My husband and I are quite a pair when we go out to eat, which isn't very often. I'm allergic to casein and soy and he's intolerant of wheat and corn. What's the difference between an allergy and an intolerance? It's a very gray area if you ask me. Allergies are an instant reaction, but can have lasting consequences of varying duration, whereas an intolerance doesn't have the instant reaction but does have the lasting impact. If my husband gets a little wheat, it tears up his insides for days. Most people hear the word intolerance though, and maybe think it's just an annoyance. It is annoying sure, but losing days of your life to sitting on a toilet is a little more than annoying. Not to mention, the long-term damage you may be doing to your gut, which is obviously not happy from what you're eating.
Gluten hate is the cause du jour to be sure. It's the hipster thing to do. That's great I suppose for people who really are sensitive to gluten, in that it's popular and the 'in' thing, so there's lots of options for eating. It's a double edged sword too. I've seen many people on the internet mocking it. If you have celiac disease, it's not a joke. But at least the general public knows what gluten is. Whereas no one even knows what casein is and looks at me as if I have three heads when I tell them I'm allergic to milk. I don't think grains are particularly good for you, and like sugar should probably be taken in moderation if they don't tear you up. However, if they cause you to have a reaction like my husband and his mother, I would personally suggest avoiding them entirely 100% of the time. How can you tell you have a problem? Do an elimination diet.
There are several types of elimination diets, and I would suggest a paleo version. Of course if you can't stand that much meat (weirdo!) then you could do a vegetable-based one, or combination. Basically, for thirty days you are absolutely fastidious that you get not a trace even of the eight common allergens. These include: milk, wheat (I'd avoid all grains, including corn), peanut, tree nuts, soy, shell fish, anchovies and eggs. If you think other foods bother you, like onions or tomatoes, you could exclude them as well. After thirty days, every three or four days, you re-introduce one of the possible food allergens in vast quantity. For example, on day thirty-one, you consume a quart of whole milk. On day thirty-six, you eat a whole bag of corn tortilla chips. You get the idea. You want to space it out, so you don't get confused about what might cause you problems, and you do one food at a time. If you feel fine, and don't have any bowel problems, then your body is fine with that food, at least for the time being. Again, not that wheat or corn are very good for you.
There are also anti-body tests that you can get, but they're not always very accurate. If you have thyroid problems, you can get the anti-body test for Hashimotos, and if you have that, it means you should avoid all grains.
As an interesting aside, my mother-in-law has Hashimotos and celiacs
(the autoimmune diseases are closely related), and she used to have a
fish allergy. I say used to, because she doesn't any more. After having
been off wheat for several months and reading that one food allergy
could be caused by another, she tried eating fish, which previously had
made her mouth and throat blister. She eats fish now without any
problem. I don't suggest trying that one if you suffer anaphylaxis
unless you are under the direct care of a physician.
But, if I don't eat something for a long time I'll lose the ability to! That's false. There are long-time vegetarians/vegans who will get sick from eating meat because it takes the body time to make the enzymes that digest meat, so if you have not been eating something for a very long time, it's probably a good idea to go easy on it when re-introducing it. In the case of the elimination diet, it's only thirty days, so you shouldn't have any problems. I know it's an individual observation, but I wanted to see if wheat bothers my gut after not having had any at all for nearly two years. I had a baguette, and had absolutely no problems.
My husband has given up eating wheat (and drinking beer with gluten in it much to his chagrin) and only eats corn on very rare occasion (he loves corn chips). Corn does bother him but not as bad as the wheat, for the time being anyway. Doing this has improved his gut problems significantly. If you're suffering from IBS, stomach upset, gas, problems going to the bathroom, etc. and you haven't tried an elimination diet, what are you waiting for? You will be surprised how much better you feel when you solve your gut issues. You can solve them too. An elimination diet might not be the most enjoyable thing you've ever done, but I tell you that the pay-off in the end is worth it.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
Lose weight by running...
...your character around an MMO.
In the Spring of 2010 my mother-in-law sent me Gary Taubes book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, and my husband and I were not very enthusiastic about a low-carb diet. I'll be honest, I felt that I was limited in what I could eat, and yes one is. After I found out I had an allergy to casein, my diet became even more limited. However, one must decide what they want. Do you want to eat anything? Or do you want to feel better? Unfortunately, it's not very fair that you can't eat doughnuts without getting fat and my sister can, but you know what? Life isn't fair. The faster you figure that out, the happier you will be.
I've told you my story, but what about my husband? When we first met about sixteen years ago he was normal weight. I'm not sure how much he weighed when we met, but I would guess in the 190s. He's about 6' tall or so and has broad shoulders. Unlike me, he was not overweight as a child. As far as I know, he was normal weight until he went away to college and lived in a dorm in 2002. In the four years that he was away at school he packed on the pounds, but not as quickly as I did. It crept on.
