Weight and Garden Update

Hi everyone!  Are you all enjoying these nice crisp autumn days?  Apples and crunchy leaves and maybe a log in the fireplace?  I love autumn; it's my favorite time of year.  It's especially nice this year because it was such a hot summer, and now it's finally cooled down. 

I had to go out tonight and gather all the sensitive produce from my garden.  The weather forecast says it's only going to be 36 degrees, but my yard gets just a little bit cooler than the prediction, so I figured I'd better get out there and get as much as I could.  It's not the last harvest of the year for me; I still have sugar snap peas, cabbage, and rutabagas out there, but for the most part my garden is done.  So I thought you'd all enjoy knowing how much money my garden produced/saved me this year.  Welp, it was my best year ever, by far.  Almost twice as good as my second best year.

I made $545!  Wooh! 

My cool mini green house did superbly.  I grew 8 pepper plants (most of them with mini peppers), and I got about 18 pounds of peppers!  Which is about 40 times the amount I usually get. 

I'm in a bit of a rush tonight, so I won't post any pictures right now, but I do have a bunch to share later.  The other reason I wanted to post was to let you all know that I'm down to 203 pounds, which is awesome.  I decided that I want to take a break from losing weight, and I'm trying to maintain now until next spring.  I'm not sure why, but I feel like it's a good idea to add in some more carbs for a while.  So far so good; I've been eating more carbs for a few weeks and haven't gained or lost anything.  Plus I get to eat apples and squash again! 

That's all for now.  I hope you're all doing great!

End of Summer Update

Well, I guess now that summer is almost unofficially over, I should really post something here about how I'm doing.  What a huge difference a season makes!  My life feels like it's going in a very different direction than it was just three months ago.  In good directions, thankfully.

First, the weight news, since this is more or less a health blog.  I have been doing a pretty low carb diet with a carb night now for a little over four months.  I went from being 236 pounds when I started, to being 206 pounds when I last officially checked my weight.  Yep, I lost 30 pounds!  I'm really proud of myself for that accomplishment, and I feel so much better.  My knees don't hurt anymore, I'm not having issues with my teeth and gum inflammation like I was, I can actually fit into a lot of my old clothes!  I'm really excited.

Within the last week, I decided to stop tracking my food.  I'm still eating low carb and we're still doing the carb night once a week, but I decided that I'm just too busy to continue tracking everything I eat.  I don't want to do that for the rest of my life, afterall.  I still have another 26 pounds I'd like to lose yet, so I hope that this won't put a damper on that.  I'm going to try it for a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

Chad has lost a lot of weight, too.  It's surprising how much we both packed on last winter without even trying.  He's lost about 16 pounds so far, and now he's starting to add some carbs back in.  Potatoes and some carbier fruits.  He may add another carb night in as well, but I'm going to leave that up to him.

I would like to reach my goal by Christmas, but I guess we'll see how it goes.  I'm not worried about if if I don't.  The fact that I've made it this far is just amazing to me.  I usually have a hard time losing weight through the winter, so I'll be happy if I can just maintain this until next spring, when I'll pick it up again.

The thing that really has helped me the most, I think, is the carb night.  We allow ourselves to eat some things we wouldn't normally eat, like ice cream or pizza or crackers, whatever we're craving, but only for one meal a week.  Then the next day, we throw away anything that's left over and go back to our low carb diet.  Not only does it keep me from caving into cravings (because I know I can have whatever I want on carb night), but it really does help regulate my weight loss.  I'll gain a couple of pounds the day after a carb night, then by mid week I'll lose what I had gained, and by the time the next carb night comes around, I'm usually down another two pounds. So far, I haven't had any plateaus, which is pretty amazing for a four month weight loss journey.

Now on to other things!  I've been heavy into a new creative excursion this past month and a half.  I don't know what got into me, but I suddenly decided that I wanted to be a craft designer.  Like, designing patterns to sell to people.  And I probably chose to design plastic canvas because I'm always drawn to things that are less popular for some reason.  My taste in music is, shall we say, a little obscure.

It's been a fun challenge.  It takes longer to design a pattern than you might think.  In a month and a half, I've so far created three good sized pieces.  That includes designing it, actually making the piece, and then putting together a pattern.  It's a challenge, but it's also something that gets me excited to get up in the morning.  I can't wait to start working on it every day.

I have my patterns available on my Etsy shop and also on Craftsy, but I haven't yet sold anything.  It's a little disappointing, but I know it takes a while to get noticed.  I've also managed to get the contact info for the three major buyers of plastic canvas patterns and I've actually submitted a couple of my projects to big companies.  I got rejected my one company and I'm still waiting to hear from the other one, but I'm hopeful.  I'm gonna make this work.

