Why do we get fat?

Ah spring! Spring seems to be finally here in Michigan and with it comes Mother's Day.  Last year, on Mother's Day, my family took me kite flying.  And what should have been a perfect, most fun day in the warm sun and spring breeze, surrounded by those I love and adore, was muddied by my focus of hatred toward my own self.  I hated my fat self.  I hated what I was wearing, (fat clothes for a fat person), I hated how I felt (fat and lumbering across the field) and I hated how I knew I looked to my family and my slim in-laws.  I knew I looked like a fat person.  I was a fat person.  I weighed 200 pounds.  At 5'5" tall I qualified as 'obese'.  Not good.

I asked my husband, and my father-in-law, to take pictures of me and the kids that day, flying kites.  I NEVER allowed anyone to take my picture anymore but enough was enough.  I remember thinking 'I need to document this day because this is the end.  I am GOING to lose this weight.  I CAN'T live like this another day, hating everything, hating myself, resenting that I had to leave the house and show my hateful self in public. This is IT'.

Here's a picture from that day -

The thing is, I did not gain all that weight because I ate tubs of ice cream and whole pizzas.  I never did! I never allowed myself big indulgences! I did have some chocolate, but never more than a few ounces per day.  Maybe one scoop of ice cream per week.  I never was a big soda pop drinker.  But maybe I'd get a sweet iced coffee a few times per month (maybe 3-4 per month, tops) while out running errands.  I tried to eat 'healthy' in general.  I am not a glutton or a slothful person.  I tried 'real' dieting, and stopped eating cheese and quit eating bread.  But heck, I was nursing, and nursing mom's are supposed to burn up an extra 500 cals per day! I felt I was trying to lose weight, trying to be 'smart', trying all sorts of different approaches to losing weight, trying just about everything and yet despite everything the weight seemed glued on.  Stuck.

I mean, you must eat to stay alive, so quiting eating is not an option, although many days that would feel like it should be an option, and some days I would go for hours and hours without eating, out of some idea that thin people must eat even less than I did - and the next day? I'd weigh the same.  It was beyond depressing and frustrating, it was debilitating.  I felt hopeless and full of self-loathing. 

My weight was stuck.  My body was maintaining 200 lbs.  Why?

And THAT, my friends, is the entire mystery: Why do some of us get fat and why do we stay fat?!

Because of all I have learned during and after this weight loss journey I have been on, and because of all my cyber friends who have shared of their experiences on the My Fat Cure site (now called 'Ketomist'), I can tell you I think I know the answer: hormones.  Metabolic hormones.  Not sloth, not gluttony, but hormones that control those behaviors and can transform even small portions of healthy foods into fat.  This is true.  Believe it.  You can read more here and here and here and here and here.

 If we got fat simply because of gluttony and sloth, I would not have been fat.  My mom would not have become fat. My neighbor would not have been fat. (My neighbor just finished her 3rd round of Ketomist spray and has shed 63 lbs to date!!!)  If we got fat because of gluttony, then gastric-bypass surgery or bariatric surgery would 'cure' us and result in lots of skinny people running around with tiny stomachs and tinier wardrobes - not lots of still-fat people who now feel the need to eat for 12 hrs a day and puree their food to try and fit it in!  These are people who have taken extreme and drastic measures to try and stop what they percieve as uncontrollable hunger.  But WHY are they SO HUNGRY?  Because of hormonal imbalances.  Leptin, ghrelin and insulin hormones all surging in the bloodstream and no lap band is going to be able to stop them.

(During the mandatory 5-6 weeks on a clear liquids diet while recovering from the above surgeries, you will lose some weight -but if you drink liquid, sugary Jello, or 7-up, Sprite, or even diet soda pop along with your basic broth soups, you can expect your metabolic hormones to remain all messed up, and your hunger will be as great as ever, only now you can't get enough food into your body to chemically satisfy your body's need.  Not to mention that now you won't even be able to swallow an aspirin or share a meal.)
(Please please please do not surgically alter your body to try and lose weight.  It is a terrible mistake.  You do not have to believe me, just please try the Ketomist HhCG spray before considering anything so drastic.)

Fat people are not thin people.  What can work for thin people (ie: eating less, exercising more) did not work for me because I was fat.  Being fat, or becoming fat is the presenting symptom that your body is malfunctioning.  Being fat is the result of the metabolic hormones in your body malfunctioning. 

You are not fat because you have no 'will-power'.  You are fat because your body is malfunctioning.  You have no will-power BECAUSE will-power comes from your hormones.   And when your hormones are out of whack, you simply want to feel better.  Maybe you feel like having something sweet at the end of every meal.  Maybe you feel like having something sweet to drink during the day, like sweet iced tea, or a mocha latte, or a pop.  Maybe you feel like you may 'pass out' if you go too long between meals.  You may get shaky.  You might feel like you need to start -and end- your day with a nice bowl of cereal - cereal's healthy, right? (It's not! I'll write about the evils of cereal some day soon, but for now, just know that eggs are a much better choice and look for my blog on 'why' another day)

By the end of the day, you think wow, maybe I should have/could have made some different choices today, but all-in-all I did not do too badly, right?  But then you realize that yet another day has passed and you weigh yourself the next morning only to find you are either still just as fat, or fatter.
I'm not saying that these food choices don't add up - because of course they do, it's just that they don't add up like you think they do.  Your food choices add up by causing real, undeniable feelings of hunger and cravings. 

