Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Goals For My Health Part 4


One Size Does Not Fit All

I’m not physically unable (yet) to exercise and take care of myself; my mind is lazy. Here’s how it happened with me. Remember I told you that six years ago, I came down with a tumor on my parathyroid, which pulled the calcium out of my bones and damaged my nerves with it. (Simplified explanation.) The first symptom was drop dead fatigue. Then my muscles started jerking, (tetany) and eventually, I couldn’t stand the ticking of my own clocks, or any repetitive noises. As the symptoms got worse, and I came very close to dying of either a heart attack or uncontrollable convulsions, I spent most of my time in bed.

Surgery to remove the tumor was supposed to reverse all symptoms, but it didn’t. I’m really beginning to suspect now, that what I thought was some sort of leftover from the tumor, was simply weakened muscles, and more importantly, weakened discipline from being so inactive for so long. My body was used to being in bed and extremely tired, so I think I convinced myself that I was and that there was nothing I could do about it. 

I did eventually figure out that, at least partially, the tiredness had something to do with food. At least half the time, when I was feeling really lousy, a big infusion of carbs, in the form of pop and chocolate or chips, would clear my brain fog long enough for me to get something done, which would help to explain why I weigh over two hundred pounds now. I tried experimenting with different food combinations, such as low carb. HA! It was too expensive to maintain on my food budget, and the lack of carbs in my system made me feel really lousy. I tried increasing the amount of carbs in small increments, but there was such a tiny gap between eating too few carbs, which made me miserable, and too many carbs, which made me sleepy. 

I’ve only very recently figured out that I need only a very small amount of food to feel good. Half of a sandwich, as long as it had wheat bread, (fiber) some sort of protein and enough fat, will fill me up plenty, but isn’t really enough nutrition, so I also make a fruit smoothy and try to get a bowl of vegetables in a day. The weird thing is, if I eat much more than that in any one meal, I’m suddenly ravenous and screaming for carbs.

Okay, are you thoroughly bored with hearing about my diet and exercise program? Me too. I tell you this not because I’m ego-centric, (well, I’d like to think not obnoxiously so, anyway) but to encourage you to find your own path, and figure out what works for you. Despite what the writers of diet and exercise books try to convince you of, one size does emphatically not fit us all. What works for me may very well not work for you, which means that everybody has to simply experiment.

1 comment:

  1. I agree that you have to find your own path. That's pretty much true for most things.

    Baby steps. That's what works for me. That, and one day at a time.

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