11/19/08

167.5

Okay, so maybe it was a stomach flu.  I ended up being sick that entire day.  Not fun.

I am still stuck at the magic number I was stuck at for most of last year despite my attempts at both dieting and exercising some pounds off.  167.5 is where my body wants to stay!  I even had 3 pounds of breast tissue removed and somehow, my body retained or else quickly replaced those 3 pounds after my surgery.  This would actually be a fascinating phenomenon to me if it wasn't utterly frustrating!

I have noticed that since being unwired, I have only within the last couple days begun to feel a desire to eat both MORE than I need (ie: eat when I'm not hungry) and MORE CARBS (ie: my body wants to increase its fat stores). It prompts me to wonder why... Is it because I'm at the beginning of my PMS cycle?...  Or maybe it's because it's finally gotten to feel like winter outside (cold weather maybe makes you burn more calories to stay warm, so your appetite increases?)...  Or maybe it's because I'm once again at that point where my body wants to stay (167.5), so it's going to guard against me going below that set point... It's so interesting to consider all the possible reasons - it may be all 3 or none of them.  I'll never fully understand what's going on inside my body, but I am determined to find a way of eating that is sustainable for my lifetime and that gets me leaner than I currently am. But am I fighting against my very nature?

I just read a major portion of "Good Calories, Bad Calories" lately, and the part of the book I read talks a lot about how each of our bodies tend to prefer a certain body composition - that's why some of us will always be able to eat mass quantities and still be wiry and thin, while others of us will eat far less than those thin people and (unfairly!) retain pudge.  If you are anything like me (ie: if you are having trouble understanding WHY you a.) can't stick to a diet, or b.) seem stuck at a certain weight) I strongly recommend picking up and reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.  The middle chapters in particular have really helped me understand what's going on in my body, and that the idiotic "calories in, calories out" approach to weight loss is completely unsupported scientifically.  If you've been trying to lose weight on a low calorie "balanced" diet, those chapters in particular specifically address WHY it's not working (or why it might have worked in the beginning, but now your weight loss has tapered off and the only way you see around it is to reduce your caloric intake even lower than you had it).  

Do yourself a favor and read that book - not because it advocates a diet similar to the one I try to stick to, but simply for the sheer volume of diet and nutrition "laws" that it debunks by way of ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS.  It is truly sickening to me that unsupported nutritional science has become mainstream and is even defended by most of the medical community.  Who can we listen to if our own doctors are gobbling up the shoddy analysis and research of biased scientists - scientists who seem biased not only by their desire to prove their own hypotheses correct, but also by their desire to give their funders (those organizations who pay them to come to their often limp and illogical conclusions) the trial outcomes they are hoping (paying?) for?

Read, learn, educate yourself.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Christie,

While Good Calories, Bad Calories is excellent as far as it goes, there is an issue it doesn't cover thoroughly. That would be the quality (adequacy) of food intake. In other words, there's low carb and then there's LOW CARB.

The kinds of fat calories you choose can have a profound effect on your metabolism. Also, the vitamin-mineral-protein content of your diet determines what your body has to work with in terms of materials for replacing cells, repairing tissue, and maintaining the immune system. In other words, truly healthy people do not get sick.

I suggest you visit the Weston A Price foundation website and try adding some medium chain triglycerides (found in butter and palm kernel oils) to your diet. You may not be consuming enough of the right kinds of fats.

You might also visit Matt Stone's blog at: http://yoursacredself.blogspot.com/

Regards,
David Brown
Nutrition Education Project

JG said...

Christie,

Do you still have your OJW? Is it worth it? I'm considering going. Please send an update. Jill

Christie said...

Hi Jill,

I still have the brackets on my teeth, but have not been wired since late October. I got into cooking for the holidays and didn't want to not be able to taste what I was making... bad idea. I ate as many cookies as I gave away, I think.

Anyway, I do think it's worth doing if you are like I was: stuck in a downward spiral of hopelessness and guilt and self-loathing because of your inability to stick to any diet changes, or your inability to stop bingeing. I literally felt like a cocaine addict would feel if there were stores that sold cocaine by the pound just around the corner and cocaine was piled on my shelves. It felt IMPOSSIBLE to control myself, so I made the wires control me.

Has it worked for gaining control? A little. I mean, let's be honest, anyone who's lost weight says the hardest part isn't the losing of it, but rather the maintenance of the weight loss, and as much as even losing weight has been hard enough for me, just the few pounds that I have lost have been very hard to keep off.

It's a mind game as much (probably way more) as anything. I strongly suggest you have some counseling set up for yourself both WHILE you are wired and for AFTER. (Gosh, maybe even go to a hypnotherapist - I never tried it, but I've heard it works if you put the work into it yourself.) I am doing much better now that the holidays are over, but if I had been true to myself and my goals, I would have kept the wires on, excused myself from holiday baking, and saved myself the weight gain I got in return for giving in to my old ways.

I think it was very helpful in the beginning to just give me a BREAK from my self-destruction, and the weight loss was nice, but ultimately, OJW is not going to do anything for you long-term. I knew that going into it, and expected setbacks and hurdles. I am trying to get my mind in the right place.

I think what the dentist suggests for length of time to keep the wires in place between unwiring is long - 5 weeks on and 5 days off. I found I was eating whatever I could sift through my teeth - a lot of that was ice cream. See? You can't just rely on the wires for the weight loss. Sure, you'll lose weight, a ton if you stick to it, but what are you going to do AFTER?

You need a plan in place and you need to identify your trigger foods and be able to either not keep them in your home or be made of steel if your family can't part with them. I stopped eating starch on January 7 (our last holiday visitors left that weekend), and feel so much more in control than when I went hog-wild during Christmas "because I deserved to".

Can you eliminate the food group you feel compelled to overindulge in? Is bingeing your problem, like me? Do you think you might have a food addiction? What other research have you done?