The Near Occasion of Pistachios

It used to be sugar that drove me wild with desire, but now...

...they're in my desk drawer...

...naked...

...salty...

...green...

...pistachios!


A 16 oz. bag of them...well, 14 oz now, I've ate a couple of ounces so far (not in one sitting, thank goodness!). Shelled, roasted, salted...no, I did NOT have the good sense to get the ones in the shell, so I'd have to remove them one-by-one.

I got a really bad craving for them yesterday. What to do? I'd already had some with lunch, and I knew I needed to choose my usual yogurt/flax+wheat germ/fruit snack. I thought, "Try the scent-tasting trick." So I dug out the bag and inhaled deeply three times. Mmmm, salty goodness! Then I got myself a cup of tea. So far it seems to have worked, but there are still 14 beguiling ounces in there....



In other news, I found it really difficult to drag myself out running today. "Thing 1" had a rough night last night and woke us up after having a bad dream. ("Thing 1" refers to our 6-year-old son; "Thing 2" is our 4-year-old daughter; both affectionately dubbed from The Cat in the Hat's mischief-makers.) I think he's anxious about starting school next week. It's been thickly foggy all week long in the morning, and it was like jogging through an Impressionist painting, except I'm sure Monet's garden didn't have drought-stricken lawns and gopher mounds. I did stick with it and did my 2 miles (in 40 minutes...I'm going to get so lapped by the 5K walkers at the Pumpkin Run, but my goal is to simply finish before they pack up everything and leave). I'm not sure whether the inside or outside of my jacket was more wet. (Ew, too much info, I know!) But I felt very good afterward.

Moving my Metformin dose to the morning seems to be making a difference in my fasting blood glucose. Today it was 134, which is the lowest it's been since I started tracking (about 10-15 less than usual). Unfortunately, I got more of a spike from my workout (145) than breakfast (131). I wonder if any studies have been done to figure out how much weight loss affects blood glucose numbers. The current thinking is that losing 5-10% of your body weight (if overweight) and 30 minutes of exercise daily can make a difference for preventing diabetes among those with a predisposition for it (58% less likely, per the Diabetes Prevention Program study), but I was unable to find numbers for how much your blood glucose would go down as you reduce your BMI. Maybe it's not something that's possible to track, especially among newly diagnosed people who are doing everything at once: exercise, sensible eating, and (in some cases) medication.