3 month report (yes more diet crap shut up)

What's changed since June 20, 2013:

• 30 pounds lighter.
• 25 inches lost on my body.
• Down 3 sizes.  Started at a 16 - I can wear a 10 now, and depending on the manufacturer, I can get into an 8.
• Plantar Fasciitis is gone.
• Not one sinus problem - and I had chronic sinus infections.  I don't even remember where my neti pot is.
• Smoother skin
• TMJ is disappearing
• No gout pain.  No arthritis pain.  NO JOINT PAIN
• Depression is completely just fucking GONE (still taking Wellbutrin, but I'm going to begin weaning off of it)
• Mood is good.  Like, I'm in a good mood all the time.  I still spend a lot of time alone, my basic personality hasn't changed, but I'm happy.  ??  Feels weird to say that.
• My taste buds - wow.  Everything tastes like FOOD.  Butter tastes like heaven.
• I'm not TIRED all day.  I get sleepy and tired like at night, when you're s'posed to.  But I'm not saying "waaah I'm tiiiired" all the fucking time.
• I love exercise.  <--who says that, right?  But, seriously.  When I start walking, I start smiling.  I walk 4 or 5 miles a day and just DIG IT.
• No hypoglycemic episodes this entire time.  Do you know what it feels like to have one of these attacks?  It's so mind-blowingly awful - I ate every 2 or 3 hours just to keep them at bay!  These days?  I eat twice a day, sometimes my first meal isn't until 1:00 PM.  AND NO ATTACKS.  jeebus.
• I do NOT count calories.  Or track points.  Or weigh anything.  Food is EASY and uncomplicated.

Me on Coronado island, I forced Jeff to rent bikes and HAVE FUN DAMMIT

I don't feel like an old lady anymore.  My brain feels sharper - I'm thinking clearly.  I'm able to be around people and not want to kill them dead (well, not as often.  Say, maybe only every OTHER minute.)  I laugh more.  I'm not swollen and puffy and out of breath.

I feel FINE.  fine?  what is that?  Do you remember the last time you had no aches and pains?  because for ME, these days, when something hurts, it's a 'hey wait a minute!' thing, not just part of the chorus of painful parts in the background.

Your joint pain will get so much better you wont be able to believe it.  TWO WEEKS IN and I had no knee or hip or knuckle pain (unless I tried running upstairs, HAR like I would do that, but old knees is old knees, no matter what).

Hypoglycemia vs. Regular Hunger:  Who knew that being hungry wasn't a fucking EMERGENCY!!?  All of my life, when I got hungry, it was this panic inducing thing.  Hypoglycemia makes you feel wicked weird, panicky, light headed, unable to think, can't move - it's just horrible.  I knew to eat breakfast and keep food in the car/my purses.  Granola bars, protein of some kind, peanuts, something.  ANYTHING.

NOW?

My insulin never spikes.  So it never crashes.  My insulin levels stay the same, all day.  I can now go HOURS without even thinking about eating.  And when I DO get hungry, it's a little 'hey, food would be good soon' feeling.  This is the hugest thing - I wish I could make everyone understand.  It was so horrible, that feeling.  I haven't felt like that ONE TIME since starting eating like this.

Again:  I don't think of this as a diet.  And I hate that whole 'way of life' thing too.  I also hate 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' or any of those weight loss platitudes.  The weight loss is secondary to my body being healed.  I am deathly allergic to grains and sugars.  Removing that stuff has done the above positive things to my body.  When I say 'deathly allergic' I don't mean instant anaphylactic shock stuff - I mean I WAS DYING.  Inflammation and a crashing hormone system (adrenals, cortisol, insulin, estrogen, all of it) was absolutely slowly sending me to my grave. 

I was miserable.  For 8 years, I have been miserable.  I'M NOT MISERABLE NOW.

One of my points above:  I do NOT count calories.  Or track points.  Or weigh anything.  Food is EASY and uncomplicated.  Food is just that, it's food.  I eat when i'm hungry and don't eat if I'm not hungry.  It took a while to get to the point where my body could tell me what it needed.  I just had to get all the other noise out of the way so that I could listen.  And hear.

What do I eat?  People ask me that all the time.  "I could never give up bread!" well, fuck yeah you can when you realize how shitty it makes you feel.  "I could never give up pasta!" ditto.  I do not feel deprived because that stuff makes me feel horrible if I have one serving of it.  The only carb I have been able to add back in is white rice.  White rice (not freaking WHOLE GRAIN) doesn't affect your glucose hardly at all.  I only ate like 1/4 cup of it mixed with chicken, and I did ok.  But I only had it once - just to see if I had a reaction to it.  I feel fine and FULL without it, I don't need the empty calories.  SO - back to the question, what do I eat?

