Five years ago today I was at my highest weight, and after finally finding myself sick enough of it and having enough time, I started on a weight loss plan.
First, I got up for Denise Austin's TV show. I know, people really make fun of her, but for several years I had been in school and working seven days a week in front of a computer and wasn't even doing basic exercising. The last straw was when I found it was even difficult to turn over in bed. How did it get so bad when I wasn't looking?
I started walking and following a low fat diet like they recommend. This was very difficult, and it took me quite a bit of time to lose even 10 pounds and keep it off for more than a few weeks. I struggled for two more years, stopping when I became unmotivated and then restarting, usually at a higher weight than before.
Twenty eight months ago I started a lower carb diet, and then lost the rest of my weight. I haven't maintained all of the loss, but I did lose and keep off over 18% of my body weight. (I also lost my long-term vegetarian lifestyle. How eat-crow-ish that was.)
This week I have been pouring over the Diabetes Prevention Program and other studies, and have seen first-hand in the data how difficult it is for people to lose weight and keep it off. It is easy to get discouraged.
But, then I look back at some of my older records of weight, and realize that I am already in the tails of the distribution of weight loss outcomes. For that, I am pleased.
Oh and P.S. Coca-Cola. Some calories are more equal than others. Just sayin'
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Week one on MY diabetes prevention program
My HbA1c went from 5.8 to 5.4 after a year on a lower carb diet. Does a low carb prevent diabetes over the long haul? Stay tuned!
My first full day on the DPP went OK. I exercised 70 minutes, under-dressed in the cool sunshine. I ate a tasty and satisfying diet consisting of 60% artercloggingsaturated fat.
I already lost two percent of my body weight. I heard Jenny Ruhl say that you can lose tons of water weight on a low carb diet. OK, I am going to clarify that. There is losing weight due to a reduction in glycogen storage, but probably much more due to a reduction in inflammation. Either way, I am already at 1/3 of my goal, and at this rate I'll be there by next week.
I visited the NDEP site and found the script for the mandatory seminars (or here) that the lifestyle intervention arm had to sit through. A dreadful pile of training documents, explaining the purpose of other documents. Simply dreadful! This is where I learned that this was all to prevent diabetes, not a weight-loss program. Then they started in with the main intervention - weight loss! I started in with section one of the "Lifestyle Balance Introduction Manual" while having Total Quality Management flashbacks.
Step one - Meet the Lifestyle coach. This is where the coach coo's something like, "Oh, I'm your lifestyle coach. Isn't that faaaaaaabulous? We'll get to know each other soooooooo well during this program, like fer years, almost like we're sistas or something. I am SOOOOOO happy to meet you! Soooooo, lets all sit in a circle and hold hands and get to know each other, just like we did at summer camp. Sooooooo, how do you all feel about being the chosen few in this treatment arm? Isn't it soooooooo wonderful that you were chosen at random for the best arm? If you are having trouble with anything, we can meet one-on-one and I can solve any problem for you. Any questions?"
Of course, this conversation was just a little reverie for me, since I am in the low carb arm and there is no lifestyle coach for the low carb diet. Coach [redacted] made it very clear that she was to remain as hostile and un-supportive as possible. Other registerd dietitians made sure that it wouldn't be Steve Cooksey or other internet provider. So, I am going to be my own coach.
Here's what else my coach made me do. I received my lifestyle book. I had to discuss how I felt about all this. I had to choose between starting with weight loss or exercise. I had to sign an agreement with my coach. First I chose the exercise part, but then realized that the order of the classes would work better if I chose to focus on weight instead. I promised to work as a team.
Off to that section. Here is a memorable comment in the script: "eating too much fat is fattening."
OK, what did I eat? I wrote down everything I ate and then, as instructed, I circled everything that I thought was high in fat. Eventually I just circled the whole darn food log. I am going to talk about my circling decisions next week, when my coach will work with me without hostility or ridicule.
Go team!!!!!!! (Oh, I do have a team, but it is private. The members have decided to wall themselves off from the general nasty diet community so that we could be free to discuss our low carb path without ridicule and interference from others.)
