This week I went to my friend’s house for dinner after not having seen her for a couple of months. As soon as I walked through the door I noticed that she had lost some weight. I complimented her achievement and just as I asked how she managed her weight loss, she told me something I never thought I’d hear from her. She said she had been diagnosed with diabetes a month ago.
While I knew her mother had diabetes, I also knew that she, like my mother, had gotten diabetes in her 60’s. My friend is still in her 30’s, not severely overweight and I thought she ate a pretty healthy diet. She confessed however, that she believed her diet was her downfall. She wasn’t exercising, didn’t eat as healthy as I thought and baked dessert almost every night.
Needless to say, a month in, that’s all changed and she’s lost 31 lbs. A lot of it came off because of her illness, but she stated that she now wakes up at 4:30am to get in an hr workout before work 3 times a week; she’s on a no carb diet to try to help her get her insulin levels back in check (I suggested she look at the Zone diet to help keep her on track); and she now bakes sugar free goodies to help her 3 kids ween off the nightly dessert sugar rush and hopefully establish a healthy pattern to keep them from ever needing to deal with diabetes.
Once I heard all that I thought to myself, choosing to be healthy by eating better, exercising and listening to your body for cues of hunger and fullness levels is not just about the vanity of wanting to look better or get into cuter clothes. It’s about extending your life so that you’ll be around for your loved ones and so that they’ll be around for you. While I knew that, my priorities around weight loss were generally vanity related. The lightbulb has now gone off for me and that’s all changed.
While I am back to my Flexitarian ways – having upped my fruit and veggie intake about 50% – I haven’t really lost any weight; but combined with working out 5 days a week, I have definitely lost inches. Not really sure how many since I had stopped measuring a long time ago, but pants that were a little loose before, are practically falling off today. 😀
Here’s to that pattern continuing for good so that I one day don’t find myself having to make drastic changes due to illness.
What is keeping you from leading a healthy life? What reason would you need to get on the healthy train?
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