Back at it again

2014 was challenging for me.  Most of all, I fell off the wagon (there, I said it) on doing the right things that kept me on track. And as a result, I gained a lot of weight back.

I can't say I was eating that poorly.  But I wonder if I am in denial?

I wasn't eating a ton of sweets (hardly any), junk food, binging on carbs, no fast food really (maybe Chic Fila but that was mostly nuggets or salads), barely any bread.

If I look back, I know my downfalls were not tracking my food, not weighing and measuring, depression?

So, starting today, I'm back at it.  I have to do this.  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and gaining weight.   I know what to do, I just have to do it.

And I'll journal here as I go to track progress, history, etc.

So starting today, I have done and am doing the following:

• Weighed and measured.  Will do this weekly again (Sunday) and track it.
• Cleaning out the pantry from questionable foods
• Starting a strict low carb diet again, for 2 weeks, close to Induction levels
• Tracking my food online
• Making my food weekly and eating it
• Starting exercising

I did it before, I can do it again, I know what to do.

Determined.

Update:  Today, I accomplished the following:

• Weighed, measured and entered in on My Fitness Pal
• Track all that I ate on my Fitness Pal
• Did not cheat
• Cooked all at home, including food prep for the week
• Did a mile on the treadmill (first real exercise in perhaps 2 or more weeks)
• Properly under-ate but I did get up late.  I did stick to 20 net carbs today
• Renewed my determination to stick to this this week

The Blame Game

Like denial we also blame others for why we are overweight and can't lose weight.

We blame our parents or grandparents, children, stress, finances, government, news media, bullies in school, health problems and whatever else we can rather than face the most likely culprit of us being overweight. 

Unless someone is force feeding you (whch typically requires a feeding tube and trust me it's hard to get fat getting your nutrients in a tube), there's only one person that has control over wehat goes into your mouth and digestive system.

You.

When I was very overweight and miserable, I blamed all kinds of people and things for my being overweight and miserable.  My parents, for keeping me on a low calorie, low fat diet even when I wasn't overweight, the media for promoting all kinds of fad and fast weight loss "diets" that really didn't work, to doctors for not giving me a pill that help me magically lose the weight, my health conditions which made exercising supposedly impossible (ha!), to the news media that consistently gave out bad health information,

Everythig else but me.

And what I learned, years later after getting healthy again, is that I was the one to blame.  Me.  No one else.  Nothing else.  I ate too much.  I ate the wrong things.  I hated cooking so bought all kinds of fast food and ate out alot.  I had terrible eating habits, though not all that bad,  what I ate was still bad.  I had given up on losing weight so I may as well eat what I want. 

It took being 350 lbs, so totally miserable and depressed and in serious pain from fibromyalgia to finally realize I needed to change.  Desperation.

Even setting off on my course to losing weight, it took me a long time before I could even recognize and accept the blame for my weight and how many years I wasted ignoring it.   I'm not even sure I would have been open to ths message:

You are the problem and the one to blame for being overweight.

Say this.  Embrace it.  Accept it.   It's a necessary start.  Once you do, you are one step down the path toward working on fixing your issues.  Next up, is to figure out how to fix it.

And in today's world of information available at your finger tips, there's no excuse to not find great reading on how to lose weight and get healthy.  The information is out there.   It's up to you to put it to use.  I'll be putting tips here too that I've found on my journey.

Next up:  Excuses

Health "facts" truth-a-meter #1: Number of fat cells

So this week, I heard 3 health related "facts" that I made me wonder, "is that really true?"  So in the form of a truth-o-meter, I will dive into some of these every now and then as it really annoys me how much people take what they hear or read as "gospel" and don't question the truth or go research it a bit to see if it's actually true.  With Internet, Bing and Google, there's no excuse other than laziness and denial. 

A big part of my weight loss journey, especially in the past 18 months or so, has been spent researching, reading, questioning, pondering, and trying to get a better understanding of metabolism and not only have my body works, but the body in general.

Fortunately, we have Google and Bing nowadays and can look up so much information on this.