My first full day on the DPP went OK. I exercised 70 minutes, under-dressed in the cool sunshine. I ate a tasty and satisfying diet consisting of 60% artercloggingsaturated fat.
I already lost two percent of my body weight. I heard Jenny Ruhl say that you can lose tons of water weight on a low carb diet. OK, I am going to clarify that. There is losing weight due to a reduction in glycogen storage, but probably much more due to a reduction in inflammation. Either way, I am already at 1/3 of my goal, and at this rate I'll be there by next week.
I visited the NDEP site and found the script for the mandatory seminars (or here) that the lifestyle intervention arm had to sit through. A dreadful pile of training documents, explaining the purpose of other documents. Simply dreadful! This is where I learned that this was all to prevent diabetes, not a weight-loss program. Then they started in with the main intervention - weight loss! I started in with section one of the "Lifestyle Balance Introduction Manual" while having Total Quality Management flashbacks.
Step one - Meet the Lifestyle coach. This is where the coach coo's something like, "Oh, I'm your lifestyle coach. Isn't that faaaaaaabulous? We'll get to know each other soooooooo well during this program, like fer years, almost like we're sistas or something. I am SOOOOOO happy to meet you! Soooooo, lets all sit in a circle and hold hands and get to know each other, just like we did at summer camp. Sooooooo, how do you all feel about being the chosen few in this treatment arm? Isn't it soooooooo wonderful that you were chosen at random for the best arm? If you are having trouble with anything, we can meet one-on-one and I can solve any problem for you. Any questions?"
Of course, this conversation was just a little reverie for me, since I am in the low carb arm and there is no lifestyle coach for the low carb diet. Coach [redacted] made it very clear that she was to remain as hostile and un-supportive as possible. Other registerd dietitians made sure that it wouldn't be Steve Cooksey or other internet provider. So, I am going to be my own coach.
Here's what else my coach made me do. I received my lifestyle book. I had to discuss how I felt about all this. I had to choose between starting with weight loss or exercise. I had to sign an agreement with my coach. First I chose the exercise part, but then realized that the order of the classes would work better if I chose to focus on weight instead. I promised to work as a team.
Off to that section. Here is a memorable comment in the script: "eating too much fat is fattening."
OK, what did I eat? I wrote down everything I ate and then, as instructed, I circled everything that I thought was high in fat. Eventually I just circled the whole darn food log. I am going to talk about my circling decisions next week, when my coach will work with me without hostility or ridicule.
Go team!!!!!!! (Oh, I do have a team, but it is private. The members have decided to wall themselves off from the general nasty diet community so that we could be free to discuss our low carb path without ridicule and interference from others.)
Friday, January 11, 2013
MY OWN diabetes prevention program
This little story caught my attention, and I am surprised that it didn't reach the radar of others, like Eades, who follow the news feeds pretty well.
Now it is this type of article that brings out the libertarian in many a low-carber. Seems that the diabetes prevention program, based on a clinical study program of the same name, "proves" that their preferred lifestyle modification is superior to doing nothing. Is it superior to a low carb plan? Hmmm, I guess with these people in charge, we will never know. The really sucky thing is that now, as a taxpayer, I'll be forced to fund this make-work-program-for-registered-dietitians as it gets implemented throughout the entire Obama-care-o-sphere.
Seems like these researcher folks have proved that intensive one-on-one "coaching" and united-front eating recommendations have helped people. But I think I can do better on low carb.
Here's the 5th arm of the study. (n=1)
I followed a lowish carb diet (no more than 150 grams on most days, even though I tried to shovel it in). After a couple of months, I went lower carb. By 6 months in, I had lost 17 percent of my body weight. After one year, I had maintained most of that weight loss, and was in at 15 percent overall. During the second year, I quit exercising regularly. During the third year, I started progesterone and went off regular use of my appetite-destroying sleep medication and was on a good LC diet only about half the time. My weight did go higher, but the overall weight lost was still above 7 percent. That 7 percent was the aim of the study. The folks in the lifestyle intervention arm did lose 7 percent of their initial weight, but gained much of it back, even though they were attempting to follow the diet program and still exercising 100 minutes a week. The metformin group lost 4 percent, but gained it all back by 2.8 years.