These "feelings" that dictate food choices are real.  These feelings are actually hormonally caused! Your body is sending out signals- sometimes desperately - because it needs  - your body is trying to balance all you have eaten and sustain your life(!) But if you are fat, or gaining weight, then that's a sign that your body is not burning/metabolizing the food you are eating like it should and is storing it instead.  This is a major malfunction, but it's a survival tactic and, forgivable.  Your body craves or 'needs' something sweet because it has been storing fat and now it is desperate to continue and in order to continue storing fat, your body needs another something sweet, or starchy, or both. Your body is locked in 'fat storage mode' because of the cycle of hormones, which are aided with the food choices you make each day, which are determined by the hormones.  And once you are in the fat storage mode cycle, good luck breaking free! 

But you can break free of the cycle of gaining weight and getting fat and staying fat.  It's not your fault this has happened, it is your body's fault and now your body needs some help.  I'm not saying you can't starve yourself or exercise yourself thin, because of course you can.  If you were trapped on a desert island, eventually you would lose weight, as long as you lived long enough. The problem is, in starving, or over-exercising, the body eats itself, muscle first.  The body would rather hold onto it's fat stores and 'eat' muscle - even heart muscle - isn't that crazy?  Crazy but true. 
What you need is the key to unlock the fat stores.  Because they really ARE locked. With hormones.  And the Human Chorionic Gonadatrophin hormone (HCG) can and will unlock your fat stores.

If the basic premise is wrong, then the solution will be wrong.  If we get fat because of gluttony, then a tiny, surgically created stomach should cure us.  But if we do not get fat because of gluttony, then a tiny stomach is a big surgical mistake.  If, on the other hand, we get fat because of a hormonal imbalance, then a hormonal solution makes sense!

So forgive yourself.  You can get the weight off, you just need some hormonal assistance.  The homeopathic version of HCG (HhCG) will do it for you.  I lost nearly a pound per day.  My husband lost more than a pound a day.  You can lose 30 pounds in a month(!).  It is NOT too good to be true, it's simply true.  And the very best, most important part is that your metabolic hormones take that time to stabilize and normalize and begin to function properly - so that when the weight is gone, your metabolic hormone levels (of insulin, ghrelin, leptin, and others) can keep you in fat-burning mode, instead of in fat-storage mode, even if you have been in fat-storage mode 'forever'. 

And once you become a thin person, you can live like a thin person - doing all the things that thin people say to do in order to stay thin: eat in moderation (because you will feel like it!), and you can eat what you want (because what you feel like eating will continue to balance you - once you are balanced!) and exercise - Because you will feel like it and it will feel good AND because you won't blow out your knees, now that you are no longer carrying an extra 20/40/60 or more pounds! 

This really can be the last 'diet' you ever go on.  It really CAN BE PERMANENT!  You just have to follow protocol and take the spray for the 26 day minimum and your metabolic hormones will have no choice but to start burning your fat stores as fuel instead of adding to them.  For real and forever.

This year's Mother's Day, I am SO looking forward to flying kites with my family!!!  :D

Click here to read more about the homeopathic HhCG Ketomist spray.

Happy...

And here is a more current picture of me, taken in late February 2011, by my lovely 8 yr old son.  I think you can see, even with my coat on, that I am still maintaining my weight loss pretty well  - happily happily happily!  But goodness it's cold out! Brrrrrrrrr!!!

P4 D89

P4 D89 02/27/2011 - 136.8 (+0.0) Sigh.  Thought I could get down to 133 again - you would think a few weeks of tracking and I'd be there.  Instead, it looks like I'm able (and my body is happy) to maintain at 135/136 and that's that, given the way I am eating and want to eat.  I should be HAPPY!!! I'm still a size 8, and I can eat what I want and stay a size 8! If I want to lose weight, I'm going to have to figure something else out. :) 
I'm going to start by adding a nightly 2 mile walk into my routine.  Get ready, Blue! Wanna go for a walk?!

P4 D88

P4 D88 02/26/2011 - 136.8 (+1.4) Dang. And still no elimination. I don't get it. Yesterday I ate swiss chard(!), lean beef, eggs, cottage cheese, lots of spinach, 1/2 a tomato...no bread, no sugar - and stopped eating at 7pm...really thought I'd see a drop this am...Ok. Going to add Natural Calm back into my routine...went for a walk plus did 40 min of Callanetics... and we'll see what tomorrow brings... 

I'm reading yet another interesting book: "Neanderthin" by Ray Audette...very very interesting....hmmmmm...
He's not a doctor or a scientist, but a guy who (clearly) spent about a zillion hours researching in medical libraries all the info that helped him to heal his body and eliminate his rheumatoid arthritis and dibetes.  I wonder if maybe he had celiac disease and didn't know it?) Originally published in 1999, it may be out of print now, surpassed by the 'Paleo diet' books, written by an overweight college professor.  (Check out his video.) (Sorry. I know I'm being a real jerk here but I want to know what works, not what you hypothesize might work.)  I looked into the paleo diet but after reading all the reviews that said to check out Neanderthin instead, I'm glad I did. 

P4 D88

P4 D87 02/25/2011 - 135.4 (+0.6)
Ok. This is boring. Sorry. I thought I was making progress? (hmm. but I have not had an 'elimination' yet today - maybe that explains the gain?) I also ate cottage cheese with shredded coconut, 2 strawberries and fresh ground flax seeds late last night - 8pm - so, that was dumb.  Otherwise, I had a great eating day (see below)...

P4 D86

P4 D86 02/24/2011 - 134.8 (-1.2) Goodness! Wow. Had a sort of modified steak day, Fasted till 5:30pm, then ate 2 small steaks cooked in butter...and a cheese stick and a double espresso with about 5 Tbsp of whipped cream...oh, and a 1/2 grapefruit.  My goal is to get back to my LSW of 133.  Yoday I will add even more veggies while returning to my normal eating day - a spinach, tomato and cheese omlette instead of just scrambled eggs with cheese, and maybe sausage and grilled veggies on a bed of greens for lunch, and sea scallops sauteed in butter, asparagus, and more salad for dinner. More plants than other foods. But still plenty of protein and fats. 

