12lbs and counting

Almost everyday I am seeing a drop on the scales. If it does not drop it stays the same for a day or so and then does a drop.

I have never felt so much control over the food I put in my mouth.

I can wait to eat for a short while without feeling I have to have something beforehand.

I wish I had known about this 50 years ago when I first went to weight watchers. I lost the weight but struggled every afternoon with the need to eat. As soon as I stopped the diet the need to eat won and I was back up to above my starting weight within 6mths.

Everytime I managed to lose weight it always came back and brought friends.

I thought the only way to lose weight was to have super will power.

Now I know that the will power is not necessary. If you can get control of your insulin you just have a two nice meals a day. They are satisfying and tasty, containing fat and very few carbs. Then your body switches back to using it fats stores and you lose more weight.

I am no longer constantly thinking about food. I thought this would never happen for me.

I have some more books coming. This is what I have so far.

Carbohydrate addict Diet
Breakfast is a dangerous Meal.
2 meals a day.

These are useful.

I got into some tops that have been too tight and certainly feel that the 12lbs has gone for ever.

On previous diets I have always felt the fat was just hanging around sort of out of sight but would soon be back if I gave in.

I feel more secure that this is working and is going to continue to work.

I still dont know what caused my cravings. Whether it was the protein breakfast or the milk in my morning coffees.

Only eating twice a day now feels normal for me and my appetite is normal and maybe I am going to finally get a normal body.

Once weight has gone I will experiment to see if its protein in the morning or the milk.

I know I can alway retreat back into this way of eating and get relief.

It's the Insulin

I dont know why my metabolism does what it does but at least now I know how to fix it.

Not eating breakfast means I dont experience cravings after lunch, which is now my first meal of the day, and I dont constantly eat after dinner at night.

My breakfasts were always pretty boring. 2 eggs poached or boiled or scrambled. Bacon maybe at weekends.

I do miss them but if it means I have solved this problem of endlessly putting on weight then I am prepared to give them up.

What I do have now is 2 or 3 coffees with cream. I was having real coffee and instant. But found I was having sleep issues. So now I have one instant and 2 decaf and my sleep has gone back to normal.

It is such a relief to sit in the afternoon or do some activity without the constant urge to visit the fridge or pantry to hunt for something to eat.

I cant believe every afternoon that my need to constantly eat and or binge has gone.

It was caused by a chemical reaction in my body. Insulin was too high, glucose too low and so my brain sent me off on a food hunt.

Now my insulin is low, my glucose stable and my metabolism can get at the fat stores that insulin had locked up and would not allow access to.

So the cravings have gone.

Over 5kg less of me now.

Has it been this simple all along and why did I never find out till now?

Thats 10lbs gone in a month.

I certainly can feel that fat has gone from some places where it was before.

I am looking back into my many diet books. 3 trunks full, to see what I missed about breakfast fasting.

Some books did mention it but most said 'you must eat breakfast, its the most important meal of the day.' 'It sets you up and stops you feeling hungry later in the day.'

Well actually no, it does not do that for me and my system. Eating breakfast sets me up for hunger and cravings and low blood sugar later in the day.

I think because all my life I had experience this crashing and cravings and binging I thought it was normal. It never stopped and never went away.

So I disregarded any suggestion of breakfast fasting, or fasting later in the day, because I thought I just could not handle it. I had to eat, the thought of not eating frightened me.

Had I been told, well you can have coffee with cream in the mornings and instead of eating at 8 and 1 just have one good meal at 12, salad and protein and your afternoon hunger will stop. Completely and utterly stop would I have believed them? Would I have given it a try?

Then evening meal eat a nice balance protein and veg meal with some sort of gravy or sauce.

The need to eat after dinner in the evening has also gone along with the afternoon hunger.

Its not normal. If this has been happening to you its an insulin problem.

Needing to eat after a meal shows you are eating the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Once your body plugs its cables into your fat stores you will feel so much better. No tiredness, no hours dragging out, you have the energy to do stuff. Whatever you want to do.

If you do skip a meal and I find breakfast the easiest, your other meals must have really good nutrition, also take a multivit and some  fish oil capsules.

A Ray of Hope

Am I finally going to find the answer to this problem I have had all my life?

