weigh-2-go.org

I got that line from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. It cracked me up.

Just as I was agonizing over the Diet Wars–in which the low-fat gurus battle the low-carb gurus, and neither side has yet emerged victorious–Pollan makes an excellent case that we need not to fight for carbs, fats, vitamins, antioxidants, or any other subset of our nutrition needs. We need to fight for food.

Pollan carefully defines, and defends, food: he means actual plant and animal substances, not processed or refined into foodlike substances. He even suggests that if a product has to make health claims, it is probably not food, but a foodlike substance derived from parts of nutritious substances that came from food.

Foodlike substances shout wildly for our attention.
Now fortified with 10 vitamins and minerals!

No artificial preservatives!

A heart-healthy food!

And the yams, alas, are silent.

In Defense of Food is a couple years old, but the ideas are still cutting edge. One of my next reads will be Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.

It’s a song by k.d. lang: (listen here)

Three days that I dread to see arrive,
Three days that I hate to be alive,
Three days filled with tears and sorrow,
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

There are three days I know that I’ll be blue,
Three days I’ll always dream of you.
And it does no good to wish these days would end,
‘Cause these three days start over again.

My three days are yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But mine are a little different from k.d.’s: they don’t start over again.

Mine are the three days I withdraw from sugar.

Once in a while, when I suspect that my body and mind are poisoned by sugar, I go cold turkey for three days. Today was Day 2. It’s not terribly strict–but no wheat or refined sugar. Today I craved granola–the sweetest, crunchiest, nuttiest, most “granola” (i.e., California) kind of granola. I had oatmeal instead, with cinnamon and stevia.

For me, weight loss depends on reducing my appetite. And reducing my appetite depends on lessening the cravings for food. Not hunger, but craving. And for me, the cravings subside when I forget what bread and cookies taste like. Forgetting takes about three days.

In previous posts I have commented on Radiant Recovery’s 7 steps, at www.radiantrecovery.com. Here is a synopsis of the last 3 steps.

Step 5 is challenging: Shift from white foods to brown foods.

• White foods include alcohol, sugar, baked goods made with white flour, and regular pasta.
• Brown foods include brown rice, whole grain bread, and a potato with the skin.

Many people I talk to say they can’t live without pasta. Three years ago, I thought I might be one of them. But pasta is a food I can live without. But bread is a tough habit to break for me.

The difference between white foods and brown foods is the complexity of the carbs. Simple carbs have fewer molecular bonds, break down faster in the bloodstream, and cause a sugar rush. Complex carbs break down more slowly, providing energy in a slower burn.

Step 6: Reduce or eliminate sugars.

This is the step that I jumped to, cold turkey, when I began losing weight 3.5 years ago. The more I read about sugar sensitivity, the more convinced I am that, as a sugar sensitive person, I owe my weight loss success to this step. I also suspect that all the anecdotal evidence about the success of Atkins is due to sugar sensitive people having the same breakthrough.

I’m glad that Dr. DesMaisons recommends that people do whatever works for them–go cold turkey, or eliminate sugar gradually. For me, only cold turkey works.

Step 7: Create a new life.

Wow, this is an important step–one that I skipped and need to come back to. This step involves replacing sugar–and the highs and lows of sugar sensitivity–with other, more fulfilling and rewarding things in life. On the Radiant Recovery web site:

Early Step 7 can be boring

You no longer have the rush of sugar feelings. It takes a while to settle into this new way of living. Over time you learn to create those things that raise “soft” beta endorphin – the kind that flows rather than spikes. Work on building these things into regular life everyday.

All the horror stories we hear about people regaining the weight they lose–could they be due, in part, to not replacing food with something better? This step rings true to me.

“Potatoes Not Prozac” and “The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Program” are on my immediate reading list, and I’m going to be investigating this program carefully in the coming weeks.

A strange thing happened to me yesterday. I got hungry–alarmingly, distractedly, uncomfortably hungry.

I had lunch with friends, consisting of a big green salad with chicken. That is a normal lunch for me–but i waited too long to eat it. I got too hungry.

Two hours later, I was home to work, and I couldn’t concentrate. “Feed me,” the voice said. “Anything–just feed me.” I had cottage cheese–a good low carb snack.