P4 D85

P4 D85 02/23/2011 - 136.0 (-0.4) Dropping! I added more veggies to my day! Ate tuna with celery and real mayo on a big salad of baby spinach, and a small steak with big side of green beans and onions sauteed in coconut oil and sprinkled with peanuts  -plus 2 leaves romaine...also had 1/2 a grapefruit...and cottage cheese...no almonds, no yogurt.  Also had a ACV soda pop with honey! Real honey! Bwahahahahhaaaaa!

Dr Oz, you're wrong. HCG weight loss is REAL. No controversy.

Dear Dr Oz,

I did lose a pound a day. I lost 40 pounds my first round, just like many many many others have before me.  I did it by making a purchase on the internet! (gasp!) and by following the 500 calories per day diet! (second gasp!)  I KNOW IT WORKS.  I especially know that the particular product I bought and used works and works well.  It's a spray, it's homeopathic, which means you do not need a Dr's prescription, and it works.  it is made and shipped with exquisite care and the support site is immensely helpful too.  In fact, without the support site fielding all my questions in the begining and throughout, and having other HhCG spray users to talk to - I wonder if I would have come so far or met my goal so easily.  In any case, Dr Oz, thanks for the warning to only do this protocol under a Doctor's care - but I disagree.  There ARE alternatives to the HCG injections that work and I for one am living the happy outcome of such an alternative route.

Oh, and it's wrong to say you're never hungry.  You are a little bit hungry. You know when it's lunchtime and you know when it's dinnertime.  And the 500 calories are satisfying enough that you eat your meal and your hunger is sated.  It's really very comfortable.  Any other calories you need to live on are taken from your fat stores - including stores of nutrients and vitamins.  Sure, you end up depleting those stores by the end of the 6 weeks, and that's why it's limited - 6 weeks of weight loss per round followed by 6 weeks of maintainence and replenishing your nutrients.  People, it WORKS. I am living proof, as are the thousands of other happy HCG users.

To view some of what Dr Oz has to say about this click here.

Since it mimics pregnancy, there is some hairloss involved for some people at the end, myself included, but you can't tell to look at me, only my hairbrush knew. And once I took my multi-vitamins again, the hairloss stopped within 3 days.  Also, since it is a pregnancy hormone (not really, if it's homeopathic, but for the sake of arguement, let's say it is) it may also increase your fertility.  My own mom conceived me with the help of actual HCG injections.  Lastly, any feelings of weakness or fogginess or overall crumminess are easily dealt with by adding sea salt to the diet.  You can add it to your food or even make a broth with it if you are feeling especially crummy - and it works instantly.  I wish the 2 women who did not like the way they felt while on the diet would have known about the sea salt. It would have made a world of difference.

Some people are so in the habit of eating proccessed foods and sugary soda pop, that they actually experience a 'sugar detox' headache in the first week. It's ok, it's detox, and you'll be better for it - meanwhile, take Excedrine, not sugar-coated Tylenol.

How do I know so much? Because I learned so much on the support site - hundreds and thousands of people all using the same product - all experiencing the same things, all talking - it's a goldmine of information! Dr Oz, next time you want to look into this amazing way to rapidly lose weight comfortably and healthfully, please check out the Ketomist homeopathic spray.  Ask for Rob. 

P4 D85

P4 D85 02/22/2011 - 136.4 (-0.2) Shoveled the driveway -big snow, sore today! :) Had a sort of moderate day of eating, though I did have homemade hollandaise sauce on my 2 eggs and eziekiel 4:9 bread, upped my fruit, (ate 1/2 a banana with almonds) had a whole tangerine with my cottage cheese, plus some blueberries - do need to eat more veggies though...today - I will try to eat mostly plants - to see what that means and what happens.

P4 D84

P4 D84 2/21/2011 - 136.6 (+0.0) No shed no gain - now I'm thinking that this may indicate that I really do eat too many cals normally and in attempting to pare it down, I end up at a calorie total that keeps my weight steady.  I really do believe we need to eat some fats and not avoid them - but not over-indulge either in them either, I suppose. What, 'moderation is key'? Hahaha.  Ok.  I hear you. So, going to have a 'moderate' day. Gonna try. :)

P4 D83

P4 D83 02/20/2011 - 136.6 (+0.0) No shed but no gain either AND that's with about 6-8 Windmill cookies (they were broken, and hard to count) and 2 great big handfuls of almonds.  My reduced calorie day turned into a 'cheat day' after all that talk about cheat days.  Funny but true.  I've been very successfully avoiding most carbs, yet gaining weight. Now I'm thinking that was an oversimplified understanding and avoiding carbs made me extra sensitive to them! Oh well. Today I'm trying to just eat well. Wholesome yummy food. Pancakes (whole wheat/oatmeal/flaxmeal pancakes) with maple syrup for breakfast.  Salami w/ cheese for a snack, Broccoli with cheese sauce for another snack, (or maybe that was lunch?) 1/2 an apple with almonds, and planning a light but yummy dinner with veggies. Drinking more water than usual...Obviously not doing a steak day today - I've fallen off the wagon.  Sorry, Silvana. Maybe next week I'll try again.  For now, I'm going to try and eat @1400 calories and see what happens. :) (couldn't keep track, sorry)

On blood sugar and weight...

 

=

Weight gain, weight loss, and maintainence: It's all about blood sugar.

