i'm going thru keto-flu...
.... and my period is starting... i don't recommend it. *clutches tummy* oooooh!
so obviously, one of the things i've done is start new way of eating. i don't call anything 'dieting', because that word is a trigger word, which tells my hind-brain that i MUST EAT ALL THE THINGS - specifically, all the things i'm not supposed to have on whatever it is i'm trying to do. yes, i have food hoarding issues. it's very much a stress-reaction. since 'diet' is a trigger, i've been doing various things over the years to shift my eating patterns, instead. *and*, i reassure myself that i *can buy* whatever i want to - no matter what the actual diet says - which is a neat sidestep to the sudden fear that the food will never be available so i must have it now!
and that sidestep allows me to classify whatever-it-is as 'abundant', which then means i don't have to *have* it, which then means i don't have to *buy* it, so i don't *actually* buy it, because i no longer *need* to store it, because i know it's always there.
so, way of eating. ketogenic. i've been working my way towards this for a while, making shifts and changes, and i finally took the last step this last weekend: dropping carbs. At this point, for, that literally meant 'no more bread, no more potatoes, because i dropped fast foods about 15yrs ago, worked on my ibs till i was 'stable' and knew how to handle it, reduced or removed fried foods to a minimum. (and at that, on keto, i can have *fried* foods, but the 'breading' should be crushed pork rinds.)
i've gone from 261.2 last thursday to 255.6 this thursday. i know this diet works for me - i did it once before while i was doing undergrad, but either did it wrong, or confused 'not bloated' with 'hungry' (i had a *lot* of brain-body integration issues to go through. i still do.) so i know keto works for me, but i forgot how fast it worked, and how quickly my satiation signals adapted to the diet kind of surprised me. but also, last year at this time, i'd struggled for *2 months* to be consistently under 260lbs. i swear, i'm about to become a keto-fanatic, in the 'fanboy' sense of the word.
i promise i won't aggressively shove it done everyone's throat, though - i hate that behavior. for one thing, it's just rude. for another thing, it fails to take into account the fact that everyone is on their own journey, and your path may not be right for them. like i have a friend on here that's allergic to animal protein - the deadly allergy variation. the kind of sensitivity levels of 'wait, the spoon was used to stir pot roast before it went into the noodles? no noodles for me!' obviously, keto-standard is not for her, because keto-standard deliberately includes a lot of animal protein, to increase your intake of proteins and fats. other people have other issues - like i had to be in the right brain place and have the right amount of energy to focus on making the final step. everyone's different, and everyone should think through their own path and do what's right for them.
so, back to the new way of eating. i have two things helping me now that i didn't have 10 years ago, brain/body/food issues aside: one is a 'battle-buddy' - co-worker B is on keto, too, and he happily will give me advice and sympathies. his new wife is a good cook and glad to share keto-appropriate recipes, which helps muchly, because since i don't cook, i rely on my roomie, G, to do all the cooking in the house.
G's focus is on other things, so he's not going to sit down, look at an acceptable food list, and come up with a menu plan. that's fine by me - for one, i'm not entirely sure he's in a good spot to do keto himself. he's had some pretty serious surgeries, and his body is still recovering, he's on medications, etc. he needs to put *on* weight and *get* some fat and padding around his bones, not lose it. for another thing, while i made cooking part of the rent (sneaky bastard that i am), i don't expect him to treat that as his primary job in life. so i'm perfectly fine finding recipes and looking through them and putting together a menu on my own.
my primary issue on *that* is the one thing we all need more of: TIME. B says he'll help with resources, and the good people on the FB group 'FatHead' have suggested a few links that are pretty good, too.
the second thing i have is a 'coach' - someone who's already done all the hard research, sorted it all out, and can answer my questions. like why the kidney beans i had monday, which are high in protein, are not so good on keto. or diabetes diets. and why is it legumes, general, that are not so good for you? (incl. peanuts, most beans, etc). my coach, K, knew the answer to that. turns out that soaking a bean pre-digests it, in a manner of speaking, thus releasing any locked sugars up to be mainlined into the bloodstream, just like carbs.
and keto theory is thus: carbs are easily digested into sugars, and the body releases an inordinate amount of insulin to deal with it. insulin tells your body to store fat, so every time you eat carbs, your body is told it needs to preserve fat. hence, carbs are bad. so are high amounts of sugars - any sugars.
however, your body needs a fuel source - it needs fats to run, especially the brain. so even though one of the main goals for many people eating this way is losing weight, the idea is to eat fat to fuel your body. it's a little weird, but it makes sense in a food-hoarding-analogy way: eating fats tells your body you aren't in famine, so your body stops 'hoarding' the fat it has and releases them. (one of the ways it does this is by peeing every 10 minutes - *rolls eyes*).
there, basic keto in a nut shell. the good thing about my coach is that i'd never have come up with an initial food list on my own - i'd never have had time to research it and put it together. and i love having someone to answer my questions, too, and who doesn't take those questions, which are sometimes badly phrased as 'i don't really want to', and more as they're intended, which is: 'i do better when i know the why of something, so why x?'
the bad thing about K is that he really is a bit nuts in his thinking, and i don't mean the keto-crazy way, either. but one of his comments to me in an email was that he 'understood about food hoarding issues,' but 'you just have to get over it a bit'. what, did he think i've been a complete wuss because i was reacting to actual childhood neglect and minor starvation? with, you know, pretty damned classic resource-hoarding strategies that were actually useful as a child? or that having both my brother and sister also exhibit classic resource-hoarding strategies - different ones, but clearly recognizeable as such - was just a coincidence? yeesh.
another comment when i mentioned i just didn't like something - i forgot what it was - was that he 'decided what he was going to like'. this is food, people. sometimes, you just don't like stuff, even if it's done amazingly well. i don't like fish, for example, never have, and i've had it in some damned pricey restauraunts where the chef knew what s/he was doing. but he was pretty sure 'likes' and 'dislikes' were all just choices - 'a lot of people just don't want to admit that what they 'have to have' is a choice. like sweets.' it looks stupid when i write it out, but the implication was that in context was that i was trying to insist on keeping my sweets. like i was just eating sweets and cakes and cookies all the time.
seriously? i stopped eating hallowe'en candy when i was 12. decided i was too fat. i've fucking spent *years* trying to understand why i ate like i did, reducing 'bad stuff' - first no candy, then no fast food, then no more funnel cakes and fair food, nothing fried, because it's bad, no pasta, none of the southern German dishes i love - don't fucking tell me what's wrong with my head or the way i *was* eating, because that's not your concern!
fortunately, i can (mostly) tune the 'K is being a close-minded ass' noise out, and there are other people in the chatroom i frequent who i can complain about him too and check my sanity level. B's good for sanity check on keto, too.
so: mostly, i'm pleased, with myself, and this new way of eating. kinda can't wait to get over the keto-flu portion of the proceedings, heh.
in other news, i swear i'm going to make a post about the house and the trip to oregon this spring RSN. as soon as i stop spinning around like a car axle. i even uploaded all the pictures to *make* those posts.... oi. i can't believe the year is half-over already.
-bs, alive and well... (behind on everything, lol)
so obviously, one of the things i've done is start new way of eating. i don't call anything 'dieting', because that word is a trigger word, which tells my hind-brain that i MUST EAT ALL THE THINGS - specifically, all the things i'm not supposed to have on whatever it is i'm trying to do. yes, i have food hoarding issues. it's very much a stress-reaction. since 'diet' is a trigger, i've been doing various things over the years to shift my eating patterns, instead. *and*, i reassure myself that i *can buy* whatever i want to - no matter what the actual diet says - which is a neat sidestep to the sudden fear that the food will never be available so i must have it now!
and that sidestep allows me to classify whatever-it-is as 'abundant', which then means i don't have to *have* it, which then means i don't have to *buy* it, so i don't *actually* buy it, because i no longer *need* to store it, because i know it's always there.
so, way of eating. ketogenic. i've been working my way towards this for a while, making shifts and changes, and i finally took the last step this last weekend: dropping carbs. At this point, for, that literally meant 'no more bread, no more potatoes, because i dropped fast foods about 15yrs ago, worked on my ibs till i was 'stable' and knew how to handle it, reduced or removed fried foods to a minimum. (and at that, on keto, i can have *fried* foods, but the 'breading' should be crushed pork rinds.)
i've gone from 261.2 last thursday to 255.6 this thursday. i know this diet works for me - i did it once before while i was doing undergrad, but either did it wrong, or confused 'not bloated' with 'hungry' (i had a *lot* of brain-body integration issues to go through. i still do.) so i know keto works for me, but i forgot how fast it worked, and how quickly my satiation signals adapted to the diet kind of surprised me. but also, last year at this time, i'd struggled for *2 months* to be consistently under 260lbs. i swear, i'm about to become a keto-fanatic, in the 'fanboy' sense of the word.
i promise i won't aggressively shove it done everyone's throat, though - i hate that behavior. for one thing, it's just rude. for another thing, it fails to take into account the fact that everyone is on their own journey, and your path may not be right for them. like i have a friend on here that's allergic to animal protein - the deadly allergy variation. the kind of sensitivity levels of 'wait, the spoon was used to stir pot roast before it went into the noodles? no noodles for me!' obviously, keto-standard is not for her, because keto-standard deliberately includes a lot of animal protein, to increase your intake of proteins and fats. other people have other issues - like i had to be in the right brain place and have the right amount of energy to focus on making the final step. everyone's different, and everyone should think through their own path and do what's right for them.
so, back to the new way of eating. i have two things helping me now that i didn't have 10 years ago, brain/body/food issues aside: one is a 'battle-buddy' - co-worker B is on keto, too, and he happily will give me advice and sympathies. his new wife is a good cook and glad to share keto-appropriate recipes, which helps muchly, because since i don't cook, i rely on my roomie, G, to do all the cooking in the house.
