Sacrificing Competence in the Name of Perfection

My second-biggest problem (after not-eating for a long time, then later over-compensating), is not buying/making "less than perfect" or slightly higher-carb food... only to result in my not having food at all when I don't have energy, time, money, defrosting time, or hating what I have because I'm sick of it (or more often, my teen is).

So for the sake of not buying pinto beans or peas for stew, or deli meat, or almond meal, because those are not ideal foods, instead I either starved (usually), or (if I let the teen talk me into it) ordered pizza.

Oh yeah... that helped.

I suppose it's better to be less than ideal sometimes, than off-plan when you haven't time, money, energy, or other elements in place for the ideal.

For a long time I have not had certain foods in my house like beans and peas and carrots for adding to stew (I swore off legumes for no good reason except they were 'a little' carby and the eating plan folks I like seemed to add them to grains as the devil), deli meats, almond meal, soft cheeses for making salad dressings, because they weren't sufficient protein/fat and hence were less than perfect, higher carb, etc.

As a result, my food options ALL require cooking and have such a tiny range of variety that my teenager keeled over off the edge of boredom long ago.

I have a lot of smart journal friends who try to course-correct me on this regularly. Being rather type-A, and a bit of the "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" sort, I am prone to sacrificing being relatively competent at my eating plan in the name of being as close to perfect as possible.

Additionally, I'm neurotic about not affording grass-fed meat/eggs/dairy. I think that worsens how I over-compensate everywhere else.

I can't eat enough meat/eggs/cheese to make 1500 calories and 18 carbs most the time even when I try. My food options are going to have to expand a LOT if I want to raise both to whatever 'max' level turns out to work for me. Actually right now my mind is still boggling over that concept. Short of living on bacon and avocado (which really, is not such a horrible fate...) I don't know how that's going to work out. We'll see.

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I've been thinking about a new approach (and more common posting) for this blog.

I think it would be nice to see more focus on Low-Carb just because it's awesome and healthy, and not just because people are despairing over being fat and hoping it will bail their ass out of it. That's great, but that's not the only reason it's cool.

The Truth About Super Obesity and Weight Loss

A little background on me and general stuff, before we begin.

I lost 170# on low-carb, which migrated to grain-free whole-foods a-little-dairy fairly primal, minus the 'grass-fed' element which is not do-able for me for several combined reasons. I have re-lost the last 50-100# of that repeatedly. I am, by category, 'super-obese'. When it comes to being fat, there is overweight, obese, severely obese, morbidly obese, and super obese. These are based on body fat percentage.

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I have come to understand that my expectations and my plans and my approach to eating, were not realistic.

I have come to understand that my experience, with the normal human variations, is echoed throughout basically all super-obese and many (not all!) of the higher-edge morbidly-obese people I have met in in person or online. I have also come to understand that what the science experts say, and the stats about fat loss and fat regain, echo my experience.

In short, if you remove the starry-eyed hope from the equation, you realize that pretty much all the facts from all directions say the same thing.

That's what this post is about. At the end, I have suggestions.

The 10,000 Ways That Don't Work

I've worked 20 hours a day, 7 days a week from last December 9 to May. I worked more like 16/6.5 since then. Starting just at the beginning of November, a bit over a week ago, I have actually been taking time off. I've had 1.5 weekends entirely off now, and 1.5 days (Wednesdays) entirely off now. I've gotten more sleep in the last 10 days than I have gotten in any 30-40 days in about a year.

This has led to the understanding that if you sleep 3 hours a night, you are not going to lose weight, for several good reasons.

I was re-reading my blog, like a 5-year review. I summarized many of the best/worst things I have done since I began this journey: