I want to be that mother who can stand up and say I am a strong confident mother and I know what is best for my children. We breastfeed and co sleep, We listen, We include, We eat chocolate and snot smoothies, we trampoline and grow frogs, we sling, we carry and we try and understand and work with our children without resorting to punishments, threats or coercion.
Do I want to be free of high blood sugars and the threat of type 2 diabetes?
Although I'm only prediabetic, it's inevitable that I will develop type 2, the GP said. I have many of the risk factors. Genetics, overweight, stress....
THE DIET RULES
This study on the 800 calorie diet, has only be done on 11 people, of them, 7 reversed their diabetes and there hasn't been a follow up yet. There is anecdotal evidence all over google of others who have tried it. Some didn't even do it to the letter.
Sustainability afterwards is the key but maybe this is the injection turbo booster quick fix crash diet magic pill popping elixir I need.
I anticipate that like lack of sleep, lack of food will create a crazed deprived mama and the short term result will NOT be fun. Or pretty.
Long term though....it could be the jackpot.
I crash dieted a lot when I was younger. I went through phases like most teenagers of poor body image and always *knew* my life would be better if I had a flat stomach. I became vegetarian firstly because I imagined it would mean eating less. I tried that slimfast diet that was ALL over TV in the 80's. I was so consumed with dieting I wished I was anorexic. I wished I had the will power and strength not to eat. How messed up is that! Not eating was difficult. I like my food! I was also bulimic for a few years. That was a joyful time. Not. Ultimately though it was all about trying to feel in control of my life. I see that now.
This is also about taking control of a situation. I just don't know if I have the wherewithal or enough support. Could my family handle me even more crazy for two months! Can they afford not too? Diabetes can be problematic to say the least. I'm running out of time.
Do you think this diet is possible for 8wks?
Do you think I have the will power, the motivation, the strength?
I've been swimming in denial for about a year now. I know I shouldn't be doing it. I know it's genetic and age related. I know my brother and my father both got it. I know ALL this, yet I just couldn't stop.
Every night, once the kids are finally asleep and I am finally settled on the sofa after my dinner, we eat chocolate. Not talking a wee bar here, I'm talking the big big ones. The yummy massive ones. And sometimes a bag of something else chocolatey. It is my treat for making it through the day. E. V. E. R. Y. night.
Except sometimes, I have it during the day too. Especially if I am feeling crappy. It boosts me with it's lovely chocolatey seratonin kick. I find I can't feel complete with my meal if I don't seal it with chocolate. I'm totally addicted.
I have a very addictive personality. If it's in the house I can't ignore it. If I want some and don't get it, I get all withdrawy and edgy. It's quite scary.
I knew I needed to cut down but I just kept ignoring it. Making excuses. I deserve it. I've earned it. I NEED IT DAMMIT!!
Well my ticking time bomb has finally been activated. My blood sugar levels are elevated and I have an appointment with the Dr tomorrow who will no doubt tell me to sort out my diet and stop eating my beloved chocolate. I'm still hoping it's all a big error (I know it's not).
The diet recently has mainly consisted of pasta which hasn't helped either. When money is tight, pasta is cheap and easy. Frankly I am sick of pasta, so I won't be sad to cut that down. I just really need to get my arse back into cooking gear and start making proper healthy meals again. I'm going to need to dig out my gestational diabetes pregnancy food diet and start following that again.
Honestly I am not looking forward to any of it. I love my chocolate. Giving it up is hard. If I go through a day without it, that's amazing for me. I had to stop all sugar during my pregnancy and all I did was dream about chocolate. I even made a blog post about it. I'm trying new recipes of pseudo chocolate with cocoa and bananas and avocados but it's just not tobelerone :(
The other thing I'm going to need to do now is more exercise. I'm dreading this too especially with my back pain. I guess walking toddler pace just doesn't cut it!
I suppose it explains my extreme tiredness and constant hunger. I'm really quite depressed about it all which makes me even less inclined to want to take on this huge task of change but I'm going to have to.
Basically I am a big fat mess of unhealthy and it's time to face reality, deal with myself and sort my shit out.
Meltdowns - eldest is going through something, so on the increase
Losing the plot - too tired
Breastfeeding - reduces risk of diabetes but doesn't completely stop it if you still eat rubbish!
Today has been a day of ups and downs. Woken early. Middle of day sleep. Crazy evening. Late relaxing night. Insomniac awakening till wee hours. My body clock is doing a confused mumba.
