Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement

Tonight begins the most solemn day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur.  The fast begins about 6:15 as we drive from the restaurant to the synagogue.  We will break the fast in the building at about 8 p.m. tomorrow night.

In between will be lengthy, marathon sessions of praying for forgiveness against our fellow man and against God.  We have been working on asking for forgiveness from our friends and family since Rosh Hashanah ended.  Beginning tonight, we are trying to make everything right with God in order to be written AND SEALED in the Book of Life for another year.  I know that some of this is probably just metaphors, but it's hard to resist the image of God with the Book open all day and then as sundown approaches, he is slowly closing the Book and closing the Gate to Him until next year.  Everyone hurries to get their last prayers in before it is all closed up, praying fervently that our names are written in there before the Book is closed.

During the day today, Mark and I have done some errands and then went to Sea World to renew our annual passes and have another free lunch on our Passholder Dining plan.  Unfortunately, our favorite counter service restaurant, the Spice Mill, has dropped the vegetarian chili and substituted either a fried fish sandwich or a chickpea burger sandwich.  We both ordered the fried fish, which comes with fries and then we took a garden salad and coffee as our side and drink.  Mark was smart, as usual, and ate none of the bun and half the fries.  I was not smart and ate everything.  Oh, my! It was delicious.  I can't remember the last time I ate a fried fish sandwich.  This piece of fish was so long that it could have used two buns to hold it.  Instead, I cut it in half and ate two open-faced sandwiches.  So, I was just not making good choices. It's very hard to put the calories into the Lose It app for restaurant food, but as near as I could program it, I had about 800 calories and 92 carbs.  That's WAY too many carbs, so I'm going to test my blood sugar soon when it's two hours after the meal just to see what happened.  It would not be too many calories if that was my one big meal of the day, and I ate a salad with a can of tuna on it like I sometimes do for lunch.  Unfortunately, at 5 p.m. we are driving down the road a mile or so and eating dinner at Landry's, our Erev Yom Kippur tradition for these six years.  This year we have vowed to skip the bread, appetizers, and desserts. I will also skip the alcohol.  That should all help my carb count a little bit.

Meanwhile, if I have not asked yet, please forgive me for anything I may have said or done, either knowingly or unknowingly, this past year that hurt your feelings, offended you, or in anyway upset you.  I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and I promise to try my best to do better in the future.

We had a great time at Amatista Cookhouse for dinner last night at Universal Resort for the Magical Dining in the Sapphire Falls hotel.  I did not overdo it there and made reasonable choices.  The Blue Man Group show was outstanding.  Here are some pictures from the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party and our night at Universal Resorts.  There will be no more blogs until Sunday afternoon at the earliest.

For those who are observing Yom Kippur, may you have an easy and meaningful fast, and may you be SEALED in the Book of Life for another year.

Weight report and family physician visit

My weight this morning was excellent.  I weighed in at 267.4, a loss of SIX and a HALF pounds for the week.  That's insane.  I know there had to be some water retention that decided to leave, but we also walked nearly 7 miles at the Magic Kingdom between 5:30 and 11:30 p.m. for the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

I did collect the candy after all.  At 10:15 at night, I only had two little packs of Skittles in my bag, and I ate them as a snack during the fireworks because I was genuinely hungry.  We hit up some trick-or-treat areas after the fireworks, so I did end up with a full bag of candy eventually. Then at 11:30 on the tram out to the parking lot, I ate a tiny mini-Milky Way.  I gave everything in my bag that had nuts in it to Mark, but on the last couple of candy stops, I asked them not to give me things with nuts.  When I got home, I put the bag in the spare bedroom so I don't have to look at it.  I'm sure if I just have one or two small pieces at bedtime as a snack, like Mark does, it will not be a problem.  The problem is sitting with the bag on my lap in front of the TV and eating non-stop through an entire TV show.  Trust me!  I've done it.  There will be no candy tonight, however.
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Needless to say, I was very encouraged with this weight loss.  I've now lost 28 1/2 pounds since the end of a cruise on March 14.  That's 4-5 pounds per month, so it's not fast, but it's steady and healthy.  If I can get through all of our parties, restaurants, and cruises and continue a pound a week, I will be very happy.

