I reached a low point the other day. I was standing in the Wednesday night supper line at church with my two smallest boys, and I had what could only be described as some sort of hypoglycemic brain shut down. As in, my brain stopped functioning for a solid 2 minutes.
It was embarrassing. I know those women in the supper line will probably always think I’m bonkers now.
John David and Daniel were standing beside me, clinking their trays together and saying things that they wanted in their high-pitched little boy voices. Meanwhile, the two ladies working the cafeteria line were asking me questions. Only I didn’t understand the questions. I could hear them just fine, but my brain quit on me. I tried to answer them. It went something like this:
JD and Dan: Eeebedebedoobed Mmbedeebebebededeeeeee…
Ladies serving: Which one? How many? Do you? This? That? Do you want rice? Do you want vegetables?
But mostly they just looked at me as if they were waiting on me to say something.
And I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t understand what the question was. I tried to talk, but I had trouble.
Me: Um….uh…yes. No? Three? I’m sorry. I’m having trouble. I’m having trouble. I have these two little boys here, and I…I….I
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be telling you!” I thought, but I couldn’t figure out how to say it…
Me: “Um.. Standard? Two? I’m sorry. I’m just having trouble. Okay (Things started to get better inside my head). Just put rice and a roll on that one. Um…..K..
I know this went on for only a minute or two, but it felt like 10. I was actually worried if I was going to be able to pull it together enough to make it to my table. I was so embarrassed.
I stared at my tray. Somehow, I’d ended up with one pork chop with gravy, a ton of rice, a helping of squash, and a bowl with four grapes in it.
I was extremely nauseous. Before all of this, between the time I picked the boys up from school at 3pm and the time I took them to dinner at 5, I’d eaten one bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup and a couple of handfuls of an unusually sugary trail mix.
I strongly felt like the sugar was to blame. I decided to only eat my pork chop and nothing else for dinner. With each bite of that southern chop, smothered in gravy, my nausea improved. By the time I finished it, the nausea was gone, I wasn’t dizzy any more, and I could speak perfectly clearly.
Add that to the return of my ventricular tachycardia symptoms, and it was a major wake-up call for me. I’ve got to get back to taking better care of myself. Do any of you struggle with this stuff? Surely I can’t be the only one.
So here’s my plan:
It makes me feel sick. Why am I eating the nasty mess? I know. I’ve said this before, but this time I have a healthier living support group:
Remember how well I did on the water challenge last year?
Baby steps. Start where you are. I do girl push-ups. One day I’ll graduate to the harder version.
Let me tell you about my exciting return to exercise. I have done 5 or 6 of these work-outs now, and I am all about it. The program is kbburn.com. What I love about it is that it’s only 20 minutes a day.
There are two levels of membership:
Premium: full personal trainer services, weight loss program tailored to your needs, and membership to the Facebook community complete with educational videos. I tried this out last summer, and it was fantastic. However, I didn’t have the health scare going on yet to make me stick with it. Now I do. This is an awesome way to go if you are ready to get serious about being healthy.
Basic: $30/month You get daily work-out videos in your email and you belong to the Facebook group. This is the service I’m trying out now.
With both options, there are educational videos galore on how to implement living healthier with nutrition, exercise, sleep, water, and taking care of yourself.
He also has lots of recipes you can download.
Here’s a link to one of his lessons.
I would love it if some of you joined the group with me. We can hold each other accountable. I love the idea of losing weight, but really my goal is simply to not have any more hypoglycemic episodes like the one I described above! We can encourage each other.
P.S. It’s been two weeks, and I’m already out of my “fat pants”! Yes way!
Click here to learn more about it or sign up for the free trial. *And yes, this is an affiliate link, which means I do get paid for signing people up. That’s an extra blogger perk. Blogger friends, be sure to sign up for that too!*
If I can do it, with all my geriatric problems, you can do it too. Wishing you all a fun and ACTIVE weekend! If you do sign up, let me know so we can cheer each other on!
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Hi there,
What a scary incident! I hope you are feeling better now. Perhaps you should go to the doctor to get checked out.
As for your exercise regimen - I love it. I love kettlebells. They sure give you a tough workout. I have to concentrate very hard at not letting them slip out of my hand - that would be quite dangerous - lol.
Nancy
Wow that is scary! I am impressed by your changes and the program and community you have joined. I am going to look into it!
I agree with Janet. What you experienced was not hyperglycemia, it was hypoglycemia. Your glucose levels had spiked after eating all that sugar. You probably felt fine and raring to go... until. What spikes up, must come down. lol Your glucose levels crashed back down, probably way too fast. It makes you feel really shaky, exhausted, unable to think clearly, nauseated, all the things you described. It even makes it difficult to talk. I HATE the way it feels! When you ate the pork chop, it helped bring your glucose back up to a healthier level. Which usually takes about 30 minutes.
Sometimes it worries me that I have so much in common with my diabetic aunt with congestive heart failure. Ha! My dad has had serious hypoglycemic issues over the years too. I should really just go ahead and assume I'm going to end up with all of y'all's health issues. Ha! Hope you are doing all right! (By the way I'm going to change the spellings up there in the article from hyper to hypo. I was just taking a guess.)
Wow - scary stuff, April! I'm glad you recognized that it was (probably) the sugar and are taking steps towards better health. I certainly can't eat sugar like that on an empty stomach. I will have a migraine the size of Wyoming. I haven't had any episodes like you described, but I guess it affects different people differently. And hey, you ARE a girl, so no need to be embarrassed by GIRL push-ups. Those aren't easy! And yay for being rid of your "fat pants." That's a great feeling!
I am super thankful I do not have migraines. That sounds miserable. I agree about the GIRL push-ups. Ha!
Yea, I had one in front a whole class of 7th graders after just eating a bunch of Krispy Kreme Donuts! Not fun. The administrator made me call my husband and go to the doctor. He checked my sugar and it was a temporary sugar episode. I know better now and don't just eat sugar for a meal. Glad you are better now.
I found it extremely reassuring to have a few people who could relate to my weird experience! It's so hard to eat less sugar. Those protein bars like you eat have me hooked though. I'm going to start buying more of those.
April,
Sounds like a classic hypoglycemic episode. When you overdo the sugar, you can expect a sugar crash. The crash is not pretty or comfortable. I'll get a terrible headache sometimes. Maybe you need to have some protein snacks available. Wish you could do peanut butter and crackers, cause that's a good one. Just try not to skip a meal or have a meal without some amount of protein. Apple with cheese is another good one.
Hope you don't have another episode like that one. I had one years ago when our employees were at the house to clean the carpet. I got shaky and couldn't talk right. One of the guys recognized what was happening and went to the refrigerator and got me some orange juice. That helped, and then I took the time to have a decent breakfast. (I had just rushed the kids to school and hurried home for the carpet cleaners and hadn't eaten. Big mistake!)
Janet
I figured you could relate!! Haaaaa!!! I actually bought my very first box of protein bars, generic ones like Donna eats, at Aldi. They are DELICIOUS, but softer than the Zone version.
Scary! Good luck with all of your goals.
Thanks!