Here's a little table showing the percent weight lost with the treatments across time.
treatment group 6 months 12 months 28 months 33.6 months
lifestyle intervention 7 % 7 % 4 %
metformin only 4 % 0 %
control 0 % 0 %
ME! 17 % 15 % 7 %
So here's what I am going to do. I am going to exercise my "restart" as outlined in the diabetes prevention program. Let's see how well I do by 33.6 months. Even though I have not been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, at the start of my lower carb diet, by fasting bg was 101 and my HbA1c was 5.8. I think those numbers are high enough to take action. Both numbers were better after a year, but I haven't gone to the doctor or taken any type of test since, except for blood pressure at the blood donation center. My blood pressure has continued to go down, as well as my waistline, despite the weight gain.
I am only showing out to the 2.8 years, because at that time, the study was stopped and the control and metformin groups were offered the lifestyle modification, and I haven't gotten out that far either. What I found really interesting is that when they compared the weight loss 10 years out between groups, they broke it out by age. (Go to this study and check out table 2.) The group similar to mine (C and G) had weight losses of diddly-squat over the entire time span. I bet I'll do better. I think Dr. Gardner's study showed that the low carb diet did better for women in my age group than the other types of diets.
Stay tuned!
Now it is this type of article that brings out the libertarian in many a low-carber. Seems that the diabetes prevention program, based on a clinical study program of the same name, "proves" that their preferred lifestyle modification is superior to doing nothing. Is it superior to a low carb plan? Hmmm, I guess with these people in charge, we will never know. The really sucky thing is that now, as a taxpayer, I'll be forced to fund this make-work-program-for-registered-dietitians as it gets implemented throughout the entire Obama-care-o-sphere.
Seems like these researcher folks have proved that intensive one-on-one "coaching" and united-front eating recommendations have helped people. But I think I can do better on low carb.
Here's the 5th arm of the study. (n=1)
I followed a lowish carb diet (no more than 150 grams on most days, even though I tried to shovel it in). After a couple of months, I went lower carb. By 6 months in, I had lost 17 percent of my body weight. After one year, I had maintained most of that weight loss, and was in at 15 percent overall. During the second year, I quit exercising regularly. During the third year, I started progesterone and went off regular use of my appetite-destroying sleep medication and was on a good LC diet only about half the time. My weight did go higher, but the overall weight lost was still above 7 percent. That 7 percent was the aim of the study. The folks in the lifestyle intervention arm did lose 7 percent of their initial weight, but gained much of it back, even though they were attempting to follow the diet program and still exercising 100 minutes a week. The metformin group lost 4 percent, but gained it all back by 2.8 years.
Here's a little table showing the percent weight lost with the treatments across time.
treatment group 6 months 12 months 28 months 33.6 months
lifestyle intervention 7 % 7 % 4 %
metformin only 4 % 0 %
control 0 % 0 %
ME! 17 % 15 % 7 %
So here's what I am going to do. I am going to exercise my "restart" as outlined in the diabetes prevention program. Let's see how well I do by 33.6 months. Even though I have not been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, at the start of my lower carb diet, by fasting bg was 101 and my HbA1c was 5.8. I think those numbers are high enough to take action. Both numbers were better after a year, but I haven't gone to the doctor or taken any type of test since, except for blood pressure at the blood donation center. My blood pressure has continued to go down, as well as my waistline, despite the weight gain.
I am only showing out to the 2.8 years, because at that time, the study was stopped and the control and metformin groups were offered the lifestyle modification, and I haven't gotten out that far either. What I found really interesting is that when they compared the weight loss 10 years out between groups, they broke it out by age. (Go to this study and check out table 2.) The group similar to mine (C and G) had weight losses of diddly-squat over the entire time span. I bet I'll do better. I think Dr. Gardner's study showed that the low carb diet did better for women in my age group than the other types of diets.
Stay tuned!
