Photography: Pink flowers

Today's theme is pink flowers. There were some very pretty ones on each of my last couple daytime walks, and each walk one of these pictures came home with me.

Pink flowers by *Cericonversion on deviantART

Pink flower by *Cericonversion on deviantART

Weekly goals, 12 July 2009, appraised

Partial +. Keep on top of the medical stuff: go to diabetes training, talk to DSHS about hormone approvals. (I wimped out on calling DSHS, overwhelmed by diabetes stuff.)
+ Go to this week's Ingersoll Center session if and only my stomach is up to it; if not, don't push it. (Felt sick, knew it, stayed home, didn't have a disaster.)
- Get all the remaining clothes ready for donation over to Goodwill, and the old hamper too.
+ Resist the urge to experiment with new crockpot recipes until I have two consecutive days of good stomach behavior; until then, stick to the familiar.
+ See if I can update my photo ID by mail; if not, do it in person. (Info in hand, need to do it. But not till after the current heatwave settles.)
+ Read three books for pleasure.
+ Leave Project N alone this week, and don't do anything ambitious about the new project. Vignettes and worldbuilding are acceptable. (Worldbuilding has happened, and there'll be notes this week, likely.)
Partial +. Take 5 pictures I want to share. (4 up on Deviantart, and I'm modifying the definition of this for the new week.)

Weekly goals, 19 July 2009

# Keep on top of the medical stuff: go to diabetes training, talk to DSHS about hormone approvals.
# Go to this week's Ingersoll Center session if and only my stomach is up to it; if not, don't push it.
# Get all the remaining clothes ready for donation over to Goodwill, and the old hamper too.
# Replace 3 high-carbohydrate foods in my diet with low-carbohydrate alternatives.
# Read 2 books for pleasure.
# Resume work on Project N; read 2 books for research purposes, 
# Pick 2 things that'll help with feminine presentation and work on them.
# Take 5 pictures I want to share on Flickr, or 3 on Deviantart.

Diabetes notes: a week's data

So what have I learned about myself, with a week of glucose level testing and carbohydrate counting? That I kinda suck, but in addressable ways.

The basic goal in diabetic eating is to keep the grams of carbohydrates per meal low: 45-60g in general, 30-45g if you're looking to lose weight. Likewise, snacks should have no more than 15g or so of carbs, and less is better.

The problem for me is that Weight Watchers doesn't track carbs, so I've been looking at things that are genuinely good in other ways—overall calories, fat, and fiber—but sometimes very bad in carbs. So I ended up with daily totals well over 200g, dragged down to 175g or so with a few initial substitutions. I've got to make some more, swapping out high-carb products (in particular, crackers and bread) for lower-carb ones.

Emotionally, this is terribly draining. I have moments of deep discouragement, particularly at the thought of harm done to myself unintentionally and ignorantly. Sometimes the challenges seem manageable. Sometimes I just want to crawl in a hole and forget it all.  I've been here before, which is both a blessing and a curse. I've been here before, and I'm weary of it, but on the other hand, I'd sure rather know what needs to be fixed and start fixing than die of some stupid thing.