Shrinking Suzy

As much as I hate to do it, I really have to stick to the McDougall food plan if I want to stay healthy. I also have to cut back on the amount of foods I eat, including the healthy ones.

Why?

Well, at age 50+ I've got to admit to myself that I just cannot eat the way I was and stay healthy. If I eat too many salty foods my blood pressure is going to go up. If I eat too many sweets (from the bakery, especially), not only will my arteries get clogged but my blood sugars are going to go crazy again. And if I eat meat, my gut is going to rebel, as well as my blood sugar and arteries.

And I've got to exercise regularly. I simply must treat it as if it's a medication I have to take daily if I want to live without pain and cardiac problems. It might also help in achieving weight loss, too.

Weight loss dieting. Those 3 most dreaded words in a fat woman's vocabulary, especially if the person has been on weight loss diets for her entire lifespan. But as much as it goes against every fiber of my being, it must be done.

Over the weekend I started getting those weird heart palpitations again. My doc once told me they were totally benign, but still, they're scary! And I had some chest discomfort with them this time, something that never happened before. Well, the discomfort also could have come from the half an apple pie I ate before bed. Or the turkey burgers with onions and cheese I ate about 3 hours before that. Or the peanut butter and jelly muffin 3 hours before that. At least I had a healthy breakfast and lunch yesterday! It still doesn't erase the bakery items hubby brought home and I helped eat Friday and Saturday, either.

Looking back at that paragraph, no wonder my body is rebelling right now! It's time for a serious detox again!

And another serious weight loss effort. The difference this time is that hubby is going to go along with it, as opposed to trying to sabotage it, like he usually does. He's three years older than me, and although he still weighed the same the last time he got on the scale as he did back in high school, he's not as fit as he could be.

So it starts again today. Each day I might post on either or both of my blogs not only these rambling thoughts and whines, but my daily food intake and exercise. Then again, I might just keep that info on my private, off-line journal and just do a summary now and then. I know I secretly smirk to myself when reading others' diet journals when they post their failures, and get angry and jealous of them when they're succeeding, so I really don't want others to do that when reading my blog posts.

Exercise: Each day I plan to do an exercise video from my stash to the best of my ability. With the arthritis, neuritis, fasciitis, CFS, and whatever else is wrong with me medically, I'm certainly not going to be jogging around the city for miles or doing anything as strenuous as tae bo, but I'll do what I can with Leslie Sansone, Richard Simmons, and a few others.

Food Plan: It's back to strict McDougall, and as soon as I get some off-plan foods out of the house, I'd like to go back on the Maximum Weight Loss Plan 100% of the time.