I decided to change over to a new blog in an effort to be more positive, honest, and less self-centered; you won’t find any food journals or weight records there. I am done with putting myself under a microscope like that. I had done those things in the past in an effort to be honest and accountable, but it only wound up feeling shaming, as if I had to explain myself. Instead, the main focus of The Healthy Hedonista is to celebrate joyful things without apology, while still working towards honesty accountability using the 12 Steps.

I will miss The Unlikely Triathlete. This is where I started my journey, and how I met so many online and real-life friends, a more supportive network of people than I could have ever imagined. (I feel like I might cry over here). I hope that those of you who first met me here will join me in this new chapter.

Lots of love,
Your Unlikely Triathlete

Turns out this was an awesome idea. I overdosed co completely on carbs that I could not wait to cut back today. I arrived home yesterday after a six hour long drive, feeling bloated, overheated, sluggish, and crabby. My skin felt dry and hot, especially on my face, where my normally lovely skin was flaking and dull-looking. Even after taking a steaming hot bath, exfoliating, and moisturizing, there was still a sandpaper quality to my skin.

I couldn’t believe how shitty I felt; the experiment just reinforced the idea that carbs make me feel crappy, make me want to eat more carbs until I am basically comatose, and make me look crappy too. When I woke up this morning I was like, “Oh please, please no more sugar.” I didn’t expect to be jumping into the new, extreme plan so willingly; I thought I would have a more resigned air. But now I feel excited about it.

Here’s the plan as Gordon laid it out:

• Meal 1: 3 eggs cooked in 1 tbsp organic butter (preferably enriched with omega 3’s)
• Meal 2: 1/2 chicken breast cooked in 1 tsp olive oil and 1 tablespoon all natural peanut butter
• Meal 3: 1/2 chicken breast cooked in 1 tsp olive oil and 1-2 tablespoons all natural mayonnaise
• Meal 4: 3 oz salmon
• Meal 5: 1/2 chicken breast cooked in 1 tsp olive oil, with 1 tablespoon hemp oil or flaxseed oil (drizzled over, not cooked)
• Meal 6: 1/4 cup nuts

The good news (great news, in my opinion) is that Gordon is letting me have baby spinach as a vegetable because it’s so low in carbohydrates and so high in fiber and protein. Yay! I’m really glad to have at least one veggie, I know that will help. I am allowed to substitute my 4% cottage cheese for the meats on some days, or have pork instead, etc, and sometimes I will toss my 1/4 cup of nuts at the end of the day with a little sweetener and cinnamon (maybe even a dot of butter) as a treat.

Which brings me to my next point. Sweeteners. I have always been torn on them, and recently did a post about the warnings on Aspartame, in which I swore off all artificial sweeteners, even so-called “natural” ones like Truvia and Splenda. But I have to make some concessions now, because any type of sugar, even the lovely coconut sugar I discovered, is the number one thing to avoid, and I know from experience that not being allowed to have any “treats” at all is the surest way for me to give the whole plan the finger and throw it out the window. So I am going to allow myself Truvia for things like my tea in the morning, and Splenda will be a backup for when I’m out and there are no other options. I am not a huge fan of Splenda, since there have been no long-term studies, and it does turn to formaldehyde in your intestines, which can seriously unbalance the good bacteria that keep you healthy. But I figure small amounts (less than 3 packets a week) probably aren’t too bad as long as I take a probiotic too. I just need to cut myself a little slack on this to get me through.

Looking forward to this week; after all, saying that I am doing this for a month sounds like a long time, but it’s really just four sets of seven days. No problem.

A year ago I would have said, “No way. Eating is one of the best things in life. It’s a joy, I wouldn’t want to live without that, no matter what I weighed.”

Now? Hell yes, give me the damn pill.

I have been doing the really reduced carb thing for about 2 weeks. Going into it I was down about 4 pounds, hovering at 241, just about to break through to the 230’s. Then I weighed myself on Tuesday and say that I was up almost 6 pounds. I wanted to punch something.

I’m tired. I’m tired of thinking about food at all, I don’t want to bother with eating anymore. I wish this were like smoking, where you could just STOP and everything else would still be normal. But I have to eat, and it’s exhausting to worry and analyze and track and what-have-you, I feel completely obsessed. I just want to stop eating.

