The Low Carb Thing

Well, it's been two week now since Chad and I decided to go back to serious low carbing, so I thought it was time I gave you an update.

I feel great!  Why does this surprise me so much?  I know that low carb makes me feel great, but here I am, shocked by my merry mood.  It can't exactly be the weather that's making me feel good; it's been kind of cold and wet and icky.  Hormones might be playing a part in this, but I don't think it's the whole reason.  I've been happy for a change, and looking forward to my day (except for laundry day, blargh!).  I find myself singing a lot randomly, usually about how happy I am.  I even took a walk today just for the pure joy of it, which is pretty amazing.

I've decided that I'm going to weigh myself for now, and if I start to obsess over what it's seeing, I'll stop.  And I also decided that it's ok to want to lose weight; I know the limits of my body by now, I'm not going to try to get down to 130 pounds or something silly for my body shape or push it to be super strong.  I just want to fit into my old clothes and be able to do the things I love (like biking, hiking, gardening) without it wearing me out.

I feel pretty ashamed to say out loud what my starting weight was.  I'd be ok admitting this to strangers on the internet, but my husband also reads my blog, and somehow it's much more shameful to admit it to him.  I try to tell myself that it's just a number, and there's no reason to feel like such a terrible failure about gaining weight under the circumstances, but it's no use.  I just feel bad.

So maybe that means I need to just say it and get it over with.

My starting weight two weeks ago was 236.6 pounds.

In my two weeks of low carb dieting (somewhat induction/keto style, though probably higher in the carbs, maybe 30-40), I've lost 7 pounds.  That's really good!

I've been reading my old Atkins book.  I actually never read the whole thing through when I first got it; I had done so much reading on the internet and of other books, that I mostly got it for my mom and for the recipes.  It's a pretty interesting read, if you've never had the chance to yet.  I like Dr. Atkins style of writing; it's mostly pretty laid back and very engaging, like he's talking to you.

I realized, reading his book, that Chad and I have never actually tried a pretty low carb diet despite being into low carb stuff for about four years now.  We've always been on the higher end of the spectrum, more 70-100 carbs, when we were seriously low carbing it (which, to be honest, didn't happen as often as I'd like).  I wonder if that's why I wasn't able to lose more on it.  Or perhaps it's because I'm just not meant to be lower than 180 pounds.

I bought some unmodified potato starch so we can start getting more RS into our diet.  I plan on buying plantain flour next week and start mixing them up a bit.  I stopped drinking my water kefir, but I eat yogurt almost every morning and we have homemade sauerkraut in the fridge too.  I don't want to hurt my gut bugs eating a low carb diet, not after working so hard to get them in shape.  I need to look into other fermented foods I can try making that's lower in carbs, like cucumber pickles or beet kvass.  Or maybe I should look into probiotic pills.  That would be the easiest way to make sure I get what I need, but probably the most expensive.

I'm still not sure if I want to live my life totally low carb; I've read so much about how starches actually are good for you when they're the right ones.  But it's clear to me that I'm not going to lose weight eating that way, and it might be worth giving up the good starches for a while to get my body back in balance.  Like Dr. Atkins said in his book, if your body is unbalanced, you need to eat a died unbalanced in the opposite direction to find balance.  The picture explained it better that I just did, sorry.

Wish me luck!  I'm going to try getting my body back to health.  It feels so much easier to stick with this now that my mood is so much better.

A Positive Move

Sorry about the extreme angst in my last post.  I thought that once I hit 30, I would stop being quite so angsty, but it just never happened.  You should have seen me as a teenager though!  That was quite a sight. 

After writing that post, I spend the night thinking about diet and body image.  I wondered if it would actually be that bad to go low carb again to lose weight.  I mean, how many health writers have I read in the past year that have said it's not healthy to eat or exercise in order to change your body?  Quite a few, actually.  I've been trying to love my body the way it is now and the weight it wants to be, knowing that diets tend to make me feel more negative about myself.  I actually do feel pretty good about my body most days.

But it's still true that I'm a lot heavier now than I was just six months ago, and I'm finding it harder to do things that used to be easy for me and my knees are bothering me as well.  Not only that, but I grew out of most of my clothing, and I just hate that. 

Poor Chad has also gained weight.  Are most guys like that?  When you're off your diet, they eat badly with you?  Chad sure is.  Every time I indulge, he's right there with me.  It's nice to know I'm not the only one that wants to cram buckets of icecream in my face, but it makes me feel bad when he complains about the clothes he can't wear anymore.  He wasn't very big to begin with, but he's gotten more of a belly. 

So when he came down on Monday morning, saying he couldn't fit into another shirt, I took it as a sign and asked him if he wanted to go low carb again.  He was all for that.  I know guys aren't as sensitive about their weight as women, but I can tell it still bothers him that he's gained (I'm guessing 20 pounds). 

It's been three days now!  I forgot how easy low carb eating is.  Luckily, I didn't really have to change much since we don't eat bread or other carbage.  Basically, I cut down on the fruit, started using lower carb veggies (Brussels sprouts instead of carrots, say), stopped drinking as much milk, and cut out all sugar which includes my water kefir.  I also cut out the resistant starches for now.  I'm considering this as a kind of fast, kind of like the original Atkins diet that has a super low carb induction period that gets your body into the swing of things. 

I'm not following a plan, just playing things by feel.  I think what we'll do is eat this way for at least a couple of weeks and then see how things are going.  At that point, I might add back in resistant starches, since they're important to gut health.  Again, I really have no plan.  I just want to lose some of this weight. 

 I actually decided that focusing on losing some weight might be good for my body image right now.  It's not like I want to lose 100 pounds; at this point, I know that's not something I can do.  I have a limit of 185 pounds.  And who knows, that limit might be higher now that I'm older.  I just want to lose the weight I gained this fall and winter.  It was such a hard time for me emotionally, and getting rid of the weight might help me fully move on from everything that happened. 

I feel really good about this!  I'm definitely excited.  I've gotten out for long walks everyday, including a nice long hike on Sunday.  Plus, the garden calls!  I went out and planted my snap peas tonight, which means it won't be long before I'm out there everyday.  Oooh, and my raspberries shipped yesterday!  And my apples are just about to bloom.  Oh, I'm so excited. 

So yes, I'm in a much better mood than I was the other day.  I guess I have my moods.

Ghosts From The Past

I randomly decided to read some of my old posts on Tumblr.  It was kind of funny to see how wide eyed and gung ho about low carb I was.  And also kind of sad.  It seems like I'm always struggling with my weight, and I'm always fighting with my body about the food I put into it. 

And here I am, 45 pounds heavier.  Yes, really.  I keep telling myself the weight is from the hormones of being pregnant and then being on Depo.  Maybe that's true, I don't know.  My cycle still isn't normal, seven months later.  But I also haven't been eating exactly that well, and I sure as heck haven't been exercising. 

I just feel so lost lately.  I have a wonderful life, a loving husband, a beautiful home, stimulating hobbies and family that mostly cares about me.  So why do I feel like I'm lost at sea, bobbing aimlessly? 

At least when I was low carb, I had something to be really passionate about.  It gave me purpose-- I was going to eat well and lose weight so I could be featured in one of those cool blogs.  It also gave me a tribe to connect to.  The low carb community is vast and usually pretty welcoming. 

But I feel like I know too much now.  The whole resistant starch thing and safe carbs and everything else has made it too hard for me to strictly follow that diet anymore. 

I wish I had something to be passionate about.  Or maybe I just don't have it in me to be passionate right now. 

I've been thinking a bit lately about kids, too.  I actually thought I was all over this stuff, so I don't know where this is all coming from.  It's sad to think I'll never had kids.  And surprising.  I feel like I haven't figured out what my life purpose is going to be yet.  When you have kids, it's like you have an automatic purpose; you raise them, send them off into the world, and if you die young, people will think, "Oh, well at least he left a legacy".  What do I have to show for myself?  I'm an introverted high-school dropout housewife who spends too much time watching Netflix and making art that no one will ever see. 

And I really hate being as big as I am.  I wish I could lose the weight, but it's not budging.  To be fair, I'm not trying very hard.  But I don't want to try really hard, either, because I usually go too far and end up doing some mental damage.  I'm so confused about life.  I wish I could just be happy with my body the way it is, but I'm just not.  I keep thinking that people are looking at me, thinking about how lazy and gluttonous I must be, and I know they're right.  I am lazy and I do overeat. 

