a talk with oneself

A few recent posts by bloggers have talked about regain, how the hard part of weight loss is hanging on to the ground you have won.  Some very good sites concentrate on that subject particularly.  I don't think many of us will disagree with the importance of the subject, especially those who have decades behind us of "failure."

It comes down to THIS:  people with metabolic issues can NEVER eat in a manner conventional wisdom considers "normal."  Never.  We never should have eaten like other people in the past, and now that we've taught our bodies how to be thrifty through food restriction, we are front-loaded to regain at the least sign of carelessness.

"Young" dieters -- i mean either chronologically young, or those who never had a weight problem till mid-life, and are essentially having to consider it for the first time -- usually have a vision that, if they can only get back to a "normal" weight, they'll be able to join in the feast like everyone else, just be more moderate this time around.  Nuh-uh.  It doesn't work like that.

My history is pretty typical i think, barring the hypothyroidism; i was a chubby child, but got lean in my teen years and stayed normal in my twenties -- though that's where things started getting screwy.  I got "infected" with the low-fat propaganda in the middle of that decade, and from then on it was a battle to try to "eat right" and exercise and keep my weight where i wanted it.  Of course, i couldn't.  All those plates of low-fat pasta, all those bowls of oatmeal, all the baked potatoes with artificial toppings....  I could cry -- but of course, the tears are actually pretty far from the surface now that i do VLC, which stabilizes emotional behavior.

Through most of adulthood i've never been out of the "overweight" range as defined by BMI.  I almost made it to the lower limit last year, but vacations got the better of me.  Not to mention the failed attempt at reincorporating starches....  :-(  By now, i have no illusions.  It's VLC to the bitter end.

The sooner we have that big talk with ourselves the better!  We have to convince our conscious AND SUBCONSCIOUS minds that we can't go back.  We have to become comfortable with the idea that certain foodstuffs are simply not in the books for us.

I wrote the other day about convenience foods; i think i implied that work-arounds are particularly valuable for newbies in the low-carb world, but let me add here that they need to be "the new treat" for us long-timers as well.  Remember how, as a kid, that special cake or cookie was something you looked forward to on your birthday or during the holiday season, and even then your mom would ration it out to you and not let you make a pig of yourself.  That's us, once again.  But "mom" is now your higher self, as we say in the esoteric world.

For those of us who need to stay away from starches and sugars on an everyday basis, THIS has to be "normal" eating.  We can't let others' definitions of what constitutes a healthy diet seem at all appropriate, even in our imaginations.  If we can convince ourselves that THEY are the ones who are weird, and we are the evolutionarily congruent thinkers, the battle is won.  If our self-talk succeeds in pinning the "toxin" label on everything that actually IS bad for our cells, we've done what is also accomplished by ex-smokers, ex-alcohol-abusers, and ex-addicts.

confirmation -- it feels GOOD

When i was hit by that histamine tornado, i started doubting my regimen.  I spent the first week of September eating VERY cleanly and vacationing from my supplements, and the second week adding them back in ... and i feel vindicated that I did a good job of choosing my additions well in the first place.

Well, although i might have rushed into trying new things there for awhile, stopping and starting again with them individually over the course of last year, i felt at the time that i had proven all of them "worthy"!  :-)  I've now confirmed that i'm benefitting from including them.  Last week, as i added them back one by one, i felt improvement with each.

This faulty body of mine just doesn't absorb nutrients the way it should!  About the only things i eat which give me a sort of "rush of well-being" are raw oysters, beef/veal liver, rack of lamb, and fatty beefsteak.  An appalling number of healthyfruitsandvegetables actually make me feel BAD, which surprised me mightily when i first discovered it.  Now, after further study and further experimentation i have learned to accept the counterintuitive!

We HAVE to accept what our bodies tell us, and ignore the "experts" if we adopt their advice and find our health deteriorate.  EVEN IF populations have existed healthfully eating certain diets, if we try the same thing and find diminished wellbeing, it's wrong for us.  EVEN IF other individuals, ostensibly similar, thrive on certain meal patterns and plans, that won't mean it's our own ideal.  We each have to experiment and tweak until our own ideal emerges.

May all my readers find theirs!  Amidst the storms of various opinions, there obviously is no one perfect plan for all of mankind, but i have to believe there's one for YOU.

today is better than yesterday

...That's always a positive thing.  ;-)

When we eat what we know promotes well-being in ourselves, i think we need to consider it a job well done.  When we indulge in "yummy junk" which we know is going to mess us up, it's not a case of "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips" -- it's significantly more sinister.

