Stealing mulberries

Sunday:

After my first week of dietbet (final weigh in will be on a Tuesday, I started a bit early) my weight was 82.9 kg this morning, down 1.3 kg. A good start, I need to keep that going and improve in some areas. My average needs to be 0.8 kg per week and this first week included water weight loss.

The four pillars of weight loss are sleep, diet, exercise and water. I don't include metal health/head space as a pillar - it is the foundation!

My diet has been good this week, a reasonable number of calories each day and a few treats like the lemon tart I bought from the bakery on Friday. Sleep has been decent, I've managed to keep the CPAP on most of the night on most nights. Exercise has been bad, almost none. And water has been terrible. Yesterday was hot, yet I only had two cups of tea and two and a half cups of water. And one and a half of the water was close to bed-time, trying to catch up a bit, which meant I was up three times in the night.

Today I've tried to get a head start on my water consumption, four cups by 11:00.

Summer fruit has suddenly come down in price and up in quality. Yay for fruit! I've been eating a lot of grapes, which are one of my favourite foods but only when they are crisp and fresh. This morning I had a mango for breakfast and this for morning tea:

Mulberries! From the big tree over our back fence which has a couple of branches hanging into our yard. Especially if you grab the end and gently pull them over. I was standing on the little step ladder we use to get onto the trampoline, wondering if the new neighbours would mind (we knew the previous renters but haven't met these ones) and then looked into their yard properly instead of just at the fruit.

It is a huge wilderness of overgrown trees and waist-high weeds. I'm not even sure, now, if there is someone living there at the moment. I haven't seen anyone for a little while. I haven't spent a lot of time out there since we rehomed our puppy. Anyway, I doubt they are going to care if we eat all the mulberries we can reach. The ground is covered in the dropped ones. Later in the year there will be little yellow plums - there is a whole row of fruit trees along their back fence. None of the fruit grows very big because the trees aren't looked after, but it's all very tasty.

In case you are wondering, I miss our little puppy Thor a lot. It was the right decision but I miss him. We have had the option of going to visit him at his new house but Tim and I both feel it would be too painful for us. And maybe confusing for him. I feel a bit sad about it sometimes, remembering his funny ways and his joy in life.

Today is going to be scorching hot. It is a week until summer but it definitely feels like summer here already. I will be staying inside in the air conditioning all day. And we had our Sunday roast last night instead so I wouldn't have to have the oven on today. I'll have to really start rethinking menu choices. It's tricky because things like roasts and casseroles have such good leftovers for lunch the next day. But hot meaty dishes seem a bit less appealing, and I definitely don't want the oven on for six hours in summer.

Too low

Friday:

At the moment, after my scare on Wednesday, my whole focus is on food. All day it's: what am I eating next? When? Does it have enough carbs? Too many carbs? Is it low-GI? Is it time to test my blood glucose again yet? Has two hours passed since I last ate so I can test my blood then have a snack?

Yesterday I was so paranoid about my blood sugar going too high that I didn't have enough carbs. My blood sugar was too low (not hypo-low, but within the range it should be before breakfast not where it should be after meals) and I felt tired and lackluster all day. Then I had pasta for dinner and my blood sugar went up appropriately and I suddenly felt much better.

I tried to eat a bit more carbohydrate at breakfast today but my blood sugar was stubbornly low two and a half hours later (I wasn't home to check at the two hour point). I am still waiting to test for lunch. Who would have thought it would be hard to get my blood glucose high enough?

I went for two walks yesterday, today I plan to do some dancing once I've digested lunch a bit. We've had a cool spring but it is starting to heat up now that we're only a week away from summer so I think I'm going to have to move the exercise indoors into air conditioning. The gym and the Kinect. I may end up putting off running until autumn, which is a bit of a shame, but my fair skin and I are not fans of summer. It's not really hot yet, so I could still do some running training. Exercise isn't wasted even if I don't end up doing a 5K race this year.

One of the best things about summer (still thinking about food, I'm afraid) is all the lovely fruit. Apples and oranges and kiwi fruit are nice enough, but then the weather warms up and the fruit bowl is full of mangos and peaches and nectarines and grapes and passionfruit and strawberries and watermelon. Today at the shops I bought a whole tray of mangos. Our neighbours over the back fence have a row of fruit trees that reach over our side. Last year they trimmed them all back hard and we got nothing (very disappointing) but the kids are already harvesting mulberries every day and I think there is going to be a bumper crop of plums. There is a quince tree too, I've never tried one but I understand you have to cook them because they are very astringent. Then again, some people say you have to cook tamarillos and I love them raw. I like my fruit tangy sour. I'll grab a couple of quinces if any come over our side.

photo of mulberry by Rosh Sillars

later: still low after my carefully carb-counted lunch, even lower after exercise during which I felt quite dizzy. If this continues over the weekend I will contact the diabetes people to get some help managing my levels.