Sharing the Magic of Low Carb Living

Closing Doors and Moving On...What a Whirlwind Fall Has Been!

2012-02-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

My friends absolutely love it in Colorado, and I'm happy for them. I'm even more happy that we did not go there. As my husband's focus switched from a knee-jerk, fear-based plan for retirement to something more in line with what we both actually want for ourselves, something that we work towards creating, the situation suddenly changed.

After moving away from genetically modified corn, sugar and mostly soy, the health problems we came home from Colorado with cleared. So, my husband went to visit a friend of his he hadn't seen in awhile. At that time, he learned that this friend had recently switched jobs. He was now working for a large construction company who had a rather large project they had just started for Nu-Skin about an hour and twenty minutes north of here. My husband went to see the foreman of that job site, filled out an app, and was hired within a couple of weeks.

We were both shocked!

I've looked online for him before, but had only been able to find job possibilities that required paperwork and/or a high school diploma. Neither of which was viable in my husband's situation. So, we half expected this opportunity to fall through too -- only it didn't. As a result, we closed the doors on my husband's handyman business a couple of months ago, and he has now returned to the workforce.

The relief from daily stress has been particularly motivating for him, as well as the fact that the company pays higher-than-union wages, although they are no longer union. His classification is a Journeyman Carpenter. That's as high as a worker can go in that company. He has no ambition or desire to be a supervisor, or anything like unto, which I certainly do not blame him for. The point in applying for this job and leaving his own business was to get rid of stress and to work out ways to accomplish our own dreams for retirement. What he makes right now can do all of that.

So life is better. Much better for us. Finally...

I would have to say none too soon though, as one of my credit cards, which I was forced by situation to default on after that flea-bomb fiasco, took steps to secure a court judgment against me. After which they decided they needed the money in my husband's bank account more than he did. So, since I do not have a paycheck that can be garnished and my name is on my husband's bank account, the lawyer for this particular credit card company garnished my husband's checking account for EVERYTHING he had in there.

Although Utah is not a community property state, my name is on my husband's accounts since he is unable to pay the bills himself. That's the downside to living in Utah. When it comes to business, they are pretty cut-throat here. I've since been able to make deals with our 4 cards, including the one who garnished me, so everything has calmed down -- but that totally wiped out our dream of finally having a real Christmas this year. Plus, it made it more difficult to work out deals with all credit card companies concerned. But then, that's just the way life goes sometimes.

My garden faltered early this past fall. Although freezing temperatures were late in coming this year, my Italian tomatoes got some sort of black-spot bacterial infection which spread quickly and wiped out the entire garden. I don't plan on planting this next year at all. Something isn't right with the dirt out there. I know that because as soon as I stopped going out there, my health problems I was enduring over the summer instantly vanished. There is definitely something wrong with the dirt.

January did bring urges to return to a PSMF diet, a protein-sparing modified fast, but I don't think my body can handle the extremes anymore. Up until now, I've been able to pretty much trick the body into burning my fat stores, but this time around I didn't last more than a day before leptin started crashing. Hunger was unbearable, vertigo went crazy and I just couldn't handle how it was making me bedridden.

Now, maybe that's a mental problem since the vertigo has been particularly difficult this winter anyways, and maybe it isn't -- I don't know. In the meantime, I've joined Weight Watchers online to see what that plan is all about. I've heard that some people experience good results by combining a low-carb diet with Weight Watchers, but I don't know that I will actually go that route.

I'm finding that every time I lower my carbs these days, I actually gain a pound or two. And when I eat closer to 60 or 80 carbohydrates per day, those pounds come right back off. Maybe my body is trying to trick me into eating carbs. Or maybe my leptin levels really are crashing much sooner these days. It's hard to tell. Either way, I'm not exactly sure what my next step is actually going to be. I'm just in research mode right now.

Thinking About Moving to Colorado

2011-08-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 160

Lately, life has been crazy. We got caught up in a small whirlwind that is just beginning to calm. It all started when we got a frantic phone call from a friend of ours, asking us to go and pick up her kids from dad.

The kids had wanted to stay with their dad at his farm for the summer, but discovered fairly quickly that living with dad wasn't the fun and games they had expected. So we met dad and kids in the parking lot of a local grocery store, and brought the kids to our house. We figured that if the kids "wanted" to come to our house, then things had to be bad -- at least, from their' point of view.

Now, normally when our friend comes to visit us (she lives in Las Vegas), she leaves early on Friday, and stays in our upstairs spare bedroom Friday and Saturday night, before going back home. But this time, with such short notice, she wouldn't be able to leave until Saturday morning so we offered to take the kids to her. It was the weekend that the last Harry Potter movie was coming out, and I figured we could just see it down there.

She totally went for that idea, and pre-purchased us tickets to see Harry Potter in 3-D for late Saturday afternoon.

For awhile now, this friend has been trying to get us to leave Utah and move to the Las Vegas area, but my husband has never been receptive to that idea. If you've been reading my blogs for any length of time, then you know how hard it's been for us to try and make a living here, but my husband has always feared that trying somewhere else would be just as hard, or worse -- since we'd be basically starting over. Plus the expense of moving, buying new business licenses, and all of that would kill us.

The last time my friend came to visit us, she asked us to start looking for a 5-acre plot in our area, with a house on it. The idea was to find something she could use for retirement. She just turned 50, or so, and is starting to think about what she's going to do when she retires. Her plan was to find something that could basically be self sustainable. Solar power, gardens, fruit trees, animals, that kind of thing.

However, central Utah essentially has NO growing season. We're talking 8 to 10 weeks max. For example, this year, we were not able to plant until after the 10th of June or so, and the weather has been rainy throughout, and it is now passed the 10th of August with no real harvest yet -- except for tons of zucchini and a couple handfuls of green beans. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the frost stays away long enough for the Italian type tomatoes to ripen.

So then my friend came up with the idea of all of us moving to Colorado, and living together. She had driven through Grand Junction once (and had talked about it several times), and thought maybe that's where we should all go. She had recently been promoted to Clinical Director of the mental health section of a hospital there in Las Vegas, and said she would be willing to donate her "raise" to pay the mortgage.

She was still talking a 5-acre plot, with a house that we could either fix to suit or build extra dwellings on, because that's what her raise could afford. And that's what she had been proposing to her older son and his family for quite some time now. Getting some land, and building 2 separate houses on it. So it didn't sound like such a bad idea, even when it evolved into including her older son; because we thought she was talking about 3 separate dwellings. Or at least 2, so that Ray and I could be kept separate.

In Vegas, however, she suddenly came up with the idea that we shouldn't wait for something in Colorado to materialize, but should rent a large house together. We could save expenses. She approached us with the idea that she wanted me to basically be a stay-at-home aunt to her kids.

The first thing out of my mouth was -- "But what about my gluten problems?" Her answer was: "What about them? The only thing the kids HAVE to have is their Oreo cookies, and they can just keep them in their room." So it sounded like she was willing to work with my health issues.

We did find a house that would suit. A two-story with a large enough second floor that she and the kids could set up a small living room and kitchenette-type combo (in addition to the 3 bedrooms up there) with a small refrigerator and microwave -- because, her kids did eat more than just Oreo cookies. And the kids had no intention of going gluten free. That wasn't happening. Still, with the bottom floor a gluten-free zone, it would work. The worse that might happen was that I'd have to go to the laundry mat since the washer and dryer was upstairs.

So she gave the guy a check to cover move-in, and signed the papers.

Then out of the blue, things began to snowball rather quickly. Her older son had taken off for Colorado to go to a job interview to work at one of the mines over there. The plan, as we knew it to be, was for him to get a job, move his family to Colorado, then begin looking for the right place that would fulfill all of our needs. Only that's not what he did. He did go to the job interview, and told us he had the job if he wanted it, but he spent most of the time over there looking for a farm. Not for a place that he, and his family, could move into.

Up until this time, we had been trying and trying to get him and his wife to come over and talk to us about all of this. We wanted to know their feelings about our gluten problems, and wanted to know where their heads were in regards to what his mom wanted to do. But they wouldn't. They would set up a time to come over, but would always back out of it at the last minute.

Suddenly, out of the blue, we got a phone call. The older son had found something he said would be absolutely perfect for all of us to live in. A 20-acre farm! He took pictures and sent them to both us and his mom. The pictures looked good. The owner was willing to finance the property themselves. The downside was that they wanted $285,000 with 5% down, which was more than his mom's raise could handle.

When our friend called us later that night, she said for some odd reason, the check she'd given the owner of the house in Vegas had been rejected by the bank. She didn't know why but was looking at that as some type of "sign" that we were not supposed to move to Vegas. And was now wondering about the house in Colorado. She would have to get a job there, obviously, for a cut in pay, but was busy crunching the numbers to see if she could still make things work.

The mortgage payment would be around $1500 a month she said, and it was looking like it was only going to take about four $10-an-hour jobs to meet expenses each month, including a budget of $1,000 a month to put into the property to make it livable for all of us, plus self sustaining. Still that didn't sound bad, so when she said she wanted all of us to go and look at Colorado, we said okay. We would go and look.

With the reservation, that if this wasn't the right place, that maybe we should just all move to Colorado when my friend's present lease runs out, and keep looking for a place. We said that SEVERAL times. But you know how that goes. People only hear what they want to hear.

My husband decided that we would hitch a ride with our friend's older son to where we were planning on meeting our friend, and then switch vehicles. That way we wouldn't have to pay for the gas, since we were already struggling financially after paying to take the kids home to Vegas. The first thing the older son said to me when picking us up, was if he needed to throw out the McDonald's bag, because they had stopped and gotten lunch before picking us up.

So to me, that sounded like he was going to be mindful of my gluten issues, which I appreciated, because this whole living-together scenario had me extremely worried. Cross contamination creates a lot of problems, and there are so many products that have undisclosed gluten in them due to fragrances being a trade secret. But they weren't sending up any red flags...yet.

One of the first questions I asked the older son as we headed towards where we were to meet up with his mother, was if he was a "workaholic." He got a very funny look on his face, (giant red flag), looked over at his wife who was driving (she gets car sick if she doesn't drive), and she said -- "He's a very hard worker."

Now, what does that mean? That wasn't what I asked. So the reply made me a bit nervous.

Colorado only got worse. The property was a complete wreck. Although it had a couple of acres of alfalfa growing on it, the soil was clay and NOT good for fruits and veggies. The irrigation water was some kind of crazy setup that didn't currently work, so it would have to be redone. The property was mainly dessert.

The floor in the kitchen was buckling -- either from tree roots growing up underneath the floor (like it was doing in the garage -- where it had tore a large hole in the center of the cement flooring), or from clay soil underneath the house not draining properly. The property did slope "into" the house, rather than away from it. And although the owner claimed he had fixed that problem, you could easily see that it wasn't fixed.

My husband talked to some construction workers working on the motel we were staying at, and was given a quote that it was going to take a minimum of $20,000 to fix the kitchen floor. The garage was going to be another $5,000. Plus, if we turned it into a dwelling for my husband and I, it would take thousands and thousands more, because we would have to dig another cesspool, as well as construct a kitchenette and bathroom.

There was lots of cracking inside the house, which wasn't really any big deal, but just a flag that the kitchen floor problem could not be ignored. Most likely, it was going to get worse. Lots of other stuff wrong with the house too, and from my husband's professional house-remodeling opinion, it was going to take lots of work. Way more work than we wanted to get ourselves into. Especially when my friend told us that she expected my husband to work on the property 7 days a week, and her older son said he wanted me to go back to work to help pay for all of the expenses.

The bigger issue was that none of them wanted to give up their current lifestyles to meet my gluten-free needs. They flat out said they would not deny their kids' their accustomed treats, (or their tendency to carry crackers and Fruit Loops with them everywhere they go) and would continue to take wheat-bread sandwiches to work. Plus there was the dog food to consider, and even adult styles of living like my friend dying her hair every 2 weeks. It was obvious from the discussion that it was not going to work.

My husband offered for he and I to move into a small apartment in town, save up our money, and then purchase a used manufactured dwelling of some type, and move it onto the property. In the meanwhile, he would help them work on the place. My friend's older son said: "That isn't working together."

Huh????

Turns out, he was only interested in getting what he wanted -- the farm -- and that's all he was interested in. He didn't care about the house problems. He didn't care what happens to me when I get glutened (his response was "everybody gets sick"). He wanted our money, and our labor so he could fulfill his dreams of owning a farm.

Now, the sad thing about all of this is that we did have discussions for 2 days. We did voice our negative opinions from the very beginning. Including how sensitive to gluten I am, and about how that includes non-food products as well as food. We voiced the fact that physically my husband and I can't work 12 hour days, 7 days a week.

So their reaction when we flatly said "NO. We don't want to be involved in this," on day 2, was stupid. So was the pressure to conform that we got from them, the put-downs we endured, the attempts to manipulate us, and then the outright verbal attacks and accusations.

What hurts the most is that our friend only asked her son what "his" dream was. No one ever asked us what our dreams for retirement are. What we want our retirement to look like. Be like. Running a farm 24-7 when my husband is too old to work in the house-remodeling business is not retirement. Nor is that our dream. And it was clear to see that as soon as we did retire, there would be resentment all the way around.

The one good thing that resulted from that trip? We discovered that we like the Montrose Colorado area very much.

1-bedroom apartments go for $400 a month, way more doable when we get to the point to where we're living on a social security check. Food was less than it costs here, farmer's markets and organic produce was everywhere. There was a health food store right in town. We didn't get to scout out the area as well as we would have liked, since we didn't have a vehicle and were limited to what we could get to within walking distance.

But the want ads also looked good. Lots of work being advertised for. In fact, my husband got a call from Colorado Work Force Services (or whatever they call it there) telling him there was a job in Durango for a construction worker that fit his qualifications right now. While the pay is lower than he's making here, running his own handyman service, we're trying to scrape by with only 25 to 30 hours a week. So less but steady, would be a big help. However, Durango is too far from Montrose, but it was encouraging.

The next step is cutting back on expenses so we can save up enough money to make the move.

Interestingly enough, now that my husband has made the decision to leave Utah, lots of work has suddenly started to come in for both of us. So I'm hopeful that we can make this happen.

Organic Jack Cheese Was a Bust!

2011-07-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5 lbs
Today's Weight: 161 lbs

I spent the past few days in Las Vegas visiting some friends of ours, but while I was there, I thought it was a great time to check out Whole Foods Market and grab me some organic cheese. Since we had planned to go to the most recent Harry Potter movie in 3D on Saturday night, I didn't try eating any cheese until later on. Didn't want to have a vertigo attack before the movie, in case it didn't work. And I didn't want to have to be carried out of the theater. Skipped the popcorn too, since I didn't know if the fat they popped it in was dairy free.

I wish I could say that the problem with my ears is due to pesticides and/or herbicides, but I can't. In a way, that makes me sad, because one of my most favorite things is cheese. But the organic Jack, even though I only ate a single 1oz slice, didn't make any difference. Within 20 to 30 minutes, my ears started swelling, leaving me in a lot of pain. In addition, I experienced brain fog, ataxia, and was more than a little dizzy for the rest of the evening.

Oh well...that means the only pot of gold I have left to look in -- is mercury poisoning.

Moving More Towards Being As Organic As I Can Be

2011-07-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I weighed this morning, I forgot to check because I overslept and needed to whip up a fast breakfast. (But I weighed in at 159 Saturday morning.) So I chopped up the lean parts of some bacon ends I had left, (with a little bit of the fat), and scrambled them into a few eggs. For my morning carbs, I had a thin slice of gluten free toast.

My blood glucose levels are still a bit sluggish from the last Malathione spraying we got on Friday night, (it interferes with the body's ability to either create or release insulin); but overall, I'm doing well figuring out what I can eat, as well as my upper maintenance carb limit to keep everything purring along nicely. Nicely meaning a predictable enough blood glucose rise that I don't have to constantly check what it takes to keep me at less than 140 mg/dl at 1 hour, and 120 mg/dl at 2 hours.

What I've noticed is that within the first 15 minutes, or so, I get an exaggerated adrenaline response (I get all shaky and buzzy) if my glucose level is going to go over 140 mg/dl by that first hour mark. That use to only happen if I exceeded 169 mg/dl, which is way too high – and sets me up for pain and tingling in my feet and lower legs.

I'm learning that for me, the trick is to keep my blood glucose levels normal most of the time, and then I'll know when I've eaten something I shouldn't have eaten. Or eaten too much of it. Because as long as 84 mg/dl is normal, and my body accepts that as normal, it will tell me when things go too high without having to test. That way I can either lower the amount I eat of that food the next time, or just skip it. But if 110 mg/dl is what my body considers normal, then I'm going to be in the danger zone without knowing it, if I don't poke myself.

Course, what I can eat today and maintain my current 160 lbs won't be what I can eat once I reach my goal weight of 125 lbs. I do understand that...clearly. BUT learning to keep myself at this current level, and maintain what I've lost so far, does give me a better idea of what I'll be able to eat once I reach the finish line.

The kicker is that the 10 pounds I gained from eating lots of home-grown beef has stuck. I was so hoping that going beef and dairy free would help me carve that off again. But it didn't. It just stopped the upward trend. So I'm now thinking that perhaps beef and dairy both are more contaminated with pesticides and chemicals than I realized.

I think my next step is going to be moving even closer to a more natural, organic diet. I've been fighting that idea for awhile now. Probably as long as I've been fighting the dairy free idea. But I had company come in for the weekend, and we went to a small cafe for lunch where I ordered a salad with thousand island dressing. I remembered to demand no croutons, but forgot that their grilled chicken salad came with finely grated cheddar cheese that was impossible to pick out.

Although I tried to remove as much of it as I could, I did eat some of it. Within 20 minutes, or so, my ears started swelling, and I fought off a vertigo attack for most of the day. So I'm seriously thinking that the dairy is gone for good, no matter how much I don't want it to be.

Except...the one thing I haven't tried yet is ORGANIC dairy. When we lived in southern California, I did use organic milk. I saw improvement, but still coughed and wheezed a bit after using it. However, upon looking back, I was still eating regular cheese, sour cream, butter, etc., so I really wasn't doing anything for myself by using organic milk on my low carb cereal.

I've been using a tiny bit of non-dairy cheese, but that's a starch with a very little bit of pea protein. And quite expensive, so I can't use expense as an excuse any longer. Besides, the one comment I read this past week that really struck home with me was about Round Up weed and herbicide.

We have tons of modified grains like soy and corn and potatoes, etc. We have seeds supplied to the farmer by the Round Up folks, provided farmers USE Round Up on their crops. So when we buy lots of produce that isn't organic we're getting lots of Round Up residues.

The one and only time I used Round Up in my back yard many years ago, I put myself in the hospital with what I thought was a heart attack. What it did, was cause the muscle surrounding my heart to inflame and swell, causing lots of pain. Looking back now at that incident, and remembering that it took twice as long to get that inflammation under control than it otherwise should have, I can't help but wonder how many other things inside the body are getting inflammed from Round Up residues.

So I'm not doing myself any favors by being stubborn. Because the body cannot de-toxify as long as you keep putting toxins in. It's one of those things where you know it's true...you've known it was true for years...but just didn't get it. I think that I finally do.

Now The City is Spraying Us With Malathion!

2011-06-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 159

It's no wonder that I was so freaking sick last June! Not only was my body trying to detox from the flea bombs my in-laws set off in our house, but the city was also spraying us with Malathion! We just discovered that.

On Saturday, a friend of my husband's called him up and asked him if he'd seen a sign posted anywhere around that said the city was going to spray Malathion. We hadn't, of course. But then, as many of you know - my husband can't read.

