home for the holidays after starting a new job in NYC and had lost 54 lbs since June. He looked amazing.  He had worked with his new company's nutritionist and cut carbs, ate a bit more protein and since he walked everywhere, it worked for him.  He and his fiance` joined a climbing gym too and climb twice a week, in addition to all the walking. Oh, and he doesnt' eat after 7 p.m. until breakfast the next day. I'm happy for him - his A1c in June was 6.9%. He had it tested while he was home (AFTER Christmas) and it was 4.8%. He worked really hard and is now going into maintenance, which he realized means not going back to the old way of being, but being smart while adding a bit more fruit & protein to his pattern.

Fast forward to today - two months later and I have completely switched my view of fat.  I learned about the LCHF (also called a ketogenic) eating pattern that can really help T2 and obese people.  Fat phobia was my biggest hurdle in learning about this. 1984 girl keeps screaming NO NO NO! But as I learn it and practice it, I feel like I might be onto something.  I'm sharing resources that are helping me, but I can tell you it took over two months for ketosis to really kick in and start lowering my blood sugars. I didn't lose an ounce, but I felt SO much better, I didn't care.  My main worry was my glucose numbers - they were so high, despite keeping to 20-30g of carb a day (down from 240+g/day prior to my doctor's appt in Dec).

The other kick in the pants for me was that I ended up in the doc's office again in January because I thought I had some kind of infection (sinus, UTI, ???) because my numbers were in the 250+ range again. She did find something, so I started on an antibiotic, but the numbers were still too high.  She handed me the beginner kit and a box of Victoza - a third injectable for diabetes.  She said to bring them back to my nutritionist appt in 3 weeks and if things weren't better, I'd need to start on it.  I cried. The LAST thing I wanted was ANOTHER  diabetes injectable drug. I was determined to figure this out and get OFF medicine, not add more.

At long last, being an insulin dependent diabetic means I have things that are being proven to be a better standard of care - a LCHF ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. Turns out I was on to something last year, I just didn't have the right amounts of carb, protein and fat to make sustainable changes or glucose improvement.  The missing piece for me turned out to be exercise.  I can't get around it. When I added it to my week (3x/week, 15 minutes of HIIT), my sugars dropped like a rock. Adding two half-fasts a week had them coming down even lower. I had to cut my insulin for the first time.

In the interim, I also researched stress and cortisol levels, acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine and have found that a combination of MORE SLEEP, more exercise & a well-planned keto LCHF eating pattern feels like it is working for me.  I used a keto macro calculator for guidance - there are several out there, all come out about the same for me.  Nowhere near the 2200 recommended last year, btw!!  But, eating this way, I am finally not hungry all the time. I have more energy, my sleep is better, my focus is clearer, I'm having fun cooking again and I don't have to count calories - just carb grams (up to 20g per DAY), protein grams (up to 88g/day) and fat to satiety.  The reason I count protein is because protein can make your glucose rise if you have too much.  I'm actually looking forward to seeing the nutritionist - I'm confident I will NOT be starting a 3rd injectable and will be discussing some of the obesogenic  prescriptions I'm on to see if we can't stop or change them.

Here are the things that are helping me:

Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt: www.dietdoctor.com

and the book "Low Carb, High Fat Food Revolution"

Dr. Tim Noakes: Real Meal Revolution - http://realmealrevolution.com/ (don't forget, they call it "Banting" in South Africa)

Dr. Sarah Hallberg: www.fitteru.us
TED Talk that changed my life: 
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Reversing-Type-2-Diabetes-Start

Butter Bob Briggs: buttermakesyourpantsfalloff.com

also check out his You Tube videos-they're great!

Jimmy Moore's livinlavidalowcarb.com

"Keto Clarity" by Jimmy Moore & Eric Westman, MD.

