I first gained weight - about 30 pounds - when I moved to TX, started sitting in front of a computer all day, and making Taco Bell a food group all it's own.
I managed to lose that weight with Atkins just before I got married in '99. Now, four babies and almost 10 years later, I'm battling the 20 pounds left over from baby boy, born almost a year and a half ago.
Over the years, I've learned enough about nutrition, diet, metabolism, insulin response, fitness, and exercise, that I could honestly write my own book! While it may sound as if I'm boasting, believe me: I'm NOT. All this knowledge has only done one thing for me: it's kept me overweight.
Even though I grind my own flour and bake our bread, right down to tortillas and pita; even though we eat mostly whole foods; even though margarine and/or vegetable oils haven't darkened the door of my home in years; even though I milk a freaking goat once a day so we can have fresh, raw milk (it really is yummy); and even though I lift weights three times a week...I still take up too much space.
So what's the deal? Well, all the time, focus and attention I have given to diet over the last 10+ years has turned me into a Obsessive, Compulsive Eater. I have become obsessed with food. Every edible thing is either good or evil. It's feast or famine. I'm either "doing good" or binging. You know the drill; I'm not the Lone Ranger, here.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I took my kids to see my grandmother. We were there around lunch time, and long story short: there was pizza. Immediately I started to go through the mental exercise: "do I eat now and just have salad for snack and dinner? No, then what will I do for protein? I could wait and eat when I get home, but it's been almost four hours since I ate, and I should've already eaten something by now..."
It was right then and there that I saw what I'd become. Are you kidding me??? I couldn't decide whether to be mad at myself for being such an idiot, or just laugh. In the end, I ate two small pieces of pizza and allowed myself no feelings about it one way or the other.
So I started to research (b/c that's just what I do), looking for something different, something that I could do long term. The first thing I came across that appealed to me was fasting one or two days a week, not all day, just from, say, one dinner to the next. It appealed to me because I was so sick of eating!!! I did it twice, several days apart, and I can't tell you how refreshing it was to simply not have to think about food.
It was during reading about the intermittent fasting that I stumbled across the No-S diet. I was first and foremost impressed that I wasn't required to cough up $39.95 to be let in on the secret. Then, when I read the ebook, I was floored.
I simply cannot believe that with over 10 years of research, and countless diets and exercise programs, it never occurred to me that the reason I'm overweight is that I EAT TOO MUCH!
It's like my house was flooding, and everyone is trying to tell me where water comes from, how the water got into the faucet, how the faucet works, how the water will damage the woodwork inside the house...but no one says, "turn off the water, moron."
I guess I say all this to say, what a breath of fresh air, to be able to take my focus off of food. I'm still a little ticked that I didn't think of this first, as it's SO obvious, but it truly escaped me.
I ordered my fridge magnet and coffee mug today. I expect I'll shake my head in wonder every time I look at it, thinking, I can't believe I had to be TOLD to simply put down the fork!
Have a great night, and thanks for reading my ramblings.
Em