Those of you who have been following my blog since the beginning may remember my frustrations about various health-related issues that were cropping up for a while. I had fainting spells and weird seizure-like episodes in my hands and feet, as well as profound fatigue and various other complaints that made doctors think I had MS for a while. Thank God it turns out that wasn’t it at all, but they never did seem to pinpoint what was going on, instead saying vague things about, “Relaxing,” and “Psychosomatic,” which did not go over too well with a woman who had just gone down in a dead faint in the middle of a busy dinner service while working, lemme tell you.

I resigned myself to the thought that I might never find out what was going on. The closest I could get to any sort of diagnosis was a declaration of PMDD from my OBGYN, which isn’t even that widely recognized a disorder, and cannot be easily treated. I tried various things without much success, and then kind of gave up.

Cut to last Tuesday. I was supposed to meet with my trainer, Gordon, after a week off when I got sick, and I was fresh off the scale, fuming over a 5 pound weight gain that was at odds with all of the effort I had been putting in to eating reduced carbs over the past few weeks. I stalked into his office and said, “Can we go out for a walk so that I can unload my frustrations about what’s going on with my food and weight?” He spread his arms wide, said, “At your service, let’s go!” and off we went into the first sunshine of the Spring.

I had shown Gordon a photo of me from several years ago when I had been in great shape, so he knew what I was dealing with in terms of weight gain. As I started to vent and bitch about about my health and my weigh, he interrupted. “Hold on there, now, let’s start at the beginning. What was going on in your life when you really started to put the weight on, and all these health issues cropped up?”

I stopped to think, and as I spoke, it occurred to me that nobody had ever asked me that before. None of the many doctors I had gone to see about my fainting and depression and fatigue and seizures had ever asked me to start at the beginning. To be honest, they had never really asked me much of anything, because I had waited 45 minutes to talk to them for 3 minutes and then get shunted out the door again with nothing solved.

I went over what had been going on about 6 years ago, and I realized as I outlined my life at that time, how utterly fucked up everything had been. I was engaged to an alcoholic chef who made negative comments about my weight while he cooked rich, fatty meals; I lost a job, got a new one, and got pregnant; I had an abortion, and contracted an infection that caused bleeding and weakness for a month; I met my future husband at my new job; I broke up with my fiance and found out he had been hitting on my mother; I moved in with a psychotic roommate and lost hours at work, so I could not afford groceries, and started to eat the expired food they were going to throw out at my job; I had a major impasse with the wacko roommate and was forced to move into my own place, thus stretching my money situation even further; I was given a more intense version of the Pill because of mood swings; I started school, so I was going there and working full-time; my boyfriend proposed and I moved out of my apartment and into his parent’s place to save money; I broke out in rashes a few times and was put on antibiotics and steroids; I was taken off the pill and put on the IUD; I left my job and started a new one, was physically assaulted by my boss, and I quit; I started another job, got sexually and verbally harrassed, quit; I got my dream job, fucked up repeatedly, and was fired; I got another job, got reported for a dirty joke, and was fired, I was taken off the IUD and prescribed Lexapro…

As I was telling this all to Gordon his eyebrows were up in his hairline. He finally laughed and said, “Well, I’m no doctor, but I think I can tell you at least part of what’s going on.”

“Yeah?” I asked skeptically.

“Sure. You got pregnant and your appetite, already fueled by the way you were binge-eating during an unhappy relationship, went out of control due to the hormones. When you had your abortion your body was still out of whack because you were taking antibiotics for almost a month afterwards because of the infection. Then you are on and off of three different types of birth control. Can I ask what types of expired food were you able to take home from your job when you couldn’t afford groceries?”

“Beans, rice, chips, crackers…”

“Of course. Carbohydrates. Those don’t go bad as quickly, so that makes sense. So you’re eating mostly foods that affect your hormone levels, while already suffering from messed up hormones due to the birth control, the pregnancy, and a prolonged infection. And then you’re moving and working and going to school, so your stress level is probably really high at this point.”

“Um, yes.”

“Right. So not only are your hormones taking a beating from insulin and estrogen and progesterone and all the other hormones in play, but now you’re throwing in elevated cortisol levels from stress, and you’re taking steroids and more antibiotics for the rashes and hives.”

“Yes.”

He laughed. “So you’ve had your thyroid checked, I’m guessing?”

“Repeatedly.”

“Okay, so did they check your hormone levels at any point?”

“No that I know of.”