After we both graduated I took a job in Corpus Christi, TX, and he followed me down there. We were there four years and the pounds kept on piling on. When we left Corpus shortly after his mother sent us Taubes' book, he was over 270. It's a very long story, but he was also on SSRIs and didn't want to do low carb. The SSRIs weren't helping him (mentally, emotionally or physically), and the weight was going up and up. He was nearly 300 pounds in the spring of 2012. After reading Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker and seeing the actual research on SSRIs (they help approximately 25% of the people prescribed them, and mostly only in the short-term), we decided to seek other help. If you read this blog and think, 'Gee, she doesn't like the medical/nutritional establishment very much' this is why. SSRIs can ruin your life and MDs prescribe them like they are candy. However, I digress. This post is not about that, except tangentially in that SSRIs can make you gain weight, and it's really impossible to talk about the past without considering this aspect of our story. Weight gain on SSRIs is very specific to the person though, which you will find out if you hang around, that all dietary advice should be specific to the person, and the fact that the establishment gives "one-size fits all" advice is as ridiculous as the idea that congress will balance the budget this year.
I will warn you not to discontinue SSRI use without researching it and being very, very careful. You may consider a liquid version of the medicine in order to reduce the dosage a small fraction at a time. Also don't be in a hurry. It can take several months for your brain to adjust to a lower dosage. I'm not kidding when I say that the side effects of withdrawal are unpleasant. If you do a google search, you'll find support forums for the common SSRIs. Many people wind up back on them because the withdrawal symptoms are so bad. Their doctors often mistake withdrawal symptoms as a sign that they need the drug, rather than for what they are, which is withdrawal. My husband sought out an acupuncturist to help him with his problems, and this was ultimately the best thing that could have happened to him. Not all acupuncturists deal with mental/stress/anxiety, but some specialize in it. He has been off of all medicine since the spring of 2012. He also decided to do a low carb diet at that time. It took approximately two years for him to recover from the SSRI usage, and I don't think it would have been possible without the acupuncturists' help. The first few months were very rocky, but gradually he has completely recovered and his anxiety is alleviated by visiting the acupuncturist every few weeks.
So, why the title of this post? I think that I went a little off what I intended to write, but I think it was necessary. My husband, after getting alternative treatment for his anxiety (acupuncture) and going on a low carb diet, lost over 100 lbs. He went from nearly 300 lbs to I believe the last time he weighed he was about 185. He lost all this weight without any exercise, except for his character running around some MMO world, if playing an MMO counts for exercise. He also lost it pretty quickly. I believe that he has had a stable normal weight since mid-2013. It took him about a year to get to a normal weight on a low-carb ketogenic diet. The same diet has allowed him to keep the weight off for about three years now. No torture-exercise. No trainer screaming at him. No starving. No bull.
Does all this sound absolutely crazy to you? I swear that it is absolutely true and that we have witnesses. And to quote Larry Page, "Good ideas are always crazy, until they're not."
In the Spring of 2010 my mother-in-law sent me Gary Taubes book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, and my husband and I were not very enthusiastic about a low-carb diet. I'll be honest, I felt that I was limited in what I could eat, and yes one is. After I found out I had an allergy to casein, my diet became even more limited. However, one must decide what they want. Do you want to eat anything? Or do you want to feel better? Unfortunately, it's not very fair that you can't eat doughnuts without getting fat and my sister can, but you know what? Life isn't fair. The faster you figure that out, the happier you will be.
I've told you my story, but what about my husband? When we first met about sixteen years ago he was normal weight. I'm not sure how much he weighed when we met, but I would guess in the 190s. He's about 6' tall or so and has broad shoulders. Unlike me, he was not overweight as a child. As far as I know, he was normal weight until he went away to college and lived in a dorm in 2002. In the four years that he was away at school he packed on the pounds, but not as quickly as I did. It crept on.
After we both graduated I took a job in Corpus Christi, TX, and he followed me down there. We were there four years and the pounds kept on piling on. When we left Corpus shortly after his mother sent us Taubes' book, he was over 270. It's a very long story, but he was also on SSRIs and didn't want to do low carb. The SSRIs weren't helping him (mentally, emotionally or physically), and the weight was going up and up. He was nearly 300 pounds in the spring of 2012. After reading Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker and seeing the actual research on SSRIs (they help approximately 25% of the people prescribed them, and mostly only in the short-term), we decided to seek other help. If you read this blog and think, 'Gee, she doesn't like the medical/nutritional establishment very much' this is why. SSRIs can ruin your life and MDs prescribe them like they are candy. However, I digress. This post is not about that, except tangentially in that SSRIs can make you gain weight, and it's really impossible to talk about the past without considering this aspect of our story. Weight gain on SSRIs is very specific to the person though, which you will find out if you hang around, that all dietary advice should be specific to the person, and the fact that the establishment gives "one-size fits all" advice is as ridiculous as the idea that congress will balance the budget this year.
