SEPT. 2023 Maintenance Check In

(KM) #7

One of my biggest struggles is this unspoken role as The Food Manager for the two of us. We already had issues wherein he’d eat his favorite parts and leave the less desirable bits, as if he were eating in a restaurant. Now that our diets are almost completely different I’m not making a meal for myself off what he rejects, which means a lot of wasted effort and money as that food goes in the garbage. It’s basically a matter of just letting him fend for himself and relinquishing my role as Mom, which I’m mostly delighted with, but that still causes some friction. Learning curve!

(Chuck) #8

I am at 188.6 this morning, this past Saturday I saw 188.2, my lowest weight so far. At 75 years old, I am use to my weight bouncing around as much as 3 pounds day to day. My goals aren’t necessarily a weight goal but staying off prescription drugs now that I am free of them. I am still about 4 pounds from the holy grail of normal weight. I am fasting an average of 19 hours per day. I am eating nothing but real natural foods. No fast foods, no highly processed or refined foods and no artificial sweeteners. My problem is family and friends that had seen me this slim telling me I am too skinny. And doctors and nurses that are so blind to see that what I am doing has so much improved my health, and telling me I am killing my self because I have rejected the their advice. I ask them to open their eyes and just look at the obesity and diabetics that the diet they are pushing has caused. Then their standard comment is that are eating too much and not being active enough. I just laugh and walk away.

(KM) #9

I’ve noticed a creeping trend out there over the decades. First, few people were obese and they were the object of a lot of gawking. Then a lot more people were overweight or obese and it wasn’t so shocking. Now, so many people are obese that overweight seems normal and what the charts say is “normal” weight looks skinny.

I got endless flak from one of my doctors about being “unnaturally thin” when I was actually smack in the middle of the “normal” range. (He actually managed to blame ME for a lousy stitch job after abdominal surgery, stating that if I were a ‘normal’ weight my belly fat would have disguised it. Asshat.)

(Chuck) #10

The whole bunch from the process food industry, the drug industry, and the medical establishment are only looking at the money they can make. The food and drug industry control the government agencies that sat the standards for diet and nutrition, etc. the drug industry pays the medical establishment to write prescriptions for their drugs. None of those industries make money if we are healthy and eating healthy.

#11

I understand you, my food cost may be below $5 a day but I still never expected my close family members to make me pork when they are more comfortable with chicken… People usually have little idea what “carbs” mean but a loving family member with some ability to learn can guess it after a few years… It may not make them stop offering sugary things but saying no is pretty easy if I don’t desire the thing. As far as I get enough chicken (and I am prepared anyway), it’s fine. (It’s not fine but just because I am too easily tempted. Still, it’s MY desire, not something forced on me. It’s pretty hard to force anything into me. I don’t think anyone ever was successful - and some tried - except Mom when I was a kid but I still didn’t eat spinach, ew. Just breakfast and chicken but I went vegetarian to escape chicken for the last 8 years before I moved out… I was traumatized for 10-something more years but now I can eat chicken. I don’t like it much, it doesn’t satiate me alone but I can eat it.)

:cry:
I never ever ever ever throw away food. I understand when others do for some very good reason but I couldn’t do that.
But why to throw out undesirable parts? Why not eating food with fully desirable ones…? I never was very choosy so maybe that’s why I don’t get it…
With us, I am the one who theoretically can eat anything but I have goals and I am the hedonist so I just fed whatever I don’t want to my SO (or the cats). It works well as our taste is somewhat complimentary, he loves leaner meat, I love fattier meat (there is a huge overlap), I love the bony parts of rabbit and chicken, he loves the meaty parts… The cats love everything carnivore, of course they can’t handle big bones but anything else is fine.

I can eat separately but I definitely feel the temptation to eat with my SO… Never breakfast, thankfully but it’s pretty hard for me to skip lunch even if I probably could if he wouldn’t eat, at least sometimes… I don’t eat if I am nicely satiated at that time but I usually can eat so I do…

Arrogance much? There is One True Way and it’s what they say!

My scale stopped clinging to 75kg and it showed 77kg this morning, oh well, it’s not like I could gain fat (so easily) so it’s just its problem. (I wore clothes and it was before the toilet but still. I just hope I didn’t ruin my new 74 but I probably did so I am 75 again. Sigh. Like since 3-4 years. It starts to get old.)

(Jane) #12

Of course - blame the dieter when you follow their plan and it doesn’t work. I knew I had followed it to a “T” but you can tell by their looks they don’t believe you.

I know some people way overeat and are sedentary but I wasn’t one of them. I was an active fat girl and ate less than my husband and weighed way more. Because… hormones… and not understanding the role of insulin.

I laughed when my husband grabbed my jeans by mistake out of the common suitcase we were using on vacation and the only way he knew they weren’t his was when he stuck his hands in a pocket and it was so shallow. They still make men’s jeans with deep pockets for their wallets and cell phones.