Thursday, January 10, 2013
This Just in for 2013 - Atkins beats out Paleo for the best diet
Yippie!, for the low carb diet! (OH, as a woo-fueled low-carb jihaddist, I just had to start with this. Sorry, and now, where was I?)
US News and World report has released it's yearlypopularity poll comprehensive study of the best diets. This year was even better, since the panel of experts did exhaustive and robust research.
The result? The Atkins beat out the Paleo diet. In fact, the Paleo diet came in dead last this year. Na na na na na.
I sure am glad the research was so robust as to winnow all that mess down the bestest and highest diets, like the experts own DASH diet, which for most of us, just means that clothing store the Kardashians have in Calabasas, not something you do so your butt will look smaller. And THANK GOODNESS doe's beechs of paleo weeeeded out that awful dangerous and disastrous epi-paleo guru before that disastrous and dangerous epi-paleo diet entered into the running.
There is an interesting category this year, the best diet for type 2 diabetes. It is interesting because it finally outs what researchers have been hiding from us all along, and that is the great results that diabetics have been having on the diets that are on the top of this list. The experts polled seem to have an affinity for the vegetarian plans. I guess the cat is out of the bag that eating meat causes lots of problems with your insulin. Here's the study. [Note: I'll have to fix that link as soon as some sort of study like that actually gets published, Ed.]
While I can certainly understand why the weighty obesity and diet experts are cautious about recommending any diet that does not have the gold-standard, crossover, multi-attitudinal, randomized, blind clinical study, I was not aware of all the great studies that have been going on at the leading edge of the oncoming wave of the tsunami that is obesity research. Diets such as the "Biggest Loser", "Flexitarian" and "Engine 2" diets have washed up onto the scene only recently, and the trials have resulted in positive results for obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This is why they received much higher scores than those scantily-data'd lower carb diets. You can read about all these studies here here and here. [Sorrrrry again, maybe someday I'll get around to fixing this, Ed.]
One take-away I got from this groundbreaking and robust study is that it exceeded even my expectations of a study where the percentage of registered dietitians exceeded 50 percent.
US News and World report has released it's yearly
The result? The Atkins beat out the Paleo diet. In fact, the Paleo diet came in dead last this year. Na na na na na.
I sure am glad the research was so robust as to winnow all that mess down the bestest and highest diets, like the experts own DASH diet, which for most of us, just means that clothing store the Kardashians have in Calabasas, not something you do so your butt will look smaller. And THANK GOODNESS doe's beechs of paleo weeeeded out that awful dangerous and disastrous epi-paleo guru before that disastrous and dangerous epi-paleo diet entered into the running.
There is an interesting category this year, the best diet for type 2 diabetes. It is interesting because it finally outs what researchers have been hiding from us all along, and that is the great results that diabetics have been having on the diets that are on the top of this list. The experts polled seem to have an affinity for the vegetarian plans. I guess the cat is out of the bag that eating meat causes lots of problems with your insulin. Here's the study. [Note: I'll have to fix that link as soon as some sort of study like that actually gets published, Ed.]
While I can certainly understand why the weighty obesity and diet experts are cautious about recommending any diet that does not have the gold-standard, crossover, multi-attitudinal, randomized, blind clinical study, I was not aware of all the great studies that have been going on at the leading edge of the oncoming wave of the tsunami that is obesity research. Diets such as the "Biggest Loser", "Flexitarian" and "Engine 2" diets have washed up onto the scene only recently, and the trials have resulted in positive results for obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This is why they received much higher scores than those scantily-data'd lower carb diets. You can read about all these studies here here and here. [Sorrrrry again, maybe someday I'll get around to fixing this, Ed.]
One take-away I got from this groundbreaking and robust study is that it exceeded even my expectations of a study where the percentage of registered dietitians exceeded 50 percent.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Yes, Dr. Lustig, I really NEEEED to be this extreme
What? Where do people come up with this?
Dr. Lustig is on the soapbox again, with a weird new piece on dieting. Here's an interesting quote:
"All successful diets share three precepts: low sugar, high fiber (which means high micronutrients), and fat and carbohydrate consumed together in the presence of an offsetting amount of fiber. Anything after that is window dressing."
