20 Days of Low Carbin'

Twenty days is...about an eighteenth of a year. It's very close to three weeks, and well over 300 waking hours. Over the past 20 days I've stayed away from sugar, flour, wheat, corn, rice, oats, beans, starchy veggies,artificial sweeteners, and even fruit (I've had a few tomatoes if you want to be technical, but no 'sweet' fruits). I don't think that all of those foods are 'bad', but I'm taking a break from them to see if the lower carb/good-calories-bad-calories theories work for me.(spoiler alert: it does.)

I do eat chicken (sauteed, grilled, tandoori),cauliflower, almonds, almond butter, cream cheese, sausage, cheddar cheese, feta, mozzarella, kale, spinach, olive oil, butter, steak, green beans, crab, scallops, eggs, mayonnaise, olives, gyro meat, salmon, pesto, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, bacon, sopressata, babybel cheese, pickles, mushrooms, greek salad, pork tenderloin, cucumbers, bleu cheese, and avocados. And other stuff, of course, but that list covers a lot of the food I really enjoy.

I'm not sure how much of those foods I'm eating daily; I'm not measuring or tracking. I'm for sure eating what an outside observer would likely call decent-sized and sometimes even large meals. Because I have a lifetime of both failed and successful dieting in my past, I have trouble with the not-counting from time to time. I find myself checking the number of fiber grams on the bag of almonds I keep at my desk, or I'm temped to put all the food I had yesterday into My Fitness Pal 'just to see'- but so far I've let it go. Sort of. Tonight I had a pre-dinner appetizer of cheese and olives and then while I was eating my actual dinner I started asking myself if I really 'needed' the appetizer. Was I still hungry when I had a little no-sugar 'dessert' of almond butter and cream cheese? Maybe a little, but maybe I just wanted a treat. I still think that no matter how I eat, probably for the rest of my life, I'll always have those nagging guilty feelings.

What is wonderful, though, about eating this way is that I can say for sure without any self-talk or BS, is that after I had the dessert of almond butter and cream cheese (about 3 tablespoons total mixed together in a ramekin) I was FULL. Satisfied. Done. The opposite of hungry. The more familiar pattern for me, prior to lower carb eating, was basically forcing myself to think I was full after eating, say, three or four fiber one bars in a row followed by a yogurt and cereal, a couple weight watcher 2 pts bars, and maybe a piece of chocolate or some light ice cream. And all of that AFTER a full plate of supper.

When I eat carbs I am never satisfied. When I eat very little carbohydrates, but eat plenty of protein, green vegetables, and fats, I am full. It feels good- and also weird, kinda. It's like at 36 I suddenly discovered a new skill that I never knew I had. At 37 I will discover the waist I never knew I had, and I plan to do it while feeling just like this.

Weigh in Saturday.