I finally had DH take some pictures of me at 190. If I get some time to post a “before and after” side-by-side, I will. 

Last week I weighed myself and I was 188.5. Whoa! That’s only about 20 lbs. above my “low weight.” Maybe I will take up the cause and try to get back down there.

Still no wheat. I got lazy about checking for gluten in cafeteria soups for a while, and then they started to put signage on the soups and they ALL had gluten, and I got mad and disgusted and started bringing my lunch again. Oh, Au Bon Pain. I thought you were cool. Why do you need to put wheat in tomato soup? Because it’s a cheap way to thicken it, that’s why.

I’m being lax these days. Eating ice cream more often than I should, especially while it’s not causing weight gain (whoopee!!). I ate between meals for a while, which I consider to be a problem as it makes my appetite wonky. I noticed that my dark circles got darker, and I was feeling grumpier, so I reduced the carbs and added more fat and voila! Happier again.

Dr. Oz had Dr. William Davis, the author of Wheat Belly, on the show yesterday. It was great to see Dr. Davis make a solid, empirical argument against wheat. Maybe Ol’ Oz will have my hero, Gary Taubes, back on, and be nice to him. Here’s what Gary Taubes said about his visit to TV-land, which affirms my position that Dr. Oz is a total media whore. Even on the teaser for his show with Dr. Davis, it says, “Could dropping wheat help you lose 15 pounds in 30 days?” UGGGH. Must you make it into a supermarket tabloid promise? Isn’t it enough that it could solve a lot of your problems and take money out of the pockets of shady people? 

I know, I know. Get off your high horse, Shrinksy.

Anyway, I’m just sort of cruising along, not worrying about losing more weight but not falling off the wagon, either. I’m able to take in some sugar, carefully. I can have some booze, but it makes me dizzy. I eat carbs at dinner, and sometimes at lunch. Christmas season is kind of cool because pretty much all of the weight-gainers (cakes, cookies, etc.) are wheat-based, and so I’m protected. 

I kind of don’t care. Once I fit into a 16, I tend to feel like I’m all set. (But, y’know, I fit into some of my size 14’s too.) :-)

My boss offered to order out for a few of us, which was awfully generous. And the place is a sushi place. A really good sushi place. But:

Soy sauce: gluten.

Katsu curry: gluten.

Udon: gluten.

So I ordered a simple salad and a miso soup. I thought miso was fermented soybean paste. But I’m eating it, and I’m thinking, my stomach is all yucky. Why? Look it up: gluten. Dammit! Why would Asian food have so much gluten? Do they have any wheat in their traditional diet?

Gross.

Imaginary readers! Aaah! It’s so good to see you! OMGeeeee!!!

I’ve been away a long time. Excuses? We bought a house, moved, and had the inlaws staying with us for a week and a half.

Once I got down to 192, I got a bit over-confident about sugar (again). Plus, I was going through some emotional stuff, which made it difficult to eat 3 meals a day, which made it easy to keep losing weight.

When my inlaws were here it seemed like a good idea to drink gin and tonics. And eat chips. And eat between meals, sometimes. I still didn’t eat gluten, because I just have an aversion to it now, but that doesn’t mean everything else I ate was workable.

I got puffy. I got those big dark circles back from under my eyes. My appetite got out of whack. I got a UTI - if that isn’t the body sending a message, I don’t know what is. My sleep got out of whack. My mood got out of whack. I have PMS, which I haven’t had in a while. Skin stuff. And my heart keeps palpitating. Now, I don’t blame all of that on the food. It’s like, stress + poor nutrition = inflammation and a sad bod.

So, what am I doing to address these woes?

1. Bone broth! Lots of minerals back in the bod. Also, I hear it helps with yeast, which is good because I just got off antibiotics for the UTI, and you know the deal. So far so good. About a cup in the morning. Today was the first.

2. Veggies in every meal.

3. Back to the no-carbs-until-dinner thing.

4. Back to the no-sugar-whatsoever thing, until Saturday night, when we’re going to some friends’ house for dinner. I want to be able to have a bit of ice cream if they have it.

