the scale relents

FINALLY.  Things are back to normal, and i can stop obsessing.  ;-)  This mini-plateau had me concerned -- i admit it!  SO many times i've thought i found "the answer" and had been disappointed....  My belief in what i learned over the last half-year is confirmed.

Ultra-low-carb, moderate protein, high-fat works for me.  "Shaking things up" with nut dishes and dairy OCCASIONALLY can help.  A little red wine doesn't hurt much.  Vegetables get more iffy all the time, and fruit is an indulgence i should trust but rarely.  This morning's weight reading is lower than it's been since i started spending time in New Orleans (has it been four-five years already?) and was seduced by the delectably evil food there; i have less than 10 pounds to go, to get out of the "overweight" category.

For somebody like me, who has always had to WORK to keep my weight within limits acceptable to myself, this is HUGE.  GOK how much time and energy i've poured into this subject since my teens (i was a chubby kid, but it didn't concern me then).  However, this may have been a blessing in disguise; how often do we hear about people who didn't have to think about what they ate, and then in middle-age started to gain and didn't know what to do about it?  At this point, i've tried almost everything, and i have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't, and why.

As a matter of fact, it's a very interesting thing to look backward.  I realize NOW that as a teen, i practiced intermittent fasting without having a clue -- i was doing that horrible thing called "skipping breakfast" (i wasn't hungry in the morning), and i frequently did without lunch as well.  The snack i had after school simply filled the glycogen storage i had depleted during the day.  Looks kinda like my eating pattern was like a Kitavan's, doesn't it -- put on fat in the evening, burn it all the next day, rinse, repeat.

In my twenties, i discovered that the CICO hypothesis just didn't calculate out right -- again, not in those terms, but just the concept.  In my thirties, exercise still helped a little, but i had to work a lot harder.  A low-fat diet meant constant dissatisfaction, but i was convinced i needed it for health.  :-(  From there it went downhill.  I ended up at 168#, lacking energy to make an effort to be fit, with early-stage carpel-tunnel problems and damaged plantar fascia, occasional hand-tremors, heart-palpitations and knee pain.

I'm not "perfect" today, but i'm happy to say that all the above problems are a lot better.  Not only the physical ones -- i'm now delighted with my increased confidence in my judgement that what "authorities" said about diet, exercise and health, and which did not fit my experience, was ALL WRONG.  It was no failure of MINE, it was not that i was self-indulgent and lazy.  I was being set up to fail.  We were ALL set up to fail.


It's like in the 1930s films i enjoy so much, when the heroine puts up with the hero's BS till she gets to a breaking point, and then she dumps his sorry ass with a scalding character assessment and change-of-philosophy statement right before the grand finis.  Conventional Wisdom, in your conservative, oppressive, self-aggrandizing way, you've completely failed in your mission.  Your job was to build us up and make us strong, healthy and happy, and your pompous self-interest has achieved NOTHING.  You've been revealed as an insecure private-millionaires'-club, a mutual admiration society of nitwits who don't even know what figures of ridicule you are to everyone who has a functioning brain.  You only maintain your place in society because of the deep pockets you use to bribe the corrupt, mediocre poseurs whom your money also helped to promote to positions of policy-making authority.  Enjoy what time you have left, because TRUE science knows you for the farce you are.  Those of us who KNOW you are now your adversaries, and will fight you every inch of the way till you're universally acknowledged to be the losers you are.

"The End."  ;-)