The voice would not be satisfied until I ate–oatmeal. Healthy, but high carb.

And then a bad thing happened, and that little switch in my head flipped. “Forget it,” or some other F-word, said the voice. “I’m hungry, I’m out of groceries, I’m going out to dinner.” Tofu scramble with salad–and a biscuit. White flour. Lots of simple carbs.

Today, I was ravenous again at lunch time. I ate two lunches–another tofu scramble (jonesing for the tofu with sauteed veggies), and also a large burrito, including tortilla, rice, and beans.

What does it all mean?

• When I lost 50 pounds on a low-carb diet, I had 80 pounds to lose. Perhaps my body at 150 needs more carbs than it did at 220.
• When I lost 50 pounds on a low carb diet, I didn’t worry about how much I ate–I ate low-carb foods until I was satisfied. Perhaps a low-carb regimen and trying to control the size of my appetite don’t mix.
• After 4 weeks being carb conscious, I do still crave bread, cereals, and corn. But I don’t crave sweets–that is a blessing, and a worthy benefit of this entire experiment.
• I’m no nutritionist, and perhaps I am playing with proverbial fire. But I do feel fine, and I am eating healthy foods. Although my compliance with the requirements of the experiemnt is rocky, the results are still interesting.
• I’m going to consider adding some starchier foods back into the regimen, such as beans and rice.

It’s about as scientific as a sample of 1 can get in three weeks, but here are the results so far of my low carb experiment.

Bottom line: I have way exceeded my allotment of Weight Watchers points, but I have not gained weight.

Here’s how to read the graph:

• It is really 2 graphs. Green and Yellow are Weight Watchers Points per day (numbers on axis on the left). Yellow is where Weight Watchers wants me to be: 20 points per day. Green is what I ate.
• Blue is my weight (numbers on the axis on the right).

In this brief time frame, there is a correlation between points and weight–note that my weight spikes a few days after my points spike. But with an allocation of 25 points per day (20 daily plus 35 weekly), Weight Watchers expects me to gain steadily as I consume more than that most days.

What does it mean? Here’s what I think. All these are hunches so far.

• Sugar sensitivity impacts my success in weight loss, and in Weight Watchers specifically, because the types of points I consume matter–that is, a high carb point “counts more” than a low carb point for me.
• Carbs affect me more than they affect most people. Otherwise, all of Weight Watchers’s science would be consistent with my experience.
• I hear friends say, “Weight Watchers doesn’t work for me–I stay within my points and still gain weight.” Maybe these people are sensitive to carbs like I am.

I’m not out to prove Weight Watchers is wrong or bad. I adore WW. But WW alone doesn’t help me control carbs–in fact their products wreak havoc on my appetite and make me crave carbs. And I’m curious to know whether all points are created equal. For me, I suspect not.

I’m going to keep charting (although my food journaling is admittedly less than perfect–there will be gaps in the numbers).

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.

I caught back up with an old friend at a party last Saturday night. We hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years. He was just exactly the same–hadn’t changed a bit–and I had forgotten how much I used to enjoy his company.

It was all I could do not to take him home with me on Saturday, but I have seen him several times this week. But as much fun as we’re having with this little fling, I know it is too unhealthy for me. I can’t let this last.

That friend: My obsession with chocolate chip cookies.

On Saturday, you would have thought I was in love. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the cookies. Where are they now? How many are left? Shall I take another one now, or would that be too clingy, too possessive? How long can I hold out? How many more will I get before it’s time to go home? Shall I sit near them, or play hard-to-get?

And these were just ordinary grocery store cookies, in a clear plastic clam-shell package with a grocery store label. My passion is not about quality. These cookies and their surrogates are everywhere, never more than five minutes from my longing lips.

My toxic lover is not the cookies themselves. My toxic lover is the obsession. I am captivated by his charm–the charm of the obsession. He is delicious. He is dangerous. He is not good for me. He is not a friend I can indulge.

I move through the world moment by moment, one hour at a time, hoping for distractions, in suspense about my willpower. Occasionally, I feel relief when I notice I can live without this lover. But then I never know when my head will turn again, and I will give in to the seduction.