5. Sleep is mostly back to normal. Oh, sleep, you are my friend.

6. Walking outside and getting sunlight during my workday.

As I’ve been adding back these healthy ways, my skin has gotten sooo much better. Dark circles are less dark. Mood has calmed down. PMS has quieted.

I’ve been reading The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf. I think he makes a lot of great points, and I like his style. I get a bit bored by the science part, since I’m already sold on it, but I will say that I was fascinated to hear about the difference between hunter-gatherer bones and agricultralists’ bones:

Apparently, archaeologists can tell by looking at a skeleton whether it belonged to hunter-gatherers or people who eat farmed food. The agriculturalists have more stuff wrong with them. More illness, more cavities, weaker bones/more osteopenia, all kinds of bad stuff. And the HG’s look healthy.

Cool, huh?

Once the Blessed Event comes, I’ll weigh myself again and post some pictures. New house, new pics. See you soon!

I really owe you some pictures.

196.5!

Here are the rationalizations I have given to myself this week:

1. I’m losing weight too fast; I should probably eat some ice cream.
2. Maybe sugar is not a problem for me. I guess there’s one way to find out!
3. I’m over-sensitizing myself to all of these foods; I don’t want to be That Kind of Person; so I’d better git to eatin’.
4. It’s just a lot of annoying effort to try and analyze the menu to make sure I don’t get any gluten.
5. It’s embarrassing.
6. Bacon is not supposed to have sugar in it. So, surely, it doesn’t have that much sugar.
7. These Paleo people talk so strict, but they all have areas where they cheat  - dairy, sugar, etc. The Paleo Mom makes CUPCAKES, for God’s sake! So if even the experts don’t do it perfectly, why should I?
8. I mean, if Whole Foods makes it, it has to be OK.
9. That last cheat wasn’t what I really wanted. So it doesn’t count.

Here’s what happened:

1. I got sick last week and my body just wanted everything sugary-carby. My resolve weakened. 
2. Then, Wednesday was my husband’s birthday, and we went to Mexican food. If I remember correctly, it was my suggestion. Instead of having 5-10 chips, I had a bucket of chips - as if a roaring monster were inside my belly, demanding MORE. Then I ate chicken mole, which had a lot of crap in it, and wasn’t that good anyway. Oh, then count a couple of sips off my husband’s sugary coconut birthday drink.
3. Then, since that was fun, I took a day off work on Thursday and ate a whole pint of Haagen-Dazs. Why? I was thinking: I can’t help it. I have to have a treat sometime. Oh, and I was also thinking: Don’t people do this in movies sometimes? It has to be normal. It’s something people joke about - eating the whole pint of ice cream. It’s, like, a girl thing - right?
4. Then, yesterday, we went out for lunch and I got a Caesar salad. I didn’t eat the croutons. Still, walked away feeling icky. I think gluten was involved.
5. Then, we went out for dinner. Now, we had been supposed to go the night before, and I’d saved up all my “cheat” urges for that night. But my parents cancelled, because my stepmom was sick. So we went last night, and I got: 2 cocktails, 2 meatballs, some broccoli, and some fries. You’d think that would be no big deal. Then I got a small ice cream, because it came from the place where I’d wanted to get all the previous ice creams. I didn’t even really want it, but because I knew I was going to get back on the horse soon, I ate it jealously, like it was going to be shipped off to war in the morning.

Here are the consequences:

1. Itchy face, nose, eyes, arms, back, knees, feet. Itchy all over. Torturously itchy.
2. Full. Overly full for the first time since, maybe, March.
3. CRAVINGS. God damn it seems like a good idea to eat sugar.
4. Fear. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get off this slippery slope.

I think the subject of “getting back on the horse” should be written about more often. So, I’m going to do that this week. I need something to hold me up, some sense of accountability. I need a Shrinksy Betty Ford clinic.