The question made me stop in my tracks and take notice, because I'd been fighting off some kind of weird reaction to something since the Wednesday prior. It felt like I had been glutened or dairyed - even though I knew that I hadn't: nausea, vertigo, off-balance problems, swollen upper intestines, swelling in my ears, feet, and legs. Rash on my arms and feet; and my hair was falling out...again!

I had been debating if I was getting too sensitive to even go to the grocery store anymore.

And my husband? He'd been acting like his liver was kickin' up a fuss again. Too tired to put in more than a 6 hour day (even though he has plenty of work right now), running to the bathroom several times a day like he'd been glutened. Complaining of headaches which he hardly ever gets.

Well, the phone call explained what was going on with both of us, especially since we were told that the spraying started last Tuesday night, but geesh! What did that mean as far as my garden and future health?

We took a trip to the Post Office first thing Monday morning to see if there was a sign posted, and yes, it was there on the bulletin board that hardly no one ever looks at - because it's generally about large city construction jobs to bid on, free or lost animals, service project notifications. That kind of thing. Nothing that ever pertains to us.

The bad news: They had sprayed twice, and had plans for 2 more sprayings before it would all be over. Mosquitoes is what they're after - but it's not working. It's just making us sick. So we took a trip to City Hall to put in a complaint.

We were told that they spray us EVERY YEAR, but this is the first year they actually notified us. I couldn't help but laugh. A sign in the post office is notification? Not really.

I did speak up and tell the receptionist that my husband can't read, and I don't go to the post office to pick up the mail, my husband does. So as far as I'm concerned, we were NOT notified. And in addition to my severe allergies of pesticides (which the city personnel knows about due to our change of address last June), Malathion aggravates my neurological disorders.

The worst thing about all this (in addition to there being no city council meeting under after all of the spraying is over and done with, and not spraying in front of just our house won't due any good due to the winds) is that I was actually outside when they did it the first time. The folks they hired spray at 8 pm at night. Not after the sun goes down. So I'm usually outside watering and checking out my garden around that time, because it cooler then. Plus I was outside raking the lawn the following morning.

They have been spraying us twice a week. Tuesdays and Fridays. So we have one more application in a couple of days before they stop.

In addition to the friend who called, the woman my husband has been doing a lot of work for lately is as upset as we are. So it's not just us. She found a dead kitten in her basement the morning after the second spraying, and she raises bees which Malathion also kills. And she's extremely upset that it's affecting ME like it is.

The only bright note about what's going on right now is that they didn't spray us from above, like they do in California for the medfly. That means I can at least cut my heads of lettuce down to the ground, and pick the tomatoes that have set by this next weekend, and allow everything to begin growing back - if we have enough time for them to do that.

We have a very short growing season here, and the 1st frost can come as early as mid August.

As for my weight, it's stabilized nicely around 160 pounds or so. But figuring out what I can and can't eat to keep my blood sugar level under control (maximum 140 mg/dl at 1 hour; and 120 mg/dl at 2 hours) has been confusing.

I was surprised by the fact that my blood glucose level is not connected to the amount of carbs I eat at that meal. That would have made things so much easier if I could just know that my maximum level was 20 or 30 or 40 grams of carbohydrate. So that glitch just makes figuring out any kind of pattern more difficult.

I've been using a more old Weight Watcher exchange type of approach as of late, which seems to be working well. I have my meat/eggs/protein and veggies, then 1 serving or 1/2 cup of starchy carbs. But not at every meal. Usually once a day, sometimes 2. I'm finding whole kernel corn to be a free food, and white potatoes not affecting me to the same extent that gluten free bread does. Rice, white or brown, is equal.

My fasting glucose has normalized eating like that. And my weight this morning was down a pound. But it's hard to tell anything right now with the ongoing pesticide exposure and resulting water retension - so I'll have to let things ride for another couple of weeks before I decide what my next step will be.

Just When I Think I Have it All Figured Out...Blood Sugar Level Explodes!

2011-06-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 161

I've been spending quite a bit of time lately over at the Blood Sugar 101 website, trying to find something I might have missed. I like returning there every few months just for that reason. I've also been reading some of Jenny's posts from the end of last year at Low Carb Friends. Looking for anything that might help me figure out my wonky sugars.

For a little while, I thought I'd stumbled onto the key. My glucose levels seemed to travel in close connection to the amount of carbs I ate per meal. Just what Atkins and the rest of the low carb folks have been saying for a very long time. If I ate 20 carbs, my blood glucose level would rise to around 120 at one hour. If I ate 30, it would rise to around 130. When I tried eating a 40 carb baked potato, it rose to 139, then dropped back down to below 120 by 2 hours.

I was happy, because that type of tight connection would make glucose control easy. Just count the carbohydrates - what most of us have been doing for years now.

However, when I tried turning my one slice of homemade gluten free toast into a 2-slice fresh hamburger bun the whole idea of keeping to 40 carbs or less per meal (for maintenance) exploded into uncontrollable blood glucose levels. Where a 40 carb baked potato (said to be extremely high on the glycemic index) stayed within acceptable levels to keep my neuropathy under control, 40 carbs of gluten free bread made from brown rice, sorghum flour, and oatmeal did not.

So I'm sitting here today nursing an exploded low-carb theory. Because theory is what it's turned out to be. A false one. But - if it's NOT about the number of carbs we eat, then "what" is it all about?

Trying to Get My Blood Glucose Numbers Under Control Again

2011-06-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 159

The GFCF diet (gluten free, casein free) is continuing to go well. Starting to have cravings for a hunk of cheese though! Don't have hunks in the house, just the pre-grated stuff, so I'm weathering the storm okay since there's no way to cheat.

Although I've been trying my best to not dairy myself, cooking with both dairy-free margarine and real butter has been difficult. It takes brain powder (strict focused attention) which I don't always have in the mornings, due to my sensory issues.

I was frying up my own eggs first, then using the same pan to fry up my husband's eggs, but kept getting the knives I was using confused. So I'm now basically cooking dairy free and just letting him keep his butter, cheese, and Cool Whip at the table.

Yesterday, however, my husband announced that when we run out of real butter, he wants to just switch to what I'm using. He told me he has eaten margarine for years, and doesn't want to cause me any more work than necessary.

I was finally able to buy some glucose testing strips the other day, but it took me awhile to find them because Walmart's pushing a different type of meter and strips these days. They did have 2 small boxes. If we'd had the money, I would have bought them both, but the one I bought will do me for now.

When I got home from Walmart, I checked my blood sugar: 3pm in the afternoon. Breakfast had been bacon and eggs, lunch was a large roasted chicken thigh with skin, and my blood sugar was still up around 107! High enough that insulin isn't shutting off. So I've started reading Jenny's website over at BloodSugar101.com again.

One thing I noticed that I somehow missed before was that if insulin drops too low, the liver thinks your blood sugar is also too low. It will panic and convert glycogen to glucose, dumping the glucose into the blood no matter how high your blood glucose levels currently are.

Hmmm. Maybe the problem isn't beef. Maybe you can actually go too low in carbs, the same as going too high. That would explain what happened on my no carb diet, but not what happened when I recently did Atkins Induction.

However, if that's true, then there's a "sweet spot" we each gotta find to keep everything purring along nicely.

Yesterday, I had a couple of small bulk sausage patties and 2 fried eggs for breakfast, and another large roasted chicken thigh for lunch. The single chicken thigh raised my blood sugar from 89 to 123 at 1 hour.

Today, I forgot to check my sugars before eating lunch, but after a large Johnsonville Italian sausage link and 2 fried eggs for breakfast and 4 chicken strips breaded with pork rinds and a nice salad with homemade thousand island dressing for lunch, my blood sugar is sitting at 101, after 1 hour.

There's definitely something going on. But from what I'm seeing, the more carbs I eat, the lower my blood glucose levels are. So....maybe there's something to that theory about liver dumping glycogen if your insulin levels go too low. Too bad there's no way to check that out, because if that's true, then blood glucose levels don't always mirror insulin levels. At least not for us sick folks.

A Dairy Free Experiment

2011-05-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 162

After doing a bit of research, and taking a good look at myself, I decided it was time to do a dairy free experiment. I've been in denial for as long as I can remember, I admit that. However, I ran into a video this morning from a link on Twitter that got me thinking.

Now, my experiment actually began last Sunday, May 8th. That's when I started skipping the butter on my vegetables, switching out the heavy cream in my hot cocoa for coconut cream, and cooking only dairy free meals. And geesh has it ever been an eye opener. I can't believe just how much dairy I was eating. Like gluten, it's in lots of foods -- and is often a low carb staple. Didn't expect it to be so hard to figure out just what to eat though.

My favorite foods and recipes, are all loaded with dairy!

The video I watched this morning was made by Tricia Thompson. It was actually about NSAIDS, and how they interfere with the body's ability to produce the mucus we need to line the stomach. But if you have autoimmune issues which is closely tied to leaky gut syndrome, they are especially bad; because they prevent the intestines from healing. Which means, if you're taking a lot of ibuprophen, and you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, you probably won't get better. Gluten free, dairy free, or not.

I had learned awhile ago that NSAIDS also prevent the body from detoxing, so I had cut back to using them only on the days I couldn't stand the pain. I was not using them when I was eating all of that beef though, so I can't use them as an excuse for reacting to home-grown beef.

This isn't the first time I've tried to go dairy free. I did it on Kimkins, and I did it when I first went gluten free (after learning most of those with celiac need to do that for the first 6 months), but I always went into it "knowing" it was going to end. This time, it's going to be mostly for keeps.

I say mostly, because I haven't yet decided if I'm going to give up ice cream for good. I know they make coconut ice cream, and various vegan cheeses, but we live in the middle of nowhere, a very small town, and even though we have a super Walmart several miles away, they don't carry much in the way of variety. Coconut milk at our local grocery costs over $3 a can. So for me, that makes homemade ice cream basically out of reach.

When I've tried to do dairy free before, however, my husband was still taking sandwiches or burritos to work, and in-laws were coming home frequently, and bringing gluten into the house. So it wasn't a fair test. This time, I have a completely gluten free home. So results should be more accurate.

My research says it takes about 2 to 3 weeks to see a major difference. However my vertigo is better already, and my weight is down a bit from the 156 that I weighed on Sunday morning. I am having a lot of water retention at the moment -- my car is giving us trouble, and I'm out of diet soda. Can't get to a store until tomorrow when my husband has time to take my starter and battery out so we can get them tested. Drinking too much water, always gives me vertigo; so I haven't been doing very well the last couple of days.

Atkins Induction Completed, But Neuropathy is Back!

2011-05-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Atkins Induction Starting Weight: 163.4
Today's Weight: 161.4

I completed Atkins Induction as of this morning, but I'm not liking the results. The first week went well, but then everything started falling apart last Saturday. At first, I only saw a tiny bump upwards on the scale, about .8 of a pound Saturday morning -- which didn't concern me, since I'm used to water retention whenever the weather turns bad. But it didn't stop there. It's been going in the wrong direction all week, nudging up higher and higher.

Today's weigh-in greeted me with a 3.4 pound weight gain for the week. And my net loss for a two week Induction? A mere 2 pounds! I guess the dream of returning to a typical Atkins plan is over now. At least, I can say that I gave it an honest, clean try...again.

While returning to a PSMF diet (a Protein-sparing Modified Fast) will easily correct the weight gain, the disturbing thing is that my Neuropathy is back. Not good, because that snarling monster must be dealt with first, before I can even think about tweaking anything.

A Protein-sparing Modified Fast is a low-fat, low-calorie diet. Low carb by default, it provides the body with adequate protein, a few fibrous veggies, and little else. It's what works best for me, since I have trouble with fat malabsorption. But it's also a clue, because when I did my last diet round that way, I went for 6 weeks without hearing a peep from my feet and/or calves.

When I compare the plan I followed this last time (fish, turkey and chicken breast, fibrous veggies, fresh lemon, diet soda, sugar substitutes, herbs and spices) with my past no carb attempt (whole chicken legs, fish, pork chops, ground turkey, hamburger, diet soda, herbs and spices; then switching to plain beef and water only), it's easy to see the difference between the two plans. No getting away from the fact that beef is the major difference.

So what does that mean? Where do I go from here?

Obviously, I need to cut beef and dairy products completely out of my diet; but realistically, that's easier said than done. Dairy-free margarine? Nasty crap. Potato or almond milk? Reminds me of watery non-fat milk. Yuck! Give up all of my favorite foods? The hard cheeses, the cream cheese, the heavy cream. Everything that makes a low-carb diet tolerable.

It seems that my world just keeps getting smaller, and smaller.

Halfway Through Atkins Induction -- Friday Weigh In

2011-04-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Weight at Beginning of Induction: 163.4
Today's Weight: 158

This week went well weight wise. I'm down 5.4 pounds this morning, which means my liver is almost drained enough to start burning some serious body fat. I used to hold 8 pounds of glycogen/water consistently when I weighed 180 pounds and was doing refeeds, so we'll have to see if that still holds true at my lower weight. When I stopped my PSMF and moved to maintenance, I weighed 145 pounds. So I have to surpass that number before I can honestly say I've gotten into new territory.

I'm glad I'm not currently holding water, though, because the weather looks bad again, and even though it was supposed to be a nice weekend around here, the weather report this morning said there's a chance of rain and snow again for later on today.

I found a new way of cooking whole chicken legs that gets them up off the bottom of the pan. I took a stainless steel jelly roll pan, topped it with one of the wire shelves from my broken countertop oven, and used that for a rack. I seasoned the chicken, with the skin still on it, the same way I would regular baked chicken -- some garlic powder, seasoning salt, and pepper. Then popped it into the oven for an hour at 375 degrees.

The chicken came out crisp, but not greasy -- which made my husband very happy -- because he doesn't do dietary fats well either. He has serious liver issues (that he was treated for before our flea bomb fiasco), which still have a few more years to heal. At his last doctor appointment, they told him it was healing 4 times faster than normal, so that's good. But means we have a couple more years before it's completely re-generated.

When I buy chicken legs, I usually buy the 10-pound bag from Walmart, but lately I've been getting a toxic response to that brand. Since chemical residue is stored in the fat, I decided to try the oven rack idea, since I don't have a broiler pan. It worked beautifully. The excess fat went into the jelly roll pan, and I still got to eat the crispy skin that I love. Both me, and my body were happy that night. So I'm doing the same thing for lunch today.

I'm beginning to get bored with Atkins Induction, partly because I haven't had time to go looking for new recipes yet, and partly because we don't have the funds to buy what I need. We haven't replaced my husband's windshield yet, and his compressor that he needs for the job he's currently doing decided to check out; so he had to buy one from Walmart this morning. Things are going to be tight for awhile yet, I guess.

I checked into how much it would cost to make a strawberry cheesecake as a kind of carrot to dangle in front of me, for when I'm done with Atkins' initial phase next week, but the price of things I don't already have in the house came to over $10. That's way out of the ballpark for us.

So I consoled myself with a bag of pork rinds and a homemade bacon-jalapeno dip to munch on this weekend.

Trying to Resurrect My Blogs in Panda's Wake

2011-04-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 160.2

The weather here is snowy-rain. Not good for the vertigo, but then winter always brings trouble. Although inflamed due to the extra dietary fat as well as the weather, I have decided to stick this out -- at least, for now. It basically means the villi haven't healed yet.

Atkins Induction is working well enough. I'm craving sugar (of course), bored as heck, and the weight is shaving off slower than usual for a low carb diet. But we are eating a lot of organic, grass-fed beef right now, because that's what I have in the house. I've heard many boast about this stuff, how it kicks a lot of health issues to the curb. So I felt pretty excited when we had half of a cardboard box of hamburger, steaks, and roasts given to us last month.

So far, it's not doing anything for me but making my upper intestines swell up every time I eat some.

My husband didn't make it past 1:00 pm on day one before pouring himself a bowl of Chex. No surprise, and no biggie. The little bit of belly fat he put on this winter will easily come off (now that I'm low carbing) if I buy fruit instead of making cookies. Fruit here in central Utah tastes more than a little pathetic, but we did get our hands on some nice strawberries a couple of weeks ago.

In February, Google rolled out a new algorithm they called Panda. It was supposed to crush sites that Google search engineers didn't like. What they called "Content Farms." At the time, they said it would get rid of the spam in search results, like sinking websites who steal (scrape) other people's content and post it as their own.

For awhile Google has stressed what they call "original" content, and the rumors said they planned to squash sites that computer-generated titles for their writers. Those who "gamed" the system with black-hat SEO practices. Those whose articles were not original, but thin and shallow, and not very useful for the reader.

But the damage has reached further than all of that. I work for an online magazine called Suite 101, (I'm the Feature Writer for the Autism/Asperger's section there) and even though we don't fit into any of those categories, we ended up targeted and squashed anyways.

So even though last year's flea bomb fiasco has me still full to the brim with toxins (making winter particularly bad this year), I haven't felt much like writing lately. Panda was a hard blow. To write the best articles I could on topics that interested me, articles that answered questions gluten-free individuals, dieters, and autistic parents are asking these days, yet still have Google label you as gutter-trash, a cockroach that needs to be exterminated, hit me out of left field.

And while Suite hasn't officially died yet -- and I'm hoping they don't because I love writing there -- I thought returning to my long-overdue neglected blogs might help me fall in love with writing again. Even if it isn't very good. Because I really need to DO something with myself, for myself -- to make my life better. So in Panda's wake, I'll be trying to resurrect what I've started here and elsewhere.

However, Panda isn't the only thing that's gone wrong in my life lately.

In addition, my husband accidentally hit someone in the service station parking lot recently, and didn't know it. When he found out, he went right down to the police station and filled out a report, but he still got fined by the judge for $250 for leaving the scene of an accident. Half of the original fine because...well...the judge said, "we want you to take responsibility for your actions."

Then my husband's truck decided to die; so we had to buy a $500 clunker to get him by.

Less than a week later, I woke up to find my glasses broken. We couldn't remember who we'd gone to last time, (it's been a couple of years since my last eye appointment); we just remembered which mall we went to. So I made an appointment with who my husband thought it was. It turns out there's more than one eye-glass place in that same mall; and yep, I made the appointment at the wrong place. But with an hour-and-a-half drive to get there, I went through with it, because I really needed the glasses.

So now I'm another $500 poorer and have progressive bio-focals that I can't see out of when I'm working at my computer. Only if I keep my head tilted back for most of the day. The glasses that broke had 3 sections, with the middle specially designed to help me see the computer. So much for believing the salesman who claimed "these" would be better.

Next? My husband decides to be a "nice" guy, pulls over to help someone who needed a jump. Somehow, the other guy's truck slid out of gear and my husband got pinned between the 2 trucks faster than he could jump out of the way. Luckily he's okay; didn't break anything. But got fairly mashed up, and had to spend a few days on the living room sofa watching videos since we don't have satellite TV yet.

Done yet? Nope. A deer decided he wanted to sit on my husband's lap when he drove to work the other day. Smashed the driver's side of the windshield and took out the driver's side mirror. My husband was able to swipe the mirrors from his dead truck, even though they weren't the right size. But crap. That's another $200 we have to come up with now to fix the windshield.

So we're just sitting here spinning our wheels these days, glad we have work -- but...dog paddling is making me plum tired.

I've been also trying to learn how to use Facebook and Twitter lately. Confusing as heck, and it often makes the sensory processing difficulties worse with all of that busyness -- but at least I can touch base with my kids and sisters now and then. That's at least one silver lining in all of this crap called life lately.

