Going forward, looking in the rearview mirror

  There's a line in an old Billy Crystal movie called Mr. Saturday Night in which he played a down on his luck comic. He points to a man with a terrible toupee and says: "Is that a toupee? I, for one, was fooled."

I bring this up because this year started off bad and ends craptastically as my son-in-law would say.
I, for one, had such high hopes.

I don't want this to be a rehash of  our Annus Horribilis (Latin for Horrible Year) but suffice to say I hope next year is better. I think we have a tendency to separate things into neat little boxes i.e. weeks/months/years and suggest January 1st will be better than December 31st. It makes no sense really, but we are creatures of habit.

Happily we send 2012 into the abyss and hope, really hope that 2013 is brighter and cheerier. I received results from two important blood tests: My Vitamin D level and Hemoglobin a1c which measures your blood sugar averages for the last three months. It is like a video, where your fasting blood sugar is like a still photo of that one moment in time. It can detect diabetes and look for trends. I had one done in August and while elevated, did not put me in the diabetic category...yet. The docs said it was "pre-diabetes", which some suggest is a misnomer, doesn't really exist: You are or you aren't diabetic in other words. My naturopath said to me "I don't know how long you can be a vegetarian." I did not understand the gist of that until recently. You see, "schmeat" (my word for vegetarian versions of the animal proteins) contain a LOT of carbs. Compound that with I LOVE carbs: breads, cookies, yum.
I have always tried to be balanced though and I eat a lot of veggies and fruit. We all do. But DH likes cereal in the morning and we all like pancakes and waffles on a special family breakfast day.

Reckoning Day: My Ha1c went UP, not DOWN, as I had hoped and so I decided to start reintroducing chicken and fish into my menu. I had counted on going veggie to help with cholesterol levels, and it did. But crazily, I feel like I have failed. DH has been following a mostly veggie diet since his stroke too, but apparently we both have issues with our bodies processing insulin. Which means refined sugars and flours are the bad guys. Or so we want to believe. It feels like a losing battle. So, once again, I realize it is time to try and fine tune the dietary habits. Being a vegetarian, I think I was excusing the carb (over)load, thinking it was better than eating animal proteins. I am not sure there is an answer. We read about cave men, mostly meat eaters, but that they needed their body types to get them through lean times. Genetically speaking, women carry a lot more fat than men, but who dropped like flies on the Oregon Trail? HA. That would be the guys.
There have been countless books written about dieting, everything known to man (and woman) kind.
Blood type diets, carb diets, protein diets,egg and grapefruit diets, hummus and squid diets (ok, made that one up) blah blah blah. What are we supposed to eat? What is healthy? What is normal? What will prevent disease? Most nutritionists would emphasize balance in all things, heavy on the fruits and veggies, low on the goodies. This makes sense, but what the heck is "balance"? Whose idea is balance? I am out of ideas.

And after last week, who cares? I, for one, don't much feel like it matters. I hate feeling defeatist but does diet and good health really matter? I am hoping I feel more perky soon, but right now I feel so sad about things that make no sense. We try and control the world around us in the best way we can, but we have no control, not really. I hope next year is an 'Annus Mirabilis, a year of wonder and miracles. This year is shot as far as I'm concerned. Oy Vey...alas, alas.