Dreaming Paris

So, 3 years ago my doctor told me I was prediabetic, which spurred me into action and I lost 30 pounds, 25 of which I have since put back on. But last week I had another scare, and there cannot be any going back for me. I have changed my lifestyle. Luckily, I already had most of the groundwork covered. I have my tracking tools, my guidelines, my exercise routines, etc. I created it all over time to best fit my abilities. I mean, let's face it, there's no way I'm going to go to the gym and do a 30-60 minute workout regularly. Not even to save my life. But I will do yoga 3 times a week and go walking or cycling 3 times a week. Or dancing. One day that will become part of my routine. When I have money again and can justify the cover charge. I have no choice in the matter. The only thing to roll back diabetes, and it can be rolled back but you will always have it (it's like being an alcoholic) is diet and exercise. No more refined sugar, ever. Lots of fruits and vegetables and good carbohydrates (no starchy white foods). So after reading up a little more thoroughly on the disease, I'm very glad to know that I'm not having to start from scratch in creating a plan for myself. I just need to implement the things I've already created. I use a combination of a neat little book called The Ultimate Pocket Diet Journal and sparkpeople.com for tracking my foods and their nutritional values. I've been entering foods into my Sparkpeople database over the last 3 years, so I'm not always having to do that now. The only new tool I've created is a chart to check off my suggested number of servings of the various food groups and the colors of fruits and vegetables I'm taking in. I should be getting a good variety of colors, so this is letting me see my weak areas so that I can work on them. I already know that legumes and dk green veggies are tough for me. Sparkpeople also helps you track your fitness plan, so I can figure out how many calories I'm using up with various activities. It's trés cool. If you like the idea of social networking to help you with your weight/fitness goals, Sparkpeople is the best free place I've found. I don't do the social networking, though. I get enough of that w/FB. Don't need more. Don't want to talk about my new lifestyle all the time, I just want to do it. Which is what this post is about. I'm doing it. And so far, it's a-okay. My biggest problem is cutting out the fat grams now. Basically they're coming from dairy products, and occasionally nuts, both of which I love, but I must be more careful with the dairy. Cut back to fatfree milk. Doing lowfat cheese. But still, there's too much. I'm also vegetarian again. I was one for two years, I went off it for one year, and as of Nov. 1, I went back to being one. Even though I like meat, there were days when it kind of nauseated me when I thought about what I was eating. I decided I really didn't need it after all. And I'm doing great with that. Now that I have to watch everything else as well, well, I guess I'm relearning how humans were meant to eat to begin with. We really don't need a lot of meat, we're fruit, vegetable and grain creatures. Plant creatures. We can exist completely on what grows from the earth, and our bodies like us better for it. And not processed stuff, either! Fresh, though cooked is okay. So anyway, we'll see. I want to see the kind of success Nancy achieved. I've admired her tremendously for her self-discipline because I know how difficult it is. But I AM NOT going to get up at 3 am to exercise. I'm just not!