weigh-2-go.org

Appetite is subsiding. Today I noticed a marked difference in how much I crave sweets.

My Weight Watchers POINTS for the past 6 days have been as follows. Keep in mind, I’m supposed to have only 20 POINTS per day.

Wednesday 9/23            35.5

Thursday 9/24                37.5

Friday 9/25                      49.5      Zowee!

Saturday 9/26                 27.0     Out of groceries, and it was raining.

Sunday 9/27                    34.5      Beautiful day for grocery shopping.

Monday 9/28                   29.5

Today I went to a Weight Watchers meeting and was down 1.8 pounds from 2 weeks ago. Before Wednesday, 9/23, I was not logging POINTS. As previously reported, my dinner on Tuesday, 9/22, consisted of a scone and a brownie, and exercise has been about 2 hours per week.

I don’t want to draw conclusions from my experiment before I have more data. It could be a fluke, but it’s encouraging that I have lost weight.

In my Googling about sugar dependency, I found a great web site and recource. Dr. Kathleen DesMaisons has done the research on sugar sensitivity and how to beat it. She has authored several books, including “The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Program” and “Potatoes Not Prozac.” I have put these on my reading list.

Here are her 7 Steps to radiant recovery, i.e., stop “the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde Syndrome of sugar sensitivity.

For readers who are intrigued by the power sugar might be having on their lives, this program is a doable and simple system. As for me, I think I am skipping straight to Step 6.

I am curious about the potato.

So here’s how it’s going on my Low Carb Regimen.

First day I started changing my eating behavior was Wednesday, September 23.

Tuesday, September 22, I felt depressed. To feel better and combat my needy hunger, I had two chewy chocolate granola bars for an afternoon snack. Then I had a scone and a brownie–for dinner.

Wednesday was a new day. I still felt like crap but I stopped eating carbs.

I have logged all of my food since Wednesday, using the Weight Watchers Food Tracker. I am blowing way past my POINTS! But I don’t care. The goal during this phase is not to lose weight, and not to develop life-long habits. The goal is to stop craving the sweet stuff.

I am allowed 20 Weight Watchers POINTS per day, plus 35 per week. I’ve been eating between 35 and 50 (50!) per day since Wednesday. I will gain weight this way.

Here’s what’s interesting to me: I predict, based on past experience, that my appetite will decrease in about a week or so, and my daily POINTS usage will go down.

• If my POINTS get below 20/day, cool! I have found a way to get back on the plan when life looks bleak.
• If my POINTS don’t get down to 20/day, but I lose weight anyway, won’t that be interesting? That would be a crack in the WW formula, and score a point for the late Dr. Atkins.

And I am sure (95% certain) I will lose weight this way. I have done it 3 times before. If I don’t, it will be because my body has changed (a possibility) or because I’m doing something different.

So let’s see if my prediction comes true–that I will get down to my allotted POINTS –and perform this little experiment (n=1) to compare my Low-Carb plan with the Weight Watchers system.

Atkins?!  The Atkins Diet?

Yes, that Atkins. The infamous low-carb diet.

Didn’t that go out of fashion in 2003?

I don’t care. It worked for me before, and it will work again.

How much weight did you lose on Atkins?

In 2003, I lost about 30 pounds on Atkins. Then I went back to “normal eating” and my weight crept up to about 220. In 2006-2007, I lost 50 pounds on the low-carb diet.

Aha! You ended up gaining the weight back when you quit! Isn’t that evidence that Atkins doesn’t really work?

It’s true, I regained the weight–and more.  But I don’t blame Atkins for that. I blame my own denial about carbs. A few years later, I woke up from that denial, lost the weight, and have kept it off.

So why go back now? Aren’t you at a healthy weight?

I’m on the heavy side of healthy, and I’m losing control again. I’d rather regain control before I regain the weight.

How are you losing control?

For me (I will speak for myself, although I strongly suspect this is true for most people; does that make me a nutcase?–I don’t care), high-carb foods are like a drug, or an obsession. One cookie and I am an addict again. I can’t stay in moderation–just like an addict.

Once I am “on” the low-carb diet and “off” my addiction, I no longer crave high-carb foods. Then I can stay on a healthy food plan. (My healthy food plan–what is “moderation” for me, is probably strict by most people’s standards.)

But isn’t it dangerous? How can you gorge yourself on fatty foods and be healthy–let alone lose weight?

Gorging myself on fatty foods has not been part of my experience. My appetite decreases on this diet, so gorging doesn’t appeal to me.

[Maybe I'll defend the science, point by point, in future blog posts.]

Aren’t you afraid of the dangers of a high-fat diet?

Nope. When I weighted 220, my cholesterol was over 200. When I lost weight on the low-carb diet, my cholesterol numbers went down right along with my weight, with bad and good cholesterol in about the same proportions. The doctor said, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

How does it make you feel generally? Doesn’t all that fat and protein make you feel logey?

I experience fewer [bad] mood swings when I avoid carbs. The immediate effect is similar to what some people experience on anti-depressants.

All the scientists and nutritionists and blogs say that Atkins is dangerous.
You’re crazy.

I know. I don’t care. I’m going with what works.

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Info:

Pro: The Atkins Diet Weight Loss Program. IMO they have sold out by reacting to their detractors. But they’re the ones making money with this thing–the moderate approach must sell more food bars.

Con: Atkins Exposed: Atkins “Nightmare” Diet. IMO this site just panders to the hysteria, and exaggerates the criticism.

More to come on my approach and why I think it is effective for me.

So I’m blue, deep blue. Functioning, not sick, but scared and low down.

Friends and family, thanks for your love.

On my way down, I have been eating: a lot. The chocolate chip cookie affair was just the midpoint. Cookies, ice cream, granola bars, and frappuccinos® (Starbucks, don’t you know), plus the usual life-sustaining food–and more of that than any human needs. Comfort food, fun food, sad food, busy food, food for waking, food for sleeping, food for working, food for socializing: any food to distract me from the blues.

I see this, and I have kept eating. Today I really noticed how bad it’s gotten. So I decided not to eat sad food.

I did eat a whole pizza today, washed down with unsweetened iced tea. But it was going to be that, or a pizza-sized chocolate chip cookie, washed down with a java chip frappuccino–or worse, a dirty gin martini. That would have been sad food. The pizza was not sad. It was a small, flat crust Margareta pizza with mozzarella, tomatoes, garlic, and double basil. I ate the pizza to avoid the cookie(s). And I avoided the cookies because I’m not eating sad. Not today.