Is eating fruit really equal to eating candy? Well, no, not really.  But the fructose in fruit and the sugar in candy really do affect blood sugar in dramatic ways. 

Blood sugar, blood glucose. Phase 3 and beyond is all about maintaining the happy levels of blood sugar and metabolic hormones such as insulin and leptin and ghrelin that we were able to achieve by following protocol for 6 weeks, eating no table sugars, and 'eating' (or, really, "re-eating") all those stored calories released by the spray from our own fat stores.

If a person were to eat meals designed to continue to keep blood sugar levels stable, that person will have great success in P3a+b and beyond. I think some people are stumbling onto that way of eating because it works - and if you start out P3 with level blood sugars and stable metabolic hormones, (and in finishing P2, that's exactly what has happened) then it is amazingly easy to continue eating foods that keep our blood sugar levels stable - for example, the people who report back that the nibble of cake tasted 'nasty!' to them - because we don't need the cake anymore to bring us up from a low sugar drop - we no longer ride the sugar rollercoaster! :)

Now, if a person goes into P3 with the idea that 'I am used to eating tiny amounts of food now and I'll just eat a tiny bit more - maybe a salad- and maybe I'll lose even more weight!' that person's body will sense the lack of calories right away and that person will GAIN.
Why?
Because that person's body will go into 'starvation mode'. What does that really mean? Going long periods without eating causes a dip in blood sugar. And then when some bite of food is eaten, the body overreacts with a big insulin surge. And since insulin is a fat-storing hormone, you end up storing whatever calories you just ate, instead of burning them as fuel. NOT what we want.
What we want, because it will allow us to maintain our LSW, is called glucose homeostasis— a constant blood-glucose level.

I believe that Dr Simeons, had he lived to see all the nutrional information available to us today, I believe he would have concluded that all of us were in a pre-pre-diabetic state, and over-sensitive to carbs and BECAUSE we were able to effect such drastic lifestyle/food choice changes while on the HCG hormone, we were able to stop the raging internal floods of insulin and leptin and ghrelin among others which work together to control hunger and appetite and metabolism.
(Leptin wasn't discovered until 1994, and ghrelin not till 1999. Obestatin, another hunger hormone, was even more recently discovered in 2005. All play key roles within the hypothalimus and are key factors of metabolism. Do we understand these fully yet? I doubt it, but we're trying.)

In P3, if a person is having trouble maintaining, I believe it is one of two things; either they are not eating enough calories (starvation mode=insulin surge when some food IS eaten=weight gain), OR they are eating too many carbs(sugars) in the form of yogurt, nuts, and especially fruit (fructose) (sugars in the blood stream=insulin surge=weight gain). Some people are even doing a bit of both(!) -  hardly eating enough and then when they do eat, it's with too much focus on yogurt, nuts and fruit, not enough protein and fat or vegetables.  Eat your veggies.  The fiber keeps blood sugar stable.


You can enjoy eating your vegetables by making them calorie dense - put the calories on top -
Think brocolli with cheese sauce, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, artichokes too, eggplant and zucchini grilled in olive oil, cole-slaw made with homemade mayonaisse and stevia, not sugar, celery spread with peanut butter or cream cheese, zucchini in olive oil alongside chicken kabobs, etc. When you eat chicken, eat 'Chicken Piccata'! That sauce is 304 calories alone! Or make baked chicken with mozzarella on top! Yum! 170 calories for 2 slices!

Blood sugar. Eating protein and fat helps keep blood sugar stable, and slows down insulin's entry into the bloodstream. If you avoid sugar and starch, you almost totally avoid an insulin spike, almost. But if you also avoid starvation mode and eat less yogurt, nuts and fruits and more proteins and fats, then you WILL keep blood sugar stable. And you will NOT gain.

If you were to start your day without fruit, I think you would have a better day. Fruit contains the simple sugar fructose which sends the body a signal to produce insulin to deal with the sugar load. So you get a spike in insulin, and an insulin spike = weight gain! You can slow down the insulin response by eating fructose (ok; fruit) with proteins and fats, (like an apple with peanut butter) but the higher the insulin spike, the bigger the weight gain. Body builders avoid fructose almost entirely. If we really limit our fruit intake, and ONLY eat it with proteins/fats, such as an apple WITH peanut butter, or strawberries WITH whipped cream/stevia and vanilla - and limit the strawberries to 4 or 5, then I believe we'd do much better. (The best fruit for morning, if you really love it seems to be the ol' 1/2 grapefruit eaten along WITH your eggs and all.)

A large person requires a large amount of calories to nourish that person without he or she slipping into 'starvation mode'. However, it IS possible to eat a large amount of calories without gaining weight, overeating or even feeling 'stuffed' or bloated. Check out my  'Olive oil'  post - that's a plan for how to eat 3200 calories comfortably - and that's without coconut flakes, larabars, or creamy Piccata sauce!

So, that's my theory, based on my best efforts to try and understand the 'why' of it all - My sources are The Mastering the Zone: The Next Step in Achieving SuperHealth and Permanent Fat Loss books by Dr Barry Sears, whose original focus was on helping diabetics, and Jorge Cruise's Belly Fat Cure which is all about the hidden sugars in our foods that are making us fat, Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat and What to do About it (maybe my favorite), and Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (also a favorite)
...and my own P3 experiences, and my husband's, and in participating and learning on the Ketomist support site and also now, as I am trying to learn as much as I can as I try to help my aged parents battle full-blown diabetes. I'm doing loads of homework daily and plan to keep on updating here to share my growing understanding.
I want to get an 'A+' in this. :)

P4 D82

P4 D82 02/19/2011 - 136.6 (+0.4)  Well gollee gee. I don't get it.  I did a good 'steak day' - ate fish, cooked in parchment with coconut oil and lemon - and was so hungry I ate both pieces...Then I finished with 1/2 a small apple. I had green tea and coffee all day - 2 cups coffee/4 cups tea - to keep my mind off being hungry...and water.  I drank a lot of water, more than usual.  No bm could also be the problem...Did not sleep great - Olivia has a new croup cough...oh well.  Today I'm going to try a new tactic - eating way way less cals like on a real diet.  I have a book that I lost weight with once - and I see the total calories are like 1100 per day and the foods are all protocol compatable - so I'll try that to better guide my food choices today.  Because I'm supposed to do a 'mini-protocol day' today and my first one was probably too high in cals, is the theory. :) Ok - way less cals today.