I was woken at 5am by two girls who thought it was time to get up and seemed most surprised when I told them it was the middle of the night. (It was still dark. It's the middle of the night for me. OK!). They decided to stay up and watched tv downstairs whilst I went back to bed for an hour before feeding Millie back to sleep for another while. When it was obvious through noise and milk needs that I wasn't going to get any more sleep, I got up and made breakfast, cleaned the bombshell kitchen and then swept the bombshell living room into the middle of the room to make a massive pile of contained mess. (It's a very satisfying way of seeing the mess).
I decided to rest for a bit after that except Ellie decided she wanted to make money and chose cleaning the car for a £1. If you think it's a way of getting a bit of peace and quiet whilst they keep themselves busy, think again. I spent more energy filling tubs and sorting hoses and drying children and dealing with leaking hoses that had been fed through the house and were soaking the poppy room and consoling wet children and being unable to not be a perfectionist and leave them to it, that I was beginning to wish...well I was beginning to...try to realise the super extra connection bonus points I was amalgamating!! For sure!
Anyways, we finally relaxed about lunch time then hubby took the girls out for the afternoon and I slept. Well I watched my new funzoneout show Psych (can be hysterically funny) then slept.
The gang came back at 6pm and we got ready for going to Shul for Purim. It was all going so well until we arrived at the place and thought we'd either missed it or it was the wrong night. Turns out it was at a different venue. Signage would have been good. Typical us. Disorganised to the Nth. Anyway we found another Shul which is great considering they are slowly closing one by one. (Dwindling community).
We were barely sat down 5mins when Maia says she needs the toilet. Ellie says she doesn't but comes with us. So we all traipse, by traipse I mean up one flight and down two flights of stairs, to the toilet. Millie is with hubby downstairs ( it's an orthodox Shul so men and women are separated) so it's just me and the girls. After the toilet, Maia says she wants to go the crèche play room so whilst she is in there I take Ellie, who has changed her mind and has therefore unwittingly reduced my patience.
It's a bit of a disaster because Ellie has a sometimes irrational fear of toilets. But only certain toilets. It's hard to know which ones are scary. It's always a gamble. Lately it's been worse. My empathy today was not optimal I have to say. Oftentimes I feel she's hyped it up so much she has manifested it into a bigger fear. I can't understand how she can manage school and home and some toilet, but others not.
Anyway, I thought if I walked into the toilet cubicle first she would follow and feel safer but she didn't follow and then refused to round the corner to the toilets. I squeaked the noisemaker (Purim necessity) to let her hear where I was but she wouldn't move. I probably should have come out sooner and let her see me but I thought she could see me and as I said I wasn't being completely patient with her toilet fear today. After a minute or so shrieking, I got her. She then freaked and wouldn't leave the toilet then tripped and banged her knee running away from the toilet (because of her new trousers). At first I kind of freaked myself and said some not very comforting things, then I checked myself and calmed down and apologised.
She was majorly pissed off with me and rightly so. I wasn't very motherly about it all.
So then they decided they wanted to stay in the crèche and I had a 'we have come to Shul to hear the Megillah and make noise not play here' moralistic imposing moment and marched them back into Shul where Ellie moped and complained on one side of me, that she thought it was a party and she wanted to go home. Maia was complaining on the other side of me that she wanted to go to the playroom. Then down below Millie noticed me and started climbing off hubby to make her way to me. I have no doubt that she could have made it on her own. Somehow!! 5 flights of stairs and 4 sets of doors wouldn't have stopped her. I sent Maia halfway to fetch her. She had only been sat for 5 minutes when she said she needed the toilet. We are on day three of no nappies outside the house so we are honouring EVERY request for toilet. So we ALL traipse back to the toilet and I decide not to turn Shul into a horrible forced affair and tell the girls they can go to the playroom. Unfortunately, I had closed the door and we couldn't open it. So we all go back inside. We've not been sat for 5minutes when Ellie decides she wants to go downstairs to hubby (who has been comfortably sitting, not moving, in one place all this time). So we all traipse downstairs. I meet a mum with a newborn 'uterus ping!!' and we chat for a bit. It always amazes me when I see mothers out with their newborn less than a week after birth. I don't have the energy for that and also I'd much prefer to be at home skin to skin as much as possible that early on. Other kids? That's what Hubby is for!
Anyway, back up the stairs into the Shul again and the other two start wandering about exploring. It's a noisy service anyway (we have to make a lot of noise when the Rabbi, who is reading the story of Purim, mentions the bad mans name, to drown it out) so it's not too disruptive until Millie walks into a book holder on a pew and screams the place down. I'm done. I'm ready for home.