I guess he gleaned all that information out of Dr. Gardner's A to Z study, which showed the Atkins diet to be the most successful. Despite the fact that the Atkins diet doesn't require one to take great pains to be sure that they are mixing their fat and carbohydrate together in the correct ratio that Dr. Lustig inadequately specifies, I am sure Dr. Gardner managed to sneak that part into his study, and that is the sole reason for the superior results on Atkins over the Ornish, Zone and "Mediterranean" diets.
Could it be that the Atkins dieters achieved results by eating all that window dressing? Nom, nom, hope the dressing was high fat, or at least from the window frame instead of the glass, providing as much of the fat-melting woody fiber as you could get from a piece of industrial high-fiber bread back when you were eating it. Hey, chopsticks anyone?
Dr. Lustig thinks we shouldn't be so extreme as to embrace the Atkins diet. Why? Hey, cause there's no MILK, he says! No milk, no vitamin D!! That is because all the cheese that those stooopid low carb jihadists are eating on the Atkins diet must have had all the vitamin D removed or never added. But somehow, the Paleo Diet (OK, where's my trademark key on this font??) gets a free hall pass, even though it specifically bans the essential food, even during the "ongoing weight loss" part of the diet.
Newsflash Dr. Lustig! The Atkins diet does not ban milk. The Paleo diet does. Now, which is more extreme? Oh, by the way, lets take a look at all the REAL foods that people on the Atkins diet are eating that contain vitamin D. If you follow the above link, you will see a list of really great foods that are staples of the diets my friends on Atkins eat. (Personally, I eat epi-paleo, an even more extreme diet. No Vitamin D there, either.) You will also notice that the list contains a sprinkling of foods that are usually not high on the list for Atkins or Paleo. Things like FORTIFIED milk, FORTIFIED soymilk, FORTIFIED cereals, etc.
Hey wait a minute! FORTIFIED MILK?????? What Dr. Lustig is telling us to do is to be careful about "extreme" diets that contain really great sources of vitamin D, and recommends diets that contain vitamin D supplements instead. How about a gob of FORTIFIED margarine with that FORTIFIED cereal? When did this form of fake eating become not only typical, but preferred? Just because it is typical doesn't mean it is optimal.
Dr. Lustig ends with this:
"All real food is inherently good. It's what we do to it that is bad. Food processing is the Mr. Hyde of the obesity pandemic. The way to reverse it is to do the opposite, to stop altering food and instead consume it in its natural state."
Great idea, but I am pretty sure that doesn't include drinking altered milk products.
Here's my advice for Dr. Lustig, if he really wants to navigate through the diet mess. First, read some of the clinical studies. Second, learn a bit about biochemistry and human body systems. I have stated recently on another blog that I am not a biochemist, but even I know that fiber is that stuff that goes through your intestines without getting broken down. Micronutrients are nutrients you need in small quantities. These are two different things. High fiber doesn't necessarily provide a high number of micronutrients like Lustig contends.
Dr. Lustig is on the soapbox again, with a weird new piece on dieting. Here's an interesting quote:
"All successful diets share three precepts: low sugar, high fiber (which means high micronutrients), and fat and carbohydrate consumed together in the presence of an offsetting amount of fiber. Anything after that is window dressing."
I guess he gleaned all that information out of Dr. Gardner's A to Z study, which showed the Atkins diet to be the most successful. Despite the fact that the Atkins diet doesn't require one to take great pains to be sure that they are mixing their fat and carbohydrate together in the correct ratio that Dr. Lustig inadequately specifies, I am sure Dr. Gardner managed to sneak that part into his study, and that is the sole reason for the superior results on Atkins over the Ornish, Zone and "Mediterranean" diets.
Could it be that the Atkins dieters achieved results by eating all that window dressing? Nom, nom, hope the dressing was high fat, or at least from the window frame instead of the glass, providing as much of the fat-melting woody fiber as you could get from a piece of industrial high-fiber bread back when you were eating it. Hey, chopsticks anyone?