What's the answer?  The part of my brain that likes happy endings is telling me, "Just get busy with your art/crafts/house repair work and you'll feel happier and you won't eat as much".  That's great advice, brain, but right now it just doesn't feel good enough. 

Making Perfect the Enemy of Good

I can't really say what kind of eating I'm doing these days.  I mean, certainly I eat, but I don't know if my eating patterns has a name per se.  Chad and I eat lots of meat, veggies, eggs, and dairy, plus some nuts, fruit and resistant starches, as much of which is organic as we can managed.  Are we paleo?  Low carb?  Primal?  WAPF?  I dunno, honestly, and I've pretty much given up caring what our title is. 

It was fun in the beginning there, when low carb and paleo were new to us.  We got really into the community, read lots of blogs, kept up with the latest health and diet news, bought lots of books.  It gave us the drive we needed to change our diets to improve our health and well being, plus it gave us that sense of community when everyone around us thought we were weird for eating the way we ate.  (It's amazing how much has changed in four years -- low carb and paleo were still "weird", whereas now you see it everywhere.  I just bought a paleo crock pot recipe book from the checkout line in Wegmans!)

The community started to feel really stifling to me after a while, though.  It stopped being supportive and started to feel restrictive.  Everyone had opinions of what's best, and they were very outspoken about it.  You had to be careful not to enrage someone by saying something that went against their beliefs.  And then it seemed like there was a new bit of information that came out about once or twice a month, some new way to be healthy and live forever.  Certain ways to exercise, certain new foods, sleep patterns, whatever it may be.  It felt so overwhelming, like I had to learn about every new piece of evidence and add it to my already restrictive eating patterns if I wanted to live into old age.

For a number of reasons, I stepped back for a while.  We started listening to our own bodies and our own cravings and what made us feel good (or bad), and tried to live by those rules. We don't always do well at it; we splurged megatime around Christmas, and I have my chocolate days, but for the most part we eat really well.

Yesterday I was on Wellnessmama.com, reading the comments on an almond flour chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts on how to make the recipe sugar free (except for the chocolate chips, of course).  That was the very first comment, actually.  The following comment suggested maple syrup, honey, or date paste.

Then the comments got interesting.  The next reply suggested ace K as a replacement, and BOOM, out come the crazies!  People were accusing one another of being ignorant, saying chemicals cause cancer, suggesting that if you didn't agree that you were really dumb and you were abusing your family and you were going to die a horrible death!  Haven't you read the literature?! 

It was shocking and disturbing to read that after being away from the community for a while now.  Why do people get like that?  Ok, so maybe ace K isn't the best sweeter in the whole world, but it's not up to you to decide what other people do with their lives. If you don't want to eat it, cool, but don't evangelize the point with threats of damnation.

And you know what else?  We're all going to die.  Eat as clean as you want to, but eventually it won't matter any more.  You'll die just like everyone else dies.  It seems to me that people heavy into the whole foods/healthy eating communities are striving to live forever through their diets, even though they'll deny it if you point it out.  I certainly felt that way when I was into it.  I wanted to eat well so I'd never get cancer/heart disease/diabetes/whatever disease.  Essentially, I wanted to die peacefully in my sleep at the ripe old age of 120, or possibly older.

Last year, my aunt died of pancreatic cancer.  At the time, I  was thinking to myself, "if only she had eaten a more clean diet she never would have gotten cancer!".  I look back at that now and think how silly that sounds.  She was in her 80s when she died.  If she hadn't died of cancer, she probably would have died of something else in short order.  And why is it so bad to go that way?  Yes, it was sudden, and it was scary, and she left us before we were ready, but it was her time to go and at least she had a chance to say goodbye.

If you're going to eat well and take care of yourself, do it for how it makes you feel right now.  Don't do it because it  will make you live longer, because no one knows what the future holds.  Scientists have recently started switching over to the idea that the number one factor in how long we'll live is genetics.  Even smoking, one of the deadliest things you can do to your body, only shortens your life by 10 years. 

Certainly eating pounds of sugar a day if you're a diabetic is going to shorten your life, but how much time do you lose on this earth by eating ace K?  Or by eating a cookie once in a while?  Once you've changed your life for the better and started eating well and exercising your body, what significance do the small changes have, really? 

We can live healthy lives without obsessing about the little stuff.  I bet being obsessed about health has a big impact on your well being anyway. 

I guess my point is, don't make perfect the enemy of good.  Or as Shakespear said:

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?

Resolution Review

So here it is, nearly half way through  February.  Isn't that amazing?  It seems like time goes so slowly in winter, but when you look at the calendar, you wonder what on earth happened to January!  Or is that just me? 

I thought now would be as good a time as any to look back at the year so far and see how I'm doing with my resolution.  If you can't remember, my resolution was to eat well and exercise more, treat myself with respect, and find time to do the things that I love. 

I actually did really well for 2/3 of January.  But then circumstances made me crash pretty badly.  I'm having major issues with Depo Provera (a progesterone birth control shot).  I got the shot in September, and it theoretically ran out in mid December.  However, because of the nature of the shot, the effects can linger for up to a year.  The effects I'm having from Depo are weight gain, moodiness, and a nearly constant period.  And starting in the beginning of January, I started having a really heavy, really crampy period.  The cramps come on about every other week, last for a week, and then give me a break.  Ugh.

The first thing I do when I have cramps is run to the chocolate.  I dunno why; it's just something I've done for a long time now.  It doesn't make the cramps go away or anything.  I kind of feel like, "If I'm going to feel like crap, I have the right to eat junk food".  It makes sense at the time, I swear. 

So anyway, there were a couple of weeks there where I was eating lots of chocolate and other junk, and it made me feel pretty junky on top of the cramps.  Last Saturday, I decided that that was enough, and I needed to start caring for myself again, and thankfully I haven't touched junk since then.  I'm making an exception for Valentine's day because Chad got some reservations to a nice restaurant that I've never been to, but then I'm getting back on the wagon.

Exercise has been sporadic for me.  The weather has been so unpredictable that I can't really get out much, so I haven't had much chance to go walking.  I do get up on my exercise bike once in awhile, but not as often as I should.  I don't know why I don't do it.  I think I just forget most days.  I need an annoying reminder to keep me at it.  Of course, if I had an annoying reminder, I would probably just disable it. 

As for treating myself with respect and doing the things I love, that also took a back seat while I was cramping out on the couch through most of January.  I'm happy to report that I'm busy working on finding things I love and moving toward a more fulfilling life again.  I borrowed a cool book from the library called I Could Do Anything, If Only I knew What It Was.  It was written to help people find their passions and what they want to do with their lives, and so far it's been a lot of  fun reading it.  I've discovered that I really do like doing art and working with plants, and it's ok to pursue those desires further. 

Have I lost any weight?  I'll admit that I did step on the scale the other day.  I hadn't lost any weight, but at least I hadn't gained any from the pounds of chocolate I'd eaten, either.  I weighed myself a couple days later, after eating well for a few days, and I had lost about a pound.  Not a huge deal, but at least it's encouraging.  I'm off the scale again for a while though.  I don't want to start obsessing about numbers.  What's important is that I'm feeling better. 

I've noticed that since I gained a bunch of weight since last fall, my body feels different.  My knees feel weak, and it's harder to get up off the floor.  I don't like that feeling.  I'm only 31; I shouldn't feel like an old woman.  I really want to start exercising and lifting weights so I can feel strong again.  It's hard to get started, though.  I keep thinking about how I want to do it, but I don't actually get around to it.  There always seems to be something more important to do.  I have some pretty bad self discipline.  It's a miracle that I even managed to stop eating chocolate. 

So that's how I'm doing so far.  How is everyone else doing? 

One Week into 2016

So it's the first full week of 2016.  How's everyone doing on their resolutions?  I've been doing... ok, I guess.  It's been a rocky week for me, so considering that, I'd say I'm doing better than I thought I would be.

Chad went on a business trip this week, and I get very needy when he's gone.  The last time he went on a business trip, I ended up eating dozens of cookies.  This time, I only ate a little chocolate, so I think that's a win overall. 

I haven't been exercising as much as I'd want, because I've been sick the last few days.  I have something going on with my face.  It's clearly infected, but I don't know what's causing it.  This happens to me occasionally, and the last couple of times, the doctor/dentist told me it was like a sinus infection.  This time, my face is swollen and my jaw won't open quite the whole way.  I'm just going to wait a little while to see what happens.  It's not nearly as bad as the last infection I had, which was so painful I was crying and screaming that I didn't want to live.  I'd much rather take it easy and let my body heal itself, than go to a doctor and be told to take antibiotics.  I'll take them if I have to, but I don't want to if it's not necessary. 