By the time the service is over and we go back downstairs (5 flights, 5 doors) and into the function hall, I am not in the best of moods and hubby notices I am not looking so happy and points it out. Helpfully. It's too much to explain so I just bark back 'NO. I'm not!' and we leave it at that.
Thankfully there is a bunch of soft play stuff in the hall so the kids have a blast and are busy. This gives me enough time to traipse back upstairs to find the missing crown and missing noisemaker.
Back home they fall asleep pretty easily since it's late but I on the other hand am wide awake (damn you afternoon nap) which turns into insomnia. If the girls wake at 5am again tomorrow I am not doing the toilet runs at the next Purim party.
Things I've learned today:-
- be more understanding of Ellie's fear. It's not worth the consequences.
- take ALL kids to the toilet as soon as arrive anywhere
- choose a Shul that has same level segregation (or none) and same level toilets!
- eating at 2am is always going to make you need the toilet at 4am
Here's a funny video from today of Riley playing with his ball and getting it stuck:
Meltdowns - massive toilet based one
Losing the plot - completely
Breastfeeding - not in Shul this time so no need to deal with *that* situation.
We are doing really well at getting to school before the bell this week although several things have been forgotten in the process! Mostly sleep, since I am being woken before the alarm just now by Millie wanting her morning milk.
The powers of frozen raspberrys are helping Ellie to eat porridge again so we are all having a proper breakfast for a change with very little moaning.
Millie and I have made it to Nurture in Nature both days this week and remembered lunch to be able to stay out a bit longer!
Unfortunately we've been hit by a bug and there is a lot of puking going on. We don't normally get the pukey bug so we are not used to it. I have been puked on twice by Millie. The main bed has had it twice too by different girls. On the upside, all the toilets are sparkly clean!!
I'll leave you with a funny/scared the shit out of me story. Yesterday morning as I was putting stuff in the car, a black car pulled up and parked outside the tittletattle neighbours and a couple got out. She was dressed in a black power suit and he in a suit too. I didn't notice their wee boy which would have made me realise they were neighbours friends dropping kid off. Instead, my mind went into panic mode and I thought they were the freaking FBI coming for us. I instantly realised we don't live in America and my life is not a movie (although I think it would make a great reality show). So then I thought it was the SS. Oh how I laughed when eventually I recognised and realised who it was!! Paranoid much!l?
Bllleuuuuegh got to go someone puking. I think it's gonna be me :(
Meltdowns - massive one over not getting the pink light
Losing the plot - this morning had potential for a massive one but was just mild shouting and severe annoyance
Breastfeeding - so not feeling up to it what with the puking and all.
We got called into school again for a few concerns. Lateness, messy hair and faces (again) and homework were some of the things on the agenda.
Crazy thing is we *were* making a much bigger effort to be on time. I had explained to Ellie she was at an unfair disadvantage because there were so many of us getting ready in the morning compared to others who only had one kid, so it wasn't right that she should feel upset about being late because it wasn't all down to her and that she also shouldn't feel bad that she wouldn't ever get a special prize from the special award motivator box and that I'd get her something similar. I've also said that watching tv and eating breakfast makes things slower. Natural consequences. She doesn't want to be late then she needs to be ready to leave in morning but so do 4 others and a dog.
I say no tv, they go on computer. I say no computer, they go on tablet. Or my phone. They are sneaky that way!!! Also. If they don't watch tv, they play and don't eat. So do I ban everything except sitting at table eating? Like I got time to police that!!
There is a lot of stuff to do before leaving in the morning. I rarely get help when I ask for it from the girls, well not enough to make a humongous difference, but I suppose every little helps. You know. Recently they're becoming more receptive to a request here and there. You know grab another jumper Millie's spilled porridge on this one. Run and get another pair of trousers Millie just peed on these ones. Quick get another cardigan you've dribbled all over that one. We still haven't mastered the matching shoe finding task. There's a lot of shoes in that cupboard. It's scary in there. At least they can dress themselves now. That's a mahasoove bonus in the getting out the house on time stakes. Although with Millie becoming two and learning the art of running off and saying no to getting dressed that has definitely put us in a timedeficit.
Anyway I thought we were doing quite well. If I had to estimate I would say in the last month or so we have been maybe 70% - 80% on time. And it's only about 5-10mins at the most. I have definitely heard the bell more times this year as we drive up. Last year I don't think we ever made the bell. I should ask for the statistics for this year. 80% is good.
