Updating my aims

Ok so I'm going to try and be more regular (and no I don't mean that way lol....)

I want to be able to help people who like me have spent years struggling with obesity and weight loss.   if you have read any of my previous posts you should have a sense of who I am and that's great.

If you are trying to loose a small amount of weight I'm not sure I can help.  I still have a large amount of weight to go around 20 kg myself and for the first time in my life I know I can achieve that.

I'm not sure how people will find this blog or even if anyone will be inclined to read my ramblings but if I put this information out there then maybe it will help someone.

If you have a lot of extra weigh and I'm talking 20+kg to lose then you need to be aware of the dangers.  I know your Doctor has warned you, your mum is worried about you,  possibly your hubby is worried but isn't game to say anything and I'm sure you have friends who feel the same.  The stress we have put our body's under won't stay hidden for long.
Heart issues
diabeties
digestive issues
joints and chronic pain are only a few of the medical issues that are associated with obesity.  Our society is in Crisis and its because we are Money driven society.

I can talk about conspiracy theory's and there are a lot of them. I can talk about the medical profession being duped by big pharma and the Government being led around by the nose by massive businesses that generate Taxes and pay politicians to help keep them from being sanctioned but mostly I want to talk about individuals making choices and choosing to open their eyes and their minds to what is actually healthy and how you actually want to live.

I know I was sick of being sick.  Colds and flue knocked me around substantially and I was always aching.  However it wasn't until I was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic that I found my trigger.  I want to keep my feet.  I want to keep my sight.. I need to live my life not be a spectator.  and so the keto journey began for me and I'm loving the way it works

Two pics of me same person, same shirt 12 months apart.  If you doubt that keto works for me this is the proof.  I have now dropped a total of 45+ kg and I'm still going.  This way of eating and living has me so excited because now I know which way to jump.  its not always easy!  There are friends and family who just don't get it.  There will always be comments.  I have been told my form of Diabetes is weird because you know you can cure it right!!!!  NO no you can't if you have it you have it diabetes will be a life long partner for you.  Its up to you to learn to live with it.  I might have diabetes but it does not have me.

Here is hoping this reaches some people and that I can help even 1 person to deal with this capricious disease.

Lisa

Keto Lisa’s style

so here we are again.  I’m sitting in the car on the way to drop my eldest boy off as he enters the Navy so this is a great distraction.  I’ve been eating keto pretty strictly since August. Although I applaud those who eat clean I am not overly concerned with the use of artificial sweetener.  My aim has always been blood glucose level control and the weight loss has been a welcome side effect.  I have stopped eating all grains pretty much all below ground vegetables and all sugars. I know some people think this is bizarre and impossible to maintain and yes there have been a couple of bumps in the road but for the most part it has been really easy.  We are not people who eat out a lot but even that’s pretty easy if you check menus and ask for small tweaks.  So a typical day for me starts by testing my bsl with a finger prick.  For breakfast I usually do bacon and eggs which I just happen to love.  If you start feeling bored with that you can add things like spinach, garlic or cheese to spice it up a bit it’s a great way to start the day.  I usually take something to work as a morning tea snack but I have found lately that I don’t really feel like eating until lunch time. So snacks that I take include items like boiled eggs, creamed cheese chocolate brownies cinnamon or cheese muffins .  I really am a creature of habit so on working days I’m not too fussed about a huge variety.  I have a couple of go too dishes  I do for lunches the first is a chicken avocado and cheese casserole or a beef and cabbage dish that once again can be flavoured with various herbs and spices to give you additional variety.  I try to do a snack in the afternoon before I head out to karate classes to either teach or train and that way I don’t really need to have a night time meal.  I have found that I need a snack /fat bomb before bed to keep my blood sugar from rising as I sleep.  If I am not training then I might have a small steak with salad  for dinner but that is more of a social thing than because I need it.  The proof has been in the pudding as they say because I have now lost 37 kg and my last HBA1C test had my bsl at 5.1.  Personally I want that number to be closer to 4.5 but I am sure that will come with time.  I didn’t become Morbidly obese or diabetic overnight it took a long time so getting things back in line in 8 months seems like a great deal for me.  I do have a couple of warnings about this way of life... 1 transitioning from carb burning to fat burning is a process and once you’ve become a fat burner you don’t really want to do cheat days or carb loading as it knocks your body around makes you feel like garbage and will sabotage your weight loss big time it’s really easy to end up heavier than when you started.  For me reverting to eating carbs is out of the question because while my bsl are approaching normal I will always be diabetic and I can plunge myself right back to high bsl by eating the wrong foods.  I do have to say that using stevia and baking my own treats has made this pretty much the easiest lifestyle change I have ever made.  So I really hope this helps someone to understand a little about how to move forward with keto.  Be happy and keto on 😁o

Updating again it’s been a long time coming

Ok so it’s been several years since I posted here. I really didn’t think this blog would have survived.  Things have moved on a lot since I last posted and I think it’s been pretty interesting. Our club changed affiliations and that was pretty stressful time for me.  My weight skyrocketed to 123.4 kg  and on someone who is only just under 152 cm that’s almost as round as I was high.  Uggg

I still managed to keep training and although I did the best I could my Karate suffered a fair bit.  I had the amazing experience of grading to 2nd Dan with a Japanese Sensei in Qld I really thought he would take one look at me and fail me but as usual the karate community shows respect for people who try and I passed. About 3 months after that I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes which explained an awful lot.

