The Donettes and The Damage Done

Well, friends, I did it. I faced the music, I paid the piper, I looked my self in the eye, slid the dusty scale out from under the sink and stood on it. Today is the first day of summer and just like every day, it's also the first day of the rest of my life.

To recap my 2014 weight loss: Jan 2- April 22: Lost 34 lbs. Keto diet. During April I was doing Bullet Proof Coffee in the AM and fasting through dinner time. For the last two months I've been on a rollercoaster of fuck-it-blatant-carb-eating (pastry in the morning on my way to work; ice cream on the weekends, french fries) followed by a return to 'induction' for a day or two. I've added some physical activity over the last month but I wasn't getting back to the rhythm of low-carb/keto that works for me. I've felt bloated and ashamed.

This past Monday I went back to it, started tracking on My Fitness Pal, and I'm starting to feel better. Today was a 'weigh in day' and I decided not to skip it.  I am up 7 pounds. 7 lbs. I lost 34 lbs in 3.5 months and gained seven in 2 months and now I'm at 27 down for the year and 35 total since my original start.

I feel okay with that.
I feel motivated by that.
I'm confident that my body responds to low-carb eating.
I'm confident that by August 1st I will be down 40+ lbs in 2014 because I'm going back to work.

Have a good weekend, and for anyone who is in a slump or afraid to look at the scale- just do it. It may not be as bad as you think and it just might get you to kick your own ass. HAPPY SUMMER!!

the furnace in my ass

I figured since I've been posting so sporadically, I'd better go with a 'clickbait' title. The title is just okay, but that picture of a vintage furnace is really spectacular.

For reals, though, I have been moving more in the last week- some walks down on the strand, a trip to the gym, another walk around the neighborhood. I had the not-so-earth-shattering thought on my way to my car this morning that just by adding a few days of moderate exercise to my week I'm activating my body to process calories and burn fat. I can feel my body temperature rising, my muscles have that 'good ache', I'm sleeping better, and the bloat is lessening.

Today is day TWO back on low carb/keto. I am thrilled to be able to say I've logged two full days on MyFitnessPal. While I was flailing around over the last month with sugar, bread, rice, cheap milk chocolate, cinnamon roll french toast at IHOP, and other even more cringe-worthy foods, I started to have those 'maybe I should just eat in moderation' thoughts.  But then, after burping up a mouthful of chocolate ice cream Sunday night and spending a day and half feeling absolutely gross because of the cycle of overeating that starts when I allow myself simple carbs, I scrapped that idea.  I started looking at Poonapalooza's clean eating logs, I visited Carbtripper's site, and I even paid good old Craig from ruled.me for his latest downloadable cookbook (it's called keto-fied! and it's pretty good). Finally, I went over to reddit and looked at some keto photo friday before-and-afters.

This way of eating works for me, and I have to do it every day. I lost over 30 lbs in three months, and now I'm halfway through the 6th month of the year and haven't looked at the scale since April. Time slips by so fucking easily when you're feeling bad about your choices, so I'm writing again tonight because I won't stop. I also realized that even if it's not exactly 'how' I'll lose the pounds, I know that I feel better when I light the furnace- so exercise will happen at least four days per week.

Thanks so much for your comments and check-ins; I appreciate it so much.  I was down but not out, and there is another half a year of 2014 that I won't let slide by. Off to catch up on your blogs and posts...Have a good week.

Blogging while Failing is Important, Too...

So last time I posted I acknowledged that I went off the rails, skipped my weigh-in on May 2, and planned to get back to business by facing the music on Monday the 12th. Welp, that didn't happen. I kept eating haphazardly through the weekend and was scared to weigh myself on the 12th. Scared might be a little extreme- in denial, ashamed, 'not ready'- all of the above.