Here's the patterns I have up in my Etsy shop right now. 

Country Apple Coasters Pattern

Country Apples Tissue Box Cover Pattern

Country Pears Coasters Pattern

Country Pears Tissue Box Cover Pattern

 

 

Halloween Wall Hanging Pattern

And here's a pattern I just finished today.  It's not up yet because I want Chad to proofread it first.  It should be up tomorrow sometime. 

I'm pretty happy with the designs so far, and the cool thing about it is, I have more ideas than I actually have time to make, so I should be able to keep creating for a while.  I don't have a specific goal in mind; I don't want to be rich or famous or anything.  I just want to create something that maybe other people will enjoy. 

So that's what I'm up to.  Life is an enjoyable ride these days.  I'm sure eating better has given me a better attitude and more energy, which is why we're going to keep eating this way. 

I hope everyone enjoyed their summer.  It's sure to be a lovely fall.

The Low Carb Journey

Hey guys!  It's kind of been a while since I've posted.  Part of that is because I'm pretty busy this time of year because of all the gardening and house maintenance stuff, and part of it is because my computer pooped out on me for nearly a month there.  I was living off an ipad and it's hard to do anything but read the news on one of those, at least for me.

I thought I'd better at least drop a short note letting you all know how I'm doing.  I'm still doing a low carb diet to help me shed the weight I gained over the winter.  If you recall, I started at 236.6 pounds.  This morning I weighed in at 221 pounds.  Which is pretty cool!  Here's my weight chart if you're interested:

The yellow line is how they predict my weight should be going if I were to get to my goal of 180 by next May.  I did some figuring and decided that the path that I'm on will actually get me to my goal around Christmas time.  Of course, the goal weight is just arbitrary.  I would of course like to lose weight and be able to fit back into my old clothes, but I'm actually just happy to be living this way again.  I feel great.  I have a lot more energy, I'm rarely hungry, and I've only been sick once since I started cutting my carbs low again.

I also got a Garmin Forerunner 235!  A gift from my cool hubby, who also has one and loves it.

I got it in frost blue, but that's not exactly my color.  So I looked around on Amazon and found a pink replacement band for it:

That's much more me.  I wear it face down because it's comfier for me that way, and plus that way it doesn't look like I stole my boyfriend's watch.  The face is huge and definitely looks like a dude's watch.  I've only had it for a couple of days now, so I don't have a lot to say about it, other than it has gotten me more interested in getting active again.  It's funny how knowing what your numbers are can motivate you to increase them.

I have a lot more to say about what's going on in my life, but I have a lot of catching up to do now that my computer is working again so I'll leave that for another day. 

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.

Downer

I want to stay focused on my health as I get going into this new year.  For me, that means eating well, getting enough sleep, doing the things I love, and getting some exercise.  I'm purposely leaving out any thoughts on losing weight.  Why?  Because it's a death trap for my self esteem.  If my goal is to lose 20 pounds, then I start thinking about how fat and blobby I am, start doing some not so smart things to help me lose those pounds, and can become pretty obsessive in a bad way.  It's a bad place to be, and I don't even want to try going down that road.

Which is why I'm really mad at myself for stepping on the scale the other morning.  I wasn't really thinking about it.  I was feeling good about myself because I've been eating well and feeling better.  Until I saw how much I weighed.  I hadn't weighed myself since before Christmas, so I'd gained a good 5 or 6 pounds, and it was a bit of a shock.  And it made me feel really bad about myself. 

I haven't weighted this much since before I was married. 

Then I start arguing with myself in my head.  I've been through a lot this fall; I was pregnant, I had major stress and hormones, I ate emotionally, I was deeply depressed, I got the depo shot (progesterone birth control, which they tell you will make you gain weight), it was Christmas, I've been sick.

The other side of my head is saying things like, yeah, but you didn't have to eat all that at Christmas and New Year's, you should be exercising more, you're so fat and ugly, it's no wonder you can't fit into your clothes, you have no self control, and even if you did, no diet even works for you so why try, you're going to be fat and blobby forever.

But I'm gonna do good and cut out all food that tastes good and exercise until I collapse and maybe I'll start calorie counting again and tracking every food I put in my mouth and running even though it's winter and I have cold weather exercise-induced asthma.

You'll never do any of that.  You're too fat and lazy. 

..............................

All that from weighing myself absentmindedly.   It's a bad thing for me.  It brings out the worst parts of me; I get obsessed, beat myself up, believe in miracle cures, and forget that what's important is my health and not how I look.

