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.