The Christmas social...

...is coming to a venue near me on Tuesday evening. So am I prepared for this fun and festive foodie feast? You betcha!

I used to dread occasions like this and through the 'diet' years found it really hard to be moderate and sensible and to eat and drink responsibly. But, over the years I've sorted out a few strategies to help me. Hey, that grey hair has some use, huh?

One of these strategies is NOT to starve myself beforehand and go to the venue hungry - in the past I've tried that, saving myself for the evening, and I've decided it wasn't a good plan. It was actually a very bad move for me, as everything looks so tempting and tasty and seems like a good idea. Saying 'yes' in these circumstances is apparently a lot simpler than declining!

So, how to manage the food aspect? Well, Tuesday is one of my Oxfam volunteering days and I always take a pot of stuff with me for my late IF 'breakfast' meal.

This week will be no different, and my little box will contain chopped up bits of raw cauliflower stalk (from tonight's dinner), some small chunks of nice salty cheddar cheese and some lovely Turkish olives sprinkled with Palestinian zataar. I may add a cherry tomato or two if I feel like pushing the boat out. I usually also take a small pot of mixed nuts. That, being my usual fare, will keep me satisfied through the day so I won't go out for the evening hungry.

I try to remember to clean my teeth just before walking out of the door - residual minty toothpaste taste makes the first food/drink taste bleh, so slows down the start of things. Though I don't do it now, in the past I've found eating an apple about ten minutes before walking into the venue works too, and apples are a nice 'clean' food so there's no need to clean your teeth to get rid of odd bits that lodge between your gnashers after an apple!

The other food related tip is to look at (er, closely scrutinise!) the menu ahead of time. I go out having already chosen exactly what I am going to eat before setting foot into the joint. On that subject, two courses are quite enough - no need to go for three as I'd never do it any other time of year so why do it at Christmas. I also tell the organiser what I've chosen before I get there (helps them out in the melee), and carry a piece of paper to remind myself of my selections. This means a definite decision has been made - no room for shilly shallying, no indecision, no capitulating to anyone else's urging, no making impulsive choices. Just sensible choices that fit with the way I choose to eat.

If the set menu, and it's usually a set menu at Christmas, means my selection automatically comes with something I'd rather not eat (some form of potatoes, for example) there are a few options. Firstly, you could ask the kitchen to leave them off. The downside is that a lot of venues struggle with this at hectic times of year though - their aim is to serve as many (often not 100% sober) folk as possible in short order and they may not appreciate or be able to fulfill 'special requests'. No problem, when the dish arrives just push the offending articles to the side of the plate and leave them there. Not always easy though as they often look pretty yummy, so consider offering them to someone who doesn't eat kookily like me. In my experience there's usually a hungry man at hand who is all too happy to take them off my hands to pad out their meagre restaurant 'festive' portions. I often find the Brussels sprout haters are more than happy to swap my roasties for their little green horrors too.

Then there's the alcohol side of the equation. I'm not a great drinker usually, but it's easy to get carried away in company, especially when everyone else seems dead set on draining the bar dry and wants me to be 'sociable' and join in!

So, for one thing I always drink a large glass of water before leaving the house. OK, it means I'll doubtless need the loo on arrival, but it also means I'm not thirsty and can make a glass of white wine spritzer last a looong time. Note the spritzer bit - looks like you have a good large glass of a recognisable drink (which seems to be expected), but you can get away with a small serving of wine and lots of sparkling water or soda water. Then, when we sit down I always ask for a big jug of tap water to be brought to the table (and replenished regularly) and intersperse one glass of wine with several glasses of water. My bladder helps take care of the quantity imbibed!

The dessert course can be a bit of a trial (especially if, like me, you've just chosen a starter and main). But a coffee, black if you must, makes a perfectly acceptable substitute and there is rarely a problem sipping that while everyone else tucks into their sweet and sticky desserts.

A few other tips...

One is to wear something very close fitting (and definitely non-elasticated) at the waist. Amazing how conscious that makes you of the amount you consume.

Another is to be sociable - hey, this is Christmas after all! This means talking to people, getting up and moving around to speak to everyone, dancing (if necessary) and generally doing anything to minimise time and access to the food and drink.

Oh, and if your Christmas social happens to be a buffet... load your plate with salad (or the platter decorations) before anything else goes onto it. This usually tastes pretty good and leaves minimal room to load up with the stuff your own dietary preference views as 'naughty'.