Those of us who have physical issues which are caused and/or influenced by lifestyle choices need to bite the bullet and think of our health first.  Modern rationalization tells us we CAN have it all, but experience of life proves that to be absolutely 100% WRONG.  Some of us (and i'm not complaining about my own limitations, here) can have darned little of it, and they have my profoundest sympathy.  Most of us can have part of it, and the cannier we are in our approach to nutrition, activity and other choices, the better our results.

We know that gliadin is highly problematic to a huge proportion of the population -- this much has been pretty undeniably "proven."  We know that chronically-high blood glucose and insulin both do incalculable damage to every part of the body.  Because most people around us don't know this, the self-immolation on the altars of diabetes, heart diseases, vascular diseases, and every kind of autoimmune problem possible, which goes on CONSTANTLY around us, looks more overwhelming than it needs to be.

WE know this, those of us who read nutrition blogs, studies and articles by enlightened writers.  We can't see a lot of the damage inside us unless we look for it, and for some of it private individuals don't have the means.  However, even if we don't know what our fasting insulin is, nor the degree to which our bodies are already inflamed and AGEd, we know we want to minimize damage, and we know how to do it:  avoid things which we KNOW are toxic to our bodies.  Coach ourselves till the first thing that we think of when we see a deleterious food is "if i eat that i'll feel terrible and only hurt myself."  Analyze ourselves till we realize that we are tempted by a food or practice NOT because of what it actually DOES, but by association with old feelings and reminders of emotional ties.  Detach and uncouple the CONCEPT of "comfort foods" from the mood we want to establish in ourselves now.

Is watching old movies sitting on the sofa with a carton of ice-cream actually going to comfort us?  Of course not!  It is going to remind us of something else which will give us an illusion of comfort in the present.  The satisfaction of the nutritional benefit of some of the ingredients may be found more appropriately in a better food.  The endorphin activity should be sought through more productive and less-damaging means.  The reminder of past emotional well-being can be pursued without the immediate physical harm-doing.

"You only live once -- eat dessert first" like so many catchy ideas is logically bereft.  IF dessert now is going to make you feel bad later, how can this be a good idea?  If _I_ eat the wrong food today -- knowingly -- i have only myself to blame for being miserable tomorrow.  How WILL i feel tomorrow -- will i think it was truly worthwhile to have eaten the charcuterie platter and consumed the half-bottle of champagne, or will i think that i had cheated myself out of a day of health and energy?

sometimes, you really ARE doing it wrong

Not naming names or anything, but when some people "do what they've been told" and "follow the rules" and still fail to make progress ... well, SOMEtimes they ARE actually doing it wrong.

Some of us have to be stricter than Sisson's allowed 80-20 rule.  Some of us can't afford to assume we're absorbing our nutrients, even from the best foods.  Some of us have to baby ourselves when times get tough, and not try to soldier through workOUTS on top of workING.

I see nutrition gurus post recipe after recipe for "healthy" junk food and think, this just perpetuates the temptation people have to snack!  Perhaps i was an archtypal Spartan in a previous life, but when eating goes beyond being a pleasant necessity to being a form of entertainment, this is where the obesity-prone among us get into trouble.  Yes, enjoy your cream and chocolate and butter, but bear in mind that your meat is more important; nut-flour-based desserts shouldn't be the centerpiece of your diet!  NOURISH your body, for godsake!

If stress is getting you down, perhaps going for a run (or even a walk) isn't as good an idea as lolling in a hammock!  Instead of "just do it" maybe we should "just say no."  When "play" becomes joyless and just seems to wear you out, it could be that a weekend of couch-potatohood would be a much better idea.  DO LESS -- it's not subversive.

Eating a non-toxic diet is only gonna take you part of the way.  The rest of your life has to be non-toxic as well, if you're going to thrive -- your habits, or relationships, your profession, everything.  Fix what you can, discard what you have to, and take care of yourself.  Insist on it.