Starting Atkins Induction Today

2011-04-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 163.4

With my gluten-free chocolate birthday cake gone, I am starting back on Atkins Induction today. Normally, I would do Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss plan, but I've gained more weight this maintenance phase than usual, so I already know my body is going to rebel. Viciously. I think I need a good, solid, initial low-carb meal plan for a couple of weeks to get me back into the swing before I even think about lowering my fat level.

Now before anyone barks that fat is where it's at, I have celiac disease, and therefore suffer with fat malabsorption issues. That means low carb or not, my body doesn't burn dietary fat for fuel easily. And when I do eat it, I have lots of inflammation problems. And that includes coconut oil. As of yet, I haven't been able to keep gluten out of my air space for the length of time it takes to completely heal. Whether that means I'm allergic to gluten rather than just being a celiac doesn't matter. The effect is the same.

If I'm lucky this time around, and my villi have finally healed, my weight won't stall out when my liver glycogen gets depleted to ketosis levels, and I'll keep on keeping on with Induction. But if it does -- I'll be lowering my fat intake. Period.

My husband announced this morning after breakfast that he doesn't want me baking him a potato for dinner. He said his pants are getting tight on him too, so he wants to eat green beans with me, instead. While he's almost always eating exactly what I do at meal times (when I'm doing typical low carb that is), generally he goes hunting for carbs in between meals. So we'll have to wait and see how far this goes...

My weight this morning wasn't exactly a surprise after eating cake and ice cream for 3 days, but it was a bit disappointing. However, it does confirm my suspicions that sugar in any form appears to be much worse for me than starches. But then, I'm not anywhere near my goal weight yet; and things might change, yet again.

I've been thinking about which form of Atkins Induction I want to do: Atkins 72, 92, 2002, or the New and Improved Atkins, but...I think I'll do what has always worked for me in the past. Something closer to 92 so I don't get so sick and tired of salad.

Weight Maintenance is Slipping Away

2011-04-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 162.4

I stepped on the scale this morning, for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I didn't like what it said. But then, for those of us not yet at goal weight, do we ever? Probably not. I admit I used to be happy when it dwindled around 150 pounds, about 5 pounds up from my lowest hCG weigh-in; because that gave me a nice 30-pound loss for my last PSMF diet round.

Well...I can't call it "replaced glycogen and water" anymore. I've regained a solid 10 pounds of pure body fat storage, as of today. Most of which deposited itself on my belly, and a little bit on my upper arms. So metabolic issues are bumping against the ceiling of my rebellious attitude, and my cravings for sugar...yet again. Specifically, gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.

To be honest, the neuropathy started screaming at me a couple of weeks ago, but I just kept hoping that the helium balloon would find its way out and I could live a nice, NORMAL, gluten-free life.

Fat chance...

Maybe one of these days I'll get it through my thick head that while I don't have to stay at Atkins' Induction level of carbs for the rest of my life, I can't wiggle out of my blood sugar issues. They're mine, and they're here to stay.

Course, I was hoping I could blame them on celiac disease, because my overall glucose level does rise when I get glutened. However, after watching how my body reacts to sugar over the past 2 weight maintenance phases, I can't deny the pattern any longer.

I seem to be able to maintain quite well on starchy carbs like potatoes, corn, and gluten-free grains, provided I keep to normal serving sizes and keep my overall carb level within reason. It's the sugars that start to pack on the pounds. So that means my weight maintenance phase is about to come to an end, because I promised myself I would never ignore my weight if I wasn't able to fit into my clothes.

Well...that day is here.

Last time I was on maintenance, I confined myself to a size 14, and this time it was a size 12. They are tight, tight, tight -- because I stopped weighing myself everyday. I stopped following the maintenance diet plan I set up for myself. And even though I can still stuff my blubber into my "relaxed fit" jeans, I can't deny that I've allowed my eating habits to get away from me this time around.

I do have a theory, but I'm not quite ready to talk about that yet. Soon though.

On a PSMF Diet Break - Update on Me

2011-02-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5 lbs
Today's Weight: 152.4 lbs

I've been having a bad winter. Lots of vertigo, brain fog, and intensified sensory processing issues. I've sincerely missed blogging though, and know I need to get back into the swing of things.

As I said in my last post way back when, I was spending a little time investigating the HCG diet, and the principles behind it. Despite its claims, it's pretty similar to a PSFM diet, but a lot more strict: fewer food choices, less protein allowance, higher carbs, and no dietary fats or oils in beauty or personal care products.

Some of its oddness has to do with the time-frame in which it was created, as well as the place. Beauty products and self-care stuff was full of animal fats back then, plus there wasn't as many no-calorie things overseas; and just as I thought, it turns out that Dr. Simeon wanted to create a diet that would ALWAYS work. So food choices were fine-tuned, depending on his patients reactions and food sensitivities. The list includes those foods that every single one of his patients could lose weight on; not just what would work most of the time.

For example, broccoli and cauliflower aren't on the allowable list not because they will necessarily interfere with weight loss, but because they did interfere for at least one individual - so they were yanked. Same with mixing veggies, and all of the other unique characteristics of the diet.

I followed it for one month. That's about how long I could stomach it, before moving back to Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss Plan. Long enough to understand what I wanted to learn, plus probably poison myself - because I ate fish once or twice a day until I couldn't look at another piece of Talapia without getting nauseated.

Do you HAVE to eat fish on Dr. Simeon's Protocol? No. But fish is high on the satiety index, so I chose to eat fish and tomatoes because the HCG diet borders on protein deficiency, is severely low in calories (lower than anything I had tried so far), and I didn't understand the importance for "ME" to stay away from mercury-containing foods.

So I'm having serious difficulties this winter. Sensory processing is more scrambled than usual, and I can't take my fish-oil capsules that Lyle recommends any more because they cause my head to spin out of control. After 12 weeks, my Leptin levels crashed again just short of moving from a Category 3 to a Category 2, so I'm on another diet break.

Such is life I guess.

I did manage to shed another 30 pounds or so, which I'm maintaining quite nicely. Was a bit nervous about whether or not I'd be able to do that because at 180 lbs (where I was at during my last diet break) I was able to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and maintain that amount of weight easily. I didn't know how hard it would be to maintain with 30 pounds less of me.

While its been different this time (can't do whatever I want anymore), my calorie level is still high enough that I'm not hungry - so it's okay.

I do have to eat normally. At 180 pounds, I didn't do that; but this time around, I have to eat quite a bit less to maintain. As long as I'm comfortable, and can eat a few goodies now and then, I'm okay with that. I wouldn't say I'm eating low carb. Not according to typical definitions. But I am eating about 100 to 125 grams of carbohydrates per day, so I'm not feeling deprived; I just have to learn how to control myself when I make my husband gluten-free cookies.

Those days of using Carbquick or Carbalose are gone for good; my husband has dermatitis herpetiformis, so even if I find out that mercury is at the bottom of all of my ills, and I figure out how to get myself to detox from all of that, we won't be going back to wheat - EVER.

I'm still writing for Suite 101; was promoted recently to Feature Writer of the Autism/Asperger's Syndrome section. It's been about all of the writing I've been able to do. Ever since I got exposed to all of that Flea Bomb stuff (which has lots of mercury in it by the way), my mind has been more foggy and slow. I've learned a lot about myself writing in the autism section though - that Meniere's Disease is a sensory processing disorder; and that I have the symptoms of dysfunction for every single sensory system to one degree or another.

At least I now have a "name" for what's wrong with me, Sensory Processing Disorder, even though I'm not totally 100% sure how I came down with it. However...Hepetitis B shots, flu shots, Prednisone, and smoke from forrest fires (what I was exposed to throughout the 6 months prior to being struck down with vertigo) are all loaded with mercury. I don't know if Mercury is the bottom block I'm seeking or not, but at the moment the shoe looks like it fits - so I'm wearing it.

It's like I have a bunch of different puzzle pieces sitting all over my kitchen table, teasing me, but I'm not quite sure how to put the picture together yet. However, since my husband's truck died a couple of weeks ago (and we had to buy a clunker to replace it), then I broke my glasses last week (and we had to pay for a new pair), getting my 4 amalgam fillings I still have left removed isn't in the cards. At least...not right now. I did find a dentist up north who does that kind of thing, but will have to begin saving up for that - again.

I Finally Have a Bathroom Scale

2010-08-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5 lbs
Today's Weight: 172 lbs

Well, I finally was able to get myself a new bathroom scale this week, and I weighed in this morning at a pretty decent weight. Ever since I started low carbing in January of 2007, I have never broken through 170. Always before, whenever I have reached this level of weight loss, (just above 170), the body has gone into severe hunger mode. I haven't experienced that this time, but I have been gaining weight since I first weighed in at 170.4 on Friday morning, the day after I purchased the scale.

I've been reading a book this week called Pounds and Inches, and trying to overlap the ideas on top of what we know about low-carb diets today. It was written back in the 50s by a doctor who used to give HCG injections for weight loss along with a 500 calorie, lower-carb diet. Since not a lot was known about low-carb diets back then, his theory had to do with normal fat stores and abnormal fat stores. He believed that obesity was caused by a hypothalamus malfunction that caused the body to excessively store fat in what he called, abnormal fat stores.

HCG is a hormone produced when a woman is first pregnant. Since a lot of women experience higher metabolic rates during pregnancy, he sought to capitalize on that, as well as reset the body's set point at a lower level. While his science is flawed, (we now know that fat is fluid, it doesn't get stuffed into fat storage depots, so there's no such thing as normal fat storage vs abnormal storage) the results he achieved have been pretty impressive.

Recently, his diet has been resurrected among low-carb groups, and maybe others, due to a lot of individuals getting stuck part-way to goal. That is how and why my interest was peaked. Not only because those who have stalled out on low-carb diets are seeing success with this plan, and apparently having success with maintaining those losses, but because the claim is that it helps to fix the hypothalamus.

When I did a quick study on the hypothalamus, I discovered that it's responsible for quite a bit, and that lesions can cause not only the symptoms of Meniere's but also affects blood sugar regulation. While I still believe a lot of my health complaints come from gluten intolerance, the hypothalamus is also involved in keeping the immune system balanced.

I admit I'm skeptical about whether or not HCG is the miracle that many claim it is (as far as weight loss is concerned - since the diet prescribed along with it is very low in both carbs and calories), the doctor who wrote the diet plan claims that he discovered particular foods actually interfered with the way the HCG diet worked, even though those foods were lower in calories.

To me, with what we know about how low carb works, that sounds like food sensitivities. Yet, the doctor also claims that differing calorie levels also affected the plan. The HCG diet, as originally written, was fine-tuned before publication to include only those foods that didn't interfere with weight loss, as well as be at the calorie level that produced the most satisfactory loss.

Since I have trouble with fat malabsorption, many of the health issues this diet claims to heal, and have experienced massive metabolic pick-up while pregnant, I find all of this fascinating stuff.

Can Messed Up Blood Sugars Cause Depression?

2010-08-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've felt so crippled; but the events as of late have really done me in. I looked at my About Statement this afternoon, and I had to smile. Finally getting my act together? Well...I thought I was finally getting my act together. Little did I know the events that fate had in store for me.

I guess it shouldn't be so surprising that my in-laws have no clue that they tried to poison us. And I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that they haven't even tried to contact us to find out if we're dead or alive. That's just the way selfish people are. We're the bad guys, even though I lost everything – but the clothes on my back.

Life is kind of depressing right now. Looks like the job in Arizona is going to fall through. The last we heard, the folks who wanted to buy the property in Texas (what our job offer hinged on) want to wait to see what the economy is going to do first. They were planning on building a mall with it; but don't want to spend all of their liquid assets on the land. They have been trying to get a loan for half of the money for months now, but no go.

My husband has reached the point where he's willing to admit that working for ourselves is too stressful; plus it really isn't working out. Not like he had hoped. Most people don't want to pay half of what current contractor's rates are; they want to give him something that is closer to minimum wage. Or even less.

We did get another good job offer that would allow us to stay here in central Utah, it would even last a year or year-and-a-half; but that hasn't materialized either.

So I took a look on line, shopped around the neighboring states even, and couldn't find anything my husband was qualified for that would pay enough to meet our bills. My husband has no high-school diploma and as most of you already know, can't read, so any type of paperwork is out of the question. We don't have a very high standard of living, haven't had that since I left my ex; but geesh. Eight to ten bucks an hour is all handyman-type work is going for in this state, or any neighboring state for that matter, these days.

I can't help but wonder how everyone else is making it; or is it just us?

We've at least had enough work come in to pay last month's bills; and have been busy helping a friend of ours move. But I don't really know where any of this is going to lead, and I guess that's the disturbing part.

I remember reading awhile back that the chemical used in flea bombs is the most deadly poison there is for animals. More dogs die from flea bombs and flea sprays and flea collars than anything else. Can't remember where I read that exactly, but it was some official agency website of some sort. A pesticide control agency, or something like that. I also read it can kill beta cells. Don't know if that's true or not, but my blood sugar levels have been pretty messed up again since all of this happened.

Kindda hard to keep your head up out of the water when it feels like you're drowning.

A Short Update

2010-05-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Weather is crappy, the vertigo is back full-blown, and as far as my weight is concerned, I'm at the upper limit of maintenance, about 181 this morning, but that's due to the weather; lots of water retention right now.

I tried writing a couple of low carb articles over at Suite 101 a couple of weeks ago. Thought it would help with my motivation here. They did okay on page views, got some inbound links, but they made my minuscule residual income take a big dive. LOL. Don't know if it was coincidence or not, but I went back to writing for the South Beach folks last week, and my income has rebounded nicely.

My husband does have a little bit of work, so we are very grateful for that.

Wish summer would hurry up already and get here though. Snow and hail in May isn't exactly something that folks in other parts of the world would be interested in right about now. Plus it makes the vertigo soooo much worse.

I've been awfully neglectful of my blogs as of late.

Part of that is the devotion I've been giving my Suite 101 writing, sure, but I can't really blame it on that since when I was working I was still keeping up with my blogs.

Most of it is my health. Always seems to be my health. It's been easier to keep from getting contaminated with my husband now going gluten free at home, but it takes sooooo long to heal. It takes sooooo long for the body to figure it all out.

Haven't overcome the "something" I picked up the last month or 2 yet either. Flu like junk. Body doesn't like any amount of fat. Big time dumping syndrome. It's been over a year since I had my gall bladder out, closer to a year and a half I think, and still having problems with that. But then, gluten does the same thing.

Can't have sugar alcohols any more I guess. ANY of them. Even Eyrthrital (sp???) with a 0 glycemic index score tears me up inside. I've been okay with sugar free syrup until this week. Sorbitol was the only one left I wasn't reacting to. But that's gone now.

Plus...even with work, our food budget has been cut in half or less, so I'm going to have to look at that closely to see how I'm going to get myself back onto a modified South Beach Diet without neglecting my bills. Got to do something more constructive with my weight management, than maintenance.

It doesn't feel good to be so stagnant. But with low carb foods not agreeing with me as of late -- my options are a bit limited right now. I'm hoping that the body is just detoxing and that it will straighten itself all out here in a little while. In the meantime, I'm just trying to get through the day without losing any ground.

Last Day of April, But It's Still Winter Here

2010-04-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 181.4

When I look outside, I can't believe it's going to be May tomorrow. There's 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground, with more storms on the way. We never seem to get Spring around here. When we do, it's constant rain, though, so I guess if I had to choose between the two, the Meniere's says snow. But still...

We have an older couple here in Spring City who are ready to paint the outside of their house (the garage and outside doors and trim), but the storm knocked that gig right into next week. Such is life sometimes. But it doesn't help my dieting attempt any.

Maintenance...maintenance...and more maintenance.

I guess I should be happy that I've learned how to maintain what I've accomplished so far. How many carbs and calories and portions of what not. But sometimes it's hard to be content with one's progress to date. It's depressing when you want to go the rest of the way, but fate says "ahhh, not now!"

Ham bone and beans for dinner is somewhat South Beach friendly, just not in quantity. But the fried potatoes for breakfast with our daily ration of eggs, and left-over chinese food for lunch certainly aren't.

Sometimes I feel strapped mentally, as to what to say. What to post about. Because this is supposed to be a weight loss journal, and my blogs are supposed to be weight loss blogs, not -- here's a little bite of my boring life blogs. So if posts are a bit sporadic as of late...that's why.

Snow in Mid April

2010-04-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5

Today's Weight: 181.2

I'm up a couple of pounds this week due to making a gluten-free chocolate cake for my birthday. Plus I also had ice cream, fried shrimp, and a nice and tender fatty rib steak. It's no wonder that my body has been rebelling the last couple of weeks. Started before my birthday though. All of that fat just aggravated the situation.

Now that the food is gone, I've been sitting here wondering where to go next. I know I've been eating way more fat lately than is good for me. And the fact that our finances are extremely tight (no "income", but we have been fixing up and selling off some of our old stuff like lawnmowers) isn't part of that problem. Carbs, yes; but fat, no.

Even so, I'm still maintaining well.

My thought as of late is that maybe the way to make the switch is to focus on one food, one low fat meal at a time. Instead of trying to change the whole thing; since I can't just go out and buy a freezer full of lean meat and veggies, and what not. Maybe I should think in smaller bites. Smaller chunks of change. Rather than trying to do what current fate is sending my way.

Still Not Feeling Well

2010-04-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 178.2

I've been falling behind in the my blogging as of late. That wasn't my intention. Just not feeling well still. I've been spending a bit of time over at Suite101 writers' forum, so I don't have much to say since my interests as of late have been writing oriented, and not diet oriented. I'm trying to figure out exactly how SEO works. I partly understand it, at least enough to hit Google's first page if someone is searching for exactly what I'm writing about. But I'm not so sure I know what I'm doing.

Had to deny someone's comment this evening, when they commented on one of my Celiac Disease articles. I wish folks wouldn't leave a commercial link at the end. It was a really GOOD comment, about the whole family going gluten free, and how maybe it would even be healthy for more folks to eat that way. But a commercial link, useful as it might be for those with Celiac Disease is a no no, and I had to deny it.

I realize that's just the way it goes something. I didn't have mixed feelings with the last guy who did that, because it was more than obvious that he was self promoting. But this comment could have been helpful to someone perhaps. A gluten-free community, but it costs to join.

Maybe it's still in my "history" and I can post it to my gluten free blog.

Work has disappeared again. All that time spent promoting, and just...nothing.

Been Sick With Something - Don't Know What

2010-04-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 177.2

My weight is a bit distorted today, since I was up most of the night married to the toilet. Yet again. I don't know what's wrong with me, except that it most likely isn't a gluten problem, since both my husband and me have been sick for the past 2 weeks. At first, I thought I was just having difficulty recooperating from all of the gluten my inlaws brought into the house.

But now...I'm not so sure anymore.

I think I'm going to bleach down the house from top to bottom, starting tomorrow. Had to do that at a Developmentally Disabled Adults group home I worked at many years ago when the flu just kept circling around. I really need to kick this thing -- whatever it is...

I Kicked Off my Two New Blogs Today

2010-04-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 179.6

I spent most of the day designing my two new blogs, Gluten Free Journey to Heath and Life After Low Carb, and getting them up and running with their first postings. I'm hoping that I'm not spreading myself too thin. But my purpose in doing all of this is to get my Kickin' Carb Clutter blog back to my original intention. Support and information for those following a low carb diet.