He laughed again. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s the matter with these guys, it seems pretty obvious that’s where most of these issues were coming from. I mean, when did you start taking the Pill?”

“When I was 14.”

“Wow, young. Why was that?”

“I had really bad periods with long bleeding and like, debilitating cramps, and they said the Pill would help.”

He nodded. “I mean, that makes sense, in the short term, but when you’re 14 your body is still working things out. Being on any hormonal therapy for such a long time… I mean, we’re talking almost 11 years, mostly formative years. I really don’t know why nobody looked at that. You obviously had problems with hormone balance from the beginning.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Well, it means that your suspicions about your sensitivity to carbohydrates are probably right on. If you have a naturally-occurring hormone imbalance that has been there most of your life and got really stirred up when you went through all the changes with your pregnancy, and all of that seems to correlate with when you gained the most weight, it seems logical. But the thing is, that correcting that takes kind of an extreme diet.”

I felt dread immediately. “Gordon, if you’re calling it extreme, I’m terrified.”

He grinned. “Okay, well, let me put it to you this way. You’re already part way there, because you’re already trying to reduce carbs. But if you’re really trying to get your body to a place where fat is your fuel source instead of carbs, and you want a sort of clean slate in terms of hormone activity, you’re going to need to cut back drastically. How many grams of carbs are you eating per day now?”

“I’ve been aiming for about 75.

“Yeah, try 20.”

“What?! Seriously? Are you counting the carbs from salad and stuff?”

“Well, to begin with, yes. You’ll have to take a fiber supplement because just about anything with fiber in it will also have carbs, so you’ll be eating pretty much only protein and fat. You can have salad about twice a week, if it makes you feel better, but no more than that.”

“You’re kidding.”

“But it’s not forever. It will take about 5 days for your body to adjust, and you should try it for about a month to see how you feel on it. If the weight starts to finally come off and you actually feel good, we can give you a little room for more high-fiber carbs. But not everybody functions well on this type of diet, so if you feel really weak or tired and it’s week three, I think it’s safe to say you have to step back and try something else.”

“Well, yeah.“

“I know this type of diet works for people who have a lot of trouble with weight loss. I have had a number of clients have real success with it. But you have to be ready, at that breaking point, where you’ll do whatever it takes.”

I sighed. “I was just saying earlier how I wished I could just stop eating and be done with it.”

Gordon laughed. “I know what you mean. Thinking about it all the time, I mean, people who don’t have to think about it just don’t understand the energy involved. But this is probably about as close to not eating as you’re going to get.”

“Sounds liked it.”

“Well, not in terms of calories, anyways. You’ll be eating about 100 grams of fat and 100 grams of protein per day, with about 20 grams of carbs to spare. And you have to track carbs from everything, even stuff like eggs.”

“Eggs have carbs?”

“Yeah, like 1 gram each. So does mayonnaise, which you should be eating, and nuts. It’s not a lot, but if you’re trying to really clean up, you’ve gotta be pretty aware.”

“I’m scared.”

“Well, give it a try. If you really are sick of eating, and sick of not losing, and sick of feeling crappy, I think this is something you’re going to have to face.”

So there you have it, folks. I’m starting Tuesday, since I will be away for a wedding this weekend. I don’t know if he’s right, or if it will work, but I do know this; at this point, I’m ready to try anything.

First of all, I am not going to tell you every detail of what he has learned or what the scientific processes are. If you want to know, buy the book. But I will say this; he has discovered that calories in vs. calories out and the laws of thermodynamics that we have all been taught are key for weight control are, in short, bullshit. These theories are based on scientific studies riddled with flaws, poor methodology and sweeping conclusions based on the results of a minority, not a majority, and by no means even the RELEVANT groups involved (those who struggle with weight in the first place.)

You can read about most of these ideas in the sample, as well as about the idea that *gasp!* there are different types of people in the world, and the same things don’t work for all of them. He gives examples of two different breeds of cows, pointing out that despite the fact that they are both cows, they are each chosen for different purposes, because one in naturally lean but the other is much more inclined to weigh more, despite both being on the same diet. He then points to different sets of twins and shows how, despite the fact that the twins are not living together and are both living different lives, their weights and the specific ares in which they gain weight are strikingly similar. Mr. Taubes does not see this as a coincidence, and I have to agree with him.