I've listed this before, but I'll do it here too so you will see.  Around 1:00 PM when I get hungry, I will make a hamburger patty.  I fry it in Kerrygold grassfed BUTTER <--(oh my god!  butter!  yeah, fat doesn't make you fat)  I mean, a little bit of butter.  A tsp, not a stick.  Possibly add some cheese, but not always.  OR, I cut up some leftover steak (there is always leftover steak now) and sauté that in (a little bit of) butter, dump that into a bowl, then fry a couple eggs over-easy and put that on top of the steak pieces and nom the hell outa that.  Some avocado on top of both of those things and *bam* it's great.  I eat a little bit of Trader Joe's organic ketchup - TJs also has this wasabi mayo that I mix with the ketchup for a bitey thousand-island type thing.  But it's a minimal amount of that sauce stuff.

For dinner we have steak and a veggie, asparagus or something.  A burger patty (Jeff has two) and some avocado.  If he wants potato, he has it.  He's LOVING this eating thing.  He's lost about 20 pounds and still drinks beer every freaking day.  He doesn't miss the bread either. (until a pizza commercial or Man Vs. Food comes on, then he cries softly to himself while I scream NO CARBS FOR YOU!)

 

I HAVE A NECK!

 

Know what?  I don't really think about it.  I don't look for recipes and try and find interesting things to make, because 1. meat is delicious, and 2. food is just fuel.  It isn't a big party, it isn't a big deal, it's just fucking FOOD.  My life doesn't revolve around food anymore.  I don't really CARE anymore, lol!  It's like looking at a mirror with fat lines of cocaine on it.  I know how that is going to make me feel if I ingest it, I don't want to feel like that, so I'LL PASS.

If we are eating out, I will get a burger no bun.  restaurants are so used to that request they don't even blink.  Or I get the sashimi appetizer (here in San Diego you can pretty much always get raw fish).  Or I get carne asada with no tortillas or beans/rice.  (I then eat all the guacamole GET BACK OFFA MY AVO).  Salmon and zucchini.  I don't worry at restaurants if it's PRIMAL like no canola oil, blah blah I don't want my food to be complicated, it's ONE meal, just gimme the burger and don't tell me what cow it came from.  I don't want to be THAT person at the dinner table, you know?

When people hear I eat red meat and fat and no grain fiber, they get all weirded out and 'cholesterol!!' and 'blood pressure!!' and 'FAT!!" and people.  NO.

• Fat does not make you fat.  (carbohydrates and insulin make you fat) Your brain NEEDS FAT.  Good fat - like butter and avocado.
• Meat does not raise cholesterol.  Neither do eggs.
• Fiber doesn't help you poop or any of that. (do you want to read how that started?  http://psychcentral.com/lib/do-kelloggs-corn-flakes-help-control-masturbation/0001043 or here, http://theholyprepuce.tumblr.com/post/5971765336/kelloggs-corn-flakes-originally-developed-to  TO KEEP BOYS FROM MASTURBATING.  Also, he had an unholy (har) fixation with things in your butt.)
• Glucose can be VERY BAD for you. 
• Wheat is an abomination and you should stop eating it right now I mean it.

OK so - if you read this far - I stopped researching narcs and also religion and jesus and stuff, and turned my big fat brain toward researching carbs and brain health and hypoglycemia and menopause weight loss and depression - and it all led to the place where I've been leading YOU.  Grains are bad.  Glucose is bad in large quantities.

Just try it.  Here's the books again - it's that important to get people to read them.  yeah, now I'm pointing you toward books but I didn't buy them at first!  I read and read on teh interwebz.  But some people want books, I know I do - so here.  These.

The Primal Blueprint.  I also highly recommend his website.  Here are the success stories.  I don't buy anything else from the site, in fact I got (downloaded) the book from B&N.  I am mostly primal now - so are my dogs (Thank you TW!!)
Wheat Belly - explains why you have a giant pot belly and why.
Why we get fat - another great science-y book about insulin and carbs

Yeah, we've been told all of our lives to believe the government food pyramid.  The government also tells you that you MUST get a mammogram.  That you MUST get flu shots.  Our government tells you a lot of things that I think are bullshit.  (I wouldn't get a flu shot on a bet, but you go ahead if you want to) What is that old saying?  FOLLOW THE MONEY.  The food pyramid is a scam, plain and simple.  It's false, it's making you sick, and making you fat.  You are smart - find out for yourself.

GAWD I know I'm all preachy.  But to me this is better than researching narcissism.  For now.  It makes me feel like I'm doing something GOOD for myself, instead of looking for answers to my child abuse.

Eat Whole Foods.  Stop eating food from a box or a can.  Stop eating anything with more than one ingredient in it.  Like, eat MEAT.  Eat CARROTS.  Don't eat chemicals.  Please, just try it...?