Today is the first day in a little while I've made it past 1pm without eating a simple carb. Today I drank a fat-laden coffee in the morning, and had a nice Cobb salad for lunch. This week I've eaten several types of sugary candy, a pack of donettes from the gas station (you know the kind), and last night I made a big bowl of popcorn AFTER eating half a pint of Ben and Jerry's. Crazy. Train. Adam and I both have spent the last week or so making promises like a couple of old addicts. 'Seriously tomorrow I'm back at it'. 'This is my last day of drinking'. 'Ugh I don't even feel good; I have to get with the program'- again, you know the lines. We've both apologized to each other for being 'the bad one', but of course we're only responsible for ourselves.

When this shit started happening (aaaand catching myself)- sorry, when I STARTED DOING THIS KIND OF STUFF around this time last year, I slid into many months of denial and futzing around with food, mood, and stretchy pants. I stopped blogging, I didn't weigh myself, I didn't track. Today is May 15th and in a week I will (I WILL) see what's what on the scale. My next weigh-in and last weigh-in will be 30 days apart and I have the next seven days to put one foot in front of the other so that when I do open my eyes, I will have a week behind me that I am proud of. Then every ten days, I will do it again. And again. And again.

I had almost four solid months of breakthrough weight-loss (34 POUNDS!!) with a keto diet, and I am not throwing it away. Writing helps; even though I feel ridiculous for going back on my promises to myself, I'm here.  It's easy to check in and update when I'm on plan, losing lbs, posting to Pinterest, and feeling morally superior; it's not as easy when my teeth hurt from eating twizzlers and I feel like a failure. So like the (sugar free, obvs) Kool-Aid man, I'll bust through this wall. Thanks, friends.

Two Week Break from Real Life

I just had a bender of a fortnight, and I wanted to say hello and share.

Two days after my 110 days of keto/April 22rd weigh-in, my brother Kevin came into town from Massachusetts. It was a bit of an impromptu trip yet somehow we managed to fit in a cruiser bike bar crawl, many dinners out, two local open mic performances (Kevin, not me), one Lebowskifest, one Rodrigo y Gabriela concert, two overnight trips -up to Yosemite for the giant sequoias and to Solvang for wine tasting-, and a stroll through the Grammy Museum. There were also lots of laughs and hanging out at the apartment on the balcony. It was a pretty sweet trip. I ended up taking four days off of work and it feels strange to be back to normal- but I gotsta straighten up.

Here's the update on my eating and tracking- I went off the beaten path. I didn't drown myself in cookies and wonder bread, but I did what I truly thought I wouldn't do in 2014- I ate actual flour and sugar and I had more than three beers in one day (twice or three times).  It was definitely not a face-first dive- I eased in to the deep end over the past two weeks and over the weekend hit bottom with three slices of garden variety doughy pizza. Yep. A nice dinner last Wednesday involved pork belly over white beans (yum..carby beans) but I sternly avoided the bread basket. My 'one bite' of someone else's real sugar desserts the first week of the visit turned into several bites during week 2. Ordering a cobb salad at a Mexican restaurant instead of enchiladas was admirable, but somehow I ended up drinking three margaritas during that meal. I was supposed to weigh in at 120 days this past Friday but I decided to give myself a Bye Week. (bi week? by week? bai week?).  My next weigh-in is Monday the 12th and I won't skip it- I have to see what happened.

How does it feel to go off the Keto Plan? Not great. My fingers and face feel puffier and I imagine I've put on some weight. I'm also hungry- the BPC mornings and air sandwiches until dinner schedule was effective and pretty empowering -but now I'm starving by noon.

My plan is to eat myself back into ketosis and return to tracking on My Fitness Pal. That's all. It's been fun and I'm not mad about it, but I'm ready to eat bacon and lose weight again.

Hope you guys are slogging through!

Day Late Weight Update!

Stock Photo of Dude with 34-lb Carp

First, thanks to anyone who read, commented, or identified with my last post. This shizz is not easy, but our motley crue of determined bloggers, self-effacing strugglers, smiling recipe-collectors, and prolific selfie-posters is SUCH a wonderful community to be a part of.

