So, the doctor put me on a plan diet to lose weight, and part of that is the calorie limit. But the other part is the exercise. I’m no stranger to exercising; I love a good workout. In the past I’ve tried out lots of different activities—running, weight training, kickboxing, yoga, Pilates, swimming, all of those videos by all of those celebrities? I’ve tried them. To little or no effect.
But this time it was different. Because this time I noticed results.
In the past I would get so discouraged; I’d work out with a friend or on my own, and I’d make little or no progress. How frustrating! You know how hard you work, how much effort you put in, how much you’ve changed your diet and for what? Almost no results. Maybe a pound or two. But you don’t feel better. You don’t look better. Your clothes don’t fit better. All those results that were promised to you? Never happened.
How do you stay on track?
I can’t answer that—because I didn’t. I would get frustrated and then get discouraged and then just stop. That lack of success would make me quit trying. So I’d stop working out for a while. Stop watching what I ate. And the pound or two of progress that I made would slip away and I’d gain again. It was a spiral that I felt trapped in, one that my doctor recognized in me and led her to think that insulin resistance might be the problem.
But now … I’m doing the right thing and I’m seeing results. It’s an amazing feeling and I’m so thankful to have found an answer. It’s still a lot of hard work, and some days there’s nothing more that I want to do than sit on the couch and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of a salad and grilled chicken, but I still keep trying.
Though my family has not changed their diet along with me, they are very supportive of the changes I’ve made, and they are willing guinea pigs to try the new foods that I bring home. Some are a hit (like the roasted cauliflower) some are a miss (like the butternut squash soup), but they’re open to the experience and that helps me to stay open as well.
I’m taking baby steps with exercise—the medication that I’m taking raises my heart rate so I’m not able to run or take a kickboxing class yet, but I can still move slowly and reap the benefits. You’ll burn calories whether you walk or you run—and with insulin resistance, it’s important to burn those calories because I’m also burning glucose and keeping that insulin from getting too high.
