I’m surprised by what my brain absorbs and clings onto. I just re-read my original Dietary Musings post. It was two years ago when I looked into a vegan/whole food plant based diet. I planned to record my ailments that the books I was reading claimed would be resolved by eating this way to track my progress. It….didn’t go well :). Cutting all animal products out of my diet made me tired, constantly hungry and didn’t cure anything. I dropped it after less than a month of creating unique recipes that frankly didn’t taste like much of anything at all and went back to my original American diet which includes bouts of low calorie eating combined with overeating at restaurants and binge drinking.
I decided “to hell with it” I’ve been trying to lose weight my whole life. I’ve done it in spurts of starving myself, but that’s not sustainable. And every time I did that I still looked fat despite the numbers on the scale decreasing. I was skinny fat. Since I was starving myself my body was eating as much, if not more, muscle than fat so my overall body composition barely changed even while I got smaller. So I decided to just go with the flow. I’d eat when I was hungry, I’d drink what I wanted to, eat out when I wanted (within the budget 🙂 ). This was also our last 6 months in NYC which led me to say yes to basically any suggestion to get all the NYC experiences I could. And I’m glad I did because when I went back to visit a year later it felt totally different and honestly I hated being there. Seattle had fully won me over :). When I get to Seattle, even when my partner is elsewhere, I feel happy. NYC had the literal opposite effect.
So I went along with this philosophy of “forget it” until recently. I ate everything in sight! We were in a new city and I needed to experience it. I drank whenever I wanted, which was frequently given the culture of ad agencies and the stress of building a new life across the country without friends or family. At the end of this I started realizing I couldn’t fit into some of my underwear, then my bras, then my pants. Uh oh. I’m fine getting fat, but not buying new clothes! I finally gave in and did buy new pants – my only clothing purchase of 2016, but the rest was a no go.
I finally weighed myself and had a shock. I was 180 pounds. The heaviest I had ever been. I was shocked, but it made sense. I’d see pictures of myself and think “who is that?!” I thought I looked great, but pictures told a different story. So I decided to get back on the wagon. Tracking my calories with MyFitnessPal and going low calorie. Cutting back on alcohol. While I was home for the holidays my Mom suggested I do what she’s doing.
A year before she had read something about sugars and decreasing those by paying attention to your net carbs. At the time I thought it sounded like a fad diet, but her results spoke for them self. She’d lose 1.5-2 pounds a week. I thought it was because she was different from me. I thought it was a fad. I asked her to explain it to me. She said that sugars make her hold onto fat and water so she looks after her net carbs (carbs minus fiber)….I had no idea sugar was a carb. There was obviously a lot to learn :).
So I jumped in. I went to the grocery store, got rid of the obvious carb laden foods, discovered there are hidden sugars in basically everything processed (diet cereal, juice, pasta sauce and more – SNEAKY!) and got rid of that too. I bought frozen fish, cheese, eggs and butter. I discovered I had never in my adult life bought butter. I had to ask where it was located. I aimed to keep my net carbs under 20 grams/day while eating lots of fat and more protein. I basically turned my diet upside down. And the results were INSANE. In the first week I lost 5 pounds. That would usually take me 5 WEEKS of going to bed hungry and being understandably grouchy. WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?!?!
So I went on one of my information binges. I watched and read the following as well as an innumerable amount of blog posts:
– That Sugar Film
– The Perfect Human Diet
– Low Carb: Fat or Fiction?
– My Big Fat Diet
– The Truth About Fat
– Love Paleo
– Your Personal Paleo Code
– Addictocarb
– That Sugar Book
Fat Head was the most enlightening and actually pointed me to many of the others. Shockingly I had watched it before and somehow forgotten it or not let it sink it. Unlike what I watched and read about veganism two years ago everything was presented with studies, facts with sources and experts in the field. I’ve watched it too may times to count in the last month. The most shocking thing I learned was that carbs, once ingested, are literally turned to sugar in the body. They are identical. When you have carbs your body needs to get rid of it because too much is toxic so your body releases insulin and insulin doesn’t let fat come out of your fat cells because it wants the cells to eat the carbs instead. When you eat a lot of carbs and when your blood sugar is high you literally can’t lose fat. Instead we should eat more fat and protein so that our body can let go of our body fat. We have only been eating grains and other carbs heavily the last few hundred years. For millions of years we subsisted on meat, saturated fat, veggies and a little bit of nuts and fruit. And when we ate like that we didn’t have the diseases of civilization (heart disease, cancer, tooth decay etc.) WHAAAAAT?!?! I had never heard this before.
But wasn’t fat bad for you? Fat Head explained the bad science that came from too. And how and why the government pushed this on us. What our food pyramid is actually meant to do: sell US agricultural products, not determine healthy nutrition. Wow. Wow times a million. I knew the world was a depressing place (Thanks for making me laugh while telling me about it John Oliver) but this was a whole new level. I was shocked, but my anecdotal evidence supported it.
It’s now been a month of eating this way and I’ve never felt so happy, full or excited to eat my food. Butter sure makes a difference :). I’ve always heard “your diet is how you eat – it’s not something you do for a few months” and this is the first time I could completely keep eating a certain way for the rest of my life. I look forward to every meal because they’re delicious – it’s actually made me accidentally cut down a lot on eating out because my food tastes just as good! I’m suddenly a good cook! I haven’t gone over my 1,200 calorie goal once during this month (weekly deficient average). That has NEVER happened before and it’s never been this easy. Some days I’m not hungry at night and have a few hundred calories left that I make myself eat. Woah. Unheard of. I’ve never felt this happy, alert and motivated. I’m sleeping better and I feel great. Who knew?
I thought that since my favorite foods were pasta and ice cream that I would have cravings or want to have a cheat day. So while I was at a bachelorette party at Disneyland I allowed myself to try some of the things I’d cut out. I had a mojito – and it gave me a headache almost immediately (sugar?). I had pasta, my former love, and was underwhelmed. I would have been happier with the same sauce on top of broccoli or cauliflower. After I ate the pasta I felt sleepy and heavy. Meh. Carbs seem to just be a vehicle. Change the vehicle and I still get the delicious part (e.g. the pasta sauce). Other than that I stayed away from the bread baskets on the table and it was surprisingly not that difficult. I’m in this for the long haul.
In this month I have lost 11 pounds. After only a month of trying I’m lighter than I ever was in 2016 despite dieting constantly. That would have taken me almost 3 months normally. According to calories in vs calories out I should have lost 4 pounds. And my loss has not just been water weight. I’ve lost several inches (2-3) from my waist and hips. It’s really noticeable in pictures. Who knew that your body shuts down fat burning when you drink alcohol because they have to get rid of the poison first? (which explains my lack of weight loss in NYC while I drank a lot, but didn’t eat a lot) Who knew that it’s not how many calories, but what kind of calories? Shocking. Now I’m jumping into reading more about this way of eating (called keto and sometimes paleo+dairy or LCHF (low carb, high fat)). I’m so happy my Mom showed me this way of eating and I’m so excited to see where it takes me.