I will warn you not to discontinue SSRI use without researching it and being very, very careful. You may consider a liquid version of the medicine in order to reduce the dosage a small fraction at a time. Also don't be in a hurry. It can take several months for your brain to adjust to a lower dosage. I'm not kidding when I say that the side effects of withdrawal are unpleasant. If you do a google search, you'll find support forums for the common SSRIs. Many people wind up back on them because the withdrawal symptoms are so bad. Their doctors often mistake withdrawal symptoms as a sign that they need the drug, rather than for what they are, which is withdrawal. My husband sought out an acupuncturist to help him with his problems, and this was ultimately the best thing that could have happened to him. Not all acupuncturists deal with mental/stress/anxiety, but some specialize in it. He has been off of all medicine since the spring of 2012. He also decided to do a low carb diet at that time. It took approximately two years for him to recover from the SSRI usage, and I don't think it would have been possible without the acupuncturists' help. The first few months were very rocky, but gradually he has completely recovered and his anxiety is alleviated by visiting the acupuncturist every few weeks.
So, why the title of this post? I think that I went a little off what I intended to write, but I think it was necessary. My husband, after getting alternative treatment for his anxiety (acupuncture) and going on a low carb diet, lost over 100 lbs. He went from nearly 300 lbs to I believe the last time he weighed he was about 185. He lost all this weight without any exercise, except for his character running around some MMO world, if playing an MMO counts for exercise. He also lost it pretty quickly. I believe that he has had a stable normal weight since mid-2013. It took him about a year to get to a normal weight on a low-carb ketogenic diet. The same diet has allowed him to keep the weight off for about three years now. No torture-exercise. No trainer screaming at him. No starving. No bull.
Does all this sound absolutely crazy to you? I swear that it is absolutely true and that we have witnesses. And to quote Larry Page, "Good ideas are always crazy, until they're not."
Friday, May 20, 2016
You'll Outgrow It
In my last blog post, I told you about my casein allergy.
When I was ten days old it was Christmas time in the late 1970s and I was in the hospital. My mother thought I was dying because there was blood in my stool, my paternal grandmother told her it was the milk causing it, and the doctors confirmed it. My father told me that they did 'nuclear medicine' on me. He had never heard of it and had asked the doctors if it was safe. They assured him it was. I believe that it was probably a barium test that was performed on me. I had extreme inflammation and was bleeding internally. Because many people who have casein allergies also have soy allergies, they put me on an amino based formula called Nutramagen. My dad said it cost $25 a canister. That's about $100 today. I was not a cheap baby.
The doctors told my parents I would outgrow said allergy. I'm not sure that even happens with things that are autoimmune. I think that the milk became less of a part of my diet and I grew bigger so that I was able to tolerate it. I do not think I tolerated it well, and I believe the milk is the original cause of me being nearly 300 pounds. I believe that my gut was inflamed from the time I was allowed to have milk, until three years ago when I gave up all milk products entirely. You may find this hard to believe, but people have lived with far more intolerable things for longer periods of time. I also think as I grew older, that I was tolerating the milk less and less.
Symptoms:
If I were to sit here in front of you and drink a glass of milk, in approximately five to ten minutes, I would feel as if someone were stabbing me in the gut with sharp daggers. This feeling would subside in an hour or two, and is mediated by consuming other food with the milk. The next day and for several days after, I have bad joint pain to the point that moving is painful. I also become a very bad bitch. It's probably from the joint pain, but I am entirely unpleasant to be around if I've been exposed to milk.
I have never had soy by itself, and so I am unsure if it causes the same sort of stomach pain as the milk does. It however does affect my mood, and since it may also be causing low-level inflammation, I avoid it.
It took us a long time to figure out what my problem was. I had known since I was a kid that I'd been in the hospital because of the milk, but I had never heard of a casein allergy, only of lactose intolerance. I didn't think that it was a big deal, and there was no internet, and so I was none the wiser.
I backpacked in Italy in 2012. One morning I got a cappuccino from the McDonalds across from Termini station in Rome. If you've not traveled in Italy I'm sure you're thinking McDonalds? Yeah, they have pretty good coffee in Italy, and in the States too. I drank my cappuccino, not having consumed any food with the intention of finding something to eat after, as all they had at that McDonalds was pastries. The Italians need to be introduced to the breakfast taco, seriously, desert for breakfast is not breakfast. Anyway I digress. I didn't get but about two blocks down the street before my stomach started protesting with a vengeance. I thought to myself, "Oh, yeah, coffee is so hard on my stomach, I need to find something to eat quick." No, just no. It is so obvious now that it was the milk in the coffee. In fact, I had made it a point never to drink coffee before I ate breakfast because I thought the coffee upset my stomach. You would think that we would have figured this out sooner, but none of us did. I do wonder how many other people suffer from the same thing, or something similar, and have no idea what is going on with them.
