LCHF and Primal Guest Posts Welcome...

Anyone interested in doing some guest blogging this month?  I could sure use the help.  I anticipate that my posting is going to slow down for the next couple of weeks.

My daughter needs yet another surgery, and it will probably happen this week/early next week. The surgery is to correct a portion of her bile duct that was damaged when she had a large tumor removed from her abdomen in May.  Recovery may be a couple of weeks or so.

She is currently hospitalized, and has been so for a bit.  I am working while my husband primarily stays with her at the hospital.  So, for me there is a lot of shuttling around (work, hospital, home), doing laundry, and just generally being discombobulated and tired all of the time. 

Our regular life is on pause for a while.  I am certainly not doing any cooking these days, nor any kitchen experimentation.  We are essentially living on takeout and cafeteria food right now, tossed together with whatever homemade stuff I can coerce my family to bring to the hospital.  It is getting a bit tiring. 

To get my fiber, I've taken to buying bags of prepped veggies, like broccoli and cauliflower, and just eating the veggies raw with creamy dips.  I really like T. Marzetti's Southwestern Ranch dip.  It is soooooo good with raw broccoli.  I am thinking it would be a killer dressing for a creamy coleslaw.

If you want to try T. Marzetti's Southwestern Ranch dip, just make sure that you buy the full fat version, as the nutritional profile is more appropriate for LCHF than the low fat version.  This dip can probably be found in the refrigerated section near/in your produce aisle.

Notably, I went onto T. Marzett's website to link to the nutritional information for this product and was surprised/concerned to find that the full fat version is no longer featured on their website.  Hopefully this doesn't mean that they are phasing it out in favor of its low fat cousin.  That would be a serious bummer.

Numbers Don't Lie

Check out my updated weight and measurements.

I am pleased to report that, somehow, I have lost weight during this crazy, stressed-to-the-max week. 

Historically, I started measuring myself on February 13, 2011, after I had already lost 8 pounds on LCFH.  Compared to those original measurements, after being on LCFH for 38 weeks, I have lost just over 15 inches of girth, total, from my bust, weight and hips. 

As of today, I have lost 33 pounds since I started this WOE on January 23, 2011.  There have been a lot of stalls, and some ups and downs, but my average weight loss is just under 1 pound per week.  It adds up, even though it feels like it is taking forever.

Not only do I feel better, I look better.  I've gone from a size 20W to a size 14 (on a skinny day), and I am still chugging along.  I have accomplished something that I never thought I was capable of doing, and in the process, I have learned a lot about myself. 

Now, if I could just get rid of my stress related zits and back pain and get a good 12 hours of restful, uninterrupted sleep...

Pity Party Pig Out - Reflections

Last week was a doosie.  My daughter is in the hospital recovering from a procedure (she’s okay), and I spent the whole weekend there with her.  I came home on Sunday night, leaving my husband there to stay, as I had to go to work on Monday morning and he did not. 

Sunday night, watching football by myself in my jammies, I wanted a snack.  I went to the fridge, and found a mountain of Chinese food leftovers, none of which I should be eating.  I seized on the stress of the weekend as an excuse to pig out on forbidden foods (yes, it was a conscious choice and I knew what I was doing). 

I wish that I could say that I stopped at the cold spareribs and chicken fingers.  I didn’t.  I went back to the fridge, looking for something sweet, thinking to myself, “well, I already blew it with Chinese, what’s a little more junk food going to hurt?” 

I found about 4 ounces of coconut chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer, and demolished that.  I looked down at my belly, which had already started to rumble at me disagreeably, and felt a bit ashamed.

I justified my bad eating choices, in those moments, by thinking that, with all that I had going on, I deserved a break, and no one would think poorly of me for cheating.

Making excuses for poor behavior to justify continuing down a path that I should not be on is just crazy talk!  Who am I making excuses to?  Me?  Sending excuses from myself to myself?  This is how I got into the rut that I was in – you know, the rut that had me ballooning to 236 pounds on my 5’6” frame, suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and PCOS. 

I am past this and I am better than this.  Taking personal responsibility for my health at all times means that when life hands me lemons, I do not drink lemonade.  I also do not eat lemon squares or lemon pie, or indulge in lemon chicken.  I calm down, take stock, and decide not to go forth into a feeding frenzy. 

The truth of the matter is that I have this one life, and this one body, and I believe that I can do better for myself and for my family.  No one benefits when I eat crap that can literally send me into a coronary. 

Gifting myself with junk food, sugar and starches is the old Kate, the one who numbed herself with food because she could not face sad things in her life.   

The new Kate is honest with herself, and is getting healthier day by day.  She doesn’t run from problems.  She faces them head-on, and sends them packing.   

Does this familiar to you?  Check out:

Pema Chodron, Getting Unstuck, This is a great CD from Pema Chodron, a buddhist nun.  She's been there.  This CD really helped me understand what I was doing to myself with food.  Its not a CD about food or dieting - its about being in a rut and identifying why you created the rut, and what its done for you lately.