This week, I ended an infuriating office call, then punched my desk. It was controlled – more of a thump than a punch – but I wanted to feel my hand connect and hear the metallic rumble it made. This morning, I got an alarming voice mail on the way to work, and without thinking I started sprinting. I wanted to breathe hard and piston my legs and stomp out the stress.

I’ve never had such physical or aggressive responses before. I sort of like it (weepy? moi?) but I know I need to make sure I keep control of them! I have no desire to make good on my joking threats to punch people right in the face.

My average blood sugars are dropping dramatically. I’m doing OK. My habits have far to go, but they’re going and I’m glad.

Diabetes treatment has changed a lot since I was first diagnosed. Meters have shrunk, needles have gotten smaller and less ouchy, and the various types of insulin are more powerful. When I was 10, if my mom corrected a high blood sugar with insulin, I had an hour-long wait until my blood sugar began to drop. Now it’s about 10 minutes. That’s awesome.

When I was diagnosed, my doctor started me on injections without bothering to introduce me to the insulin pump. Back then, pumps were huge beepy plastic bricks, unreliable and too easy for a kid to screw up. As I got older, the technology improved, but I never made the switch. I wanted to, but I was always told I wasn’t in good enough control, so once I grew out of my irresponsible adolescence I’d be able to hop on over. So I waited for that to happen, y’know, automatically, like spring or sunrise. Um … yeah. Hi guys. Spring’s coming a little late, and did you know that it takes an entire team of oxen to pull it out of the ground?

Working with a pump is a very different ballgame than taking injections, and my doctor wanted to impress upon me that the switch isn’t easy. But I managed to extract the lesson that I’m “not good enough” for the pump, so I stopped pursuing that goal. Teen angst takes some really weird forms. Happily, I revisited the issue with my therapist (have I mentioned her yet? She’s awesome and has been quietly helping me for a while now). The bottom line is, I still have a shot at switching to the pump.

So it’s research time. I’ve always managed to skim over pump-related info because it didn’t apply to me – hearing it sparked an imperceptable  feeling of failure. I know nothing about the latest gadgets, the ratios of food to insulin I’ll need to learn, where the tubing from the pump will patch into my body. How thoroughly un-geek of me!

I just placed a huge Amazon order, and I’ve been RSSing diabetes-focused blogs. Welcome to my post-bac program. I’m still not 100% certain I want to switch to the pump, but I plan to Hermione it up until I know.

This road is neither smooth nor straight. I am going to slip, stray, veer, cheat, fall off the wagon, and lapse. I am also going to try not to blog too heavily about that, because then writing here is going to feel like the Same Old Shite.

I’m a girl who likes narrative and analysis. They are valuable skills, but they don’t adjust my blood sugar, or build muscle mass, or get me out of bed in the morning. I’d rather write about my goals than explain how and why I’ve fallen short. Giving myself the option to not feel guilty is often a huge factor in getting myself on track, and staying there a bit longer than before.

For example, today I made a stupid and fairly expensive mistake at work. The silver lining, however thin, is that I made plans to go to the gym this evening, so I can throw adrenaline at the problem. I like it when my workouts allow me to kill three birds – sluggishness and anger and stress – with one stone.

I am not trying to lose weight — I have much bigger fish to fry. My diabetes self-care is way more important than bikini season, or a single data point.

I’ve posted a lot about body image lately, and I link to a diet plan in my sidebar (which I will talk about in a future post, I’m sure). Maybe I’ve sent the wrong message about what my big, ultimate goals are. So, here’s what I am trying to do:

• Eat healthy.
• Establish and reinforce good diabetes-care habits until they are second nature.
• Get my body moving. I want to have better endurance and flexibility.

To do all those things, I will have to do a lot of things that also promote weight loss. Weight loss will be a side-effect, essentially. But it’s not my goal.