Gotta get to work so I'll cut to the chase- weigh in was Tuesday morning as planned. 110 days of low carb/high fat and I saw yet another loss- down 3 POUNDS and now at 34 since my 2014 start; 42 grand total from Oct 2012. I'm also on a nice streak- haven't slowed down or stopped in awhile.

Over the previous 10 days before Tuesday I did get myself to the gym three times, and during the week I've also been keeping to my fat coffee morning, no lunch afternoon, and nice dinner evening eating regimen. I reset my MyFitnessPal calorie goal to 1800 net daily, and I've stayed pretty close to my goal. I'm still drinking on more nights of the week than I should, and I do have a couple squares of 85% or higher dark chocolate at least 3-4 times per week, but I'm not binging or obsessing- this just the way I eat now.

So I've got a busy week-and-a-half ahead- my brother is coming to visit; we plan to do some day-tripping and a good amount of eating in restaurants, but I don't have any fears about how or what I'll choose along the way. Bunless burgers, cheese, almonds, macadamia nuts, salads, avocados, bacon-wrapped anything, and glasses of dry red wine...it's all good.

Past Success and Never Giving Up

On Tuesday I'll weigh myself and report back to this blog. Tuesday will mark 110 days of keto; straight on through- no breaks or cheat days or 'I'm restarting tomorrow'. I'm coming up on 16 weeks; almost 4 months. I can't help but hearken back to being on other 'diets' and surprising myself by actually tracking my food for a month straight, or hitting 5-6 weeks of attendance and points-counting.  While many eating plans 'work'- my binge-prone, pre-diabetic, insulin-drenched system was not a good match for the USDA food pyramid coupled with limits.

Thanks to keto, this is the first time in a very, very long time I see myself following through and actually changing my body in a significant way. My biggest personal 'success story' was in college when I lost just over 100 lbs- I did it with the boldness and vigor of a 21-year-old because, well, that's what I was. The mid-nineties were still all about Low Fat, so I combined low fat eating with calorie-counting and lots of gym workouts. I'd estimate that I was approximately ten times as physically active as I am now with my commuter/desk job/homebody lifestyle. Ha. There was this magical period between the end of junior year and the start of senior year when I was, for lack of a more politically correct term, 'normal' sized.  I bought a pair of pants from American Eagle- just like a garden variety mall shopper!-, I cut and dyed my hair, and I cautiously started interacting with actual human boys. It was fun; however, due to my inability to adjust from a nonsexual friend character to a woman who flirts and thinks about sexytimes, most of those interactions were beyond awkward. Partying, getting through Senior Year, and resting on my laurels led to the weight creeping back on even before graduation. Moving out to Los Angeles on my own at 22- working three jobs, living with roommates, eating lots of cereal and fast food- led to a full regain of the 100 lbs and a few extra for good measure.

The second successful run was when I was about 29. My friend Lisa had invited me on a group trip to Belize, I was finished with an awful excuse for a relationship, I was living on my own in a single apartment, and I was ready to stop the insanity. (One example of said insanity was the fact that the Domino's guy knew me and my regular order of a 16" cheese plus cinnamon bread alllll too well.  He sometimes brought me free Diet Coke. Yep.) On that run of weight-loss I think I lost about 70 lbs and was within 40 lbs of that 'normal' size that I hit in college. Because I was more comfortable in my skin, I carried it well and gained a lot of confidence. To be perfectly frank, I am not sure exactly what diet I was following when I was losing. I think it was a combo of Weight Watchers and lots of cardio (I still have a pair of barely-used women's size xl shiny running shorts in my drawer that I will wear again). I also don't remember gaining the weight back, but I did.

In the nine years since, I've had many weight-related ups and downs- lost 25 before my wedding in 2010, quickly gained about 50 during my first year of marriage, and then took off 30 and put it right back. In the last few years I've been so overweight I needed a seatbelt extender on a plane- in first class. At one point in 2012 I wore black yoga pants to work almost every day because none of my size 24 pants would fit me; I refused to buy a 26.