P4 D81

P4 D81 02/18/2011 - 136.2 (+0.4) hmmm. Why the gain? According to Fitday.com, I only ate 1645 calories, (no bread, no starch, no sugars and less than my usual 2000+ calories), trying to keep my calories very low - because I'd like my weight to drop...and my weight went up instead.  Is it possible I am becoming even more sensitized to carbs, by avoiding them so rigorously?  I don't think I went into 'starvation mode' because I ate regularly, in small portions...Breakfast: 2 eggs with only one sausage, no bread, no cheese (instead of my usual 3 eggs with cheese and 2 sausages) - Lunch: 1/2 a chicken breast for lunch on a bed of salad, tossed in olive oil, lemon and s&p, Snack: 3/4 cup of cottage cheese w/stevia and cinnamon, 1 Tbsp shredded unsweetened coconut, no almonds, and 1/4 of a tiny clementine. Coffee with half and half - not whipped cream, Dinner: 1/2 chicken breast on baby spinach, tossed with olive oil, lemon, garlic and s&p. Desert: 6 blueberries in one Tbsp of whipped cream.  That's all I ate.  No bread, no crackers, and no sugar.  A teensy tiny amount of fruit - even less than usual, and that has been very little for about a week now.  I suppose I could have avoided fruit altogether...also had a yoga class, but I'm not even sore today...and I got a good amount of sleep, but I bet I did not drink enough water - was counting my teas and coffees as 'water'... This is puzzling. Ok - onward! Properly following the rotation of steak day and low calorie days, today is supposed to be another steak day, but I think steak day might not work, because I think the gain indicates my calories were too low yesterday, but I'm going to try it nonetheless.
Feels like there is a puzzle piece missing here.  I have been reading that some people have 'treat days' to increase their leptin production (the hormone that decreases appetite) - that one treat day of 1-2 treat meals per week- is ideal.  Is that what's going on? I have not had any treat days, I have not deviated from the low carb/low sugar, and now my body is lazy and can't even handle 6 blueberries and 1/4 a clementine?  I was not ravenous yesterday, or in need of lowering my appetite - I felt pretty good all day.  It's a puzzle. Oh well.  Steak day it is.  I'm going to have fish, btw. :)

P4 D80

P4 D80 02/17/2011 - 135.8 (-2.6) I did a modified 'steak day', and Silvana's suggestion was to eat chicken or fish instead of steak.  So I chose chicken - except I could not just eat a chicken breast, I ate it at 5:30 pm in a garlic/dill Piccata sauce and on top of a small handful of baby spinach. So it wasn't a steak, but it probably wasn't lower in fat than a steak either.  On the other hand, I was perfectly sated and just ate the one chicken breast, not two - and did not feel the need to sample my child's birthday cake, so that was good...very unscientific of me though, to deviate from your plan Silvana, sorry - but I was trying to make it more like food and less like protein (since I have discovered I am guilty of 'nutritionism' and I need to eat more delicious food and less 'scientific nutrients'). :D Today I'm going to lower my calories and eat P3a foods.  We'll see how it goes!

P4 D79

P4 D79 02/16/2011 - 138.4 (+1.4) Wow. And I'm not cheating! I also am not following good common sense - did not drink much water, overdid coffee, ate 1 small salad instead of 2, probably overdid my calories somewhat, and went to bed at 4am again.   Dumb.  Today I'm doing a steak day with chicken - going to follow Silvana's plan and see if it works for me.

Phase 4, Day 78

P4 D78 02/15/2011 - 137.0 (+0.4) Did I eat more veggies? - not really. Am I having a hard time walking the talk? Yes. While I am able to avoid sugars for the most part - I have not stocked up on veggies and so, all I ate veggie-wise was one serving of asparagus and about 3 small florettes of brocolli - no lettuce. No greens. I will go shopping today.  Onward!

Come watch me winnow, wriggle and whittle my weight back down to my LSW, and hopefully, beyond...

**************************************LSW 133.2*********************************
P4 D77 02/14/2011 - 136.6 (+1.0) Sheesh.  I'm thinking this is water retention I'm puffy, and only got 4 hrs sleep...wah.
Oh well.  Yesterday I ate only protein and fat.  No veggies, no fruit. An experiment.  Dumb? Maybe. Maybe not.  Today my plan is to have 1 serving veggies at every meal.  Breakfast was eggs, cheese, (butter) and asparagus.  And I plan on adding lettuce to my next 2 meals...see how it goes...
P4 D76 02/13/2011 - 135.6  (0.0)  Breakfast: Cottage cheese-n-yogurt-n-coconut-n-half-a-clementine, 7 almonds, Lunch: 6 oz tuna w/homemade mayo and celery and avocado on a bed of shredded romaine, -  Oh, and let me not forget the half of a sopresseta salami that I ate while driving kids around: 4 servings @ 0 cargs, 8g protein/8g fat each - so 24g protein and 24g fat - which means I ate 440 calories from that salami alone!  Also, 1/2 a banana and whipped cream, and half a date.  Funny, but that half-a-date tasted 'over-sweet' to me...ate 7 more almonds to counter the sweetess but was struck with a 'wow, why'd I eat that?' feeling. Funny. I used to eat dates 2 and 4 or more at a time and now 1/2 of one is 'too much'. Feels like my body chemistry is changed. :)
(still not enough sleep - maybe need more H20 as well...)