Our reunion on Saturday was ecstatic. Underbaked, crumbless, and doughy, bound by margarine and some mystery oils for that soft-cookie feeling. Textured by grains of brown and white sugar and the intermittent smoothness of a melty chocolate chip, balanced by the barely salty flavor of the batter. My teeth feel the sugars. My tongue tastes chocolate, then dough, then chocolate. Each ingredient melts in my mouth a different way: the cookie quickly back to dough, then batter; the sugars into nectar; all bathed by melted chocolate. I wish I could simply swallow and be satisfied, but every bite makes me crave the next.

He might be the most magnetic seducer I have known. We have gotten together several times this week, over coffee cake, chewy granola bars, and banana bread pudding at the OK Café. I can’t imagine saying goodbye. Is life really worth living without him?

In my heart, I know I have to be the strong one. I have to say “No, this just isn’t right for me. It’s not what I want. It’s not healthy. I don’t see a long-term relationship here.”

And here’s the kicker: “When I’m around you, I become a different person–a person I don’t like.” Come to think of it, I know he’s just using me. He’s just having fun. He doesn’t want anything serious. Why am I wasting my time?

I know why–it’s my favorite mistake, so I keep going back (watch this and think about obsessing for chocolate chip cookies; lyrics here).

Mmm, the wholesome natural goodness of corn. “You call it corn. We call it maize.”

For people of European descent, like me, the history of corn only goes back a few centuries, when Columbus brought the first corn plant to Spain. It became a food crop in Europe in the 1500s, and spread to Africa and Asia as well. But in evolutionary time, 400-500 years is not very long. I  venture to say that except for Native Americans, who cultivated corn for millennia, corn is a novelty to our bodies. Like kudzu in Georgia, it’s a foreign species. We haven’t evolved with it, so we don’t digest it well. [This is my own theory--I'm researching it. This article is close but doesn't quite support my "foreign substance" hypothesis.]

Oh, I love corn. I ate a bunch of corn tortillas as I wrote this post, just because I was thinking about corn.

<Homer Simpson voice>Mmmm.  Corn.  <Gluttonous drool>

Corn is a trigger food for me. If I leave it alone, I don’t think about it. But once I have it, I crave it continuously. Like kudzu in Georgia, it dominates in a foreign environment.

The only remedy is to consciously, and uncomfortably, force myself to stop, until the call of corn fades away. Not just corn on the cob and popcorn, but cornbread and those terribly tempting bottomless baskets of corn tortilla chips at Mexican restaurants–even when they taste like cardboard!–call my name.

<Homer Simpson voice>D’oh! Don’t take away my corn!

I often hear friends say that when they diet, they refuse to allow themselves to feel deprived, so they “never say never” to any food. I get this. The world would be a dismal place if I told myself I could never, ever again eat chocolate, doughnuts, little chocolate doughnuts, or even corn.

Even so, the world, for me, is a better place, when I “buck up” against the fear and frustration of feeling deprived. It is my duty to myself to Just Say No to corn.

My friend JK writes:

Help, I’m 48 and starting to get a pot-belly!

Can you tell me more about your eating/exercise plan?  Is it Atkins?  Nicki/Roll Ur Own?  Can the food plan help me if I’m not keen on the gym?  I’m willing to walk, and I love to bicycle.

Please tell me more, or send me some web links when you have a chance.

PS.  I think one of my food sins has been ice cream.  I’ve got to cut back on the Haagen-Dazs.  I say “cut back” because the word eliminate is too painful.

Here was my response.

My short answer is: Atkins (if you have a lot to lose—and I don’t think you do), then Weight Watchers.

My long answer is (and this is my own theories based on experience—I’m not a doctor, as you know!):

My body likes food, because it needs food to live. When my body was evolving, food was scarce. So, the body I have now was designed to thrive in a world where food is scarce. In such a world, foods high in sugar and fat were rare, but they were healthy because they gave me lots of energy to survive through the harsh winter. Therefore, my body really wants them.

Food triggers memory. My body is designed to remember foods that are good for me. So when food was scarce, and I ate fresh strawberries one day, my brain made a memory. The next day, my brain said, “Hey, are there any more of those strawberries? Mmm, they were yummy!” and I went out for more strawberries (while they were in season). And when there was meat, my body remembered that too, and so I craved meat until there was no more to be had.

