Loosing weight, diabetes & and get healthy

I had a reminder from one of my blog readers to say I hadn't reported on my health for ages: I had planned to keep a  blog as an incentive to stay on track but, found it boring - so assumed you must have been finding reading it the same.

However, after  the prompt from a woman in Tasmania, Australia, here's the latest goss!

I have continued to loose weight: in fact I have lost over 10% of my body weight!  There are about 5 or 8 kg to go until I am in my healthy BMI weight range. Perhaps now is when I do need to be blogging on the topic more often as I suspect this is when it will get harder to loose those last blubber pounds that remain.

So there it is in a nutshell: my weight has gone down, my diabetes blood test results have improved, and i'm feeling much better not carrying those extra kilograms around.

What else has been happening to me? I have had a geat road trip to WOMAD 2010 in New Plymouth:WOMAD is the acronym for world of music and dance. I have also been busy writing; active in the New Zealand Society of Authous ( PEN international) and a few days ago I had a great trip to Akaroa, our French community on Banks Peninsula, less than 100ks form Christchurch.


NOTE: To see some photos from my recent  road trip to WOMAD 2010 held annually in New Plymouth see my 'other blog'/

I was travelling in a Backpacker campervan, and on the Interislander ferry over Cook Strait - from Christchurch  to WOMAD.

Rooms with views, bungee, diabetes and loosing weight.

 I wrote this from a room with a view. A  room in which various national and international ‘artists in residence’ have used to relax , sleep, or work.

I am supposed to be blogging about diabetes and weight .. but that all seems boring: nevertheless I can happily report  - after 7 weeks - my blood pressure is normal and I have lost over 5% of my body weight. Now back to writing a blog, or rather re-publishng a column I wrote when I was travel editor for a local newspaper.

As I sit and await the muse to visit (surely there must be some residual energy from those other writers) I gaze out the window at the view.

The Peacock Fountain, set in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, was built in cast iron in 1911, and is the background to many photographs travelling to all points of the compass. As people pose, it sprays it’s water regularly from the dolphins, and is well decorated with herons, lily leaves, and other undefined foliage.

I think of other views, other places: some from on high, others just a glimpse through a door or window.

• A palm-roofed hut, just large enough to place a double-sized bed and still walk around it, produced a romantic view of white sands, palm trees, and blue skies. Idyllic - a genuine travel brochure scene.
  
• The view from my downtown Manhattan hostel window - taxis abandoned in the middle of the street and only the top of the yellow-cabs roof showing through the snow.
  
• The view from  a tower in Istanbul may have been amazing but I was too busy clinging to the building to appreciate it. It is hard to be a tourist/traveller with a  fear of heights. Nevertheless I do recall seeing the busy Bosphorus and the skyline of minarets through adrenaline-impaired-vision.

Once I nearly got over my fear enough to inwardly consider urban rap-jumping from the Novotel in Auckland. I am pleased to report I recovered my senses enough to keep those thoughts to myself and remained firmly on top of the hotel and did not walk down the side of the building- face forward - and now own a Tee shirt that says; I wouldn’t dream of urban rap jumping. The view of downtown Auckland and the harbour was great, however I was not really appreciating it right then.

With these confessions of fears, you will be surprised to know that I have done a bungee jump - right in the heart of Wellington. I was really fearful as they tied my ankles, the soft towel to prevent ropeburn did not reassure me. I must be crazy I think. Ropes tied and tested I am under starters orders.

“Move to the edge of the platform” he tells me and I shuffle forward, “A little more” I move almost imperceptibly more, my heart beating at an uncontrollable speed. The view is now clearly in front of me, the water is fast, cold looking and a long long way down. I still have time to back out of this but my pride won’t allow it. The countdown starts. Three. Two. One. Bungee! Over the edge I go, plummeting downwards, waterwards, my heart undecided if to climb out my throat  or smash through my ribs, I’m screaming. I bounce, up and down, down and up again swinging side-ways and slowly come to a gentle halt.

They untie my legs as I wonder did I wet my pants? I slowly walk away, my legs shaking. That may have only been virtual bungee at Te Papa but it was real enough for me!