I am proud of myself for successfully eating out four times this week and still losing 6 1/2 pounds.  Wow!

This upcoming week will have an equal number of challenges, and then we go on the Canadian cruise for two weeks.  I am just going to try very, very hard!

We have company coming for dinner in about twenty minutes.  Mark has made a Diabetic Living brisket recipe with cooked carrots, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.  We have two kinds of parve cookies, Vegan Rugelach and Linzer Tortes. Mark is going to plate my food, so that I only get the exact amount that I'm entitled to.  I have already programmed that in plus one of each kind of cookie.  As long as I don't reach for seconds on anything, today will also be a good day.

We just got back from seeing the family physician about the pre-diabetes, my sugar numbers, and my thirst.  When Mark saw her back in June, we were not that impressed, but today she seemed much nicer and more friendly.  She took a lot of time with me.  She was not too concerned about my blood sugar numbers because she saw that I was down 14 pounds from when I saw the Nurse Practitioner in July. She also explained my thirst, which started around August 11 or 12, by the two new meds I started taking on August 10.  There was ten days of prednisone then, too.  She said both the generic Xantac and the Flonase are types of antihistamines which are going to dry me out.  Well, duh!  Never even thought of that.  In general my blood work wasn't bad.  I was surprised by my blood pressure, 148/66.  That was definitely not normal for me.  She said she would take it again before I left, but we all forgot to do that.  I might take it at home tomorrow morning or maybe later tonight after the company  leaves.

In general, I thought it was a good visit.  She spent a lot of time counseling me on food intake. Mark and I already knew almost all that she said.  She would not designate an amount of carbs that I should consume at each meal or even daily. She felt that I should eat far more calories than I am, maybe as high as 2000.  I told her I was sure that would NOT work for me, but she was not convinced.  She suggested I spread my calories more evenly through the day, 450 at each meal and two 200 calorie snacks for a total of 1750 calories.  I have no intention of doing that, although I did agree that I could work on spreading the numbers out a little better than I have been doing. When eating in restaurants, more calories come at dinner, obviously.  When I'm at home, I could increase breakfast and lunch a little bit without breaking the whole diet plan.

In the upcoming week, I will be either eating out or hosting friends for a dinner party EIGHT times!  It is certainly going to be a challenge.  I'll be sure to report back next Wednesday about where my weight and blood sugar numbers stand.

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

This evening we are going to the Magic Kingdom's party.  We have gone three times in the past, but this year we were supposed to be there with Evey and Eric on Sept. 12.  Unfortunately, we stayed in Maryland to avoid Hurricane Irma, and Evey and Eric went by themselves.  Disney let us change our tickets without a penalty, so tonight is the night. I hope to get lots of pictures and put some up tomorrow morning.

We have a NARFE Board Meeting in Lakeland at 11 a.m. with lunch, the Big Catch Salad, at Beef O'Brady's.  Then we are going to the president's home for Mark to have a tutorial session for a while about taking over as president.  Mark is the nominee to be the Strawberry Chapter's next president.  Go, Mark!

After that tutorial, we are driving straight to the Magic Kingdom.  We plan to eat dinner at the Columbia Harbor House where we can get either vegetarian chili or a salmon plate with broccoli.  Either of those should be fine.  When you are at the party, the crowds are lower making it easy to walk on most rides.  There are special shows and parades and lots of special Photopass opportunities.  Sadly, there are also lots of special Halloween snacks to buy and a bag to fill up with pounds and pounds of candy handed out at various stations.  Since I'm desperately trying to lose weight and avoid full-blown diabetes, eating snacks and gathering candy would be STUPID!

