Anecdotal Evidence (RedMenace's Journal) page 3

[RedMenace]

Another 5 lbs down. You guys, this way of eating is stupid, and by stupid I mean so psychotically easy it's seriously the closest thing to magic I've encountered outside of the realm of physics. I mean, where the hell does this diet get off being so gosh darned easy, anyway!? Insanity!

So, on a "completely unrelated" note, I'm down another 5 lbs. Where the crap did it go? Seriously. Now this just seems unfair to others. It's like I have superpowers coupled with survivors guilt or something.

Not only have I lost (which is an amazingly suitable word for what's happening with my weight) another 5lb, but I have had cookies, cake, candy, brownies, cupcakes, and myriad unidentifiable mounds of sugar and wheat waved in my face, and waft their various scents into my office, all while being hounded by literally half a dozen people including my boss^2 (my boss's boss) to "EAT! Have some dessert! HELP YOURSELF!" and I have 0, none, nada, null, զրո, sıfır, صفر, শূন্য, нула, 零, אפס, absolutely NO desire to eat any of it.

I had 3 eggs with nigh hazard orange-coloured yolks scrambled with spinach and mushroom in a skillet full of pastured butter and a breve this morning. I desire no more things but water in my stomach, and no amount of chocolaty wafting will convince me otherwise. This is not willpower or resolve, it's just the way I feel and it's NUTS!

I am allowed to be constantly astounded by this, right? Because seriously, damn.

Part of the reason I'm extra astounded today is that when I came in to relieve my coworker, she asked me how I've been losing weight*. I found myself telling her how I eat butter and bacon nearly every day, that I'm never consistently hungry and that, despite all of my worries about dying without pasta, I actually just have no desire to eat it anymore. I realized about half way through that I sounded like one of those "it's too good to be true" infomercials. That if I were her, I certainly wouldn't believe a word that was coming out of my mouth. I'd be wondering where the catch was. I'd be, well, me for most of the years I was exposed to the concept of "low-carb" diets. Do you know how crazy it is to realize you're that person? That you're on the opposite end of the ongoing success story for once?

The surrealism of it all is freaking me out (obviously).

So, part of adjusting to this way of life that I'm finally starting to figure out is when I'm actually hungry. On high-carb diets, I was hungry all the time. I could go out to a restaurant, eat a full meal, and do the same with another group of friends an hour later. There was no bottom to my stomach. I was like one of those poor foie gras geese.... come to think of it, I bet my liver is HUGE...I should have someone check on that.... anyway, I digress. I've been trying to figure out when I naturally want to eat over the course of the day, and accommodate my body accordingly.

I've finally fallen into a rhythm that seems natural and easy. Big effing breakfast with lots of protein, fat, and veg, rarely, a small late afternoon snack, a piece of fruit and some nuts or some lunch meat and cheese, and then a moderate to small dinner, something like skirt steak over roasted veg.

I'm energized and never hungry with this eating pattern, and I also never get that gross over-full feeling which I'm beginning to tolerate less and less. I also don't get that supergross over-full-yet-still-hungry feeling, but that's to be expected what with the lack of sugar.

Outside of being astounded and preaching to the choir (hello, choir!), I've been getting holiday stuff ready in my house. I've hand painted black and white ornaments, have spray painted a (fake) tree black, I've turned a whimsical curly q'ed red angel into a black and white stripey curly q'ed skull-head angel, and am pretty darn close to having what I envision as "Tim Burton's Christmas tree". It fills me with more joy than it probably should. I kind of want to hug it, but it's pokey and it stinks from the spray paint still, so I don't.

Presents are wrapped, stockings are hung (and stuffed, because it's me, the boyfriend, and a roommate and apparently coordinating playing Santa was beyond us this year), All I have to worry about is painting more ornaments and cooking the feast to be Paleo friendly and Vegetarian friendly. Not a difficult task but for the overwhelming number of choices.

I hope that you all are having a lovely Winter/Winter seasonal holiday so far!



*I am giving my coworker the PB book on Tuesday

[Barb]

Congratulations to you and thanks for sharing your success. I have been primal for 2 years now and it really is surreal how easy it is to resist the candy and sugary treats at work. On my days off, I eat a good breakfast and then can go out doing things, shopping, visiting people, whatever and just FORGET about eating. It is so liberating not to have to eat when you are out living your life. Hunger is a very disturbing sensation. So glad it is now a mild nudge instead of a raving lunatic demanding attention. Merry Christmas to you - enjoy your new freedom.

[RedMenace]

Why, thank you, Barb.
Hope your Christmas went well.

[RedMenace]

Hi, all. How was your holiday? Mine was both awesome and intense. Too much eating, too much drinking, etc. You know the drill. Not regretting any of it this year is a present in an of itself.

HOWEVER, I did receive a present this year that's going to have a lot to do with this primal journey that I'm on. My parents, who must be out of their damn minds, bought me and the dear boyfriend a cruise. A friggin' cruise. Sun, beaches, Caribbean islands, drinks, bathing suits, ocean, tons of people stacked onto a floating city complete with 19 bars 10 restaurants and a gambling hall, the whole shebang. I'm so excited!