Just skipping breakfast and having no carbs at all in the morning.

A low carb salad with protein for lunch.

Dinner veggie carbs with greens and protein.

I only eat 2 meals a day and have no snacks at all.

For the first time my afternoons seem to just slide effortlessly by.

I am not counting the hours until I can eat. I can get on with stuff.

I can wait for 30 mins or so if dinner is delayed as it was last night.

I no longer pick at food as I am cooking it.

I certainly feel that my clothes are looser.

Am looking forward to being able to fit into some of my tops that have gone to the bottom of the clothes pile as they got too small, or I got too big and they were tight or would not fit at all.

Still waking up a early. Partly to weigh, still cant get out of that habit but also after 4am or so I dont feel I can sleep any more. So I get up to read a book.

Going back through some of my diet books. Some say you must eat breakfast. Others have found what I have found that not eating breakfast stops the insulin surge later in the day followed by the glucose crash and cravings for carbs in the afternoon.

Maybe we have different degrees of insulin issues. Some can cope with breakfast. I find I am better fasting till 12.

Reactive Hypoglycemia

I have now realized I have suffered with this for over 60 yrs and nobody told me it was not normal to be so out of control hungry in the afternoons.

It seemed that no matter what I ate for breakfast and lunch I would be on the hunt for food from about 2pm onwards.

Time seemed to be elastic, no way could I wait until dinner to eat again. My brain felt that it had to have food now, not in 15mins or a in a few hours.

It was relentless, every single day. Even when I was dieting my will power had to be super strong to try and resist the desire to afternoon eat.

Trying to have a low cal snack would make it worse as once I had started I was unable to stop.

What I believe was happening is as follows.

I would wake and have coffee with milk and breakfast.

My insulin was still high from the night and my glucose around normal.

The milk and even protein from breakfast would send the insulin into a peak.

I would manage till lunch, maybe more coffee with milk mid morning.

Lunch would push my insulin even higher and then the glucose would be sent off into the fat cells.

Now the glucose in the blood has gone too low. The excess insulin was blocking access to any other source of energy. The fat cells were like a bank deposit box that was never emptied. Fat went in there but never came out.

Hence the energy crash in the afternoons followed by binging and disappointment that I had failed on yet another diet.

Even the low carb diets did not solve the problem as they allowed me breakfast.

Since giving up breakfast and only eating twice a day my afternoons are crash free.

I can decide when to eat and what to eat and how much to eat.

It's the answer to 60 yrs of struggle and misery.

4 kg and counting

Scale this morning showed that I have lost 4kg. Which is nearly 9lbs so well passed the first half stone loss.

Just got to repeat that 10 more times!

I keep waiting for the afternoon cravings to hit leading into a binge. But it just does not happen.

Yesterday dinner was half an hour late and I had no difficulty in waiting for the rest of the family to arrive so we could dish up.

My 8 hr diet book arrived yesterday. This is talking about the science behind the 8 hr eating window and a 16 hr fast.

I am operating on a 6 hr eating window and an 18 hr fast.

I only eat at 12 and again at 6. But I do have coffee with cream in the mornings.

Looking forward to getting the 1st stone off. 6.5kg.

I feel this is the WOE I have been looking for all my life. Diets that recommend 3 meals and 2 snacks daily just do not suit my metabolism. I am hungry all the time on the diet like that.

When I do eat I have basically what I want and eat till I feel sated. I have a low carb lunch, salad and protein. Then a higher carb dinner also with protein and veg. We dont have to cook special dishes for me. I have the same meat or chicken as the rest of the family.

No Afternoon Binging

My previous 60 yrs have been blighted by binging.

Whether I was dieting or not I would find that after lunch, usually between 2 and 3 I would have a need to eat that was almost irresistible, and maybe again in the evening after supper.

If I gave in to it I would not have an off button. The eating would just continue until I was stuffed and uncomfortable.

Whether it was toast, cereal, bananas, chocolate. It was always carbs and even though I tried to make healthy choices it was always the sugar hit my body wanted.

I would start each day with good intentions and felt the binging need was building up and eventually I would give it to it.

