Dina McBride

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I cannot believe I've made it 23 whole days without any HFCS *or* Coke!

AMAZING!

So - it's blowing my mind how infrequently I have ANY inclination to grab and down a Coke.  Today was probably the first time I felt like I had to fight an actual urge to drink one.  My cousin and her children were over for lunch - her daughter decided to have a Coke as her beverage.  She popped the can and poured it over ice, and I seriously nearly grabbed the thing!  From a 7 year old!

What's kinda wild is that we bought some Coke before Memorial Day weekend when it was on sale.  It's all pretty much still there.  Good thing we're having a few BBQ's here at the house this summer - we'll have to pawn them off on other folks!  LOL!  Actually - I guess no one ought to be drinking them.    Scary stuff that HFCS.

Several people have asked for more info as to the WHY I'd do such a thing as give up HFCS, so here are a few:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/4/537
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-2003Mar10
http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

Well, there's a little to get you started.  I'll bring out some more later.

Blessings,

dina

So what got me to this place of going past my laughing dismissal of my pathetic addiction to Coke, to a deeper level of contemplation as to what was really going on with me – and what I needed to do – in good conscience – in response?

 The scale.

 I “came up” (to borrow a great Southern term) in the group of post-ops who lived in the shadow of some of the early “greats” of the DS online world.  They told us to eat anything and everything – and lots of it.  That there would be complete liberty and license from the day of our surgery forward – with the acknowledged adjustment period of the first months post-op.  We were told nothing could do us harm (i.e., cause us to not lose weight, loose slower, or make us gain weight) – and dang, that was a message we wanted to hear!

 I’m the rebellious type – so I wasn’t willing to take that as gospel, and started doing some digging on my own.  Long before my DS I was leaning more toward optimism on the liberty front than not.  People that I was meeting (online and IRL), studies of anatomy and the resulting DS alteration, clinical data, etc., seemed to support a huge level of liberty with the DS – nothing like what was seen with other forms of WLS.  Cause for rejoicing!  However, guarded rejoicing – I did a lot more digging (and honestly, have never stopped researching – this is the surgery that I’ve chosen to live with for the remainder of my life, after all) and realized that yes, there would be great liberty (better than ANY diet I’d ever taken part in!), but also great responsibility.  Responsibility to eat a balanced diet, responsibility to stay hydrated, responsibility to supplement appropriately.

I had my DS.  I weighed 365 lbs on the day of my surgery, with a BMI of 64.  By the time I was flying home from 2 weeks later I’d already lost more than 20 pounds.  By 1 month out I was down 34 lbs.  Down 65 lbs the 2^nd month, 80 lbs the 3^rd month, 105 lbs by the 6^th month, and 175 lbs by 1 year post-op.  For the longest time – honestly, the better part of a year, I stayed at 183 lbs – right at the 182 pound lost stage.  I was thrilled.  No, I was beyond thrilled – I was ecstatic.

I had made wise choices with my diet in those first 18 months post-op – hadn’t been an actual food saint of course – but I’d worked hard at getting the right kinds of nutrients in my newly altered body, and worked hard at supplementing, and worked hard at continuing to try and understand my surgery.  The one thing I could never give up, though – try as I might – was Coke.  I’ll confess – I was only 1 week post-op and still in when I had my first sips of Coke as a post-op.  Tiny sips, yes, but sips nonetheless.  (Dr. B would so kick my butt!)

Some magic point in time right about the time John had his DS with Dr. B (2 years to the day after my DS) and we were in my body went through another shift.  By the time we got home from I realized my pants were a little too big, and my body was changing again.  By this point in time I rarely weighed any more – it was just really inconvenient to find the scale!  (We lived in a multi-generation home with every square inch appropriated!)  But a couple of mornings after getting back from Spain I found the scale, hopped on, and stared at the number for the longest time.  It read 155.  I seriously stood there and just stared at it for the longest time.  I stepped off, stepped back on again, and thought – “What does that say?”  I actually had to have John come over and see it and tell me that the number I was seeing was real.  It was.  That put me at 210 pounds lost since my surgery.

I didn’t ever start out with a number I thought I ought to end up at with my weight loss after my DS.  Honestly, I thought anything under 200 would be phenomenal.  Not only that, I hoped and prayed I’d get to the place where I could just simply order clothing from a regular clothing catalog.  Or walk into a department store and buy clothes in the “regular” section.  Those were things that couldn’t happen for me at just barely trying to still fit into my 5X sized clothing.

Dr. B told me that normal BMI for my height would put me at about 135 lbs.  I laughed out loud – me! At 135?!  LOL!  I think the last time I weighed 135 was when I was in the 3^rd or 4^th grade!  He pretty emphatically told me that was just what a normal BMI was, that it didn’t have to be the big gauge by which to measure my success.  He went on to assure me that my body would likely stop right where it ought to.

When I hit 155 lbs I honestly felt like I was a little too thin.  I had virtually no boobs left.  My butt was so bony it hurt to sit.  My hip bones were downright dangerous – if I bumped into the corner of a counter – it felt like my hip bones had been seriously jarred.  And I wasn’t just cold – I was frozen all of the time.  I think that was about the point in time I quit weighing.  Life aside from my DS was beyond hectic – it was downright out of control.  I felt healthy, my labs were good, I was active, involved in life, and getting on the scale seemed pointless.

So life went forward.  Every now and then I’d end up at the doctor’s office for a yearly exam, or an appointment with my endocrinologist – be required to get on the scale, and I’d passively take note of the number but it seemed to have nothing to do with my day to day reality.  I realized at about the time I was a little over 3.5 years post-op that my weight at the endo’s office that time was something like 172.  Yeah, a little up from my low – but I expected a bounce – and I actually felt healthier, more rounded at that weight.  Didn’t stress me out at all.  In fact, I felt my clothing felt like it fit more appropriately – I liked that I had at least a *little bit* of boobs back, and my butt didn’t seem quite so bony.