(Chuck) #13

The problem is if you eat what they say to eat, then your hormones or in overdrive because of what you eat. Wheat, table sugar, artificial sweetener, and the chemical brow they come up with in highly processed foods, store bought bread, and so much more is the problem. Food companies formulate them to drive our hormones crazy.

(Jane) #14

Men don’t have to deal with the hormone swings we do.

I had my first child at 25 and went from 118 lbs to nearly 200. Thought the weight would fall off after I had the kid. Went back to eating what I did before the pregnancy and lost half but the other half refused to budge. It was like flipping a switch on my metabolism.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on. If I had known about keto I could have fixed it decades ago instead of yo-yo dieting and making it worse.

(Chuck) #15

We don’t have the same hormone issues as women but we have our own hormone issues. The hormone issues I am talking about are the ones that are there that control hunger and other things that are common to both men and women. They are the hormones that trigger all of us to over eat, to crave certain foods, and cause the issues of obesity and diabetes. This is what highly processed foods are engineered to do.

(KCKO, KCFO) #16

I also put on about that much according to the scales, but all my clothes were fine. I was not exercising as much due to staying home during the pandemic, I think it was caused by stress, because shortly after I started going to fitness center, and other activities I had stopped, I dropped them very quickly. Been staying on course since then.

(KCKO, KCFO) #17

Hope you are seeing a different dr. these days. How awful of him.

(Jane) #18

Again, I rarely overate, never ate sugar, chips, junk and was still fat. And was not gradual. And nothing compares to the hormonal hell of menopause. Some women never get fat until menopause and then BAM.

My mom was rail thin her whole life until menopause. I was already fat when I went through it so didn’t gain any more weight.

I know the grehlin hormones you speak of and they certainly play a role in people who can’t ignore hunger pains.

(Chuck) #19

My mom was slim her whole life, cancer took her from us at age 59. My First Wife was heavy most of her life, but went through the change of life early and she lost a lot of weight. She was taken from me at age 54 by a car accident. My second wife is slim but she said she was much heavier earlier in life. I was a skinny kid, up to the point of entering Navy boot camp, was fed a lot of carbs and gained close to 50 pounds in 11 weeks. I have had issues with my weight ever since. Over this last year I have educated myself about nutrition, fasting and metabolism. I have not only learned about myself but so much more. It is just unfortunate I don’t take the effort to learn this so much earlier.

(KM) #20

Thank you. This was a few years ago, a necessary but not emergency surgery. Disaster from start to finish. I still bear resentment and disfiguring scars from that idiot. He was also delighted to report that I had endometriosis, I mean he was like grinning about it, because this meant my issue was not due to an STD. I didn’t realize that was something surgeons cared about so much. So no, he is not part of my medical retinue!!!

(KCKO, KCFO) #21

I was thin till John Lennon was murdered. I stress ate for a LONG TIME and gained, could not lose. Nothing in my life had hit me harder than his death. I spiralled into depression and just couldn’t find my way out.
I got up to 190, tried Weight Watchers and other programs would lose a few pounds then, gained it all back. I found the Zone while still living in AU, I lost some of the weight but not all of it, kept it off for a few years, this was also when I was going through menopause. I did get very close to my goal weight while going through that. It wasn’t until after it stopped that I regained about 40 lbs. back. I was stressed out again, this time from leaving AU, I was entering a new job field, and my mom was going through cancer, etc. Stress was very high.

When I retired, I started Keto and within a year I was in maintenance. Keto and fasting got me where I want to be and are keeping me there with very little effort. I love the way I eat now and can not imagine going back to another way of eating.

(KCKO, KCFO) #22

Since it is autumn here in my part of the world, I will be doing more soups and stews.

What are your favorite ones? Please share yours here.

Mine is cauliflower & leek soup. I make it with chicken bone broth, a couple of leeks and about 16 oz. of cauliflower that has been riced. I like an Italian seasoning blend, salt, a tiny bit of cumin added. I toss it all in my instatpot for 40 mins. on low pressure.

(B Creighton) #23

I haven’t posted any Sept numbers. My scale…I have been slightly flabbergasted… has been moving as of late. For about a month now after most dinners I have been substituting a whole fruit for my last old vestige of carbage… dessert. Apparently just this one move has had an impact, and my weight has fallen to a new low… 170.4… 5 pounds less than my low a month or two ago. Oh my heck!! And my Renpho smart scale says my visceral fat has fallen from 7 to 6, and overall body fat from >20% to 18%. My goal is now 11% body fat, and some kind of visible ab pack, which I have never had. In November I am going to start weight training again, and probably get another blood test… It will be interesting to see if my oxLDL has fallen from the 91 of last fall. I imagine so.

(B Creighton) #24

I make a lentil and sweet potato soup when just doing low carb. I give it an herby taste with lots of rosemary and thyme. I add a can of organic diced tomatos in a base of vegetable broth. It is very satisfying in cool weather.

(KCKO, KCFO) #25

Time for a new thread, come on over to:

(Robin) closed #26