Bad Relationships and Tea Time

It all started when I (don't faint) ate Pizza on Saturday night. Note the capital: pizza is a holiday for me. I love pizza more than any other food on earth except quality milk chocolate. Of course, chocolate does not make me swell up (gluten response), get asthma and other issues, like 5-10 lbs overnight weight gain (one assumes 'water'). Pizza does. But I love it. Damn it.

And had I not been overcarbing just a tad the few days prior I would never have made that decision -- I would have eaten just toppings, or made something at home -- but carb-sins are cumulative and they are not forgiven by your body until you have some time and water to put them behind you. A few extra carbs often won't hurt you (as long as you're not in induction), but a few carbs a few days in a row will start seducing your appetite and taste buds in subtle, insidious ways.

Somebody's knockin; should I let him in?
Lord it's the devil, would you look at him?
I'd heard about him, but I never dreamed
He'd have blue eyes and blue jeans
-- Terry Gibbs (who is blind)

I backslid right past the greasy thick pan crust all the way into two cups of Southern Comfort eggnog. Amazing how hard you can hit something when moving backward.

By the time I was well into Sunday, I had almost every "carb-life" symptom that I lost when I went low carb, all the way down to exhaustion, short of breath, and aching feet. By the time it was Sunday evening, I was just laughing about it. It was like some guilty conscience on my part was totally exaggerating every effect just so I could be a real drama queen about it!

But it got me thinking.

I used to ALWAYS feel that way.

Before low carb de-possessed me of all the foods it turns out I've been mildly allergic to all my life and never knew it.

Before low carb made me drop the massive water that the body held to process the carbs my "normal" eating habits involved.

Before low carb made me pay attention to protein and carb loads so I wouldn't all but pass out from the blood sugar drop awhile after eating.

o0o

So, on a seemingly separate subject, my personal life continues to be a real dilemma. I suppose it is perfectly normal for people to live in misery and non-relationships with their spouses for whole lifetimes, with not much more than whining to their girlfriends or buddies about it. But I am learning the stark reality of what obesity has really done with the last 15 years of my life.

I haven't lived the life of "quiet desperation" -- thanks to severe obesity, I've lived the life of "quiet exhaustion."

Like: I won't notice if you won't work for a living, if you'll carry in the groceries, because I'm so exhausted after shopping I want to cry. Most people would have to run a marathon and starve for 3 days to be as exhausted as one walmart visit can make someone who weighs over 400lbs. But don't let it show. Smile at the neighbors. Don't hobble on the aching feet. Try to stay up with the kid, who being a kid will smell your weakness and push her advantage when she knows you haven't the energy to argue.

Like: I won't mind that we don't have a relationship and haven't for 11 of 12 years because at least my kid has a dad. Sort of. Even if you don't contribute to the family. Even if you don't pay any real attention to the kid. Even if despite a weekly maid you make the living environment a cluttered pig sty I'm too exhausted to clean, and too busy working anyway, and so just live in the unhappiness of not wanting even to eat (let alone cook) because the place grosses me out. Men are pigs. Not all men. But definitely this one.

Like: I won't expect more from my life. My parents make it clear that at my weight I should almost be grateful that some useless SOB is willing to leech off me as an intentionally underemployed roommate who at this point occupies 50%+ of the space in a house of three people. Doesn't drive so I get to be taxi service on moments off work, or even give up my lunch hour to be taxi. Doesn't work so never, ever, ever leaves. I crave solitude to the degree of envying the indian monks in their caves. I haven't the energy to even think about doing anything besides "surviving another day" anyway, so what difference does a detail like "a relationship" make?

Now that Low Carb has given me some of "me" back, by clearing my mind and energizing my body and giving me hope for my future, I find that my perspective on life, and what I deserve in life, is changing.

You can see where this is going already can't you.

o0o

So in thinking about these two subjects together, it occurred to me that when you think about it, eating foods that are wrong for you is rather like a dysfunctional relationship.

You are really drawn to it. You think you really enjoy it at first. Then you pay the price for it... and it just goes ON and ON.

We are the CEOs of our bodies, and of our lives. It is up to us to make executive decisions that are the most productive and healthy for the corporal entity. It doesn't matter if it is food, hobby, or relationships: it's all the same question: what is good for me? What contributes to my present and my future?