This is a very clear reminder about why I want to eat better.  I don't want to continue getting these terrible infections, which I'm sure are at least partly due to bad eating habits.  I ate a lot of sugar between Christmas and New Year's, and sugar is really hard on your immune system.  I deserve better than that, right?

So I'm going to chillax today and let my amazing body do what it needs to make me better.  Then I'm going to start getting active again.  It's going to get snowy and cold again, so I'm planning on getting most of my exercise on my exercise bike.  I'm grateful I have it, even though it's pretty boring to use it.  I don't know how people get anything done at the gym; indoor exercising is so dull to me.  It's worse than washing dishes or doing taxes.  Clearly I need to move somewhere that's warm all the time so I don't have to do indoor exercise.  Or, I need to get over it and go out in the snow and cold!

A Boost to my Resolve

Have you heard the latest news?  Scientists have discovered that sugar, namely fructose, fuels the growth of cancer. 

This isn't a new idea, of course.  There's lots of studies out there pretty much pointing in the same direction, showing that sugar both increases your risk of getting cancer and makes the cancer worse once you have it.  I don't know why this isn't common knowledge by now, but I guess no one really wants to hear it in the United States.

This was a pretty interesting sounding study, though.  It's a rat study, so take it with a grain of salt; after all, humans and rats are pretty different.  Still, the results are intriguing and  I hope it leads to even better research. 

The gist of study is that a diet high in fructose (through sucrose) is correlated to a much higher rate of breast cancer than a diet high in starch.  And the more sucrose the rats ate once they developed cancer, the faster the tumors grew. 

I certainly needed a boost in my resolve to cut sugar way back in our diets.  This certainly helps.

Let's Be Honest

I was poking through Diet Doctor's New page this morning (which is an RSS feed of lots of low carb and paleo blogs), and happened to see an interesting looking post by Dr. Adam Nally titled Much Ado About Ketosis.  The post was a pretty good one; it wasn't exactly enlightening to me since I've already read just about everything that has to do with ketosis, insulin, low carb, paleo, and food in general over the last three years, but it was good nonetheless and I'm sure it will help educate plenty of people about this subject, and that's really important in our society of sheep blindly following the conventional food gurus. 

However, there was something he said that kind of touched a nerve.  It's clear to me that he didn't intentionally try to trick people with what he said, unlike many a government food committee, but the point he was making is important to the conversation about low carb and paleo eating.  I don't want to seem like I'm attacking Dr. Nally, because I'm really not.  I think his writing is good and that he's doing a good thing by educating people.  It's just that what he said follows a pattern I've seen in the low carb and paleo scene, and I think we need to point this out and get really honest with ourselves.

So what the heck and I even talking about?  Well, here's the comment Dr. Nally made that bothered me:

Our bodies recognize the seasons we are in based upon inherent hormone release.  The key hormone is insulin.  Insulin is the seasonal indicator to our bodies.  Insulin tells our bodies when it is a “time of plenty” and when it was a “time of famine.”  Why?  You ask.  We didn’t have refrigerators 100 years ago and you were lucky if you had a root cellar.  The body needs to know when to store for the famine (the winter) that was around the corner. Insulin is that signal.
During the summer, potatoes, carrots, corn and other fruits are readily available.  These are all starchy carbohydrates and they all require the body to stimulate an insulin response so that they can be absorbed.  Insulin stimulates fat storage.  Just like bears, our bodies were designed to store for the winter.

During the winter, when carbohydrates are less prevalent, insulin production decreases to baseline levels.  If you think back in history, your grandparents probably used stored meats & cheeses that could be salted or smoked for preserving during this time of year.  Those crossing the plains were commonly found with pemmican, a concentration of fat and protein used as a portable nutrition source in the absence of other food.  Think about conversations you may have had with your grandmother when she told you that for Christmas, she received an orange.  A single orange for a gift?! Many of my patients drink 12-15 of them in a glass every morning.  The winter diets of our grandparents were very low in starches and carbohydrates.  When carbohydrate intake is low, little insulin is produced.

And here is the comment I made to his post:

I appreciate your post and the good data found within it, but I have to argue one important point you made. As a gardener and wanna-be homesteader, I know for a fact that there were plenty of carbs available to most folks before refrigeration, and yes, even in much older times. You mention that carrots, potatoes and corn are plentiful in summer but not in winter. It’s funny you mention those foods, because they are amongst the longer storing crops. And actually, potatoes have to last all winter long because you start next year’s crop by planting last year’s tubers. Fruit is easily dried by cutting it up and placing it in the sun. Many native Americans did this with wild native fruits. They even made fruit leathers. And while we’re on native plants, the native Americans also grew native winter squashes, which last anywhere from a few months to literally two years. And let’s not forget acorns, which are super plentiful, easy to store, and nearly 100% carbs.

As for grandma getting one orange for Christmas, that was because shipping fruit was nearly impossible before our modern highway system. However, that doesn’t mean grandma didn’t have fruit in the winter, though admittedly she didn’t eat as much as we do today, and mostly what she ate was preserved in a heavy sugar syrup.

I’m not trying to be a troll. I think your message is a good one, but we need to be honest when we talk about low carb and paleo. Otherwise, we’re just as bad as the health officials and scientists that spout bad dietary advice.

Yes, it's pretty easy to store carbs for the winter, and it seems paleolithic people did indeed do this whenever possible.  Tom Naughton, the guy who introduced me to low carb in the first place, and a blogger I can trust to always be honest and upfront, mentioned this last fall in a post titled My Previous View of the Paleo Diet Got Squashed. 

Again, I'm not trying to bash Dr. Nally.  What I really wanted to get across with this post is that we need to be really open and honest when we talk about food in this low carb/paleo community.  The conventional wisdom about food, with it's grain-based pyramid and low fat hysteria, is based on lies and untruths, bad science and money-making agendas.  Those of us who are fortunate enough to have found out about these lies early in the game, and who are trying to spread that information to the rest of the world, have a responsibility to not only be truthful but also well educated.  It's easy to say that past people didn't have carbs in the winter and therefore neither should we, but that's simplistic thinking.  Maybe it's true for some populations, but it's clearly not true for the human species as a whole.  That kind of logic is akin to the idea that fat causes you to become fat; it makes sense at first because it's such a simple idea, but it's clearly not right. 

Don't get me wrong; this isn't just about Dr. Nally's post, either.  I've seen this a lot over the years reading blogs and articles.  When you're trying to make a point that you believe in, it's easy to simplify data or ignore conflicting information.  It's not something we do because we're evil; I've been known to do it myself, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a bad person.  We do it because we truly believe in what we're saying, and we want to help people.  I totally get that.  But it's not the way we should be acting.  If we're dishonest or not totally upfront with people, they may listen to us at first, but then after a while it will breed mistrust and contempt, and may end up turning them away from this way of eating all together.  They may even end up feeling the same way about low carb/paleo as they do about the standard American diet; like they can't trust us, and don't know what to believe.  Which would be a shame, because this is clearly a very healthy diet.

So here's my call to every low carb/paleo/WAPF/whole foods blogger out there; be totally honest when you blog.  If you're trying to educate people, make sure to do your own research and not just depend on another's opinions.  If something seems overly complicated, don't assume telling the whole truth will confuse people.  If you don't understand all of the information yourself, be honest and tell people that and give them links so that maybe they can read it and make their own conclusions.  We don't have to be perfect; as a society, we're still trying to figure out what's best for our bodies and our health.  But we should at least be honest.

Weighty Update

Just in case you've been wondering how my weight loss efforts have been going, I thought I'd post and update on it.  I decided about the middle of last week to try cutting out all carbs for breakfast to extend natural morning ketosis, and eating only at meal times (three times a day) in the hopes that cutting out mindless/emotional/boredom eating would help me lose some of the extra 20 pounds I'm carrying around.

Sticking to the eating plan has been very easy most of the time.  I don't feel hungry between meals much, and when I do, I drink water or flavored seltzer.  And of course I'm still eating the low carb whole foods I've been eating for almost a year.  I haven't even been eating low carb treats much.  Just meat, eggs, dairy, veggies, and fruit.

I thought I was actually losing weight at first.  I started at about 183.6 and quickly went down to 182.2.  But it started creeping back up, and I'm back to 183.6 today, so I guess that's a bust. 