Another interesting thing occurred after I gave up milk. Hiccups used to hurt me bad. I hated getting them, because I would be in agony. My husband thought I was full of it. He would tell me that hiccups don't hurt and that I should buck up. It turns out that my gut must have been so inflamed from the milk, that hiccups did hurt me. They don't any more. I've had them several times in the last three years since giving up the milk, and they've not hurt me once.
But the best thing that happened since I gave up all milk products? The weight that had been plaguing me since the age of eight fell off me. I was and still do eat a low carb diet as well, but I don't count carbs. I just sorta watch that I don't eat too many. How many do I have a day? It's probably akin to the Atkins Maintenance diet. Maybe 60-80? It varies every day. Some days I have less. I rarely go over 100.
So how much weight did I lose? Well I had been stuck at about 190 on low carb for several years and despite doing the Atkins Induction, zero carb, highly ketogenic, I couldn't budge it. However, I had maintained a lower weight than before without struggling and wasn't hungry, so I'd made the decision that if that was as far as I could go, I would be fine with it. I felt so much better eating low carb after all. Then after I removed the milk, I went from the 190 range to about 150 now. I cannot believe that I wear a size 31 in men's Wranglers and I tried on a dress at the mall that was a size 8 and it fit me. I lost forty pounds. Without worrying. Without trying. Without much exercise. I walk my crazy deaf cattle dog down the road a mile or three every day. That's it. It had to be the milk.
When I was ten days old it was Christmas time in the late 1970s and I was in the hospital. My mother thought I was dying because there was blood in my stool, my paternal grandmother told her it was the milk causing it, and the doctors confirmed it. My father told me that they did 'nuclear medicine' on me. He had never heard of it and had asked the doctors if it was safe. They assured him it was. I believe that it was probably a barium test that was performed on me. I had extreme inflammation and was bleeding internally. Because many people who have casein allergies also have soy allergies, they put me on an amino based formula called Nutramagen. My dad said it cost $25 a canister. That's about $100 today. I was not a cheap baby.
The doctors told my parents I would outgrow said allergy. I'm not sure that even happens with things that are autoimmune. I think that the milk became less of a part of my diet and I grew bigger so that I was able to tolerate it. I do not think I tolerated it well, and I believe the milk is the original cause of me being nearly 300 pounds. I believe that my gut was inflamed from the time I was allowed to have milk, until three years ago when I gave up all milk products entirely. You may find this hard to believe, but people have lived with far more intolerable things for longer periods of time. I also think as I grew older, that I was tolerating the milk less and less.
Symptoms:
If I were to sit here in front of you and drink a glass of milk, in approximately five to ten minutes, I would feel as if someone were stabbing me in the gut with sharp daggers. This feeling would subside in an hour or two, and is mediated by consuming other food with the milk. The next day and for several days after, I have bad joint pain to the point that moving is painful. I also become a very bad bitch. It's probably from the joint pain, but I am entirely unpleasant to be around if I've been exposed to milk.
I have never had soy by itself, and so I am unsure if it causes the same sort of stomach pain as the milk does. It however does affect my mood, and since it may also be causing low-level inflammation, I avoid it.
It took us a long time to figure out what my problem was. I had known since I was a kid that I'd been in the hospital because of the milk, but I had never heard of a casein allergy, only of lactose intolerance. I didn't think that it was a big deal, and there was no internet, and so I was none the wiser.
 |
| McDonalds has good coffee |
Another interesting thing occurred after I gave up milk. Hiccups used to hurt me bad. I hated getting them, because I would be in agony. My husband thought I was full of it. He would tell me that hiccups don't hurt and that I should buck up. It turns out that my gut must have been so inflamed from the milk, that hiccups did hurt me. They don't any more. I've had them several times in the last three years since giving up the milk, and they've not hurt me once.
But the best thing that happened since I gave up all milk products? The weight that had been plaguing me since the age of eight fell off me. I was and still do eat a low carb diet as well, but I don't count carbs. I just sorta watch that I don't eat too many. How many do I have a day? It's probably akin to the Atkins Maintenance diet. Maybe 60-80? It varies every day. Some days I have less. I rarely go over 100.
So how much weight did I lose? Well I had been stuck at about 190 on low carb for several years and despite doing the Atkins Induction, zero carb, highly ketogenic, I couldn't budge it. However, I had maintained a lower weight than before without struggling and wasn't hungry, so I'd made the decision that if that was as far as I could go, I would be fine with it. I felt so much better eating low carb after all. Then after I removed the milk, I went from the 190 range to about 150 now. I cannot believe that I wear a size 31 in men's Wranglers and I tried on a dress at the mall that was a size 8 and it fit me. I lost forty pounds. Without worrying. Without trying. Without much exercise. I walk my crazy deaf cattle dog down the road a mile or three every day. That's it. It had to be the milk.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
The Journey of a Thousand Miles begins Beneath One's Feet
It is difficult to know where exactly to begin.