His conclusions, based on extremely thorough research, boil down in basic terms, to this: we gain weight because of a hormonal reaction to the foods we eat. Not because of eating too many calories, or because of being sedentary, or because we are somehow at fault as people, with no willpower or discipline. It is because of our body’s reaction to a hormonal secretion, and that hormone is insulin.

Insulin is the primary hormone that stores glucose in the body, ie. creates onto fat. Taubes theorizes that we are born with a predisposition to gain or maintain weight when insulin is released in our bodies. Some people are extremely sensitive to insulin and so do not need much released into their bodies to get the job done; they burn off the glucose more quickly and do not gain weight. Others release a great deal more insulin because their bodies are not as efficient, and their reaction to this increased exposure to the hormone is to store far more of the glucose in their blood than another person might; in short, they don’t burn off what they take in, and they get fat more easily.

And, of course, since the release of insulin is triggered by the release of glucose in the bloodstream, which is, in turn, caused by ingestion carbohydrates, this means that some people can eat plenty of carbs and use it as fuel right away, while others can eat the exact same amount of carbs and become… porcine.

The cruel joke here is that the people in the latter category, who are gaining weight from this reaction, are feeling exhausted because their insulin levels are constantly elevated, their blood sugar is irregular (all of which causes increased appetite for more carbs, by the way), and they are starting to feel the strain of carrying around the extra pounds. And so, they aren’t active. Now, Taubes does not suggest that exercise plays much of a role in weight loss (the studies he lists seem to show that it generally causes maintenance because of increased appetite), but the point he wants to stress here is that obese people are not obese because they don’t exercise enough. Obese people don’t exercise because the hormonal reactions in their bodies sap a ton of energy. Thus, they are less active because they are fat, not vice versa.

Now, as a person who considers themselves firmly entrenched in camp B, I have to admit a little smugness after reading all of this, despite my weight. If there is ever a zombie apocalypse, I am going to be able to eat way less than you skinny bitches out there, and I will still have enough energy stored to wield a chainsaw. Fatties unite! We may be fat in this day in age, but originally our body types were the ones with the major advantage for survival.

I would blame the agricultural revolution for causing our current social stigmas, but it seems clear that that the medical community are the ones really at fault on this one. Taubes illustrates, in a pretty irrefutable way, that not all people’s bodies are alike. He was wise enough not to trust commonly accepted evidence when researching weight gain, and because of that, he discovered the truth. In short, he behaved like a real scientist. He clearly proves that we are all built with different capacities for survival, and yet it has taken this long for someone to outline in a scientifically sound method just how that works and why. Up until now nobody has really questioned the laws of thermodynamics; the world at large accepted these flawed studies at face value despite glaring inconsistencies, and from that point on all weight-control advice was formulated around a mistaken foundation. Is it any wonder we are so confused by all of the contradicting diet advice out there, when all of this advice is built on a defective idea?

I have to laugh at how often we seem to base advice and ideas on the concept that one method will work for everyone. (I would make an allusion to religion here, but I don’t want to open that can of worms.) This explains so much to me about why there are some people that seem to be able to eat what they want and don’t gain weight, or why someone else exercises a few times a week and sees dramatic weight loss, when I see nothing of the sort.

One might be bitter and wonder why they were cursed with such an inconvenient body type, but really, what’s the use in that? (Like I said, in zombie apocalypse it’s going to be advantage: fatties.) I, however, am overwhelmed with a sense of relief; the weight of guilt and self-loathing has been lifted. Being fat is not my fault.

I have not been given the right tools; I have tried to implement a series of rules to get healthier, and all of those rules were fundamentally incorrect. Of course I wasn’t losing weight. Of course, because of reading that eating less and exercising more is the key, I thought that I was lazy and worthless because I couldn’t seem to do what other people could do. And of course I binged on sugar and suffered from depression and didn’t want to exercise and got frustrated and angry with myself, and then binged again. Of course.