Right, enough blether. Merry Christmas, chin, chin and onwards ever...

Letting go

This week has seen me doing something that's quite a challenge. No, I haven't taken up kickboxing (now there's a thought), bungee jumping, marathon training or anything like that. No, what I did was to 'let go' of a piece of 'baggage' that I'd (quite literally) been carrying around with me for years.

This may not sound momentous to anyone else out there, but it's quite a big deal for me. Another small measure of progress perhaps?

Now as my darling lovely hubby could tell you, chapter and verse, letting go of stuff, even sometimes 'useless' old stuff, is not always an easy thing for this fat lass. Sometimes it's fine. But sometimes I can have a decidedly unreasonable (yep, even I can see that) emotional attachment to the oddest of things, not necessarily because of 'what' they are, but because they are so steeped in memories and connections.

Actually, what I did was donate it to a local hospice charity. They can now sell it to someone who will (hopefully) love it and raise themselves some ever-needed ££s in the process.

In this case 'it' was a heavyweight, black, fringed leather biker jacket. A gorgeous thing indeed, but it's... well, think Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzie. I'd had this jacket ever since I was in my early twenties (and it was a serious luxury when I bought it!). However, I have only ever worn it a handful of times, first because it was such a precious (and costly) thing and then not least because for too many years I couldn't even get it on... let alone done up!

Even so, it was a part of my history somehow, and I loved it... so I carried it around with me, all carefully packed up, through a multitude of moves... to take up wardrobe space wherever I went. I 'could not' bring myself to part with it. In fact, it's been so hard to contemplate getting rid of it that I brought this jacket into work months ago with the aim of taking it to the hospice shop... since when it has languished under my desk making me feel guilty every time I kicked the bag.

It's been slightly worse because it fits me easily these days (yes, I tried it on once or twice) and I 'could' have worn it pretty comfortably I guess but... hey. C'mon, realistically, where's a middle-aged, grey-haired old bat going to go wearing such a funky 1980s thing. So, armed with Gift Aid number and a couple of bagsfull of other bits and bobs, off I marched to the charity shop, where I very nearly baulked at the final hurdle and kept it.

But... I didn't, this time, and it has now gone from my life - no more to be an item of my 'baggage'. This all seems a bit oddball, I know, but I do have a point to make here. That is to say that I've realised something about myself. Yep, another lesson in life.

That is that, however huge and hard a task it seemed beforehand, now I've actually 'done' the letting go, there's a sense of accomplishment and maybe even a slight feeling of relief in a way. I'm not, as I expected to, mourning the jacket's absence.

Actually, it's been quite a letting go sort of a week.

Thirty three years ago last weekend, on Valentine's Day, I lost my darling Dad in extremely harrowing and difficult circumstances. Eighteen months ago, almost to the day, I lost my beloved Mum. Again, what happened around that time was extremely difficult to deal with, albeit in a very different way. From both of these (and other) events I carry 'baggage' still, and I guess I always will.

But I've realised that I have been able to let go just a little bit here too. It's been about allowing myself to 'let go' of some of the pain I feel about both events, and set aside just a smidgen of the anger and recriminations which usually spring to mind. Looking back'll never be pain free. I'll always miss them both and feel their loss, and I can't turn back the clock nor change the circumstances that occurred at those times.

But I can accept that I have a choice, in this and in many other things. I can decide whether to allow my thoughts (and objects connected to them) to be 'baggage', to drag along with me ever more, or I can decide that it's time to 'let go' a bit.

It'll take practice, but I'm going to persevere and try to improve my letting go muscles. Onwards, ever...

Defining 'maintain'

Before I go away, I just thought I'd share something about maintenance which has been squirreling around in my mind. You see, maintenance is where I guess I am these days. It's a pretty nice place to be too (if sometimes a little scary) but how, exactly, does one define 'manitain'?

Well of course I have some ideas of my own, but with Google being my friend and all that, I decided to check it out. Hey, what do you know, there are two ways to define this word. Both of them are pretty appropriate too.

The first definition is to:
    cause or enable (a condition or situation) to continue
which makes sense and is pretty much what I expected to see. I guess if you'd asked to define the word myself, that's probably roughly what I'd have said.

But wow, look at this, the other one is to:
    provide with necessities for life or existence
Hmmm, 'necessities', eh? Now that's very interesting.

