The Program

Last Sunday, after a couple of days of preparing ourselves, John and I embarked on a journey with Dr. Mark Hyman’s “10-Day Sugar Detox”.  Just to recap a bit, I had been diagnosed four years ago with Type II Diabetes.  Using  “The Blood Sugar Solution” I was able to drop 50 pounds and to correct the sugar problem.  Then in May of this year I had a heart attack, which surprised me to say the least.  Over the next six months my blood sugar started to rise again.  Not to the diabetes level but to the pre-diabetes level for sure.  This was more disturbing to me than even the heart issue.  I had worked so very hard to correct this problem and could not understand why this was happening.  To be perfectly honest, I do know why.  Maybe subconsciously I was saying to myself – well what’s the use, I did all these wonderful things and I still had a heart attack.  I might as well just eat and drink what I want.  I put on 10 pounds (I hadn’t weighed myself for quite awhile but my clothes didn’t fit quite as well anymore), I ate dessert where I would never do that before, I snacked on various foods that were not quite the right thing like cheese and crackers.  The crackers were nut crackers but still, crackers.  I was even known to eat a piece of bread and I actually had some French Toast with maple syrup on it which is a sugar high if there ever was one.  I also was drinking wine with abandon.  NOT GOOD!  However, I ignored it.  When I took my blood sugar last weekend it was 126.  My tests from December 3 had me at 133 with an average of 122.  Well, it was time to do something about it.  John had said he wanted to lose 10 pounds and he agreed that if I did all the work he would eat what I made.

 

Results

Here we are a week later and we have actually done extremely well.  I am not a cook.  John does the cooking but I took this up with enthusiasm.  I found that I actually like to cook and I like organizing the meals.  I made enough for dinner so we had the leftover protein for lunch the next day. Along the way I discovered a love of making soup.  The book recommends a smoothie for breakfast every day and we have finally got a version that we both like that has berries, almond milk, almond butter, ground flax seed, chia seed and sometimes some avocado or nuts.  It is not my favorite part of this regime but I can live with it and neither of us gets hungry in between breakfast and lunch.  The first ones we made at the beginning of the week were awful.  We had put cranberries in the smoothie and boy are they sour.  Eliminating them helped considerably.  I tried making homemade almond milk but we need quite a bit each day and I just couldn’t keep up.  It takes quite a few almonds to make a cup.  So back to commercial but the no sugar one isn’t too bad.

We are lucky here that we have a small, local grocery store and I would go each day at about 4pm and get what I needed for that night’s dinner.  Since this is actually part of the social scene here this is not the burden one might think it would be.  It is not like going to a Publix in South Carolina or a Shaw’s in Newport.  I would catch up on the days news, have a chat with pretty much everyone in the store and get what I needed.  One day I was looking for cod, frozen, as there isn’t much fresh up here.  Couldn’t find it but dear Claire went on a hunt and she found me some frozen halibut that would work for the fish cakes we were having for dinner that night.  She returned holding the package over her head grinning from ear-to-ear about the fact that she found the one and only package in the whole freezer.  Thank you Claire.

The Meals

Here is a montage of the meals we had this week.  They were all delicious and very filling and I might add quite beautiful.  My good friend Jennifer demanded a photo every night and said they belong on the cover of a food magazine.  She is very kind!!

 

More thoughts

My brother got me going on the exercise again by getting me out snowshoeing while he was here.  Only one day this week did I miss my walk and that was because it was just plain brutal out there.  The wind was blowing so hard there were white outs and it was bitterly cold.  Below freezing.  The rest of the time it has been lovely.

Reflecting on the week (we have three days to go) I can say with all honesty I feel so much better than I did last Sunday when we started.  We both have been sleeping very well getting 7 to 8 hours each night.  Our blood pressure is at normal consistently, our weight is going down (-5lbs and counting), and my blood sugar is absolutely perfect (90).  This morning I mentioned to John that I noticed my anxiety level is normal too.  I don’t think I realized that I was living on the edge all the time until I wasn’t.  I haven’t woken up scared even once this week.  My text books say this is an overproduction of cortisol and the detox can help.  No hot flashes during the day or night.  It is all good.

Would I recommend this to a client, friend, family member?  Absolutely.  What I believe is that this program has jump started both of us to eat in a way that is healthy and delicious and to not miss the fillers.  Changing habits.  We also had a major painting project that kept us busy.  We redid the kitchen cabinets.  It was a very good thing to have a diversion during this time.  It worked and we now have beautiful white cabinets and they are decluttered too.  Plus I now know where everything is to be found in the kitchen.

Where do we go from here?  Well to Mexico actually, for 10 days of thawing out.  Vacation.  We will try and make smart choices but we will not be as strict as we have been this past week.  I can say that I am happy, content and feeling great.  That is a pretty nice way to be.  Have a wonderful week all.

Louise