I know that I weighed nearly three hundred pounds in high school. I say nearly because I wouldn't have gotten on a scale if you'd paid me. I know that I was at the very least 280, but was likely close to 300. I had steadily gained weight starting about the age of eight or so. In the seventh grade I broke my leg, and the doctor told my mother to put me on a diet. My mother, never believing that fat was bad for anyone, put me on a low calorie diet that was not a low fat diet too. I lost quite a bit of weight and was in a size 12, which is still pretty chunky but was an improvement. But then I was very hungry all the time, and the weight crept back on. The size 12 pants got tight, and then the 14s got tight, and before I knew it I was in a size 26 (in women's pants). I was teased relentlessly and called all sorts of names. I remember there was a girl who lost a lot of weight in high school, but I assumed that she did it by starving herself. Now I wonder if she hadn't done Atkins.
Some time after high school, I went to the mall. There were a pair of pants at PacSun that I liked. They didn't make them in a big enough size for me, and that's when I decided to really do something about my weight. Again, I did the calorie restriction, and I lost down to about 220 or so. You can only starve yourself so long though. And 1200 calories a day is starving. The reason why it works is because you are restricting carbohydrates too, and so your insulin is lower, and since your insulin is lower, the fat is let out of the fat cells. Things go so much better without so much hunger if you cut the carbs. And this is why I couldn't maintain the starvation diet. I really tried not to eat very much. My body didn't want to stay at 220 though, it wanted to go back up. I didn't understand why. My sister ate whatever she wanted and in whatever quantity she wanted, never counting anything and was a size 0, and still is now in her thirties.
I had never heard of Atkins, until I met my husband. His mother knew about Atkins since the 1970s. If you read my last post you'll know that I had never heard any of this and there was no internet as we know it now in the early 90s when I was in high school, so I had no way of knowing any of this. The doctors didn't tell me. No one told me.
I went on the Atkins diet in 2002 at the suggestion of my future mother-in-law. I lost down to 163 lbs. It was the least I'd weighed since I was in middle school and lost weight the first time. However, this didn't last. I went off to college in another state, and eating the cafeteria food I didn't gain fifteen pounds. I gained fifty and then some. By the summer before my senior year, my weight had crept back up to 240. I was wearing a size 44 in Men's Wrangler jeans. That summer I did a summer camp at the school for high school students. I was sorta like a camp counselor. We couldn't leave the campus to go anywhere, but we were permitted to go to the gym. With a couple of the other students I worked with inspiring me, I became a gym rat. It's the only time in my life I've been a gym rat. I worked out two to three hours every day. I stopped eating so much in the cafeteria, limiting myself to a small plate. Over the summer, I lost thirty pounds and was into a size 40 in Wrangler's. This was an improvement, but considering the amount I was working out and how much less I was eating over a two month period you'd have thought I'd have lost more, if you believe the mainstream nutritional wisdom.
My senior year was busy, and the weight crept back on very slowly. I took a job a couple of months after graduation, and before I knew it, I was pushing back into size 44 pants. And so again, I started going to the gym at our apartment complex, walking on the beach, eating healthy whole grains, and I managed to get down to about 200 pounds. And that was it. There was no going any lower. Through absolute willpower, I kept my weight in the 200-225 range for three years. I was so hungry, and the weight would creep back on and I'd fight it back off. I tried not to eat very much. I certainly didn't enjoy my food, and any time someone brought something like donuts I felt guilty eating even one. When you're 200 lbs and eat a donut, everyone looks at you like you're a glutton. Even if you nibble it.
In 2010, my mother-in-law sent me Gary Taubes book, Good Calories, Bad Calories and told me to read it. As I said in my previous post, I was angry. All this time the health authorities knew this. They KNEW that low carb worked to lose weight. Not only worked, but kept the weight off. I'm still pissed. I wasted years of my life trying to lose weight. At this point I was close to 225 lbs, again.
I didn't really want to do low carb. It meant giving up food that I liked. In the end though, one has to decide what they like more. As I said before, I have a casein allergy. Things have been given up for that too. When you decide that it's worth it, that you'll feel better not eating the foods you like, and that there are plenty of tasty low carb foods, then it's not so difficult to do. The low carb helped me immensely but because of the dairy allergy, by itself it wasn't a panacea. My husband dropped weight on low carb like it was going out of style. I on the other hand, got stuck, and began to question the validity of all of this. It's valid all right. I believe that if it doesn't work for someone, if they're not cheating on it - as this is not a diet you can cheat on, then there is something else wrong with them. If you've tried low carb and I mean really tried it and you got stuck in a plateau and you couldn't break it, I'd look into other metabolic or food allergy problems.
To be continued...
