I recently started listening to this book and I am horrified! I already knew that I am at risk of developing diabetes due to my family history and the fact that I had gestational diabetes in my second and third pregnancies, but this book has shown me how high my risk of getting diabetes is if I do not change my eating habits drastically now. According to Dr. Fuhrman, even being 5 or 10 pounds overweight can set off diabetes in someone who is prone to it. I am sure that I fall into that high risk category and even though I have lost 7 pounds in the past 25 days, I need to lose about 20 more pounds. Why is it so much easier to gain weight than to lose it? I can gain weight effortlessly. It is so easy to gain weight. The only time in my life I ever had to try to gain weight, ironically, was in the beginnings of my pregnancies when I was so sick that I dropped around 10 pounds each time. In my first pregnancy, I started off at 110 pounds (I am 5 feet tall so that was a healthy weight for me) and when I went to the doctor weighing 100 pounds, he threatened to hospitalize me and feed me intravenously if I lost any more weight. I actually did lose about 3 more pounds, but managed to gain it back before I visited the doctor again. Other than during my pregnancies when food itself was totally repugnant and I had to force myself to eat in order to nourish the babies that I carried, I have gained weight effortlessly and unintentionally. Twenty five days ago I weighed 140 pounds. That is what I weighed when I gave birth to my first child. I do not need to get down to 110 pounds again, but my optimum weight should be between 115 to 120 pounds right now – probably closer to 115. So, I still need to lose 18 pounds. Until I started listening to this book, I thought that I was not doing too bad because on those height and weight charts that show normal, overweight and obese zones according to BMI (body mass index), I am in the overweight category, but will fall into the normal category once I am below 128 pounds. That is just five pounds away! Based on that, I decided that I am not too bad off. I think that conclusion was wrong. I really am at a very high risk of developing diabetes right now. The last time I had blood work done, which was about 2 months ago, the doctor said my blood sugar level is higher than it had been in the past. It is not in the diabetic or even pre-diabetic range, but the range in between there – above normal, and therefore, not a good place to be. The doctor recommended that I take vitamin D3 to help with my blood sugar levels. I am not sure what that does, but I am taking it.
In this book, Dr. Fuhrman also mentioned that waist size is an indicator of health. Sadly, I have the dreaded apple body shape where excess weight stays in my belly. I have read elsewhere that the apple body shape is at highest risk of heart attack. My family history, along with my current diet and lifestyle, is killing me. My mother’s father and one of her sisters and her brother all had type 2 diabetes. My mom also had diabetes as a result of the chemotherapy medications she was on. She died at age 38 of cancer. My father died of a heart attack as did his father and uncles. I feel doomed and I worry about my children’s and my husband’s health as well. I currently take medications for high blood pressure and for high cholesterol. I want to be able to quit taking those medications. I am not sure if that is even possible, but it is my goal.
So far, I have made the following changes in my lifestyle. I now walk every morning between 30 to 45 minutes. I sometimes walk in the evenings if it is not too hot. This week, it will be too hot with temperatures over 100 degrees. I am following my “stairmaster plan”. Even though I don’t go to a gym right now, I work in a 5 story building. I have always walked up the stairs rather than taking the elevator, but I only work on the 2nd floor so that is just one flight of stairs. For my stairmaster plan, I always walk up one more flight of stairs than I need to any time I am near any flight of stairs. Even if I am going downstairs, I walk up to the next floor and then down. I also started parking higher in the parking garage so I have more stairs to climb to get to my van. When I am out running errands, I try to park as far away as possible so that I have to walk farther to my car – unless there is a shaded parking spot closer. In the summer in Texas, parking spots in the shade are the priority whenever they are available. I have also found a yoga studio that is about a 15 minute drive from my house and I plan to take some classes there.
I have already made some good dietary changes. I tend to eat a fairly decent diet. I don’t drink sodas or sugary drinks and I don’t eat beef. My biggest problems have been snacking after dinner, cheese and chips and sweets. So, now I brush my teeth immediately after each meal to discourage myself from eating anything else after it. I am now trying out a vegan diet. I cut way back on processed foods and would like to cut them out completely, but honestly, that requires a lot of time and preparation and I am not there yet. I am hoping that the vegan diet will be the tipping point that will make a big difference for me along with my continuing to eat fewer and fewer processed foods. I am also trying to feed my family healthier foods. My husband’s blood sugar is also up a bit, in the same range as mine. The past few days I have been serving some vegan processed foods to my kids with minimal success. I plan to keep trying to make the diet of my whole family much healthier.
If Books Could Make Me Thin and Healthy 