This morning I ate bacon for breakfast. I was totally full from last night, and I decided not to do the leptin reset/50g protein thing. However, the bacon had sugar in it. Whole Foods’ bacon has sugar in it. Christ. Really?

It’s a quiet day at work, so I might get a salad from this place nearby that does gluten-free, healthy-dealthy, organic stuff. I think that will be an OK choice.

For dinner I may forgo starch. Is that too much of a swing in the other direction? I just want to get un-itchy and un-guilty ASAP. I’m definitely going to skip the after-dinner dark chocolate.

Crap. I’m sick.

Now, I never get that sick. I get, like, “oh-I’m-not-sure-I’m-sick-enough-to-stay-home-but-when-I’m-at-work-I-feel-like-doo-doo” sick. But as long as I’m maxin’ and relaxin’, I’m OK. Just really tired. And really, really thirsty. And hot and cold in my body, though the thermometer never registers a fever. That’s what I mean when I say I don’t get that sick - it’s not like I’m puking my brains out and dealing with a fever of 103. It’s just, like, I feel wrong.

When I’m sick, though, I want carbs. I think it’s because I’m just so tired, and my body is asking for quick energy. And so, that’s partly how I determine that I’m sick - if my appetite is off.

Last night was my fella’s birthday, and we went out for Mexican food. I had a lot of chips. I supplemented with guacamole - my theory was, add good fat and mitigate the chips. Plus, it’s tasty.

Today, I don’t plan to eat non-routine food - in other words I’m staying on the Shrinksy Plan for the day - but I’m going to supplement with sleep and yoga and maybe some sunshine.

I’m not going to weigh for a while, because I don’t want to get disappointed if the numbers aren’t still trending downwards. Maybe after AF comes in a couple of weeks.

As they say in WW, “One-derland!”

I’m as surprised as anyone.

I’ve been adding a few things back in. The current protocol is:

- Never eating between meals

- Good fat (olive oil, coconut oil, grassfed dairy, or fat from humanely raised meat) included in every meal, which helps satiation, skin health, and probably a bunch of other things I can’t see

- Starch at only one meal per day, with rare exceptions

- White rice and potatoes are OK now, as long as they’re minor players on my food team. I got afraid that I wasn’t getting enough carbs, because I wasn’t eating anything starchy except sweet potatoes. And I mean, sweet potatoes are cool, but they’re not THAT special. The reason Paleo people eschew grains is that they contain compounds in them that are bad for you. So, my thinking is (and I’ve read this by posters on Mark’s Daily Apple) that brown rice may be worse than white rice because it has the original hull on it, which contains all the baddies. I don’t know. That’s what I think. It’s kind of an intuitive thing. I was feeling kind of achy and acidic in my joints, hence adding back some carbs.

- A piece of dark (53%) chocolate after dinner. A few strawberries with some whipped cream (pasture-raised, whipped by me with a little honey) can replace the chocolate if that’s more appealing. I’m a little cautious about the whipped cream thing because the honey causes me to have that fiendish feeling of wanting a lot more.

- A glass of wine on Friday night, a drink on Saturday OR Sunday but not both.

- Fries at restaurants. I would prefer sweet potato fries, but the ones at restaurants seem to be covered in crunchy stuff, which I suspect is wheat of some kind.

- Wheat is the devil. No wheat. That’s the one thing that I wouldn’t have now, even if you told me it was sanctioned somehow. I can have a bit of sugar and be OK, but if I have a little bit of wheat (in a gravy, for example) I feel dizzy and itchy. I suspect it’s the gluten. So - no wheat.

One noticeable change: Without gluten in my life, I’m more sensitive to EVERYTHING. Sounds, other people’s feelings, light, etc. It’s like, whereas before I was able to process A and B, my senses now tell me ABCDE. It’s sometimes difficult. Like, I don’t want to look at screens right now; they seem buzzy and uncomfortable and wrong. And of course, I am not able to avoid screens. But I keep taking walks outside and doing yoga and trying to keep up with what my body’s asking for. I suspect all of this sounds really odd, but you might as well know what I’m going through in case some of you go through it too.