I know that I weighed nearly three hundred pounds in high school. I say nearly because I wouldn't have gotten on a scale if you'd paid me. I know that I was at the very least 280, but was likely close to 300. I had steadily gained weight starting about the age of eight or so. In the seventh grade I broke my leg, and the doctor told my mother to put me on a diet. My mother, never believing that fat was bad for anyone, put me on a low calorie diet that was not a low fat diet too. I lost quite a bit of weight and was in a size 12, which is still pretty chunky but was an improvement. But then I was very hungry all the time, and the weight crept back on. The size 12 pants got tight, and then the 14s got tight, and before I knew it I was in a size 26 (in women's pants). I was teased relentlessly and called all sorts of names. I remember there was a girl who lost a lot of weight in high school, but I assumed that she did it by starving herself. Now I wonder if she hadn't done Atkins.
Some time after high school, I went to the mall. There were a pair of pants at PacSun that I liked. They didn't make them in a big enough size for me, and that's when I decided to really do something about my weight. Again, I did the calorie restriction, and I lost down to about 220 or so. You can only starve yourself so long though. And 1200 calories a day is starving. The reason why it works is because you are restricting carbohydrates too, and so your insulin is lower, and since your insulin is lower, the fat is let out of the fat cells. Things go so much better without so much hunger if you cut the carbs. And this is why I couldn't maintain the starvation diet. I really tried not to eat very much. My body didn't want to stay at 220 though, it wanted to go back up. I didn't understand why. My sister ate whatever she wanted and in whatever quantity she wanted, never counting anything and was a size 0, and still is now in her thirties.
I had never heard of Atkins, until I met my husband. His mother knew about Atkins since the 1970s. If you read my last post you'll know that I had never heard any of this and there was no internet as we know it now in the early 90s when I was in high school, so I had no way of knowing any of this. The doctors didn't tell me. No one told me.
I went on the Atkins diet in 2002 at the suggestion of my future mother-in-law. I lost down to 163 lbs. It was the least I'd weighed since I was in middle school and lost weight the first time. However, this didn't last. I went off to college in another state, and eating the cafeteria food I didn't gain fifteen pounds. I gained fifty and then some. By the summer before my senior year, my weight had crept back up to 240. I was wearing a size 44 in Men's Wrangler jeans. That summer I did a summer camp at the school for high school students. I was sorta like a camp counselor. We couldn't leave the campus to go anywhere, but we were permitted to go to the gym. With a couple of the other students I worked with inspiring me, I became a gym rat. It's the only time in my life I've been a gym rat. I worked out two to three hours every day. I stopped eating so much in the cafeteria, limiting myself to a small plate. Over the summer, I lost thirty pounds and was into a size 40 in Wrangler's. This was an improvement, but considering the amount I was working out and how much less I was eating over a two month period you'd have thought I'd have lost more, if you believe the mainstream nutritional wisdom.
My senior year was busy, and the weight crept back on very slowly. I took a job a couple of months after graduation, and before I knew it, I was pushing back into size 44 pants. And so again, I started going to the gym at our apartment complex, walking on the beach, eating healthy whole grains, and I managed to get down to about 200 pounds. And that was it. There was no going any lower. Through absolute willpower, I kept my weight in the 200-225 range for three years. I was so hungry, and the weight would creep back on and I'd fight it back off. I tried not to eat very much. I certainly didn't enjoy my food, and any time someone brought something like donuts I felt guilty eating even one. When you're 200 lbs and eat a donut, everyone looks at you like you're a glutton. Even if you nibble it.
In 2010, my mother-in-law sent me Gary Taubes book, Good Calories, Bad Calories and told me to read it. As I said in my previous post, I was angry. All this time the health authorities knew this. They KNEW that low carb worked to lose weight. Not only worked, but kept the weight off. I'm still pissed. I wasted years of my life trying to lose weight. At this point I was close to 225 lbs, again.
I didn't really want to do low carb. It meant giving up food that I liked. In the end though, one has to decide what they like more. As I said before, I have a casein allergy. Things have been given up for that too. When you decide that it's worth it, that you'll feel better not eating the foods you like, and that there are plenty of tasty low carb foods, then it's not so difficult to do. The low carb helped me immensely but because of the dairy allergy, by itself it wasn't a panacea. My husband dropped weight on low carb like it was going out of style. I on the other hand, got stuck, and began to question the validity of all of this. It's valid all right. I believe that if it doesn't work for someone, if they're not cheating on it - as this is not a diet you can cheat on, then there is something else wrong with them. If you've tried low carb and I mean really tried it and you got stuck in a plateau and you couldn't break it, I'd look into other metabolic or food allergy problems.
To be continued...
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Fat and Sick: The Big Lie
I'm not sure exactly what day it was, but it was about three years ago when I came to the realization that most of what we are told are lies. I know, you're thinking, but how can that be? How can everything be lies? Hang in there, and I'll explain. I'm not saying that there is necessarily malice behind the lies, although in some cases there might be. I think that part of it is the sheer volume of information that is out there, the inability of most people to sort through all of it, and the powers that control the narrative that 'goes viral'.
