In response to a lovely readers question...

Anonymous asked;
Have you ever given thought to seeing a nutritionist? Do you know of a reputable one? What do you think about that possibility? xxxxx


I actually took a class in nutrition with the wonderful nutritional warrior Christopher D'Orta. It's sort of a hobby of mine. My interest in healthy eating is what led me to become a vegetarian years ago. & that is not to say I think meat is horribly bad. There are just so many issues surrounding how animals are raised & fed & whatnot. Nowadays people have better choices as far as organic meats & such but I figure if I started eating meat again, than I'd have two vices to deal with, red meat & sugar!
I think my tendency to overeat will always be there. I love food.
& I have noticed the older I get the more important it seems to be to eat a well balanced diet. So I do that on a daily basis. But I do have a hard time with sugar when I don't get enough rest. So I am concentrating on getting enough sleep lately & it seems to be helping.
Also, if you are interested in reading any of my back posts, it turns out I have a high metabolism, so it is also important that I eat enough calories per day as well. That was quite a problem when I was restricting calories earlier in the year.
So between my overeating, under eating & love of sweets, I have my hands full. I also find it a big challenge to stay motivated. Writing about it helps quite a bit. People who visit here are very encouraging.
Thankfully I'm moving in the right direction!

So you are never going to believe this...

but I have a high metabolism, as in VERY high. My body burns 1915 calories a day at rest. My Dr told me this after she said I was iron deficient and needed to start iron supplementation immediately. I told her I thought she was looking at the wrong chart. After confirming my birth date, she said no, it was all true. I was either eating way too much OR possibly not eating enough!
Wow! I thought, that means I can eat more! & that's precisely what I have been doing since then-hence the 4.6 pound weight gain...
Seriously though, my DR said this is probably why when I was eating 1400 calories a day for 2 weeks I didn't lose any weight. The body goes into starvation mode or some such, clinging to whatever fat it can. Sweet DR then told me I should be eating 1600 calories a day if I wanted to lose 1-2 pounds a week.
This was amazing news to me. After feeling extremely tired for the last few months as well as hitting a weight loss plateau for quite some time, I was starting to feel like I was getting old.
The funny thing is, I was never like that either, I was never one to "feel" old. I was always one of those people that has always believed you are as young as you feel, & I would set my mind to feeling young. I should have known something was wrong when my thinking started to change.

After this fast/high metabolism news I suddenly started to feel very hopeful. This is so cool I thought, I have a fast metabolism. I can lose weight. I was just tired from not having enough iron! I began to feel young again. At the age of 46 it was as if I was being reborn. Here I was thinking all this time, I'm getting old, my metabolism is slowing down, I don't have as much energy....blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! It turns out it was all rubbish!
And after just two weeks of taking my iron supplements, I have new found energy that I haven't seen in a while. This seems to be helping me with my cravings since I tend to crave food when I am tired.
So the good news is, there isn't a thing wrong with me. I'm not even "just getting old" anymore! In fact I am probably in better health now (other than this wicked cold I've got) then I have ever been.
Hopefully tomorrow I will see a change when I go to weigh in at Weight Watchers too!



two of my favorite people