OK, so I’m into the second month now of this—five weeks down on the diet, and I just went down a size in clothing—at least as far as shirts go. I am not proportionate so though I’ve lost some weight in my abdominal area, my lower half isn’t the same size as my upper torso. I’ve still got a long ways to go before I’m comfortable in my body—as I’ve said before, I’ve always been a large woman and that’s fine, but I’m over my comfort level for my body and my back, especially.

I’m going to answer a few questions this week that I’ve been asked. As you know by now if you’ve been following my posts, I crossed over the line into mild Type 2 diabetes and have no intention of letting it go on or get worse. My body is carb sensitive, and so my doctor put my on a permanent low carb diet, which is working wonders. I’m almost back into pre-diabetic fasting sugar levels, I’m losing weight, I’m feeling a lot better, my joints don’t hurt much anymore. Win-win-win.

Q&A (And in advance: I am NOT giving you any medical advice. If you want to start a diet or exercise routine, please talk to your doctor first).

Q: How much have you lost?
A: I have no idea. I used to be well on the road to anorexia and I do not keep scales around. I freak if I step on a pair of scales. I go by how my clothes fit and how I look in the mirror. So—how much I’ve lost? I have no clue. I will continue to have no clue, because it keeps me sane. But I’ve gone down a full size and I’m wearing clothes I couldn’t get on a couple months ago. The exercise was making a difference, but the diet added in kicked my metabolism into high gear.

Q: You’re on a low carb diet. How many carbs do you eat?
A: 30-50 per day. I try not to go below 30 because it can affect serotonin levels and I’ve got mild bipolar issues and do NOT want to encourage depression to hit. If I go over 50, it starts to show in my blood sugar levels, and I parcel them out through the day, 90% of the time. I try to have a day every two weeks where I can save up to about 30 of them (days when I take it up to 50) and have something a little more carb-focused.

Q: You said you eat every two hours?
A: Yes, because my blood sugar needs to keep even. I try not to eat after 8:00 PM, though. And some days I’ll spread it out to 2.5 hours instead of two, but when I eat every three hours instead, I get hunger headache. I drink at least 8 glasses of clear water a day, plus my herb tea drink recipe, Zevia diet cola.
Q: What do you eat in a typical day?
A: Here’s a typical day of my eating:

• Breakfast (8:00): Protein Drink (rice protein powder, vitamin powder, almond milk)
• 10:00 AM: Goat cheese and a sliced cucumber
• 12:15 AM: Tuna (in oil, drained), 2 tbsp unsweetened ketchup
• 2:30 PM: 2 apricots, 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 4:30 PM: Extend diabetic protein bar
• 7:00 PM: Chicken (or steak, pork), sliced tomato, 6 oz goat yogurt with 1 tbsp lemon juice, cinnamon, and 2 packets stevia

Q: What’s your goal weight?
A: I don’t have one. I’d like to be back where I was right before I met my ex, which was about a size 16-18. As I said, I’ve always been large, I don’t really expect to ever be ‘thin-thin’ and that’s fine with me—I like having a little extra. To be honest, I like the curvier look. So my ideal would be to get down to a 16-18. I’d be thrilled to get back to a 20-22. Which is looking closer and closer.

Q: What’s your workout plan? And how did you get started?
A: I currently am working out five days a week. I bike three days a week, for half an hour at a time. I generally manage 6-7 miles during that time. I also do two workouts a week with my workout partner. On Mondays we do the Goddess Cardio Burlesque workout and then a pretty intense weight workout for arms/upper body for a total of almost 50 minutes. On Thursday we do Yoga Booty Ballet, which is a pretty intense (for us) 40 minute workout. At times I need to adapt parts to exercise ball workout, but that’s happening less and less as I go along.

But, I didn’t start out doing that much movement. When I started out a year and a half ago, we did one workout a week, about twenty minutes of upper body weights, and about ten of exercise ball work. Six months later, I bought the exercise bike. I was able to do five minutes a day, of slow, PAINFUL biking. I added a minute every few days. Then, I was doing ten minutes a day. Eventually my workout partner and I added a second workout per week. Eventually, as I added more time to the biking it became a workout in itself. About four months ago, my workout partner and I began to work with the DVDs instead of just weights and the ball. And I’ve settled into a five-day a week routine.

Exercise goals for the future? While I’d like to exercise every day, I’m not sure when that will happen. For now, I want to really be able to move on to the next level of DVD on both workout and up to 45 minutes on the bike three times a week. So those are my next milestones.

Q: Do you have any tips on dieting or exercise?
A:

• If you go low carb, eat often enough.
• Prepare snacks and prep for meals in advance. Yes, it takes some time, but it's so worth it when you're hungry, when it's time to eat, and you don't have much time. Then you can just grab something out of the fridge to eat or to nuke.
• If you get brain fog from changing diets, drink salty chicken broth. I learned that Here.
• When you're tired and you just don't want to start moving on the bike or with the DVD or whatever, remember: the only person you're cheating, is yourself. And if you cheat yourself, you're cheating the most valuable person in your life. There will be days the body won't budge, but most days, even the bad ones, you can squeeze out some effort. If it's particularly rough, you might only get a barebones workout in--and some days the intensity won't be there, but the important thing is to do the best you can with what you have at the time you're doing it. Consistency is vital and your best friend.

So, onto week six. Taking it day by day, sometimes hour by hour, and eventually, maybe it will be week by week.

Yasmine