Just One More Diet

So much to say, I don't know if I can say it all. I was in an intensive binge eating disorder program last year and worked through my outer layers down into the deep cause of my emotional eating. It was stuff that I knew about my childhood but that I hadn't really understood as the cause of my eating. The food is the symptom and the crutch, the arrow pointing to what is going on inside of me. At the beginning of therapy my therapist gave me specific advice: trust the food, trust yourself, don't restrict. Don't take away the only thing you have that helps keep you emotionally stable. If you are craving or binging go ahead and accept it, and accept yourself. While doing so look inside yourself for what you are feeling, don't just bury the feelings in food, but primarily don't restrict. Yeah, you may eat more at first but if you learn to trust that the food is there for you you can use it to "hold your hand" while you work through whatever is going on i

Last post I discussed how I wasn't going to be able to sustain all the "extra-curricular" keto activities I was doing, like blogging, reading forums, watching YouTube, etc. Most of that has calmed down, and as you might have noticed I took a break from this blog, but my eating hasn't suffered at all. Since my first weigh-in in May I have lost about 34 pounds. After tracking almost everything I was eating for the first month, month and a half, I got into a rhythm and now I don't track anything but I'm still losing weight. Don't get me wrong, I don't go hog wild. I read labels, check restaurant nutrition websites, make sure I'm getting large quantities of healthy fats, keep my goals in mind at all times, and I don't eat carbs. I've found a couple sugar-free (mostly) ice creams that satisfy the (much less frequent) sweet tooth, a great sugar-free dark chocolate brand that manages the emotions during times of stress, and I make sure to eat a

I'm starting to think that being obsessed with being on this forum, reading keto FB pages, watching all the YouTube pages, reading books, etc. is starting to get unhealthy. If keto is going to be a way of eating just like carb-eating was, then I won't be able to sustain all this extra-curricular activity I'm doing on top of the meal planning, cooking, dishes, and cleaning the cast iron skillet. It's nice to be on a forum and get new ideas and recipes and make new friends, but I think I know everything I'm ever going to learn about keto unless there's a new scientific discovery. I've been studying low carb physiology for 17 years, I know almost all of it already and what I didn't already know I've filled in neatly in the last two months. I just wasn't able to implement it until this year 'cause I needed therapy first, and I didn't know I needed therapy until last year. I just hate how I can't have dinner with someone or go to someo

I have successfully, sort of, ended my first 24 hour fast! Here are my thoughts. Breakfast-to-breakfast seems to work really well for me, Tuesday night the only trouble I had was when hubby and daughter started making their dinner and I could smell it all the way from my bedroom. I had been really focused on the book I was reading but for the next fifteen minutes I had to read the same paragraph at least 5 times. Then the neighbors started a BBQ outside and my stomach growled. I drank some water, distracted myself with videos, and very soon my tummy settled down and the hunger pangs went away. I was able to get back to my book, The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Don't read it if you don't want to be more pissed off at our government and "Big Food". At 9:45am Wednesday yesterday I started my first meal exactly 24 hours after finishing the last meal the day before. I wasn't hungry up until 9:30. I had no hunger pangs, no headache, and no growling until 9:30. I

Alrighty! It is Tuesday and as I was planning all weekend I am going to try a breakfast-to-breakfast water fast today. I'll probably be able to survive the fasting but the thing I am concerned about is whether or not it will trigger a binge tonight or tomorrow. Binging is all about the head-game. I learned in BED therapy last year that restricting what I eat can trigger a binge and since I started keto I have really come to recognize that immediate correlation. I have to be SUPER conscious that it's going to happen to have a chance of preventing or mediating it. There are several tricks I've learned in the last 6 weeks of keto. It takes a bit of 1) desensitizing; 2) active mindfulness; 3) distraction; 4) chugging water; 5) not letting my emotions get the better of me; 6) positive self-talk and self-compassion; and most importantly 7) flexibility. I have to trust myself that if I'm really hungry I won't keep myself from eating. I have to be willing to "go wi

We need some before & during shots. Starting with my well-before-keto on 3/29/2018. I have no idea how much I weighed here. Here's my closest to starting keto picture on 5/29/2018, at about 345, maybe 350. (Emma got my phone away from me and took a secret candid shot, those pesky kids!) I started keto about 5/24 but my first official weigh in was on 6/4, at 340#, when I'd already used up my glycogen stores and dumped most of the water weight. I decided to check my weight 'cause the pants were looser. And today, 7/11/2018, 323.2. You can already see a difference in my face. I've noticed this with previous attempts to do low carb/keto, that the weight seems to leave my face first.