Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Thinking, again

I've had a pretty rough week. Out of 7 days, I restricted my eating on 6 of them. And felt virtuous about it. Just the opposite of what I would tell ANYONE else! So I saw my dietitian today, and she wasn't happy about it, and we agreed on a minimum amount of food intake, while being free to eat anything else I want to. And the thing I need to reinforce, over and over and over, is that I KNOW the road, I just need to walk it. Or crawl it. Kicking and screaming, but go on, and do the right thing.

My biggest problem is that intellectually, I know what starvation does -- it puts your body into starvation metabolism, and it struggles to provide energy to keep your vital organs alive by raiding first, glycogen stores in your liver, and then any fat you've laid down, and then by breaking down muscle, and finally, you die because your vital organs become too damaged to function. But emotionally, it seems like weight is weight, and the number on the scale somehow becomes a major part of my consciousness. And I will myself not to be hungry, but it can't last forever. And then, when I have the opportunity, I make a beeline to the cookies, or the cake, or the ice cream, without even thinking. I do it totally impulsively, because by the time I've gotten that far, there is no brain left. It's not like, I think I'm going to binge today -- I just DO it. And I don't take my insulin until AFTER the binge, when my blood sugars have gotten way too high, and then it takes me several days to get them down to range again. Does this sound like sabotage? Because it IS!

The other thing I've noticed is that even if I restrict, my body will not cooperate in keeping my blood sugar in range -- the amount of insulin I take when I'm not restricting is not sufficient to turn off my liver's glycogen release. As I said above, that glycogen release is NORMAL, and I know it's happening because I'm not eating enough.

So somehow, brilliantly intellectual Natalie has to convince little, emotional Natalie what's good for her. It CAN be done, but more importantly, it MUST be done. I cannot and must not sell myself down the river. Totally not worth it, if I can only believe!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New Year's Resolution

Well, as for me, I need to pledge to keep working on my eating disorder, because although I've been discharged from CFH, I'm NOT cured, and I'm only succeeding part of the time. I'm really good at words for others; not so good at words for myself. I have an endo appt. in a few days, and he's going to see the BG swings, and total daily doses of insulin which are going to show him when I've been not eating/omitting insulin (they aren't synonymous). There's SO much self-discipline required in this diabetes game, and I was never all that good at it in the first place. So I'm feeling the urge to cancel the appt. But I won't. I'll just grit my teeth and go, and HOPE he's gentle with me.

When I'm feeling good, I do reasonably well, but I just had another depression, and when I'm depressed, my eating/insulin goes all to hell. I buy food, intending to eat healthy, and then it just rots in my refrigerator, because I can't bring myself to prepare it. So I either don't eat, or I eat junk food, which is pretty much just as bad. Yesterday, all I did was drink tea, and went to bed ravenously hungry, and couldn't sleep, and endured the hunger until 4 AM, when I finally got up and ate a little oatmeal and a cheese wrap. What did I put myself through that shit for? There's not a single rational reason I can think of. Other than still wanting to lose weight, in order to fit into the medical professions' ideals. I hate it SO much when they say things like I ought to lose a little weight!

I did a little research on the internet yesterday (like walking through a minefield, because whenever you look up BMI, you get a lot of diet stuff), and discovered that there is a "proposed" BMI table for people according to their age. Did you know that the BMI tables they use for EVERYONE are based on 18-year-olds? Well, I ain't no 18-year-old!! But I did find out about what is proposed (i.e. not commonly accepted or known) for women MY age, and that I fall within the healthy range. The search did trigger me, and I did get tearful about it, but the end result was something that I can use to knock the silly idea that I need to weigh what an 18-year-old weighs out of my head. And if ANY medical person says ANYTHING to me, I'm just going to contradict them, and tell them I'm perfectly healthy, just as I am. And refer them to the website. (Imaginary conversation: Dr.: You need to lose a little weight! Me: No, I don't, thank you very much!)

I think that's about as much as I've ever said on this subject, but even writing it out has been therapeutic. And if you've stuck with me this far, thank you for your love!