• Another memorable view from the top was in Scotland. Inveraray, a village built by the head of the powerful Campbell Clan in 1745, has a bell-tower built, on top of a hill, as a memorial to the Campbell’s who have died in battle. I climbed, sometimes crawling on my knees, to the top for a fantastic view of the village below, the Clan Campbell castle (Inveraray Castle) and the beautiful Loch Fyne and the tiny village. It seems amazing that such a calm, peaceful setting was the training ground for some half a million troops prior to the D-Day landings in WW2.

My journal, written on top of that hill, notes my grief at my sons death some five years earlier, and how I had then thought I would die from the pain, yet now, on the date of his birth, I was enjoying the view from a hill in Scotland. Grief produces such paradoxes, out of pain, or perhaps because of it, growth and life and laughter happens. Just as Buddhists explain the lotus flower and how its’ beauty grows from mud.

 

Maybe the muse that was left in this room is a reflective one. One that looks out windows and wonders what’s it all about. I certainly don’t know, all I know is the more I know, the less I know, the less I need to know.

Christmas is coming and I'm loosing weight

That title almost seems an oxymoron with all the luches and dinners I am attending - todays will be the worst calorie-wise as I'm off to an Indian restaurant (with a  friend with whom I'm doing a Thelma-and-Louise type road trip in March) and of course India does have high calorie food ... I will just have to be like them and have small - normal - amounts and enjoy it all.

(NOTE: a hint for if you want to loose wieght by limiting alcohol check this out a US study shows alcohol DOES NOT burn off no matter how you cook it - read more here)

I'm reading a great book (Nine Lives by William Darymple) which looks at nine Indians and their belief systems and actions: have only read two of the nine lives so far but I'm really enjoying it ... the one I have just finshed was in the Kerala area and it brings back great memories. This seems an appropriate place to confess: I think I'm one of the few women ever to have put on weight in that great country - so you can see I do have to watch portion sizes! But I do admit I'm looking forward to an authentic thali and will just have to make sure I take a 30-min plus walk this afternoon.

Talking sizes, I'm doing well and this week my weight-in was enjoyable as I'd lost a kilo (2.2lb for any Americans reading this) so moving smoothly toward my first goal of 5% (of my original weight) weight loss. Incremental goals seem to work well for me ... if I looked at what the end result needs to be that would be overwhelming .. and even with just 3kg fat gone, I've had a few people tell meI'm looking good .. nothing like stroking my ego for me to want to continue, especially as this has to be a lifetime change, not just a quick weight loss then breathe a sigh of relief and go back to my old ways. (which I have done before). My rule for health around food needs to be - "is this next mouthful supporting my health goals, or hindering them?" 

Well although I planned on putting some Christchurch photos on this blog - as in the square yesterday, as I walked home from weight-watchers, I stopped to watch some guys playing chess on the outdoor set and a Maori group perfoming traditional kapahaka - dance and song - and thought I'd use those photos but in honour if the meal I will be eating in 3 hrs, I'll take the cat (Mista) off my lap and hunt out a CD of my Indian photos and use some of them.

Diabetes, food and loosing weight

It's nearly 3 weeks since I was diagnosoed with diabetes and the sky has not fallen on my head. so thats a good start. however, I am very conscious of food - more than before, as now I have to think about it all with questions to myself such as  'is this mouthful moving me towards my goal or away from it - towards health or towards diabetes complications' and although I find that helpful, I will be happy when this new way of eating becomes ingrained as a lifetime habit - which is my goal. I'm lucky that I dont have to change WHAT I eat as much as HOW MUCH I eat. I especially have to cut down on the carbs (a bit of a carbo queen I was) and  of course people ask me about giving up sugar and chocolate, but I didn't need to eat that: my body was busy converting the carbs into sugar without me having to eat it!

And, of course it's holiday season, and all the food events that entails. I believe our Christmas dinner  (at my daughters) will be seafood-based this year: yum yum yum! Fortunately I dont like the heavy Christmas dinners of old, but if I see a palova anywhere I will be having a little!

I've just arranged to meet a friend for lunch on Friday .. an Indian thali .. which of course is high calories and I will have to watch the quantities .. a little of everything seems to be a good motto for me right now. so see what i mean about thinks and talking food food food!

Well thats it from 'the life of Heather today' files and will finish on a note of pleasure ...  a woman I was at university with, and not been in touch with for years, in fact just caught up with each other on Facebook, sent me this message.

" .have just finished your book.....it is amazing....you are such an inspiration,

an intrepid, courageous, wonderful woman!"

this will be even more of an OCCASSIONAL treat!