Even when I managed to lose weight. Getting out of the house in the afternoon to remove myself from temptation the destructive behaviour always came back, at the end of the diet and I would find the weight increasing again until I got to the point where I would give up and eat everything I wanted. It was a real physical need, very difficult to control.

All the diets in the past never solved the problem. Weighing this, just eating that never seemed to fix the underlying issue.

Three weeks ago I decided to give up breakfast. I am not that hungry in the mornings and find morning hunger easier to deal with.

I started by just having coffee with milk, which did lead me to needing an afternoon snack which did not lead into a binge.

However when I changed to having cream in my coffee in the morning the need for the snack fell away and I can now comfortably go from a low carb salady lunch to my dinner at 6.

The need for a snack or a binge has gone completely. Its as if I never had this problem, but I know I did and it was very distressing and went on for years.

Two hours after eating and I would be on the hunt for food, preferably carbs.

I believe it is something to do with the insulin levels staying low in the morning and then not causing a glucose drop in the afternoons.

Whatever it is I am going to continue. Probably I will never eat breakfast again. Even when I just had protein for breakfast as in 2 eggs I still got the afternoon attacks of craving and binging.

See Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal. Written for diabetics but relevant here too.

Weight is continuing to drop nicely and so happy to be in control of what I am eating. 

Easier to get up out of my chair

Had to turn up a pair of trousers yesterday. Not just once but twice as the backs were trailing on the ground.

Finding get up from a chair much less of an effort. Feeling I can move more freely.

Also found my one ring will now come off my finger. Not been able to move that for over 18mths. The others are smaller so those will take some time to become loose.

I have to leave my rings on when I have a mani as they cant be removed.

Got a mani and pedi and facial booked for Tues so that is something to look forward to.

My blood glucose is more stable now. Fasting was 5.9 this morning. Would like to get that down into the lower 5's.

I am going to miss having my breakfasts on holiday next month. But if I have to choose between eating breakfast, which is usually the same, 2 eggs, and feeling this way, I will choose feeling this way.

Having the coffee and cream in the morning keeps the hunger pangs controllable and I know that it will soon be lunch.

Travelling OK

Been away a night on business. Did not take scale so keen to see weight this morning.

Another 600gms gone.

We skipped the breakfast spot going and coming back.

Lunch I had breaded prawn tails but peeled breading off before eating, Bit messy but tasty.

Followed by salmon and a greek salad.

Dinner was one piece of fillet with creamy pepper sauce on the side. I had some salad beforehand and I think coleslaw had added sugar. With a small baked potato and cream.

I took my own coffee with cream for the morning and bought cream so I could travel with coffee and cream on the way back.

So thats about 8lbs gone in 3 weeks. 3.6kg

I just have to repeat that 10 more times.

Enjoying the twice cooked omlette from Tom Kerridges book. I keep that in the fridge. Cut it into cubes and fry with extra cheese and had that on salad for lunch yesterday.

Evening was the end of a T bone with veg.

Found myself quite itchy last night. Hope it stops. Seems to be a reaction to losing weight.

The Cherry pickers Diet

Lots of dieting books say dont mix your diets. Use one and stick to it.

But I have ignored that rule.

I am fasting from Breakfast is a dangerous meal.

I have coffee and cream in the morning.

I eat a protein and salad lunch from Atkins.

I have the reward meal from Carbohydrate Addicts. Which might include fat and carbs. Last night I had steak, noodles ( half a minute noodle packet), cream sauce and vegetables.

The scale has gone down again this morning, after I changed the battery.

I work with both metric and imperial. So just dropped below 16stone for the very last time.

Now I understand my system better and how insulin is constantly derailing my previous diets I have finally got my insulin under control by going without carbs for 23 hrs in the day. That allows my system to access my fat stores and finally use them as they should have been used years ago.

Eating 5 times a day as so many diets recommend is setting me up for failure.

Eating twice a day controls my afternoon craving and I feel far more satisfied with what I am eating.

Lost an inch off the hips. So hope to continue the good progress.

Eating makes me Hungry

For all my life I have lived with hunger and cravings.

Awful afternoon hungry attacks when once I started eating I could not stop.

Because they had always been there I thought they were normal and that I had to use will power to control my behaviour.

Since skipping breakfast I have found those attacks things of the past.