"The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" by Jeff Volek & Stephen Phinney

Finally, the practice of mindfulness (you knew I was going to get there sometime!) has been HUGE in making this work for me.  Cooking all these wonderful recipes has made everything taste so good, it's a shame to rush through it, so I've slowed down, enjoy every bite and when I feel that whole body sigh of satisfaction & satiety, I stop eating.  I still struggle a bit leaving food on the plate - some habits die hard - but I feel so much better, I'm learning to take smaller portions and let go of the guilt - which reduces my cortisol, which lowers my insulin resistance, which lowers my blood glucose.....

It's all good.

Pax

Transitions...... OR Change is the only constant!

I have believed for a long time that the reason I was so stuck in perfectionism for so many years was because I didn't understand the nature of change.  I wanted things to be ordered, perfect and the way they were "supposed" to be.  It took years of frustration, fighting and finally, infertility to get it through my head that nothing is constant and Jon Kabat-Zin's "You can't fight the waves, but you can learn to surf" was the mantra I needed to start to understand the grip stress had on my life. 

Flash forward a couple of decades and people who know me now are astonished when I share stories of the perfectionism, control issues and anger I have left behind.  I finally know that there is perfection in imperfection and that being grateful for things as they are without trying to change them allows them to bloom and grow forever (like eidelweiss). :)

SO, here we are, on May 20, 2015. Both of my kids are home from college, my son has finished his Master's at Purdue and has a job waiting for him in the Big Apple in a month.  Last night, he proposed to his girlfriend of 7 years and we are all pretty blissed out today.  Welcome to our family, dear one!

My daughter finished her freshman year 1000 miles away and drove herself and her roomate home over the weekend.  Talk about synchronicity - we have always taken our car in for a trip check, oil change, etc. before we travel.  She took that life lesson ingrained from infancy and took her truck in for a check.  It turned out that the u-joints and drive train needed to be replaced - they would not have made it home without a major accident. TYJ!  THEN, she had to wait a day for the part they ordered to come in. Guess what? They ordered the wrong part and the right one was going to come in the next (next) day. So they had to delay their departure by a day. A minor inconvenience, they were able to work out an extra night stay at the dorm and had a friend help them get their stuff to the storage unit that they now couldn't get to with the truck "sick". All good, right? WELL, thank the Lord, Universe, Force, Guardian Angels - whichever names you associate with our benevolent, merciful Creator - the day they were supposed to leave (Friday) ended up being a horrible weather day - tornadoes, violent thunderstorms, flooding - just awful. They would have had to drive through that and who knows what they would have encountered. They came home Sat/Sun instead, didn't have a drop of rain and made it home in good time.  What looked like a major inconvenience ended up being a blessing of protection and safety.

So for me, viewing these changes with a grateful heart and a calmer mind was another gift to see how far I've come in my journey. I stayed Present, Practiced detachment and breathing, and noted my Progress with gratitude for how far I've come. Baby steps have actually brought me a long way - I now view transitions as the part of life that keeps things interesting and allow them to draw me into mindful reflection of my many blessings. 

Practice for today: 
Take a moment to look out the window, ground yourself in the PRESENT moment. PRACTICE slowing down your breathing - Andrew Weil's In 4 - hold 7 - out 8 - (4 times) is always wonderful for calming and grounding. Notice the PROGRESS you are making learning to stop, breathe, think.  I have attached a great stoplight graphic that I use in my classes as a reminder that your P3 is always up to you to use whenever you need it.

Welcome, Scorpio Moon!

Well, today is May's Full Moon and what a gorgeous sight it is going to be - based on last night's view at any rate!  Hoping Mike Kaplan's forecast for showers is off base, though he usually isn't.  Don't forget to put your crystals in a place they can catch any moonbeams for cleansing and recharging!  Do it mindfully and in the Present so you can let them know you appreciate them.

