Vitamin D Findings

I got a little off track over the weekend with a trip up to visit a girlfriend in Akron. I still lost 1.5 pounds last week.

I talked to my mother today who's been reading up on Vitamin D. New studies indicate that people with a Vitamin D deficiency tend to be insulin resistant and have trouble losing weight. My blood tests gave me a value of 30 and sources I've looked up indicated a level between 50-80 is opitimal. I picked up some Vitamin D while I was out today...

Progress?

I got the blood work done last week. My fifteen minute appointment to get an order for the blood tests turned into a 2 hours physical including an EKG, additional blood tests, and even a little stress therapy. Oh, and my flu shot and pneumonia booster. Ouch. The doctor's office called to tell me my iron levels were good, but I have to wait on the rest of the results until my doc is back from a humanitarian trip.

I'm about half way through the book Dawn suggested I read. Unfortunately it suffers from the same thing all diet books suffer from, their own self-promotion. They all thump their chests and say, "I'm the best! I'm the only one that will work!" Besides that, it's a little repetitive. Hyman even delves into some of the politics of food in the United States. Remove all that and you get some interesting science. This relatively short book would have made a very good paper. Instead, the publishers method for getting the information to the public was the vehicle of a diet book and that's just unfortunate because it makes it more tedious to read than it should be. So far the book's single biggest strength is that it doesn't treat the body as separate systems. Hyman sees the body as a single working unit. Affect one part and all the others are also affected so the variables working on one's weight can be equally varied or out of balance. "The" diet to put them back into balance may be one of the commercial diets, but most likely is a return to whole and less processed foods.

When I began eating the higher number of calories, combined with the sustained effort at eating more whole foods, especially fruits and vegetables, I began to have energy I haven't had in a long time. I just feel good. I resent completely that eating this well makes such a significant difference. I don't want it to matter. I want to eat what I want, but still feel this good. My body has other opinions. The good news is that I'm not finding it a burden so far. I don't really even get very hungry any more. Like Hyman promised, the hormones and messengers that signal appetite are being reset. I'm still appropriately hungry, I'm just not desperate. That voice which demands that "I can eat what I want" is a much quieter whisper now instead of a roaring, stomping toddler.

I'm still exercising regularly. I lost a pound last week.

Daring to Hope

Hope isn't always a good thing. When you've been heavy for a long time, the weight-loss industry as a whole wants to motivate you into using their products on the hope that something could be different "this time." I've spent the last year working with my trainer to the utter frustration of us both. I've worked out twice a day, dropped calories, changed the ratio of calories consumed and all to little or no effect on my weight. Realizing that something was at play other than simple "diet math", my trainer Chris Brown sent me to a Sports Nutritionist. Her specialty is performance athletes who have challenging nutritional needs. Being a former athlete and knowing probably too much for my own good, Dawn Weatherwax was excited by the challenge to work with me and get some useful answers. I made an appointment and went to see her last Wednesday.

Two hours after walking into her office, I had some answers and some specific follow-up advice. First she took an extensive history, looked at my habits, asked questions about my genetics, medications, diseases that run in the extended family and so forth. Then she did metabolic testing to see where my Resting Metabolic Rate was working. My guess would have been too slow. In reality, pleasantly high. High enough, in fact, that it was clear I wasn't eating enough. When I tried "normal" diet reductions between

1200 and 1500 calories, my body was hanging on to fat for dear life, literally. So, I have been instructed to eat more, 2000 calories on average per day. I LOVE this idea. Thinking back over my life, especially as an athlete, it makes perfect sense. I've always performed better when I ate more. Of course there was cautions about eating nutritionally dense foods, but still, the food blessing was a wonderful thing. I started tracking my food anew today.

Dawn gave me the title of a book she wants me to read. I downloaded it to my Ipad and have been reading it in spare moments. I like what I'm reading so far. The book is titled Ultrametabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman. I'll post some reviews as I go. Dawn also gave me some specific blood work to have done and address the results with my doctor, some things about my workout she wanted me to discuss with Chris, and then she brought up the mental/emotional aspect of all this. She noted that while I may not be anorexic or bulimic, I was definitely "controlling" with my food, even if it was to make the statement through my choices, "I can eat what I want." As I tried to downplay the statement she interrupted me to prove her point. She said, "For example I can tell just by looking at your body language and facial expression that if I asked you to give up wheat for two weeks you would look at me and say, 'I don't think so...'." She had me dead on. No one had ever put it quite that way to me before. When I told Chris he thought it was hysterical and then added, "I'm glad it was her telling you and not me!" What? This wasn't news to him after reading all my food logs for the last year?! Guess I'm not as cool a cucumber as I thought.

Still, over the weekend, before I started tracking my food again today, I allowed myself to hope. I allowed myself to think of what it would be like to move through my day, interact with people, and feel about myself if I were carrying significantly less weight on this petite frame.