OK, I'd say this second one's really rather an apt definition too. Given the LCHF ketogenic way my lovely hubby and I eat these days, which is to say deliberately opting to restrict our carbohydrate intake quite dramatically (i.e. generally staying under 50g per day) to stay in a state of nutritional ketosis*, we're choosing to limit a food group which isn't actually 'essential' to our bodies.

* Don't forget, nutritional ketosis is a quite different animal to ketoacidosis. Ketosis is absolutely not a bad or dangerous thing - a ketogenic diet is, after all, one of the medical intervention strategies used to treat children with intractable epilepsy.

So, thinking about those carbohydrates for a moment - what do I mean here? That they're not an 'essential' part of my diet and I don't truly 'need' them? Yes indeed, they are actually not 'critical' or 'necessary' to my well-being in any way. Don't take my word for it though...

A number of pretty knowledgable people have written about this topic, but Dr Jeff Volek was asked in an interview a while back whether it was correct that we humans have a base-line 'requirement' for carbohydrates of around 130g to 150g per day. This figure, it seems, is calculated based on the brain's expected use of glucose as a fuel or energy source. In other words, isn't ingesting that level of carbs a daily 'necessity'?

He made it quite plain that this degree of carb intake or more is really not necessary, and went on to explain that if you allow your body to produce ketones (and the easiest way is by restricting carbohydrate intake), the vast majority of the brain cells will cheerily adapt to using those ketones for fuel. Most of your other body cells will adjust just as well too. There is, as ever, a 'but', which is that there are 'some' brain and other cells in the human body which can 'only' utilise glucose as a fuel - ketones just don't cut the mustard for these little guys.

However, in case you are worrying about those odd cells which really do require glucose to function (some of which, like the retina, lens and cornea in the eye, are pretty important), he also mentions the fact that the body can perform a sort of 'do-it-youself' miracle. That is, your body can, and does, produce the glucose it needs from other, non-carbohydrate, food sources in your diet. In short, the body can quite happily make use of the proteins you eat in a process called 'gluconeogenesis' to make any glucose it actually requires. Go on, look it up - you know you want to.

To bring us back to where I began, defining 'maintain'... I'll vote for both of those Googled definitions as being equally apposite and important. So this forms the basis of my plan to keep on and 'maintain' the status quo when it comes to my weight, and to keep on to 'maintain' my cells by providing things they actually need and minimising the things they don't.

Blather over. Onwards, ever...

A little victory dance...?

Something occurred to me over the weekend and, now that it's struck home, I'm going to mark it up as a positive, and as progress, and as something to be very pleased (proud?) about indeed.

In fact, I'd say it's one of my lovely Mum's blessings, right here in front of me to be counted... and, do you know, although I've 'sort of' seen it before (and even mentioned it) I just hadn't really remembered it and recognised it, nor taken notice of it for the good thing it is.

With one thing and another (you know, the usual e.g. health, family, work, you name it...), there has been a fair amount of stress, angst and worry in life again of late. Yeah, yeah, I know - so what's new, huh? That means I have, inevitably, had my fair share of rough moments, where I've felt like I'm really struggling.

At those darker points, although I've 'mostly' avoided it, the bad old behaviours try to surface and, like diving face-first into a plateful of comfort food, quite often sounded like a darned fine idea. Indeed, I have strayed off the straight and narrow low-carb ketogenic path a couple of times, but somehow (thank heavens) managed to haul my silly self back on track pretty sharpish... although I've also seen the scales needle twitch upwards now and again as a result.

But to get back to the blessing?  When I think about it, it's quite simple, but the consequences are significant. It's that I HAVE seen the danger, and that I HAVE taken notice of it, and I HAVE actually done something to avert the looming crisis. Hey, is this maintenance?

Well I guess so, and the proof? Even though I've seen the odd brief rise (and whined about it accordingly), my weight when I look back over the last couple of years (which was for soooo long a 'big' problem, in every sense of the word) has pretty much remained inside a perfectly 'acceptable' band. Acceptable, eh? So what does that mean, exactly?

Well, to me these days my 'happy' place is somewhere around the 53 to 54 kg mark. OK, I've fluctuated at times, maybe a kilo, a kilo and a half, very occasionally two kilos, above/below my 'that's fine' zone, but that's all - even throughout all of life's traumas (large and little). My dress size has remained constant too, which seems a bit of a miracle, even if I've sometimes noticed slightly tighter or looser waistbands.