I have a new Practice for this month. I'm going to take Liz Gilbert's idea of a happiness jar and modify it for myself. Each day, I'm going to write one wonderful blessing, healing prayer or acknowledgement of abundance on a sheet of paper and keep it in a jar - you will note that none of these will be regarding diet, exercise or body image!!  Then, on the Full Moon in June, also near my birthday, I will read each one, thank Spirit for my blessings and abundance and burn them with incense as an offering of gratitude and presence. I can't dwell on them if they are offered up, I have to keep going and so I'll start again for the next moon cycle.  As an endometrial cancer survivor, I was launched surgically into the Crone phase of my life, so I have to use external rituals for connecting with the feminine divine.  

I am inviting my goddess circle to do the same and bring their jars with them on June 2nd (next Full Moon) and so it should be quite a fire :)

The importance of ritual and transition and coming of ages is an important way to mark the milestones in our lives. My son is graduating and moving to start his new life as an adult. He and his girlfriend will be getting engaged soon after graduation, then he moves off to the big city to begin his life as an independent, happy, compassionate person - all I've ever wanted for him, so I will miss him like crazy, but know this is why we kiss the boo-boos, do the scout service projects and give them a safe, loving upbringing, so they can go out and do the same. I'm confident his guardian angels and spirits will guide and protect him always.

At an Akashic Record's group reading yesterday, I was told to create something that will help the students' I work with become more aware of their own ability to create, thrive and connect with others. I am taking a Shamanic Journeying class that is designed to bring ceremony and celebration to communities and healing wherever it is needed around the globe.  Once again, the threads of many things are coming together to weave my next step in the journey.  None of it would be possible with out the acknowledgement of nature, ritual, transition and connection, so that is my Progress for this month - to practice rituals of my own making and share them with others.

Create your own rituals and may you be filled with peace, light and blessings always. Pax.

if Anderson Cooper does it...

Well, we all get to where we are on our path when we are supposed to. It's just that when Anderson Cooper gets there, it becomes mainstream, which is a good thing!  Last night, Anderson did a story on 60 minutes about mindfulness. I admit, at first felt a little concern that he was not going to to give it the importance it deserved, or talk to the people who really know what it is.  Thanks for coming through Anderson! 

He spoke to the master, my guru and the man I consider the penultimate authority on mindfulness in the Western world, Jon Kabat Zinn.  He has been bringing mindfulness to us for 40 years and NOW:
  

• Google has a full time person who leads mindfulness and stress management,
• Congress has an Ohio rep bringing it to the staffers and people on the hill and 
• they've made 60 minutes.  (Ego moment:) I was so ahead of my time!!  

Have Meditation, Will Travel has been around since 2004.  It is my Reiki practice, meditation/mindfulness coaching and stress management education company. But you shouldn't try to start a company - even when you know it's the next BIG THING - if you don't have the time to devote to it.  I split my time between my GED teaching, then went full time with that and decided that HMWT had to be a hobby, because it just wasn't going to pay me enough to get my kids through college with a minimum of debt on the other side.  So I back-burnered it and mindfulness, stress management and meditation took off without me. 

But what is it I really want it to be? In my mission statement, I say, "... full service stress management and relaxation [need to change that!] education company.  Classes are offered to teach and maintain a stress management, meditation or relaxation practice for women, couples, families, teens, ministry teams, organizational departments or anyone else who experiences stress in their life.  Workshop lengths vary from one hour to a two-day retreat and include presentation and practice of a variety of stress management, meditation and quiet prayer strategies and techniques (Have Meditation). Sessions can be set-up in a variety of locations (Will Travel) including private homes, offices, churches and community venues."  See what I mean about ahead of my time????

So, I'm really happy that 60 minutes did this story. I'm really happy that Anderson is finding his bliss and I'm glad Jon Kabat-Zinn got the credit for beginning the movement. But, (you knew there was a but coming didn't you?) the fact that I've been using this with my students in the jail classes and Lakeshore classes and adult basic education world for years does rankle the ego a bit - OK, more than a bit, I'm human!  So my journey will be to accept that if it's infinite, there's room for everyone to take part and if I really want it, I have to work for it, it's not just going to happen.  I am the Lake County, IL Google person who runs meditation/stress management classes for a big company (Like Abbott), I'm just biding my time while I finish my soul work to get there...

