Cream in my Coffee

Last week our local shop got cream in. Very unusual. I bought a litre and have started having that in my coffee. The way I have decided to work it is to have one mug of coffee with cream and then the next mug is boiling water. If I have a bit of coffee left I will top it up with the boiling water. I really dont notice the difference.

I do feel some hunger about an hour before lunch and maybe 2 hrs before supper, but is it proper hunger and is manageable. Not that brain hunger which drives me straight to the bread bin or cereal packet.

I found some tinned peppered mackerel fillets so will have that with flax toast for lunch. I made a loaf with the golden flax seed this week so that makes a nice change.

Treated myself to a facial this week but also had a dentist app, so did the dentist first followed by the facial.

Now on about 30 BMI. Keen to drop down in the 20's within the next month or so.

My body is finally using up all these fat stores that have hung around for so long.

Eat Fat and Be Slim

Maybe that would be a good title for a book. But would anyone believe it?

Even I cant believe it sometimes. I get on the scale each day ( yes gone back to daily weighing I just cant resist) and find that I either weigh the same as the day before, bit disappointing but then I am eating so much and so well, or I find a 100 to 200gms weight loss. I very rarely see a gain even with all the calories I am eating which is quite remarkable.

It has taken me 14 days to lose the last 1kg or 2.2lbs. The kg before that took 10 days. But am I bothered?
Not at all. All I want to see is a lower figure on the scale and a cure for my eating disorder ( binging) and adding fat into my meals has done that.

This is not a restrictive diet. I can eat most things at meal times as long as I stay away from starch and sugar. I leave the table feeling satisfied. I dont weigh anything or count any calories I dont portion out my plate.

I eat like a normal person and my cravings for starch that used to plague every afternoon have vanished as if they never were a problem.

I have been on endless diets before. All of them restricting fats and oils and some of them restricting protein portions and all of them with fat free veg. Every day I battled on them to stay on the program and not to give in to cravings and to start a binge which I would not be able to stop. I do not have to go to bed early to stop myself eating snacks in the evening.

This is so different. When I do bother to add up my calories from meals they come to about 1600 for the day. Normally on that I would have no hope of losing any weight. I might even gain! But on 1600 with about 600 from fats and oils I am losing, steadily and regularly.

Maybe my fate is not to be the obese person I always have been. Perhaps there really is a smaller body here somewhere.

This is an eating plan not just to lose the weight but for life.

Fats v Carbs

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mod=trending_now_1

I was very interested in the above article in the Wall Street Journal.

For over 50 yrs I have been trying the uphill journey of weight loss by cutting out all fat and counting calories. Endless misery for very little result.

Yes maybe I lost 20 or 40 or even once over 60lbs but my insulin problem was still there, still waiting for me to relapse which I always did. The eating disorder would kick in, the cravings would become uncontrollable and the weight would come storming back on.

I have now lost 10kg or 22lbs in 4 months. It has not been a crash diet it has been steady and doable. The eating disorder has gone. I eat a good meal at lunch time and my afternoons now speed by with productive activities and then it is time for dinner. The fats and oils I am consuming during meals are holding back the cravings for carbs and the only 'bread' I eat is flax bread, 2 small slices, once a day. Not 6 slices of toast in a binge mid afternoon.

Can I eat like this for the rest of my life? Yes I believe I can. I can cope with restaurant meals and holidays. My only issue is eating at other peoples houses. Do I take my flaxbread? Do I take a suitable drink just in case they only have wine or sugar filled mixers?

For years I was on a low fat diet. Even when not dieting I still did not deliberately add fat to my meals. So this is a big change. I am not just consuming a normal amount of fat or oil. For me normal was zero. So I have to make sure I put pats of butter on my veg, or add olive oil to my salads. I take sesame oil as a supplement and have 1 tspn per day.

All this is giving me about 600 to 700 calories from fat a day. I am consuming about 1500 cals per day. Far more than on my low calorie diet.

Interestingly when I work out what I think my calorie needs are for the day it used to work out about 1800 cals per day. Food eaten calories plus calorific value of weight lost ( assuming all that was fat). Working that calculation now gives me a figure of 2270 which means my calorie needs have increased by 470 cals per day because I now eat fat instead of carbs.