I'm also beside myself with anxiety. See, I've been on a cruise once before so why would I be anxious?
Well, last time I went on a cruise I was about 210lbs, or about exactly as much as I weigh now, so:
- Bathing suits. Duh. I've not been comfortable in one since before I was too young to have body image issues (I am not exaggerating).
- Formal night. I'm not particularly girly, but I still think it's fun to dress up. I bought two nice dresses for the formal nights on my last cruise. No one (including a boyfriend who quickly became an ex) told me I looked nice, or even really commented on one. The other....well... I embarrassingly popped most of one side seam when sitting for an after dinner drink. I also sort of looked like an overstuffed sausage in it. I can never bring myself to look at those cruise pictures.
- Being active. I want to hike and snorkel and play on the beach, y'all. My weight and health have really precluded me from doing those sorts of things for awhile.
- The godforsaken (yet life-giving) day star. See, I'm practically allergic to the sun. I was a ginger as a kid. I'm still freckly and pale now and I live in Washington under 10 months of perpetual cloud cover. I have no melanin anymore.

So what's a girl to do? Set goals, that's what! I have just over a year, Feb 2013 to be exact, to make myself swimsuit/beach/activity/sun and schmancy dress ready.

Problem is, I don't really know what reasonable goals to set are, or even what my expectations should be. The entire time I've been doing this thing, I've been going with the flow and rolling with the punches, but this seems like a call for me to take a more active roll in reshaping my body.

So, I'm going to set my size goal at what I was able to do with the nearly starving SAD + 2 hours of working out a day. Why? Well, I'm losing weight faster now than I did nearly killing myself doing that. So, you know, maybe I'll even be able to blow my goals out of the water. Here's hoping.

Initial Goal:
-Wear a size 10 dress by December 2012

I guess it's time to stop talking about it and actually just start going to the gym, eh?

Probably also about time to post progress pictures.

[sixpack-rc]

Another 5 lbs down. You guys, this way of eating is stupid, and by stupid I mean so psychotically easy it's seriously the closest thing to magic I've encountered outside of the realm of physics. I mean, where the hell does this diet get off being so gosh darned easy, anyway!? Insanity!

So, on a "completely unrelated" note, I'm down another 5 lbs. Where the crap did it go? Seriously. Now this just seems unfair to others. It's like I have superpowers coupled with survivors guilt or something.

Not only have I lost (which is an amazingly suitable word for what's happening with my weight) another 5lb, but I have had cookies, cake, candy, brownies, cupcakes, and myriad unidentifiable mounds of sugar and wheat waved in my face, and waft their various scents into my office, all while being hounded by literally half a dozen people including my boss^2 (my boss's boss) to "EAT! Have some dessert! HELP YOURSELF!" and I have 0, none, nada, null, զրո, sıfır, صفر, শূন্য, нула, 零, אפס, absolutely NO desire to eat any of it.

I had 3 eggs with nigh hazard orange-coloured yolks scrambled with spinach and mushroom in a skillet full of pastured butter and a breve this morning. I desire no more things but water in my stomach, and no amount of chocolaty wafting will convince me otherwise. This is not willpower or resolve, it's just the way I feel and it's NUTS!

I am allowed to be constantly astounded by this, right? Because seriously, damn.

Part of the reason I'm extra astounded today is that when I came in to relieve my coworker, she asked me how I've been losing weight*. I found myself telling her how I eat butter and bacon nearly every day, that I'm never consistently hungry and that, despite all of my worries about dying without pasta, I actually just have no desire to eat it anymore. I realized about half way through that I sounded like one of those "it's too good to be true" infomercials. That if I were her, I certainly wouldn't believe a word that was coming out of my mouth. I'd be wondering where the catch was. I'd be, well, me for most of the years I was exposed to the concept of "low-carb" diets. Do you know how crazy it is to realize you're that person? That you're on the opposite end of the ongoing success story for once?

The surrealism of it all is freaking me out (obviously).

So, part of adjusting to this way of life that I'm finally starting to figure out is when I'm actually hungry. On high-carb diets, I was hungry all the time. I could go out to a restaurant, eat a full meal, and do the same with another group of friends an hour later. There was no bottom to my stomach. I was like one of those poor foie gras geese.... come to think of it, I bet my liver is HUGE...I should have someone check on that.... anyway, I digress. I've been trying to figure out when I naturally want to eat over the course of the day, and accommodate my body accordingly.

I've finally fallen into a rhythm that seems natural and easy. Big effing breakfast with lots of protein, fat, and veg, rarely, a small late afternoon snack, a piece of fruit and some nuts or some lunch meat and cheese, and then a moderate to small dinner, something like skirt steak over roasted veg.

I'm energized and never hungry with this eating pattern, and I also never get that gross over-full feeling which I'm beginning to tolerate less and less. I also don't get that supergross over-full-yet-still-hungry feeling, but that's to be expected what with the lack of sugar.

Outside of being astounded and preaching to the choir (hello, choir!), I've been getting holiday stuff ready in my house. I've hand painted black and white ornaments, have spray painted a (fake) tree black, I've turned a whimsical curly q'ed red angel into a black and white stripey curly q'ed skull-head angel, and am pretty darn close to having what I envision as "Tim Burton's Christmas tree". It fills me with more joy than it probably should. I kind of want to hug it, but it's pokey and it stinks from the spray paint still, so I don't.

Presents are wrapped, stockings are hung (and stuffed, because it's me, the boyfriend, and a roommate and apparently coordinating playing Santa was beyond us this year), All I have to worry about is painting more ornaments and cooking the feast to be Paleo friendly and Vegetarian friendly. Not a difficult task but for the overwhelming number of choices.

I hope that you all are having a lovely Winter/Winter seasonal holiday so far!



*I am giving my coworker the PB book on Tuesday

I know exactly what you mean. I had a sense of vertigo the first few months (still do after four). Like my whole understanding of nutrition was flipped around and set upside down...and I was adjusting to walking on the ceiling.

But the results don't lie. I saw my sister for the first time since I started and she literally had to call me on my phone when she picked me up because she didn't think it was me...waiting on the curb...with luggage...after getting off the el....from the airport.

Funny everybody keeps asking me about it and I keep trying to explain it but they just don't get it. I'm almost to the point where I don't want to talk about it anymore. I spent HOURS trying to explain it to some folks I was visiting. So one night at dinner they brought out ice cream that she thought I might be able to have...because it was 'organic'. But I checked the label and it was 0 fat and 0 protein. Xantham Gum etc...and 18 grams of sugar per serving. Um...I'm full thanks.

~rc

[Barb]

Red Menace - I think there is always a chance that when we think we will only be able to enjoy ourselves or that our anxieties will be calmed WHEN we are at a certain size we are setting ourselves up for some kind of failure or disappointment. Look at how much success you are having going with the flow. Your posts are full of the joy of being alive. The logic that somehow trading off some of your current joy in the expectation that you will thereby increase your future joy is kind of a myth. All joy is current. If you get into a "must go to the gym to be able to fit into a size 10 dress at some future date" mindset, you risk detesting going to the gym. The internal pressure to be a certain size in order to find yourself acceptable as a human being worthy of a fun time is a lot of very unpleasant stress that undermines the healthy changes you are making. You will start to measure yourself against this goal and may feel like you will only be relaxed and happy within yourself once you have achieved it.

I think there is a difference between goals such as "I am going to do a whole 30 of eating no sugar" and see if it helps you feel better or lose weight versus specific body size goals. Just my thoughts. I have a feeling a commitment to a primal lifestyle will bring many of the benefits you seek (including a smaller dress size). Commitment to a particular dress size may not.

[RedMenace]

Day 0:
This quarter has been killer. I've had to rearrange classes, teach myself precalculus due to a very horrible teacher (Oh the pages and pages I'll need for her review. Words, I has them), and try to keep up with French 2. All this on top of 1.5 hour commute either way, and band rehearsal, dancing, and gaming.
While that's all fine, and I'm handling it the best I know how, my work outs have stopped, and I haven't seen my good friend Ketosis since last month, because, you know, it's always a good idea to relieve stress by not adhering to a writing schedule, being crappy about your diet, and being more sedentary all around....

....yeah, at least I have been toasting to poor decisions on the few occasions I do go out and have a nice bourbon.

So, I have, at least been taking note of how I've been feeling. Something I started doing after posting a response to this thread: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread45810.html and reconsidering my statement. In the spirit of the title of this blog, I've been trying to get some detailed anecdotal evidence about how my body reacts to foods and what I can expect to deal with. I feel like I'm much more aware of myself and how I feel after being "surprise (or not-so-surprise) carbed" and am much more able to gauge what's worth my time and what's not in social situations, stress-eating situations, etc.

Now that all that horrible eating that even I can't stand to try and pass off as experimentation has taken it's full toll, with general malaise and a small amount of weight gain, I'm done. So, today, day zero, it's goodbye to the headaches, the sugar spikes, bloating, mood swings, gas, indigestion, heart burn, etc. etc. etc.

I also have other difficult things to face in the upcoming weeks. I wont go on about them quite yet, but I'll post about it later in the coming month(s)

[RedMenace]

Self-sabotage is sneaky, y'all. It's sneaky like a ninja ... or brain parasites. A quiet, niggling thing hiding in the shadows waiting for your guard to be down to throw tiny poisoned darts of will-power failure, or excuses at you.

I'm a terrible self-saboteur, and have been as long as I can remember. I really have no clue why, or how to frigging stop it. It seems like I have to walk a very fine line between making absolutely nothing of the work I put into something and talking about it a lot, lest I fall to either side too hard and either forget about it, thinking it's pointless, or burn out. Where's the balance? Where's the benefit of introspection? And where the effing hell has my will-power gone?

Eloped to a non-extradition country with my self confidence, I'm sure.

Anyway, that's where I am. Stalled. Clawing my way back out of yet another hole. I'm low. I guess I'm writing here to get it out and to, perhaps, get some sort of inspiration.

Are you there, Houston? I have a problem.

[mommymd]

Go back and read your own journal!!!!!!! That woman was figuring stuff out and having lots of successes. You are her and you can get back there again.

mommymd