I don’t know about you, but I find charting what I am eating daily a tedious job. It’s a chore I don’t like. It’s like cleaning the toilet or changing my cat box. It’s a terrible job but you have to do it in order to have a clean and healthy home. The same goes for charting what you are eating, in order to have a healthy body you have to know what kind of fuel you are putting into it. In the past I have made a disjointed effort to write down what I am eating, along with my blood sugars. I am going to be real with you my readers. I have not done a good job at taking care of my body when it comes to my diabetes. I have so many health issues, which include Wegener’s, tracheal stenosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, Rheumatoid Arthritis I get so overwhelm. I also have had 113 surgeries with my last one that happened on September 9th. It feels too much.
Now that I am facing a big tracheal resectioning in a couple of months I want to be able to lose a few pounds so that my big surgery will go better for me. I began again to chart my food. I’m sharing this with you all, because I don’t want you to feel ashamed or believe that I should be on a peddle stool for self-care guru. I am not perfect. I start, fail, and start again. For me, I have done a lot of research. So much so, that I often times get confused about what I should be doing and why. Then I think to myself they are all so different. Now I am looking at what is the same about them, that is charting what you are eating and watching your portions. Simple right? I can do that. I journal daily, so I can write down what I am eating in a book. I have been doing it for the last three weeks. The best part is I’m not by myself in this new endeavor either.
Here is what I am finding out about charting my food:
- I have found the value in writing down what I am eating and matching it up to my blood sugars. Blood sugar is a good indicator to help you gauge what you are eating and how it affects your body. When you are diabetic testing blood sugar is a must, but how many of us actually look at our food diaries to match it to what we have consumed the day before. It blew my mind. For example, the other night before bedtime I ate a bunch of grapes as my snack. The next morning my blood sugar was in the 200’s. Now I know that grapes is not a good snack for me.
- While I am checking my blood sugars in the morning I am reminded to take my medications too. I also bought myself some new pill boxes. I had one that didn’t allow me to take the weeks out. I’m clumsy so I would inadvertently end up spilling a months’ worth of pills all over the place and not know what they were. How annoying, right? So I decided to purchases some cheap ones at Walmart that have a better lock on them. I also blinged it up a pit with some flashy stickers that I found.
- Since I do not own a smart phone I’m doing it the old fashion way of paper and pen. At Burlington Coat Factory they have these awesome journals. I found one with the 12 step motto on it that helps me daily. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”. It also has butterflies on it.
- For those of you who want an app to use there are some awesome ones out there. I will be sharing them at the end of this post.
Karen Clemenson from Wellness Works NW is a wonderful support person if you want to talk to her about charting your food or talk to her about a meal plan or even have an encouraging person to back you up. She does her job well. I’m still learning what my self-care looks like outside medical self-care. There is a difference.
Links that I like to share with you:
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