Just One More Diet

About twenty years ago I first heard about the low-carb diet fad, generally only called the Atkins Diet back then. Dr. Atkins was touted as a quack and his diet was generally dismissed as dangerous and impractical. The diet seemed ridiculous even to me because I had grown up during the low-fat, low-protein, high-carb fad and everything I knew and had ever heard was completely contradictory to eating low-carb. At the age of 16 I started Weight Watchers for the first time when it was still all "grapefruit, cottage cheese, and baked fish with no oil" and I specifically remember hearing and repeating the phrase "fat makes you fat" over and over. I don't know what scientific evidence Weight Watchers, our government, and society had to go on to make that recommendation but eating low-fat carbs just made me eat more carbs and I spent the next 30 years becoming fatter and fatter, insulin resistant, and now pre-diabetic. Don't get me wrong, I do not claim to have g

Ugh, this is so hard. I've been overweight my entire life but for most of that time losing weight was just about looking better or wanting to fit into nicer clothes or being able to snag a boyfriend, but it's not about those things anymore. I definitely weigh too much but going on a diet isn't just about being slim or looking good or wearing nice clothes now. It's become about my health, and at this point my health is in crisis. I'm pre-diabetic with severe insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, I'm on two different blood pressure prescriptions and something for depression. I have both a hiatal hernia and an umbilical hernia. I have messed up my knees, hips, and back. I can't stand for longer than five minutes and I can't walk farther than fifty feet without shortness of breath, pain, and discomfort. Walking around the grocery store is barely doable, let alone going to Costco, taking a family walk on the beach near our house, or teaching my daughte