Another fact I picked up is that the body can waste fat. If it is getting too much and does not need it it can be burned off with the brown fat and can be excreted. All carbs if not needed for energy are stored as glycogen and fat. The body does not waste any sugar or starch.

Slender and Elegant

I have decided that is what I am going to aim for. I really dont know what weight that will be. Most advice is to return to the weight you were as a teenager. That wont apply to me as I was an obese teenager! I am trying to think back as to when my weight problem started. I remember my sister and I going to ballet class, I looked like a pink baby elephant in my tutu, sister looked like a ballerina! I am pretty sure at 6 or 7 I was in the back row.

I saw myself in a mirror in the spare room the other day and thought yes I can see I am looking thinner round the hips. I dont normally look in mirrors. When you are nearly 100kg you try and avoid them.

I am trying to send motivational messages to friends and family who also want to try a low carb diet. At the beginning it is so difficult to get your head around the foods that you can now eat. After 50yrs of low fat, low calorie eating I find it strangely liberating to be able to eat fatty meats and butter and bacon and still see the weight reducing.

This has also given me hope that finally I have found the answer and once I become slender and elegant I wont turn round 6mths later and find myself fat and obese again. None of my previous weight loss attempts have given me a guide book to eating as a thinner person. This one does. I can eat like this happily for the rest of my life.

I have started making the flax bread again since getting home from holiday and having 2 slices with lunch. What I decided to do was add 2 chopped prunes to the 2 cup flaxmeal recipe. I worked that out as giving me roughly 2gms carbs per slice because of the carbs in the prunes. However I feel so much better on adding the prunes. I would not eat them on their own as I have always had a problem with dried fruit. I dont have a stop button. But adding it to the bread gives it a hint of sweetness and does not set off a binge reaction.

This is a slow diet. I hope to lose about 2kg per month. So still got about 8mths to go before getting down to a 'normal' size. That I would be about a 14 UK or 10 USA size. But for now am just happy to get into a smaller size jeans and feel I have healed my body from the binging.

Lost weight on Holiday

I have just got back from two weeks at Mauritius followed by 2 weeks in Joburg. Mauritius was wonderful. We stayed in a guesthouse facing west over the sea and had beautiful sunsets. I had deliberatly not booked an all inclusive holiday with wall to wall buffet foods that we had already paid for. That is a recipe for disaster as far as I am concerned. We had beautiful breakfasts, cafe lunches and take away suppers that we could eat at the guesthouse watching the sunset.

I did have some indulgences, some mini magnums a few days and a tirmisu with rum and coconut. I thoroughly enjoyed them without guilt.

Got back to find I was half a kg less than when I left which I have never ever been able to do before.

Bought some roasted seasame oil in Joburg and taking half a tspn of that after lunch each day.

Its great to be able to go the whole afternoon without a binge. Been able to do that now since the beginning of January.

Started making the flax bread microwave recipe again and this time adding 2 chopped prunes to uncooked mix. That works out at 1gm carb extra per slice so is worth the extra carbs. 

Cravings are Gone

Eating in the afternoons is something I just do not do any more.

Since I started taking 2 zinc at lunch time and a low carb diet I find I dont need will power, I dont need to actively resist food in the afternoons. I no longer need it and that is a big break through for me.

I have my lunch at 12.15, cup of tea at 15.15. Then a alcoholic drink at 5 with a no cal mixer. Then dinner about 6.15. Again no need to eat after dinner. I dont need to go to bed early as I have run out of calories!

I worked out the food intake at about 1400 cals and the carbs about 55 gms per day.

That is giving me a weight loss of about 1.2lbs per week. Not a vast amount but the first time I have been able to lose comfortably each week without a binge to set me back up the scale again.

Wonderful to finally figure what is going on. Wish I had discovered this 40 yrs ago. When I think of the years of misery, low fat low carb dieting only to binge it all back on again it almost makes me cry!

My 'Special' Body

For about a week now the scale had been fixed at one weight. I found that disappointing but it did not lead me to giving up or eating more than is on my meal plan, or less.