Unfortunately, we have Google and Bing and there is a TON of misleading and sometimes outright wrong information out there, including actual so-called "medical studies".

So I do not believe everything I read and dive into the actual medical studies that were done, how the studies were done, etc. because this really does matter.   Even then, new studies can make older studies obsolete or prove them wrong.  Thus, it helps to keep looking, and to keep an open mind.

So 3 things for fact-checking.  I will tackle just one today on "fat cells".

"When you've been so very overweight and then lost the weight, you still have more fat cells and that makes it easier to regain weight and you have to work harder with diet and exercise to keep weight off"

I had to go look into this.  Did I ruin my body forever by being overweight for so long?

True or false? Depends but more toward being false.

If you are obese as a child, when fat cells are forming and growing as you head toward adulthood, then you might end up with more fat cells but not necessarily.  Thisk, among many other reasons about auto-immune conditions, setting up good eating habits and knowledge, etc. is why it is important to eat well and healthy and exercise as a child.

As a adult who then became obese (more typical), no.  You do not add more fat cells when you gain weight.  You just fill the ones you have.  When you lose weight, you empty them. 

Fat cells do die off and get recreated, but the total humber does not change.

Link to this:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080505/full/news.2008.800.html

Two questions I will dive into later are:
If we could just get leptin injections, it would be much easier to keep weight off when you lose it.

And:
Red meat takes longer to digest which is why we shouldn't eat so much of it.

Looking for fast weight loss? Move along!

One of the biggest issues with obesity here in the U.S. is everyone is looking for the quick and easy fix to losing weight, as fast as possible, without alot of work, and damn the consequences of such a feat, assuming it even works to begin with. Or if it does work, it doesn't work for long as it's really hard to keep the weight off again once you lost it.

Losing weight in a healthy manner so that you not just lose the weight, but also learn how to keep it off for good takes time, patience, diligence, and most likely a dramatic change in your habits that will take time to implement and adjust to.

Yet instead, people look to fad diets, pills, injections, and even things as dramatic as permanent body-altering surgery to fix their eating and weight issues.

Everyone knows someone, even themselves, that "just couldn't lose weight no matter how hard they tried."

Bullshit.  (And I dont' swear hardly ever).

Until you're willing to look within and fix the problems that made you gain weight to begin with, you will not be able to lose the weight and keep it off.

No weight loss program will work with it.

How do I know this?  I was once there myself.  And then lost 175 pounds without any fad diets, pills, surgery, or doctor's help.

So if you're looking for tips for losing that 25, 50 or 100 pounds or more of fat as fast as possible, this isn't the place you're going to find them.  What you will find here are healthy tips and advice to change your life and habits so that the weight comes off slowly and permanently and in a healthy manner so that it stays off and you feel great as a result.

New Meal Plan Started 1/12/13

Tired of not losing weight and feeling fat and more overweight than I want to be, I've decided to try a new meal plan.  I started this yesterday.

It's based on what I see bodybuilder and fitness-types doing, i.e. those who do weight lifting, which is what I do for exercise. 

I thought my low carb would keep working but it hasn't. Any time I've tried to drop my carbs too low, I feel awful for several weeks even after brining my carbs up too much.  My theory is that my thyroid doesn't like this low of carbs and keeps down-regulating everytime I do this, especially since I have so much muscle-stuff going on.

Thus, my new meal plan is different.  Instead of 3 meals + snack a day as I had been doing with about 50% fat, 30% protein, 25-30% carbs, the new plan is 5-6 meals a day, about 30% fat, 30% protein, 30-40% carbs.  Most of the heavier carbs will be in the morning and then PWO.

I felt okay on Day 1, despite having to make some adjustments due to scheduling and food options, as I have had to on Day 2 here, too.  I'm trying to use up some of the foods I still have before I buy much more, but the subsitutions have been pretty close. 