If the most acclaimed authority makes a pronouncement in favor of something that your body doesn't tolerate, that "authority" is WRONG, and your body is right.  You're the only one who knows what your body is saying (and we'll assume that you interpret its message correctly).  Doesn't matter if an absolute FLAKE advocates something -- if it works for you that's all that counts.  YOU are the authority on YOU -- or if you're not, you'd better learn.  Learn what works, and do THAT.

great "old" bloggers without recent postings

Sometimes, i scroll down my homepage looking at the right-hand column, and marvel at the lack of recent postings by some of the people i read so constantly in the past.  :-(  Right now, of course, a lot of them are getting ready for presentations at the upcoming Ancestral Health Symposium, but that doesn't "excuse" them for their silence (in some cases) for months.  So, what do you do when you want some encouraging or enlightening reading and there's nothing fresh -- you start reading archives.  Something made me think of the Eadeses' blogs, and i went back to Dr. Mike's and reread his discussion of their holiday "misbehavior," and i started following some links to his old postings that i didn't follow before.

The one he wrote back in '09 on why it's easy to slip out of our low-carb ways even though we make progress and feel great on it, is a MASTERPIECE.  He likens eating low-carb now with being a non-smoker back in the '50s, and i found him very convincing.

Even though the way "we" eat makes us feel good and lose weight, sometimes it feels like swimming upstream in this world of ours.  Some restaurants make it darned hard to do what we know we should, and sometimes the people who should be encouraging us make it more difficult.  When in the middle of a plateau, it can be easy to start doubting.  Unfortunately, THAT'S LIFE.  I like to think we've cobbled together a funny little internet family of our own, in which like-minded people half a world away will encourage us when we're feeling a little defeated, congratulate us when we do well and give us good advice and information when we have a question or problem.

I don't know if Gallier2 ever visits here (he's never commented), otherwise i'd ask him to correct my grammar/spelling:

Vivent les communautés internets!

"i don't" eat cake

I disagreed with Dr. Freedhoff's column today, in a minor way.  Of course, being a person prone to fattening most of my life, my point of view is different from his, as a practicing physician.

He deals with people with a WIDE variety of problems and personalities, i'm sure.  As a result, he has to approach each new problem in a what-works-for-the-mean fashion, and then refine the treatment depending upon the reaction of the patient.  I COULD be right in the middle of the pack and respond typically, but i rather suspect i'd be more of an outlier, and in that case, the "right" approach/treatment would be all wrong.  This goes for the psychology of dietary change as well as the physical aspects of it.

In his posting, Freedhoff says, "my issue is whether or not blind restriction is a sustainable long term strategy.  My experience says that it isn't, and that blind restriction, the belief that if you're trying to manage weight or live healthfully you simply can't (or don't) eat nutritionally bereft but hedonically wonderful foods, is one of the reasons so many dieters ultimately fail."

My point is, when most people change their eating habits in order to lose weight, they're not thinking "i'm going to eat like this for the rest of my life" (even if they ought to).  They're living life in a day-to-day manner, wondering if they can hang in there, wondering if they'll actually take off a significant amount of fat THIS time, and dealing with all kinds of derailing surprises, pleasant and unpleasant. The last thing in the world they need to think about is, am i going to be content doing without foodstuffofchoice when i'm 70?

When people are dealing with food restrictions TODAY, they need tools that will help get them THROUGH today without undue hunger and stress, in such a way that the diet isn't ruined.  Tools like ... foods that are pleasant and satiating enough though "innocent," until their bodies unlearn the bad habits that got them to this point in the first place.  Tools like ... tested ways to beat stress.  Tools like sleep and metabolic-flexibility-promoting exercise and truly useful supplements.  Tools like mental habits that encourage one to take the dietary high road.

In that vein "i don't" eat grains, or sugars, or a lot of other things.  This is not to say i NEVER have them these days, or that i never will again.  I just DON'T, as a generality; it makes things easier.  Like what i said before about stubbornness=willpower.  My choice.  Eating the Italian bread on the table while waiting for the saltimbocca to come?  I don't eat bread -- no decision necessary.

So if you're in the doc's position, you may need to strategise like a general planning a campaign -- looking down the road and thinking "we must not allow the troops to feel hopeless, even though it doesn't look very encouraging."  Those troops in the trenches though -- eating their k-rations and worrying about going over the top later -- need to be able to say, "today, 'i don't' eat cake ... but i will when i go on leave."

next time there's cake....

we KNOW what to do in order to lose weight

Yes, we KNOW what we have to do:  we just have to make ourselves do it.  We have to turn ourselves into fat burners, and when you've reached this age, it can get tricky. 