I just kept on with the same meal format and supplements and still found that the awful hunger for sugar and starch in the afternoons was kept at bay. So I knew that eventually the scale would have to reflect what I knew was happening in my body.

Have finished my Zone books. Just read the Anti aging Zone but also ordered Age Zone and found they are the same book!

What I am rereading now is Protein Power Lifeplan.

I have a 'special' body. It is not like normal peoples and does not respond like a normal body. Maybe there are many of us like me now. Certainly more than there used to be when I was a child.

My body is intolerant to carbs. My insulin goes sky high when I eat them, All the energy from the carbs is locked into the cells by insulin. My body is then starving for energy as the fat cant escape the insulin trap. My hormones and eicosanoids are all influenced by the high insulin and my system is geared to making bad ones that inflame and cause fatigue. I didnt get enough good essential fatty acids to keep my body processes running smoothly.

Going on low fat, low calorie diets only made the whole sorry mess worse.

I tried the Atkins diet a few years back but I did not get the relief from the binging and un natural hunger that I should have done. I dont know if my carbs were too high or I am just a stubborn case.

Since starting on the 2 zinc a day I have found out what it is like to eat a normal lunch and then not feel any hunger till supper time. Those 5 to 6 hrs when I can concentrate on things other than food have shown me that I dont have to suffer like I have done in the past for the rest of my life. There is light at the end of the tunnel. 

This time because I have got the fundamental body chemicals running smoothly there is no danger of putting the weight back on. It may be coming off a bit slower than I would hope but it is better to lose 1lb and keep it off rather than losing 2lbs and gaining back 4!

Normally diets make me feel tired. I watch the clock in the afternoons to see if it is snack time yet. This one the afternoon just drifts past and I can do productive things and suddenly it is time for dinner. 

I have not yet got to the point of missing a meal because I forgot to eat but food is not my top priority any more!

So happy to be in the 80kg range, now aiming for the 70's.

Plan to never in my life be in the 90kg again now I understand why my eating was so out of control.

I want to be slim

I am not sure about how it will be living as a slim person.

For over 50 yrs I have been at least 4st or 25kg overweight. My meetings with me as a slim person have been very fleeting.

I have struggled and fought with myself to keep my calories low and in the past have lost 40 to 60lbs but the desire for carbs in the afternoons never went away. So inevitably once the diet was finished the weight started to return, slowly at first and then rapidly.

This zinc assisted eating plan feels different. For a start I am not losing weight in the usual places. I have noticed my face and wrists and legs are reducing quicker than I would have expected.

Because of the lack of cravings in the afternoons I can enjoy a no carb drink late afternoon. I have been having vodka and diet sprite. Followed by a substantial low carb supper with meat, chicken or fish and vegetables.

This is what normal people feel like but I did not know as I have never been normal.

Maybe now I have a chance at eating like a normal person and looking like a normal person!

Fragile Diet

I have come to realize how fragile my diet is. As I put each day behind me I congratulate myself on getting through another day without a binge or inappropriate eating.

I have dieted and lost weight many times before. Each time I have felt that was the last time but have put the weight back on. Each time I have eaten what was on the list, done the exercise and have lost weight but have never gone more than a week or so without being overtaken by a binge and have to pick myself up and start again. It just seemed to be the way I was made.

I never understood where the need for sugar and starch in the afternoons came from but the cravings were undeniable and almost uncontrollable. It was eating on auto pilot without a stop button.

Dr Barry Sears says it because of brain starvation. If the brain cant get hold of the nutrients it needs it drives you to eat. It like putting a glorious meal in front of a starvation victim and saying hold off here till tomorrow. Almost impossible to do.

Dr Sears calls it the fat trap. The body has all the fat hanging off the body but it like a prison for the fat. All the doors are locked and insulin is the jailor not letting any fat out of those cells into the corridors and up to the brain. So the brain calls out for a take away!

So the first step is to reduce insulin, give it shorter shifts! So eat less food that produces insulin. Eat more good fats and they and protein can unlock the fat cells doors.

Check for signs of inflammation from Dr Sears book Toxic fat and take steps to increase the levels of essential fatty acids in the diet, fish oils and evening primrose or borage oils.

