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