Worse, I've found myself really tired this week.  Kind of devoid of pep.  Now, this could be because it's in the 90s with like 300% humidity, and since we live in western NY, AC is a luxury not a necessity.  But something tells me that it's more than just the heat and humidity.  I've been waking up groggy and tired and with the distinct desire to go right back to bed.  And this morning, I was so hungry that I ended up eating a big cup of yogurt with breakfast with some fruit in it.  I had a really big lunch, too.  It's like I can't get full today.

I'm feeling a little discouraged.  I want to be slimmer of course, but I don't think it's worth it if I have to feel tired and ravenous all the time.  This is how I used to feel on a low calorie vegetarian diet, and that was a horrible way to live. 


Maybe I should give it a few more days and see how it goes.  Maybe I should try eating more at meals to keep from getting hungry.  I dunno, honestly.  I just keep hearing a voice in my head that says that 20 pounds overweight isn't that much, considering I've already lost 90 pounds, and I shouldn't be worrying about it.  Yes, I'd like to hit that magical 100 pound mark.  I'd also like to be in the "normal" BMI range.  But those are just numbers, afterall.  The body doesn't know what those numbers are.  All it knows is if it's sick or healthy, and my body is definitely healthy. 

Some Thoughts

I ranted a little bit the other day about how I really wanted to be skinny sometimes, but that I'm afraid to try anything extreme to actually get there for fear it would hurt my body or, should I get pregnant, my baby's body.  I got a lot of advice and some well wishing from folks, and I thank you all for your concern.  That was really touching.

I've been thinking about it a little bit, and I decided that even though I don't want to do anything extreme, such as cutting calories or trying to get into nutritional ketosis, I think I will make some changes.  I'll admit that I've gotten a little lax in my eating habits.  I don't mean to say that I've started eating bad foods regularly; I'm still grain, soy, gluten, seed oil, and sugar free most of the time.  But there are times where I find myself emotional eating, or worse, boredom eating.  Yes, I'm eating good foods, but the fact that I'm eating when I'm not actually hungry?  That's probably not good, right?

My thinking is that I'm going to try doing the No S Diet again, which basically means no snacks between meals, no seconds, and no sweets; of course, I'll still be eating the healthy low carb, whole foods that I already eat, only less often.  I tried this method before, and it does seem to help.  I only stopped doing it because I had a lot of emotional stress at one point that sent me right to munching between meals.

What I like about this plan is that if I get hungry between meals, I drink a glass of water or seltzer, which is very good.  I oftentimes get so full at mealtimes that I don't have room left for water, and I don't always remember to drink it between meals.  And drinking lots of water, aside from aiding digestion and being cleansing, also helps with a woman's fertility by increasing fertile cervical fluids.  There's your fertility lesson for the day.

I also am going to try having a 0 carb breakfast to keep the natural morning ketosis going until lunchtime.  I told a commenter that I already eat 0 carbs for breakfast, but I remembered later that this isn't actually true.  I usually have 1/2 a cup of plain full fat yogurt, or 1/3 a cup of cottage cheese with my eggs and bacon.  So I'm going to cut the dairy out in the morning and see if that makes a difference.

I do want to lose more weight.  At 185 pounds, I'm not skinny; I'm not exactly fat (I wear size 14 pants and large shirts), but I have rolls and flab I would love to get rid of.  But at the same time, I don't want food to become an obsession.  I actually enjoy the carefree relationship I have with food right now.  I know what I can and can't eat, and I eat what I want.  I don't lose any weight, but I'm certainly not gaining back any of the 90 pounds I lost.  So that's why I don't want to go into full diet mode.

When I look back at the time I was on a low calorie diet, it's worrying.  I was so obsessed with food at that point that it was all I did all day long.  Reading articles, tracking food, counting calories, denying my deep gnawing hunger.  When I think about it now, it almost seems like an eating disorder, or at least the beginnings of one.  The last thing I ever want to do is become so obsessed with food that I start hurting myself or my family.

That's why I'm only taking small steps.  I'm healthy right now; I'm fit, active, happy, and strong.  I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize that.

The Weight Thing

In case you didn't already know, I used to be fat.  Like, really fat.  Like, I was literally morbidly obese.  At 5'7, 275 pounds, my BMI was 43, which classed me as morbidly obese.  The worst part was that I was a sweet and naive 17 year old and I didn't understand how sick I was.

I did managed to lose weight, though.  Slowly, in steps, it came off.  Some came off when I fell in love with Chad and started treating myself better.  Then we started going out and being active together, and more came off.  I moved in with him and took over cooking almost all the meals, and more came off. 

In 2010, I went on a low calorie diet, started running three days a week and lifting weights once or twice, and within five months, I had lost another 30-35 pounds.  By then, I was down to 185.  I wanted so badly to lose another 10 pounds so I could shout from the roof tops that, HEY WORLD, I'VE LOST 100 POUNDS!

But low calorie dieting is terrible.  I'm sure anyone who has tried it can understand what I'm talking about.  I was eating about 1500-1700 calories a day, and later once I'd lost 30 pounds, I shifted to 1300-1400 calories a day to try to lose more weight.  My goal was 160 pounds, which would just get me into the "normal" BMI range.

I was hungry all the time.  Like, hungry to my core.  I couldn't eat enough to satisfy the hunger I was feeling unless I ate over my calorie range.  I didn't shun fat, but I also knew that fat was 9 calories whereas carbs and protein were 4, so I tried to avoid it so I would be able to eat more food, because I was so hungry.  And being a vegetarian, it was remarkably hard to get enough protein.  On days where I was trying really hard, I'd eat about 60g of protein, but it was mostly from soy, low fat dairy, and wheat gluten.  

The worst part was the food obsession.  I would think about food every moment of the day.  I would carefully weigh each and every item.  I had to specially formulate recipes and carefully divide the results to make sure I was getting the right amount of calories.  I spent hours a day typing in the foods I'd eaten in Sparkpeople.com's food diary.  And at the end of the day, I would go and check how many calories I had left and try to get as much extra food as I could.  Food was my life.  I dreamed about it.  Meals were the centers of my day. 

That's why I loved the idea of low carb dieting so much, when I finally opened myself up to the science behind it.  I wanted to just eat what I wanted of low carb food, stay away from the higher carb items, and watch myself effortlessly get skinny.  I did lose some weight.  I was 195 pounds when I started, and managed to lose 10 pounds in a month, bringing me back to 185.  But I haven't really lost anything since then.

I know this system works, because I've seen what it's doing for Chad.  He was lean before we started, but he managed to lose about 20 pounds while also putting on muscle.  So I know it's not that this low carb idea is wrong.

Some days I struggle mentally with this.  Sometimes all I want to do is lose 20 more pounds and I think I'm willing to do anything I can to get there.  But then I remember actually being 175 at one point while low calorie dieting.  I had to starve myself to an incredibly uncomfortable level to get there, and then my will power just broke and I couldn't stop myself from putting those 10 pounds back on.  Maybe my body is trying to tell me that this is the weight I'm supposed to be at.  Losing 90 pounds in very respectable.  And I can't expect my body to work the same after being at 275, either.  I don't think it's actually capable of being very lean after that.

But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be skinny.  I know I've written in the past about how sick it is for us to want to be skinny, that we should be striving for health instead, but I can't help it.  I still want it.  I want to be one of those beautiful models who looks great in a bikini.

To what lengths am I willing to go to lose weight?  I've thought about trying nutritional ketosis, like Jimmy Moore.  I've thought about a low calorie low carb diet.  I've thought about cutting out dairy and eggs to see if that helps.

But I worry.  This doesn't seem safe.  Pushing my body to extreme lengths to lose weight that probably isn't causing me any problems.  I worry about nutritional ketosis.  There are people in the paleo crowd that claim that women need more natural carbs (from  fruit and veggies) for their fertility.  I worry about low calorie low carb diets, because Chad and I are trying to conceive.  What if I got pregnant and I didn't know it?  A low calorie diet doesn't just starve me; it starves the baby, too, and the first couple of weeks are when the nervous system are developing.  As for cutting out dairy and eggs?  What the heck would I eat if I couldn't eat dairy and cheese?

Some days I want so badly to be skinny.  So, so badly.  But most days I long for something simpler.  To be healthy.  That's the real goal here.  To feed my body.  To build up muscle I lost as a vegetarian.  To correct the harm I did on a low calorie diet.  To be whole.  To never be hungry to my core. 

I wonder if there's some in between road, where I can respect my body and  feed it what it needs, but at the same time start shedding the leftover bulge.  I just don't know.  I really don't know if it's a fight worth fighting.

