Tag water therapy

A New Beginning!

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment
Shrug it off & start anew!

I’m not a big fan of new year resolutions but, after 2020, I find myself making a lot of them this morning. For starters, I haven’t had any weight-loss benefits from blogging about my dietary screw-ups over the past two & a bit years. So I’m writing that off as a failed effort now. Time to wipe the slate clean & begin anew. Starting with a new way of reporting progress, or lack thereof, at the beginning of each month. The pic above is my shiny new weight-loss goal in 2021. This new “reporting” format is just a sneaky way of disguising how much weight I regained towards the end of 2020! But cut me some slack here, please. It’s a little embarrassing & 2020 wasn’t easy, you know! 😜

I weighed in this morning. I have a new tracking app & I logged my weight. The new 50lb target is dialled in. I’m ready to go. Wish me luck. And if you’re starting a new weight-control program, I wish you every success too. Let’s see what we can do before 2022 sneaks up on us! 😜😁

Last year brought pain & despair to many families. But as miserable as it was, 2020 wasn’t all bad. And not for everyone. I’m grateful for the positives too. It threw up a few epiphanies. Only little ones, but these minor events sometimes make little shifts in the direction of our lives. Such tweaks can have a compounding effect that matters. I hope it’s not one of those too-little, too-late things, but I’m now just over two months a non-smoker, for example. Though I’d still kill for a couple of cigarettes with my morning coffee! 🤭

Last year was pretty rough for some of our neighbours. Fortunately, most of us have a little store of kindness on the inside. Sometimes, when we remember that, we can start to make a difference in the lives of others. A lot of us, making tiny positive ripples, can create waves that wash some of the bad stuff away. I’m not preaching at you here, I’m trying to encourage myself to make ripples in this new year. Especially on a beautiful sunny morning like this morning.

To kick off the new year, I think I’ll swing by the ocean today. For a little water-therapy. Maybe I can support a local business on the way back. I just need to make sure that I choose something that doesn’t have me gaining weight the very first day! LOL

I wish you, & those you care for, the very best for the New Year.

May 2021 treat us all kindly!

Rice is a Killer Carb!

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment

Rice is a Killer Carb!

Sunrise Zen Moment

But only in a good way! And now that I’ve now figured out how to eat it.

When I was a little kid, my Mom often told me that my eyes were bigger than my belly! She was right, I always went for the biggest piece. The biggest cup, bowl or plate. The largest slice of anything I thought was nice. Oh boy, if only I’d listened to my Mom!

I have the same problem today. When I filled that tiny pot with just a small serving of rice a few days back, little did I realize that, when cooked, the stuff would grow into three days worth of heavy-duty glycemic load. Though only very occasionally threatened by blood glucose numbers that might suggested I was heading towards prediabetes, I’ve always changed my eating pattern to, hopefully, avoid any consequence. Nowadays, I use a glucose meter to monitor the varying effects of the foods I eat while testing dietary patterns.

The Glycemic Index ranks foods, all with an equivalent glucose content, in order of their impact on blood sugar levels. The Glycemic Load goes one step further, ranking foods by more realistic serving size. The Index, for example, might suggest that we ought not eat carrots. While the Load, recognizing that there is far less sugar in a reasonable serving size, suggests we can.

Except in my case!

Because, sometimes, I have no concept of serving size.

Now, the Glucose Meter helps me see the impact of my eating. Today, my finger tips look like pincushions. After three days of monitoring things, while I was gorging on rice. I couldn’t help but prick my finger every time I sat down, just to see how things stood. It was fascinating.

My blood sugar never went into dangerous territory over the course of the past three days. But it did stay at a higher level than I would like. I don’t buy the theory that says older people should have more relaxed guidelines. I want my blood sugar at or below 5.4 mmol/L (97 mg/dL) most of the time. It’s been above that for most of the past three days, and today. After eating “well”, and with a lot of variety, since July 1st, I think my body is generally handling the glycemic load better. And remember, I had that bread too when I kicked off this carb-loading binge!

My weight over the course of these four days? Stable!

I think this means that I can safely include some rice, & even some bread, in my long term diet. With the odd binge, of course. If you’ve been following this story for any length of time, you know I’ve already “qualified” potatoes as a health food! But it’s really good news that I can now add these additional, almost forbidden, carbs to my regimen too. Not in these crazy quantities, and maybe not on a daily basis, but I can have them. Now that’s starting to feel a little bit like some kind of dietary freedom! 🙂

I think I need a Zen moment, by the water, to contemplate the sheer magnificence of it all!