So maybe I'll move my scale out of my room for now.  Now that I know how much I weight, I have strong desires to continue to weigh myself to make sure it's going down.  It's a sickness.  The funny thing is, no one really sees it as such.  If it was gambling or drinking, people would say I fell off the wagon.   But it's about weight loss, so of course it's good that I weighed myself.  I certainly used to think so. 

Now I just think it's a waste of my precious time and energy.

Personal Update

I'm actually writing this Thursday the 22nd, so it's not exactly up to date, but it's pretty close. 

I wrote a while back about how sometimes I really really want to lose more weight.  I've been stuck at 185 for, gosh, years now.  I did manage to get down to about 176 on a low calorie vegetarian diet, but because I was literally starving myself to get to that point, it didn't last very long.  I thought I would try cutting out more carbs from my diet and to stop eating snacks between meals.

That didn't last long.  It just wasn't natural for me, and it felt way too rigid.  The reason I chose to live this way for the rest of my life is because it makes me feel good and because it's so super easy.  The moment it becomes hard to stick with it is the moment I stop being able to live this lifestyle.  And plus, I'm not a whole person and I can't eat like some others might be able to.  I don't have a gall bladder, which makes it hard for me to go long periods without food without feeling sick. 

I have cut out a lot of the treats and desserts, though.  I used to make low carb desserts all the time.  I'd probably eat them once a day (or more).  I'm not sure why I haven't been making them lately.  Maybe I'm lazy?  Or maybe I don't have such strong cravings for sweets like I used to.  I also don't make low carb breads much anymore, either.  Again, I don't know if it's because I'm lazy or because I'm simply not craving bread. 

I also decided to start really reading Mark Sisson's blog Mark's Daily Apple, and really trying to incorporate his ideas and teachings into my life.  I've been walking a whole lot more, and I picked up weight lifting again (Chad and I both do Fred Hahn's Slow Burn, which is intense!).  I fully intend to try incorporating sprints someday, but right now I'm focusing on lifting and walking and making sure I do them regularly.  Once I get that down, I'll try some sprints.  Sprinting actually sounds awesome.  Chad and I used to run three times a week, and even though I hated the thought of going out and doing it, I actually loved running.  I would wax poetic to Chad after running about how awesome running was and how much I loved it and how I wished I could do it more.  Then the next time we'd go to run, I'd be grumbling the whole time because I hated the thought of it.  Lol! 

So I stepped on the scale about a week ago for the first time in probably a month, and also decided to take my body measurements for the first time in, oh, maybe six months.  The scale said....  181.4!  Woo!  I haven't been that low in a long time, and I'm not even trying to lose weight.  It's gone up a little since then because it's my fat time of month, but it was encouraging to see that.  My goal really truly isn't to lose weight, but I wouldn't mind if it happened. 

The really cool thing, though, was my measurements.  I lost an inch around my waist, an inch around my hips, an inch around my thighs, AND I GAINED A HALF AN INCH AROUND MY ARMS!  If that's not proof that I'm making progress, I don't know what is.  And I can really see that my arms are getting bigger.  Not like huge or anything, but toned.  I told Chad that I have to be careful; the women in my family are very muscular by nature, and if I'm not careful, I'll end up super buff, lol.

My goal it to find ways to be active every day and to get strong and fit.  I'm not like unfit or anything right now.  Like I said, I used to be a regular runner, I go walking and hiking all the time, garden for hours a day, and my usual way of climbing stairs is by running up them.  But I want to be strong.  And I want to get a routine down now while I'm young so that I can be strong even when I"m old.  I don't want to end up like my mom, who is 65 and has trouble walking around the block.  I also want to keep up with Chad, who is continuing to get stronger every time he lifts.  He can now pick me up and carry me without complaining that it hurts his back!  And I weigh more than he does!

So that's how I'm doing.  The longer I travel on this low carb whole foods path, the easier it gets.  It's my lifestyle now.  I've come to accept all that it entails.  I don't get upset at the fact that I have to cook everything we eat practically from scratch, because I know that means we're eating the healthiest food we can.  To be honest, I actually really feel good about making everything we eat from scratch.  Sure, it's a lot of work, but I've always had trouble, as a housewife, feeling like I'm contributing to the household.  Now I know for sure that I am.  Chad goes to work and earns the money to pay for our food, and I put forth the effort to make it into something delicious, nutritious, and life-giving. We wouldn't have gotten as far as we have with low carb if it wasn't for all the hard work I've put forth in the kitchen. 

