Just One More Diet

I was trying to explain to my husband the other day about an unexpected benefit I noticed of doing keto. Over the last four weeks I have had a definite reduction in my urge to binge. It's not that I feel like having a binge and I can talk myself out of it or that I have to exert effort to control it some other way. It's just that it doesn't come up. If I'm hungry I eat. Partway through a meal, even if I'm distracted by TV or conversation or whatever, it occurs to me to check if I'm satiated. If the answer is yes I stop eating, if the answer is no I keep eating. I'm not constantly thinking "I have to keep myself from having a binge" or "I have to remember to be mindful when I am eating". My therapist said that the first step to recovering from binge eating disorder was learning to recognize my body's satiety signals. If I noticed I was full I could take that opportunity to stop but even when I was full I still wanted to keep eating. ...

Amazingly, at less than 20 net carbs a day, it hasn't been difficult to do keto. I've been doing it sort of lazy, eating lots of fats, moderate protein, and only a little bit of veg and none of the carby stuff. I tracked for a week or so and then I noticed my calories were way higher than I wanted them from all the fat, and things went pear shaped for a day or two. When I tried to count calories and reduce my intake I suddenly had a binge episode, and then I had another the next day. I learned a lot in BED therapy and the first thing you learn is that restricting triggers binges. So, I slammed the brakes on tracking for a week but continuing with high fat and protein and almost no carbs and I didn't have a binge the whole week. For the last week now I've been slowly going back to tracking but I'm just making sure I don't go over in net carbs and under in protein. I'm leaving the fat alone and eating whatever I want. I see the calories numbers but I try not...

In late-May I started feeling like I was pulling out of a depression I've been in since a friend of mine passed away in January. It wasn't so much that she had died, which was awful of course and I'll miss her very much. My emotional upset was more personal than that, more self-centered of me. She had always been the fat woman I looked at as my saving grace. I always thought, "If she can be that fat and still alive, then there's hope for me." I think I said this already but it bears repeating. So late-May I was pulling out of the depression, I felt more cheerful, less weighed down, wanting to go out more, maybe even see some friends. I could feel this episode was coming to an end and I was ready to take more constructive action with the panic and fear that had overwhelmed me when Randy died. Instead of just sitting on the couch every night, maybe now I could find the strength to focus my efforts on pulling myself back from that cliff Randy fell off. As I a...

I'm having a lot of trouble organizing my thoughts on this subject and I really want to say all this stuff before I move on with other subjects so I'll just post what I have written down even though it's not finished and move on. I wanted to get all sciencey and cite sources but I'm just not that into it right now. I'm tired of all the USDA RDA bullshit and it feels like no matter what the science says there's just too much money in sugar and keeping people fat to get anything changed. I'm a relatively intelligent person but I also, possibly stupidly, believe in conspiracy theories. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the only person involved in JKF's death. I believe that the tobacco companies add extra-addictive chemicals to their products to keep their customer base growing. And I believe the food companies know exactly what they were doing when they added high fructose corn syrup and all sorts of other sugary substances to their products, and ...

In my last post I explained the background of my messed up relationship with food and how I got up to almost 350 pounds. Modern psychology calls it Binge Eating Disorder. I turn to food for emotional support as one would turn to a family member or friend, whether it be in happy times, stressful times, sad times, or just bored times. I ate my meals well beyond a feeling of fullness, even to the point of feeling slightly sick, because the overwhelming feeling of calm I got feeling, tasting, and smelling the food was impossible to let go of. Also, I was obsessed about when I would eat next, what I would eat, and generally speaking who would be eating with me. I made excuses to eat, putting myself in situations where eating was almost mandatory, like at a potluck. And I never turned down a free meal even if it was possible I wouldn't like it.  My Binge Eating Disorder has been a roadblock for me the entire time I've known about the ketogenic diet. You might have even wondered ...

I keep putting off the discussion of my low-carb food plan so much that I'm starting to sound like one of those self-help books that repeats over and over, "Just keep reading for the secret to a better life!" but never ends up getting there. I promise, the backstory is necessary because it needs to all be taken in perspective. This post might actually be shorter than the others because it's a pretty simple subject. My family didn't like me and the only way I know how to soothe that subconscious pain is through eating. Don't get me wrong. My family loved me, they gave me everything I needed, they clothed me, fed me, gave me toys, kept the house clean, sent me to good schools, and provided me with countless enriching educational experiences. They just didn't like me. For instance, one day when I was in my early 20's my uncle (Mom's brother) said to me, "If you weren't related to me I wouldn't want to spend any time with you. You...

I am nothing if not verbose. I'll try to be more succinct in future posts. Trust me, this will get to the more interesting parts about daily Keto dieting very soon. I just have to get all this off my chest before I start. So, family crisis hit hard in 2008. After a death in the family and a long-distance move I was stuck in a foreign place with antagonistic relatives and devil's food doughnuts were my only source of comfort. From January 19 to February 25 I gained about 40 pounds. Yeah, 40 pounds in just about 5 weeks. One day I heard a radio DJ talking about a great diet he went on called Medifast and I thought I had to give it a try. I read and researched it for a couple weeks and convinced my husband (was my "new boyfriend" in the last post) that I should try it and he promised to help. Medifast is a low carb, low fat, low calorie diet made up mostly of meal replacement "shakes, soups, and bars". As I said, I was desperate and was willing to try anythin...

It all started in 2001 when I decided to go back to college to finish my degree. As a student I had almost-free use of the University Health Center and it turned out that the same (fantastic) doctor I'd been seeing the whole time I was in college ten years previously was still there. I quickly made an appointment for an annual exam during which I talked to her about my weight issues, my irregular periods, my excess facial hair, and just about everything I could think of. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were sitting at her desk and without speaking she turns to her computer and starts typing. I didn't know what was going on but I waited and after a moment she turned back and said, "I think you have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Everything you mentioned fits. Let's do some tests and go from there." She printed out a sheet about PCOS and scheduled our next appointment. When I got home I started researching PCOS on the internet. There wasn't a lot on th...