Calorie Restriction

I have thoughts about calorie restriction.  I have no scientific basis for this.  I could probably scour the internet and find studies that back up my ideas, of course, but I'm not really interested in that.  I also don't believe this is true for everyone, but I'm certain it's true for me.

I don't think calorie restriction is safe or healthy, for me at the very least.  Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.  It's mostly an intuitive thing.  I mean, I know I could probably drop some weight by restricting calories again.  I bet it would be really easy to stick to 1300 calories on a low carb diet.  But I fear what that would do to my health.

I'm 28 years old, 5'7, and 185 pounds.  I don't track my calories every day, but once in a while I do, and on those days, they're about 2000 calories.  If I was older, maybe post menopausal, I probably would have to be lower calorie simply because my hormones and metabolism wouldn't be the same as they are now.

I have a long history of malnutrition (eating a high carb, vegetarian diet, and making myself really sick with it).  I know my body is still recovering from that, and I feel like calorie restriction would only hold my body back from healing itself.  A healing body needs more nutrients and calories.  Mine needs more protein.  You wouldn't believe the muscle I've put on without lifting weights.

I'm also trying to conceive a baby right now.  A woman's reproductive system needs to know that her body is well fed, that the baby will be well fed, or it's not going to cooperate. Chad and I have been trying for 13 months, with the only glimmer of hope being a possible early miscarriage (a chemical pregnancy) six months ago.  I don't think we're going to conceive until my body has finished healing itself, and it's not going to get any better if I restrict calories.  I also think Chad's body needs to continue to heal, too.  He was pretty unhealthy before we started, and his body has changed dramatically since going low carb.  He's leaner, more muscular, happier, and more energetic than he used to be, but I'm sure he still has a ways to go.

And besides, what do calories have to do with it?  I think if you have a very deranged metabolism, yes, calories matter.  But I lost weight as soon as I switched from a high-carb, 1600 calorie, vegetarian diet to a low-carb, 2000 calorie, meaty diet.  And so did Chad.

So for now, I'm going to continue eating a lot of calories.  I'm not concerned about losing more weight.  Yes, at 185 pounds, that makes me overweight.  As a matter of fact, my BMI is 29 or so, which makes me almost obese.  But you know what?  I managed to lose 90 pounds (I used to be 275).  I have so much loose skin that I wouldn't be surprised that about 15-20 of those "overweight" pounds are actually extra skin.  Not to mention the fact that I come from a family of big-boned women, with big feet, wide hips, broad shoulders, and large hands.  Of course I'm going to weigh more than someone with naturally petite bones (such as my husband).  And despite the fact I've been gaining lots of muscle (I can actually see the difference), I haven't gained any weight.  So that tells me I'm trading in fat for muscle. 

And I'm healthy, much healthier than I was as a low-calorie, high-carb vegetarian.  Isn't that more important than weight?

The Amazing Shrinking Man

Chad's brother comes to visit once a year.  On last years' visit, Chad and I had just found out about the science behind low carb eating, and were both fascinated by it.  We were at that stage where we wanted to go out and tell everyone about it, even though most people quickly dismissed what we said.  We had read both Good Calories Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat on my kindle, but decided to buy a paper copy of Why We Get Fat as well so we could loan it out to friends and family.

Last June, Chad's brother (who I'm going to call Fred from now on) was a pretty hefty guy.  He's a moderately tall fellow, and he had a lot of muscle, but when you looked at him then, you just saw a fat guy.  He had a couple of double chins, and a pretty big beer belly.  We shared a room at a hotel with him a couple of years ago, and I swear, neither of us got much sleep because he snored so loudly all night long. 

So when he came to visit last year, we decided that was a good time to have him read Why We Get Fat, which is a condensed version of Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.  Even so, it's still a pretty hefty book and can be a little hard to get through.  Fred's a smart guy, but he said he skipped through most of the book and just read the conclusion.  I was a little disappointed when he said that, but I figured, hey, not everyone is going to be open to the idea that everything they know about nutrition is wrong. 

In November of last year, Chad and I drove down to spend a few days with Fred.  We were pretty amazed when we saw him, because he'd lost about 20 pounds since we'd seen him in June.  Apparently, he'd taken the conclusion of Why We Get Fat (which includes a meal plan), and just ran with it.  I was pretty happy that he was doing so well, and although I was excited to see if he'd lose any more weight, part of me was worried that he'd stall out and revert to his old ways.

It's June again, and Fred made his yearly visit.  Actually, we all decided to meet up in Cleveland so we could go to an Indians game.  We stayed in a nice motel downtown.  We were all waiting in the lobby of the hotel for Fred, watching out the window for his car.  When it pulled up, Chad went out to help him with his bags, and his mom and I stayed inside and watched.  Then all of a sudden, this tall skinny guy stepped out of the car.  Chad said he was worried for a minute that he was unloading luggage from some stranger's car.  Fred was almost literally unrecognizable.  He was practically a different person! 

At dinner that night, I had to ask (because I'm the only one who's forward enough to ask direct questions) how much weight he had lost.  He said he started at 255 and was currently 190, which is a 65 pound weight loss!  I was pretty stunned.  It was a few days before I could look at him and actually recognize him as Fred. 

I actually just looked at some pictures of him from last year, and now it's hard for me to see that big round guy as my brother-in-law.  Isn't that funny? 

Both he and Chad are pretty private people, so I would never put his picture up on my blog.  So instead, I had an amazing artist make a rendition of the changes Fred has gone through over the last year.

Chad had to borrow a pair of pants from Fred while we were in Cleveland (chad only brought shorts, and one day ended up being in the 50s with Cleveland-strength winds).  Now keep in mind that my husband is a bean pole, and Fred has always been a very hefty man.  Although Chad had to wear a belt and his butt looked a bit like a balloon, Fred's pants fit him pretty well. 

So there you go, friends.  Even though it may not seem like people are actually listening to you when you yammer on about low carb, maybe they really are, and maybe it will change their lives.  So don't stop yammering.

Week of Weakness

Every year, Chad's brother comes home for a week-long visit.  It's something I always look forward to.  Chad, along with his dad and mom, take time off from work, and the whole gang goes gallivanting across the countryside, enjoying all the local sights.

Mostly, though, we do a lot of eating.  That's what his brother does.  When he takes a vacation, it's all about the food (and also the local beer).  I swear, I must eat out more in the week he's home than I do all the rest of the year. 

The worst part is, every year I tell myself I'm going to behave and eat healthfully even if we're eating out.  That only lasts until I get a menu in front of my, and before long I'm eating french fries, drinking pop, and scarfing down desserts. 

However, this is the very first year I'll be low carb.  The cool thing is, his brother is also low carb (and has managed to lose about 20 pounds), so with a majority of low carb people, we might be able to actually eat in a way that doesn't make us all gain ten pounds in a week. 

On the other hand, I think it's ok to indulge once in a while.  If you're always denying yourself, there's a good chance you'll find yourself binging and then feeling really guilty about it. 

But on yet another hand, we're talking about a whole week here.  It's not indulging when you eat badly for a whole week.  That's more like falling off the wagon. 

Oh, decisions decisions... 

Food For Victory

I've been spring cleaning for the last two weeks.  It's amazing what you'll find when digging through piles of old crap you've shoved in a corner and forgotten about.  One really neat thing I found was this old Kerr home canning book, printed in 1943.

 

 This was the special National Nutrition Edition, a war-time call to all housewives to pitch in their own skills and efforts to help their country.  I found it in a giant pile of old books my cousin bought a an auction for me.  I would never ever use these recipes, because canning is an exact science, and they've been testing and improving the methods every year since people first started to can, so that the recipes in this book are very outdated and potentially dangerous.  Still, I find it really fascinating.  For instance, this book was written before people started using powdered pectin in their jams and jellies, and you sealed said jams and jellies with paraffin wax!

Since it was war-time, and food was in short supply, everyone on the home front was encouraged to grow a garden.  There was a really strong emphasis on highly nutritious food because everyone needed to be strong and healthy.  That's why the government told everyone to eat like this:

Click to see it larger.

Everyday, eat some milk or cheese, citrus fruit or tomatoes, green or yellow vegetables, fruits or other vegetables, whole grain bread or cereal (or fortified), meat, poultry or fish, eggs, and butter or other spreads.  Then once you eat all of those things, you can eat whatever else you want.  My guess is, once you've eaten all the vegetables, fruits, eggs, dairy, butter, meat, and whole grain bread, you're going to be pretty darn full. 