I think that if I have a moderate carb, more balanced nutrition blog where I can talk about what I'm currently learning and experiencing in that regard, I won't be so inclined to keep pounding my dead-horse opinions and experiences in regards to low carb dieting. I can just write to whichever blog is associated closest to my topic, or slant the topic to fit more than one. Whichever I feel like doing that day.

I have 3 articles up on Suite 101 now, in the health section. I haven't linked to them from here, because they aren't associated with what I'm writing about. I absolutely hate it when bloggers do that, link to their stuff just to get you to go there, when it doesn't even pertain to what they're talking about.

For example, my second article was about how overweight individuals often get overlooked for celiac testing, even when they have many of the symptoms, because they aren't underweight and sickly. And today I published an article on how those thinking about weight loss surgery need to take their emotional eating tendencies into consideration, before making the final decision. Things that really don't have anything to do with low, or even moderate carbing.

You know...there are a lot of folks who say that once you have weight loss surgery, you have to go on a low carb diet anyways, so why bother. I read all of the literature that my sister-in-law brought home, and they did NOT put her on a low carb diet. They were calling it low carb, but it wasn't even close to that. It was basically a low fat South Beach.

Writing in third person is getting a bit easier. In fact, I noticed the other day when writing my last post for Kickin' that I was doing most of it in third person, objective reporting style, rather than kick-back conversation. Oh well. I guess that means it's starting to sink in.

I don't know HOW in tarnation the writers at Suite are actually writing and publishing 10 articles per day. That's what a lot of them have to do in order to earn a full-time income. To me, that's crazy. They aren't publishing them all in one place though. A lot of them are writing for the several online sites around, but still. That's a lot of research and writing in one day.

I had a little bit of cash left, so I went grocery shopping and got myself some cheese, veggies, and chicken breast. Whipped up a few chicken skewers and baked them instead of barbecuing. We liked them much better, as they weren't burned, and the bbq sauce was actually red when they got done. I have some sliced strawberries for later, since they were $1 per pound basket.

I tried to do a search on gluten free blogs, but it seems that they're all food blogs. Bleggggh. Course, maybe that means there's a niche for what I'm going to do LOL.

The Definition of Binge Eating Disorder

2010-04-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 180.6

Okay. I went face down into the carbs last night. Microwave popcorn, a couple of slices of gluten-free cornbread heavy on the butter, and even a few applesauce chocolate chip cookies. I can't tell you how many cookies because I wasn't keeping count. What my body WANTED was a nice, thick slice of cheddar or cheddar/jack cheese. But I didn't have any of that in the house.

I've been doing a bit of research on weight loss surgery the last couple of days, for an article that I'm writing for Suite 101, and I came face to face with myself this morning.

The definition of binge eating disorder is losing one's control over food twice a week, or more.

Wow. Does that ever describe me to a tee. I get all pumped up to "start" eating better, get my mind-set geared up for it, buy a few veggies, and start. I'm good to go for a couple of days, but then the hunger really starts to set in. I realize it's a lack of glycogen thing, but that doesn't help when you're starving and there's nothing low carb to eat, other than hard-boiled eggs. I tried that the other night, but it didn't work.

Now, maybe it's not really binge disorder. Maybe it's just our tight financial situation right now, because if I had the money to buy a few low-carb foods to snack on after dinner I would do that. But the idea of breaking down and going face first into the carbs a couple of times a week really made me take a breath, stand back, and LOOK at the pattern I've been living lately.

It's keeping my weight somewhat stable, but gee...

I've Come to a Few Solid Conclusions

2010-04-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 180.6

I've been waffling in regards to diet for quite some time now. Running back to Atkins' Induction when maintenance gets away from me, then moving back to maintenance when I couldn't stand how bad I felt. Sometimes it was the interference of financial issues, but when finances was the case I've noticed that I've always hesitated to return to the fold for fear of getting sick again.

For those who don't know me very well, I've been doing this type of yo-yo-ing for a couple of years now. It hasn't always been Atkins Induction, but it's always been a plan with very low carbs, and few times none.

It never, ever works, but I keep going back thinking this time it'll be different. This time I won't get sick. This time the fat will start to come off. But it never does. I always get sick, and I always quit.

Now the interesting thing about sitting right where I am, is that this is the exact spot that every diet I've ever tried has dropped me off at. The old Weight Watcher's exchange program, Sugar Busters, low carb, they've all come to a screeching halt exactly where I'm sitting right now.

Set Point Theory? Perhaps. But I sure hope not, because that would mean my goal weight is out of reach. And I'm not yet ready to believe that. Yes, I get sick and tired of feeling downright bad on low carb and say I'm giving up, I'm quitting for good. But I always calm down, and come back around to the fact that I'm fat -- and not happy being this way.

I've been thinking seriously over the past week about WHAT I want to do about it.

And I've given up on the idea that there's a perfect plan out there that is going to help me do it. I've pretty much come to the realization that if I'm going to make this happen, I've got to ignore the candid, overwhelming advice to "find" a plan that fits my lifestyle and tastes, then do it by the book. Because I no longer believe that plan exists.

As I've said before, I LOVE the structure of the South Beach Diet. So I'm going to design my own plan. I'm going to borrow South Beach's structure of not counting carbs, and keeping track of the starches and fruit I'm eating by dishing up normal portion sizes. But I'm going to use more saturated fats than South Beach advices. I'm going to lower my fats overall, to whatever level my body can metabolize without me having to spend the greater portion of my day in the bathroom.

And I'm going to go SLOW.

That doesn't mean Induction, that means backing "into" the plan from where I'm currently sitting right now on maintenance. The idea is to start out at a high enough level of carbs to keep myself from getting sick, about 100 or so, but lower my fats and calories to the point where I start losing. Then adjust as needed from there.

Maintenance for me is still coming in at 2100 to 2300 calories. About 12-13 calories per pound of total body weight. So to burn 1 pound of fat per week, I need to lower my calories to 1600 to 1800. The best fat level for me is somewhere between 45 and 60g per day. Way lower than low carb folks are eating, but that's the level I've always felt best on.

So in regards to overall metabolism, low morning body temp and all, I'm still not in as bad of shape as a lot of others are. Not when you consider that I'm only 5 feet tall, and female. Got lots of muscle still.

South Beach Article Got Published

2010-04-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 179.4

The article I wrote on the South Beach Diet, and how to modify it to fit into a gluten free lifestyle got published by Suite 101 last night. So from now on, I won't have to go through an editor before publishing any of my articles, until after-the-fact. There's good and bad things about that method. Publishing will be quicker, but the article will be live when you make all of the suggested changes.

The link to that article can be found here: Gluten Free South Beach Meals

I've been reading the forum threads for their writers a bit over there. Most of them don't understand the writing and publishing process, and are quite short on patience. It's a long-term, residual monetary investment. It isn't something that is going to make you rich. Those types of markets are short and far between these days. At least, that's what those who diversify are trying to explain to these guys.

Now I need to figure out what types of subjects will be the best to write about. Low and moderate carb dieting, obviously, Celiac Disease, and other assorted health issues. But, I also would like to branch out a bit and try my hand at other things. I've grown pretty used to first person articles, so writing in third person objective voice hasn't been easy, it's been a real challenge, but I'm doing okay.

Still haven't gotten to putting up the new blogs I want to start yet. Been too busy helping my husband get his business venture up and running. But that's on my to-do list for this week.

Weight is still staying stable. Snow is here again, so I'm back up a little bit, but as far as maintenance is concerned I'm doing just great.

Pounding the Pavement Today

2010-03-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 180

Today was a long day. Since I had figured out how to do a flyer for my husband's business, and got it fine-tuned yesterday, we spent the greater part of the day pounding the pavement.

First, we dropped by city hall to turn in our application for a business license. They said it would take the better part of a month because they needed to contact our neighbors. Then we have to go in front of some kind of council. I found all that a bit funny, since we aren't going to be conducting any business in-house, but the woman who took our application kept saying that contacting our neighbors was a good thing.

Next we stopped by a couple of Realty offices to take them a flyer and let them know we exist. By accident, we noticed that one of the gas stations had a few "seeking employment" type of flyers taped to their glass doors. So we immediately dropped our original plan of only going to see a few Realtors and started dropping by every business in the area to see if we could post a flyer. Some took one and put it on their desk, but most of them let us post it in their window.

So we covered a lot of ground today. Had to go home 3 times to reprint more flyers. Printed so many we ran out of black ink. I got that retirement check I've been waiting for in the mail today, so when we ran out of flyers, we went to Walmart and picked up some ink for the printer, plus some business card paper. It was a bit late, so we decided to call it a day even though we didn't cover even 1/2 of the area we had originally planned.

We also placed an ad in one of the newspaper inserts that covers the entire country. One of those free papers that everyone gets. It was cheaper than we realized. Only $5 for the first month, and $4 a month from thereon provided you pay in advance. So that's a good enough deal to keep it on-going for awhile. At least long enough to see if it works.

We got a call already from the flyers we put out today, one of the last one ironically. A single mom wants to put in a sprinkler system, so my husband is going to go and talk to her tomorrow. He isn't completely finished with the "honey-do" lady yet, but she wanted a few days to get her house cleaned up, and so I think my husband is going to work for her whenever he doesn't have something else lined up.

My weight is on the upward swing again, but with all of the walking we did today, tomorrow might be better. We'll see.

I've Been Fairly Busy Lately

2010-03-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 179

I haven't posted anything lately on either blog, because I've been rather busy. Surprisingly, I did get accepted to work for Suite 101, so I've been spending a lot of my time over there at that site going through the writer's materials, learning their style/structure, and basically how they want things done.

What's nice is that the subject of your writing is wide open. You can basically do anything you want to. However, pay is totally dependent on advertising which means you won't make much money unless you write on topics people want to read.

I haven't posted anything yet, as I'm still working on an article about the process for adapting South Beach to be gluten-free, but I'll post a link after it publishes. The first article goes through an editor first before it's published, so that could take awhile if it needs a lot of rewriting. Third person, SEO slanted, is a very different style than I'm used to, so it's taking me longer than it otherwise would.

My husband has been working for the woman we went and visited last Thursday. Turns out she had a lot more work than we first realized. Pay is a bit strange for us. Apparently, where she comes from an area of California (L.A.) where the person needing a fix-it man decides what they is going to pay you. And since we need the money desperately, my husband didn't argue over it. It's quite a large drop in pay, but there's enough work to pay the mortgage for this month.

So neither of us are complaining.

I spent the last couple of days investigating online what my husband is going to have to do to get an official Handyman's license. Plus learning how to design a flyer for his new business. He's decided that finding another Contractor to work under isn't going to happen. Not with the economy the way it is right now. The Contractor's we know have laid off all of their employee's and are switching over to Handyman work themselves.

The information I found online was much the same. Advertising was being done by licensed Contractors, which just wasn't heard of a year or two ago. We used to get lots of jobs due to Contractors not wanting to do the small tasks. But that isn't true anymore. Most are advertising that no job is too small. So we're just grateful that we found someone who needs and wants a "Honey-Do."

My weight is holding steady. I'm down a little bit, since I was able to purchase a few veggies this week.

Revamping My Thoughts Today

2010-03-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 180.2

I didn't get a chance to post anything last night, because after spending the afternoon with my husband checking out a possible "Honey-Do" house fix-up job with a woman a local electrian/plumber gave our phone number too, I decided to check out the invitation over at Suite 101 to apply for a writer's position.

It doesn't pay all that much money, something in connection to advertising which I don't completely understand yet. But then, I didn't make much money working at the Boys Home either, and I'm just looking for a way to replace what I've lost by having to quit my job.

Suite 101 is basically a site for beginners, and that's what I am. So I took the time this morning to apply with 2 writing samples.

Honestly, I'm not too hopeful though, because I don't have any credentials other than having taken a couple of fiction writing courses a few years ago, my Kickin' Carb Clutter blog, and a lot of medical problems that I'm well read up on, and would be more than happy to write about.

I have the experience of having lost 80 pounds in 2007, most of it with a modified Kimkins Diet, since I stalled out on Atkins within the first 2 months. But there is no low-carb presence there, and the couple of articles dealing with low carb were not highly favorable of the diet.

I'm Celiac, which is a presence that is mostly missing on the site as well, other than a couple of misinformed, inaccurate articles calling Celiac Disease an allergy. Which I took the liberty of correcting in one of this morning's samples, so it's possibly my way in. But we'll see.

I was surprised to discover just how HARD it was to limit myself to 400 to 600 words. Wow. I knew I was windy, and had this strong tendency towards very long blog posts, but gosh. There was no way to take my old already-written material and transform it into the type of article writing sample they wanted.

As for Jimmy Moore, I've pretty much recovered from the shock. And most certainly did not expect him to drop by my blog. Or comment. I'm glad to hear that he did weigh in at what he said he did, but I'm still not convinced that low carb is everything it's claimed to be. Like I said in my reply to him, I'm just so darned frustrated with it all.

For those who might be new here, the first time I did low carb was way back in the 70s. I had been struggling with a low-calorie diet and losing, and there was Dr. Atkins' diet book on the shelf of my local library. I took it home, read it cover to cover in a day or two. And it was like hearing bells for me. It made so much sense. So I went on the diet, lost 40 pounds in a couple of months, and was from then on a convert.

As my One Golden Shot was like Atkins Magic!

I didn't have a very supportive husband back then, so as time went on, I gained back all of my weight and then some. Partly because I didn't understand that a low carb diet doesn't cure you, and partly because my then husband began fighting me every step of the way.

The real problem I ran into though, was that each time I attempted to return to a low carb diet, the effectiveness of low carb grew less and less. So much so, that after I gained enough strength to stand up to my then husband, and my then doctor told him in no uncertain terms that it was low carb food now or diabetic supplies tomorrow, the effectiveness was almost zero.

I did lose a lot of weight back then, but I did it on Sugar Busters eating stoned ground whole wheat bread, brown rice, and sweet potatoes. Portion and Calorie control. What had worked for me previously when I did the old Weight Watcher's exchange system. For some odd reason, my then husband wasn't adverse to those types of diets. Only Atkins. Even though he was totally ignorant of nutrition, and a complete junk food junkie. Go figure.

The vertigo, after having been divorced and then remarried, really ended all of my dieting efforts. I was bedridden for something like over a year, and totally dependent on my husband's cooking. After which I was partially bedridden for another year on top of that. And as a result, put on something like 80 pounds.

That's when I decided it was time to give Atkins another try. My weight was climbing, and that's a pretty scary position to be in when you're only 5 ft tall. There isn't a whole lot of room for excess fat storage. So when I started seeing another upwards trend, and reached 260 pounds after Christmas of 2006, I panicked.

My current husband was very supportive, and tried to help me keep my spirits up after losing a whopping 2 pounds on induction. For a total of 4 pounds by the end of the month. But at least I was losing...right? Well, sorta. It was good for as long as it lasted, but I'd just tried to do Atkins too many times I guess. Because within the first 2 months, I had completely stalled out.

The irony is that Kimkins was just coming into popularity about then. So I started reading all of the threads about that type of eating style over at Low Carb Friends, and wondered if maybe changing the way in which I was doing low carb would help. I never got into the 500 calorie thing, but I did go pretty low. Around 800 to 900 calories a day.

And it worked. It worked marvelously well for me. I was losing 2 to 3 lbs a week, and holding onto my muscle due to all of the protein in the chicken breast I was eating. Like I said, I didn't follow all of Kimmer's recommendations. I just adapted "some" of her beliefs like lower fat and lean meats into my current plan.

I rationalized the low calories by how short I was, and how "metabolically resistant" to weight loss I was. Especially when others who were as short as I am, were starting threads and talking about how they had to go pretty low in calories to lose weight too. The consensus at that time being 1,000 a day or less if you were short.

So what happened?

The Kimkins facade hit the fan. That's what. It was discovered that she had lied about her previous weight loss efforts, that she was really a fairly large woman giving out diet advice that was suspect in regards to safety, and that the information that was being dragged out into the open about low fat and low calories was putting a lot of folks in danger.

So I stopped what was working for me -- out of fear. I fell into the ditch of herd mentality, listened to what Jimmy Moore and my other friends were saying about how unsafe it was to do low-carb, low-fat, and ran back to high-fat Atkins with my tail tucked between my legs. Because...

I didn't want to die.

I could really kick myself for doing that now. Because I weighed 171 or 172 back then, and Atkins' quickly put a good 10 lbs back on me, which folks kept saying was necessary in order for the metabolism to heal. Problem was, there wasn't anything WRONG with my metabolism. It was working just fine as it was. Until I returned to the Atkins' Diet that is. And the eventual fat loss these folks promised would happen after my metabolism healed didn't.

The irony is that the thousands of dollars worth of tests my doctor ran on me back then said I was the healthiest person she had seen in quite some time. They did have to remove my gall bladder but it was already not functioning properly before I went on Kimkins; and I did have to have another personal matter taken care of. But overall, except for my freaky blood sugar issues whenever I do Atkins, (which my doctor is calling a fluke since my A1C is normal, and I'm now thinking has a strong connection to the Celiac), I'm in excellent health according to her.

For some reason, my version of Kimkins made me healthier not sicker.

Now, since that time I've been chasing after one dietetic rainbow after another. And as you can see, my fat loss hasn't gone anywhere since I left Kimkins behind. I'm still up a good, solid 10 pounds.

At times, I'm tempted to return to what I know worked for me...except, that I know from my experiments with Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fast Loss diet last year, and my recent experiments with Zero Carb and South Beach, that my body is just low carbed out. I get deathly ill now, and my blood glucose goes out of control whenever I try to do low carb of any kind.

Which means my One Golden Shot with Kimkins is over now too.

I seriously don't know what the answer is. But I can't help but wonder...what is the actual cause of all of these troubles? Is it really metabolic in nature or have we just been sold a bill of goods? If low carb is safe, and healthy, why doesn't it work for the greater majority of people who try it? Why are we struggling? And why are we still fat?

Jimmy Moore is Doing Zero Carb!!!

2010-03-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 179.2

Okay; I realize I'm behind the times a bit here, as this is old news that started back on March 12th, but geeze. I just can't let this one go....

First, I'm literally SHOCKED by Jimmy Moore's picture and video he has pasted on his website. I just saw it tonight, and I'm more shocked about him than I was last year when I discovered that most of the low carb gurus folks look up to are fat. Yes I know he's been struggling since he drank a few protein shakes a couple of years ago, and did some exercise, but c'mon.

That's not what got him almost back to his starting weight today.

I'm not buying that he's a measly 289 pounds. Sorry. He's as big as my sister-in-law was just before she went in for weight-loss surgery a couple of months ago. She is tall like he is, and she weighed in at 330 lbs. He has a round face now, with a double chin. And a Santa belly. Yet he's selling a book (with some skinny guy on the cover that he's been claiming looks like him now), about how low carb taught him a few lessons in life.

You know, it's fine and dandy if someone doesn't want to DO low carb. I have nothing against that. It's also fine and dandy if someone wants to eat a bunch of low carb junk food and pretend they're living a healthy low carb lifestyle. Even try to get their readers to buy the stuff. But the dishonesty and deception...I'm just having a hard time with all of that.

Because it really does give low carb a bad name. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. And it feels like people are getting their chains jerked around.

When I was following the Frankenfood's thread on a major zero carb forum last year, I had my doubts as to whether or not Jimmy was actually following a low carb diet. I had doubts as to whether or not he was reporting his actual weight in his menu blog. Things didn't add up then, and they most certainly do not add up now. Because he's always had insulinemia -- it's been discussed at his blog each and every time he posts his bloodwork trying to convince his readers that he's healthy. That the way he eats is healthy.