Wow! How about that. For a formerly obese (Class 2, to boot!) fat lass, having no major gains or losses in the last couple of years(!) but something approaching stability, is fantastic. Actually, in my world, that's something really pretty amazing. Hence the teensy little jig of victory.

Now I know that perfection ain't me, and I don't want to count too many chickens, but I really do think this successful pattern in 'maintenance' marks a change for the better for this fat lass.

This feels significant to me because the whole concept of 'maintaining' still worries me (a.k.a. scares me witless!). Being so long obese, I still fear that I'll wake up one morning and it'll all have been a lovely dream and now I'm awake find myself still trapped in my layer of blubber. And, believe me, that's somewhere I REALLY don't want to go back to.

I'm still on my journey, and still learning to take care of 'me'. I hope I'll always be able to learn, and always recognise the lessons... eventually. It takes effort, sure, but I also know I'd have struggled a whole lot more with sustaining the weight loss if it wasn't for a low-carb lifestyle.

Long may it continue... onwards, ever.

Gentle groans

Gym induction on Friday went well, although rather quick. It was definitely only a whistle-stop tour where we just observed and hoped to remember enough so that we could figure out what to do with the various high-tech bits and bobs when we first flew solo!

Wings spread and we attempted this on Sunday morning's session... supposedly when things were quiet and calm, but... er, flying solo with this level of technology highlighted a couple of little challenges.

Started off fine, on a treadmill which must afford the best view I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying while trying to raise a sweat. Looking out over the sun on the river and the meadows and the city roofline was gorgeous. So far, so good. Yeah - we can do this :-)

But then we had to negotiate setting up the correct position for using the leg curl (me) and leg extension (hubby) set-ups. Now we've used similar things in the past at our old gym, so how hard can this be - easy, huh? Nope - this was more a case of WTF! Hey Technogym, I can only say your purportedly 'helpful' little diagrams (on all the equipment) really suck!

Between the two of us we think we eventually got that sorted, but then comes inserting the magic key and trying to figure out how to set it up so it recorded what we actually did. You see, I set my desired weights on the stack (a nice gentle start at 15kg, just to get back into the swing), but the super-whizzy technological panel decided I was using 5kg (only!) and refused flatly to remember my actual weights when I reset them on the damn panel... er, several times. Sod it - gave it up as a bad job and just used the darn thing anyway so I could try to get to grips with keeping my movements (little green lights) at a speed to track the panel's orange 'ideal' band. Partial success, but we'll work on that.

To be honest, my heart rate (and blood pressure) doubtless soared while we were at the gym, but that was stress, and all because of this high-tech 'computer says' business. Probably gave me more of a work-out than the machines. Heaven only knows what 'those panels' think I did and what 'they' recorded on my magic key. Ho hum, give me a good old-fashioned piece of paper and a pencil stub anytime. [yes, I know I'm a dinosaur]

And those gentle groans? Ah well, the other thing I discovered is just how darned unfit I've become. My legs and abs are pretty much fine today (thank the Lord), but my shoulders and upper body in general are telling me I that I did something out of the ordinary. I'm guessing this could be mostly down to that arm bike thingy - ouch! It's not something I've encountered before but I'd call it a piece of wickedness designed by the fiends from hell!

Still, we got ourselves moving, we are learning, and we're going back there mid-week. Gottta be a good thing, eh?

Turning around a non-stellar week

Why was the last week a tough one? Well, I think it all kicked off when, last Friday, I had a text from my brother updating me about my darling Mum's house. Perhaps I saw negative things which aren't really there, but the only thing it seemed to me that he was interested in was the fact that 'the monies' will be released soon.

What the f**? To quote some devilishly handsome bloke from a film "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn". The point, to me anyway, is that this is perhaps a final reminder of losing our mother - not something to be celebrated. Maybe (as lovely hubby gently pointed out) I'm being too hard on him, but I got very mad, and so, so sad, and ended up feeling even more down and depressed than I had been.

So I did the obvious thing and leapt off the wagon. I won't detail my sorry story, other than to say that Christmas cake is not known as one of the low-carb staples and that I paid for my mistakes... oooh, how I paid.

However, I going to tell you the positive side of the story too.