Until one day you say, I refuse to be cowed by guilt over whether or not certain foods "should" be okay to eat. I don't give a damn if whole-grain bread and corn "should" be healthy. It is not some kind of moral judgement day -- it is just about how I feel when I interact with that. Maybe there isn't even a good or bad, and that kind of thinking distracts us from the real point of it all: that we must measure our lives by "what works for us," and if we are unable to recognize when something is an abysmal failure for us and get it out of our lives, then who should?

We are the CEOs of our bodies, and of our lives. It is up to us to make executive decisions that are the most productive and healthy for the corporal entity. It doesn't matter if it is food, hobby, or relationships: it's all the same question: what is good for me? What contributes to my present and my future?

o0o

I was reading this woman's journal and she says, "I've dated a little recently, and..." and I look at her profile.

She weighs 385 pounds.

I've been bred to a world of performers (in music), where if you weren't perfect by hollywood or at least rock&roll standards, you were pond scum. Women over 30lbs overweight were The Untouchables. Men would date a skanky disease-ridden bleached groupie before they would date a truly beautiful and intelligent woman who "needed to lose a little weight." And that's a LITTLE weight, mind you. Not hundreds of pounds. Obviously, my upbringing has severely skewed my beliefs about women, appearance, and myself. I hadn't really thought about that much before now.

But suddenly I am realizing that it is true. My beliefs about myself have been totally distorted. And maybe that is part of why I have continued to live in a relationship that has no respect or positive contribution to me whatsoever.

I don't know that I want to have a full time relationship with anybody right now. Hell, I've been married a dozen years and I haven't had even a part-time relationship for the last 11. I'm used to being alone emotionally and overcrowded physically. I don't mind it, I tell myself. But then I realize that not all women feel hideous when they are fat. Maybe they feel really fat, maybe they feel badly about it, but probably not to the degree I always have. I didn't just have a complex about it. I literally dismissed myself from the entire gene and social pool as a "given" and just didn't think about it again. Some women question themselves or their worthiness and come up short. I dismissed mine as even being worth questioning a long time ago.

Low carb has become therapy.

I know this is a little heavier than most my blog posts, no pun intended. But that is what I'm feeling today.

o0o

Meanwhile back at the... small tract home in Oklahoma, I splurged and bought myself a christmas gift: tea. Seriously!

I bought two nice ceramic mugs with infusers, and several kinds of tea (Earl Grey, Chai, and some samplers). I have a little chinese-style altar table in my room (I have a room of my own, and though it's the smallest in the house, it's my sanctuary). There is no reason why I couldn't make a habit of getting up a bit early, making some hot tea, and then just sitting and meditating, praying or whatever for awhile.

Before I gotta get the kid up, and repeatedly harrass her until she is ready for school. Before I gotta get the husband up, because his interminable eBay boxes are coming in for delivery in our warehouse-slash-living room. Before I have to work, with the like 150 emails per day I'm getting lately so I can't even stay afloat let alone catch up.

Just some hot tea... and eyes closed... and a little time for me.

So I can think about how my life is changing from the life of Quiet Exhaustion, to the life of Cautious But Growing Optimism.

So I can think about how "if only I had the energy to do XYZ and felt good, I would--" oh... wait! It turns out, I DO!

I feel as if I am re-sculpting my life, and not just my body.

I don't know what next week will bring. First things first. It's tea time.
.

Return to Mundania

Lucyyyyyy! I'm home!

OK, Colorado was really cool, my host was super nice, and while I regret that I had to spend most of it working rather than vacationing, still I'm glad I got away for awhile. Whew! A break from Mundania... and now I have returned.

I hadn't lost much weight for the two weeks prior, despite having low carbs and low cal, but I admit, that (a) I had not been drinking anywhere near enough water, and (b) I'd developed this habit of lowcarb slimfast (LCSF).

While gone (19 days including days travel), I was very ill for a couple days; I had one high-carb day at thanksgiving (I had a great New York strip steak at an awesome restaurant in Glenwood Springs Colorado called "Rivers" -- truly divine! -- but I ate the sides AND a dessert, so...!), but otherwise had very little to eat. I did eat breakfast several times. The rest of the time I mostly didn't eat or had a LCSF if anything.