Come watch me...archives

P4 D75 02/12/2011 - 135.6 (-0.2) Wow. Happy. Keeping my carbs really low - by eating less fruit than I used to -Breakie: 3 eggs, cheese, 2 veggie sausage and 1 slice Eziekiel 4:9 bread w/butter(!) Lunch: 4% cottage cheese w/ greek yougurt/ground flax/shredded coconut/half a tangerine/cinnamon/7 almonds and stevia for a nice, filling lunch, Dinner: made my own mayonnaise yesterday, made a big chicken salad with 2 enormous heaping Tbsp's of it (w/celery, pecans and 1/4 of an apple)...had about 1/4 cup whipped cream w/stevia and cocoa powder (chocolate mousse!) for desert, because I still felt a bit hungry.  And as always, the whipped cream filled me up, did not overdo it, and shared the rest of the batch with the kids -who loved it! :D (3 kids were up in the night - so still did not get quality sleep - oh well.)
P4 D74 02/11/2011 - 135.8 (0.0) Yay!  Ate lots of low carb whatnot - grilled chicken salad w/shredded parm, artichoke hearts, and sundried tomatoes dripping with oil but no bread :D Cottage cheese with greek yogurt is my fav go-to snack/small meal, I like it with stevia and cinnamon and grated coconut- Ate some almonds, not more than 22... Dinner was Chicken piccata with creamed spinach and onions.  Cream, butter and more cream and more butter.  Went to bed full - but not over-full - too bad baby won't sleep anymore - but no gain! Yay!!! But still, grumpy today.  I need more sleep than I've been getting lately. (feeling grumbly about the new look too - oh well.)
P4 D73 02/10/2011 - 135.8 (-0.4) Whoop-whoop! just really keeping my carbs down and eating VERY little fruit - but still having some fruit - 1/8 cup blueberries and 1/2 a date - lots of fats and proteins: cottage cheese and lunch meat and cheese sticks, eggs, coconut oil , shredded coconut, a carrot, tuna salad w/ celery - maybe 7 almonds all day - feeling good/better about this...
P4 D72 02/09/2011 - 136.2 (-1.4) Wow.  Ok, that was not a steak day, that was more water and sleep.  And more recovery from the uber-intense yoga class...People- I cannot stand tracking my food.  I apologize.  But I am just not good at it.  I keep forgeting to add items during my day and then I can't remember what I ate - I only know I am avoiding sugar and carbs as best I can, eating when hungry and stopping when full.  I take it one food label at a time/one meal at a time.  Last night I ate veggie kielbasa sausage and onions and orange and red peppers for dinner, sauteed in coconut oil.  It was delish and at 29g protein per link, I hoped it would balance the carbs in the onions and peppers - and looks like it did just that. :D
P4 D71 02/08/2011 - 137.6 (+.8) Ok WHAT?! I am certain I ate low carb and high protein and stopped when I was full, so I am kicking myself for not tracking it accurately - sorry self, sorry all - I will track today!  I am learning that this is not a simple in-vs-out equation, and that we are living organisms with many many processes happening all at once - and so I should not discount the crummy sleep I've been getting - Baby is teething and up every few hours and last night I barely slept...SO, maybe that's part of the complexity and conundrum - but whatEVER! Ok - to yoga!
P4 D70 02/07/2011 - 136.8 (-0.0) doing good maintaining, now need to drop some cals and shed a bit more
P4 D69 02/06/2011 - 136.8 (-0.0) more low carbs high protein and fat...breakfast: fried egg-in-a-hole with Ezekiel bread, veggie bacon, Lunch: cottage cheese, cinnamon, half an apple, peanut butter, 2 whole grain crackers, salami, cheese stick, Dinner: a steak w/side of creamed spinach and onions (yumm!), cheese, cheese sticks, 22 almonds
RESULT: maintained weight
P4 D68 02/05/2011 - 136.8 (-2.2) (3.6 over LSW) (yeeehaaawww!) making sure I eat some veggies today, ate when hungry, stopped when full, low carb, high protein and fat...
RESULT: exactly maintained weight
P4 D67 02/04/2011 - 138.0 (+0.2) (+4.8 over LSW)
Yikes. Ok, so today I would normally do a steak day, but I think this gain is really from my sore sore overly-yoga'd body and because I only got 4 hrs sleep last night (kicking myself -ouch!) and maybe because no bm? Anyhow, instead of steak day, today I'm just going to do better. Yes. But boy it sucks having to admit my mistakes on here and tell y'all about my new crummy weight. BUT, today is a new day, full of opportunity to do better. Onward!
Breakfast- (at breakfast time! Yay me!) 1 egg-in-the-hole (with Ezekiel 4:9 bread) cooked in combo of butter and coconut oil and 2 veggie sausage links.  Green tea and coffee with half and half.
Snack - 22 almonds
Lunch - 1 cup cottage cheese with 1/2 cup greek yogurt, w/cinnamon and stevia and 1 cheesestick wrapped in 1 serving of turkey breast w/mustard.
Snack - Pepper jack cheese stick and 2 slices of salami, and 11 more almonds.  And one date. And a Doppio Con Panna.
Dinner - 1 more heaping cup of cottage cheese, no yogurt, w/cinnamon and shredded coconut.  I did not eat any vegetables today? Really? That is not too smart - and repeating the cottage cheese? Oh dear.  I don't think I did do better after all.  Needed to go grocery shopping, but it's sooooo cold out and I'd have to have taken all the kids with me and the baby has a runny nose...oh well, tomorrow is a new day - I'm going to at least get some sleep. Night all!
RESULT: -2.2 loss (!) (probably sore muscle/water weight in there - but I'll take it!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P4 D66 02/03/2011 -  137.8  (+0.6) went to yoga and skipped breakfast (!). Telling the truth here, keeping myself accountable is the plan.  Had lunch at the club, grilled chicken on baby spinach with sun-dried tomatoes, parmesean cheese and drenched in a canola oil/balsamic vinegrette. (Do not love canola oil, but it was what they had.) Also ate 1/4 of my kid's grilled cheese on whole wheat - because it was there, because I was still hungry, because it was not fried, but baked and because it was on whole wheat. Also because yoga class was really really hard and I felt like I had 'earned' those bites. (I promise not to rationalize too many more food choices! LOL)
Snack- 1 cheese stick wrapped in 2 slices of turkey breast and 1 slice salami.  Green tea. 11 almonds. Doppio Con Panna (yum yum yum)
Dinner- hard to calculate - a baked egg, cheese, Eziekiel 4:9 bread, broccoli and veggie-sausage dish - a casserole? Oh dear. Do not know how many calories/carbs, but I ate 1 serving and 1/2 a grapefruit and 2 Tbsp whipped cream for desert and felt sated. At least the kids liked it even if it messed me up.
RESULT: +.2 gain. :(
Possibly also retaining water - muscles are SO sore from that intense yoga class
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P4 D65 02/02/2011 -  137.2  Breakfast 1 cup cottage cheese/half cup greek yogurt/1/4 of an apple/cinnamon/stevia/22 almonds/2 tbsp unsweetened organic shredded coconut. 1 cup Green tea with half and half, 1 Doppio (double shot espresso) Con (with) Panna (whipped cream) sweetened with stevia. Drinking water too.
Snack- 7 almonds and 1 slices colby jack cheese...then 2 slices hard salami...more tea
Lunch- ate when I was hungry - kinda late, @2:45pm...baby spinach leaves and avocado and steak salad, sprinkled w/ sunflower seeds and tossed with olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing and 3 slices provolone cheese. Plus 14 (one serving) Trader Joe's Supper Seeded Tortilla chips! and tea, water...water, etc.
Snack- another 1/4 apple with 2 tbsp peanut butter. And another Doppio Con Panna. Mmmmmm.
Ok. Not hungry for dinner. Not at all. All that whipped cream maybe? According to fitday, I'm already at 2506 cals anyway! (fat 67%, protein 21% and carbs 11%)   *see below>>>>>>>
SO, I am skipped dinner. Honestly, was not hungry in the slightest.
Let's see what the scale has to say about all this tomorrow! (fingers crossed)
Finishing my day with a nice warm cup of Natural Calm, sweetened with stevia and the juice from 1/4 grapefruit.
Nightie-night all!
:D
RESULT: +.6 lbs.
(writhing in remorse and feeling stoopid)
Lesson? 2506 calories 2763 calories is too many. (hahahahahahahaha- Duh.) (Even though I did it low carb and had no bread? OMGoodness, I now recall I ALSO ate 1/2 of my child's leftover 'Amy's Organic' bean and cheese burrito!!! that's at least an extra 200 cals AND it was, of course, wrapped in bread. Whole wheat bread, but I ALSO ate a date and forgot to record that as well - so what am I - nuts?!)
Um, so, I actually ate 2763 calories. Plus more sugar than I thought? Oops.
Actual:

Calories: 2,763

Fat: 192.2g

Carbs: 113.4g

Protein: 136.4g

                        Fat: 63%    Carbs 16%      Protein: 21%
Ok I think I get it. Being too full to eat dinner indicated something in my day of eating was out of whack. Yesterday I ate lots of fats, trying to avoid feeling hungry, and it worked. Too well.  I already KNOW I do better eating 3 regular meals and 2 snacks. Eating fats, yes, but in moderation, and yesterday was not in moderation.  Ok okay okay.  Plus, I'd had lots of caffiene, which, in my experience, helps me delay eating - but then hunger hits too hard when the caffiene wears off and then I reach for an extra cheese stick or two...or three...(sigh). This is good - forcing me to really examine what I am doing. But puzzling because really, I WAS under 120g carbs for the day. Hmmm.
Ok. Onward.
:D
**************************************************************************************
**************************************************************************************
A quick summary of my journey to this point: I am 42 yrs old,  5'5" tall and small boned and I weighed 200 lbs before starting the spray.  I did 2 full rounds (June-Oct 09) and ended @ Halloween at 133 lbs, but accepted 135 as a comfortable enough weight to maintain.
I have been able to maintain 135 pretty well, but my weight seems to want to creep up.  I do have steak days here and there when my weight gets to 137, or 138.  In truth I am rather sedentary, just doing housework and chasing kids is my main activity, although I do go to yoga 2x a week but I do not go for walks and I'm thinking I better start.
I have 'big theories' about why weight creeps up, and how to prevent that - but MY weight? Seems to want to creep up.  I am learning how to count carbs and sugars ala Jorge Cruise, and I also learned a lot with the 'Zone' books, and now I look forward to reading Why We Get Fat and What to do About It (looks like it will be a great read) but am still waiting for my Amazon order to arrive...
In the meantime, maybe I need a bit more accountability in my eating.
So here is a blog to keep me honest,
and to help me 'walk the talk'.

