gottawonder

I never wanted to be one of those fussy people who go to restaurants, and get mad because nothing caters to their specific needs.

Years ago, a sister of mine changed how she ate very drastically, because she was tired of being big. It wasn't so much a diet as a total overhaul of her eating habits. We all made fun of her, because it seemed so severe, not to eat "normal" food like fries, or pasta, or dessert, or just about anything we ate. There was no point in her going to a restaurant, because she wouldn't eat anything they had.

She lost a ton of weight, maybe a little too much, but she has also kept it off, and I have to admit that she is pretty healthy.

She eats a lot of plain vegetables, plain meat, and bakes her own muffins and so on without fat (you can use things like apple sauce instead for moisture). Probably almost no processed food.

When I became a vegetarian a few years ago, I worried about being difficult. I don't like being the person who goes to someone else's home and needs them to cook something special, that they wouldn't normally eat. It isn't TOO bad to go to a restaurant as a vegetarian because so many places now recognize a market when they see one. I've gotten used to how to find food this way, and though it took time, how to cook good meals at home that don't leave me wishing I would just eat meat again.

Recently I've been trying to eat less glycemic food. It isn't cutting out ALL carbs; most fruit and vegetables are fine, SOME grain, like whole wheat bread is okay, but the key is to not eat things that will make your blood sugar spike. So, no white flour stuff, as little sugar added in food as possible (good bye most cereal and crap like sweet yoghurt), no soda or desserts, muffins or sweet condiments, chips, junk food in general.

I THOUGHT we weren't eating too badly (compared to everyone else?), but in truth, almost every day I was eating some crap. We would have a bowl of ice cream with something as a topper for dessert. I would eat a big bag of chips about once a week or so. Soda a couple of times a week. Pasta or perogies were common staples. When my husband is home, he LOVES eating out, and even if I don't eat out a lot, he wants to have pizza, or go to a burger place (a veggie burger still has a white flour bun and fries and soda) at least once while he's home. At least once while he was home, he wants to eat pancakes for breakfast (VERY bad for blood sugar). My favorite granola bar snack was loaded with sugar.

Probably my worst habit was a big bowl of cereal most nights. Not so much that the cereal was a bad choice because I had at least shifted to healthier cereals, but the serving size was probably about 2-3 cups of cereal and then milk. Did you know that even a low sugar, healthy cereal is about 200 calories for HALF A CUP!!!!? So my bed time "snack" was likely worth more than 800 calories. I am trying to replace that with either a measured serving of cereal, or a chia pudding.

In the last three weeks since I've been making an effort, the scale is showing a loss of five pounds. I don't want to get too worked up yet, because five pounds might be a normal fluctuation.

I have noticed though, that I'm not as hungry. Sugar makes you want more sugar because of how it messes with your insulin. I know that eating pizza makes my blood sugar dive a few hours later, and I need to eat even if I'm not hungry. You know what I'd eat? More of the leftover pizza. Then I'd still want cereal before I went to bed. With less sugar, I sort of feel hungry, but not the sort of sick feeling from low blood sugar. I can actually kind of go "oh yeah, I'm hungry, I'll eat when I get home" instead of needing to eat so badly that I eat whatever I can grab.

I also have a lipoma under one arm (totally benign, it's sort of a rogue fat lump) that is now about half the size it was three weeks ago. I looked it up, and sure enough sugar intake (as in high glycemic foods, including stuff like chips and pasta) contributes to lipoma formation because of the issues stemming from blood sugar fluctuations. I don't know if it will go away more, because the cells themselves are still going to be there, but for whatever reason, it's definitely smaller.

Anyhow, it's been a mental shift to look at my food intake critically. I know that 15 years ago, I was eating really badly. A lot of meat, a lot of garbage, soda almost daily, tons of sugar in my coffee, pasta, you name it. I didn't think I ate badly then, because you don't tend to think of pork chops and rice as bad for you. It seemed normal to go eat breakfast and have buttered toast, eggs, sausage, and hash browns. Supper, if we ate out, was chicken alfredo pasta with bottomless soda. Chinese buffet with a pile of sweet ginger beef, fried rice, fried spring rolls with sweet red sauce. Everyone else ate that. My skinny husband ate that. We ate out likely three times a week with his friends from work. Maybe more, since we'd go for breakfast, or late night pancakes. I loved club sandwiches. I still wasn't really "that" big, because I walked a lot and worked in the yard.

When we moved here, and weren't eating out all the time and I started paying more attention, it got better. However, my weight didn't go down, just stayed fairly stable. I've put on about 15 more pounds, but over the last ten years, so it doesn't seem extreme.

This last year, I slipped a lot with eating chips, and boom, five pounds this winter. I don't want to keep doing this. I'm at the edge of needing to buy plus size clothes, and a few more pounds and I won't fit all my more fitted clothing.

Everything I've looked at suggests that sugar is my problem; high glycemic food. That and serving sizes.

Anyhow, I've been doing well at home, where I can control things. What I was worried about, was what the hell to eat in a restaurant. Today, my husband and I were in the city, and I had a good plan to eat in a place that is already vegetarian, but has some options that would have been pretty low glycemic. Except it was closed because of it being Easter weekend.

We were already hungry, and decided to eat at a new place because it was close. I thought I could eat this one item that SAID it was coconut curry vegetables. Turns out it was a bowl of coconut curry sauce over pasta, and it had ONE cherry tomato on top. I broke down crying and went to the bathroom for awhile, because of the sheer frustration of trying so hard to eat better, and I was SO hungry, and I had been primed to eat, and I couldn't eat it if I wanted to stick to my resolution. I also felt ashamed at being "that person" who was too fussy to eat like a normal person in a normal restaurant. I felt bad for the server, who saw my face and knew something was wrong.

I decided not to eat it, and just ate the vegetables off of my husband's plate. About half a cup of beets. I told him it was fine, and not his fault. I made sure to be extra nice to the server, because he seemed like a good person and it wasn't his fault either.

The strangest thing is, that I was FINE. Normally, if I didn't get enough to eat at that point, I would have felt really weak and shaky, and would HAVE to eat or literally might pass out. Legit. I didn't feel that hungry after the starter salad (by the time I split it with my husband, it might have been less than a cup of arugula with a bit of cheese) and half a cup of beets.

We went for a walk, then picked up some groceries, and I was kind of hungry, but not actually starving OR weak. I ate when I got home, but that was likely almost three hours later. All of this reinforces the truth, which is that sugar has likely been the root of my issues for awhile.

Anyhow, I am going to have to get over my fear of being thought of as that incredibly difficult person about food. It won't be fun, and I'm sure people are going to think that I am a crazy person, but I think that I have to do this for myself. I'm tired of being a mindless slave to my blood sugar highs and crashes, and the constantly creeping numbers on the scale.

I don't want to have to have insulin shots, or start having circulation problems, or just be tired all the time (I've been experiencing that more and more), and I don't want to have to shop in only plus sized stores, and end up ruining my joints.

If I have to be that annoying person about food, then so be it.