If I have cream rather than milk in my coffee I do not even need a mid afternoon snack.

I have lunch at 12 and dinner at 6 without anything inbetween and find I have no hunger either before bed.

I did not think my system could feel like this. In 60 yrs I have never felt so in control of what goes in my mouth.

Long my it continue. 

Fasting controls cravings?

I started this WOE about 2 weeks ago. When I got back from my holiday.

Basically I have given up eating breakfast at breakfast time.

I have my 2 eggs for lunch with a nice salad and some mayo and yogurt salad dressing.

Mid pm I have a cup of tea and a small snack. Yesterdays was cauli mash with grated cheese zapped in microwave.

Then at 6 I have my main meal. I have been having half a packet of instant noodles, without the flavour packet. Yesterday my protein was lamb spare ribs cut off bone, then any veg I fancy. I complete my meal in about 20mins.

Then I dont eat again till the following lunch time. So about an 18hr fast.

So far I am 1.7kg down in 2 weeks.

My afternoon craving hunger has stopped.

I feel satisfied after my evening meal.

I can walk into the kitchen in the evening without needing to eat a little something.

I am guestimating my calories at about 1000 for the day.

300 for lunch/breakfast.
100 for the snack.
600 for the dinner.

I have been having coffee in the mornings with milk but today have switched to thin cream.

Trying to only have 3 servings of coffee and plenty of water.

Food seems to no longer be an obsession.

I dont spend all my time planning my next feeding as I usually do on diets.

I hope it continues.

Trying Fasting now.

Amazed I can still find this blog after all this time.

Am going to try intermittent fasting. Mainly skipping breakfast.

Will see how I get on, looking good so far.

1.6kg down in 10 days.

Afternoon cravings gone also no nibble need in the evenings.

Watch this space.

Back to Milk

I decided yesterday to switch back to milk in my coffee and tea.

While I had been enjoying the richness of the cream in my drinks I did not feel that my weight was dropping the way it has been.

I am happy to use cream in my sauces but have gone back to milk in coffee.

Cream is not that easy to get here and I was concerned that I would run out. I can always buy milk so less stressful. This is a rest of my life eating plan so I dont want to have to find special foods. It has to work with my life.

I saw under 200lbs again on the scale this morning. I first saw it about 10 days ago before I started the cream. So looking forward to slowly seeing the numbers reduce.

It is so empowering to find that I can reduce my weight without starving and without feeling deprived all the time.

I have now finished my Course to become a Banting Buddies coach and hope to be able to help other folk with the same problem.

To find a coach follow the link.

http://www.bantingbuddies.com/accredited-coaches/

Some of us do not have bodies that were designed to run on glucose ( bread and sugar). To become lean as we should be we have to get our energy from fat. Fat that we eat and fat on our bodies.

Fat is what we need to eat. To tell the obese to go low fat and low calorie just makes the problem worse.

It takes a leap of faith to try the high healthy fat diet but once you do you wont go back to the glucose.

I am not really too worried about how long this takes me. Maybe a year? I feel so much better and I know my diet is not going to change much once I get my weight down.

I never want to find I have put it all back on again as I have so many times before when I have gone low calorie.

Milk v Cream

I have never been one to drink a glass of cold milk, I gave that up as I grew up. I have always hated warm milk since the school days when they thawed the milk bottles near the school radiator after they had frozen in the winter. In those days all primary children had a third of a pint at break time.

But I do drink a lot of coffee and each mug used to get a splash of milk in it. Not milky coffee just enough to darken it a bit and make it less bitter.

The number of mugs might vary but would usually be between 4 to 6 in the morning including one with breakfast and one mid morning. The mid morning one would be the last for the day and I would have a cup of tea around 3.30 also with milk.

It was suggested on my Banting Buddies group that I try giving up milk and substitute cream instead. Some times I had to have black coffee as cream was not available. Dont like black coffee!

In the 2 weeks I have been having cream I have lost 1.6kg. In the 2 weeks before that I lost 1.5kg.

So not a great difference.

What I have been doing is using 1 tspn of cream to do 2 mugs. So when I have my 4 mugs in the morning only 2 get cream and I top up with coffee and boiling water.

