Honestly, I don't care what it's called. However, this post describes me to a "T". Right down to the Kashi cereal. (I admit, hubs is on his way home from second shift as I am typing this, and I asked him to pick some up for me on the way home). :o

Health has also become my life's work and it really is that simple, in my mind. I will always have to fight this. No matter how many books I read, or opinions I agree or disagree with, or shows I watch on the subject. It doesn't matter, I have to make this a life long commitment.

I have posted this before, but I remember, as a very young child, hiding food. I took great pleasure in candy bars and I would hoard them to eat later. I would walk a mile to town when I had extra change and buy as many candy bars as I could get and eat 4 or 5 on the way home. I was not overweight at that time. However, this has been a problem for me as long as I can remember. People here kept talking about Skinny Cow Ice Cream Bars, Sandwiches, etc., and how good they are. I have avoided buying any for a full year until a few days ago. I don't know why I bought them. I saw the industrial sized box at Sam's and felt the compulsion to get them. Holy man they are good. I can't leave them alone. I had to take the remainder and put them in the freezer in our detached garage. That way I will have to work a little harder to have one, and I can make a smarter decision.

I don't know if that's addiction or not. I've been addicted to cigarettes in the past. Gave them up twice and finally quit for good. This deal with food is more difficult for me than that was. At times, food is the only thing on my mind. Either trying not to eat too much, trying to eat the right things, trying not to obsess over my obsession. I'm worn out from thinking about it all.

I think you "get" what I'm trying to say more than anyone else in this thread. I'm not asking anyone to agree with me, but I am suggesting that sometimes "thinking harder" is necessary.

Most of my life (since my first diet at age 5) I've thought of weight loss as simple, and me the biggest idiot on the planet for not getting it (which was quite a mystery since I excelled at most things I tried). And I never understood why something so simple could be so complicated (and I found out it was, because it is complicated).

I kept trying to force myself into a reality I didn't fit into, and wondered why I kept failing. But how do you find a reality that you don't know exists or worse a reality that you believe is a dangerous lie. I knew low-carb existed, but I thought it was not only unhealthy, but dangerous. Of course I never considered it my possible salvation. I ran as far from it as I could.

I stumbled over a couple of things in the last few years, that had I learned when I was 12, instead of in my mid 40's, would have changed the entire course of my life and mostly for the better. I can only say that I can't regret meeting my husband, but so many things would have been better. The only thing that makes it bearable is knowing that it could be much worse - if not for contact with two doctors, I'd be in a much worse place today.

I feel like I've spent years and years bashing my head against a thick brick wall, throwing myself harder and harder against the bricks, getting bloodier and bloodier, only to be shown (after more than 35 years of head-bashing) the location of a window in the wall. I still have to climb the wall and make it through the window, but that's a heck of a lot easier and less painful than trying to make it through the wall using my skull as a battering ram.

Maybe I would have eventually gotten through the wall "billy goat style" but I think I would still much rather take the window, and do wish I'd found the window before I'd done serious brain and body damage (which I hope isn't permanent, though I suspect some of it probably is).