Dr. Lustig thinks we shouldn't be so extreme as to embrace the Atkins diet. Why? Hey, cause there's no MILK, he says! No milk, no vitamin D!! That is because all the cheese that those stooopid low carb jihadists are eating on the Atkins diet must have had all the vitamin D removed or never added. But somehow, the Paleo Diet (OK, where's my trademark key on this font??) gets a free hall pass, even though it specifically bans the essential food, even during the "ongoing weight loss" part of the diet.
Newsflash Dr. Lustig! The Atkins diet does not ban milk. The Paleo diet does. Now, which is more extreme? Oh, by the way, lets take a look at all the REAL foods that people on the Atkins diet are eating that contain vitamin D. If you follow the above link, you will see a list of really great foods that are staples of the diets my friends on Atkins eat. (Personally, I eat epi-paleo, an even more extreme diet. No Vitamin D there, either.) You will also notice that the list contains a sprinkling of foods that are usually not high on the list for Atkins or Paleo. Things like FORTIFIED milk, FORTIFIED soymilk, FORTIFIED cereals, etc.
Hey wait a minute! FORTIFIED MILK?????? What Dr. Lustig is telling us to do is to be careful about "extreme" diets that contain really great sources of vitamin D, and recommends diets that contain vitamin D supplements instead. How about a gob of FORTIFIED margarine with that FORTIFIED cereal? When did this form of fake eating become not only typical, but preferred? Just because it is typical doesn't mean it is optimal.
Dr. Lustig ends with this:
"All real food is inherently good. It's what we do to it that is bad. Food processing is the Mr. Hyde of the obesity pandemic. The way to reverse it is to do the opposite, to stop altering food and instead consume it in its natural state."
Great idea, but I am pretty sure that doesn't include drinking altered milk products.
Here's my advice for Dr. Lustig, if he really wants to navigate through the diet mess. First, read some of the clinical studies. Second, learn a bit about biochemistry and human body systems. I have stated recently on another blog that I am not a biochemist, but even I know that fiber is that stuff that goes through your intestines without getting broken down. Micronutrients are nutrients you need in small quantities. These are two different things. High fiber doesn't necessarily provide a high number of micronutrients like Lustig contends.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
It IS the end of the world, and here come the zombies!
I have trouble keeping it straight. Oh gosh, I go from being a suspected neo-Nazi because I refuse to trash people I haven't been bothering to track since the 60's or whatever, to see how badly-behaved they continue to be, and then I am publicly outed on the interwebz as a known follower of Kruse.
Destruction fer sure, my tent is destroyed, my curtains in a moment.
Thankfully, there is a new guru, shimmering in the distance, in a different time zone and state of mind. Lord Peter and his high-fat diet will save me. And I am included with the "yous guys" pit of vipers as I do not waver for one minute from my allegiance to my beloved guru.
Now I am searching on Youtube at this late hour, for a Peter webinar, or maybe in another time when he was a kid and played the guitar badly and thought it would be OK to post it anyway, or off to Etsy for a handmade Peter plush toy that I can cuddle with late at night when the carb demons call, and my computer room echoes the chants and rants of all the trolls disguised as obesity researchers, who taunt and ignore me on various blogs and websites I both despise and visit regularly. And yet I am fixated on the purpose of oscillating secretions. And how Lord Peter turned compost into whole eggs, water into wine, white fat into brown, while the evil one turns Peter's staff of merry followers into snakesssssss.
P.S. Dear Peter, Yes! I have unconditionally accepted everything that you have said, even though your brilliance has blinded me with pseudoscience. And maybe you are totally wrong on most points, but the only biochemist I could find to review all the posts and tweets is currently in the lair of Joel Fuhrman, and he probably won't come around and start reading them until his health starts to improve, and that may be awhile so I hope everyone else is patient with me.
And, taking a stroll over at the video bin, I found this great vid from the latest "Pit of Vipers" conference. Look at all the clinicians and crazy people there. I have finally come home.
Or, is it really just a dream?
Destruction fer sure, my tent is destroyed, my curtains in a moment.
Thankfully, there is a new guru, shimmering in the distance, in a different time zone and state of mind. Lord Peter and his high-fat diet will save me. And I am included with the "yous guys" pit of vipers as I do not waver for one minute from my allegiance to my beloved guru.