It isn't some new metabolic issue that's decided to plague his life. And I'm not buying his argument that it's a result of all of those years he ate carbs. It's a true reflection of the way he eats, and continues to eat. It's a true reflection of his current state of health.

So now he's decided it's time to fix the problem. Probably because his readers are beginning to confront him about it. Okay. Some of us tried to do that before and were basically told by him that if we didn't have anything nice to say, we needed to keep our mouth's shut. But okay. This time he's listening to whomever is confronting him because he's embarrassed by his picture. This year he can't rationalize the excess poundage away like he could last year.

So now he's going to fix the problem.

HOW?

By returning to a "clean" Induction, and ridding his life of all of those low carb processed junk foods he's been eating and promoting?

Well...not quite.

Irregardless of his stance on a zero carb diet, and irregardless of his fighting against such a way of life, his constant ridiculing of it, he has now decided that he has no other option except to go on a zero carb diet. Because, after all, he's suddenly tremendously realized that he's ultra-sensitive to carbs. An egg, butter, and cheese FAST is what he's actually calling it. He wouldn't dare call it what it actually is -- zero carbs.

And it's working....somewhat.

He lost a LOT of weight the first week. Over 14 pounds. Which pins him squarely as NOT eating a low carb diet before that. Because that's about the amount of glycogen and water one would lose for his size, during the first week of Induction if one were seriously carbed up beforehand. So while he may have been living a moderate carb lifestyle (which is okay if you're brave enough to call it that), his glycogen stores were pretty full. Plus the last few days he's been eating LESS. Which is also a sign that he might not have been in Ketosis before this either.

He actually believes eating all of these eggs is going to reset his metabolism. That it's going to help him beat his insulinemia into the ground. Sure...whatever. Sounds more like a drastic, crash-type diet, designed to get the weight off of him as quickly as possible so that he can either start to sell pastured eggs from his website, or get his readers to shut up for another few months so he can go back to eating the way he really wants to.

Because, let's face it. He isn't interested in changing his lifestyle. You can see that in the comments he's making about what he's doing. The whole thing is a set up.

Now the irony is that if he isn't faking, if he isn't setting all of us up, then he really does have some crazy metabolic issues going on. Like not being able to absorb fats properly, and not being able to become Keto-Adapted, since he's still spilling ketones into the urine and turning Ketostix dark purple, even after 6 years of being on a low carb diet. Plus all of that excess insulin has got to be doing some serious organ and nerve damage like it does to the rest of us.

But I gotta tell ya. From where I'm sitting, it sure looks like low carb is turning out to be a scam.

We have gurus who don't find it sustainable. Lots of folks stuck part-way to goal. Others who are getting down-right sick each and everytime they take their carbs down to Induction levels. We have people whose blood sugars are going through the roof when they try to lower their carbs (and I'm not the only one; there's lots of folks that are having this particular problem). Plus those who's cravings are getting the better of them. Yo-yo-ing to find that low carb is less and less effective each time one returns to the fold.

So what gives?

High fat, or not, the whole thing smells too much like Kimkins to me!!!

A Bit of a Reprieve

2010-03-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 181

I'm feeling a bit better today. Not great...as I'm still pretty tired...but better.

Finally had a chance to call up a holding company about a tiny bit of Retirement monies they are holding from a job I had over 10 years ago, and got that refund going. So with that and our federal income tax return, at least will have the luxury of electricity for another month. Each time we hit this kind of low, it's always worse than the low before. So far, we've always pulled ourselves back up one way or another, as those who've been following me over the years already know, but with each time getting worse, it's hard to keep a positive outlook on it all.

I suppose because I'm feeling a bit guilty about quitting my job the first of last month.

The roof my husband was supposed to do yesterday turned out to be a little bit bigger of a job than he had anticipated. There was shingles missing, and holes that he needed to patch with tar. So he ended up gathering up all of the supplies yesterday so he could do it today. Only we woke up to snow. Not what we were expecting. That's for sure.

It did clear a bit by around 9 a.m., so my husband headed out anyways. The projected weather said it was supposed to clear up by noon, but that's not what happened. However, the sun did come out for awhile, which allowed the roof to thaw out enough to get it patched, but then the snow started coming down even heavier. So I don't think the weather man knew what he was talking about for today.

Ah, well. Nothing more to do today anyways.

My weight is staying pretty stable these days, even with the higher carbs, so it looks like I've hit my new maintenance weight. Which is actually my old maintenance weight. LOL. Where I was when I first stopped low carbing and moved to maintenance for a long needed diet break.

At least I've been able to whittle off of these old bones the excess fat I gained just before returning to low carb dieting awhile ago. I started the round at 188.4 lbs, and today I'm hoovering around 180 to 181 or so. So it's been enough to stop my backwards slide. But not enough to earn any real honest-to-goodness forward movement.

I was reading over at Lyle McDonald's nice forum the other day, and I ran into a comment in one of his older articles about those who don't do well on a low carb diet. Now, I've read that article several times, and even quoted from it before at my other blog, (the section about how to tell if you would do better on a low carb diet, or one that is higher in carbs), but for some reason, I MISSED a very important point that he made.

There are some individuals' brains who never adapt to using ketones for fuel efficiently. So they feel like crap on a low carb diet. Now what he said was that 50g of carbohydrate per day takes a lot of stress off of gluconeogenesis. So if one is having problems adapting to ketosis, and using free fatty acids for energy, they might need to eat more than 20g to 30g carb per day to fuel the brain.

Okay.

That makes a lot of sense to me because...over the course of my life, (not counting the very first time I went on Atkins, my one golden shot at it), there has been only 2 ways that I've been able to create fat loss through carb restriction: One was doing a modified Kimkins, and the other? A moderate carb diet!!!

I've done the old Weight Watcher exchange program which was about 150g carbs per day, and I've done Sugar Busters which was practically the same thing. Two to three starchy carb servings, a bit of fruit, and lots of lean protein, salads, and veggies.

Hmmm.

Me thinks the air is beginning to clear a bit. I can see why Atkins initially worked for me back in the 70s. I was new to that alternate fatty acid pathway, and my body didn't know what to do with most of the ketones that the liver was producing, so it just threw them a way. The same way it does for lots of other folks who are first comers to the program. BUT I didn't have that much fat to lose back then. I was only about 40 lbs overweight or so.

And it didn't take me more than 2 months to hit maintenance.

I realize that I'm only guessing here. And that maybe the problem really isn't exactly non-adaption. There's dozens of other metabolic defects that could be driving my current issues. But at least one thing's for sure. As far as doing things by the book, low-carb as written is a thing of the past. Though technically speaking, with the 300g to 400g of carbohydrates per day that typify a normal, Western type diet, you could still call what I have in mind, low carb.

But I think I prefer to call what I'm going to design a moderate carb diet, rather than a low one, in order to differentiate it from all of the other low carb diets out there these days. Because even though I suspect that I'll end up eating only about 60g to 100g of carbohydrate per day while in fat loss stage, I certainly don't want any newcomer to this way of eating to think that I'm doing Atkins -- when I'm not.

A Little Emotional Celiac Whinning

2010-03-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 181

My sister-in-law finally decided to go back to California, as she has a doctor's appointment this coming Thursday. That means I get to finally start the process of healing.

It was a bit delayed since I went to a friend's house for Sunday dinner yesterday. Didn't know she had invited a crowd. I thought it was just going to be another couple, one of which also has Celiac, but it wasn't. Got glutened badly, yet again. We had fondue, which is actually her speciality. Deep fried assorted meat cubes, with a nice cheese sauce, asparagus, and fruit, but there was also a tray of cut-up french-type bread stuff.
So I'm not doing very well at all.

The other person who has Celiac didn't come, due to having a bad cold, which is a good thing I guess. Don't know if he is as sensitive to the presence of gluten or not.

Cross contamination makes things so difficult; especially with kids grabbing things back and forth. So it could have been anything - the bread sitting next to the asparagus, the kids eating first, bread crumbs in the fruit. I just don't know.

My husband avoided the bread, because after the experience I've gone through with my in-laws home for an entire month, and all of the work he saw that I have to go through to clean up after bread crumbs and barley ladened dog food, he told me that we are going to go to a completely gluten free home.

Now, maybe I have a wheat allergy, I don't know. But I went through all of that expensive yucky skin testing a few years back for that kindda thing, when I first was sooo sick, and was told that the only allergy I have is a small one to dogs. But I'm not so sure...because I only have to be in the same room with someone else eating wheat bread or crackers to end up with a reaction. Sometimes the reaction is mild to severe hives, and sometimes my upper intestines swell and cause lots of pain, just like I've been glutened.

Not sure just how easy it is to get bread and cracker crumbs airborne. I've read that if you can smell something, like how I could smell the french bread cubes as soon as my friend took them from the oven, the particles of that something are already inside your nose. And if they're inside your nose they can eventually make their way into your digestive system. But I don't know if that's true.

All I know is that I feel downright awful today.

Job possibilities are not going well either. The barn job that my husband was supposed to build, and was told a few days ago that we were only waiting for a building permit, fell through this morning. We were told the guy isn't doing so well health wise right now. Has had 2 hip surgeries lately and is now having problems with his heart.

My husband did have a very small roof patching type job to do today, but that will only pay for the gas for him to pound the pavement the rest of the day after he's done with that. I checked the want ads at our local Workforce Services department and all of the online newspapers as far north as Salt Lake City, but didn't find a thing for either one of us.

So right now, it looks like we're going down.

No Luck Trying to Find the Schwarzbein Books

2010-03-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 179.2

My sister-in-law and I went to the local thrift store yesterday in search of one of The Schwarzbein Principle books. They had all kinds of diet books, including several 2002 Atkins' books, but not any of the ones I was looking for. We next tried the used book store in our area, a Book Nook that's run out of someone's home about 30 minutes away, but they were closed. And I couldn't find them on the Internet.

So I completely struck out.

I guess if I want to know what she has to say, and what she believes, I'll have to order a used copy from Abe Books or Amazon when our financial situation improves a bit. If anyone is interested, there is a tiny bit of info at Diana Schwarzbein's website, but not much.

I did begin to do a bit of research last night in regards to the adrenal glands, and their fatigue/exhaustion, over at the Woman-to-Woman website. Took their adrenal questionnaire, and it came back "moderate to severe". I know that Lyle McDonald doesn't believe in Adrenal Fatigue or Exhaustion, which probably means there aren't any scientific studies about it. However, there has to be a reason why I tend to get soooo sick when I attempt to do "low" carb.

And Adrenal Fatigue is something I haven't looked into yet.

My weight is starting to go back down. But then, I've been doing low carb meals for breakfast and lunch, then eating a higher carb meal for dinner. That seems to be working out well so far. But I wasn't able to do that this morning. We're almost out of eggs, and I had a partial loaf of gluten-free bread that I needed to use up. So I'm half-expecting my weight to be back up a bit tomarrow. But we'll see.

Been Trying to Find the Schwarzbein Books

2010-03-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Starting weight: 256.5
Today's weight: 182.4

I went to the public library yesterday, to see if I could get my hands on one of The Schwarzbein Principle books, but the librarian who was working that day wasn't much help. She'd never heard of the books, and when I spelled it for her so she could look it up, she kept saying there wasn't anyone in the system by the name of Schwartz, or anything like that.

So I came home, thinking I could just look it up on the computer myself. When I lived in California, the Los Angeles Public Library allowed you to do all kinds of things from your home computer. Only this is a small city library, and I discovered that hardly nothing on their website works.

Ugghhh.

I was soooo hoping they would have it, because I just can't afford to buy one right now, let alone all of them. So I had this thought hit me today while my sister-in-law and I were at Walmart. We had spent most of the morning at the Vet, because one of her dogs has an enlarged heart and hasn't been doing so well. She need a ton of water drained off of her. And we were at Walmart cashing in a bucket of change, pouring it into one of those change-counting machines, so we could pick up a few groceries. When it hit me....

There's this thrift store that she and I just discovered a few days ago, over in Mt. Pleasant, and they had several types of diet books there, one of which was The South Beach Diet book. I didn't buy it, since I'd already read it. But now I can't remember if they had The Schwarzbein Principle. Or not. So we're going to go tomorrow and take a look.

Diana Schwarzbein is an Endocrinologist, who wrote a couple of diet books in regards to healing the Endocrine System and one's metabolism. And I'm very curious in regards to what she learned over the course of her practice.

My weight has been holding steady. Down a bit yesterday, to 182, then back up again today a bit, so maybe this is it, and this last diet round did me some good. At least, I can hope.

A Few Thoughts on the New Atkins' Book

2010-03-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 182.6

I don't have a lot of control over what is going on in my life right now. Not with my in-laws home, and the daily glutening. So I felt the best thing to do under the circumstances was to move back to maintenance for a bit. Take as much stress off of my body as I can. Not that I've been able to do that correctly, though. Which is a bit discouraging, because I don't want to gain back too much fat. It's way too difficult to take it back off again.

So I'm focusing more on portion control this time around, starting today, than I otherwise would. Because if I focused on the carbs, I'd have to go hungry. Plus the worry and fear of them would breed its own set of problems.

Overall, I've gained 4 pounds this week, since last Monday. Not bad, since my typical glycogen-water gain is a good 8 pounds or so. And I've just been eating anything, and how much of, I want. I seem to be gaining quite slowly comparatively speaking. Which is all good. Because my brother-in-law already left to go back to work a couple of days ago, and my sister-in-law will be heading back to California soon. She has a doctor's appointment later on this month.

I haven't gotten around to starting my new blogs, yet. I've been pretty sick this week. Being glutened causes a lot of pain and inflammation which totally wears me out. Plus the weather is still bad here. Been snowing for a couple of days again, and the Meclizine I take for that puts me to sleep.

I've been giving what I'm going to do diet-wise a bit of thought this week, since I've been too dizzy to do much of anything else.

I was surprised to discover that the very newest Atkins' book is coming out with a load of new advice, and suggestions, like discretionary use of fats and a greater focus on calories. With NO mention of Ketosis at all. Things that have been BOO'd when some of us old-timers have tried to voice the same thing on low carb boards and egroups.

So it'll be interesting to see how all of that goes.

Especially since the Atkins Nutritionals company isn't looked upon too favorably among low carbers -- with all of their stress on selling their shakes and bars, and advice that runs somewhat contrary to Dr. Atkins' original intent. But some folks over at Low Carb Friends have taken the advice given in the book, since they respect the actually writers, and have had good success so far.

Now I realize I can't DO Atkins as written. Not without pre-diabetic blood glucose levels. So that's not why I'm bringing this up.

I'm bringing this up, because the Atkins' Nutritionals' attempt to get the low carb community to move towards "lean" protein a couple of years ago backfired in their face. Low carbers love their fatty meats, saturated fat, excessive omega 6 fatty acids, and all. But so far seem to be accepting the same thing from a different point of view.

Which all is making me think about how diet plans themselves tend to evolve over the years. And how that evolvement is really community driven.

An organization or group such as the Atkins' Nutritionals company can "try" to move us in a particular direction, but if we don't want to go, they've got to find a softer, less startling way to move us in that direction anyways.

Which is exactly what they've done.

Instead of pounding us over the head to now switch to eating lean meats, we're now being told that we can eat skinless chicken breast "if we want to." And to add a pat of butter to our veggies, if we do.

The irony, of course, is that in general, low carbers wouldn't eat veggies without butter or olive oil. They just wouldn't. So the advice is kind of funny. No one is going to put a pat of butter on their vegetables instead of eating the skin on their chicken. If they are going to eat the skin on their chicken, they are going to do BOTH. But you know, that's how you move a community in a direction they don't think they want to go...with baby steps.

All of this, plus my recent experience with South Beach and it's excessively high intake of omega 6 in lieu of saturated fat, has made me decide that I really need to come up with my own plan. But since I'm in a position of non-movement right now, I have some time to think about HOW I'm going to do that.

What I'm thinking about doing is implementing one thing at a time in my life, making one single change at a time, rather than attempting a diet plan that changes too many variables. That way, I'll be able to pinpoint problem areas easier than I could when I jumped ship from Atkins to South Beach.

At least...that's what I'm thinking about today. But just where that takes me, at this point, is anyone's guess.

Three Week Weigh In

2010-03-09T10:41:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 178.6

The weather has been particularly crappy, with another snow storm due in later today. Been really struggling with the vertigo as of late, I think because the house is pretty contaminated with gluten right now. Between my sister-in-law's 4 dogs, (her 2 puppies eat a barley-laden wet dog food), plus her bringing in and eating wheat in the house, (they are part-owners so it's not like I can Lord the point over her), I haven't been feeling too well. Hence I haven't posted for a couple of days.

I read an interesting post over at Low Carb Friends this morning. It was about whether or not one could call those who eat low-carb "Elite". What particular struck me was the way in which folks make excuses or become argumentative when they want to rationalize themselves into not doing anything about their present condition. In this case, it was about the expense of a low carb diet. But the point can be equally applied to us low carbers as well.

Especially me...

I went to Walmart yesterday with my sister-in-law, and I used a bit of stashed-away cash to purchase a half of gallon of French Vanilla creamer for my husband, a couple of pounds of cheese, a quart of low-fat cottage cheese, and a couple of bottles of diet Dr. Pepper. It wasn't all the money I have, but I rationalized that I needed to be stingy with my money, since at that time, I didn't know when my husband was going to catch a bid.

Now I didn't purchase anything that I didn't need, except for the soda. And one could easily say I should have spent the $2.76 plus tax on veggies instead. They'd be both right and wrong, since it's not really a good thing to go cold turkey on caffeine when your adrenals are as exhausted and worn out as mine are.

But still--

I realized this morning, that I should have just coughed up the $5 and bought a few veggies to get me through the week. That way I wouldn't be as tempted to eat all of those maintenance-type carbs I've been eating over the last week. That IS what I've done in past winters. So I don't know WHY I'm finding it so easy to bail ship this year. I don't understand that. Except for the fact that I'm getting particularly disappointed in Low Carb itself, since it makes me feel so badly.

I was soooo hoping that moving to maintenance awhile ago, and taking what Lyle McDonald would call a Complete Diet Break, would heal my metabolism and enable me to begin losing fat again on low carb. But that hasn't happened, so I'm more than a little bit depressed about the whole thing. However, I think I might have stumbled onto the real reason that South Beach has been causing me soooo much inflammation.

At first, I thought it was the dairy because that was new. So I cut waaay back on it, and while I did feel better for a couple of days, the inflammation would still come and go. Some days I'd feel great, and some days I would feel clogged and in a lot of pain. And when I tried a few days of doing no dairy at all, that didn't change.

However, I was reading over at the 180 Degree Health Blog this week, about the problems with Omega 6 fatty acids. And something he said kind of struck home.

I can remember Dr. Eades saying in one of his books that the fat we eat becomes a part of our cells, which is why trans-fat is so bad for us. As a result, a lot of us have come to the realization that polyunsaturated fatty acids aren't as good for us as popular belief tells us they are, so we've been popping Omega 3 fish oils trying to better our ratios. Except how can a few pills do that?

Matt Stone makes an excellent point, which I'm probably going to do a post on at my other blog, that popping Omega 3 isn't really going to fix the problem. It can knock back a "little" inflammation, but it can't right what has already become a part of our cells. Only drastically lowering our Omega 6 intake can do that.

So I'm going to do a bit more research on that, and pondering it a bit. Maybe do some more experiencing on myself since runaway inflammation is what brought me to low carb this time around in the first place.