My plan? To avoid sugar (hidden or not) and to get back down 4 lbs to my real LSW (and maybe even lower?!)
by limiting carbs, concentrating on proteins but still eating vegetables and some small amount of fruit.  To count calories again, for a while, till I figure out what's going on. And to get more active.

Wish me luck! :)

How to Add Olive Oil as your FIRST new food on P3

Here is my best advice for beginning P3, by introducing olive oil as your first new food once 'The Hunger' kicks in. (How I Woulda/Coulda/Shoulda begun P3 if I had only figured this out sooner!)

Aiming for 3200 calories:

(adjust as necessary, by omitting/or adding an egg/or a snack)

You will need:

to make homemade  mayonnaise (or be extra super careful and double-triple-check your store-bought mayo lable for starches and sugars) and buy 4% Cottage Cheese, *Whole Milk and Olive Oil, and also make sure you have the following P2 groceries in larger quantities: uncooked Chicken, Eggs, Grapefruit, Lemon, Apples, Spinach, Celery, Strawberries, Asparagus, Fish (Tilapia?), Sea salt and Stevia.

Breakfast:

3 eggs + 2 Tbs milk, scrambled, cooked in 1 Tbs olive oil.
Tea, with 2 Tbs 1/2+1/2 (and stevia?),
1/2 Grapefruit.
Snack:
1 cup 4% cottage cheese

1 apple

Lunch:

Chicken salad made with cooked chicken (grilled or poached or sauteed in olive oil), and then chopped and tossed with homemade mayo (egg yolks and olive oil, sea salt, etc) and celery. (I use 2 1/2 rounded Tbs of mayo)

Strawberry milkshake (1 cup cottage cheese, 1/2 cup water and ice cubes and 4-5 strawberries blended together + stevia)

Snack:

1/2 Grapefruit

Dinner:

A nice piece of fish (Tilapia?) wrapped in tinfoil w/olive oil and lemon, broiled until flaky, served on a bed of baby spinach w/Sauteed veggies (in olive oil and sea salt and fresh black pepper) on the side (I'm thinking asparagus)

Desert:

Baked apple (microwaved or actually baked) w/ lemon juice and cinnamon and a 1/2 cup of pureed cottage cheese with stevia, cinnamon and vanilla as a kind of pretend ice cream.

According to the Fitday.com calorie calculator = approx 3158 cals

---------------------------------------------------------

In the beginning of my first P3, I counted all my calories on the Fitday.com calorie calculator. I tried to keep my protein between 40-50%. (My first mistake, I do believe.)

After a week of counting calories, I re-read Dr Simeon's Pounds & Inches 'Concluding a Course' pg 29-30 and stopped counting calories, because I felt overwhelmed and because he never said that was what we needed to do.

However, by logging my foods for that week in order to count cals, I did learn a LOT, like I discovered that eggs are not very calorie dense, but coconuts are.

On Fitday.com, there is a very cute pie-chart showing the percentage of fat to protein to carb ratio of what you entered. HOWEVER, because you are eating (in P3a) a No starch/No sugar diet, some days might seem to register rather alarmingly high in fat %, and yet you will NOT gain weight if you are avoiding starches and sugars. (Just exactly like Dr Simeons says.)

You can basically ignore the pie-chart of fat, protein and carb percentages.  I know the 'Golden Ratio' for body builders is 40-50% protein, 25-35% carbs, and 20-30% fat.  But this ratio does not apply when you are avoiding starches.  Take starches out of the equation and suddenly the idea that you can eat 40-50% protein becomes an impossible quest - I tried it.  Could not be accomplished without protein shakes and then I felt over-fed and awful. That was a big discovery - that my math was off.  So now I ignore the pie-chart and understand that the so-called 'Golden Ratio' does not apply to me or to us.

Here's what Dr Simeons says, in  Pounds & Inches:   in the 'Concluding a Course' section, on pg 29;  that "...the patient may now eat anything they please, except sugar and starch...". He never says to add one new food in per day, and he never says to count calories or to note protein-to-fat percentages. He simply says avoid sugars and starches and weigh yourself every morning. And stay within 2lbs of your final weight(LSW).

So, really, you could just eat!!!

Happy P3 Eating!!!

:)

Snooze to Lose: the importance of sleep

The following is basically lifted right from the pages of the book Nurture Shock by Po Bronson - a fabulous book compiling all kinds of recent data and studies regarding children...this is from Chapter 2: The Lost Hour - about how even 1 extra hour of sleep makes an enormous difference: (italics mine)


"...Sleep loss increases the hunger hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger, and decreases it's metabolic opposite, leptin, which suppresses appetite. Sleep loss also elevates the stress hormone cortisol which is lipogenic - meaning it stimulates your body to make fat. Human growth hormone is also disprupted. Normally secreted as a big pulse at the begining of sleep, growth hormone is essential to break down fat.

"It's drilled into us that we need to be more active to lose weight. So it spins the mind to hear that a key to staying thin is to spend more time doing the most sedentary inactivity humanly possible. Yet this is exactly what some scientists seem to be finding..."

And on the Ketomist support site, time and again people talk about discovering that if they weigh early in the morning and then go back to bed, they'll wake up later to a bigger loss.  Often a full pound more than when they first weighed. And that if they stay up late and don't get enough sleep, they'll wake up to no loss, or a tiny loss, or even a gain. Is it the bursts of human growth hormone?  Is it leptin or ghrelin at work? Is it all three combined? (I think it's all three factors plus things medical science still hasn't even figured out yet, probably.)

But the point is - are you listening? You snooze - you lose!!!

;)