Trust Your Gut is a series of stories about real people with weight issues, and complications arising from those issues. It will explain what the person is facing, what their options are, what they have decided to do to take action, and why they chose the path they are on. Each person’s story will be based on truth, so it won’t all be happy; but it will be real. The goal of this series is to get people talking about options that are available for people who have weight issues, on either end of the scale. If you would like to contribute to this series, there is a contact form linked on my Home page for this blog. I know there are people out there that want to help people like them; as I do.
The names here may or may not reflect the person’s real name. If someone wants to remain unknown, we will choose a different name for that person’s story. The goal is to help people, and anonymity is a valid personal choice for contributors. I will use a person’s name only if they give permission to do so.
Here is Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 3.
I love food. I love to eat. Sometimes I eat too much. Other times I eat the wrong things. I don’t allow myself to participate in guilt about eating. I have cravings. I give in to them. I find if I don’t; I go way overboard when I finally cave. I can settle for one of each flavour in a bag of candy. It’s better than having the whole bag.
I don’t always make poor food choices. I don’t always eat until I feel sick from over eating. I don’t always have more than one helping.
I do associate food with feelings. I think chocolate tastes like happiness. Most sweets do to me. Dessert used to make my day. I have started to tackle that problem. I am addicted to sugar, and it is bad for me. Sugar is a diabetic’s kryptonite, only you want it, unlike Superman, he fights to stay away from it. Even Superman needs help with his kryptonite sometimes. It’s not an addiction for Superman, but like me and sugar, it is better to keep far away from it, at all costs.
When I was growing up, there could never be enough Kool-Aid in my water. If it was so thick I had to chew it, that was how I wanted it. Currently, I have actually started reacting to things being too sweet. It was nothing I had experienced before, until recently, in the last two or three years. Age has to be a factor in this. Certainly my change in eating habits has also contributed to this foreign concept. Not allowing as much sugar in my diet has increased my sensitivity, I think. Similar to the non-smokers reacting to the smell of cigarettes. A scent-free environment really highlights any scent that enters into it, and this might be what is starting to happen to me, with sugar.
I am not on the aspartame train. I have found that I feel better when I cut it out of my life. I am trying other sweeteners, I am using stevia, and erythritol which is also known as Swerve. It comes in granular and powdered forms, and I have started to figure out how to use it in food and drinks. Swerve does leave a cool feeling on the tongue, but doesn’t have a nasty aftertaste. I used to drink a lot of pop. Now I can go days without it, and try to only have it as a treat. I didn’t like Zevia, a pop made with stevia, the first, second, or even third time I tried it. But I kept trying it, and now I enjoy it. It has to be really cold, and then it is good. I haven’t gotten to the stage where I choose water over other beverages yet. I am working on that, too.
The Trim Healthy Mama (THM) plan I follow most of the time has me trying new things a lot. I like every recipe I have tried, and that is a big bonus. I fall short on a night like tonight, when I worked all day, and then came home to what the snowplow left in my driveway. The heavier snow that clumps all together at the end of your driveway, where it meets the road? Yeah, a foot of snow blocking me from parking in my driveway. My husband has hurt himself shoveling earlier in the week. 80 cm of snow (that is 2.62 feet) in one storm was a little too much for us to tackle. The storms of this week are being called Snowmageddon. We went at it together, taking turns with the one shovel, working our way from the step to the shed where the other shovels were. I got the dustpan out to putter with between turns. He pushed himself, and now he is starting to recover, as this was a few days ago. We got a guy with a tractor/snowblower rig to widen the driveway so I could dig the car out and move it. I was not going to be done before spring; otherwise. It stormed again last night, and I was up and at em this morning, and got myself shoveled out and drove myself to work. Then I came home. Ugh. I mean, yay, exercise. I spent an hour and fifteen minutes pushing and pulling the snow out of my driveway. Ten minutes for swearing, and another ten talking myself out of crying in a heap.
My back is not a happy camper, either. But I pushed through…the snow, the anger and the agony of it all…and came in for supper and a beer. I am going to have another drink too. I worked hard moving around a lot of freaking snow this week. My back is not amused, but I have not hurt it. I went to Zumba last night, and upped my activity levels for the week big time, up and over the top of all those snow mountains in my yard. So when I was being asked if I wanted him to make homemade pizza for supper, I told him to make it. Is it on plan? No. Did I stay on plan by eating everything but the crust? Not a chance. Sometimes you have to make the easier choice, because it makes more sense. I was on plan for the rest of the day, so this was not going to ruin everything.
One thing I learned with THM is that you don’t have to wait until Monday to start over. You don’t even have to wait until tomorrow. In 3 hours, you can be back on plan, working on your goals again. I like that. It works for me. When I see that I am not making progress, I know what I did that was not on plan, but I don’t beat myself up over it. I just start again, and every time I do this, I work a little bit harder to stay on plan. Eventually I will be able to say no to more things that are off plan, and yes to more things that are on plan. Little by little, I am making progress. Some day all of those little things are going to really add up. So I keep working on me, and I let myself be human and take the easy meal sometimes. The important thing is for me to not take it every time.
I am 5’2 3/4″ tall. That snow bank is indeed taller than I am. Let’s hope there is no more snow on the way any time soon!
Tish MacWebber 