Pure Nonsense

Bariatric surgery is becoming a pretty big deal in the mainstream media lately.  Everyone's all in a tizzy over the findings that OMG GASTRIC BYPASS CAN CURE DIABETES!  Quickly, everyone!  Let's cut open every diabetic within reach!

I'll admit that it's pretty exciting news that scientists have said out loud that you can cure diabetes.  It seems like almost every doctor and every nutritionist is determined to make diabetics believe that diabetes is something you have to fight tooth and nail  every day of your life until it kills you, and that there's no such thing as a cure for diabetes.  So to actually hear someone say, hey guys, I think we can cure this thing...  That's pretty cool.  But then all the smart people in the room start talking about the possible ways it's happening.  The surgery must alter your hormones!  It makes it so you can't absorb all that harmful glucose!  It changes your whole system so you can work more properly!!!  But no one in the spotlight was asking, what about the diet?

Gastric bypass surgery has been kind of a miracle procedure since they first started reporting on it, really.  Can't lose weight?  Well, let me rip you open and connect this thingy to that thingy, and voila!  You're now 100 pounds lighter!  No need to diet, or cut out junk food, or try  to lose weight.  Except, yeah, after surgery you can only eat tiny portions and you have to cut out all junk or else you'll throw up all over the place.  I know that it's really hard for very fat people to lose weight with the carb-heavy calorie restricted diets they're recommended by, well, everyone, but I also know that bariatric surgery is the easy way out for a lot of people.  I've personally known a handful of people who have the attitude of , hey, I'm going to eat all the cake I want because if I get really fat, I'll just get that newfangled surgery and I'll get skinny in no time. 

But what's really bothered me about gastric bypass surgery is that it seems like no one is asking the most obvious question.  What happens when you just eat the diet recommended to surgery patients?

It's not a fun diet, let me tell you that.  The Mayo clinic website has a pretty good description of what you eat after gastric bypass.  It comes in phases, depending on where you are in the healing process, but in every phase, they emphasize eating high quality protein foods along with vegetables and fruit.  So meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables, and fruit.  Gosh, that sounds like a low carb diet.

Let's do a little math for fun (oh god, I'm turning into Chad...)  It's hard to pin this information down on the internet, but I found that the calorie goal of patients is no more than 1000 calories a day (many people say it's hard to eat more than 700 calories), and the recommended protein intake is about 75g a day, though some doctors recommend up to 100 g.  But for this thought experiment, we'll stick with 1000 calories and 75 g of protein.  On this page, I found that patients are told to keep their fat intake below 30 g a day.  We'll say the patient was behaving themselves and ate only 20g of fat.  So let's see what this looks like so far.

75 g of protein = 300 calories
20 g of fat = 180

300 + 180 = 480

1000 calories - 480 calories = 520 calories from carbs

520 / 4 = 130 g of carbs

That's not a super low carb diet, but you know what?  That's still pretty darn low.  Especially considering gastric bypass patients don't absorb all the food that they eat.  Now for fun, let's calculate out what I found on the internet most people end up eating (I looked through some diet journals on myfitnesspal.com of surgery patients who are successfully losing weight), which is about 700 calories, 80 g of protein, and 35 g of fat.

700 calories a day - 320 calories of protein - 315 calories of fat = 65 calories of carbs.

65 calories of carbs = 16.25 g of carbs a day.

16 carbs a day?!  That's what I would call a VERY LOW CARB DIET. 

So why haven't scientists tried studying the diet alone to see if it's just as effective as the surgery?  Well, as it turns out, they have done just that recently.  Someone finally thought to themselves, hey guys, maybe we should, you know, see if it's the food or the horrible gut slicing that's helping these people.  And you know what they found out?  It's the food.

At least when it comes to diabetes control.  I'll admit that this is a pretty small study group (n=10), but it's still really promising.  They took ten people and had them eat the post-surgery diet for ten days, then several months later those same ten people had gastric bypass surgery and ate the exact same diet.  Both times the patients had improved fasting glucose, but the diet-only part of the experiment showed the best improvements.

So now we have a pretty good clue.  The next time you hear someone saying that bariatric surgery is the cure for diabetes, slap them with a clue-stick and tell them, no, idiot, it's the diet.

The worst part of this study, though, is one of the researches ended up saying,"Unfortunately, such a restrictive diet is nearly impossible to adhere to long-term in the absence of bariatric surgery."  Dude, what?  Are you dumb?  Have you no clue?  DO I NEED TO GET MY CLUE-STICK?!  Yes, it's true that it's going to be nearly impossible for most sane people to eat 700 calories a day, but why can't we combine what we learned with this study with what we've learned from low carb studies and say, hey guys, low carb helps you lose lots of weight and also helps you control your diabetes.  There's no need for bariatric surgery.  It's a waste of money, a waste of time, and it's a waste of a perfectly healthy body that, given the right food, can heal and lose the weight all by itself. 

Little Things

Since seriously going low-carb and whole-food in about September of last year, I've seen a lot of changes in my body.  Lots of things improved that I didn't even know I had a problem with.  It's these little things that astound me the most, because now it's like, I could never go back to living with all the little problems I used to have.  That would be unbearable now that I'm feeling like a whole person. 

So I thought it would be fun just to list all the little things that have changed since last September, in both me and Chad.

First, mood.  Chad's mood has evened out remarkably.  He used to be kind of emo and often had a short temper (and he's a big guy so he's a little bit scary when he's mad).  It's kind of like this:

Only now I have to be like "Chad, eat some bacon." 

My mood has evened out as well.  I used to be very easily depressed, constantly worrying, insecure, and the littlest thing would offend me and make me cry.  I still get that way once in a while, but now it happens in a predictable time frame, as in when I'm PMSing.  Yes, I'm now officially a cliche.

Next, sleep!  I used to be an extraordinarily light sleeper.  I was tossing back and forth all night because even the littlest thing woke me up.  It usually took me at least a half hour to get to sleep in the first place, and then I was up pretty early.  The summer was the worst, because the birds start singing about 4 in the morning, and once they start, it was hard to get back to sleep.  But now, I sleep much more soundly.  I still have the occasional night where it seems like I'm tossing and turning all night, but for the most part, I sleep pretty well all night long. 

I used to have a problem with digestion.  I don't know what to call it, honestly, but I guess the best description would be IBS.  I was never diagnosed for anything.  Honestly, I didn't know I even had a problem until I stopped living that way.  I don't want to go into any details, so I'll just say that I went to the bathroom a lot, and sometimes my stomach got really upset.  I thought I was healthy because I never got constipated, but it wasn't a pleasant way to live.  Now that I'm eating better food, I see that the way my body was acting is not the way things should be.

I don't drive, and that's because when I was a teenager, I had a very serious problem, and the thought of having this problem while driving a car scared the living crap out of me.  The problem?  Severe wrist pain.  It wasn't exactly carpal tunnel syndrome, although everyone wanted to believe that's what it was.  It was similar, but the pain affected different areas than carpal tunnel does (I'm pretty sure, anyway).  The pain radiated around my wrist and sometimes, when it was really bad, would shoot down my arm.  On the worst days, I couldn't use my hands for much of anything.  Writing hurt, sitting hurt, walking hurt, everything hurt, and I couldn't lift anything heavier than a couple of pounds.  I went out practice driving once when I had this pain, and I almost drove the car right into a five foot ditch.  That, along with another couple of incidences, is what convinced me that I should wait until I had this problem under control before trying to drive again.

But you know what?  I haven't noticed the pain in a long, long time.  Like it just occurred to me one day that I don't hurt hardly at all anymore.  It's only when I really strain myself that I have a problem, like the day I spent carrying around about a dozen 40 pound bags of compost and building a new garden.  This is shocking to me, because I always assumed it was my excessive computer use that caused me to be in so much pain.  I

It's pretty funny, actually, that now when I look up carpal tunnel syndrome, they say that some of the main causes are diabetes and obesity, whereas I'm pretty sure back when I first had my problem, most people said it was caused almost exclusively by repetitive movement. 

Chad also improved in this way.  He's a programmer, and so spends all day typing.  He didn't have severe wrist pain, but he would sometimes mention that by the end of the week, his thumb and maybe his fingers would hurt.  But now, I'm pretty sure the problem is all gone.  I can't say for certain, because he's a guy, and guys don't like to tell people about their weaknesses. 

Energy is another improvement.  Chad especially has seen lots of improvements here.  He used to get worn out so easily.  He said that he used to only be able to get about 4-6 hours of work done a day because he just couldn't focus, or couldn't find the mental energy to finish his work.  But now he's consistently working 7 or even 8 hours a day, with the occasional off day (because we all have those).  I think I'm just as lazy as I was before, but now when I do go to do the work that needs done, I'm not like physically exhausted the way I used to be.  I have all the energy to do it, it's just that I sometimes lack the ambition, lol. 

