ADDICTIONS
#SUGAR_ADDICT Over a month ago, I was probably one of the worst sugar/carb addict there is. Since I was diagnosed with diabetes almost three decades ago, I went into a rollercoaster of dieting and fasting and binge eating. I would weigh myself, get disgusted with what I see and resolve to eat nothing for a week. I would lose 10kg, then the following week, I would eat all the calories that I restricted myself from and more. Then in April of last year I tried the ketogenic diet and it was working for a month or so until an aunt commented that I will get all wrinkly and saggy if I lose too much weight and my mind used that statement as an excuse to go back to my standard way of eating which has always left me feeling and looking bloated, inflamed, fat, and ugly. It also aggravated all my health issues specially with the cardiovascular problems. I kept wanting to get back to the keto diet but I would start it and then fall off the wagon the next day, over and over until I almost gave up on myself. Then I looked at my son and my blood pressure one morning and told myself, I do not have the right to deprive my special need son of a mother just because I am unable to keep my act together. So last month, I muster every ounce of resolve I could find in me, fueled by disgust with myself and I stopped eating carbs cold turkey. It was a great struggle the first two weeks, but now on my 39th day of not eating carbs, I have managed to bring down my blood sugar within normal range, my blood pressure to my high normal as opposed to the measurement I used to get over a month ago, which is as if I was always on the verge of a stroke. My triglycerides and cholesterol has also come down to normal and these are good. I still have a long way to go about the weight loss but I now have the determination to get there slowly but surely. I was just telling someone that based on my laboratory results, I would be at my healthiest right now if my heart has not sustained damage from when it stopped when I suffered prolonged internal hemorrhaging during my last ectopic pregnancy nine years ago. Still I am thrilled that the zero-carb way of eating has given me a little bit of my health back.
#NOVELS_ADDICT Back in school in the mid90s, what helped me a lot to navigate the stress of nursing college was to read lots of novels. Reading and getting sucked into the different worlds that an author creates in his/her novels had given me the much needed rest of the mind and a escape from my reality at the time. I chose to eat a cup of boiled corn kernels drowned in evaporated milk and smothered with sugar and dessicated coconut, and that would be my only meal for the day, so I could spend most of my food money renting novels at a bookstore downtown. I would get my roommates or friends to rent some books themselves and I'd read mine really fast so I could read theirs before it's due for us to return the rented books. Now that there is so much free downloadable or readable novels from the web, I still find myself giving in to the temptation of buying books that I barely have time to read anymore. I keep telling myself, I will read all of them when I retire. I hope so. So yes, I am still a book addict. In fact, I have three unopened boxes of books delivered to me just this month alone. I wish there is a 'way-of-eating' to curb this addiction of mine. :-)
#GoingForDaysWithoutSleep That is my third addiction, pagpupuyat. I used to say during Duterte's presidency that if there is a 'tokhang' for people who are adik sa pagpupuyat, I am sure natokhang na ako, or that I wish there is a rehabilitation center for people like me who are addicted to being awake. Yes, I call this as an addiction since it is a health risk factor which might be stemming from another health problem. I don't know, I just can't sleep like I should, but I am hoping that as I go longer into this zero or at least low-carb way of eating, I would be able to reestablish good sleeping patterns again.
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