Mark always gets the candy.  He eats maybe one or two small pieces for a night time snack, which makes his candy bag last over a year.  I'm pretty sure last year's bag is not empty up there in the pantry.  I, on the other hand, finished my huge bag of candy in about a week because I would eat ten or twelve pieces at a time, sometimes more than once in a day.  Binge-eating at its finest!

So, right now my plan is to concentrate on shows and photos and buy NO special snacks and get NO candy.  i really don't think I can control eating the candy in small amounts like Mark does so why even bring it into the house as a temptation?

I'll see tonight if I can do it. Wish me luck!

This morning I am quite happy because despite eating out Saturday and Sunday nights, I am down again this morning.  In fact, I cracked the ceiling of the 270s and hit 269.4 this morning!  I am very, very excited about that.  Yesterday I had an excellent day of under 1200 calories and only 103 carbs. I was very active with a doctor's appointment, Mah Jongg, a lot of little jobs in the house, and then a choir rehearsal.  When I went to bed, I was EXHAUSTED.  I'm sure that all helped.  Today there will be a huge amount of walking around the Magic Kingdom, so that's going to help a lot.  I shall make the official Wednesday report tomorrow morning, and I hope it's the same as today and not higher.  I know for sure that the Big Catch Salad at Beef O'Brady's is VERY salty, so I could retain some fluid.  We shall see.

Vocal Nodes update and Shingles

Don't panic!  I don't have shingles!  I did get the shingles vaccine today, however, and it's been something I've been meaning to do for a long time.  I happened to be in CVS, so I asked if Medicare covered it and how much it would cost.  Medicare covers all but $45.46, and they had the vaccine ready.  I thought that was a good price because before I had Medicare, my insurance did not cover any of it.  The cost was around $300 without insurance.  I'm pretty happy that I did it because back in the early 1980s, I did get the shingles when Lowell got the chicken pox.  I have no desire to get it again!

It was also all GOOD NEWS from the ENT.  Well, no, the singing voice is not back yet, but it is improving.  He did not do the endoscope to look at it today, but he will do it in six weeks when I return on November 3.  He said in 17 years at that practice, he has only had 3 patients that did not recover from vocal nodes with the same conservative treatment he is using on me, although it takes three to four months.  Next time if they are not gone, I will continue the treatment but also start the speech therapy twice a week for six weeks, which Medicare will cover.

So the conservative treatment consists of Flonase, Xantac, NO SINGING, minimal talking or at least stop when I feel the voice is getting tired or harder to produce a tone, and TONS of water for constant hydration.  He did say if I have a drink or two on the cruise ship that's okay as long as whenever I take an alcoholic drink be sure to follow it with an equal amount of water.  Whiskey and a water chaser, right?  I can do that!  Also he's okay with having TWO cups of coffee in the morning with two cups of water afterwards, AND he said he's okay with my one cup of decaf around 3 or 4 in the afternoon with a cup of water.  BUT absolutely nothing but water after dinner.  Last night I had a decaf in the restaurant at 7:15 p.m. and I woke up several times during the night with my entire mouth dry as a bone.  He blamed that decaf for that effect.

Anyway, I can continue this regiment for up to four months if I can have my singing voice back at the end of that time.  He saw no reason why I would not be able to sing normally once the nodes are completely gone.

All good news!

Now I'm going to go play Mah Jongg.  Maybe I'll even win some games today.

Great show. Great dinner. Great friends. Up a pound.

The production of Hunchback of Notre Dame far exceeded our expectations.  The Winter Haven theater has won many National awards for their performances, even though it is a community theater where everyone is a volunteer.  Amazing. Dinner with Donna and Alan was also excellent, and we always have a good time hanging out with them.  We all loved the show and the whole evening.

Although I tried to calculate my calories as accurately as possible and stayed at 1417 for the day, I am still up one pound today.  I am hoping that it is just water retention because we are going out to dinner again today.