Today, food is plentiful. Foods high in sugar and fat are everywhere. And my body still wants them, even though it doesn’t need them. And when I eat something yummy and caloric–such as bread (a newfangled invention, in the annals of human history), ice cream (fat! sugar!) or candy (whoa, mama!)—my brain says, “Stop everything, I gotta have more of that!” Why? Because my old brain still thinks that I need all those calories to get through the harsh winter.

So, I lost weight by forgetting what the yummiest (most fattening) foods tasted like. Then I stopped craving them. Then it was easy.

If I ate them *one time,* my brain remembered and said, “Mmm, more please, more please, MORE PLEASE, MORE PLEASE.” and would not shut up. And then I would have to go through the pain of forgetting about them all over again.

For different reasons, the Atkins Diet instructs people to eliminate high-carb foods from their diet completely. They say that the diet works because it invokes a state called ketosis (Google that for more info), and that once you achieve ketosis you can blow it by cheating even once. But I think Atkins works because our food memory fades. And it fades faster than we think—in about 3 to 5 days…even for the foods we think we can’t live without.

So, my advice is: give up ice cream for a week, even if you think it is impossible. Let your brain forget what ice cream tastes like, and dissociate that taste from the calorie rush your body gets when you eat it. Then see what you think.

I can’t say that I have completely eliminated all the bad stuff myself—I had some sweets on the 4^th of July and I am still in a bit of chocolate chip cookie withdrawal. (OK, so maybe with chocolate, it takes more than 3-5 days). But working this theory has helped me a lot.

Let me know if this helps!
-n.

When I’m in a foul, irrational and health-resistant mood, I turn to what I will now call my Attitude Adjustment Diet.

This diet is restrictive in that certain “bad” foods are completely prohibited. I talk to plenty of people who don’t restrict foods because it makes them feel deprived. But my answer to that is, I can eat as much as I want, any time I want, of the “good” foods. I rarely feel deprived because I can eat as much as I want.  I have theories about why this diet works for me, which I will write about later.

But let me back up a little. I started the Attitude Adjustment Diet because:

• My attitude needed adjusting–big time–and,
• I needed to quit some habits of eating foods that were sabotaging my desired weight loss, and
• I ate like a freak on Wednesday: granola bars (which I have decided are really pure evil), cookies, cake, and a huge tuna sandwich for lunch. The tuna sandwich wasn’t so bad for me, but it was big enough that I had no excuse of being hungry.

Here are my “good” foods. I think everybody’s “good” foods are a little different. For me, these are foods that I enjoy but they don’t elicit an obsessive reaction.  Example: I really enjoy celery, but it does not “call my name” when it sits in my crisper drawer.

• My favorite “good” fruits: pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, etc.; all fresh only
• My favorite “good” vegetables: celery, carrots (both great for snacking), anything green, squashes
• Legumes (except peanuts)
• Yogurt–the good probiotic kind without too much sugar
• Low-fat cheese
• Oats, plain and unsweetened
• Rice
• Lean meat and poultry
• All seafood

Here are my “bad” foods–the ones that call to me from the kitchen, even in the middle of the night. Can you hear them? “Nicki, we’re hee–ere!” they call. I reply, “Bad foods!” wagging a scolding finger. “Bad, bad foods!”

• Chocolate anything
• Granola,  granola bars, and all breakfast cereals
• Nuts and peanuts
• Dried fruit, including raisins
• Cookies and all their kin
• Bread, pastries, and all baked goods (i.e., wheat)
• Corn and especially corn (tortilla) chips
• Milk, cream, sour cream, cottage cheese and soft (fatty) cheeses

Oddly yet fortunately, I feel about the following foods the same way Rhett felt about Scarlett when he left. And so much the better for me.

• Pasta
• Potatoes
• Fruit-flavored candies
• Sodas
• Beer, wine, and liquor (a dirty gin martini is quite pleasant at about 6:15 pm on a weekday…but it doesn’t tempt me)

As of this writing, I have had one whole, good, almost pure day on the Attitude Adjustment Diet. And I didn’t even pig out on it (yet). But I still feel pissy about writing things down. Maybe that will change soon.