Aloha

"There are two main types of sugar that occurs naturally in foods like vegetables and fruits, and refined sugars and syrups (aka simple sugar), which are added to foods for sweetness. Added sugar is any sugar that does not naturally occur in the food like the sugar in holiday cookies and cakes. Extra sugar increases your blood sugar quickly, causing the proteins in your body to be less functional and, as a result, directly aging your immune and arterial systems and even your joints, explains Dr. Mike Roizen, chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic. A food is likely to be high in added sugar if one of the following substances is first or second in the list of ingredients (or if several of them are present): brown sugar, corn sweetener, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, honey, invert sugar, lactose, maltose, molasses, raw sugar, sucrose, table sugar. Also watch out for concentrated fruit juice and expeller-pressed organic rice extract.". This quote is from the Cleveland Clinic newsletter posted Dec. 4th.

Whenever I see the word aging it jumps out at me, and I never thought of sugar as causing aging unrelated to weight gain. I am really struggling with my weight and as I write this I am sitting at the breakfast table at a gorgeous resort on the Big Island, HI. I know this sounds childish, but I am angry that I still have to be so in control of every bite. But as I've learned over that past year, if I don't pay careful attention, I gain weight. I've been going back to listening to my Jennifer Scott CDs, doing a lot of self talk, and just saying no to unhealthy food, wine, and macadamia nuts. (They are everywhere here.) My rational voice tells me that if that's all I have to complain about, I have it pretty easy. And I do!

171.0 Getting The Hang of It!

Remember when I was in the losing mode and was so concerned about what was going to happen when I left the safety of my own kitchen when we would travel? We just returned from our wonderful trip to the Boston area and I did just fine.

I am so grateful for the fact that I have gotten over the desire to use food to dampen down my emotions, or to use large amounts of food to celebrate. We ate out three times, had a yummy birthday dinner that Jeff and I cooked that included breaded veal, mashed potatoes and gravy, and peppermint chocolate ice cream pie. With all this tempting food, I just ate half of what I used to eat, if that, and then I found that I was totally satisfied. The hypnosis CDs that Jennifer made for me all included thoughts like that and I wanted to believe that it would happen, but my track record with other diets had been so poor that I just didn't know if I would be able to control my eating after I reached my goal.

What's really cool is that there isn't a big struggle about it all. I just find myself stopping after I've had about half a serving, I automatically say no to bread, or maybe have one slice, and then I forget about it. In old diet times, I used to struggle throughout a whole meal with my desire to eat more bread, have more wine, etc. The struggle has disappeared along with the 80 pounds! Yay! I am so relieved that it just isn't a big deal anymore!

172.8 Is This Fun or What?

Yes, this is making me smile, and no, I don't know exactly why at this stage, I seem to be getting the hang of losing a little faster. I really like the concept of allowing rather than struggling that I wrote about a couple of days ago. I've been keeping that idea in my mind, staying present with it ever since I wrote that post, and I'm happier about so many of the things I do in my life that I used to weigh and measure all the time. I allowed myself to go to a meeting even though I was really tired last night, and I allowed myself to eat salad yesterday without any dressing because I didn't have a choice of a low calorie option, and this morning I allowed myself to use 1/4 cup of oatmeal instead of 1/2 a cup as I prepared it (still adding walnuts and fresh blueberries and topping it with my favorite Carbmaster yogurt (a Kroger product). By the way, it was delicious and filling, and plenty.

And now I am going to work on allowing myself to sleep through the night. I'm facing a bit of a conundrum on this one because maybe I should allow myself to accept that I can't sleep through the night. Let's see how this plays out.

174.6 Allowing vs Struggling

You'd think by now I would have this all figured out. This is my 375th post on this blog! Okay, big Wahoo as my daughter Alee would say. But what I've learned over the year of writing these and the two and a half years of being on this adventure is that there have not been any quick fixes or even truths written in stone about how to make all of the changes that are necessary to lose weight happen. Ever since I have been in this struggle to lose the final ten pounds to reach my goal weight of 170, I think it may be just as hard for those who want to lose 10 pounds as it is to lose 80 pounds. (This is not about quick weight loss tricks since I am in this for the last time and I want this lost weight to stay lost.)

So what I've been thinking about very recently is the concept of allowing changes versus the concept of struggling to make changes happen. It sounds kind of crazy, maybe, but this morning I allowed myself to take a big walk. I didn't go through all the stuff, the miles of stuff I would wade through about why I needed to walk, which route I would take, how it would affect my metabolism, blah, blah, blah,... I just put on my shoes and said Sue let's walk! When I put together my dinner last night (Jeff was eating something totally different from what I decided on), it wasn't about calories, or did I want to eat this or that, or all the stuff, again miles of it, that I sometimes have wrestled with before putting that plate in front of me. I just took out the salmon, cooked the fresh spinach, reheated a little rice and enjoyed every bite. And I did these things with this word allow floating in my heart and head - not should, have to, can't, etc. I think I might be on to a new way for me to move forward, hoping to sprint through these last few pounds by allowing myself to do the right things, not struggling to make them happen.