Our outlook is better!  We're both so much happier now, seriously.  I used to be very depressed, couldn't find happiness in almost anything, crying at least a couple times a week just because the sadness was so heavy on my shoulders.  Chad would sometimes dream about leaving everything behind and just driving across the country because, I think, he felt trapped in an unhappy job and a small town.  Neither of us had any goals or ambitions in life, no dreams of the future.  There were times when we couldn't even imagine what our lives would be like in five years.  But shortly after changing our diets, our outlook started to change too.  Pretty soon, life didn't seem so dismal.  We started dreaming about the future, or at least I did.  We're really happy in the life we have now, Chad's happy with his job, life is just so pleasant.  The future is full of hope now.

I probably shouldn't bring this up (Chad's going to kill me)...  But in the spirit of Super Size Me and also Fat Head (where Chereva asked Tom if he was a moron when he brought this up), I have to mention our sex life.  In a word - awesome! 

Hmmm, what else?  Oh!  I started putting on muscle like no one's business, and so did Chad!  The difference between me and Chad, though, is that Chad regularly lifts weights, whereas I sit on my butt watching him lift weights.  Yes, friends, that's right; I put on muscle while being a lazy bum.  How's that for cool? 

Then there's my fingernails.  I've said this before, but I think it's totally worth mentioning.  I used to have really terrible nails.  I could probably pass them off as normal through the summer, but once winter came, that charade was over.  My nails were always very thin and brittle no matter what time of year it was, but the dryness of winter made things even worse.  They started breaking at the sides, and then peeling, layer by layer, off the top.  I couldn't grow them at all. 

This was actually the first change that really caught my attention, because it wasn't something subjective.  It wasn't some wishy washy "oh, I feel better".  It was real, physical proof that something positive was happening.  Suddenly one day I noticed, holy cow, my fingernails are super long!  I never really had to trim them before because they constantly broke, but now I have to actually actively cut them or I start looking like catwoman.  And they're not just long; they're also very strong.  I used to be able to bend my thumbnails in half (when I had enough nail to bend, that is).  Now I try to do that and it's just too solid.  It doesn't budge.

I'm sure there are a lot of other little things I'm missing, but those are the ones that really stick out in my mind.   Plus, we've only been low-carb whole food for 8-9 months, and who knows what changes will continue to happen?

Man, I just can't concentrate tonight.  I have a large art commission to get finished, but I can only work on it for about five minutes at a time before my mind starts wandering and I find myself on google looking up things like "Marilyn Monroe's BMI" (about 20, by the way).  I couldn't even focus long enough to finish that sentence before going back to google, lol.

What's mostly on my mind tonight is an ad I saw today while flipping through RedBook.  I don't read many magazines anymore because I'm trying to divorce myself from the "everyone knows" type articles and the you-have-to-be-perfect-and-beautiful-all-the-time mentality that makes up practically every part of almost all the magazines I used to read.  I had to start throwing away my Shape magazines as soon as I got them because they were making me depressed (just eat less and  move more and you'll look like this supermodel!!!!!!!).  And don't even get me started on Cosmo.

The ad I saw in Redbook was for Slim-Fast.  Yes, Slim-Fast is annoying in general.  "Just drink our carbalicious drinks and then starve yourself and you'll lose weight!"  Don't you just want to kick them where it counts sometimes?  Yes, we all do.  But this ad is different.  And apparently, it's just part of a huge ad campaign.  The tv commercials, I hear, are really bad (NC-17, seriously).  But I'll stop rambling and just show you what caught my attention.  Click on it to read the small stuff.

Yeah, ok.  Who amongst us hasn't tried to lose weight because we kind of hated the way we looked when we were fat?  I know I have.  When I went on a low calorie diet, it was to look better because I hated the way my body looked.

The reason this ad bothers me so much is because it adds fuel to the self-loathing fire that most women (and men) live with.  No, it doesn't say, "Hey gals, you should hate your body so that you'll want to buy our product," but it does try to make you think that by losing a couple of pounds, maybe you'll get everything you want in life.  A sexy bikini body that will attract that hot guy you like who will love you so you don't have to love yourself.  It was almost scary to read what Ashley from Massachusetts said her real reason was...  To be the skinniest mom in her group.  Not just one of the skinniest, or the healthiest, or the strongest or even the prettiest, but the skinniest.  There's something wrong with this picture.

I don't think it's healthy for women to focus on skinny.  That's not what really matters, at the end of the day, because we're not all designed to be skinny like that.  Some of us are designed to be chunky, curvy, strong or big boned.  And there's nothing wrong with that.

My grandma lived to just shy of 103.  She wasn't a skinny woman.  She wasn't fat by any means, but she was big boned, thick, muscular, well built, even into her 100s.  She worked hard all her life raising 12 children, about half of that time working on a large farm and the other half working as a school lunch lady (back in the day when they made every meal from scratch).  She didn't get skinny until shortly before she died. 

I wish the media wouldn't focus so hard on weight.  It seems like practically everything said about a star is about their weight.  Look at how great she looks in a bikini (and here's how you can looks that great too!!).  OMG this celeb is skin and bones!!!  WOW this celeb is a beautiful plus size lady!  And that celeb lost all her baby weight in TWO DAYS!

Let's just stop with the weight thing already.  It's not as important as we make it out to be.  Yes, I think it's really cool when people celebrate plus sized stars, and I also think it's a needed wake up call when they point out how ridiculously skinny some celebs are, but I think spending that much time focusing on weight is dangerous.  Pretty soon, everyone is saying how losing weight is the only way to be happy, the only way to be healthy.  Instead, let's focus first on health and finding our body's natural balance.  If we're treating our bodies right, they'll get to the weight that we're supposed to be at.  That may mean we're very skinny, like my 6'5 175 pound bean pole husband.  Or that might mean we're chunky, like me, a curvy 5'7 185 pound girl. 

An Email to Tom Naughton

In case I haven't mentioned it, I'm a huge fan of Tom Naughton.  He has an awesome documentary called Fat Head out there that literally changed our lives, and he also writes regularly on his Fat Head blog about low carb science.  What I love about Tom is that he doesn't just tell you that LOW-CARB WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE!!!!!  He goes through the science and helps you understand why it's a good idea and what you could gain from cutting out grains and sugar. 

Since the first time I watched the Fat Head movie was about a year ago, I decided it was about time I write to Tom and tell him how he's affected my life.  Since I got a little rambly, and it describes my history, I thought I may as well post the email here.  Hopefully my story will help someone else take up low-carb eating.

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Hey there Tom! 

I've emailed you in the past, but usually just to ask questions or make comments about news stories.  But today, I figured it was time I sat down and told you how you've changed at least four more lives.  I hope you'll bear with me.  I tend to ramble.

I didn't have the best upbringing.  My mom was a single mom, worked, was going to school, dealt with my older sister who was probably the worst problem child you could ever have (she kept running away, stealing, and got pregnant at 12).  Mom drank a lot and sometimes used drugs, and was severely depressed at least at one time.  Needless to say, we didn't eat very well back then.  I remember a lot of easy stuff, like frozen meals, spaghetti, pizza, and lots of chips, cookies, and candy. 

I think partially because my only friends at that time were my cats and guinea pigs, I decided to become a vegetarian at the age of 14.  I honestly can't remember what my thought process was, or what spurred me on to make that decision.  My mom didn't protest really.  Since I was already chubby at that age, I bet she thought it would help me lose weight.  When I told my pediatrician, she was pretty upset (this is the only doctor who ever questioned my vegetarianism, but I was a kid so I didn't listen to her).  She asked me where I was planning on getting my protein from, and being 14, I told her I ate lots of peanut butter. 

It was that year that my health and my life started taking a pretty nasty turn for the worse.  Since my mom didn't have the time or patience to cook separate vegetarian meals, I mostly just ate around what she made for herself.  If she made mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, I would eat just mashed potatoes for dinner.  If she made a sweet and sour stir fry with chicken and rice, I would eat the few vegetables I liked (which wasn't many back then) with rice and lots of sweet and sour sauce.  I ate cereal for breakfast.  Lots and lots of cereal.  Sometimes two huge bowls at a time.  I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.  And don't forget all those chips, cookies, and candy I was still eating, because they're vegetarian.