This afternoon we are going to the Garden Theater in Winter Garden with Ed and Susie to see Jesus Christ, Superstar, the first show of our six show season at the Garden Theater.  This is our second year of buying the season ticket package to this theater.  We really love their productions.

Usually we eat lunch before the show, but this time we are going to have dinner after the show.  This is Magical Dining month in Orlando.  Many restaurants participate in this event where a prixe fixe menu costs $35 per person, and part of that price is donated to charity.  We have chosen to go to Hemingway's in the Grand Hyatt near WDW.  Our dinner choices are limited, so we are having a Caesar Salad, Grilled Grouper with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus, and a Key Lime Tart.  This is not a chain restaurant, so I could not find any nutritional data.  I just did what I did for last night's dinner: researched all the listings of those foods in my Lose It! data base, threw out the highest and lowest examples based on calorie counts, logged in one that seemed close to the highest calorie count and resembled the description of what we are going to eat as closely as possible.  I have done that, so the dinner could be 1023 calories and 77 carbs.  I can handle that as long as breakfast and lunch are low.  For breakfast I had my sugar free Greek yogurt and a sugar free Ensure drink.  That came to 160 calories and 10 carbs.  Lunch will be a can of low sodium tuna and a can of low sodium green beans for 190 calories and 11 carbs.  It's hard to do better than that for those meals.  Then almost all my calories and carbs for the day are coming at dinner.  It's not optimal to cram all your carbs and calories into one meal at night, but when you are eating out with unknown foods, I feel that it's best to try to save it all up for that one meal.  If I'm hungry later tonight after dinner, I have programmed sugar free jello for a snack.  My total calories for today will be 1453 and the carbs will be only 98.

Meanwhile this morning my blood sugar was 114 this morning.  My total carbs were 103 yesterday and 1417 calories.  Of course, those were just my best guesses, like today will be.  Not knowing exactly what you are eating is difficult.

Rosh Hashanah debriefing! Sorry, but this is long and doesn't even have any pictures!

Why is it that every single year both Mark and I forget how long Rosh Hashanah services last?

Both days we left the house about 8 a.m. in order to allow a little extra time for rush hour and still arrive at the 9 a.m. start time.  Services started promptly and then ended promptly at 2:05 p.m. both days.

Yup, that's a FIVE HOUR marathon of praying!

At least my little choir had to go up five times on each day to sing, so I couldn't get too complacent or nod off in my seat lest I miss our cue.  LOL

On Thursday, because we somehow never remember this five hour length, we ate breakfast at 7 a.m. and got home at 3 p.m.  We were both STARVING and EXHAUSTED.  We quickly ate lunch and then promptly fell asleep until about 5 p.m.

On Friday we were smarter.  We each packed a half sandwich in a cooler pack to eat as soon as we got in the car.  What a difference that little snack made!  We came home, ate the rest of our lunch, and then drove up the street to Barb and Ed's house to deliver some little special Baltimore snacks to them that we brought back from Maryland.  We stayed, visiting, catching up, and generally having a heck of a good time for over two hours.  I was never even sleepy!  It was a much better day.

Maybe next year, we'll remember!

Also, because as we drove home yesterday after 2 p.m. and ran into some small traffic back ups as we worked our way past the Hotel Boulevard entrance to WDW, we remembered that we had decided not to book two nights in a local hotel for Yom Kippur.  We thought we'd just save money and drive on home.  HA!  Seems like a good idea until it's after 2 in the afternoon, you're tired, and there's a WDW back up, and on Yom Kippur you have to turn right around after an hour at home resting to go back for the evening service.  So Mark booked us two nights in the same hotel we used the last two Yom Kippurs, the Comfort Inn on Palm Parkway.  That's only one mile from the synagogue and comes before any of the WDW traffic!  Now we can get back to the hotel next week for an afternoon nap in between the five hour morning service and the three and a half hour evening service, not to mention the night BEFORE when we are at the synagogue for about three hours.  Yeah, Yom Kippur is not just a 26 hour fast, it's also a marathon of time in the synagogue praying.  But asking God for another year of life is pretty important, wouldn't you say?