I’m oddly tetchy about this distinction, because weight loss is so stigmatized. I am slowly becoming a fan of fat-advocates like Kate Harding, and that kind of voice is really valuable when addressing the body-image issues I unearth as I go about this work. I will absolutely talk about body-image here – it’s pertinent. But it’s not the be-all and end-all of why I’ve taken this up.

This is:

• I want to keep all my fingers and toes and kidneys and eyes.
• I want to keep open the possibility of having kids.
• I want to have energy when I wake up in the morning, and when I’m a jillion years old.
• I want to be a fabulous twentysomething for as long as I get to be, but my current habits make me feel like a sad shlumpy person more often than I like…
• I want to go a week without the creepy feeling that my insides are turning to vinegar, which is what a high blood sugar feels like.

I often get upset about something, spiral into a tizzy, yammer at the offender, and then realize that my anger is based on a misunderstanding and/or is partially (or entirely!) my own fault. In recent weeks, I’ve begun to take things slower. The pause before I let my anger or hurt take over allows me to assess what I really need in that moment – what information or emotional somethingorother I might be missing. It works, almost ludicrously well. My life no longer feels like a low-rent Telenovela, and I can go about my business without worrying that an emotion is going to jump me and knock me around.

I worked on pausing like this because I could see that it was hurting people around me. The work was hard, and I’m going to take a second now to do a snoopydance because I am very proud of myself.

[snoopy dance!]

That was fun. So here’s the next challenge: I need to apply this kind of awareness to a situation in which I have no mediator. When I bitch out my boyfriend, he looks at me like I am speaking martian and I choose whether to adjust my behavior or not (and if I’m smart, I do). When I continue bad health habits, I have no such skeptical or hurt face to show me that something’s the matter. Taking time to listen to myself is even more important.

I often mistake thirst and lack of sleep for hunger. I often mistake food for a cure-all, a pacifier, something pleasurable that I can control (by not controlling it). It’s self-perpetuating and self-abusive. You know what else was self-perpetuating? Bitching out my boyfriend. It’s the same impulse, manifested a different way.

(Sorry to get shmoopy in the middle of this, Internet, but can I get a round of applause for Mr. Anonymous Boyfriend? Thanks. He’s pretty cool.)

I used to think of myself as a parent and child wrapped up in one psyche. The kid would go crazy, doing whatever  she wanted, and occasionally letting the mom talk her down to responsibility again. Maybe for the next while I will think of myself as two loving partners: one who wants to be indulged, and one who wants to be cared for. I need to be my own partner, in this. I need to look skeptically — but  lovingly — at myself when I act hurtfully.

Emotions are different from hunger is different from thirst. Good food satisfies slowly and lastingly – junk is ultimately unsatisfying. Rinse and repeat.

Here’s something: I can feel a need for exercise that has less to do with guilt and more to do with the joy of doing something active with this body I get to roll around in for a fistful of years. I only get one. And being aware that I’m in it is something less of a burden when I realize it can do stuff.

So, onward with the ambitious task of self-management. It has more nooks and crannies than I ever anticipated. I look forward to the next snoopydance.

Last week was very stressful, and I slipped back into old habits: Medicating stress with simple carbohydrates, not testing, not focusing. I always justify these things by vowing that this is just for now, just until work is a little less crazygonuts. But stress, procrastination and bad habits are self-perpetuating. So here I go again, re-committing.

(I’d like to note that this time involves much less fuss than last time. A heavy dose of frustration, of course, and some sulking. But no bouts of tears, rending of garments, or hollering “whyyyyy” at the merciless clouds. Which feels a lot better, on the whole.)

I am thinking about instituting 4 o’clock tea time, an opportunity to focus (and write?) which need not include tea. The hardest part of this project may be remembering that I am a part of it, no matter what. That wanting it and idealizing it isn’t enough, and it’ll only make me sad if I don’t act. I have to focus and not settle for stopgap solutions just because I’m busy. I use my time better when I’m healthy, anyway.