I have also been putting a sprinkle of cinnamon on top which helps with the IR and makes it taste nice.

If I can continue to buy cream I will carry on with using cream. I had to make butter the other day as some of the cream I bought went sour as I did not use it in time.

Dont think cream freezes very well. If I could freeze in small amounts that would mean I would always have available.

I find if I have the coffee cream combo in the morning instead of the coffee milk combo I dont feel so hungry mid late morning. Thats not usually a binge time for me so the hunger does not worry me.

But interesting to note the difference.

Under 200lbs

Got on the scale this morning to find I have dropped below 200lbs.

Have vowed never to go back over the 200lbs again.

As long as I stay off bread and sugar and cereal I dont see that being a problem.

I know the symptoms of addiction now. Cravings for sugar in the afternoons, feeling tired and having no enthusiasm for anything. I know that even though bread is low calorie it does not suit my system and I have better having something higher calorie with fat or oil.

I am close to half way to my first goal which is 150lbs.

Will then decide whether to try and lose more or just stay there for a bit.

At my age I dont want to become an old wrinkly overnight so might be an idea to not be too drastic.

I was 147lbs when I married over 40yrs ago. After another starvation diet!

So between those 2 figures gives me some wiggle room.

Yesterday I had my first Christmas challenge. D had lots of pastry snacks and chocolate and dried fruit.

But she also had out dry wors ( thin dried sausage) and biltong ( dried meat) so I had those instead and dipped them in the cream cheese dip rather than the biscuits.

I took my own mayonnaise and salad with avocado feta and olives. Had that with a chicken thigh for lunch.

Daughter commented I was looking good!

Hope to be able to buy some more cream today. Cream with coffee is very nice and I am finding it stops me feeling hungry. I have 1 tspn and make that last for 2 mugs. Also putting cinnamon in the coffee which helps with insulin resistance.

Finding the weight is dropping faster now I have given up the milk in my drinks and switched the cream. Go figure!

I can see and feel this working. Trousers that were tight 3 weeks ago are now comfortable.

Should be out of my size 20's soon and into size 18.

Going to sign up for the whole of next year with Banting Buddies. Great to be able to get the support and advice to make this work.

Finally after all these years of struggle and misery.

Average losses

I did a spreadsheet this morning to look at the time it has taken me to lose each kg.

Some of the early figures I have not got as I did not start recording until I was about 6kg down.

So I have taken the figures from then. Worked out the day between each new lower kg appearing on the scale.

The figures vary between 5 days and 18 days so the average is around 13 days to lose 1kg.

So that works out at about 2.5kg a month or 5.5lbs a month.

So at that rate a stone is going to take me two and a half months to lose.

I know this figure is going to drop as my weight reduces.

I have done this before the hard way. Then I would be losing 9lbs a month but every day was a struggle with my glucose levels all over the place, dealing with cravings and binging and worrying that the scale would show a gain and waiting to lose the weight so I could go back to 'normal' eating. Which I did and the weight came back on again rapidly. An exercise in futility.

This feels different. My glucose levels are stable. I dont get that awful need to eat in the afternoons when my glucose levels were crashing.

I am eating more, particularly good oils and butter so my plates of food are about my normal fullness but I am eating far fewer carbs.

I am finding jeans that a month or so a go were a bit tight are now comfortable. Maybe soon they will be too big! So I better get some wear out of them now.

I will soon be accepted as a Banting Buddy coach and hope to be able to help other people with weigh issues to finally understand what is going on in their bodies and solve the issue once and for all. As I am doing.

Some Big Goals coming up

Weight is continuing to drift downwards. Not major weight losses each week but about 400gms or so.

With the Banting eating I do not get gains. Either it hovers at the same weight for a few days and then there is a drop, or 100gms go in a day.

I have stopped being fearful of finding the scale showing an increase because I am finding this so easy and I dont feel the need to cheat. Why would I when the food I am eating is so filling and tasty?

Over the next few weeks I am going to see a drop from 90kg into the 80's. Also I am going to drop below 14st. Something I have not seen for 10 yrs or more. Also a drop below 200lbs.

So all achievements worth celebrating.

I have bought a colour printer and a projector so will soon be ready to start helping others with this weight loss journey.