In fairly short order I realised what I had done/was doing to myself - both physically and emotionally. So, I kicked my backside (metaphorically, anyhow) and got back to drinking copious amounts of good clear water, eating moderately of my low-carb repasts, and walking as much as I could. It was a fairly stressful week in a few ways, but (with a lot of help from lovely hubby) I managed to hang in there.

And, thanks be - that fairly small (but scary!) weight hike I saw mid-week has come back off, and I feel more in control once again. My emotions are better settled and I feel rather more like 'me' again. Victory, in my eyes anyway.

I will end with one more thought - best expressed by my Mum, but in her absence by the picture below.

Maintaining... what's in a word?

Warning - a rather long fat lass blether lies ahead, as this one's been mulled over a lot and been a work in progress for some considerable time. You may need to make yourself a coffee (or a stiff drink) before you carry on.

To 'maintain' something is often defined as:
to keep in an existing state
or
to preserve from failure or decline

Ooooh, that's actually quite a scary word when you think about it. Why's that? I'd say it's a pretty daunting prospect in many ways, because it implies 'forever'.

Well, in my case, although right from the outset, I stated that my weight loss journey was just that, a journey, and that it was not, nor ever could be, about a 'diet' as such, but a lifestyle change, I guess I kind of slid around taking on board the change part being 'for life'. Er, in my own mind anyhow.

Yeah, you've got it. That small (but vitally important) nugget that I sidelined and put to the back of my mind was the part about 'maintaining'. You see, at the time, the 'losing' was the most important aspect. And that's not really too surprising, looking back. I suppose that was the case because ever getting to 'maintenance' seemed so far off in the future, and implied that I'd be successful in the first place...

You see, despite my desire to lose my much-hated fat suit, when I set out I was hopeful but not hugely confident. Let's just say that my track record with weight loss hadn't been particularly stellar through life!. No, let's tell it like it was - it was crap. So, in the early days of shedding the pounds I didn't, perhaps couldn't, truly grasp the idea of maintenance. Let me try to explain.

Looking back to when I started, and then while I was in the midst of losing my weight, I had a carefully considered plan in mind. There was a 'sort of' target to head towards which, essentially, was to get shot of that damned blubber (the plan for which was examined, then tweaked and revised more times than I can really remember). Along the way I put in the hard work to achieve my goals, and regularly reviewed how I was doing and looked at where I should head for next.

I set, aimed for and hit a few milestones (some small and other more significant ones) along the way, and got regular feedback about how well (or otherwise!) I was doing, to track my progress, in part by by measuring myself and using the scale.

Nice positive feedback, and all good stuff it was too as the plan worked. I dropped from being a very obese and decidedly unhappy fat lass to the woman people see today. Yes, it took some time to accomplish (I started the process way back in 2007), but then so did getting fat in the first place, so I was OK with taking my time.

Move to the present. These days the world at large accepts the fat lass they see now as the fat lass that's always been. What I mean by this is that, even though it isn't the case, many people I come into contact with have in general forgotten (or maybe never even knew) that I used to be obese, or indeed any different to the way I appear now.

One consequence is that this means that those occasional rather flattering if mildly embarrassing congratulatory comments on how different I look (oooh, more positive feedback) have long since come and gone... sigh.

Having lost all the weight I wish to (well, near enough), my game plan now is quite different. It's changed, of course, because rather than striving to 'lose' weight, the new goal is to remain roughly where I am.

By the way, this is currently hovering around 52.5kg, with a 'must do something' red line set at 55kg (where it has crept up to for a short time in the past). I'm happy to allow myself a safe weight range or 'band' to sit within, which I've set at somewhere between 53 and 54kg. The long-term plan, then, is to keep myself in this "existing state". Or, said another way, to "preserve" myself from "failure" and that nasty old "decline" back to obesity.

Sounds simple, huh? Well, I'll be the first to admit that this low-carb business surely does help me, but it's still not entirely plain sailing.You see, it's that 'long-term', or should I say the 'permanent', nature of this lifestyle change which has the potential to raise the odd obstacle for me. That's what I need to get my head around.

Why? Well, remember that bit about getting regular (and positive) feedback in the past? I still do measure myself now and again, and I still weigh (almost daily, although I record only once a week). So I guess there is still an element of that feedback.. up to a point. Trouble is, when you see the same, or fairly similar, numbers on the scale week in, week out, it's still good (of course!) but things can, and do, tend to be a wee bit less exciting.