I'm also thinking about starting a couple new blogs. I know, I know, I don't update the one's I have nearly enough already, but here's where I'm going with this. I'm really getting cynical and disgusted with the whole lowcarb thing, and I don't want to clutter my current low carb blog with all of that. I want it to be able to help folks who are doing low carb, and finding that it works for them. Or can.

So I'm going to start a Moderate Carb kindda blog, where I can be a little bit more open about how I'm really feeling, and what I'm really experiencing in regards to carbs and fats and nutrition. What the research says that I'm finding. I can't convert the blog I already have into that kind of thing, because it was recently listed over at Cleochatra's new blog, Fabulous Low Carb Links, and that blog feed is for true-blue low carb blogs.

Not what I really want to do.

Plus I also feel the need to start one that is more devoted to gluten-free issues. Show folks how to get healthy while following that type of diet and lifestyle too. Which would not be low-carb. It would be more moderate too.

So that's what I'll be working on this coming week. Returning to real low carb posts over at Kickin Carb Clutter, the kind I used to do, and moving my more cynical voice and conflicting research and ideas over to a new resting place.

As for this blog, it will continue to be my daily journal where I can share what I'm currently doing in particulars, to my current diet and exercise.

The good thing is that my husband caught a bid yesterday, so he'll have work for a good solid 2 weeks beginning next Monday. Hopefully enough to pay the bills for the month, since I got my last paycheck yesterday, and it was just barely enough to pay the minimum on my husband's credit card, the city utility bill, and put some gas in the car.

Reacting to Sugar Alcohols Now

2010-03-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 178

My weight bounced back up again today, but then, I didn't sleep very well last night. Partly because I'm worried about our financial situation, and partly because I'm probably drinking too much diet soda, too late in the day.

The sun is out today, but our wood stove was leaking black goop again, so instead of a walk this morning, my sister-in-law and I took off for the stores, while my husband burned everything out. Got lots of walking in today that way, so I didn't much mind. Except that I had a bad reaction to Erythritol this morning. I put it in my cup of hot cocoa because I was out of Splenda. And my bod didn't like the switch one bit.

Don't know why I'm reacting to sugar alcohols all of a sudden. I never used to. Especially not to Erithritol. It has a glycemic index of 0, and insulin index of 0, and is recommended as being the gentlest sugar alcohol out there. But I guess something is changing chemically in my body these days.

It's making sticking to Plan very difficult.

I had another pancake with my eggs this morning, but smaller this time. Plus I also put onions and ham in the eggs and scrambled them. Lunch was a left over salmon pattie with dijon mustard. And I'm planning on doing Alfredo Meatballs over steamed broccoli for dinner.

I finally finished up my Insulin Resistance series on my other blog. But I'm no closer to an answer in regards to what's wrong with me biochemically than I was before. I'm guessing that I'm liver/muscle insulin resistant, and not whole body insulin resistant, because my fat cells are as stubborn as heck. They are closed, closed, closed unless I lower both my fat intake and calories.

I've finally decided though, that I'm just going to have to go back to what worked for me before. A lower fat Atkins, a modified Kimkins, a lower-fat moderate carb diet -- whatever you wanna call it. That's how I got off what I have so far, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do again. Except that before I was able to keep the carbs lower than I am now.

Now I just get sick if I do that. Now my blood glucose levels go to pre-diabetic or diabetic levels after eating if I take the carbs down too low.

So I'm not so sure that's the answer either. Will have to wait until my in-laws leave to find out though. Because with weight loss surgery, my sister-in-law has to eat 6 times a day. And I can't do a lower-fat, low calorie diet that way.

Three Types of Vets

2010-03-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 177.4

I was down a pound this morning, which really surprised me considering what I ate yesterday. But raising my carbs and calories to maintenance levels has always been like that for me. It's always corrected the lowered Leptin levels and the down-regulated metabolism.

You'd think I'd be used to that by now.

In my head, I know that most of what the low-carb community preaches is just myth. What Dr. Atkins believed from "observation" of his patients. What he thought was going on. What low-carbers want to believe is true, in order to stay motivated. A kindda pseudo-science that works, for them at least. But it still surprises me all the same, each and every time reality comes knocking on my door.

The weather is still bad. So I'm really glad I made a large pot of turkey-vegetable soup yesterday, because I've spent the greater part of the day sitting here in vertigo hell. And even though I'm always hungrier than usual whenever the dizzies overcome me, I snacked on leftover alfredo veggies this afternoon, rather than the gluten-free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I made for everyone else.

My starchy carbs today were a 4-inch gluten-free pancake with a couple of fried eggs on the side, for breakfast. The soup for lunch, additional veggies for afternoon snack, and Salmon patties, lettuce salad, and steamed broccoli for dinner. Overall, it was a good day. Food wise at least.

I can't say the same thing for my travels on the Internet.

I ran into a bit of a tiff going on within the Check-In, South Beach thread over at Low Carb Friends, that made me sit back...and think...

Reality is -- that very few dieters ever accomplish their weight loss goals, and ever achieve success. Just look at all the hundreds of people that spend a lot of their time on Low Carb diet boards, and you can't help but see that's true. However, a few do go all the way to goal...and of those few, there seems to be three types of folks:

1) Those who easily achieve their goals, then disappear from the boards to live their lives, never to be heard from again. Unless they gain back a part or all of their weight or more, and want to start over of course.

2) Those who achieved their goals with a little bit of a struggle, but stick around in order to help others, and give advice when needed.

3) And those who achieved their goals by taking a few left-turns along the way, maybe with a tweak or two of their own that failed, then revamping their program to conform exactly with some author's view of how they should achieve success. When they finally reach goal, they stick around in order to help others "see the light."

But it's not in the same way that group number 2 does it. It's more of a knock-you-over-the-head kindda thing. Do it by the book, I tell ya. Follow Dr. "A's" Plan or you aren't doing "South Beach/Atkins". Don't you know that you won't succeed unless you do it my way? Which is Dr. "A's" way.

Oh Really? Well, it's the darndest thing but...if I'd followed that type of advice way back in January 2007, I'd still weigh almost 250lbs today, because I stalled out doing it like the book within the first couple of months. The greater majority of my weight loss to date has been lost due to modifications of one diet or another. Shaking things up, we used to call it.

I can kindda see their point, that one has to give a plan a fair shake. That you can't "cheat" and "rationalize" and "make things up," or you'll never see the light at the end of the tunnel. But hey...books are written for the average dieter. And well, some of us aren't all that average.

It's Snowing Today

2010-03-04T17:33:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 178.2

My weight was up a little bit this morning, but the weather here isn't very good. It's been snowing all afternoon. I did get a chance to go for a walk around the block this morning, right after breakfast. Before the weather got bad. Our house sits on an incline, so we take the uphill road first, but I don't know why it was harder on me this time though. It's not like I haven't went that way before. I hope it was just about the weather.

My sister-in-law is still here. She was originally planning on only staying for a couple of extra days after her husband went back to work, but he called and told her he was coming back home on the 8th or so; so she decided not to go back to California just yet. She recently had Weight Loss Surgery and an emergency hernia repair, so she isn't feeling all that well. But she's had a lot of things to do while she's been here, and needed me to do the driving, so I've been able to keep myself somewhat busy.

That didn't help with my weight yesterday LOL. But that's okay.

I didn't do too well diet wise today. Had 3/4 of a chocolate protein shake and 1/2 cup rice with a bit of milk and Splenda for breakfast. We're getting low on fresh veggies, but had enough onion, carrots, and celery to make a turkey-veggie soup for lunch. I added a can of green beans, and a can of corn. It made enough for 2 meals, so I'm happy about that.

I totally lost it for dinner tonight, low carb wise that is. I found a couple of small sirloin steaks in the back of the freezer, and few little extra pieces that I was originally going to use for Chinese food. So I thawed them out for the 3 of us, then put in a few potatoes to bake. I can't even tell you WHY I did that. Especially since I'd already eaten rice and corn today.

Except that with my brother-in-law calling tonight and verifying that he will be coming home in a few days, I guess I just wasn't thinking clearly. I gotta be careful with food supplies, but we aren't completely out of low carb foods....yet.

Don't know how much longer I'll be able to remain in weight loss phase, before having to move to maintenance again. I guess that depends on how many starchy carbs I can eat per day, and still reap some fat loss.

Although my husband has been out pounding the pavement almost every day, looking for work, nothing has materialized yet. Things don't look good for us. There's absolutely no construction going on anywhere in the whole county! And now with me no longer working either, we're in a pretty tight spot right now.

Sorry for the babbling today. I'm just a little bit stressed about the whole thing.

Busy Day Yesterday

2010-03-03T07:31:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 177.4

I had a busy day yesterday, so I didn't get around to posting the stuff on Insulin Resistance and Sensitivity that I wanted to. Plus I also had to do a bit more research on Fat Cell resistance to insulin in order to get the whole thing a bit clearer in my own mind. Insulin resistance isn't something that just happens in a day, there's a progression to it. Plus a lot of folks think they're Insulin resistant, and aren't.

Perhaps it's the misunderstandings surrounding the whole subject plus the differing levels of resistance and sensitivity that are individual, that is causing all of the controversy and hostility towards other weight loss plans (other than low-carb) and nutritional advice. So I'm going to try to get to that today.

My weight is moving downwards, so maybe the South Beach folks really do know what they are talking about. However, like I said at my other blog this morning, I don't think that trying to do purely South Beach is a good fit for me. I don't want to use margarine and fat-free half and half. I don't want to get scolded for not eating 4-1/2 cups of veggies per day when I don't have the money to do so. I don't want to stick to what Dr. Agatston believes are "good" carbs, and avoid what he believes are "bad," when the research I've read doesn't back up his opinions.

So I'm kindda going to go my own way. I came to that decision this morning. I'm still going to visit the South Beach boards, and continue to learn what I can from the folks on them, the same as I do with other plans like Atkins, Weight Watchers, and the Lyle McDonald boards, but I'm going to mold the principles I'm learning from all of these plans into something that fits my own situation and tastes.

Because I've reached the point in my journey where I really do WANT to make what I'm currently doing a lifetime way of eating.

My Official Two Week Weigh-In

2010-03-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 178.4

I was reading over at Lyle McDonald's forum this morning, and I ran into a thread about Insulin Sensitivity. It was pretty interesting stuff, and Lyle's view helped me understand my own situation just a little bit better. I did a bunch of research on the web today, and found scientific studies that back up what he was saying, so I'm not feeling as depressed about things as much as I have been.

For awhile now, I've been wondering if I was Insulin Resistant, or not making enough insulin. Without expensive tests, there is no way to know. So I've just been using my blood glucose levels as a measure to figure things out. But today, after all of the articles and studies I've read, I'm pretty sure I'm Insulin Resistant. On the path to healing, but resistant all the same.

I think I'm going to do a post on that tomarrow, over at my other blog. Because it's much too lengthy to go into here. Except to say, that for the first time in many, many months I have hope that I'll be able to do this.

I weighed in over at Active Lowcarber's South Beach diet weigh-in thread this evening, but there wasn't a whole lot of action going on. Never is. So I went over to Low Carb Friends, and was a bit disappointed by the attitude the Vets were throwing at the Newbies. While I've spoken up a little bit in both places, once in regards to sugar-free fudgsickles, and once in regards to sugar alcohols, I don't really feel comfortable in either place.

They are very good forums for information and ideas. Don't get me wrong. If you want to know exactly how to do South Beach, there's no better way because the books are pretty contradictory and confusing. I do plan on going back and reading/weighing-in, but I don't think I'll be participating all that often. As if you aren't doing things by the book, then you just don't fit in.

Gosh. It's so much like the Atkins mind-set these days. No room for individuality. No room for personal needs. Just warnings about having to do it letter perfect or you won't be successful.

I'm not buying that idea, because I've been pretty darned successful so far -- all without doing things like the book. So I don't see why I can't be successful still.

I am feeling pretty tired tonight though.

Gotta Move More

2010-02-28T16:38:00.000-08:00

Weight Before Starting South Beach: 179.8
Yesterday's Weight: 178.6
Today's Weight: 178.6

My weight is not moving downwards all that much. Sort of bouncing right now. I'd like to be able to say I don't care, but I'd be lying. At least, today it stayed even.

Folks who are maintaining on the South Beach Diet say that is a perfectly normal reaction for the beginnings of Phase 2. From what they told me, when you start adding carbs back into the diet, the body will first begin to replenish its glycogen stores, then the weight will stabilize, and then the fat will begin to come off. After 3 years of doing low carb and/or maintenance, I feel a bit hesitant to add back in the carbs. But I know that's going to change pretty soon because my husband still hasn't found work, and I'll soon be outta veggies.

It's my current understanding that carbs are converted to glucose, which is then burned for energy. What isn't burned is sent to the liver, converted to glycogen, and then stored in the liver/muscles. It's only when the storage depots are full that carbs are stored as fat. Perhaps when glycogen stores are low, they get more preferential treatment. Maybe only a part of the carbs we eat are converted to glucose and burned. I guess time will tell.

I had one of those epiphany moments yesterday. When I was working at the Boys' Home, I was on my feet for a good 6 hours a day. It wasn't physically taxing work, but I was moving. Now I'm not all that active. Partly because I keep getting glutened, and I'm trying to be patient and allow my body time to heal. And partly because my in-laws came home a week ago unexpectedly, so my routine is a bit different right now.

When I approached the subject with my husband, how I needed to get up and move more than I have been, he suggested we go for a walk. We only went around the block, but wow. I was huffing by the time we got home. It made me realize that walking would be the perfect exercise for me right now. That and my stationary bicycle that I haven't rode in months. Don't think I have enough strength to ride my real bike right now. Plus we keep getting hit with snow storms anyways.

I've been rethinking Dr. Agatston's stance on saturated fats. I don't think I like the idea of using low-fat "imitation" dairy products, and some of the other imitation things he recommends, in leu of the real thing. I'm also wondering if the amount of total fat I'm eating, plus my calories are too high. When I first started Atkins in January of 2007, I lost only 2 pounds on Induction, and had stalled out within the first 3 months. So I had to go to a lower fat version. I'm wondering if I'm going to have to do the same thing with South Beach. It seems like a really nice maintenance plan, but I don't know how successful I'm going to be at weight loss without counting calories.

I did a bit of research this morning, and all I found about saturated fat was conflicting studies, personal opinion, and official statements that towed the party line. What I find interesting is that even among Cardiologists, there is no agreement regarding what is, and is not, a healthy diet. Dr. Atkins was a Cardiologist and believed in low carb high fat. Dr. Atgatson is a Cardiologist and believes in moderate carb, low saturated fat. My brother-in-law's Cardiologist (he had a heart attack and double bypass about a year ago) believes that the real danger is processed foods and transfat. The heart healthy diet my sister-in-law is on after weight loss surgery aligns with Dr. Atgatson mostly.

I'm left thinking that with all of this conflict among so-called authorities, that it's no wonder the obese have so much trouble trying to figure it all out.

Geeze.

So Far...So Good

2010-02-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight on South Beach: 179.8
Yesterday's Weight: 178.4
Today's Weight: 178.6

Adding carbs to my menu seems to be going okay, so far. I gained a very small amount of glycogen/water, about a quarter of a pound, which was expected since I chose to add a starch to my diet (now and then), rather than the one fruit per day that's recommended. Fruit tends to make me hungry. And since starch is the next thing on the list, I decided to start with that instead.

The recommended amount of starch to add is a normal serving per day. Like a slice of whole-grain bread, 1/2 cup brown rice, or a whole-grain tortilla. There is also sweet potatoes, peas, and other starchy veggies one can add instead. But I've decided to go slower than to eat starchy foods every day, even though a normal serving is quite small.

Yesterday I had an ear of corn for dinner. Not really South Beach legal, but from my own experience with low carb and maintenance, I already know that I'm not sensitive to corn; and since funds are in very short supply right now, I'm having to make do with what we have on hand.

I'm not unusually hungry, or craving, or anything like that, irregardless of what the greater majority of low carb folks over at Low Carb Friends tend to say about starches. In fact, I'm having to remind myself to eat. So hunger is being well controlled on this diet.

I have more energy, and just flat out feel better. So if it turns out that I just can't lose any more weight, I think this just might be the plan I decide to stay on the rest of my life. With a few adaptions, of course.

Okay...I Confess...

2010-02-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight on South Beach: 179.8
Yesterday's Weight: 178.4
Today's Weight: 178.4

Okay...I confess. I can't tolerate how I feel on South Beach Phase 1, even without all of that dairy. It's too much like Atkins. It's just Induction, without all of that saturated fat. It's too low in carbs, so my blood glucose levels are once again, elevated. Not as high as they were on zero carbs, but high enough to make me tired, nauseated, and very uncomfortable.

Okay...I confess. I ate 1/2 cup of brown rice last night, which was not legal to eat during Phase 1. I added 2 tbsp of cornstarch to my Chinese food, (divided among 4 servings, but still), used a package of Sun-Bird Honey Sesame mix, (which is Gluten-Free and excellent made with Splenda), and thoroughly ENJOYED it. I suffered no guilt, no weight gain, and no regrets.

Okay...I confess. Eating those carbs made me feel a heck of a lot better than I've felt in weeks. Better than I've felt the whole time I've been on Atkins' Induction. It's like my body has reached a point in the journey where it's completely low-carbed out.

Okay...I confess. I can't take anymore Inductions. No more eating just protein, or just protein and veggies. No more trying to keep my carbs down to some artificial level. I'm dumping South Beach Phase 1, and I'm moving forward into Phase 2, today, where I can begin to add back in good carbs.

Because I realized last night, after falling down yet again, and feeling so good afterwards, that... that's why I moved to South Beach in the first place.

Life on the Beach

2010-02-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

Starting Weight on South Beach: 179.8
Yesterday's Weight: 177.6
Today's Weight: 178.4

After watching my glucose levels recently, it became obvious rather quickly that I was going to have to move to a different plan. A different "kind" of plan. Something other than Atkins, or Protein Power. Something other than Lyle McDonald's PSMF. Something that came with a more moderate level of carbs. Because if I didn't, I was never going to get both my sugars and fat stores under control.

However, taking upon one's self the role of a Beacher, wasn't like just moving from one low-carb plan to another. It wasn't about switching around the details a little bit. Shaking things up in order to get the scales moving downwards again. It meant taking upon myself an entire mind shift. A whole different way of looking at weight and fat loss. A whole different way of approaching the process.

It meant facing the truth about low-carb diets, and moving beyond those ideas. Because a calorie deficit really was necessary in order to achieve fat loss. That there really isn't any keto magic, no metabolic advantage over any other diet. There is only comfort, and ease of compliance.

And that meant I would be returning to the table of my youth and reexamining when I used to believe in and follow a simple low-calorie diet. It meant returning to the table I ate from as a young adult, and reexamining when I believed in, and had good success with the old Weight Watcher exchange program. It meant that carbs are not the demon the majority of the low-carb community believes them to be.

And as a result, a lower-fat, nutrient-dense diet is going to be necessary in order to achieve my goals.

After all of the years I've been a strong low-carb believer and supporter, that was a pretty scary place to find myself in. That place that said that a low-carb diet doesn't work. At least...not...in the way currently prescribed. But more than that, entering into the South Beach way of living kind of leaves you feeling like an outsider. Like you don't really belong in either diet camp.

You suddenly find yourself in limbo. Your carbs are too high, and your fat is too low to be considered low carb. So you're not really accepted by the low-carb community. But your carbs are too low, and your fat is too high to be considered a low-fat, high-carb diet. So you're not really accepted in that camp either.

I guess that means that if South Beach works for me, like it appears to be doing so far, it's going to be like forging my own trail. Creating my own path. And doing whatever needs to be done to make it work.