My eating and weight are both doing very well.  I have kept my calories well below the allowed amount, averaging about 1200 each day starting with this past Tuesday, our first full day at home.  This morning I weighed 270!  I was beyond thrilled.  It's only a little longer before I'll be back in the 260s, which I haven't been since August of last year.

Sadly, my excellent days of controlling everything and eating at home are ending today.  Beginning today, eight of the next nine days involves at least dinner out.  Some of the days have lunch and dinner out.  Never good for me.  If I'm not careful,  I'll easily gain a pound a day or more and undo all this work.  That would make me very sad, hopefully sad enough to make good choices.  Of course when eating out, even when you think you are making the best choices, hidden sodium and carbs used in the cooking that you don't know about or see will still sneak some weight back on.

My goal for the next nine days is to stay the same.  If I can report that a week from Tuesday, October 2, I still weigh only 270, I will take that as a huge win!  It doesn't stop there, though.  The next night we have company coming for dinner.  Two days later we are eating dinner out and six days later, on October 8, we are flying to Quebec City where we will spend two nights in a hotel before boarding the Holland America Zuiderdam for a 12 day cruise down to Fort Lauderdale.  Geez.  I love all the things we do in our Florida retirement life, but it is NOT conducive to weight loss!  LOL

Meanwhile, the sugars are still above normal every single time.  I had a blood draw from Quest on Tuesday morning.  I got a call from the doctor on Wednesday with the results. I was shocked at the fast turn around.  It actually took several more days for it to be posted on my Quest Portal.  The doctor reported my fasting blood sugar at 106, while I had gotten a 112 at home that morning before I went to Quest.  Of course, home test kits are never going to be as accurate.  My A1C was 5.7, which was absolutely the lowest one I had had in THREE years!

This new doctor does not know my record though.  They said OMG!  5.7 that's HIGH!  106 that's HIGH!.  Pre-diabetes.  Get on to a low carb diet.  I said thank you.  I know I have an appointment on Wednesday to meet with the doctor and discuss all this. I have had higher A1Cs every time, and I've had a 106 fasting in the past, but it's always been followed up with a 98 or so.  I have waffled slightly above and slightly below 100 for three years.  My previous family physician just pooh-poohed all of this because the numbers were so close.  Also the A1C thing is because the bar has been lowered.  5.7 used to be considered normal.  Now it's the number that is the border.  The new guidelines say to be under 5.7 and I was right on it.  Still, as I said, it's the lowest one I've ever had.

What is really different this time, is that I have been testing every day once or twice at home, so I know I never go below 100 any more in the morning or any other time of day.  That is concerning.

None of this means I'm a diabetic.  Pre-diabetes just means that if I continue to go the way I've been going, I could become a diabetic.  So I am NOT continuing that way.  I'm lowering my carbs, and I'm lowering my weight.  I know with every confidence that this will give me perfect numbers in the long run with no sign of diabetes.  That's the goal.

To meet that goal is to learn to overcome my biggest weaknesses, eating out or eating at dinner parties.  Half of my time in Florida is doing one of those things, maybe more than half.  I have mastered good eating in the home.  In fact, I have mastered that a long time ago.  I must work harder on the other two places because they are very hard.  I still love to eat and love to eat large quantities of food.  That might never change!  LOL!  Making good choices like no sugary alcoholic drinks, big salads for lunches instead of sandwiches and fries, limiting dessert to none or a bite or two for a taste, skipping the bread basket, THESE are the things I need to master next.

So today is Shabbat.  Off we go to synagogue for a third day in a row.  The good news is that regular Saturday morning services only last two and a half hours, and we usually get there an hour late!  They also have kiddush, some light foods, right after services.  This is one place where I easily avoid the food.  For years I have not gone to that food table except to take a small bite of ritual challah, which I have actually programmed in my Lose It! app.