I was devastated.  I knew I needed to follow a low carb high fat diet to keep my blood sugar under control.  It was something I had considered doing to lose weight but one of the very few approaches I had not yet taken to control my weight.

I have said for years that you should ask a fat person how to lose weight most of us have researched and tried for years.  Almost every diet works for a time for monst people but they are often not sustainable.

The Australian Diabetic association sent out their recommendations and I was pretty much horrified. A basic breakdown of Type 2 diabetics is that our glucose system does not work. We are insulin resistant  and because of this our blood sugar levels are elevated.  This causes damage to internal organs and our vascular system so diabetic complications run from blindness to amputations of extremities.  One of the biggest causes of high blood sugar is the highly processed foods loaded with Carbs an sugar that is such a large part of modern diets.

So if you were allergic to peanuts no doctor in their right mind would recommend that you eat peanuts and use an epipen so you could eat them daily.  That sounds pretty stupid to me. That however is pretty much what the Australiab diabetic association seems to be advocating.

Most of the time your diabetic educator/ dietitian and doctor will advise the newly diagnosed diabetic  to eat 30-45 grams of carbs at every meal and 15-20 grams in snacks.  That’s a minimum of 120 grams per day.  That’s ok you can use medication to control your blood sugar levels.  This approach has not been successful for many diabetics who have suffered a host of type 2 complications.

After a fair amount of research I found a Facebook group with over 6000 members using a ketogenic diet to control their blood sugar levels.  The encouragement and support I found there was just amazing.

I have been following a keto / lifestyle for the last 8 months.  In that time I have dropped a substantial amount of weight but way more importantly my blood sugar levels have become close to normal.  I am planning to add to this blog a bit more regularly in an effort to document my results living this way.  I hope this will help someone else who needs to make some changes 😁

Holidays

Wooohoooo one more day of work and it's off to Kyenton.  Love our yearly holiday with swimming, walking, giant chess, and just good family fun. It's going to be real blast .

Bed buying in Australia or to pillow top or just sleep on the couch, that is the question?

After 15 years + on a queen size inner spring mattress on a slat base that was guaranteed for 5 years I was  really starting to struggle.

Tossing and turning all night and just about bouncing DH out of bed.

DH has his own issues and so was blaming his stiffness and aches on those and karate got the blame for my issues.
 I had some mornings where I woke up so stiff and sore that getting out of bed reduced me to tears.

Rolling over required me to bounce and inch, bounce and inch several times to go from flat on my back to on my side the way I like to sleep.  1/2 an hour later I would have rolled back onto my back and wake up to go through the whole process all over again.  

I started researching beds on the internet.  Talk about information overload.  There are so many different styles of mattress out there.  Innerspring, memory foam, air, water, futon.  Then separate linked spring (bonnel spring) or pocket spring.  Add to that to pillow top or not and you have way more questions than answers.

The more I researched the more I was being turned into a pretzel by my old bed.
I started making friends with my couch which at least it wasn't crippling me.  DH finally agreed to replacing the mattress wooohoooo

I visited a couple of bedding stores  asked for information and lay on a heap of different beds in my budget range.  I figured I had found a couple that might do the trick so the next step was to get DH to come and see what he thought.

I always try to buy Australian if I can and regal sleep solutions is an Australian company I took DH and  we spoke to the local sales guy.  What a peasant surprise, lots of answers, seemingly unlimited patience and we finally made a decision on a queen sized pocket spring latex pillow top mattress just on the budget line..  The only down size was waiting a week for delivery.

The mattress arrived and yes it's substantially higher than the old cement block we had been sleeping on.  That's ok I can certainly deal with that.  There is much less movement in this mattress so when I roll DH hardly feels it at all and I certainly don't feel him getting up in the morning.

I realise it's only been 2 weeks today but I am really happy with my new bed.

DH is still not quite sure about it but we can still change it over until we find one that's perfect for both of us.  I doubt it will go back as he seems to be getting used to the different feel.

Anyway happy bed shopping.

Wow looks like I left it for a year+ this time

I can't believe how slack I have been.
its February 2014 Ahhhhhhh.....
I guess I have been so busy living my life I haven't had time to write about it.
I have so many questions and so much to do it can be over the top some times.
I made it to 1st Dan.  My eldest son made it to Shodan Ho JR and my youngest son is now a 2nd Kyu.  I have a 2 new jobs and I love them.  working full time for Melro and also part time at the dojo.
so Awesome to be able to watch Rhys as he works through the leadership program.

I still have my horse Ned and our Staffy Rocky.
I am also selling Tupperware very part time but it helped get me through a bout of no job and its awesome stuff so that's pretty cool.

Well it's just a quick stop in tonight.  gotta hit the hay.. work in the morning.
woooohooo

2012

ok so here we are again its 20th Feb 2012.
Life is moving on and things are always changing.
Karate is awesome as usual and is helping me to cope with all the other little issues in my life.
Its so great to be able to go and punch something when I am frustrated.
I am fast approaching the end of my probationary period at work March 19 so thats excellent.
both of my boys are now substantially taller than I am which is pretty freaky for me...lol
They are fast approaching being taller than their Father wich is even freakier...
I probably should change the name of this blog because I don't really run much anymore....
I am now working on loosing weight using Craig ballentynes 24/7 fat loss program and it is working for me.  I have dropped 11.5 kg over the last 12 weeks and that includes chrstmas, New year and a short holiday during that period....It really is awesome to be taking control of that.
anyway its off to work for me now so have a great week everyone...