I am training as a Banting Buddy lifestyle coach to help others start on the journey that I am doing.

It was never about the calories, it was always about the carbs.

Giving up Milk

Giving up milk is something I have always struggled with.

On a low calorie diet is fairly easy to switch to a 2% or fat free milk and carry on adding it to coffee.

I mainly have milk in the mornings. I make around 4 or 5 mugs of instant coffee. The ground coffee is just too strong. I might have one if we are out for breakfast but rarely more than that.

So back to milk.I know milk is highly insulimic, for the number of carbs in milk it produces a much higher insulin response than would be expected. Babies need milk and insulin to put on weight quickly.

So even a small amount of milk when you are going low carb can be an issue.

Having lost 15kg without giving up milk I thought I would try this week to give up the white stuff.

Instead I have some cream. So I put a tspn or so of thick cream in the first mug, then top up with coffee and hot water so the cream does 2 mugs.

I have some coconut cream on standby for when the cream starts to turn. I will probably have to make butter out of it so as not to waste it.

Since last wednesday I have lost 700gms. My usual loss for the week is 500gms. So as an experiment it has shown me that milk is having an effect on my weight loss and is slowing me down.

So I will continue to buy cream to put in my coffee. I have one cup of tea in the afternoon and that one I still have milk. I just dont think cream and tea go together!

I am already planning for Christmas. If I dont plan I know I am going to run into problems. Sweets and chocolates have always been a problem in the past for me. I can put on 3 or more kg over a few days at Christmas.

So meat and vegetables are not going to be a problem. I can steer clear of the starches as long as I have my caulimash to soak up the gravy.

Will buy some almonds and maybe pecans or macadamias and toast them with spices and xylitol so I have something nice and sweet to nibble at. Maybe a bit of dark chocolate as long as I can stop at a few squares.

Left over cakes and puddings have been my binge foods of choice so will try and get the family to take any of those sorts of left overs home with them so they are not in my fridge.

I am not going to give myself  few days off. I know that if I let the insulin genie back out of the bottle I am going to be in trouble for days or even weeks. I am doing so well and feeling so much better I dont want to lose the momentum.

This is now my eating plan of choice for the rest of my life and my body is showing me how much it approves of what I am sending down!

Maybe Obesity is fixable?

Obesity is just something I have learnt to live with. I have had it all my life and no matter what I tried I always ended up fatter than before I started the diet.

I counted calories, I counted points and weighed my food. I could lose the weight, very slowly and struggling every afternoon to avoid a binge but if I had a goal function I could do it.

Of course I never added any fat to my meals as that would give me unnecessary calories which would stop me losing weight. So fats and oils on anything was always forbidden!

I have been low fat for over 60yrs. Till now.

Now I am embracing fat. I have at every meal. Good butter, cream in my coffee any fat that comes with meat. Yesterday was kidneys fried in coconut oil for lunch.

Guess what. I am losing weight. I can feel it I feel a sort of hollowness inside. In a nice way. I feel lighter on my feet. I find it easier to move and am moving a lot more.

Ok its not a crash diet. I am not going to lose 2 st by Christmas. But maybe this Christmas I wont put 7 or 8lbs back on!

I am losing about 1 to 1.5lbs a week, and it stays off. It doesn't come back once its gone.

My afternoon struggles with food are in the past. I could never understand why 2 hrs after a meal I was hunting for food again. And not just any food, I wanted carbs and sugar and would binge on them.

I have had that so long I did not believe it would ever stop. Even if I got slim I believed I would still have to fight the urges to eat in the afternoon.

I did not realize that I had a disorder in my insulin system. My pancreas over produces insulin in response the carbs. The extra insulin keeps the fat in the cells and makes my brain to tell me to eat more.

Now I understand that to keep the insulin in the pancreas I need to get most of my calories from fat and oils. Good ones, not manufactured  ones.

That way when my body has finished using up the fat I have eaten it can easily switch into the fat stored in the cells. Because there is no insulin to act as the door keeper and keep the cell doors shut.

I have endless energy and a new belief in myself.

I am not the weak willed obese female I always thought I was.

I had a chemical problem and this has fixed it.

So I can look forward to a slim future which I thought was something I would never achieve.