Oddly enough, the scale was down 2 lbs today after Day 1.  I know this is way too early to have any effect, but it is rather encouraging that I did not gain.  We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday I have an appointment with the new doctor who did all kinds of blood work tests on me.  I'm looking forward to the results and what they mean, hoping we have some indciations of what has been going on with me.  I'm hoping for at least T3 supplementation since I've been only on T4.

Overall, I've been feeling pretty good, much better than I was when I dropped my carbs too low.  I've been around 60-100g of carbs mostly.  My thyroid symptoms have been less, though my temperature has dipped low after a lower carb day.  For example, I had about 40g of carbs one day and the next morning, my temperature was 95.9!   Next day, I ate more and my temp went back up to 97.1 where it typically sits.  Coincidentally, this morning it was 97.5, and this was after Day1 of the new plan.  That's the highest it's been in the morning so far (except when I was sick).

My theory is that more carbs will be good for me and my thyroid.  It's my prayer that my body will get the picture that it's healthy enough eating this way that it can lose this extra weight I've gained.  That and perhaps some medications and suggestions from the new doctor.

Meanwhile, I've been working out good still, 3 days a week and had an awesome metabolic circuit yesterday.  Love it!   I'm so much stronger than I ever was and am finding that this has helped with some of my loose skin issues too.

Low carb and athletic performance

Robb Wolf talks about low carb and athletic performance today:

My Thoughts on Low Carb and Paleo, Part Deux

This article really hits home for me as last year (around March/April) when I attempted to "up my exercise" to lose more weight, specifically by doing more demanding weight lifting, I started to feel awful.   My hypothyroid symptoms returned, including dry skin, cold hands and feet, senstitivity to cold, thinning hair, fatigue, problems sleeping, brain fog and more.

My theory has been that I pushed the limit of low carb, that my body was demanding more carbs, and when I upped my carbs, I did feel better.  I didn't lose any more weight, but my thyroid symptoms and fatigue improved.  It took several weeks however.

Yes, I did see my doctor and have my thyroid checked but the "standard" thyroid tests weren't too unusual, not enough to match how awful I was feeling.

Which led me to believe it was how I was eating.  Especially because I was still doing weight lifting and felt like I had more muscle mass.

What Robb Wolf talks about is something I have been investigating, which is that too low of carb where you are very physically active is not good long term.  The theory is that "high output glycolytic" requires more carbs and I personally have found this to be true.

When I tried to cut back again in September, 2012, to try and lose more weight, my fatigue and thyroid symptoms returned, so I added back carbs again.  Again, it took me several weeks to start feeling better.

I don't believe this is as simple as needing more carbs, but eating more did help me feel better.  Unfortunately, it has not helped the weight loss either.  I think it's more complex than this.   I think alot goes into this, including body fat%, homrones such as thyroid, adrenals, and female ones, how long I was overweight and messed up my metabolism, and more.

I'm still figuring this out, but when even the low-carb and paleo advocates recognize that ketosis isn't the 100% answer for everyone, it backs up what I have been personally finding to be true.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013!

It's the New Year and time when many people commit to FINALLY losing weight, eating better, exercising more, quitting bad habits, etc. etc.

I'm so glad I did that already.  Still have a ways to go yet but I am so much better for having done this years ago.  It really has transformed my life.   Positive changes have become healthy habit and I love it.

Case en pointe, despite sleeping in from New Years Festivities running late and pouring rain, I still made it to the gym.  Not out of guilt but because Tuesday is my UBWO (Upper Body Workout) day.  It felt darn good to workout too.

So, New Years resolution for me?  Hmmm....  am already eating well, exercising, don't smoke, maybe cut down on the drinking a bit (it was a little more than usual over the holidays).

Well, one big one is to live life better.  What I mean by this is more vacations and me time, visiting with friends and family more,  A friend of mine past away recently who inspired this.  He lived life well and I want to learn from his example.

Next, I need to get my remaining health issues figured out and see if I can lose some more weight, in a healthy manner.

Another goal is to finish decluttering and decorating my home, including furnishing a guest room so I can actually have guests stay with me.

Oh and to blog and share my story more. 

Happy New Year all.  May this be the year you achieve a happier, healthier you!