Round

The scale showed another pound gone this morning, bringing my total to -9 pounds in 6 weeks, 3 of which I’ve been doing restricted-carbohydrates instead of Weight Watchers which is what I intially jumped in with.

I’m pleased with the progress, even more pleased with the process.  Other than eating strawberries fairly frequently and not being a nut about sauces when I’m in restaurants (which may have some cornstarch or flour, neither of which are “allowed”) I’m pretty much sticking to the very low carb approach.  Nuts continue to be a lifesaver on the road, and late last week I found several types of shelf-stable sausage/salami type foods in Germany that I stocked up on for other on-the-go options.

One of the cool things is that I pretty much don’t even miss breads and sugars.  Fruit I miss a fair amount - especially the easy portability of having an apple with me at all times, but the amazing lack of hunger from this way of eating makes me really hesitant to mess with it right now.  I do admit it is SO MUCH easier to do this at home - this weekend was a joy, having tons of green veggies, making food I can eat & enjoy without stress 3 times a day… But even without that, it’s turning out to be pretty manageable, and somehow just removing certain food groups from consideration (starches, fruit & sugar) makes the choices much more manageable.  I was kind of afraid I wasn’t going to lose again this week - and my calories are pretty high right now (I put my food into WW 2 days) but

I am pretty surprised that this restricted-carbohydrate way of eating is turning out to be not-so-hard.  This week I made it through a week of travel, market research, 2 business dinners, 4 flights & rarely being in control of my lunch choices and still did okay.  I think I’m eating too many nuts (because they are one of the few semi-legal foods I can easily have on hand) and I’m still cheating with berries, but overall it’s going well.

I am premenstrual and was really craving chocolate last night and so I took out 5 grams of chocolate chips, then decided to trade them in for 5 grams of a really good dark chocolate bar (after tasting one chip and it’s waxy, cheap consistency).  And then I only ate half of what I had carefully measured out, because I felt guilty for the chocolate and after a few teeny bites the taste need was satisfied.

I bought ketostix at a pharmacy on my travels and was pleased to see it turning pink, which means my body is indeed breaking down fat.

Turning down bread and pasta and dessert has been really easy - it’s fruit I miss the most, but I am finding that juicy veggies like cucumbers and peppers do a reasonable substitution.

Most interesting to me is that I am really not very hungry except after about 5  hours between meals (or less if I ate really lightly).  And by having the nuts in my bag I have an accceptable choice with me.

I must say the ability to eat cheese living in France is nice.  I don’t miss the bread with it, which is strange, because I always used to have bread w cheese.  Last night our dinner was cheese and salad (and cauliflower for me).  We had all kinds of cheese collected from my husband’s travels and from the local cheese shop, and it was kind of strange to eat cheese on a diet.  But there is a limit of how much cheese one feels like eating, even if it’s a smorgasbord of choice and there is no ‘limit’.  Similar to meat and roasted chicken.  I can eat a lot of roasted chicken but no matter how hungry I always seem to stop at the same point… Meat is a little differerent, as I sometimes just get grossed out by meat and stop in the middle of eating it.

I have found that the best breakfast is 2 fried eggs and tea w half and half.  If I have more eggs I get grossed out, and 2 keeps me satisfied all morning.  If I add anything to them they seem too strong.  At home this is fine, on the road I’ve been lucky as most of the hotels where I’ve stayed these weeks have served eggs to order.  This week is a different hotel, we’ll see how it goes…

I was expecting eating out to be a real challenge but it turned out okay.  I can usually find a salad or similar for a starter, and a main course that is mainly protein and I just don’t eat whatever starch comes with it if I cant sub it out for veggies.  As for desserts, it’s always acceptable to pass on that, and at one of the meals there was a cheese plate that I split with 2 other colleagues.  The chocolate Easter bunny will be harder to fake, but since I was barely in the office this week I didn’t open it, and this week I will open it, break it into peices, and leave him to be devoured by my staff while we sit in a meeting all day.  I’m sure no one will even notice that I’m not eating him…

I’m down a pound again this week - not the rapid loss I was expecting, but given the nuts and cheese and fact that I’m premenstural it’s okay, and it’s the right direction, and it wasn’t too hard to achieve.

Bottom line : I’ve decided to stick to this for a few more weeks and then re-evaluate.

I went away for the weekend to Zurich Switzerland to visit a friend who moved there in January.  The first thing I told her upon arriving was that I had started a new diet, and that was great because we went to a grocery store and stocked up on stuff I could eat, and she made special efforts to find restaurants that were suitable when we did eat out.

We went to a restaurant for lunch on Saturday that had half a roasted chicken and veggie salad bar (I chose all low carb ones) and it was perfect.  We made steak and veggies for dinner, had some olives for snacks, chicken and veggies another dinner, strawberries (yup, still) for desserts and eggs for breakfast.  No sweat, no worries.

