nanner said:wow. that's great. i think i must have a serious problem because if
i threw that cake in the trash i'd probably jump in after it within
the hour. (not a joke) Usually if i need to get rid of something
like that i stuff it in my belly so it will be gone. waahhh. well -
that's why i am back here. but i worry that i yo-yo'd because there
is something bigger going on, binging and out-of-control sugar
addiction has ruled me for 2 years 🙁 I really went days eating
nothing but *foods i won't mention here so as not to trigger
cravings* - but no real food.
If you haven't already, get a blood glucose tester. Your symptoms
sound just like what I was going through: I could have my entire
kitchen stocked full of LC foods -- foods I *like* -- and a craving
would send me walking three blocks to the grocery store for a bag of
chips. That all changed when I got a BG tester and could see exactly
what I was doing to myself.
I don't care much for the victimology tactics of addiction groups like
AA, but I do think that if your body doesn't naturally have your blood
sugar under good natural control, you need to look at carbs as a
low-grade poison, because ultimately that's what they are for you.
(After all, out-of-control blood sugar is deadlier than a lot of other
things we try to avoid in our food, like nitrates or preservatives.)
Think of carbs the way most people have been trained to think of salt:
you can't really avoid it completely, because it's too useful for
flavoring and preserving foods, but you can keep your consumption very
low.
When you first go get a BG tester, it's a little confusing, because
there are all these different things you need, and some brands box
certain things together and some don't. So here's what you need:
1) The tester itself. These range hugely in price, depending on
whether they remember your scores or have racing stripes and things
like that.
2) The test strips. You use a strip for each test, and these things
cost anywhere from 10 cents to $1 each, so here's where your
long-term cost is. Find the cheapest strips you can, and then buy
the tester that works with them.
3) Tester calibration fluid. They might call this something else, but
basically it's a controlled glucose solution that you can use to
determine whether your tester is accurate.
4) Lancets. These are the little needles you poke yourself with.
5) Lancet poker thingy. I can never remember what they call this, but
it's the thing you put the lancets in, and it does a quick stabbing
motion so it's really not painful at all.
One note: the tester doesn't care how you poke your finger, so don't
think you have to buy the cheapest lancet/poker combo just because you
bought the cheap tester. Feel free to spend a little more money on
#4/#5 and get one that'll be quick about it. A nice feature of mine
is that you can vary the depth, depending on how thick your skin is.
I don't know if the cheaper ones would have that.
If you're worried that it'll hurt, it really doesn't. There's a
little sting, but it's over before you know it. My girlfriend finally
worked up the courage to try mine (her BG was high, but not as bad as
mine would have been after the same meal), and she looked up in
surprise: "Wow, you weren't kidding; it really doesn't hurt!" Let me
put it this way: I'd rather [censored] myself with this thing 1000 times
than get a single Novocain shot from a dentist.
Quoted message said:I think figuring all that out will be as important for me as eating
less/excercising more and making healthy choices.
Absolutely. This really isn't something you can take an incremental
approach to, so you have to ignore all the people telling you if you
eat a little less and exercise a little more everything will be
hunky-dory. You can't do this halfway. High blood sugar simply has
too much power over your mind and body for that. (I don't have any
experience with hard drugs, but high BG affected my behavior at least
as much as being drunk ever did. Drunkenness lowers your inhibitions,
but it never completely changed my mind about something the way a
sugar rush can convince me I really *should* go get a box of ice
cream.) You simply *have* to get your BG under control first, and
keep it there for a while, before you can make consistent progress.
Fortunately, this isn't complicated: Cut your carbs to under 10g/meal,
stay away from the "iffy" products like LC bread, and test your BG
regularly. If it still goes high after certain foods, cut those back.
If you eat a lot of protein, you might find that enough is being
converted to glucose to raise your BG unacceptably. If that happens,
find ways to exchange some of that protein for fat. After a while,
you won't need to test as often, but get to a point where you're
confident that your BG is staying in the healthy range. I've been
there for over two weeks now, and I'm amazed at how much better I
feel.
--
Aaron -- 285/235/200 -- aaron.baugher.biz