I am going to email the congressman about MindUP, the Goldie Hawn foundation program that's been in schools for a LONG time already.  Don't want them spending my tax dollars to reinvent the wheel!

Let it go...

If there's one thing Disney's Frozen© has done, it's to add "Let it go..." to the lexicon of mainstream America.  This is a good thing, because frankly, we are all way too uptight.  Our life journeys lead us to realize NOTHING MATTERS, but that's usually in our second half of life (Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation).  Please don't spend your young adulthood living in perfection world. I spent a lot of time there and it made me miserable, it made everything a dramatic crisis and it made the people around me walk on eggshells.  My poor husband and kids...

In 2003, I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. This was my "hand of God" moment. If I had been one day earlier or later with the doctor's appointment that found it, they wouldn't have found it so early and I might not be here today. One of my mom's friend's daughters was the same age as I was and was diagnosed with the same thing at the same time. She's been gone for 10 years, I celebrated my 11 year survival in September.  It was then that I realized that all the stuff I was watching on Oprah was correct. We needed to be grateful (Sarah Ban Breathnach - Simple Abundance), we needed to be mindful (Joh Kabat-Zinn - Wherever You Go, There You Are) and we needed to count our blessings with every breath.  

If you haven't gotten to this point in your life yet, if you're still angry, resentful and feeling victimized, let me tell you, you're only hurting yourself by carrying that stuff around.  I carried mine around as extra weight. I was just always so MAD. Then, I learned I wasn't mad at all, I was hurt and it expressed itself as anger because I felt the hurt so deeply.  One of Oprah's shows was about forgiveness - I believe it was Iyanla Vanzant - but the message was that forgiveness opens the door to a peaceful, joyful life.  I really think carrying around all that toxic goop is what caused my cancer.  Today, while I still have to PRACTICE mindfulness, those who know me now would never recognize the person of a dozen years ago. I'd say that's PROGRESS.

So, here's a quick activity for you: Breathe in - really deeply, all the way to your toes.  Now, blow it out and state out loud "I forgive myself, I forgive everyone I've ever perceived as hurting me, and I am going to LET IT GO instead of carrying it around - all of it". Great, don't you feel better?? Don't forget to check out the "practices" page for some quick and helpful PRACTICEs as you PROGRESS. Pax

Welcome -

I invite you to think about your life at this moment in time. Are you happy with where you are RIGHT NOW at this moment? Are there things you would change? Things you would keep? Things you'd like to add? 

I've been there too. I'd like to share my journey and offer some ideas of the small changes I used to make me happier, healthier and joyful.  Let me first introduce you to P3 - Present (prez-ent), Practice, Progress. This is my 3 step model for simply changing the things you want to change to improve your life in every area.  I first used the P3 model in my adult basic education classroom, but then it was "Present (pree-zent), Practice, Process" - a way of teaching that allowed students to see a model, practice it, then talk about what they had just learned and decide if it was something they wanted to continue.  My new model as applied here is for tracking the small changes and reflecting on them and how you will add them to your day.

So, right now, take a deep (belly) breath. Connect with yourself in this moment - are you sitting at your computer, reading on your phone or tablet? Connect with yourself where you are right now, in this PRESENT moment.  This takes PRACTICE, but all the masters tell us that connecting to the breath and bringing yourself back to your breath is what it takes to be mindful, calm and centered. At the end of the day, look at your PROGRESS - can you think of one thing you did today to work toward your goals of being healthier and happier? That's progress, celebrate it. That's P3 - Present, Practice, Progress in a nutshell. It's a new way of being patient with yourself, beginning the small changes, getting unstuck and moving forward each day.  It's nothing new, there are a million other blogs and people who will tell you about similar practices, but mine is based on my personal journey that I want to share with you.  Good luck and please use the resources and links that have helped me.

Peace & blessings,
Have Meditation, Will Travel