About a year later (right before my 15th birthday), I had to have my gall bladder removed.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  No one asked if I wanted it done.  No one offered alternatives.  No one even told me what causes gall stones.  I didn't find out what causes gall stones until just last year, and when I found out, I was pretty mad.  You know what causes gall stones?  Not using your gall bladder (i.e. low-fat diets). 

That was also when I started to really pack on the weight.  I was already big to begin with.  I was a large child; tall for my age, with huge feet and big broad shoulders.  I was just big all around.  But when I started eating vegetarian, I got really fat.  When I had my gall bladder removed, I was 200 pounds.  Two years later, I hit my peak of 275 pounds.  For a 17 year old 5'8 girl, that's a lot of weight to be carrying.


But it wasn't just the weight that was the problem.  I was severely depressed.  My hair was falling out.  I started growing hair where girls shouldn't be growing hair and my menstrual cycle would skip several months at a time (which I later found out was because I had developed PCOS).  I started turning away from the world, and at age 16, I dropped out of school.  Luckily I found my future husband around that time, and even though I was morbidly obese and not always fun to be around, he loved me and helped me fight off some of my depression.  Also being around him meant I wasn't eating out of loneliness so much, and we spent a lot of time out in nature, so that by the time we moved in together when I was 22, I had managed to get down to 230 pounds. 

Then a couple years later, I finally decided to try DIETING!  I found a website called Spark People that lets you track your calories and your exercise minutes.  I became instantly addicted.  I spent literally hours a day on Spark People, reading the nutrition articles, chatting on the forums, and tracking my food.  But it wasn't fun.  I felt starved all the time.  Food was the only thing I thought about.  What I would eat, when I would eat it.  If I had 50 extra calories at the end of the day, I would plan out what small indulgence I could give myself (not much for 50 calories).  I persisted, though, and in five months, I managed to get down to 185 pounds. 

Then I got appendicitis.  Again, the doctors didn't give me an option.  No one offered me alternatives.  No one told me what causes appendicitis.  I was wheeled into the OR and had one of my organs taken from me.  It wasn't until last year that I found out that appendicitis is a "disease of civilization".  The worst part is, exactly one year later, my husband had his appendix removed too, and as the cook in our house, I know I did it to him and it makes me sick. 

The weight crept back on after that, a little at a time.  I would occasionally try low calorie dieting again, but it was almost impossible for me to stick with it.  Like I said before, I'm a big girl.  Even if I was skinny, I would be big.  My hips are big, my shoulders are big, my feet are big.  But BMI doesn't take that into consideration, and so to lose weight, I was told on Spark People to eat 1300 calories a day.  That's constant hunger. 

About a year ago, I was clicking around on Netflix when I saw your movie.  I was kind of intrigued, but a little hesitant to watch it because I just LOVED the movie Supersize Me and I didn't want to hear an opposing opinion.  But after a week or two, I finally gave in and watched it.  Holy cow.  It was so life changing.  I was like, really?  This is how it really works?  Why did I have to wait 27 years to hear it?  Why did I have to find this information in a documentary filmed by a comedian?  Why isn't this information being shouted out across the rooftops for everyone to hear it? 

I was excited about the life-changing information, but also skeptical.  I wanted to have my husband watch it, but I wasn't sure what he would think about it.  So I started just telling him some of the things you said in your film.  After about three days of constantly saying, "And something else he said in his movie..." my husband got annoyed and decided to watch the movie for himself.

I can't say we changed our diets instantly.  I think it was a couple of days before we really decided to try low carb eating.  I was still trying to be a vegetarian at that point, and since I'm the one who cooks, my husband was pretty much vegetarian himself as well.  I cooked lots of tofu, seitan (a meat substitute made from wheat gluten....seriously), and some beans.  We saw some improvements right away, but nothing huge.  After a couple of months, we started slacking off again, and almost completely went back to our old way of eating. 

Around last August or September, we decided, you know what?  If we're going to do this, we need to really do this right.  We cut out all wheat (except for the low carb wraps my husband uses in his lunch), all sugar, and I decided to give up my identity as a vegetarian.  The first steak I had was so glorious.  It was life changing.

Since then, things have really started changing at the speed of light.  For both of us, our energy has increased dramatically.  Our moods have really improved, too.  My husband used to get really depressed all the time, but now he's so chipper and full of energy when he gets home from work.  I have issues with SAD, and even though this winter was rough at times, it was no where near as dark or depressing as last winter.  My fingernails are strong and long for the first time in 14 years!  I used to always have fingernails that were thin, brittle, and would peel off in layers, but no more.  Even though it's gardening season, my fingernails are beautiful. 

The most amazing thing to me is the muscles we've both put on.  My husband was what you'd call skinnyfat all his life.  6'5, 195 pounds, with absolutely no muscle.  Even though I was a weak, depressed vegetarian, I was stronger than him.  Now, he's lean and muscular with like a runner's build.  He's almost completely lost his belly bulge and is starting to get some definition there instead. 

As for me, even though I hadn't lifted weights at all since becoming a low-carb exvegetarian, I put on a lot of muscle as well.  I can feel new bulges in my arms and legs, and I don't get winded as much when I'm lifting heavy things.  I thought all the "experts" said you can't gain muscle and lose weight at the same time!

My husband started at 195 and is now about 178.  Like I said, he's lost almost all of his flabby tummy and the flabbiness around his face and arms.  He looks awesome, and I know for a fact that he's eating more now than he did before.  He doesn't suffer from severe coldness much anymore, and if he does, he'll eat something really fatty and that helps him get warm again. 

I've only lost about ten pounds, taking me back down to 185.  But for me, it's not about the weight.  It's about my fingernails, my energy, my good mood, no longer having to eat ever two hours, no longer feeling obsessed about food, no longer having crippling wrist pain, or awful IBS, or tons of pimples.  It's about eating real whole food that makes me feel like a real whole person.  Besides, why do all women have to be stick thin?  I think round curvy women are beautiful.

We've been trying for a baby for the last year.  Sometimes I fear we'll never be able to conceive, but then I remind myself that my body is still healing from 14 years of malnutrition and carb-overload.  And it's all thanks to you, Tom.

I know this email has gone on forever already, but I also wanted to tell you that you've changed more lives than just mine and my husband's.  As we've improved and passed on info and shared books with our family and friends, they've been changing their diets, too.  My hubby's brother went low-carb and lost at least 20 pounds (probably more by now).  My mom's low-carb and has lost 11 pounds and isn't taking her blood pressure meds anymore.  My sister, who looks pregnant because she's so fat, is seriously thinking about going low-carb.  And even my mother-in-law, who is a complete and total carbivore, has cut out potatoes and pasta, and limits her sweets.  Doesn't that make you feel like a rock star?

Thanks again for all that you do.  I hope you keep spreading the word.  I know I will!
-Julie D

What we need...

I've come to the conclusion that we low carbers need a really simple way to spread the word about our way of eating.  I'm sure we've all run into this problem.  Someone asks you about the way you eat, and you intend to answer in the most understandable, concise way possible, but instead you find yourself rambling on for half an hour about insulin and government recommendations and bad science and generally sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

I did that to one of my friends last week.  She mentioned that she and her husband were going to start a diet, to both lose weight and to help her husband with his high blood pressure (he's in his early 30s).  I really feel like the ideas of the low carb lifestyle and the science behind it are worth sharing, even though I don't feel like it's my place to tell others what they should and shouldn't be eating.  But when I tried to explain to her about insulin resistance and carbs and everything, I really just sounded like a crazy person who had spent too much time on the internet.

I wish some of the great thinkers and writers in the low carb/paleo/primal communities would come together and create a neat little handout that you could print out and give to people, that would explain very clearly the benefits of a cleaner more natural way of eating.  Maybe I'll email some people about it.  Or perhaps I should just ask google and find out if there might already be such a handout out there.

The best way to convince people to change their habits, though, is through example.  If you change your lifestyle and improve your health, people are going to notice and ask you how you did it.  And if they're open minded enough, they might even try the change themselves.

I actually just got my mom to start a low carb diet last week, which is awesome.  She's almost 65, with high blood pressure, bad arthritis, very out of shape, and probably 60-80 pounds overweight.  She called me up on the night of her first day, and said, "I'm actually full!  I'm not hungry at all!  I can't believe you can lose weight on this diet."

So even though I probably didn't do much to convince my friend, at least I convinced my mom to give it a try.  I hope as more science de-vilifies the low carb way of eating, my friend will remember what I said and look more into the subject.

What I should have done was just handed her a dvd of Fat Head and walked away without saying a word.