Tag: new goals

It’s January, Uggh.

Every year, somewhere around October I kind of give up. Ok. I’m not going to accomplish these goals this year. Time to just wait till January and then we’ll have a fresh start, “New Year, New Me!” I’ll start exercising again in January. I’ll work on our family eating habits in January. I’ll start thinking about new goals and projects in January. 

Now part of that is just practical. The holidays start revving up in November and it’s a lot of work to uphold all the traditions and make sure everything happens that we want to happen. On top of that, this last year our entire fall was devoted to working on transitioning our foster daughter back home and then she left a week into December. So it was definitely not the time to be trying to introduce more vegetables to the kids or start a new exercise regime. January was the first month when everything was going to settle down and get into a new normal routine. 

Every year I hit January with this weight of expectations of all the miraculous things I’m going to start doing, starting now. And every January I get frozen into immobility. Cause it’s the same me in January that was hanging around eating desserts in December. Somehow, I didn’t magically change into this new person as soon as the calendar flipped to the new year. If I want to change things about myself, acquire more discipline in some areas, acquire better habits etc, it means I’m going to have to kill off the old Me. It’s going to be painful. It’s going to mean doing things I don’t particularly like or enjoy with the hope that one day I will like and enjoy it. I have great memories of enjoying going for a run. But the current me does not think that sounds fun at all. 

And so I sit here and I think, it’s time to go take a walk. Uggh. You need to make yourself some vegetables for lunch. Uggh. You need to start doing some organizing cleaning in your house. Uggh. You need to seriously start working on this new project. Uggh. 

I don’t want to. 

And now comes the really hard part of January. Making yourself do things you don’t want to do because you know it’s good for you. 

I’m going to be realistic. It’s not all going to happen today. But maybe I can make at least one good choice today. Do at least one hard thing today. Give this ball a push and slowly get it moving. 

Yeah, the beginning of January is about facing reality, this is who I am and if I want change I’m going to have to be uncomfortable for a while. But it’s also a time of hope. Maybe I can do hard things after all. I’m going to at least try.

Fat Fridays: Week 28 Death of a Dream

Today has been a bit of a shock for me. 

Yesterday I went to my yearly check-up at the doctor’s. I mentioned that my blood sugar problems seemed to be worsening. The doctor ordered me a new glucometer since I haven’t used one in two-and-half years: since I was pregnant and had gestational diabetes. She told me to check my fasting blood sugars a couple times and after I’ve eaten a couple times and if the numbers were high to give her a call. 

So this morning I obediently took my fasting blood sugar at 6am and it was 130. It’s supposed to be under 100. Not good. Not good at all. I ate a low-carb protein breakfast of eggs, cheese, and grated carrots. An hour later my reading was 149. Not good. I called the doctor and left a message with the nurse. I expect I’ll hear back from them in the next couple days. I know that one high reading does not make a diagnosis. In fact, the Mayo Clinic website says that TWO fastings over 126 make a diagnosis. I’m just thinking that if my body can do it once, there’s nothing stopping it from happening again. 

The specter of Type 2 Diabetes has been hanging over my head for eleven years. Way back when, I was pregnant with my 5th child and had gestational diabetes for the first time. The nutritionist, who wasn’t exactly the encouraging type, told me that I would probably have Type 2 Diabetes within the next five years. I did a lot of research, figured out the whole low-carb approach, and stuck diligently to a strict diet, checking my blood sugar regularly. My 6th pregnancy I had no diabetes. Had it for the 7th, not for the 8th or 9th then had it again for the 10th pregnancy. By then I knew my weight made a big difference in how my sugars were doing. But how to keep the weight off? 

Type 2 diabetes runs in my family. My grandfather was Mexican-American. According to a NCBI article, “Diabetes and Mexicans: Why the two are linked”  

Mexican Americans, the largest Hispanic/Latino subgroup in the United States, are more than twice as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites of similar age (13).

I know of a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles on that side of the family who have diabetes, my father included. So, it’s not like it’s a big surprise or anything. I considered myself “Pre-diabetic”. It’s one of the pressing reasons I have wanted to lose weight. But…to see those numbers this morning was a kind of death. Death of the dream that I would lose weight and get in shape before my genetics and the consequences of being overweight caught up with me. That somehow I would hold it off by becoming the picture of health. 

I basically feel like a failure. Not that I want to wallow in that, but still, I am mourning. 

What it means, of course, is that I need to make a new dream. New goals. Gird myself for battle. I am not going to lie down and just accept this. I have read story after story of people who had a Type 2 diagnosis and they lost their excess weight, adopted a different lifestyle and changed their numbers till they technically weren’t diabetic any more. I know it can be done. And I want to be one of those people that do it. 

Lord help me.