In the Spring of 2010, I read Gary Taubes book Good Calories, Bad Calories. I got about a hundred pages into it and was so angry, I wanted to destroy something. Why was I angry? I was angry because medical science has known about the carbohydrate hypothesis of weight gain since at least the 19th century. THE NINETEENTH F*ING CENTURY! Now, I weighed three hundred pounds in high school. You read that correctly, three hundred pounds. Do you think anyone ever at any point in my life said to me, hun, maybe you need to cut back on carbohydrates? Hell no. They said I ate too much (I was so hungry). They said I didn't exercise enough (it's difficult when you're so fat). They said fat was bad for you. But carbohydrates? I didn't even know what a carbohydrate was until I was probably twenty-five. No one in my world talked about carbohydrates. People may have on occasion said that sugar would rot my teeth, but I didn't drink regular soda. I also don't particularly have a sweet tooth for candy either. So I never made the connection.
My problems went beyond the carbohydrate consumption however (this is not the case for others in my family whose problems were solely carbohydrate driven). I was born with a severe casein allergy that caused internal bleeding and I was in the hospital when I was ten days old. My parents thought I was dying. My grandmother figured it was the milk. I was put on Nutramagen, an amino based baby formula that was prescription. The doctor told my parents that I would outgrow the milk allergy. By the time I was five, my mother let me consume things with milk in them, but I was never a fan of milk straight or on cereal because it made my stomach hurt. If taken straight with nothing diluting it or a large amount, milk would make me feel as if someone was stabbing me with knives in the gut. No one in my family investigated why milk made my stomach hurt, or the insane weight gain that began after I started consuming milk products. It was bad healthcare all around. I had severe and chronic ear infections, which is associated with milk allergy. Did the doctor think, hmm, this child was milk allergy when an infant and has ear infection every other week, maybe I should look into this. No. Not no, but hell no. Instead it was tubes, scarred ear drums, and adenoids removed. No one had a clue about anything. So I suffered from ridicule and scorn for being three hundred pounds for something that I had no inkling about and therefore no control over. I was three hundred pounds, not because I ate too much or didn't exercise enough, but because of a milk allergy causing severe intestinal inflammation and elevated insulin from probably consuming excess carbohydrates in conjunction with said allergy.
If you are normal weight without trying, congratulations! You have a correctly functioning body. That's all. It's nothing you've done. You're not magically eating right and exercising. Your endocrine system is whirring away keeping everything operating in the manner it's supposed to. So next time you see a three hundred pound person and think to yourself something, I want you to think, they have something physiologically wrong with them. Because no one wants to be three hundred pounds. No one. Eating less and moving more doesn't work. If it did work, there wouldn't be anyone overweight. And no one has bloody told them that they should try something else. So, there's one lie. There's of course many others, most outside the scope of a single blog. I'm not sure how anyone can say this lie with a straight face, it being so obviously wrong, but they do. The powers that spout said lie, might not be privy to the fact that it's a lie, but I think in most cases, that is not the case. They know. It's monetarily beneficial to a lot of people that you remain fat and sick. Fat and sick people are easily controlled. They don't care about politics, or what is going on in the world. They just want to feel better. This is human nature, and the powers that be know it.
In the Spring of 2010, I read Gary Taubes book Good Calories, Bad Calories. I got about a hundred pages into it and was so angry, I wanted to destroy something. Why was I angry? I was angry because medical science has known about the carbohydrate hypothesis of weight gain since at least the 19th century. THE NINETEENTH F*ING CENTURY! Now, I weighed three hundred pounds in high school. You read that correctly, three hundred pounds. Do you think anyone ever at any point in my life said to me, hun, maybe you need to cut back on carbohydrates? Hell no. They said I ate too much (I was so hungry). They said I didn't exercise enough (it's difficult when you're so fat). They said fat was bad for you. But carbohydrates? I didn't even know what a carbohydrate was until I was probably twenty-five. No one in my world talked about carbohydrates. People may have on occasion said that sugar would rot my teeth, but I didn't drink regular soda. I also don't particularly have a sweet tooth for candy either. So I never made the connection.
My problems went beyond the carbohydrate consumption however (this is not the case for others in my family whose problems were solely carbohydrate driven). I was born with a severe casein allergy that caused internal bleeding and I was in the hospital when I was ten days old. My parents thought I was dying. My grandmother figured it was the milk. I was put on Nutramagen, an amino based baby formula that was prescription. The doctor told my parents that I would outgrow the milk allergy. By the time I was five, my mother let me consume things with milk in them, but I was never a fan of milk straight or on cereal because it made my stomach hurt. If taken straight with nothing diluting it or a large amount, milk would make me feel as if someone was stabbing me with knives in the gut. No one in my family investigated why milk made my stomach hurt, or the insane weight gain that began after I started consuming milk products. It was bad healthcare all around. I had severe and chronic ear infections, which is associated with milk allergy. Did the doctor think, hmm, this child was milk allergy when an infant and has ear infection every other week, maybe I should look into this. No. Not no, but hell no. Instead it was tubes, scarred ear drums, and adenoids removed. No one had a clue about anything. So I suffered from ridicule and scorn for being three hundred pounds for something that I had no inkling about and therefore no control over. I was three hundred pounds, not because I ate too much or didn't exercise enough, but because of a milk allergy causing severe intestinal inflammation and elevated insulin from probably consuming excess carbohydrates in conjunction with said allergy.
