Putting It All Together or Holy Shit It’s Working!

I have been battling with my weight for all of my adult life. When I was a preteen, I thought I was too heavy and started a long history of yo-yo dieting. The last formal diet I went on was fourteen years ago, when I lost close to 50 lbs. going to Weight Watchers meetings and following their program. After those pounds came back, with several of their buddies, I realized that dieting was not the answer for me, and I stopped (thus beginning a long slow trend of gaining more weight).

It was about that time that I realized that I was an “emotional eater.” I ate if I was happy, sad, upset, bored, frustrated, celebrating, you name it. I was totally hooked on fast carbs – pasta, bread, white rice, potatoes, and sugar. For the first time in my life, back in 2000 I decided to try to figure out what was driving my emotional eating. I decided to try hypnosis. The first hypnotherapist I worked with didn’t have experience with helping people unwind and uncover what was behind an addiction. But she did give me the grace of experiencing my highest self during one amazing hypnosis session.

Since then I discovered Energy Medicine and the myriad of modalities it encompasses. What I have used Energy Medicine for was to look under my waking consciousness, to ferret out beliefs that have been driving my behaviors, to change these beliefs and let go of unwanted behaviors. I discovered that not only my subconscious affects how I react in situations, but that energies that I have inherited (such as karmic chains) affect me. I have learned why my body needed to carry extra weight and have worked on those issues. A year ago, I found a hypnotherapist who was an excellent fit for me. Through working with her, I’ve made some really big gains. One big step was creating personal boundaries.

I grew up in a situation where it was not possible for me to create personal boundaries. Now that I’m an adult and have learned a few things (and have used hypnosis to visit my younger self to re-educate her) I have established some pretty good boundaries. In doing so, I have learned to honor myself first and to be aware of my responsibilities to myself. With that, I have created the sturdy foundation from which to give to others.

So, I’ve been a busy little beaver, working away on myself, sometimes more intensely, and at other times, taking a bit of a break. Then, a few months back my naturopathic doctor quit the practice and I was left to see the one doctor left (until 2 others joined recently). I had a follow-up visit and my new doctor was concerned about some of my blood work. She wanted to see me back in six weeks for another round of testing. Those results came in and with them came news that was hard to hear. My A1C (3 month average of blood sugar) put me square into the range of being diabetic.

For the past few years, my fasting blood sugar had put me into the range of being prediabetic a few times. But then I’d reform my eating habits and all would be well. In fact, when I got this latest news I was very surprised. I’d been eating well, or so I thought. I’d been clearing out a lot of old emotional stuff, doing energy work. My fasting blood sugar was only one point above the acceptable range, just one test before. WTF happened??

I don’t know why all of a sudden things took a down turn. But I marched out of my doctor’s office freaking out on one hand and excited to follow a plan, on the other. I bought a book that my doc told me to get (The Blood Sugar Solution), and implemented its plan, with the goal of decreasing my insulin resistance, and thus lowering my blood sugar. I go back for a follow-up A1C blood test in 3 months.

The food plan is quite strict for six weeks, and then relaxes just a bit after that. My doctor gave me a food journal to keep for at least a few weeks, so she can see what I’ve been eating along the way. For now, I am to eat protein at every meal and low carb vegetables. No starchy veggies. No grains. No fruit, except for 1/2 cup of dark berries once a day. No sugar or sweeteners. And I have found out that my body doesn’t do well with artificial sweeteners, so none of them for me, either. The plan calls for no dairy for the first six weeks: to see if a person is sensitive to it – but I already know that I am, and I eat no dairy anyway. The plan also calls for no gluten during the first six weeks, to see if you are sensitive to it. I know from blood work that I am not sensitive to it.

Are you freaking out about the “can’t eat” list? I did a little bit at first, especially because I think of myself as not a big veggie eater. Then I focused on what I could eat. Once I had a list of what I could eat, I put one foot in front of the other and came up with meals. I was wondering how things would go, not being able to eat the foods I had craved for a lifetime: bread and pasta. Much to my pleasant surprise, it’s been easy. Not eating any sugar or sweetener? Not too hard. Not enjoying my coconut ice cream after dinner? Easy. Not eating any Easter candy? Easy. In fact, when I was loading up a few dozen plastic eggs with all sorts of chocolate treats, I noticed that I really enjoyed smelling the chocolate, but had absolutely no desire to eat any. That was cool!

Here I am, almost 3 weeks into my new way of eating, and I am amazed and thrilled to notice that my old hooks to certain foods seem to be gone. It’s strange because it’s so new. But I’m totally loving the difference. It’s beyond cool that all of my hard work is coming together. And a lovely side effect of all of this is weight loss. Notice that I said, side effect. The goal is to eat in such a way that my blood sugar gets happy. I know that losing weight will help it, too. But that is not the primary goal these days.

The most recent new piece of information I received through a hypnosis session was that I need to love my heart. Literally. I asked my body what was going on with having high blood sugar, and what I saw was my black and blue, bruised and battered, sorrow-filled heart that was barely beating. It was beyond sad. As a child, I had never learned to love my heart. Then, I was given the message that all I had to do was open my heart and let love in. As soon as I saw my child-self do that, my heart pinked up, began pumping with vigor and vibrancy, and became so very happy. Then I sent the love energy all around my body, bathing my organs and systems in it. Pretty soon, my organs were so happy they were having a party. I also got the message that I need to remind myself on a regular basis to invite this healing love into my heart and body. To help accomplish that, I am writing a meditation that I will record and listen to regularly.

One challenge I’m still working on is the exercise piece. Being this out of shape and having a foot that gets quite sore when I’m up on it and walking a lot, is discouraging. But I’m trying. I know I’ll make progress on that, too, eventually.