I went to a holiday potluck tonight. The woman in front of me exclaimed over a dessert item, and I agreed with her that it looked really good. She started to dip up a piece for me (total stranger!), and I said, “Oh, no thank you, I don’t eat sugar.” She asked why not, and I said, “Because I used to be diabetic.”
Her jaw dropped and she said, “Used to be? You’re not anymore?”
I said, “No. I started low-carbing almost three years ago, and after a couple of months, my blood sugar normalized, and it’s been normal ever since.”
She put down her plate and hugged me, and said, “So it’s really possible then?”
I said, “Absolutely. In fact, it’s common in people who low-carb.”
She hugged me again and walked away as if in a daze, mumbling, “That’s amazing…amazing.”
I’m not sure why she was so moved (diabetic herself? Loved one?), but the encounter was a nice little reminder to myself of what’s important. I’ve been pretty much stalled for two years, but yeah, the health benefits are a much bigger deal, so I’ve kept faithfully low-carb all this time without ever considering giving it up. I think it’s because my focus has been on my health, with weight loss as only a secondary marker, that it hasn’t really even been difficult to keep plugging along. The scale might not be moving, but neither is my blood sugar. I feel great. And hey, another way to phrase “two-year plateau” is “two years of rock-solid maintenance,” and I’ll happily take that.
And maybe I’ve now spread hope to someone else.
Incidentally, I brought cranberry-orange muffins, and I prominently labeled them as low-carb, and I had no leftovers to take home. From a table loaded with full-sugar cake, pie, cookies, and fudge, my low-carb muffins found their target.
I added orange extract, a little extra liquid sweetener, and about an extra third-cup of cranberries. It made 17 muffins. I cooked them for 25 minutes (convection oven).