Now I guess I'd better end this rant before it gets too long.  I'll continue to track my weight here and there, but like I said, it's not really my main goal.  I've come to accept the fact that I'm never going to be a "normal" weight, and it's actually kind of freeing.  Now I can focus on my health and getting stronger, which is way more important anyway.

Perspective

I went to a baby shower last weekend, and I got to see some people there who I haven't seen in quite some time.  One woman, who knew me from when I was quite young and hasn't really seen me for about 10 years, told me that I was wasting away!  I laughed and told her I was still quite pudgy, and there was no threat of me wasting away anytime soon.

But it got me to thinking about it.  What did I look like the last time she saw me?  I was about 17-18 years old, at my heaviest of 275 pounds, and pretty miserable.  I wouldn't let anyone take any pictures of me because I was so ashamed of how I looked, so when I went looking for some this morning, I had a really hard time actually finding any.  But I did find a few.

Age 17

Here's me in 2001/2002 at my heaviest.  As you can see, I wasn't very happy to have my picture taken!

Age 21/22

Here I am in 2006.  Believe it or not, I was at least 20 pounds lighter in this picture than the first one, but still uncomfortably heavy.

Age 25

This one was taken in 2010, right after losing 30 pounds on a low calorie vegetarian diet.  I was looking and feeling much better, but I was still pudgy.

Age 28

And here I am in January of this year.  I haven't really noticed it, but I have lost more weight since 2010.  And, more importantly, I've gained a lot of muscle.  My weight only dropped about 5 pounds from that last picture, but I lost several inches around my waist and hips and gained an inch around my arms. 

It's funny how I see myself.  I look in the mirror and I still see a fat girl.  I see my big round hips, my belly, my flabby thighs, my bat wings, and sometimes I think to myself, "Man, you're fat.  You should try losing more weight."  But I'm not actually seeing myself for what I really am.  I'm seeing the old me when I look in the mirror.  It's not until I look it the old pictures of me next to the current pictures that I actually realize, wow, I've really come a long way.  Maybe I'm not so fat afterall. 

I think we all are harder on ourselves than we should be.  Maybe I'm not perfect, and I'll never have a model's body, but I'm healthy and I look darn good.  I really wish I had taken more before and after shots, and a bunch of during shots, so I can really look at them now and see how much progress I've really made.  And so that every time I'm tempted to eat junky sugary food, I can look at those pictures to remind myself of how awesome my new way of life is for me. 

Has anyone else had this problem?  You can only see the way you used to look and can't recognize yourself for who you've become after losing weight?  I'm sure I'm not the only one.

More Weighty Update

I posted an update on my current decision to try to lose weight, and how I've been tired and more recently really hungry.  Lynda from Living the Life asked me what I've been eating, so I decided it would be interesting to write it out.

Food varies from day to day, but it's pretty similar generally.  So as an example, here's what I ate a couple days ago.

Breakfast:
2 eggs fried in butter
2 slices bacon
Coffee with heavy cream

Lunch:
Generous slice of cheese (1.5 oz)
Left over beef loin cubes (4 to 5 oz)
Small handful pecans
Handful baby carrots with sour cream dip
1/3 cup blueberries

Dinner:
1 can (6 oz) can light tuna in water.... mixed with
About 2 tbsp homemade olive oil mayo....  plus
About 2 tbsp sour cream
Three or four romaine lettuce leaves
3 cherry tomatoes
Slice sage derby cheese (1 oz)
Slice watermelon
(I usually have more veggies than this for dinner)

I plugged those foods into my SparkPeople food tracker just to see what it all came to.

Calories: 1711
Fat: 132g
Protein: 98g
Carbs: 36g
Fiber: 8g

I can't really figure out why I'm tired and hungry eating this way.  It's not like I'm starving myself....  well, I guess I AM eating about 400 fewer calories than I'm used to, and fewer carbs.  When I'm eating to my fill, I would eat about 2000-2200 calories and about 50-60 net carbs a day.  I don't think you can get keto-flu when you go from low carb to lower carb... can you?

Chad said something to me today.  He said, "I know it means a lot to you, but don't get all OCD about the number on the scale".  He's right of course.  It's not about the number on the scale.  Find health first, and then your body will find the weight it's supposed to be at.  Tom Naughton said the same thing to me when I sent him a thank you email, and he's a pretty smart guy.

I think I'll continue eating only at meals, but I'm going to let up a little on portion size so I can stay full and fueled and maybe kick this tiredness.  1700 calories may seem like a lot to some of you, but I'm a big, active girl (I worked for two hours in my garden every day this week).  When I went low calorie a few years back, I actually lost 30 pounds eating about 1700 calories a day. 

I'll keep you posted on how it's going!

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.

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.