Meal Planning for Health

I've been horrible on my meal plans lately ("meal plans" is a nice way of saying diet without having to use that dreaded "D"-word).  Last year I saw a dietitian to help me maintain health and loose extra weight I put on during my 1.5 year battle through my Big Attack.  She and I talked multiple times and she was great at doing research and learning about porphyria.  After coming up with a plan, 6 weeks into it I dropped 15 pounds and was feeling amazing!

So here I am a year later and I've lost my motivation...gained 10 pounds....and am having issues with my porphyria that I haven't dealt with in a while.  I know I need to be diligent about what I put into my body, but to be honest, it can be exhausting to meal plan, shop organic at a store 20 minutes away, cook every night and pack a lunch every day for work.  And lets not even start on measuring out every item of food!

But it works.  It's worked before for me.  I know it would work again.  So....what's holding me back?  Am I being lazy?  Am I making excuses for myself?  Where did my motivation go?

Beyond the cosmetic part of gaining/loosing weight, this is about my health so I need to put that above a tasty brownie or chips that I know are filled with toxic chemicals and have no nutritional value.  I'm not only dealing with the issues of last year, but now I'm also having additional symptoms and recent blood work showed I am insulin resistant (the first step to diabetes).  Although I'm a small person, my doctor explained that anyone can have diabetes even if they are in an ideal weight range.  So now I also need to be watching my sugar intake (which I love!) so that my resistance doesn't become more....and I could even reverse it.

The knowledge that for many porphs their symptoms increase and/or become more severe as they age is frightening.  However, I can do something about that by taking care of myself NOW and hopefully I can stop - or at least slow down - my symptoms.  It's not easy, but it's my life so isn't it worth it?  And if others don't understand my "crazy diet" or say things like "oh it doesn't matter, you can have this just one time", well they can F-off.  It does matter.  I do matter.  And having my health is worth saying "no" sometimes.

I'll try to keep you posted on how it goes...