My host seemed a little surprised. Most people really don't believe me when I say I don't eat much. One of my best friends, whom I love dearly, a Weight Watchers advocate who is working her ass off on the last 20-30 lbs of her own challenge, assures me that if only I keep a food diary, I will see how much I am actually eating throughout a day, that yes oh yes, all those little snacks will add up. I couldn't keep from cracking up over that, but I didn't bother disillusioning her. I don't snack -- lowcarbers, unlike low-calorie folks, are not chronically starving (with some rare exceptions I have heard of) -- usually they're so full of protein you have to force food down their throats. But even aside from that, I just don't eat much, and can easily go a whole day without eating and not notice until late at night (as that was my eating habit for years: no food, then carbfest late at night before bed). Still, once someone knows you weigh like 400lbs, no matter how big a believer in metabolism and insulin issues and so on they may be, there is no way they are going to believe that you don't eat like a pig in heat.

Anyway. Since I couldn't FIT in the train bathrooms, I avoided eating the day before the train and most (not all) of the time on it. The day before I left, more than a little hacked about not being able to eat for such a stupid reason (not eating doesn't bother me, but not being ABLE to is another story! haha!) I ate like 4 candies in obvious defiance. (Nothing else that day.) Surprisingly it didn't seem to toss my K since I didn't feel any cravings or hunger the next day. I ate a couple carby meals (after not eating all day) right after getting home, but am now on the straight and narrow Lord, yay-uh!

o0o

I'd like to talk about my last 5 weeks of very slow weight loss.

Now I know some degree of this is normal. One of my bestest (if rarest) friend-creatures is Don W., a man who used to be a personal trainer. He has taken people from the 400's down to 'normal' weights -- one woman was so inspired by the journey she opened a gym. He warned me that you gotta lose it FAST because the body starts getting a clue and tries to protect you by putting on the brakes and after that point, it's actual WORK.

But.

I mentioned previously how the lowcarb slimfast gave me that slightly 'addictive' response the way I get with milk. Nowhere near as strong, of course. Milk leads to more, and more, until I'm up at 3am drinking out of the carton, gasping with my back against the closed refrigerator door like a heroin addict finally getting a fix.

I was reading yesterday on the net, one doc who said in his opinion, ALL "addiction reactions" to food are a sign of food allergies. This seems reasonable to me, because honestly, addiction to any food does NOT seem reasonable. I mean, many people like beets or asparagus, but do you ever hear of people getting addicted to beets or asparagus? Having trouble eating too much of them? Not real often, haha! For that matter, you don't hear much of that with steaks or pork chops, either.

Most the foods that addict people are high-carb/high-sugar (sugar being addictive), dairy, and grain products. Some researchers now say that a ridiculous % of the population is suspected to be "mildly sensitive to" grains -- not enough to actually have celiac but apparently it's enough to have amped the incidence of bizarre medical disorders like PCOS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other things into the stratosphere.

And obesity. Because the degree of allergic response that causes the addictive response not only pulls more and more of it into the body, but the partly digested allergens create a variety of health problems, some of which directly impact fat to energy processing and metabolism. I should have gotten references on all this stuff I was reading but I was plowing through a lot of stuff just making my own neural connections.

I am not lactose intolerant -- but it seems highly likely I have some kind of response to the protein of Caseine, and that's why milk is very literally a drug to me, to the degree that at a couple points in my life (ironically, not when fat), I could drink a gallon or two a DAY -- unless I get TOTALLY AWAY from it and refuse to drink it at ALL. I don't have any issues with dairy. Although ice cream can make me crave milk. But generally, dairy products and dairy "in" things doesn't bother me -- only when it's a straight shot of caseine-heavy product. If I'm lowcarb and I have even one gulp of milk, I'll have cravings for milk and sugar and carbs all day. I know better.

OK so finally getting to the point here.

I was thinking about my stupid, instant growing-dependence on Low Carb Slim Fast as a whole food group unto itself. Sure, it plays into my existing, primary problem: that I don't eat, don't want to deal with the time or trouble, so it's a great excuse to skip a meal and suck down a can in 20 seconds -- that alone might be good cause to avoid the stuff. But still, I have a general pace of weight loss going, with or without "enough hydration" per day, and when I shifted to more of the LCSF, it dropped.

I got to thinking about this. I looked at the ingredients on it the first ingredient on the list after water is Caseine. That is the main protein source, so there is a heavy dose of it.

