It's been an amazing revelation about food, specifically carbs, and the effect it has on my mental and physical health. BUT, it's had no carbs. Like none. Okay, 20g a day--which is equivalent to a 1/2 cup of strawberries. This has been difficult. Not without its rewards, but difficult. So when I went to Cleveland for a week, it felt like it was time to stop feeling so terrible about "cheating" on carbs and for the first time in a long time, I just accepted that I was going to eat a bunch of bread and sugar and I was going to love it.
And I did.
I always do. It's like the best energy wrapped inside a hug wrapped inside a firework display. Especially after months of little to no sugar, bread, refined grains, anything truly delicious in the deep and creepy but mystifying depths of my soul--it was heaven. Life cereal has never tasted so much like the world's best, most decadent dessert. Except what I've built physically for the past four months--a well-oiled fat burning machine (sort of)--doth protesteth. While I was unregretfully eating potato chips, doritos, and puff pastry danish (DELICIOUS), I had a constant, throbbing, often skull-splitting headache of epic proportions. So, I was also on a cocktail of advil and...well...okay, not so much a cocktail as just advil religiously every couple hours. But I persevered and hit all the carb niches including white rice, bread, refined carbs, refined sugar, and whatever else you got that has any of the above. And I gave myself permission to do it; the challenge is not in giving permission but returning to the original plan.
So on my way back from
I was mesmerized for 6 hours listening to what was a little group therapy, a little love and pep talk, a little bit technical how-to, and just generally awesomeness. It made me realize I need to get that podcast regularly. It also made me realize that, in a lot of ways, I've been going about this all wrong. Of course.
But I wouldn't have if I had known.
There's so much out there about dieting: crash dieting, keto dieting, low-carb, paleo, macros, no-macros, keto-macros...the list goes on forever. In the 1950s, if you wanted to lose weight you cut out Manhattan's one day a week and stood on the machine with the belt that jiggled your belly away. Today if you want to lose weight you have to be a metabolism ninja, an endrocrinologist, a guru of macro-nutrient effects and counter-effects. You have to know what phytoestrogens are (although that spelling looks not right). I find myself wishing I'd paid closer attention in biology-cum-anatomy in high school when we went over the adrenal glands and the importance of the thyroid.
It's a lot.
And in many ways, I've been a keto fool. But what I'm realizing is that I learn something new everyday and that I would've loved (and still would love) to see someone talking about all of this when I was obsessively researching all of this...and still do. Maybe that's something I can do.
A little humor. A little "naturally found" knowledge...via Google. A little bit of product review...a little bit of cautionary tale with a little bit of humor.
Since I've tried everything and stuck with almost nothing...maybe that's the story I have to tell.
Why do I keep looking for a good ending when what I really love is the story about how we got there?