Tonight we are starting our eating out by going to Donna and Alan's house.  She is making an asparagus and mushroom quiche, carrot and pineapple slaw, and ice cream for dessert.  We are bringing the ice cream, so I've programmed that.  It's so hard to figure out foods that you did not cook.  To estimate it, I search through the Lose It! apps program for all the quiches. I discard all the highest and lowest calorie ones.  Then I look for one that sounds the closest to this one, pick one whose calories are about 2/3 of the way to the highest one, and then choose the one that also gives a all the nutritional info instead of just saying n/a, which many do.  I picked an Asparagus Quiche where 1/5 of a pie is a serving and gives 400 calories, 16 carbs.  I picked a carrot slaw of a 1/2 cup serving for 140 calories and 15 carbs.  We are bringing the ice cream, which is Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate with a 1/2 cup serving, 160 calories  and 16 carbs.  If this bears any resemblance to what I'm actually going to eat, then my diner will have 700 calories and 47 carbs.  That's a good dinner!

We are having dinner with them because after dinner we are driving to the Winter Haven theater to see the new live production of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame.  This live show started in Germany where it was very successful and ran for several years; however, when it came to the USA, it never found success and never made it to Broadway.  The original composer and lyricist wrote some additional songs, which are great.  Mark bought the soundtrack album, so we've been listening to it.  I don't know why it couldn't make it to Broadway, but at least it's now making its way around the community theater circuit.  We will see it again in May at the Garden Theater, too.  Very exciting!

Time to go to shul, so I will close this very long blog now.  Have a great day and eat healthy!

Erev Rosh Hashanah. L'Shana Tovah to all.

Tonight begins the important Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year.  Tomorrow and Friday, Mark and I will head out to our Orlando synagogue, SOJC, over near WDW, for two days of very long services.  They typically begin at 9 a.m. and go to about 1:30 p.m.  During the services, we will all thank God for his many blessings to us and the world and fervently pray for peace and prosperity for both us and the world. We tell ourselves and God that He is our King and we re-establish that relationship with Him.  This is essentially what we pray at every Shabbat service, but during the holidays there are more of these kind of prayers and the added element of asking for these blessings to last for us especially through another year. We pledge to forgive ourselves our sins and forgive others, although there are more of those prayers on Yom Kippur next week. We blow the Shofar to signify a new beginning, a wake up call in a way.

I wish everyone I know, both family and friends, Jews and non-Jews alike, that we all have a beautiful, happy, and prosperous New Year, that we all think about our lives and our relationship with God in order to make our little part of the world a better place. To all, I say L'Shana Tovah, a Happy New Year, to everyone.  May it be a sweet New Year for all!  I especially pray this for all of those in the USA and the Caribbean islands who have been affected by the many hurricanes this season and the people of Mexico who have been devastated by two recent earthquakes.

My little choir will sing five times on each day, so we had our final rehearsal tonight.  Our Cantor took a photo of them last night to put up on Facebook.  This morning I downloaded the photo to my laptop because I thought I could put it up here.  Hm...couldn't figure that out, so I just took a photo on my phone of the photo from my laptop and put it into Picasa the usual way just so I could put it up in this blog.

It's also Weigh-in Wednesday, and I am 273.9 this morning, which is a gain of 2 1/2 pounds for the week.  That is so sad.  My average calories for the week were about 1650 per day.  It's not a number that should bring on a a good weight loss, but it doesn't seem like enough to cause such a big weigh gain either.  I would like to think that I could maintain my weight with that number.

It was a tough week because we ate out four times and had a big party at Cindy's house last Wednesday night when I definitely over did it.  Yesterday I was up a bit more than today, so I lost a little water weight yesterday because my calories were only 1295, the lowest of any day in the week.