And when I think about it in that light. That makes it allright.

Getting Control of the Gluconeogenesis

2010-02-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

Stuck in overdrive. That's what it felt like as I sat there staring at high blood sugars and a roll of belly fat that was continuing to accumulate. But it didn't make any sense, because low carb was supposed to be about burning fat for energy. Not protein. It was supposed to be about taking a different metabolic pathway. That's what the Atkins' books all told me. That's what all the folks in the low carb community kept telling me. Yet I was firmly, and solidly in glycolysis.

The question, of course, was what to do about it.

It was over my hot cocoa one morning, that I had this epiphany about how to "force" the body into burning fat for energy, rather than protein. I realized that when I started the morning out with eggs or chicken or ground beef, and little else, that I was setting the body up for glycolysis throughout the rest of the day. And that the only way to break that pattern of using protein for energy was to feed my body fat instead. Deprive it of it's currently preferred energy source.

Course...downing a cube a butter, or drinking a cup of heavy cream didn't sound all that appetizing. But a cup of homemade, hot cocoa with double cream sure did.

So that's what I tried next. I had my high fat cocoa for breakfast, then didn't eat anything for lunch until I got home from work around 2 or 3 pm. Not what the Atkinites would approve of, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment to correct the situation I'd found myself in -- short of giving up on low carb all together.

Within a few days, my blood sugars had dropped from diabetic proportions to pre-diabetic numbers, which was better, but not exactly what I needed in order to heal the neuropathy. So I was left with no choice (at least, that's how it appeared at the time) but to completely go off of low carb. Not just move into maintenance, but I completely stopped low carbing in any way.

I took what the Body Building community would call a "complete diet break."

During the break, I ate absolutely anything I wanted. And within a few days my blood sugars completely normalized!!!!!

Considering all of the insulin-blood sugar theories running around these days, that didn't make any sense to me, but that's what happened. At zero carbs my blood sugars were going through the roof, and at 150 carbs a day, or so, they were back down in the mid 80s.

I went on that way for quite some time. Weight remained stable, and with Winter financial issues contributing to the inability to enter any kind of weight loss plan anyway, I thought I'd re-enter the low carb world sometime in the Spring. I was hoping that with such a long winter break, that Leptin would upregulate to the point where I would be able to start losing weight again with a low carb diet.

But I didn't make it that far. Because suddenly, out of the blue, I started gaining weight. At the time, I didn't associate the problem with the gluten contamination I was getting at work. I just saw the numbers begin to rise, and I got scared. No way did I want to undo all of the work I'd done so far. No way did I want to be like others who allow themselves to gain back every pound they've lost...plus more.

So out of fear, I returned to Atkins' Induction.

Funny thing was -- even though my weight gain came to a hault, my blood glucose numbers began to rise again. Not as badly as they did on zero carb, but bad enough to cause me some concern. Especially since they were not doing that on a low carb diet before. Course, I was eating breakfast again, and I didn't wait as long to test myself this time. So maybe that had a lot to do with it. But then, again, maybe not.

I was running about 106 or so, on a daily basis. And I'm talking mid-afternoon, just getting home after not eating anything since breakfast numbers, not fasting numbers. As they were much higher. But at least I didn't see them get any worse. Not with Induction level of carbs, at least. So that was hopeful. It wasn't like I had crossed over some imaginary loss of glucose control line. It was more like my body was doing things exactly backwards to what low carb philosophy taught.

The lower in carbs, the higher the blood sugars; and the higher the carbs, the lower the blood sugars.

Course, I didn't exactly know where to go from there. Other than to just let everything ride for awhile. I was happy that I'd managed to get off the initial large glucogen-water losses most people experience when they first go on a low carb diet, but I was very unhappy about still carrying around the extra belly fat I'd gained from doing zero carb. Cuz it was becoming pretty obvious that returning to general low carb wasn't going to rid me of the extra 10 lbs or so I'd also put on.

Looking back over my experience as of late, I came to the realization that perhaps it was time I move to a more moderate carb level. Which is how I ended up at the door-step of South Beach. I already knew from past experience that I personally needed a lower fat plan, since the gluten intolerance makes fat absorption difficult, but I wasn't interested in something that was going to be too awfully extreme.

Folks on that particular plan kept telling me that South Beach wasn't low fat, it was low saturated fat, which wasn't the same thing. So I went to the library, checked out the book for myself. While I'm not sure I buy the drastic fear of saturated fat that Dr. Atgatston has, I'm also not convinced that our eating style should be as liberal with saturated fat as today's Atkinites believe it should be.

So like all other plans I've attempted to date, I'll probably end up modifying South Beach, in the same way that I ended up modifying Atkins in order to make the Plan work for me. But then, that's what dieting is really all about. Finding our own individual path to success.

Apology To My Zero-Carb Commenters

2010-02-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

When I first started this blog, it was a journal for whatever low-carb weight loss plan I was currently chasing after at the time. Which meant that every time I started a new plan, like I'm doing now, I would delete all of the old posts, and start fresh.

But I am not going to do that this time.

Cuz I believe my experience with zero-carb, awful as it was, needs to stay in print. I also believe that I need to finish the story, as one of the commenters asked me to do, plus reveal where my current studies in all of this have taken me. What I have learned, and what I'm going to study next.

Now....I need to apologize for not responding to the comments that were made last summer in regards to my zero carb experience. I had no idea that folks were following my journal, and wanting to hear the rest of the story. Since I have not been to this blog since I made my last post.

For some reason, Blogger was not notifying me that comments were being left, or I most certainly would have returned then, and kept up with this journal.

So upon seeing so many comments this morning, I went into my Blogger comment section to see what was amiss, and discovered that you have to leave your email address in a couple of different places in order to receive notification. I don't remember having to do that with my other blog, Kickin Carb Clutter, but then, I started that one quite a long time ago. And probably just don't remember.

Zero Carb and Blood Sugar Elevation

2009-07-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

Beginning Weight: 256.5
Today's Weight: 179

I've called a halt to my 100-Day Very Low Carb Challenge, due to blood sugar issues. So my starting weight from now on, is going to be what I weighed in January 2007. When this whole serious low-carb journey began.

It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that the very basic principles of low-carb that are held onto so tightly by the low-carb community, do not fit my own experience with all of this.

Now maybe that's because we are all individuals, and react differently to various foods and macronutrients. But...when the very foundation you've been standing on for months, and even decades (since I first was introduced to Dr. Atkins and low-carb living way back in the 70s), is ripped out from beneath you, you kindda feel a bit let down.

Okay. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the fact that when you lower your carbs, you automatically lower your blood sugar, and thereby lower your insulin. Right?

WRONG.

Or, at least, that doesn't hold true if you lower your carbs down to biologically zero. Which makes me kindda mad, because to those of us who are sitting on the fence of pre-diabetes, that's very important information to have and KNOW "before" one embarks into zero carb territory.

Now...was that stuff withheld deliberately? No. The ignorance sits on both sides of the fence it seems. But still...one would think that sincerity of heart would keep the doors of discussion open enough to allow the facts to be revealed, without having to pry it outta someone.

That's not how it works though.

I lasted 5 weeks on zero carb. And even though my original intent wasn't to go that low, that's still what I ended up doing. Biologically zero carbs.

When I began that journey, my basal blood glucose was around 84. With my blood sugars not ever going up higher than 120 (even on as many as 100 to 150 carbs per day) provided I stayed away from gluten. I DID have problems before my gluten intolerance was discovered, but absolutely no problems since then. So I was of the mind-set that my problems were in direct relation to gluten sensitivity.

The first week without carbs I felt absolutely great. My energy increased, my sinuses improved, my digestion issues went away. My teeth felt cleaner, and the pain I was having in a broken tooth went completely away.

But after that first week things started to do an about face. Slowly, I started to go down hill. Starting with not feeling very well, and suddenly having to endure a lot of tiredness. Excessive tiredness. Which at first, I thought was just because my body had run out of glucose and was trying to convert to burning fatty acids predominantly.

At that time, I took my blood sugar, because I had one strip left. It was 98. Which shocked the crap outta me, not only because it had been hours since I'd last eaten, but because like I said I've always had basal levels of glucose in the lower 80s. Even when I was having issues before. And now I was staring at a number that fell in the upper 90s.

I tried to find information about that on one of the zero carb forums, but it seemed the greater majority of them all believe that when you cut out the carbs, insulin stays at basal levels so you have a flat line blood sugar curve. Or thereabouts. Rather than the one that performs the way textbooks say it should. So I thought, okay. As long as we don't cross the 100 marker, we're okay.

But then, after about a month, I started having SERIOUS issues. The Neuropathy had resurrected itself, and I started having heart palpitations. Not a good sign. Because it meant I was waaay above my blood glucose threshold.

BUT HOW COULD THAT BE????

I wasn't eating any carbs for heaven's sake. I was just eating meat and eggs. Insulin should be basal. Blood sugar should be low. But my body was telling me that it wasn't.

About that time, I read on one of the zero carb forums that Bear, the original zero-carb guru, had told folks that protein is not converted to glucose through gluconeogenesis except under starvation or emergency conditions, and that his blood sugar constantly ran in the 100s all of the time. That the goal of zero carb wasn't low blood sugar, but stable blood sugar.

At which time, I thought...SAY WHAT????

At a blood glucose level over 100, stable or not, insulin doesn't shut off! Because it sees that degree of blood glucose as a threat!

I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach, and basically stopped posting to that particular forum, because I wasn't so sure that I wasn't hurting myself by being there. However, I was thoroughly enjoying the thread on Frankenfoods, and how food/processed food addiction hurts your fat loss efforts and health, rather than helps it. And you can't read and participate in that thread unless you are a member of that forum.

Sooooo, I just kept silently reading. Reading everything about biochemistry that I could find on education websites. Everything on the Bloodsugar 101 website. Everything on the "Over 50s" thread, that was starting to reveal a lot of things that I was going through. From the gain of belly fat, to the rise in blood sugars.

During this time, I'd tried to get my hands on some more blood sugar strips, but our local Walmart was out of them. And they have this crazy policy where they don't order what they're out of. The distribution center just ships them when they are available and/or want to. Whichever. So I wasn't able to see what was going on for another 2 weeks.

When I finally got my hands on some strips, I'd been eating a few carbs daily (which had helped, but not stopped the heart palpitations and Neuropathy) because I was trying to get the heart palpitations under control. Plus the Neuropathy had spread from my feet up my legs, which meant I was doing some very serious damage to myself by staying zero carb.

My early morning fasting Blood Sugar on Friday morning: 120
I ate meat and eggs for breakfast, and meat for lunch
Just before eating dinner that day, my blood sugar was 103
One hour after a 12oz steak, my blood sugar was 155

At which time, I called a PERMANENT halt to my very low carb challenge, and zero carb way of eating. Irregardless of the claim that you need to stay the course for months, and sometimes years, in order to adapt to that way of eating, it isn't worth losing my leg.

So I'M DONE.

Still reading at the zero carb forums, though, still keeping up with the over 50s thread over there, (because I'm not going to go so far as to say that what's wrong for me is wrong for someone else), someone posted a link to a journal at the raw paleo forum -- someone who was having pretty much the same problem I was. Gaining fat around the belly. Higher than normal blood sugars, though not anywhere near as drastic as mine were.

So I've been reading the whole dang thing the past 2 days, wanting to figure out what is wrong with me. How to help me. And asking the question:

WHY DOESN'T LOW CARB AND/OR ZERO CARB WORK FOR ME?

What this person found was that sometimes it's a problem about eating too much fat. Sometimes it's a problem with eating too much protein. And sometimes it's a problem with eating too much food in general.

Okay. I'd already run the low-fat thing, and if that's it, I guess I'm just going to have to stay obsese. Because I'm not interested in starving the fat off of me. So the next thing I tried was cutting down on my protein. I cut it by 50% yesterday, because I wanted to clearly see, real quick like, if excess protein really is converted into glucose as they say.

I ate a normal low-carb breakfast of sausage and eggs. A few carbs for lunch, about 24, rather than protein. And a mixed dinner of a 4oz hamburger pattie and another 24 carbs.

My bloodsugar before dinner was 93
My bloodsugar one hour after dinner was 103
My bloodsugar two hours after dinner was 92
My bloodsugar three hours after dinner was 91

So protein most definitely is converted into glucose. No doubt about that. At least in MY body. But...I woke up in the middle of the night, about 3 am, extremely hungry. So cutting it down as much as I did was obviously too much. Plus I'm not beyond the idea that I ate too many carbs. But it did show me, that excess protein is definitely an issue.

Exactly how to handle that problem -- is now up in the air.

But I ran into an interesting post by someone who has type 1 Diabetes. She said she has to inject 8 units of insulin to cover a normal 12oz steak. Yet she only has to inject 3 units of insulin to cover a meal of 45 carbs.

Now that caught my attention, because it means that protein raises insulin HIGHER than carbs do!!!!

And that's exactly what I'm finding in myself. Now whether that is a different rule of the game because I have pre-diabetes, and am post-menopause, or whether that is true for everybody, I don't know. What I do know is that for me, carbs are not the bad guy. And that they affect my blood sugars way less than protein does.

WOW. WHO'D HAVE THUNK!!!

Woke Up Sick This Morning

2009-06-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 174.2

I woke up about 4 a.m. feeling pretty nauseated and thrashed. Discovered I was up another .6 of a pound which didn't help matters. That means I'm still bouncing and in another upward swing...yet again. Ugggh.

I also took my measurements. And discovered that in the past 2 days of doing 60% fat that I'd managed to undo everything I'd accomplished this past week. All of my fat was back.

SIGH...

When I first discovered zero carbs, it made soooo much sense to me, that I thought I'd found what I was looking for. But it's not turning out that way. At least...not so far. I'm not having any better luck than I did when I tried doing this a year ago, except that this time my weight is going down a bit (water? muscle?) rather than up.

I'm getting pretty discouraged. Because I'm TIRED of eating just meat. I'm TIRED of the bathroom issues. I'm TIRED of having to watch everyone eat things that I can't eat. As well as having to cook them. I'm TIRED of being tired, and I'm TIRED of feeling sick all the time.

Rant over....

How Things are Going

2009-06-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 173.6

Weight is bouncing again, but that's because I've had to rethink what I was doing, and make a few changes. I'm pretty sure the trouble right now is that I've been too indoctrinated with the Kimkins and Rapid Fat Loss plans. When I told myself to lower my fat, rather than dropping from 80/20 ground beef to 85/15 ground beef, I went into automatic pilot and found myself trying to do tuna and chicken breast.

The tuna made me deathly ill by the way. Maybe because it was Albacore. I don't know. I don't generally eat that type, since it's loaded with mercury, but that's what I had on the shelf in my basement. I tried it twice this past week and got sick both times. So tuna, for now, is OUT.

I also found that whenever I ate chicken breast, whether it was just sauteed up in a pan plain, or marinated in a tbsp of gluten-free soy sauce, I was terribly hungry about 2 hours after eating. On friday, I tried adding a couple of teaspoons of bacon grease to the pan, and upping the amount from my typical 1/2 lb serving to 3/4 lb. It helped initially, I was very full when finished. But I still got hungry within 4 hours.

So it wasn't enough to get me through the afternoon.

Now that didn't exactly make sense, since I'd eaten chicken breast at our friend's house when we went there for dinner last Sunday and was very full all afternoon and into the evening. But then, chicken wasn't the only thing I ate. I also had salad with Ranch Dresssing and a large ear of corn with butter.

I've also been listening to my body this week throughout all of this, which is squirming a bit about the ground turkey I was feeding it. It doesn't want ground turkey, is says. It keeps asking where the ground beef is. Maybe because that is what it needs, and maybe because ground beef just tastes better than ground turkey. I don't know.

But I went into Fitday and started playing around with the numbers. I don't keep tract of everything that I eat every single day, but there was almost a dozen menus from the last month that I could draw on for statistics. I wrote it all down and averaged out my fat percentage. It came out to 63% fat by calories.

Now...I thought I was doing 60/40, which is why I was going to start messing with the numbers in the first place, and was quite surprised to discover I'd been eating more fat than I thought. However, I'm not yet convinsed that percentages is the way to go. They seem to be a bit relative, especially in terms of how much food someone is eating on any particular day.

For example, it doesn't matter how much ground beef you eat, if it's exactly the same type of beef, it still comes in at exactly the same fat to protein ratio. Even though you might be eating a ton of fat in grams. So I might have to take a closer look at fat grams themselves instead. I don't know yet.

For the record, the average fat grams per day I've been eating over the past month came in at 120 grams. About DOUBLE what I've been able to lose fat on before. So maybe that's the bigger problem. At least for us older folks.

So I played with Fitday yesterday and got my menu to work out exactly to 60/40. Course, it isn't real accurate as far as steak is concerned, there's just a generalized averaged beef steak to pick from. So I was kindda shooting in the dark. Plus I didn't eat lunch so I was pretty hungry by dinner time. I ate a full pound of steak, rather than 1/2 to 3/4 of a lb. The downside of which was that I put on a quarter of an inch in my belly.

My fat percentage average for the past week was 45%. This resulted in an inch being lost in my waist, and 3/4 of an inch in my belly. This morning, the inch was still gone from my waist, but I'd regained a 1/4 of an inch on my belly. So either I ate waaaay more fat yesterday than the 60% that Fitday claimed, or I really am going to have to watch my fat grams instead.

Gonna let this ride for at least today, zeroing in on that 60/40 percentage again, before I decide what I'm going to do. Since my official week doesn't start until tomorrow.

Some More Changes and Tweaks

2009-06-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 173.8

I haven't been real good keeping this journal up to date, but that's because I've been spending a LOT of time in bed since I cut out the diet soda. Meniere's is waaaay worse than it was before. So it's been all I could do to just get through my job, and what little bit of shopping I needed to do. Not that I haven't been doing some online reading. Just haven't had the energy or clear mindset to post. Plus I've been having lots of asthma attacks lately too.

I didn't last very long without the diet soda. A week I think it was. I was using Club Soda to help me get through my addiction to the "fizz", but after a few days that started tasting too salty. I'm also finding that with zero carb, the taste buds seem to clear out some, and I'm using less seasonings as well. Everything tastes magnified.

We were supposed to go to a religious pageant a couple of cities over, last night. The owner of the Boys' Home and her kids are in it. But with the weather so bad, and me dizzy and nauseated, we decided to wait and see if there's a better weather day for me later on in the week. The weather report showed that Friday would be a much better day. But I dunno. Every day it seems that the forecast changes.

My weeks happenings were described in my other blog if you're interested in reading about that. Lots of changes and tweaks going on now. I'm back on the diet soda, and a bit of Splenda, but I'm going to try and lower my fat some, due to gaining this extra roll of belly fat at my waist line despite my zero carb diet.

So far, it seems to be working. As my weight today was down quite a bit. And the digital scale is showing fat loss now too.

I remember back when I was doing a Kimkins/Atkins mix that I found I would drop fat on the KK days, and maintain on the Atkins days. Which slowed my overall weight loss down considerably, but allowed my diet the healthy fat and extra calories that it needed too. So maybe I'm going to have to do something similar. Alternate low fat meals with higher fat meals to get a reduced overall fat percentage for the day. At least....that's what I'm trying this week.

Plugging my menus into Fitday have showed that I've been eating about 1800 calories with approxiamtely 60% fat, and 40% protein. So I'm going to try lowering the fat to 50% or so and see where I land from that.

Gotta figure out a way to get the fat to come off.

