April 7, 2011: That's What She Said

Hello all,

I had a major slip/fall off the abstinence wagon, and it all started with a seemingly innocent slice of raspberry pie. My resolve at the time was weak, and that's all I needed to slip right back into my old eating habits.

Since I last wrote on March 18, I have eaten both sugar and flour in the form of 1 slice of pie, 2 Luna Bars, 2 bags of regular and 1 bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans, 1 slice of bakery cake, several Uncrustable brand PB&J sandwiches, and numerous other items containing my two dietary enemies. Health-wise during that time, I had so much arthritis and foot pain I could barely walk up and down the outside steps to just get out of the house and back in. I almost fell on two occasions on the flagstone steps; I fell in the driveway trying to get to my car one day to do an errand and had to crawl back to the steps and wait until I spied someone who could help me get back up; and I had to ask my neighbor to support me going up the steps one day because my left knee was giving out from pain. The foot pain was so bad it made my leg spasm and my knee jerk up in between steps, which of course made me more unstable than I am to begin with. God-wise, I went for a whole week without my God time, and blew off the past two Sabbath observances, including attendance at church and Bible study last Sunday. How's that for sliding down the slippery slope?

I strive to learn something from every experience I have, and here's what I learned from this big slip:

1. Consuming sugar and flour, or not, does have an impact on my rudimentary practice of connecting with my Higher Power, let alone seeking His presence in more effortful ways.

2. Sugar and flour do contribute to my arthritis and foot pain levels.

Those two things were very evident during the time I slacked off of my eating program. In a way it turned out to be a good experiment that proved my initial hypotheses that sugar and flour play a role in my pain level as well as my relationship with God. So, I'm back to tracking, and so far today I have not had any sugar.

I know I said in the very beginning that this experiment would not be about dieting, but I also remarked later that I'd be a fool not to pay attention to what and how much I was eating. I weighed in today at a whopping 180 pounds (and I'm 5'1"), the heaviest I have ever been in my life. It's not freaking me out or making me feel my usual knee-jerk depression, but I am taking measures to get the extra weight off, especially because I'm glucose intolerant (i.e., pre-diabetic). I've been back to the pool a few times, and today I signed up for a "gold" membership to Livestrong.com, where I can input my food each day into the My Plate tool and get visual feedback on how I'm doing nutritionally. I have used the free version in the past, and it worked well, so I sucked it up this morning and paid $49 for the "gold" membership, which allows me to customize my macronutrients, etc. I did it because I'm worth it!