Needless to say – my life has been full of major stressors – won’t go into them, but major nonetheless.  I’ll admit it – when life is at it’s busiest, I often opt out of taking care of me and take care of others.  Not completely out of the question for me to grab a Coke for breakfast, thinking I’ll grab something to eat later – but it never happens.  In terms of orthopedics, my issues have been exacerbated over the past year, as well.  Not only that, but I’ve got a new hernia along the top line of my abdominal mesh.  Exercise routines have been started – but not followed through with consistently.  Every single day I think, “It would be so nice to go take a nice walk.” But it never happens.  I hate that.

At some point in time this winter – probably after we moved my Mom into the assisted living place and I had some semblance of a life returning – I realized, “I’ve gained some weight!”  I didn’t break down and really weigh at that point, either – I just kind of mentally made note of it – and was a little perturbed about it.  More time passed, and it must have been about January before I actually got on the scale and looked at the number staring me back in the face.  195.  I don’t like 195.  It’s a BAD number.

So I started doing some self-reflection.  I had to confront the fact that taking care of others had almost completely edged out taking care of me.  Granted, there wasn't much of a choice involved - but somewhere along the line balance went completely out the window.  I started realizing that while I started out each day with every intention of doing the right post-op things (sufficient non-sweetened fluids, enough protein, enough fiber, enough exercise) I was only very rarely getting them done.

I knew something had to change.

So, I decided some time in January that I'd give up Coke.  Noble of me, I knew it was bad for me on so many fronts - blocks calcium absorption, is nutritionally worthless with simply NO redeeming qualities whatsoever, and horrible for my teeth.  I started with great intentions...  it just didn't happen, though.

More later...

Today is the start of the 15th day without HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) - which means, of course - my 15th day without Coke.

I honestly didn't think I could go this long without it.  It hasn't been as hard as I thought it was going to be.  Maybe because it's not just the Coke I'm getting rid of - but the HFCS.  It seemed when I eliminated the whole category it made the Coke thing just a little bit of the bigger picture.  Wild!

How do I feel?

Good!  I'm amazed that I'm not having to haul out some sort of Amazon-woman iron will to avoid Coke.  At restaurants or - well - anywhere, it seems easy to NOT have it.  The longer I go, the easier it gets.

I guess I should have known that.  But in the past when I've tried to just give up Coke this has NOT been my experience - it's been a battle of gargantuan proportions.

Ramifications?

I lost 4 pounds right off the bat.  Been staying there.  Still at that range where I stayed forever before I had that dip to the low-low.

I'm NOT avoiding sugar.  I'm not embracing it, either, though.  If I want a cookie - then I bake it instead of buy it, because the bought stuff 99% of the time has HFCS in it.  If I want a dessert, I get it - but just make sure there's no HFCS in it.

Funny thing is - I want far fewer sweets now.

Maybe that's because I'm not grabbing a Coke as a "meal replacement" now and am actually eating more real food!  Go figure!  (Duh - I can be so stupid sometimes!)

So...  Will I stick with it?

Yeah - I definitely will.  I decided at the beginning of this whole thing that I wasn't outlawing Coke - which I've had a life-long love affair with - but HFCS, BUT, that if I felt I simply HAD to have a Coke, then I'd have ONE, not one right after another.  But you know what?  I don't even want the one.  I'm blown away.

So far, so good.

dina

I’ve made – what may well be - one of the biggest decisions of my adult life.

To say that this is going to affect my life is myriad ways is likely an understatement of gross and gargantuan proportions – hence, the reason it’s taken me so long to get to the place where I can actually say the words…

I’ve decided to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from my life.

Phew.

I said it.

That was hard.

Harder still, was doing the research and realizing what I’ve been putting my body through for all of these decades.

As anyone who knows me even passingly knows – I am completely addicted to Coke.  I’ve always blamed my Mother and Grandmother – they gave it to me in a baby bottle when I was an infant – it *is* the great Southern cure for colic, and yes, I was a colicky baby.  I’ve loved it since – for more than forty years.

I did go through the late 80’s decision to kick the regular Coke to the curb and wholeheartedly embraced Diet Coke.  Stuck with it – in a big way – until the year after my son was born.  By that time I was having migraines so frequently and with the kind of intensity that I can’t even begin to explain and my PCP came across a study that she asked me to read and then urged me to eliminate artificial sweeteners from my diet to see if my migraines – that thus far had not responded well to RX’s and other modifications – would be lessened.  Suffice it to say, getting rid of the artificial sweeteners brought about an amazing healing to my system.  Yes, I still occasionally get a migraine – maybe one every three to six months – but never to the extent or degree of intensity that I would have before.

So – when I gave up Diet Coke, I – of course – switched back to “the real thing” – regular Coke.

I hang my head in deep and utter shame when I confess to you that at the worst of it – in the height of the Diet Coke days – I would easily consume six to ten cans of Diet Coke a day.  More often than not, it was to the exclusion of food.  It was my drug of choice.

Now – 10 years later, firmly entrenched back into my regular Coke habit – and nearly 5 years since my DS - I’ve had to do some deep soul searching and admit to myself that yes – I do have a chemical dependency!  At first I pointed the blame solely at Coke.  But I stumbled across an article about six weeks ago that made me start thinking through the whole thing.  My problem isn’t just Coke.  It’s HFCS – acronym for High Fructose Corn Syrup.  If I’m honest with myself – I am addicted to it, and it is my drug of choice, and I’m truly sick of it.

More to come...

dina