You see, in 'maintenance' mode we don't get to see that magical 'progress' of weight loss. We are no longer watching the needle on the scale drift decidedly downwards, demonstrating that our dedication and hard slog isn't in vain. Nope, that needle merely stays in roughly the same position. Nor can we track the contents of our wardrobe gradually changing to a smaller and smaller size, and congratulate ourselves on our 'good work' in that respect. As I mentioned, we certainly find that we no longer hear those lovely 'wow, don't you look different/younger/great' comments.

None of this is a huge problem as such, but I'm finding that it does contribute to making things (e.g. goal setting and tracking progress) a little more tricky.

Slightly more of an issue is that ANY form of actual, honest to goodness 'positive' feedback, not only the type mentioned above, is rather thinner on the ground these days. Indeed 'negative' feedback is a much more commonplace thing to encounter.

Feeling one's usual clothes become a tad tighter round the waist or, as has happened now and again, noticing that little increase in weight from the scales needle if food intake increases or the levels of activity decline (for whatever reason) isn't truly my cup of tea. It may be an 'oh b***s! moment and a wake-up call to engender doing 'something' to counteract the problem, but it's not exactly cheering, and for me it's not hugely motivational!

It may sound somewhat dull and unispiring, but 'progress' now seems rather more closely aligned to standing still. Hmmm, running to stay in place, eh? Oooh, there's fun!

This whole idea has the fat lass a little bit scared. I don't want to over-dramatise things, but to me it screams out 'dangerous waters' because I feel that it could be all too easy to become bored or complacent. If that happened it's entirely possible that I might take my eye off the maintenance ball. I could lose motivation, and find that, little by little, I drift gradually away from the straight and narrow.

This fear hasn't materialised yet, thank heavens, but I have to admit that now and again (especially when I get particularly stressed or tired... and there seems to have been a fair dose of both in the last year) I've begun to feel the first twinges of the 'yah boo sucks, don't want to' mentality surfacing when it comes to good food compliance and exercise.

So, I feel that I must think ahead and do something here - before indolence and complacency takes a firm hold over the rest of the winter and beyond. What I definitely do not want is for this lazy(?) and lacklustre lass to turn back into the fat lass again.

To keep myself moving along that straight and narrow pathway, I think I need to find myself some form of 'positive' feedback. I want to identify a different, but measurable marker (or maybe markers) of success for myself, however small it may be. Then I need to start tracking and recording that marker to keep my motivation motor running.

And then... well, all I have to do is keep on keeping on... for life.

It's probably an appropriate time to haul that dusty old thinking cap out of mothballs once again. Perhaps I'll have a chat with Baldrick, and see if we can come up with one of his cunning (and long-term) plans. Any suggestions you might have would, of course, be very gratefully welcomed. Onwards ever...

Random thoughts and minor miracles

Do please excuse me if I'm beginning to sound a shade fanatical here, but just a short week ago we lost a friend, and that has set me to me pondering the fragility of life and health and why it is so damned important to look after ourselves as best we can. Pretty deep for a Tuesday, huh?

Oooh, how easy it can be to let our guard down and slip into old (and usually bad) habits which do little to promote or support our health. Boy, we really do need to be vigilant... don't we fat lass. However, in thinking about vigilance, a concept that I'd never actually considered, but one that I can only describe as an unexpected bonus - a little miracle if you like - has become evident to me.

Now I know I've mentioned before the 'relative' ease with which my weight remains under 'reasonable' control with the low-carb lifestyle, but I didn't really think too much more about it (or particularly deep and hard) until I met someone I haven't seen for a while.

This is a lady who knew me when I was obese, through the years of my calorie-restricted weight-loss (which I am NOT in any way going to knock - hell, it worked for me!), and in the early days of trying to maintain that loss. But, we haven't seen each other, nor talked, since the advent of my low-carb adventures.

From back in the 'old days', she remembered my telling her that I sometimes found it quite a challenge to keep 'on track' with the 'diet' (and what I really mean here is 'way of eating') that ensured I first lost my weight, then didn't regain it. She commented that she recalled my scouring every single food label I encountered for the energy values (calorie content). She also remembered my workplace 'snacks' pile - generally a sizeable arrangement of fruit, a box or two of 'healthy' cereals and cereal bars, and various other 'low-cal' options which I used to tide me over when I got the munchies. She was a little surprised to see that those had all gone, gone, gone.