If you are normal weight without trying, congratulations! You have a correctly functioning body. That's all. It's nothing you've done. You're not magically eating right and exercising. Your endocrine system is whirring away keeping everything operating in the manner it's supposed to. So next time you see a three hundred pound person and think to yourself something, I want you to think, they have something physiologically wrong with them. Because no one wants to be three hundred pounds. No one. Eating less and moving more doesn't work. If it did work, there wouldn't be anyone overweight. And no one has bloody told them that they should try something else. So, there's one lie. There's of course many others, most outside the scope of a single blog. I'm not sure how anyone can say this lie with a straight face, it being so obviously wrong, but they do. The powers that spout said lie, might not be privy to the fact that it's a lie, but I think in most cases, that is not the case. They know. It's monetarily beneficial to a lot of people that you remain fat and sick. Fat and sick people are easily controlled. They don't care about politics, or what is going on in the world. They just want to feel better. This is human nature, and the powers that be know it.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Introduction: Eat the Fat of the Land
Even in antiquity they knew we ought to be eating fat, and that's animal fat, as they didn't have rapeseed oil in antiquity. They did have olive oil, but that would have been pressed by hand. Nowadays, the olive oil you buy at the store may actually be soybean or canola. But that's another post for another day. I'm not very religious, but the name of this blog comes from the Bible, Genesis 45:18
Take your father and your households and come to me, so that I may give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you may enjoy the fat of the land. [New Oxford Annotated version]
Yes, you read that correctly. I prefer the New Oxford Annotated, not only is it the best translation of the Bible in English, but I find it more poetic in modern English than the NIV. My former students often accused me of going off on tangents, and that was one. At any rate, in ancient times, it was milk and meat that were sought after to eat. Why? Because you get to live a great, healthy existence and they taste good. Well, actually, for me minus the milk part. I have a casein allergy so I don't consume any milk products at all, but if you don't have an allergy to milk, it's a great food, when not tampered with.
So, in this modern era we have been led to believe that milk and meat are bad for us. That we should focus on grains and fruits, things that our ancestors would have eaten in small quantities, if they could help it. Pellagra was a disease of the poor, of being forced to eat corn that had not been treated with lime (Nixtamalized). It used to be that meat was prized, only the dirt poor didn't get enough meat to eat. The poor had the goal of getting enough meat to eat on Sundays at the very least.
Why is this? Why is it that the "authorities" tell us that meat is going to kill us? Well, one could grab their tin foil hat and believe that it is a conspiracy. When you're deficient in amino and fatty acids, and sick from diabetes and excess weight, you have trouble thinking and are easier to control. Historically, cults have often mandated a low fat vegetarian diet to their adherents. Did you ever wonder why that was? It's because you can't think clearly when you're deficient in necessary nutrients.
Is it a conspiracy? You tell me.
Take your father and your households and come to me, so that I may give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you may enjoy the fat of the land. [New Oxford Annotated version]
Yes, you read that correctly. I prefer the New Oxford Annotated, not only is it the best translation of the Bible in English, but I find it more poetic in modern English than the NIV. My former students often accused me of going off on tangents, and that was one. At any rate, in ancient times, it was milk and meat that were sought after to eat. Why? Because you get to live a great, healthy existence and they taste good. Well, actually, for me minus the milk part. I have a casein allergy so I don't consume any milk products at all, but if you don't have an allergy to milk, it's a great food, when not tampered with.
So, in this modern era we have been led to believe that milk and meat are bad for us. That we should focus on grains and fruits, things that our ancestors would have eaten in small quantities, if they could help it. Pellagra was a disease of the poor, of being forced to eat corn that had not been treated with lime (Nixtamalized). It used to be that meat was prized, only the dirt poor didn't get enough meat to eat. The poor had the goal of getting enough meat to eat on Sundays at the very least.
Why is this? Why is it that the "authorities" tell us that meat is going to kill us? Well, one could grab their tin foil hat and believe that it is a conspiracy. When you're deficient in amino and fatty acids, and sick from diabetes and excess weight, you have trouble thinking and are easier to control. Historically, cults have often mandated a low fat vegetarian diet to their adherents. Did you ever wonder why that was? It's because you can't think clearly when you're deficient in necessary nutrients.
Is it a conspiracy? You tell me.
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