Gymtime on Friday night ended with some surreptitious dancing to my ipod in a darkened classroom. That, and practising karate punches. It was a bit 80s-training-montage, but damn if it wasn’t fun. Not too shabby!

Luckily, you guys are the way you are.

I’ve gotten so much encouragement on this site and elsewhere. It seems as though this kind of writing resonates to a wide range of my friends (which is kind of funny, since I started writing because a friend’s blog resonated with me). When I started to veer last week, the knowledge that you’ve got half an eye on my metabolism kept me honest. I’m constantly thinking about making good choices, since the line between hanging out with friends and self-care is a bit blurry. Again, it gives me the willies sometimes, but I’ll get used to it. Those two parts of my life aren’t really so separate.

I just wanted you to know that you’re a good influence on me, guys. Thank you!

Oddly enough, this might be the best thing that’s happened to me so far. I think twice before buying, which means I think twice about ducking into a bodega for a muffin the size of my head. But even better, I’ve been cooking at home.

Grits for breakfast; we have a big tub to use up. I made a batch that I can measure out over a few mornings. I’m a yankee who’s fairly new to grits, and I’m pleased so far, though the sight is a bit Dickensian in the morning. (Gruel! Yippee!) One cup is about 30g of carbohydrate, so I can have a filling amount that won’t rocket my blood sugar to the moon.

So far, I’ve done two vegetable-filled dinners that have used only leftovers or ingredients in my fridge. I pack a lunch out of the leftovers before dipping in for seconds. I haven’t bought a meal in a couple of days, and I’m using up simple-carb ingredients like pasta and cous cous, that I won’t want around once I start a specific meal plan (rather than just a general admonition to not eat crap).

I’ve been wanting to cook like this for a while, so the experience satisfies and delights me. I’ll keep cooking, and the ingredients will get healthier and healthier as I replace the contents of my cabinets. That’s some tasty lemonade.

… just checking! Health and fitness can be so mundane to write about.

I weighed myself and was surprised: I’m at 154, but I thought I weighed 160! That’s like finding a folded-up twenty in the pocket of some rarely-worn pants.

So now I’ve not only told the Internet how much I weigh, I’ve recorded it so I can look it up again. The second bit is a potentially risky move. I am not a numbers person – I forget addresses, monetary amounts and other digit strings as soon as I move on to the next thought. This has often made me feel dumb (“Oh 23rd street? I thought you said 28th?“), but it’s also shielded me from the anxious number-crunching that comes with concerns about diet, exercise, and body image. I don’t freak out if I’m up two pounds, because I don’t know what I weighed last time. I guess I kind of always assume I weigh 160. 160-until-further-notice.

Until a few years ago, hearing the temperature meant nothing to me. Then I forced myself to start thinking: “yesterday it was 60 degrees out, and I had to wear a jacket. Today it will be 55 degrees, so I’ll definitely need something warm.” My brain doesn’t like to keep imprints of what numbers mean, so I still have to navigate by context if someone exclaims “she’s 5″7 and 135 pounds!” Are you saying she’s underweight? Average? Over? I only know based on your attitude, and number-crunchers tend to have really strong opinions about that kind of data. They’re often quite subjective.  So I’ve tended to not care about that kind of thing.

If I hear a friend bemoaning a wayward pound or inch, I wish she had my cognitive quirk. I wish she were as dumb as me. But then, I still haven’t bought a full-length mirror yet.

The numbers don’t tell the whole story. I’m sure there’s a healthy 5″4.5*, 154lb girl out there. But I’m not her. She doesn’t get breathless going up stairs. She gets out and takes a walk once in a while.

So, can I creep downward from 154? Time and I will tell.

*that .5 is very important to me.

Many thank-yous to the friends who nudged me* back on track. Maestro, you may resume playing the Chariots of Fire theme song.

*or elbowed me hard in the ribs