Caseine. The difference in quantity of caseine in cow vs. human milk is allegedly one reason why humans gain a certain amount of weight after birth and cows gain a LOT more a LOT faster.

So.... let me see if I have this straight. A protein which is (a) addictive to apparently a good chunk of our population, and (b) which is known to be highly correlated to weight gain, is the primary ingredient in (c) a weight loss product.

What part of this picture isn't clear yet?

I'm afraid I'm going to have to toss out the slimfast and go back to eating normal foods again. Sigh. It's a lot more trouble. And the LCSF is yummy. But... I'm not losing weight on it really and I don't think that's coincidence or only the other factors.

So today I fried up about 8oz of spicy breakfast sausage; 4 eggs scrambled with red pepper flakes, oregano and some natures' seasoning and hot chili sauce; chopped all that up and mixed it and dumped it in a storage bowl. Grated a bunch of colbyjack cheese and put it in a ziplock. Dug out the lowcarb tortillas. So, when I must eat and be quick about it, I can briefly nuke a bit of egg/sausage on a paper plate, heat the tortilla, dump some cheese and the hot stuff in, roll it up and put it on that plate and leave the kitchen with an edible protein burrito/taco. Granted, the tortilla is some carbs plus some "fiber deductible carbs" -- those count, in my eating plan, not as carbs but still as something I must limit per day -- but it didn't take long to make and that should give me several meals.

I'm going to make what my host did while I was out there and if it comes out half as well as hers, I'll post it as one of my fave recipes here on the blog. Have to try it myself before I can post it here.

Also speaking of milkish products... I must try the lowcarb eggnog. :-)

One GOOD thing: around a month ago I lost all interest in food. It was terrible in a way. No more experimenting because I didn't care. I was NEVER hungry, and food was just totally off my radar. I seem to be real slowly coming out of that. I'm starting to regain some interest in it. So I hope to get back to some decent experimenting again now that I'm home!

Protein Shakes, Variants

All recipe threads are backdated to prevent interference with current blogging.

Since there are near-infinite variations on things like protein drinks, mock danishes, flax bread, etc. I've decided to make one thread for each major food and then just note the variants as I experiment with them.

SHAKES I REALLY LIKED

Strawberry Cinnamon Brown Sugar Protein Shake Intensely strawberry, and very sweet, this is more a dessert than anything. But with this combo of ingredients I didn't taste the protein powder enough to bug me, for the first time ever. Hours later, the 'cloying sweet' bugged me but during the eating experience it was nearly candy-like but cool.

Strawberry Cinnamon Brown Sugar Protein Shake

1/2 cup soy milk, 1/2 cup water, 6 ice cubes
3 frozen strawberries
2 scoops Designer Whey Protein, Strawberry
1-2 Tbsp DaVinci strawberry syrup
some "brown sugar" extract-flavoring
maybe 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

I think a tad more cinnamon and even a little nutmeg wouldn't go wrong. But it was good. The miniscule amount of protein powder that my picky taste buds could discern underneath all that strawberry overkill didn't bother me.


OTHER SHAKES I'VE TRIED



Soy Milk + Designer Whey Protein, Strawberry

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup water
6 ice cubes
2 scoops Designer, Strawberry
Blenderized.

That was actually not bad. I detest protein powder and hiding the taste in a shake seems almost impossible, but the strawberry seemed to "mute" the flavor much more than the chocolate peanut butter caramel flavor did. Of course I used some soy instead of the almond stuff, too.

Soy Milk + Designer Whey Protein, Chocolate

Same as above but Chocolate flavor. I didn't like it so much, I could taste

Soy Milk + Designer Whey Protein, French Vanilla

Same as above, a little lemon and a little banana. Bleah. Maybe I should have done no lemon and more banana.

Almond Breeze + Designer Whey Protein, Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel

1 cup Almond Breeze, chocolate
1/2 cup heavy (whipping) cream
6 ice cubes
2 scoops Designer, Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel
1 Tbsp DaVinci, chocolate
2 strawberries
Blenderized.

Eh. I could still taste too much of the 'protein powder' taste for my liking, although I admit the first drink or two were the worst; the drinks after that didn't seem so bad, maybe I adapted. It seeemed to mimic the effect I got from the almond stuff, which was like "a great chocolate flavor but added to water instead of milk". Will have to try this again using soymilk.