Also my grand experiment yesterday of keeping the carbs super low in order to get a normal fasting blood sugar reading did not work at all.  I had only 84 carbs for the day yesterday.  That's the first time I've been under 100, or maybe even under 120.  My sugar this morning was 111, not what I was hoping for.  Mark has suggested that it might be because I did not eat a bedtime snack or any carbs after dinner.  He has found that if he does not have some carbs, maybe 20-25 or so, around 11 pm., his sugars are high in the morning due to Dawning Syndrome, or his liver releasing sugar after a long fast.  Tonight I will eat my Arctic Zero, 28 carbs and 147 calories, at 10 p.m.  I'll report tomorrow morning how that may have affected my morning reading.

It may not even be healthy to go lower than 84 carbs in a day, even though I know it can be done, and many people following at Atkins diet for weight loss regularly do it. I recently read that the brain requires 130 carbs a day just to function efficiently.  I won't be trying to go super low carb for awhile because the High Holidays will be bringing additional carbs at dinner.

Mark has done a great job of picking low carb, soft main dishes for us.  I got that temporary crown yesterday, which is less secure than the old permanent filling, so I have to be careful not to break it for the next five weeks.  But each meal of Rosh Hashanah will involve some challah, apples, and honey.  Even if I eat only a little bit of those things, it's still carbs.  We are definitely NOT having our traditional Rosh Hashanah dinners tonight and tomorrow night.  I don't know if Mark is sad about that or not, although I think I am a little bit.  Everybody has special holiday foods that they enjoy and look forward to eating.  This year, none of those are happening.

Our typical Rosh Hashanah dinner would be the following:
Wine
Apple slices dipped in honey
Raisin Challah, preferably in a round loaf
Chopped Liver
Matzo Ball soup
Gefilte Fish
Main Entree consisting of chicken, potato kugel, and a vegetable
Honey Cake for dessert

Well, THAT'S not happening this year.  I am not calculating the calories in carbs in all of that, but I am sure the carbs are in the hundreds and the calories in the thousands, just for DINNER!

Instead tonight's menu is more like any other dinner we would have in a week:
Wine for Mark only (I'm still off alcohol for the vocal nodes)
Apples and honey, a carefully measured, small amount of only 1 T of honey and 1/8 of a small apple
A small amount of regular challah, just one ounce that I'll carefully weigh out
Shakshuka (eggs poached in spaghetti sauce, very soft to eat)
Cooked spinach

What a difference!  Tonight's meal will not feel at all like Rosh Hashanah except for the apples and honey.  The good news is that this dinner will have only 55.6 carbs and 526 calories.  Quite a difference!

If I don't eat anything I have not programmed today, my calories will be 1221 and the carbs will be 110.  Eating the Arctic Zero tonight will be a good experiment for Mark's theory of morning sugar levels.

My only concern now is that no matter what I do, these sugars will not change because I do NOT have diabetes. There are several other things that can cause excessive thirst and elevated sugar levels.  I have an appointment with my new family physician next Wednesday, and I hope she will agree to run some tests to rule those other things out before settling on a diagnosis of pre-diabetes.

My numbers are not high enough for diabetes, but neither are they normal.  These numbers will not cause any long term damage to any organs in my body, and at 67 years old, I will probably die before those numbers could EVER have an impact on them.  What pre-diabetes really means is that if I do not change my eating habits significantly, then actual diabetes is the logical conclusion.  Even if I ran numbers of 140-200 every day, all day, at my age any damage to the internal organs like kidneys or eyes might not take effect before I am gone.

The whole thing always comes back to weight.  As a person who has been overweight and/or obese her whole life, I would totally expect to be a Type II diabetic at this age, and only serious weight loss will reverse those numbers.  That is what I think is really the issue, so I just have to do three basic things: exercise more, keep the carbs low, keep the fats low.  Holidays, restaurants, dinner parties, vacations, and especially cruises all conspire against me!  THAT is my real challenge, controlling those situations as well as I control my eating at home.

Meanwhile, once more, L'Shana Tovah, may you all have a blessed, peaceful, happy, and sweet New Year!