Now I am searching on Youtube at this late hour, for a Peter webinar, or maybe in another time when he was a kid and played the guitar badly and thought it would be OK to post it anyway, or off to Etsy for a handmade Peter plush toy that I can cuddle with late at night when the carb demons call, and my computer room echoes the chants and rants of all the trolls disguised as obesity researchers, who taunt and ignore me on various blogs and websites I both despise and visit regularly. And yet I am fixated on the purpose of oscillating secretions. And how Lord Peter turned compost into whole eggs, water into wine, white fat into brown, while the evil one turns Peter's staff of merry followers into snakesssssss.
P.S. Dear Peter, Yes! I have unconditionally accepted everything that you have said, even though your brilliance has blinded me with pseudoscience. And maybe you are totally wrong on most points, but the only biochemist I could find to review all the posts and tweets is currently in the lair of Joel Fuhrman, and he probably won't come around and start reading them until his health starts to improve, and that may be awhile so I hope everyone else is patient with me.
And, taking a stroll over at the video bin, I found this great vid from the latest "Pit of Vipers" conference. Look at all the clinicians and crazy people there. I have finally come home.
Or, is it really just a dream?
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
2012 Year in Review
And, Oh! What a year it has been. And now, I have cycled right back to where we were, both sidereally and weightwise.
I started out with a bang in January, with the leptin reset and Robb Wolf's recommendations. This success led me to being fired by my rheumetologist. Yay! I didn't keep good records, but the 5-week experience plus the later month-long "Paleo on 100 dollars a month" challenge left me 15 pounds lighter.
Then I started CT in earnest. Yay!
But, then summer crept forward, the garden carbs called me, I started a half-assed compliance program. My mindless following of my guru was stalled when he was made to walk the gangplank. He then circled his wagons, with a paywall all around, and I lost both the new community and my enthusiasm. Walked away from all the paleo crap, too. When I got into dietary trouble, I'd just fire up the cold tub and fix it. OK, that worked for awhile.
Eventually, this C-student attitude got me into gaining all the weight back. (But wait! It wasn't "and then some.") I kept getting serious for a week or so, then eating a bunch of wheat or bbq sweet corn, and gain a few pounds.
By fall, as a result of my big mouth and my insistence on speaking truth to power, I was walking the gangplank as well, right off that [redacted] site and into the cold, deep blue sea.
So, lets recap. I was on a half-assed diet for most of the year, I didn't do any more aerobics than my active lifestyle already affords. If someone handed me a piece of cake, I ate it. If someone didn't, I didn't eat it. I didn't eat on little plates. I didn't chew my food thirty times. I didn't starve myself. I didn't log in every day and spin a stupid wheel. I didn't eat potatoes. I didn't not eat potatoes. I didn't troll neo-nazi sites to see what they were eating. I didn't track my food, I just salted it, buttered it, just ate it. And, when I was full, I quit eating. I didn't do testing. I didn't sign up for personal coaching. I didn't count my satfat grams. I didn't even count my carbs, except for grins. I didn't pay for a webinar. I didn't go to a Paleo convention or make any paleo brownies. I did no crossfit. I did not give up or butter my coffee. I did not sous vide or confit anything. No monthly hormone panels, no 23andme, no suitcases full of supplements, no dopamine-enhancing drugs to swallow every morning. I did not buy a single bag of ice.
This fall, after spending a year fixing things hormonally, and reading more of Dr. Kruse and Dr. B G, I started on progesterone. I feel wonderful on it, and just gained a few pounds, each pound being incredibly worth it. I started having a more normal response to carbs, a resiliency to physical activity (and a hot climate!) I haven't enjoyed since menopause, but learned that I must be very careful with carbs in order to keep out of a hormonal imbalance. I got more skin tags and aches and pains. There is more water weight in the mix, and I haven't sorted it all out yet. But there is also the fact that I completely stopped my sleep medication (yea, that one that caused me to quit eating and lose all that weight and appetite). Before progesterone, I found that I couldn't go for more than 2-3 days without the sleep medication, or I would lose sleep, gain weight and get a bit cranky. This time, with the progesterone, I was able to go through a couple of weeks, with moderate crankiness only after a few days of high-GI carbs like cake and cookies.
