A New Year's Resolution: Keeping the Anvil Over My Head

On New Year's Eve day,I bought my first pair of "skinny" pants,size M,and a black sleeveless cocktail-type dress,size 10. Now for many many women,this isn't anything worth mentioning (except to your girlfriends),let alone relevant to a food blog. But for me,it was huge (pardon the pun) because neither purchase is something I could ever have considered a year ago when I weighed well,well over 200 pounds.

Before: a chunky monkey in 2007. At least Shayna was happy.

The diagnosis in March,however,changed my life. In some ways it was,perversely,the best thing that could have happened to me because I stopped living my life as a slothful eating machine and made a hard right turn. If I was to have a future that didn't include loss of my feet,my vision,kidney functions,or having a stroke or heart attack--all ghastly physiological problems associated with diabetes--I had to take very good care of myself.

By the time I met with my doctor later that month to discuss the diagnosis I had already joined Weight Watchers online and had just begun to take working out as a serious daily endeavor. I think I'd lost about six pounds at that point. By June,I'd lost over 20 pounds and the A1C blood test that measures diabetes fell from extremely bad to just above normal. Nine months into my new life I've lost 60 pounds. To my mind I still have another 30 or so to go. Late next month I have my next A1C test and I'm hoping to hit a normal number.

And that's what I have to focus on this year. Yet,while I'm so tickled to have those new pants,the little black dress,and the hope of good health,with success comes the risk of complacency.I told my friends and family back in March that I felt like I had an anvil hovering over my head and that's what kept me in line,not the promise of smaller sized clothes. But you can't live indefinitely under the threat of imminent danger. Once the perceived threat begins to fade,it's all too easy to regress incrementally into bad habits. That's what I'm fighting now. My immediate goal is not to be thin as a rail; that'll never happen. It is,however,to be at a very healthy weight that leads to a normal A1C result so that my doctor will wean me off the metformin I take three times a day. My long-term goal is to manage my disease of self-indulgence with self control. In other words,commit to a lifetime of good diet and daily intense exercise. This is no mere New Year's resolution.

So,I have to remember things. I have to remember the mortification of sitting in a nutrition class with other newly diagnosed diabetics and of mortification turning into disbelief as participants,also in clear denial,asked the nutritionist if they could still go to McDonald's,still eat their favorite chicken pot pie frozen dinner,still drink Cokes. I have to remember the guy I sat next to at a brunch cooking class I was covering for San Diego Magazine. He downed hefty portions of a croissant bread pudding and stuffed French toast and whatever else was served. I wasn't eating or drinking anything; there wasn't a thing there for me to eat that wasn't full of fat and carbo-loaded and besides I had to measure my blood sugar within the hour. It was a small group and the instructor wouldn't let it go so I finally blurted out in exasperation that I had diabetes and couldn't have the bread pudding,the French toast,or even the proferred glass of orange juice. The guy next to me looked at me like I was a nut case,shrugged,and said,"Oh,I have diabetes,too. I just take my meds and I'm fine. I can eat anything."