I basically made a decision to stop stressing and running about like a fucking lunatic trying to do seven billion things at once either shouting my head off or repeatedly repeating everything repeatedly over and over again ad-ifinitum and ad-nauseam. I do what needs to be done. I do it effectively (mostly) and I say 'time to go, last one out locks the door' and I leave. That's what's been working recently. They hate locking the door so that used to make them ruuuuuuuush. But it also made them freaaaak out. And wail. And try locking the door and then stomp. Then I would get out the car to lock the door. Often that made us later. And it wasn't fun. Actually it was often quite stressful for everyone and upsetting at times. But I like that they try to lock the door. That's a good skill to have. Anyways. Recently, I think they're working out that I will lock it if they can't, so the pressure is off a little but they're still pretty fast out the door. I think I'll need a new technique soon.
Invariably someone forgets something. That adds on time. So does Millie refusing car seat. That's happened a lot.
Most days we are out the house and traffic is fine but some days it's crazy. Crazy backed right up to our road. Crazy unpredictable traffic.
**side bar** this is my 2nd yr of leaving house with 3kids and dog. Thats two schoolkids needing lunches, snacks, breakfast, clothes, shoes, bags and to actually get out of bed and everything that entails and a toddler and all she entails. I am now into our 3rd year of school so we have gone through a whole lot of different techniques, of which there were MANY, mostly gentle (some way too stressyscary) of getting out the house. My favourite one so far was just leaving and sitting in the car till they noticed. I got a good chunk of 5-10mins of me time that way. Not so effective for those days you need to be somewhere at a specific time. Hopeless for school days, trust me. But the shouty stressy becoming unwell mummy had to GOOooooooo. Also, not to labour a point either, but getting out of bed and often being in a lot of pain and having very little range of movement for a while really puts a buzzkill on my timemojo.
You know what also? I really thought we were on top of the cleaning the face routine in the morning too. We've really been on the ball with it. Seriously, does it have to be EVERY day?!! And could they not help, by noticing if I've maybe missed a day or a bit and guide them to the bathroom straight away?
They have a bath almost every night.
Now hair brushing is just not happening for us. Maia's hair has a life of its own. We brush it, it fights back within hours to become the tangled mess it loves being. Last time we had this discussion with school about Ellie's hair, I cut it short. Remember? She loved it. Until kids made comments. Horrible ones. Ones that upset her and made her not like herself anymore. It broke my heart. I also hated that I cut her hair because society can't cope with a messy haired kid.
So, dammed if they do, dammed if they don't. Kids make comments when she cut it. Kids make comments. Kids are mean. My kids know I love them with messy or neat hair. That self-confidence goes way further than being mean. I've explained to them that some kids can say mean things because their hair is messy. We'll see if that fear will motivate them. What is it with hair brushing!!!! Maybe chocolate for breakfast would help?!
Next up is homework. I think there is too much. I think Ellie works hard. I think she will eventually manage to finish all her homework. I think she will be self motivated and able enough to complete all her homework as she gets older. I will support her when she is ready. I think she does a lot of homework. I support her when she does it. I don't think homework is necessary at this age but help her do it. There's a lot. They disagree. In fact I expect to see more and more being piled on these poor kids in the future. It's a losing battle. I'm a lone voice. As usual.
I am doing my best. I am clearly not a WINNER for the getting kids to school early award. I am also not failing my kids for later in life. I am definitely less stressed which my blood pressure thanks me for. I'm definitely less shouty which my kids thank me for. But, the message I'm getting is it's not good enough. That I'm not good enough.
We are doing our best...
But try harder I must. So next week we go for GOLD....pre-bell. What's my reward?
There was me thinking I was putting my head down and getting on with things. Clearly I need more practice. I'm confident though, that by the time school is over we will all have it worked out beautifully. Meltdowns - a few out of character ones Losing the Plot - not so many these days Breastfeeding - nearly two years!
I crash dieted a lot when I was younger. I went through phases like most teenagers of poor body image and always *knew* my life would be better if I had a flat stomach. I became vegetarian firstly because I imagined it would mean eating less. I tried that slimfast diet that was ALL over TV in the 80's. I was so consumed with dieting I wished I was anorexic. I wished I had the will power and strength not to eat. How messed up is that! Not eating was difficult. I like my food! I was also bulimic for a few years. That was a joyful time. Not. Ultimately though it was all about trying to feel in control of my life. I see that now. 