And last but not least see if you feel better taking zinc tablets. Start with 2 a day and then reduce and see if that stops the cravings and allows you to be in control of the food you put in your mouth.

The beauty of this is that I have always enjoyed my food and looked forward to my meals, I trained as a Home Economics teacher, but because of the binging my evening meal has not been enjoyable as I try to undo the damage done earlier. Now I can have enjoyable evening meals as I know I will not be tempted to overeat in the evenings.

Perhaps this is the final cure for me? Maybe I will be able to get rid of my big elasticated trousers? Maybe this will allow me to lose the weight and never ever put it back on again?

Certainly I am foreseeing a slimmer future for myself and that is a new feeling. 

Zinc and Zone

I am being very cautious with this latest eating plan.

Looking back over my life I can pin point with exactitude the times I have been a 'normal' weight. Last years at school, at my wedding, between pregnancies and recently at my daughter's wedding.

However I never solved the problem. I would struggle for 8 to 10 mths with cravings and will power and feeling terrible to lose maybe 40 ot 50lbs and then within 6 months the weight would be back.

This got to be such a regular occurrence that I began to think what was the point of all the effort and deprivation if I was going to be back at the start weight so soon. Why bother in the first place?

I have clothes in my cupboard running between 4 different sizes. The nice clothes that are too small, then the elasticated clothes that are my regular outfits.

I know there are reports that 95% of obese people who diet return to their previous weight within a year. Those that dont are still on low calorie and doing regular exercise to keep their new figure.

I could never go from lunch time to dinner without some sort of snack. Within 2 or 3 hours of eating I would be climbing the walls with a form of hunger. Once I started on eating when that feeling arrived it was almost impossible to stop till I was bloated and feeling sick. This has been going on since childhood and I never thought it would go away, but it has.

Since I started trying the Zone Diet plus 2 zinc tablets a day my afternoons are what normal people experience. I can forget about food, the hours seems to pass quickly and I can keep busy. I have my tea around 3pm. A vodka and diet sprite at 5pm and supper at 6.30pm. After that I do not need to eat again till the morning.

My crumbling split broken finger nails are suddenly growing beyond the ends of my fingers and I can now shape and polish them. Something I have never managed to do before.

All in all I finally have a shoot of hope in my life that I am finally in a position to understand why I have struggled with this all my life. Too much insulin and not enough zinc.

The zone diet is allowing me to finally access my fat stored in my fat cells so my brain is happy even though my calories are around 1200 per day. The zinc is stopping the cravings and binging in the afternoons and evenings.

Miracle of miracles I am finally enjoying my meals and am satisfied with the choice and quantity I am eating.
As Dr Sears says if you are not hungry losing weight is so much easier.

Zinc is what works for me

Over the last few months I have been again attempting to get my weight down. Seems a never ending job, like rolling stones up hill only to find them back down at the bottom of the hill the next day!

However this time I am working with my body rather than against it. Instead of endlessly punishing my body by depriving it of food I am taking a zinc supplement 2 x 15mg tablets at lunch time and that gives me the ability to not eat during the afternoon and I have a nice meal waiting for me in the evening with an alcoholic drink beforehand.

It is early days yet, but I am 5.5kg down from Christmas. So thats about 12lbs. I have never felt the urge to binge since I started on the zinc. I got the idea from the book Primal Body Primal Mind. I think I have been suffering from zinc deficiency for years, maybe ever since I was a child.

I have had other symptoms of zinc deficiency but at the the time I did not know thats what they were. One is horrible soft flaky breaky nails, the other is lack of smell. That and craving for carbs in the afternoons and evenings are all linked to not enough zinc! Nails are now past the ends of my fingers and worth a manicure and the other day I could smell garlic! Both signs that I have been short of zinc.

On other diets every day I would wake up wondering if this would be the day I failed and ate myself senseless. Now I wake up with hope and looking forward to finding my clothes looser and planning what I am going to eat.

I am not entirely low carb. I allow myself some small biscuits with lunch and an apple a day and some homemade yogurt. I am also having zylitol with my yogurt and apple. Nice to enjoy something sweet without the guilt.

Maybe I have finally found something that works for me.