I have thrown myself into this head first. I have drastically reduced my carb intake, focusing on lots of vegetables, fats, and proteins, and all of my carbs are coming from fruit, milk, or a very small portion of whole grains. I am allowing myself to sweeten my tea using coconut sugar, which is only about 3 grams of carbs for half a tablespoon. I am not counting calories, or tracking food on Sparkpeople, or obsessing. I am eating when I am hungry, and stopping when I am full, something that I have always seemed to struggle with until I embraced fats. I am enjoying eating so much more than I have in months, I am eating foods I love and yet I am able to stop at reasonable portions without effort, plus my consumption of veggies has gone way up. Oh, to be “allowed” to have butter, nuts, bacon, pot roast, whole milk, to not feel guilty about using mayonnaise, to bake vegetable casseroles using a creamy sauce, to nibble on spicy, organic, artisan salami paired with cooling cucumber rounds, to not be obsessing over every bite that goes into my mouth! I truly can’t believe it.

It really is the loss of guilt that seems the most profound. No more guilt for being fat (it’s how my body reacts, and I can’t help that), no more guilt for depression and cravings and low energy (all side effects of the hormones and blood sugar irregularities), no more guilt about eating real food with real fat in it (this is where a body like mine will get its energy), and no more of that sneaking feeling, that guilty confusion, that somewhere is all of my exercise and dieting, I must be doing something wrong, must not be being completely honest.

Some people may think that I am going too far in believing Taubes so completely, but if it weren’t for the redundancy of proof, paired with my own failures following regular diets, I assure you I wouldn’t be so easy to convince. It’s just that it all resonates with me so profoundly, it makes so much damn sense, that I can’t ignore it. I can’t even say “Let’s wait and see what the researchers say,” because the researchers have already spoken, and are credited in his book, and provide the basis for all of his ideas. So I am left asking myself, “What am I waiting for?”

I have not weighed myself in about two weeks, and I am not going to for another couple weeks. I am suddenly feeling unconcerned; the weight will come off. Instead, I am enjoying the new world that has opened up to me, and the feeling of satiety that I get after eating these meals, a feeling that I feel like I was never quite able to achieve in the past without overeating. It feels so hedonistic to have cold, crisp greens topped with hot, sizzling bacon and chunks of creamy avocado. I can hardly contain myself when I open the fridge and see the beautiful vegetable and goat cheese quiche I made, with it’s homely whole-wheat crust, a special treat. And I can’t wait to try the roast that I have slow-cooking in an earthy stock of onions, kale, and mushrooms.

Thank you, Gary Taubes. I sure hope you’re right.

I know, it’s sad. I had some good times on this blog. It has made me a lot of internet friends, a few real-life friends, and shown some people who already know me a little more about who I am.

But don’t you worry, I’m not actually leaving the blogosphere. You kidding, an attention whore like me? No way. I’m just reinventing myself.

I’m not telling you the new blog name, location, or any of that yet, but suffice it to say, it will still contain a great deal of the honest, unapologetic writing you have come to expect from me. However, I will be including some new weekly/monthly items too, and I am going to approach this blog in a new way; slightly less of spill-my-guts confessional (though trust me, guts will still be spilled), and more of a feature-focused, informational gazette. In other words, I want it to be less about me, and more about you.

I am going to be making my food choices less of a focus in the new blog, and instead a greater emphasis will be put on Overeater’s Anonymous and the 12 Steps; I will finally be debuting the online meetings that I have promised you for some time. This is really important to me, as I know many of you are interested in participating in a meeting, and I feel that virtual meetings with people I know could be very beneficial to me as well. I am going to be hosting them at different times each week so that everyone has a chance to participate if they want, and I will post the times a week ahead. There will also be links to other online OA meetings in case you can’t make mine.

After a lot of reflection, it felt like I was stagnating on The Unlikely Triathlete. I felt as if the blog had become too much like so many others, where I am obsessively focusing on food and the numbers on the scale, and whining all the time about how hard things have been. There are a few entries on here that were so negative and so missing the point; I wasn’t focused on recovery at all, I was focused on a useless number. And as I looked back I realized that what I wanted was to reinvent my online persona and to start fresh with new concentrations and new goals.

I probably could have done that on this same blog, but the truth is, I don’t identify with the title of “triathlete” anymore. I may participate in some triathlons this year, if all goes well, but it’s not my main focus, and the name doesn’t really seem to fit me like it used to. It feels limiting. I want to be something else,and to say something else, and I really felt like it was time to let go of the tool that had gotten me this far, because it’s just not working for me anymore.

So I hope that in a few weeks, when the time comes, that you folks will be there to support me on the new blog and the new identity. I am really excited about it; I feel like I am moving in a direction that is far more aligned with what I think is important and what my focus should be as someone in recovery. I hope to see you all on the other side. :)