Despite the highs and lows and the embarrassment of size 3X stretchy pants, I've never given up hope that I will live out my days as a Not-Markedly-Overweight Person. I've never stopped trying. I just know I have it in me. Like Tony Posnanski wrote in a recent blog post, fat people are not lazy. The thing to remember is that all of the inspirational bloggers we love are where they are now because they believed in themselves at their HIGHEST WEIGHT; they were called to action and started kicking ass at 420, 350, 280, 196- they didn't become awesome after they lost their weight; they were always awesome. I'm going to that success story level again, and I'll do it before 40.  Thanks so much for your support.

Happy Easter!

100 Days of Keto- overview, weigh-in, hot pictures

This morning I reached 100 days of ketogenic eating and I was more than thrilled to see a -5 lb loss on the scale. I actually got on and off it three times because I couldn't believe it. I wasn't expecting 5 down in 10 days. This brings me to 31 pounds GONE since January 2nd.

If you're fat and tired of it, I highly recommend you back away from oatmeal, frozen dinners, healthy choice soups, 40-calorie white bread, Special K, and yes, even the apples and bananas of your youth. Reach for burgers, avocados, butter and oven-baked bacon. It will seem CRAZYTOWN at first, but you will flip the switch on weight loss. The other thing that struck me this morning is that this is one of the few times in my life I've stayed with something for more than three months, and I haven't paid anyone a dime. No pre-packaged anything, no meetings, no electronic dongles (I really enjoy the word dongle)- you just use the magical internet for inspiration and cook yourself stuff like this:

delicious-right?

For more info, reddit's keto FAQ is solid. Craig from ruled.me and this Swedish dude are also fonts of wisdom. Finally, this document is also an amazing, free, concise overview of what to do if you want to eat this way. When I first started I ate almost exactly like the linked eating plan- I didn't count calories and  stayed at 20-25 net carbs daily- eggs, butter, bacon for breakfast; salad with dressing and protein for lunch, meat and veggies for dinner. I ate until I was full and stayed away from grains and sugar. For the first few weeks I also stayed away from diet sodas and sugar substitutes- I recommend going as long as you can with no 'sweet tastes' when you first start; it makes the transition quite a bit easier.

After a month or so, I started adding too many 'extras' in the way of almonds between meals, cream cheese/splenda based desserts, and my dinners were pretty big. Despite the claims of 'you don't have to count calories'-yeah you do. If you look at a lot of the success stories of keto folks on reddit, even the big dudes are cutting their intake down to 1500-2000 calories per day. I believe in the science that explains how my body processes food in different ways- i.e. 3 eggs fried in a tbsp of butter which is about 300 calories keeps me full for 5 hours but a 300 calorie scone makes me hungry 7 minutes after I chomp it down. However, I also believe in calorie counting and that you must have a caloric deficit to drop weight. After a short stall, I started tracking with MyFitnessPal, and I'm now at over 70 days of solid tracking. A month ago I also switched things further when I started drinking bulletproof coffee in the AM and fasting through dinner. I've stuck to that eating schedule Mon-Fri for the past month, and if you look at my weigh-ins, you will see that since I've had my best month yet when it comes to pounds off.

I have a long, long way to go- I still have over 100 lbs to lose just to get under 200 lbs, but I am more motivated than I've been in a very long time to keep going. I'm motivated by the numbers on the scale, by my tight jeans becoming clown pants, by the way I look and feel- and I'm also proud of myself for stringing all of these days together. This past week has been about as tough as things get personally, but I didn't 'eat my feelings', I didn't abandon my New Year's resolution; I'm still going strong and I will be keto-ing no matter what into 2015.

Here is a comparison shot October 2013 vs. April 2014:

Can I rock a 'Joan' look for Halloween?

Happy but not comfortable