Primal Journal - Pam page 19

[Sabine]

Interesting thoughts from Ecks (as always). It made me think of the opening of your journal, where just about the first thing you say about your history with food is that you were always starving yourself. Something to consider.

[longing2bfit]

((Pam)) this makes me sad. Probably cause I can identify somewhat. I started putting on weight quite young as a defense mechanism from being molested. Instead of anyone trying to figure out what was wrong I was belittled and punished. When I was between 14-22 I was a severe anorex/bullemic and almost died. After a stint in therpy and having a couple of babies I went the opposite direction and became severely obese and have yo-yo'd and dieted ever since! I have a love-hate relationship with food and can only seem to go to either extreme, don't eat at all or over-eat. It makes things frustrating for me when I manage to stay on track and eat normally and then show a gain like today It makes me want to just stop eating until I reach the weight I want and then eat nothing but leaf lettuce!!!!

But some pervers streak in me has me getting up everyday and taking another stab at living like a human, eating real food and getting my exercise. Even though there is this little voice in my head that whispers, "if you stop exercising and eat nothing you can lose faster!" I try not to listen and just keep viewing each day as a brand new day and new start. But seriously? I want some rewards!!

[Gay Panda]

I am definitely going for pathetic. I should probably send my post to Gay Panda who does live in the Magic Bamboo Forest but, although I read lots of his posts, he doesn't know me, so I wouldn't want to impose my pathetiqueness.

Come on over and let loose any time!!! About food or weight or difficult mothers or anything.

[longing2bfit]

I don't know how popular this idea will be but in light of some of what I think I am interpreting I am going to throw it out there.. How about instead of forcing the whole eating (of meat or not) issue you instead just go until your really hungry and whatever in the primal food category sounds good (like for instance avocado?) you just eat that until satiated then stop eating until your starving again, rinse repeat. Just a thought because thats what I had to do during my therapy for anor/bull years ago. Then eventually you stop having such issues with actual foods and can eat more roundly.

[Lex26]

Oh no - I think maybe you're worrying too much about what's going on in other people's journals, and maybe overwhelmed by all the advice sometimes posted here. It's easy for that to happen! When you see how other people are experimenting with their diet, take it as an education in how different everyone is and how important it is to experiment and listen to your own body. We're all getting over different problems, both psychological and physical. I've made plenty of mistakes so far and will continue do so as I figure out my problems.

Another problem I think we face - the one drawback of keeping up with these journals - is keeping our positive thinking battery charged all the time. When I come to post on here, I want to be positive and hopeful all the time that I'm moving in the right direction. Overall, I am if only because I'm learning a lot with much thanks to everybody on here. But there are definitely days - the pathetic days! - when I'm just like, what the hell? I'm being so careful about my diet and exercise and the weight still isn't budging. In the last two weeks, between being sick and becoming skeptical of eating as low-carb as I was, I've been eating too much sugar and feeling like crap and totally regretting allowing regular snacks and meals with too much sugar or starch in them. I'm going back to life without the regular fruit and starch now because it's completely thrown off my energy and now I have to crawl back to the low-carb place I was at before. I know I'll feel better - and I won't take that for granted - but I don't know how soon I'll move the weight scale. I'm so eager to come on here and post about weight loss, but for some of us the journey is just going to require a lot more patience with our bodies. We need to stop blaming ourselves for not seeing the progress we want to see as fast as we want to see it. All we can do is continue trying to do right for our bodies - trying to destress, trying to sleep more, trying to move more and keep our blood sugars level on nutritious food. That's all we have control over.

Maybe you and your sister could talk more about these issues together. I grew up in a very different situation, but I do know how stressful it is to be surrounded by people who think the reason they're thinner than you is because they hit the gym once or twice a week. I feel like they all think I'm sneaking constant Snicker bars into my diet when in reality I eat meals that are incredibly more nutritious than what they eat. All those outside assumptions about why I've been overweight for so long and what it takes for me to lose weight piss me off so much and, honestly, embarrass me a lot. It often feels very pathetic how much effort I go into eating right to only see incremental progress.

But that's why we've both got forum buddies to cheer us along. We know how hard it can be and we know that those incremental progress posts are not insignificant. We're not on a reality show or any kind of competition to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain time. And you're not here to look pretty for your mom. You're here to FEEL great, which will eventually lead to you looking great.

[ecks]

I LIKE EVERY FOOD FROM EVERY CULTURE I'VE EVER HAD.

Of course you do! Food is the best!!

Here's how I put it to a paleo buddy today. There's been a lot of stir because Carbohydrates were a big talk at PaleoFX. How much/how little to eat.

