11 January 2011

SEEing benefits


Hello, my name is Holly. It has been 10 days since I’ve had gluten. Yes, 10 days. That’s not very long right? I will tell you that it took about 7 days to start seeing benefits. Literally.

When I joined the Army at the age of 19, I was handed some glasses along with my weapon. Why? I couldn’t see the 300-meter target. This wasn’t a surprise. My mom has worn glasses as long as I’ve known her (and longer). My dad wears them to read. I work with computers all day at my job, and then I come home and hang out on the computer. The eye doctor felt it was inevitable that my eyes would get worse as I got older because of the amount of strain I put on them daily.

I’m not getting younger (this is debatable if you ask my son) so I wasn’t surprised when I found I couldn’t see what time it was on the alarm clock, which is about 5 feet from our bed. In fact now that I think about it, I don’t recall being able to see the alarm clock for a while. I had to squint and strain and try to guess the numbers from what I could see.

So this weekend something weird happened. I looked over and I could see the numbers on the clock. One normal open-eye glance. I had to look twice. And then twice more! Realizing it wasn’t normal, I kept checking. Yes, I’ve been doing this every night since I made the discovery. I couldn’t figure out why I could suddenly see when before my eyesight was clearly getting worse! I am too scared to get Lasik (yet) and my eyes have been progressively getting worse instead of stabilizing at one prescription.

It’s either the gluten, the lack of eating out so often (which covers a lot of unwanted substances), or my body is repairing itself in more noticeable ways now that I’ve been eating low carb for so long. I can’t figure out which.

When I was close to 300 lbs there was a lot wrong with my body. I’ve forgotten the complete long list of things I was sick with, or that hurt, or whatever. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the health benefits, but waking up feeling energetic and pain-free is my new reality. I really don’t think waking up in pain is part of getting old. I also don’t think looking old is part of getting old. I do think they’re both part of a crappy diet that comes with a side dish of pills and ailments. If you focus solely on the weight loss, as I have been doing, you can miss these small miracles. I’m surprised that I figured bad eyesight was part of getting old. Myth debunked at least for me. That tiny discovery of being able to see the alarm clock (of all the things!) has given me a renewed respect for what I’m doing. I already loved my diet. I am obviously committed to it and I try not to be too evangelistic about it – unless asked - (sometimes I slip). It’s not my personality to be in your face about things, but if something is working people will usually ask.

Today and many weeks (at least 2 months or more), the scale hasn’t budged. I also don’t weigh myself consistently. I guess it’s taken a back seat at this point in time to inch loss. I am at a plateau for pounds. However, my pants are baggier than they were 2 weeks ago, especially around my upper thighs. Plus I can see! I’ll get to my goal. Just now I’ll be able to see the end result more clearly.

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