A Rain-Pounding Day

2009-06-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

Beginning Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 174.8

Today began well enough, except I was extremely exhausted. Didn't really want to get outta bed this morning. So I forced myself to get up somewhere around 7, then fried myself up an 8oz hamburger patty for an early breakfast.

I usually keep my eye open for marked down hamburger meat at the small grocery store a few blocks passed Walmart, bring it home, and make it into 8oz patties. I then place them in zip-lock baggies and freeze. That way, not only are they the perfect size, but I don't have to thaw them out before cooking them if I don't want too. VERY convenient. Especially since ground turkey patties, Jennie-O I think they are, have gone up higher in price at Walmart than the marked down meat at Kent's.

The food helped a little, but not all that much. I'm sure it's the lack of caffeine in the diet soda finally catching up with me. But it could also just be the weather. Plus I "feel" very dehydrated. So I plan on drinking a bit more water today.

Work went well. I made the kids a bunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and some tomato soup to dunk them in. But was waaay too tired to do much for dinner. Just thawed them out a couple of pounds of hamburger meat for a batch of spaghetti. Which I left for them to cook up themselves. I don't always do that anymore, because we're having trouble with the staff figuring out reasonable portions lately, but I just didn't feel well today.

So after a couple of hours, I came home. I threw some chicken wings in the toaster oven to cook, then took off to the next town over to get some gas. Prices are going up again, uggggh. Fifteen dollars only filled the tank a little passed half-way. But I didn't know if my hubby was going to get paid today or not, and didn't want to spend too much until I know how much money I have to work with this pay period.

I debated with myself, whether or not to go to Walmart. I really didn't feel like it, but my lips are chapped and the type of Chapstick I'm currently using isn't working. I really needed the medicated type, so Walmart won.

The owner of the Boys' and Girls' home was there. We talked for a little bit, and she said that the Project Manager had decided to just keep the Boys' Home, but is going to use the Girls' facility. That pretty much leaves her out in the cold. She has decided to just let the whole thing go though. She really does feel like the Project Manager took advantage of her, even though she is the one who turned in her 30-day notice to the state.

It's kind of a difficult situation to be in, because with all of my medical bills I really do still need a job. She asked me if I'd be willing to drive the 1/2 hour to Manti every day just to cook, and I told her yes. I "would" be interested in doing that. Since my husband's boss is talking about bankruptcy, it might be the only thing that keeps our head above water next winter, yet again. So she told me to let the Project Manager know that I was interested.

I came home, ate some lunch, and headed for the computer, but it was only a little bit before the vertigo completely overwhelmed me. I ended up in bed for most of the afternoon. However, I did manage to put some turkey legs into the oven on a very low heat, so I wouldn't have to worry about dinner later on.

I woke up to a very hard, pounding kindda rain. Wind blowing pretty hard. I didn't want to get up, but I remembered that I'd left a couple of small potted flower outside that I haven't repotted for the summer yet. So I had to get up and rescue them. As long as I was up, I started making dinner. Some fried potatoes and home-frozen corn on the cob to go with the turkey.

I still wasn't feeling very well for dinner, so I only ate a little bit. Maybe I'll feel better later and want more to eat, and maybe I won't. I don't know. I did have to take a meclizine today. Haven't had to do that for a while now. But then, it hasn't rained as hard and long as it did today, even though the weather's been crazy here lately. Usually a lot of dark, black clouds, high humidity, with all of that in-and-out stuff so typical for this time of year.

Actually, it's continued waaaaay longer than normal this year. It's almost mid June. It should be stark-raving HOT by now. Oh well. Maybe that means we'll have a longer growing season this year. That would be wonderful, since it's the first garden I've planted in a couple of years now.

Kind of ironic that I have this urge to garden this year, when I'm now eating zero-carb, but that's just the way it goes sometimes I guess.

Oh Boye...Confrontation!

2009-06-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

Beginning Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 175.2

Work has been going smoothly, except that the social workers haven't been removing any of the kids, yet, so the owner of the company isn't too happy about that. She came in and said she was there for a confrontation with the Project Manager. That the Project Manager had called up all of the social workers and told them he was taking over the company on the 1st, and that's why the kids weren't being removed.

The bank didn't come through with the money the Project Manager applied for this past Friday though. But it isn't dead yet. He's supposed to hear today. If that fails, he will HAVE to go out and find himself some financial backers. And that might take time. So it still boils down to whether or not the current owners are willing to give him that or not.

2009-06-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 178.2

My weight is holding steady today, and I seem to be doing okay without a diet soda for breakfast. A bit tired, but then I've been pretty tired for the past week, ever since I tried adding a bit of mayo to my limited food choices, so I wouldn't be honest if I were to try blaming the tiredness on the lack of caffeine this morning.

I took a hula hoe after breakfast, and disrupted the weeds that are trying to make a come-back in the garden. It was a bit difficult for me, since the vertigo has basically returned this past week. But I was bound and determined not to stop until I'd finished. So that's taken care of now, at least for the next few days.

The weather is still sunny in the morning, and cloudly and overcast in the afternoons. Rain and stuff. So I'm still not feeling too awful well. But that should soon pass, and give way to summer.

Weight is Bouncing

2009-06-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 178.2

When I started the Atkins diet back in the beginning of 2007, I went through the Induction phase, only to lose a mere 2 lbs. Then it was 2 more weeks before I lost another 4. But then...that was it. Afterwhich, I had to go to drastic measures.

This time, my body's reacting a little bit differently. I lost a WHOLE LOT of weight the first week, something like 9-1/4 lbs, so I tried adding back a salad. Which not only made me hungry as heck, but it also brought my weight-loss trend to a sudden stop. Well, not exactly stopped. It's been bouncing up and down ever since.

I guess I should have just left everything alone, since it was working so well, but my original intent wasn't to do a zero-carb diet. My original intent was to do an elimination diet. Yes, I've been studying the concept of zero-carb, and learning about the ramifications that a "sweet taste" addiction, diet sodas, and low-carb products can have on our fat-loss efforts. And yes, it has quickly gotten my gluten intolerance under control.

But gee. If this doesn't start working again soon, there's no where left to go but back to a lower fat, low cal diet. Especially with my job going under and my husband's boss talking about their company going bankrupt as well. Yuck!

I was sooooo hoping that taking all of those months off would have reset my metabolism so I could at least make it through the summer before I stalled out again. But I dunno. It looks like my insulin resistance has only gotten worse.

My next official weigh-in day is Monday, and so far I'm up almost 2-1/2 lbs. Not very much, I know. Especially given my tendency towards water retention when the weather is as crazy as it's been lately. But I don't want to make excuses for myself. I want to recognize and admit what's happening to me. I want to own that my weight is bouncing, which means something obviously is wrong.

So even though I didn't set out to do zero-carb, I'm going to give their first recommendation that they seem to give to everyone a whirl. I'm going to try giving up diet sodas and artifical sweeteners to see if that will help my weight to stabilize, then start moving downwards again. Without having to resort to drastic measures.

I just finished off my last bottle of diet Dr. Pepper at work today, so I won't buy any more. My container that I keep my Splenda in is almost empty. I can't remember if I have any more in the cupboard, and I do know I have an almost full bottle of One-Carb Ketchup in the refrigerator, but I'll just give whatever I have left to my in-laws when they come home -- if this works out well. Not that I wish ill on them too, but since they buy and use all that stuff anyways....they'd be pretty miffed if I just up and threw it all away.

Doors are Closing

2009-06-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

Well, the owner of the boys' home where I work doesn't want the burden anymore. She wanted the business to change hands on the 1st, which was yesterday. But the project manager's lawyer, when he looked over the contract, said no way. It was too much of a rush job. The owner wanted the project manager to take over the business without knowing if the loan for the first month's expenses was going to come through or not. Business just isn't run that way...so the lawyer said they were going to wait for the loan to be approved on Friday, and then the business would change hands on the 15th.

I guess that was a "no go" from the owner's side, because she just called me and said that she feels the guy has been jerking her around. That he jerked her around all day yesterday. Wouldn't return her phone calls. That anyone who's anything knows you have to have money to start up a business and make it run. And he doesn't have that.

In fact, she even went so far as to say she told the Project Manager he'd need funds to get him through the first month, and that she had offered him a loan to help him get started. But she also said there is no way she's going to wait for his money to come through. That he didn't believe her about closing the place down if he didn't "make up his mind" by yesterday.

So she gave her 30 day notice to the state yesterday. As far as she is concerned, she's done with it all. Completely.

The project manager did understand full well that she was going to close the place down on the 1st, because he and I talked about that yesterday. But like the lawyer said, it would be crazy for him to put his mortgage (and family) in jeopardy like that. Plus if the loan didn't come through, he wouldn't be able to pay the employees until mid July.

And personally...I just don't get it. But I guess from here on out it's in the Lord's Hands now.

Got the Garden Planted

2009-05-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Current Weight: 176.2

I got the garden planted the other day, but have been holding my breath ever since. That's because typical June weather for us is a killing frost that comes charging through the first week. Don't see anything like that in the projected weather forecast, but still...

I'm glad we made the plot as big as we did, because I just barely had room for everything we'd bought or wanted to plant from seed. Hopefully, everything will go well this year.

Work is a bit up in the air still. The project manager is trying to get a loan that will buy out the owner completely, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen by the first. I guess he decided that he didn't really want to do a take-over; or maybe a complete buy-out will be more to his advantage. Don't know. The current owner said she is going to give the manager the time he needs though, so it's just up to the bank I guess.

I'm feeling up and down these days. Weather is still in a turmoil. Thunder clouds move in, it rains for something like 5 or 10 minutes, then clouds move out again; only to repeat later on in the day. Not good for the ears, let me tell ya. But I'm hanging in there.

I can really see a difference in how my body is responding to the weather on VLC. I used to be sick all dang day. But this time, at least, I just seem to get dizzy when the clouds are actually moving in, and it's raining. As soon as they move out, I'm fine and start feeling better again. That's something new for me.

The diet's a bit boring, but that's to be expected right now, since I'm still at biologically zero. Plus my tastes are changing. More intensified these days. I actually made deviled eggs to go with our garlic-braised turkey legs for dinner, and I didn't add any extra salt or seasoning except for what was in the mayo. Course, the olive I stuck into each half had a lot of salt, but still...

I'm not quite sure where I'm going to go next with everything. It took until about Thursday to recover from the salad I tried last Monday. So I've just been letting everything ride right now. My weight whooshed a couple of pounds on Friday, but this morning I'd regained half of that. So I don't really know where I'm at, as yet. The scale does say that my fat percentage is down a bit, so that's good.

"NO" on the Salad

2009-05-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 177.2

We've been having what's called Intermittent Thunder Storms around here, so my ears are kind of wonky. Plus I'm pretty tired still from my gluten exposures this past week. We did get to the hardware store to buy a new hose, and since my hubby didn't have much work to do yesterday, he also got everything set up for me too. The sprinklers working, etc.

As planned, I added back in a nice lettuce salad last evening, and used a homemade olive oil and apple-cider vinegar dressing, but within an hour, I was hungry as hell. So I ate at least 5 or 6 pieces of freshly made jerky to get me through the evening. I didn't know if I'd be able to sleep through the night, but I did okay.

It's no wonder that I was always so starving and sick when trying to do a PSMF, since you pretty much fill up on veggies. Well, at least now I know the salad's gotta go....

I was reading in Dr. Atkins '72 version of his diet this morning, the chapter about how you know if it's okay to add back carbs -- and the list was surprisingly similar to the one the zero-carb crowd likes to use:

Are you losing weight?
Are you free of cravings?
Are you free of hunger?
Do you find yourself snacking and/or hungry between meals?
Are you sleeping through the night?

So I thought that it would be a good check list to use with each individual addition to my diet as well, not just when I'm thinking about adding in additional carbs. Which is why the salad didn't pass the test.

Our Garden Preparations Are Finally Finished

2009-05-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

The sun came out long enough this morning that we were able to finish tilling and raking out the garden plot. So now we just need to go and buy a good quality garden hose tomarrow evening. Don't want to get one at Wally World, cuz the quality is just too lacking. I'd like to get a hose that'll last more than a single year.

The strangest thing was, though, just as soon as we were finished, the clouds moved in and it began to rain. And hail. So it's still a dreary day here, even though we were able to finish up what needed to be done.

My week on Atkins '72 Induction is about over. And it's gone very well for me. I'm back within "normal" maintenance range, weight wise, even though I did bounce up a lb this morning. Probably due to the weather and water retention. Plus going out to eat, like breakfast at the park yesterday morning, always seems to affect my weight adversely.

With the Induction week coming to a close, I've been thinking about where I want to go with all of this next.

I've been doing a lot of reading over at Zeroing In On Health this past week, a message board for folks doing a zero carb and almost zero carb diet. And it's got me to thinking. They really stress being sweet free over there, including being sugar-sub sweet free. Since it greatly affects insulin levels. Or it can.

And I wonder...

Could my problems with hunger and cravings while eating salad be coming from the dressing more than the lettuce? I do make my own Thousand Island dressing, but Best Foods is a soy-oil based mayo (which has been giving me trouble since I went gluten-free) with real sugar added, and One-Carb Ketchup (now relabeled as Reduced Sugar Ketchup) is made with Splenda.

So I'm thinking that tomarrow for my first carb addition, (since I've been doing less than biologically zero this past week, an allergy elimination diet in order to get everything under control real quick-like) I'm going to whip myself up an oil and vinegar dressing with no sugar sub, make myself up a nice Atkins '72 Induction salad (lettuce, celery, cucumber, and radishes) and just see how I do.

If the hunger returns I'll re-evaluate right away. Otherwise, if it doesn't, then that's my new plan/addition for this next coming week.

It's Another Rainy Day

2009-05-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Weight Today: 177.2

My raking efforts yesterday got rained out, so our original plan for today was to finish raking the garden, then till in the 6 bags of organic compost we'd bought. But we woke up to rain again. So that doesn't look like it's going to happen today. I did finally find some tomatillo seeds though; been looking for them at every store in our area lately, and finally found a few packages at the very last store possible. The local feed store, of all places. So I bought three.

We went to a city breakfast at our local park early this morning. Bacon and eggs, pancakes and orange juice. So I faired rather well. I asked for 3 fried eggs, since I can't eat the pancakes, and 4 slices of bacon. The lady frying the eggs was more than agreeable, but the man holding the pile of bacon looked at me awfully strange when I lifted 4 slices from him. I guess he isn't used to seeing folks eat that much bacon for breakfast.

Not much going on yesterday, nor today. The boys where I work went camping for the weekend, so I didn't have all that much to do at work, and with the rain today, I've just been spending a lot of time reading over at Low Carb Friends and Zeroing In On Health.

My weight was down a bit more this morning, slowing down to a normal pace now.

The Garden Will be Ready to Plant Soon

2009-05-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight: 186.4
Today's Weight: 178.4

I've been spending most of the week outside, raking out the pasture weeds in the garden plot my hubby tilled for me last weekend, and then again yesterday. It's been quite a bit of work, and it'll be keeping me busy throughout this next weekend.

Was a bit tired today. It was pretty overcast, so I'm sure it's just the Meniere's, as my ears are swelling a bit. Then again, I could be coming down with another glutened episode since today was the last day of school at the Boys' Home, and the teacher was doing a cooking class with the kids when I got there this morning.

They were making German Pancakes, strawberry/pudding crepes, and a red sauce for fettucine. Talk about flour being everywhere!!! Ah well. She told me just before I left for the day that they didn't rehire her for next year, so I shouldn't have "that" problem anymore.

It looks like the sale of the place is going through, with the new owners taking over on the 1st, so there will be a lot of changes heading our way I'm sure.

As for my diet, it's zooming along great. Hasn't been as hard to keep the carbs very low as I thought it would be. I'm trying to keep my meals varied, so it doesn't get too awfully monotonous, but there is only so many protein choices that fall into our price range, while keeping one's carbs to 10 grams a day or less. Especially since dairy is currently off-limits due to the gluten intolerance.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to check out the Rib Eye Steaks when I was at our local corner-type market today. WOW. Those babies were a whopping $9.50 a lb!!! I bought a couple of extra-large chuck steaks and a nice, fatty pork roast instead.

This afternoon, when I was trying to figure out what to put with the Sloppy Joes I made for my hubby's dinner, (I made myself an 8oz hamburger pattie and a couple of scrambled eggs instead), I realized that if I'm going to continue doing very low carb, I'm going to have to start cooking for him, at least part of the time. Or he's going to get very bored with my limited food choices. So I'll be going through all of my regular and low-carb recipes the rest of this week to see how I can shake things up a bit for him.

I've also joined a very low-carb, 100-day challenge over at Low Carb Friends. I was a week late signing up, due to being behind in reading the posts at the VLC thread over there, so I'll be extending the challenge for myself for an extra week. Weigh-ins are on Mondays, for most of those who've signed up so as to keep themselves accountable for how they eat over the weekend, and since I thought that was a good idea, I'll be doing that too. Only I'll be recording those weekly weigh-ins on my other, general low-carb blog.

Here, I'll be updating you whenever I post, as I did before.

Back on the Low Carb Path

2009-05-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a bit of juggling lately, cuz I really want to keep this blog as a personal journal of what I'm actually doing in my life. Especially since it's tied into the feeds and links of other blogs. So I've imported my gluten-free posts over to a new blog and will use this one for the purpose I was using it before. To be a more detailed account of what I'm actually doing diet wise. And life wise.

We are doing better financially right now. And it looks like I'm not going to lose my job as I thought before, either. The project manager of the boys' home where I worked (along with another partner), has made an offer to the owner of the business to buy her out. And I think she's going to take the offer.

It has been very difficult trying to stay gluten free, cuz it's as far from automatic as can be. For example, I pulled some leftover spaghetti sauce out of the freezer a couple of days ago, thinking that I really needed to try out the quinoa pasta I'd bought at Harman's before we did our Michigan thing. I wanted to know if it was decent enough to serve to others, as I knew I was going to be moving off of maintenance soon, and needed to experiment with a couple more things before I did that.

I didn't even think about the container the sauce had been frozen in. I just thought about the fact that it was leftover from when we'd tried some brown rice pasta during my 30-day gluten-free experiment. Well, I reacted badly to it all. And was sicker than crap all night, because the container I'd frozen the sauce in was contaminated with gluten.

Plastic containers was one of those things that I had to get rid of and buy new. I thought I'd thrown all of those containers away, but I forgot to check out my small freezer. And it didn't dawn on me what type of container the sauce had been frozen in, until the middle of the night when I was suffering with some serious gut pain.

Such is life for me now. But when I got on the scale yesterday morning, I saw that I'd gained 4 lbs from that experience. At which time, I said to heck with it. Trying to do maintenance gluten-free is TOO HARD. I'm getting glutened far too often for anything to heal. So for safety's sake, and because I've been wanting to return to the dieting path anyways, I immediately went back onto my low-carb diet.

So yesterday I weighed in at 186.4 --

And boye does it ever HURT to say that. I was doing soooo good at maintaining around 175 to 178 lbs for all of this time, without much effort -- up until I went gluten-free that is. It seems that when you go off of gluten, you become super sensitive to it, and the longer you're off of it, the more sensitive you become. Each and every time I've been glutened I've put on a little bit more weight. Not as much as this last go-round, but enough to make it bothersome.

So I've chosen to go the VLC route (very low carb) right now. As I need to get my insulin under control. Fast. Plus I'm thinking that the fewer food choices I have to make, the less likely I'll be to get glutened again.

Cuz I really, really do need to heal from all of this. As well as complete my journey to goal.