Most middle-aged women have damaged their metabolisms by trying to adhere to what we THOUGHT were valid recommendations for a healthy diet, and then -- when that proved not only to be empty rhetoric, but downright harmful -- we restricted calories time and again, in order to try to combat nature.  A lot of us MADE OURSELVES into carb burners through decades of a low-fat diet, which effectually turned off our fat-metabolizing enzyme production.  Dr. Wong tells us that we begin lowering production of ALL proteolytic enzymes at age 27 ... so at age 57 it may be darned hard to start making the "right" ones again.  Dr. Donaldson doesn't say the same thing in so many words (i don't believe that the action of systemic enzymes was well-understood in his day), but he wrote about the magical age of 33, when he started seeing the effects of aging accelerate.

Changing over from burning carbohydrates for energy to primarily burning fats, then, is going to be WORK.  If the individual has a rigorous schedule already, and struggles to find the energy to meet it, s/he may experience difficulty in "getting over the hump," which is generally known as the "low-carb flu."  Some people, in fact, take an extended time to get past this , indicating that their metabolisms are the more screwed up.  However, look at it this way:  would you prefer to spend a couple of days (best case) to a couple of months (worst case) with lower energy reserves, or would you rather restrict calories FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, in order to avoid the damage which results in diabetes, NAFLD, senile dementia, heart disease, Parkinson's, etc etc etc....

When i was 30, i wouldn't have HAD to commit to either a glucose-based or a fatty-acid-based metabolism -- at that age i seemed to have pretty robust metabolic flexibility, compared to a lot of young people we see nowadays, who grew up swilling quantities of sodas and fruit juices.  When this flexibility fails, however, one's choices become far more limited.

I'm sure my readers will have observed that every succeeding attempt at weight loss is more difficult and less productive than the one before it.  What it boils down to is, we don't have time to waste in accomplishing what we want.  In order to be able to do the everyday tasks that life requires, we need to create the strength and agility NOW.  We have to make sure our bodies are not overburdened with fat, weight-damaged joints and deteriorated tissues NOW.  Trying out the techniques which younger people swear works for THEM may put us so far behind in the race that we'll end by giving up in despair (e.g., the "leptin reset" protocol which a certain young woman said finally worked for her ... AFTER she put on a dozen pounds!) -- that just ain't gonna cut it.

I -- WE -- know what we have to do.

Monday, Monday

...and the paleoblogosphere has been DULL recently!  I usually find something to write about easily, inspired by either the brilliance or idiocy of things i've been reading elsewhere, but not this week.  The most stimulating material i've seen are rants, and i'm not very good at responding to those.  Blame the Mercury Retrograde?  :-)

Weight loss stalled last week, too.

There comes a time in every human enterprise, when things just seem to bog down.  Like trying to run in a nightmare, you can't seem to get any traction, and the monster behind you gets closer and closer....  It happens after you start a new job or hobby; you've learned the basics, the shine of novelty is dimmed, and it's time to buckle down to the grunt-work.  It DEFINITELY shows its face, in every dietary plan i've ever utilized. 

It's easy to backslide at this point.  Take a "vacation," and the next thing you know you've regained the last five pounds, and what you had to do to get rid of THOSE doesn't work anymore.  Resign yourself to always being a butterball, or treat yourself to a goodie you've been fantasizing about, and say you'll get strict next week?  NO.  You can't let intellectual or dietary boredom derail you.  Ground lost may never be regained, at this time in our lives.  This is one of those moments when you HAVE to dig in your heels, refuse to wimp out, slog on through.

You need to have a fallback strategy -- something that you know will inspire and encourage you.  The first thing that always comes to mind, for me, is watching movies in which the hero conquers her/his own demons to succeed, like "Aliens" or "The Goonies" -- just make sure it's a movie that doesn't require popcorn consumption.  ;-)  Go outdoors and do light work in the garden, so that it'll be more of a "break" than a chore.  Search out a restaurant like those Brazilian grill types that became popular a decade ago, where you can get a carnivore's feast on a day you don't feel like cooking, yourself.  Do something you know you're damned good at, no matter how "silly" (a favorite of mine is Freecell, in which almost every game is winnable -- and i have to figure out HOW).

I will quote Jack Lemmon, quoting Billy Wilder:  "You're as good as the best thing you've ever done."  [Assignment:  memorize this.]

You ARE.