G's focus is on other things, so he's not going to sit down, look at an acceptable food list, and come up with a menu plan. that's fine by me - for one, i'm not entirely sure he's in a good spot to do keto himself. he's had some pretty serious surgeries, and his body is still recovering, he's on medications, etc. he needs to put *on* weight and *get* some fat and padding around his bones, not lose it. for another thing, while i made cooking part of the rent (sneaky bastard that i am), i don't expect him to treat that as his primary job in life. so i'm perfectly fine finding recipes and looking through them and putting together a menu on my own.
my primary issue on *that* is the one thing we all need more of: TIME. B says he'll help with resources, and the good people on the FB group 'FatHead' have suggested a few links that are pretty good, too.
the second thing i have is a 'coach' - someone who's already done all the hard research, sorted it all out, and can answer my questions. like why the kidney beans i had monday, which are high in protein, are not so good on keto. or diabetes diets. and why is it legumes, general, that are not so good for you? (incl. peanuts, most beans, etc). my coach, K, knew the answer to that. turns out that soaking a bean pre-digests it, in a manner of speaking, thus releasing any locked sugars up to be mainlined into the bloodstream, just like carbs.
and keto theory is thus: carbs are easily digested into sugars, and the body releases an inordinate amount of insulin to deal with it. insulin tells your body to store fat, so every time you eat carbs, your body is told it needs to preserve fat. hence, carbs are bad. so are high amounts of sugars - any sugars.
however, your body needs a fuel source - it needs fats to run, especially the brain. so even though one of the main goals for many people eating this way is losing weight, the idea is to eat fat to fuel your body. it's a little weird, but it makes sense in a food-hoarding-analogy way: eating fats tells your body you aren't in famine, so your body stops 'hoarding' the fat it has and releases them. (one of the ways it does this is by peeing every 10 minutes - *rolls eyes*).
there, basic keto in a nut shell. the good thing about my coach is that i'd never have come up with an initial food list on my own - i'd never have had time to research it and put it together. and i love having someone to answer my questions, too, and who doesn't take those questions, which are sometimes badly phrased as 'i don't really want to', and more as they're intended, which is: 'i do better when i know the why of something, so why x?'
the bad thing about K is that he really is a bit nuts in his thinking, and i don't mean the keto-crazy way, either. but one of his comments to me in an email was that he 'understood about food hoarding issues,' but 'you just have to get over it a bit'. what, did he think i've been a complete wuss because i was reacting to actual childhood neglect and minor starvation? with, you know, pretty damned classic resource-hoarding strategies that were actually useful as a child? or that having both my brother and sister also exhibit classic resource-hoarding strategies - different ones, but clearly recognizeable as such - was just a coincidence? yeesh.
another comment when i mentioned i just didn't like something - i forgot what it was - was that he 'decided what he was going to like'. this is food, people. sometimes, you just don't like stuff, even if it's done amazingly well. i don't like fish, for example, never have, and i've had it in some damned pricey restauraunts where the chef knew what s/he was doing. but he was pretty sure 'likes' and 'dislikes' were all just choices - 'a lot of people just don't want to admit that what they 'have to have' is a choice. like sweets.' it looks stupid when i write it out, but the implication was that in context was that i was trying to insist on keeping my sweets. like i was just eating sweets and cakes and cookies all the time.
seriously? i stopped eating hallowe'en candy when i was 12. decided i was too fat. i've fucking spent *years* trying to understand why i ate like i did, reducing 'bad stuff' - first no candy, then no fast food, then no more funnel cakes and fair food, nothing fried, because it's bad, no pasta, none of the southern German dishes i love - don't fucking tell me what's wrong with my head or the way i *was* eating, because that's not your concern!
fortunately, i can (mostly) tune the 'K is being a close-minded ass' noise out, and there are other people in the chatroom i frequent who i can complain about him too and check my sanity level. B's good for sanity check on keto, too.
so: mostly, i'm pleased, with myself, and this new way of eating. kinda can't wait to get over the keto-flu portion of the proceedings, heh.
in other news, i swear i'm going to make a post about the house and the trip to oregon this spring RSN. as soon as i stop spinning around like a car axle. i even uploaded all the pictures to *make* those posts.... oi. i can't believe the year is half-over already.
-bs, alive and well... (behind on everything, lol)