We also walked around a ton, which was good for my spirits, good for my mind, good for my body.  Went to a silly girls movie (Marley & Me : Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson & Puppies!) We both cried twice - once for the miscarriage (which we’ve both been through) and once at the sad ending.  Very therapeutic.

Anyway, it was a nice gab-fest relaxing weekend, plenty of sleep, no stress.  Eating this way is remaining do-able.  Boring, but do-able, and the boring is fine.  I am finding that traveling w almonds is really a key success strategy, because it’s often hard to find low-carb snacks while out and about, and even if they’re not perfect, they’re easy to have with you.

That’s my Friday summary of the first 5 days of low-carb eating.  I could also add that it’s socially awkward and not easy to find suitable food on the run…

I made a smart move of packing a bag of almonds before my travels this week, and had to dip into them twice on airplanes when delays and hunger hit together and only carb foods were available.  I also have been eating strawberries because they are the first fruit most low carb plans let you add in, and I was just feeling totally deprived today and so I bought some.  I mean, come on, if the big indulgence is some strawberries I’m doing ok, right?

The social aspect has probably been the worst - I am never someone who likes to announce that I’m on a diet, but obviously this makes you eat very differently from everyone else.  So far I made it, but who knows how long before I have to let my work colleagues know - we usually eat both lunch and dinner together (we all travel together). 

Breakfast turned out to be okay at the hotel this week because I could order eggs.  Being home (today) is MUCH easier but it’s been do-able on the road (not in a really strict “Atkins” sense because of the almonds etc but I think except the strawberries it would pass as South Beach). 

I have been surprised that the hunger pattern seems different so quickly.  This morning I made a really nice omelette with feta, onion & mushrooms and didn’t get hungry for lunch until 6 hours later.  Yesterday I had a totally low-carb but not very voluminous lunch, and was starving 2 hours afterwards because it wasn’t enough (hence the almonds). 

This weekend will be a challenge, in that I am leaving for a weekend with a friend and I don’t know how well the eating options will fit, but I’ll do the best I can…

I know this is.  I know that to be successful on a diet it is SO much easier to be at home, where you are in some control of the environment and can find the diet-friendly choices that you prefer.  To not be constantly surrounded by temptation.

But this year is one of enormous travel and little quality time with my husband, so when he proposed that I join him for a weekend in the Loire valley visiting chateuax because he had a meeting on the Saturday morning I could hardly refuse (plus I didn’t know I’d be starting a diet when I accepted).

It was a weekend with 3 luxury meals in gourmet restaurants, and breakfasts where the choices were between french bread w butter and jam vs croissants… I tried not to overindulge but I had a bit of everything all weekend.  I’d been careful all week, not dipping into my weekly points, but still…

The worst of it was it left me heading into the next week in bad shape.  Scale showed stable weight for the week, no loss (in week 2!) and I just was out of the groove.  I spent the week making some good and a few bad choices.  And not using my food diary (which was no doubt the biggest mistake).

I also have poor timing in choosing my reading material.  For several months now I’d been planning to read a book called “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes.  In my travels this year I always have a book with me because in airports etc I have a lot of time to read.  Well - this choice was a long, complex scientific book that totally makes you re-think basically all public health messages on nutrition, health and more specifically Weight.  There were lots of moments that really hit close to a nerve - including the fact that many of my diet attempts in my life the low-fat way have been extremely difficult to maintain.  And that I’ve been overweight forever & was born a month early because my mom had gestational diabetes and have always followed the studies that have basically shown that babies born in that circumstance are very frequently overweight kids and adults (as I was, contrary to my siblings - where my mother kept her eating and weight in very tight control her other pregnancies).

Anyway, the basic premise of his book is that 1) the evidence that makes up most of the health recommendations on diet and exercise today are rubbish, and 2) there is a reasonable hypothesis that insulin-generated hunger & fat storage contributes greatly to being overweight and difficulty losing weight.  If his second hypothesis is true (which of course today looks quite likely) then the way to approach managing weight for someone in that situation would be to focus on controlling the insulin response.  Which in turn leads you to low-carb eating or at the very least low-GI.

So now these ideas have been swimming in my head at the same time I’m starting weight watchers (which is pretty much a low-fat, high-carb, calorie-restricted plan).  So my committment to the approach has been faltering but I’ve yet to find the courage to attack low-carb or any of it’s variations (South Beach seems one of the most reasonable).

But every day I find myself thinking more and more about it.  I’ve done a fair amount of searching online.  And I’m starting to feel like giving it a go is a matter of time - in which case there is no need to wait.

Will keep you posted as I try to work this out.