I put it this way to him: I could have a terrible, restrictive, and frustrating diet that I lose weight quickly on, learn nothing, and gain back. Or I can eat properly, watch the weight take forever, and learn how to eat for life so that when I do get to a healthy weight I can maintain it.

I notice that a lot of the ladies on here want it off and they wanted it off yesterday and almost every one of you talk about how your weight has yoyo'd. I know you've all had lots of success eating primal but you've all faced plateaus and gains because a little weight comes off and you react by going way too far in one direction to try get it off faster. Clear your minds/pallets of any false direction you have taken and start fresh. If you lose a half pound be proud of it and keep doing what you're doing. A half pound a week is still better/faster than the plateauing and yoyo'ing that you guys are putting yourself through when you take your good path and lean too hard into it.

[Pebbles67]

+1 Amen Brother!

{{Pam}} I don't know whether to give you advice or just hugs. I can tell you that I started Primal by the book eating a good amount of fat, carbs and protein. I lost 50 lbs pretty easily. Then I lost my way, went way too low carb, high exercise and hit a wall. Due to VLC eating I developed a binge disorder, hypoglycemia and hypothyroid symptoms. Now I have come full circle. I hope you can find your way back to what you were doing at the beginning. Don't waste months like I did.

[theprimalcajun]

Pam...There's really not much I can add to what everyone else has said. And I love ecks post!! You da man ecks!!

What I try to do is not worry about tomorrow. Every morning I ask myself what I can do today to stay on track & eat primal. If I plan ahead I usually only do it a day ahead...except when I buy groceries...then I do plan better as to buying those things to have on hand I know I will need.

{{{{{{hugs}}}}}

[lopisheep]

I think advice with hugs is the perfect combination. Got to slow down, think clearly, ignore outside stress, deal, and put some nice primal carbs back in -- blueberries and sweet potatoes, where are you? I'm on it. Thank you for your insight. Yep, I don't need anymore disorders, that's for sure. I'll check your journal out and look at your current carb -- fruit and sweet potato, etc. -- to see what's working for you. Have a super primal weekend.

+1 Amen Brother!

{{Pam}} I don't know whether to give you advice or just hugs. I can tell you that I started Primal by the book eating a good amount of fat, carbs and protein. I lost 50 lbs pretty easily. Then I lost my way, went way too low carb, high exercise and hit a wall. Due to VLC eating I developed a binge disorder, hypoglycemia and hypothyroid symptoms. Now I have come full circle. I hope you can find your way back to what you were doing at the beginning. Don't waste months like I did.

[naiadknight]

Pam-
I realize that maybe you don't want to hear from me. I started with, at most,15 lb to lose, and the last 5 lb comes and goes. So maybe my take isn't what you need. If that's case, ignore this post and tell me to shut the hell up.
I started out to lose 15 -20 lb, get my thyroid from less of a fucked up point, and get to a healthier life. If I could ever find my original journal on here, I'd let you read it and laugh your ass off at the naivete I had.My first take was the middle road: cut the bad stuff and stay around 50 carbs a day. Like most people, I had trouble getting enough fat it. Growing up in a "healthy" family, putting oil or grease beyond what was need was foreign to me. Once I found that happy middle ground, I had lost my taste for much of the higher carb foods, putting me right around 30g carbs/ day. I wasn't experiencing the fat melting off, beyond those first 5 lbs, but I chalked it up to having so few to lose. I stayed the course.
Then someone brought up Whole30 on the forums. I decide, what the hell, I'll try it. One of the worst dietary decisions I've evr made. I went wacko with it, dodged dangerously close to ED territory (If this one little thing isn't Primal about a meal, it'll break mt Whole30 and therefor I shouldn't eat the meal.) My husband caught me midslide and made some innocuous comment comparing me to a friend of our that thinks he's allergic to pretty much everything and requires special cooking. (This is all in my journal, if you want to watch the slide, read the rant, read the recovery.) That comment caught me dead in my tracks. Primal is supposed to make life easier, not make life even more of a bitch than it already is. I dropped Whole30 that day.
I went back to notperfect Primal and began loving my life and loving food again. I did some more research on the effects of a Primal diet on the thyroid and realized that I hadn't been eating enough carbs to keep my messed up thyroid happy. So I tinkered with it. I'm an engineer, tinkering's in my blood. By trial and error, I realized that 75g/ day + selenium supplement on top of my multi was what I needed.
I tried the leptin reset, and dropped that 3 days later. True breakfast, done like that, is NOT my friend anymore. I cannot eat it. Even if I force myself to, I get nauseous, to the point of throwing up one of those days. That was when I swore off all the Primal panaceas. I can make true Primal work, why take a magic bullet that will likely just fuck up the delicate balance I've already gotten into place.
My point being: yes, tinker, yes experiment. Just realize what works healthily, and use what works until it stops working before you tinker again.