And what happened with my weight? Nothing. (This has never happened before. I either gained or was miserable trying to lose or tread water.) My belly fat is less, people still ask me if I lost weight, my skin is so much better, and I have fallen in love with CT.
My plan for 2013 is to continue with my fixed hormonal system and CT, continue to eat meat and veggies with few grains, increase my aerobic exercise and see what happens. I will probably throw in another "100 dollar challenge, we'll see if the dollar amount goes up though.
Happy New Year!!
I started out with a bang in January, with the leptin reset and Robb Wolf's recommendations. This success led me to being fired by my rheumetologist. Yay! I didn't keep good records, but the 5-week experience plus the later month-long "Paleo on 100 dollars a month" challenge left me 15 pounds lighter.
Then I started CT in earnest. Yay!
But, then summer crept forward, the garden carbs called me, I started a half-assed compliance program. My mindless following of my guru was stalled when he was made to walk the gangplank. He then circled his wagons, with a paywall all around, and I lost both the new community and my enthusiasm. Walked away from all the paleo crap, too. When I got into dietary trouble, I'd just fire up the cold tub and fix it. OK, that worked for awhile.
Eventually, this C-student attitude got me into gaining all the weight back. (But wait! It wasn't "and then some.") I kept getting serious for a week or so, then eating a bunch of wheat or bbq sweet corn, and gain a few pounds.
By fall, as a result of my big mouth and my insistence on speaking truth to power, I was walking the gangplank as well, right off that [redacted] site and into the cold, deep blue sea.
So, lets recap. I was on a half-assed diet for most of the year, I didn't do any more aerobics than my active lifestyle already affords. If someone handed me a piece of cake, I ate it. If someone didn't, I didn't eat it. I didn't eat on little plates. I didn't chew my food thirty times. I didn't starve myself. I didn't log in every day and spin a stupid wheel. I didn't eat potatoes. I didn't not eat potatoes. I didn't troll neo-nazi sites to see what they were eating. I didn't track my food, I just salted it, buttered it, just ate it. And, when I was full, I quit eating. I didn't do testing. I didn't sign up for personal coaching. I didn't count my satfat grams. I didn't even count my carbs, except for grins. I didn't pay for a webinar. I didn't go to a Paleo convention or make any paleo brownies. I did no crossfit. I did not give up or butter my coffee. I did not sous vide or confit anything. No monthly hormone panels, no 23andme, no suitcases full of supplements, no dopamine-enhancing drugs to swallow every morning. I did not buy a single bag of ice.
This fall, after spending a year fixing things hormonally, and reading more of Dr. Kruse and Dr. B G, I started on progesterone. I feel wonderful on it, and just gained a few pounds, each pound being incredibly worth it. I started having a more normal response to carbs, a resiliency to physical activity (and a hot climate!) I haven't enjoyed since menopause, but learned that I must be very careful with carbs in order to keep out of a hormonal imbalance. I got more skin tags and aches and pains. There is more water weight in the mix, and I haven't sorted it all out yet. But there is also the fact that I completely stopped my sleep medication (yea, that one that caused me to quit eating and lose all that weight and appetite). Before progesterone, I found that I couldn't go for more than 2-3 days without the sleep medication, or I would lose sleep, gain weight and get a bit cranky. This time, with the progesterone, I was able to go through a couple of weeks, with moderate crankiness only after a few days of high-GI carbs like cake and cookies.
And what happened with my weight? Nothing. (This has never happened before. I either gained or was miserable trying to lose or tread water.) My belly fat is less, people still ask me if I lost weight, my skin is so much better, and I have fallen in love with CT.
My plan for 2013 is to continue with my fixed hormonal system and CT, continue to eat meat and veggies with few grains, increase my aerobic exercise and see what happens. I will probably throw in another "100 dollar challenge, we'll see if the dollar amount goes up though.
Happy New Year!!
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