One of the things that influenced me to start blogging was my own need to find information about what dietary "tricks" work for people like me. All the world knows, there is NO dearth of nutritional advice to be had! What's the good of standard dietary recommendations, though, which have obviously encouraged the obesity epidemic? Of plans which have a 95% failure rate? Of strategies which show, upon analysis, 99% recidivism?
What good to me is the regimen which a 25-year-old male gym-rat finds effective? Or even a 55-year-old male gym-rat? Young women's experiences aren't much more helpful -- these things were great when i was 30, but don't work well any more.
I did what any modern seeker does: i googled it. "Middle-aged woman weight loss low-carb paleo blog" brought up a number of websites for me to check out, but only one of them resonated (hi, Steph!). She's more than a decade younger than i, but i think we have more in common than not. Reading what she has to say has been instructive and uplifting. I want to pay forward with any of my experiences that can possibly be of help to another person in analogous circumstances.
Most people can agree that context matters. Not only do other baby-boomers have a more similar nutritional background to mine (than someone much younger), but they're at a comparable hormonal place, AND a great many of them will have tried to lose weight over the last quarter-century. It's not a stretch of the imagination to think that, what they have experienced and succeeded with is more likely to be useful to me than the theoretical knowledge of someone just out of college.
"If you are wounded, look for a man with scars." I don't guarantee i got the quote quite right -- i haven't seen that episode of Dr Who in a long time -- but the concept made an impression on me. If one has a problem, someone who has also dealt with the problem (maybe even solved it) is my first choice for advice.
There are LOTS of good paleo/primal/ancestral websites to read, so if you have limited time so spend on them, how do you choose which ones to follow? You won't agree with ANY of them all the time! Some aren't as well-written, though the content may be outstanding, and some which are highly readable and entertaining don't offer information that is really usable. Try a lot of them; frequently, the websites THEY link to are the most valuable thing on the page.
Above all, choose your go-to sites for applicability. If their philosophy gibes with your experience, you're bound to benefit more from their recommendations than from those of the theoreticians, promoting the hypothesis-du-jour.
Hi, Tess! I am so glad you stumbled on my blog, and more so that you started this blog. We middle age women have a lot of commonalities in our narratives.
ReplyDeleteCarb Sane is great that way, regularly pointing out that what works for never-been-very-overweight male diet experts may not translate well for us women. I wish she had more time for personal blogging. Not being a scientist I find a lot of her posts fly right over my head.
I also like Matt Stone, even if I can't quite follow where he leads, because even though he's a young man, he seems to "get" middle aged women, maybe because so much of his focus is thyroid and metabolism.
I hope your paleo day is going well! I have the flu and yesterday all I wanted were tortilla chips with extra salt. First chips I've had in months. They were pretty good, but they get kicked back to the curb once I'm recovered. Sorry if this was a feverish ramble!
just because someone is young or male doesn't necessarily make them irrelevant to me -- some trainers and counsellors i've read online obviously "get it." but it's amazing how much unsolicited criticisms one sees in the "comments" sections which are an attempt to paint EVERYBODY with the same brush....
ReplyDeletein contrast to my philosophy of "if you have an aversion to a food, you're possibly allergic", i think that if you crave an unusual food from time to time, it could signal a need. (of course, consistent cravings are IMHO addiction.) enjoy your chips (this once)! hope you feel better soon!