It was only after she'd left and when I stopped to consider the sugars (oh yes, even in that fruit), and the grains and other carbohydrates, and the chemical additives (I guess the fruit's excepted here, thankfully) that used to make up my 'go to' snacks that I realised that going low-carb has done much more for me than merely helping me stay at a 'sensible' weight without too much of a struggle. One of the clues lies in that word 'label' above.

To bear a label implies that something has been processed and, when I look back at it, quite a lot of my old lifestyle food intake was in some way processed. It was purportedly 'healthy' (often with this very word proudly emblazoned on the label) but, aside from that fruit, it was not usually raw and definitely not in the form which nature provides us with food. Man (yeah OK, probably woman too) had 'messed about' with it in some way.

Being pre-prepared (a.k.a. processed and packaged) it had a 'shelf-life', so inevitably contained preservatives and anti-oxidants and, very often, there were colours and added vitamins too (I guess they were there because the processing had stripped away any colours and vitamins nature provided).

My choices were predominantly low-calorie, so generally low in fat, which meant that other substances (usually sugars - oh yeah, including that universally recognised 'super-food' high fructose corn syrup!) had been added to make it taste of something. What fat was present wouldn't have been natural saturated fats, but cheap, industrially processed (and often partially hydrogenated) oils of some sort.

There'd even be delights like bulking agents (wow, what a horrid term that is) and other chemical joys. In short, those 'look after yourself' snacks were processed crap and a one-way ticket to screwing with one's metabolism.

The way I eat now isn't 100% perfect and I don't suppose for a second that it ever will be (weak-willed is my middle name), so there is 'some' inevitable processing to some of the foods I choose. Still, it's a dramatic improvement over what I considered 'good' choices back then.

The little miracle to me is that the vast majority of what I eat now, and this is largely led by the serendipity of my moving to a low-carb lifestyle to fit in with lovely hubby's needs, is either natural, or has been only 'lightly' processed. What I mean by this is that it does not automatically contain the sort of junk and padding which makes us sick.

I wouldn't classify my eating habits as primal per se, but there are a lot of overlaps. Mark's Daily Apple sums up the basic approach in his advice on "What to Eat and What to Avoid for Lifelong Health". Must admit, while I don't necessarily agree with him over supplements (or the carbs for athlete's option, being only an armchair athlete myself), his primal food pyramid makes pretty good sense to me

Hey, though - there was silly old me thinking primarily of my low-carb food choices in terms of keeping my weight settled (and lovely hubby's blood glucose levels under control), when all along it's also helping to promote an altogether healthier fat lass and family.

Miraculous indeed, and another of Mum's 'blessings' to be counted.

Upwards - and a heartfelt grrr!

There was a little hike upwards in my weight at the weekend - aaaaargh, the shock and horror!

It was a bit of a surprise, to be honest. Looking back at the chart, since around the beginning of August, at least from the 10th, my weight has remained amazingly stable at 53.5kg (that's just mapping the Saturdays when it gets recorded, once weekly). But this wonderfully stable record, of which I was probably unjustly proud, took a knock...

Hmmm, you know what they say about pride!

So, this Saturday the needle on the scales was up half a kilo to 54kg. Not a lot I know, but I wasn't a happy bunny about it. However the logical part of me talked me down (as ever), telling me that it is understandable since differences in dietary salt intake and water intake will inevitably lead to the odd variation. Indeed, by Sunday morning it was back down again to 53.5kg but, of course, that bit doesn't get recorded.

And my point here?

Well, I've learned something about myself once again. It's amazing how truly crappy a small rise (one that I had to write down) made me feel. I'd sort of forgotten the immediate and very visceral reaction I have to seeing a gain in weight and having to be 'honest' and commit that to paper (well, to an Excel file). I have to confess that it put me in a real grump for a while.

Funny enough, if and when I've weighed during the week and seen a rise (even a more substantial blip) it hasn't affected me anywhere near as much as Saturday's incident. Usually, I growl for a moment, review what I've been doing, realise I'm being too obsessive and move on. Generally, when I weigh again another day, the 'problem' has disappeared - just as it did this time.

But... there was a difference. There's obviously something important (subconsciously?) about the act of recording it that's critical here.

Ho hum. However long I continue along this 'weight' journey, and however well I think I now know myself and think I can predict my likely reactions to a given situation, there's still something new to learn. Interesting, eh?