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...

Got that holiday fever

You may not notice a difference since I'm not writing all that much these days, but I'll be away for a bit. Yep, we're on countdown and off for a week's holiday in a few short days... and it cannot come quickly enough. We plan to walk, and drink water, and walk, and drink the odd glass of 'something nice', and visit museums, and walk, and drink water, and... You get the idea.

I just can't wait to feel the heat of the sun warming my bones again - it's turned all autumnal here and I can't say appreciate it (especially on top of the darker mornings). Can't wait to stooge about people-watching at an airport for a while (which is all part of the happy travels fun), and can't wait to settle in to our hotel room and see our first Spanish sunset... preferably while sipping a small celebratory glass of the finest jerez (fino please). Am very mildly apprehensive about staying LCHF keto while away, when my Spanish is near nonexistent, but I'm sure we'll manage somehow. What the heck - can you say 'jamon y queso'?

Lovely hubby (who's somewhat black and blue at the moment after arguing with a hard pavement... er, and losing) keeps asking me if I'm getting excited yet. Hmmm, I'd say that's an affirmative!

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.

Hard times

I can hardly believe it has been a year since I sat by the side of a hospital bed and spent my last moments with my sweet Mum, holding her hand and telling her, just one final time, that I loved her. In some ways it seems an eternity ago, and such a lot (good and pretty horrible) has gone on in that time. In other ways it feels that it's just like yesterday. Either way, it hurts... like hard stone lodged in my soul... and it hurts a lot.

Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, I can remain relatively bright, shiny and positive and force myself to remember and focus upon only the good and beautiful things about how fortunate I was to share my life with her. Other times (like most of this damn week) I just want to curl up and howl at her loss.

As much as I miss her, I would not wish her back to the pain and helplessness of her last few months. But hell, I really do miss her and it hurts. I glance down at my finger which now bears her wedding ring and I know that I'll never truly 'lose' her or my darling Dad as I carry the symbol of their love and devotion to one another with me always. That comforts me. But it still bloody hurts.

Dammit, just have to keep onwards, ever...

Still here

What more can I say...