So, what are you eating?

That's what most people ask when they realize I've lost weight. Having tried so many times to lose with no success, it would be my question, too.

I read the book 20/20- Lifestyles; Metabolic Cure by Mark Dedomenico. Dr. Dedomenico works at a local gym, offering the book along with a full program of exercise, nutrional support, and counseling. I just read the book. I ordered it from my all-time favorite used book shop, www.betterworldbooks.org. I actually scoffed at the plan at first. A friend was trying it and I thought it looked like just another route to the usual diet catch-22. Starve myself, lose no weight, then gain some more once I eat heartily. No thanks.

But then she lost two clothing sizes and I thought I'd better read the book all the way through.

The book suggests following several stages in your eating. I was already eating a very low carb diet, so I chose to begin at the stage just below what I was accustomed to.

For breakfast, I have a protein smoothie, made with plain Jarrow whey protein (from Amazon), frozen bananas, other fruits or flavors, and skim milk. The program recommends using berries only, which is what I did at the outset. For variety, I have tried frozen mangoes (especially good with raspberries, which tend to have the worst seeds) as well as a tropical fruit medley my grocery store offers. I've tried the chocolate flavor, which is especially good with decaffeinated coffee ice cubes and low-fat cottage cheese. I occasionally make a vanilla smoothie with vanilla-flavored powder I found locally. I use an extra half-banana and plain ice in that one.

Lunch is almost always a mixed-greens salad with homemade dressing (balsamic vinegar, evoo, garlic, and a smidge of honey and mustard which helps it emulsify). I add 4 to 6 ounces of very lean protein--usually steak tenderloin--and a few other veggies, such as grape tomatoes, cucumber chunks, chopped peppers, olives, and so on. Dessert is a cup of fresh raspberries.

Most dinners consist of a grilled meat and steamed vegetable. Occasionally I'll make a recipe like Beef Stroganoff without the usual noodles. If I choose a dish that involves more than simply grilling some meat, I try to choose low-fat ingredients, but for the most part I strive for portion control. No more than 6 ounces of very lean protein, lots of vegetables.

And I always have about an ounce of dark chocolate afterwards.

About once a week, when I'm either really hungry or low on supplies, I'll eat some cheese (Beecher's Flagship) and water crackers, which satisfies that need for crunch and cream that is so missing in the world of dieting. Another snack I enjoy from time to time is a Honeycrisp apple with a tablespoon or two of chunky Adams peanut butter.

And of course, I occasionally fall off the wagon. Yesterday we were invited to lunch with Dave's parents. I happily enjoyed a bowl of cream of potato soup and half of a ham sandwich and half of a turkey sandwich. I didn't turn down the delicious dessert. I find I can do that now and then with no consequences. But I suppose doing it daily would be a problem, especially with the dessert.

The other big change to my diet is that I can drink an adult beverage from time to time. Ten years ago I was sure I'd tasted alcohol for the last time. Today I can drink a glass of wine with dinner or have a cocktail (gin and vodka still the safest) with friends. I think the meds make it possible, and that the mouth-guard also makes a difference. I still try to have as much water as alcohol shortly afterwards.

Sleep apnea and migraines?

This week I picked up my custom-fitted mouth guard, which should help my sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a common migraine trigger, so I'm hoping for improvement on that front as well. In fact, one article I read suggested that the apnea is an underlying CAUSE of migraines. Really??

Hmmm. Is there a relationship between sleep apnea and gaining a ridiculous amount of weight all your life even though you don't eat that much. Why, yes, there is.

What about depression? Do people with sleep apnea tend to have chronic depression? Yes.

OK, so what about ADHD? I have that, too. Is it relate--holy cow, that's related too!

But I bet the IBS isn't related. How could it be? IT IS.

Holy cow.

Wellbutrin

I visited my PCP last week to talk about ending my prescription for Nortriptyline.

My concerns about the Nortrip (can I abbreviate it?) are that it seems to contribute to weight gain, the dry-mouth is annoying and causes dental issues, and I'd like to be able to try ADHD medicine.  I confessed that the weight-loss side effect of ADHD medicines really appeals to me.

I also explained to my doctor that I become a different person when I visit the desert.  I eat less, sleep better, have the desire to work out, and am generally more productive and busy.  Here in Seattle I sit in my recliner and get fat.

She recommended Wellbutrin.  Like Nortrip it is an anti-depressant that also helps alleviate migraines.  It's also effective for ADHD symptoms and for SAD.  So if it works, it's basically the magic pill I've been looking for.

But it was a scary start.  Side effects include thoughts of suicide or suicide, grouchiness, and, of all things, MIGRAINES.  But when it works, it's great.

So far, it seems to be working.  I've been aided by a week of warm, clear weather so there haven't been any issues with the barometer.  I'm sticking to my lo-carb diet so that there are no headaches due to sugar or wheat.

Audrey Swims

I returned home from that blissful week in Palm Desert determined to fight Seattle's climate.

In the desert I am the real me.  I rise early.  I keep the room clean.  I eat less.  I look forward to exercise.

I want to do all that here at home.

Yesterday, I drove down to the new YMCA in Newcastle and joined.  I challenged myself to swim four laps in the pool...and I did it.  I made a chart to track my weight and exercise so that I can set goals and brag about my improvements.

Wish me luck.

Why gluten-free diets work

"Some people are convinced that their general health improves when they stay away from gluten. Though the science is still murky on non-celiac gluten sensitivity, recent studies in Italy and Australia found that significant numbers of patients with intestinal problems felt better with gluten-free diets, even if they had no indications of celiac disease or wheat allergy."

http://theweek.com/article/index/242263/is-going-gluten-free-healthier-for-everybody

New Year's Status

I weighed myself yesterday and found that I'd put on an entire pound eating carbs during the holidays.  That's something I can live with.

Remember that I mentioned my headaches getting so much worse as fall rolled in and the clouds descended?  I realized that I'd switched to coffee and wondered if that had caused the pain.  I switched back to tea and within a day noticed a difference.  I am simply not getting headaches.

So to re-cap, the magic formula has been no carbs (elimination of both gluten and sugar) and no coffee.  I drink 2 or 3 cups of black tea each day.  And I feel great.

Oh, and there's a wee side benefit:  I've lost 13 pounds since July.

Sustainability

One of my friends, on reading a recent post, asked, "Is that way of eating sustainable?"

To my surprise, the answer is "Yes!"

I've been avoiding carbs since July.  Occasionally I have a hankering for some coffee cake or a bowl of cereal, but otherwise this diet offers something other diets don't:  satisfaction.

When I ate low-fat, high-fiber diets, I was always hungry, always looking through the cupboards for something low in calories to eat.  I felt deprived.  I obsessed about food, always thinking about my next meal, my next snack.

On this eating plan, I eat my fill at each meal.  I know I can have as much as I want.  When snack time rolls around, I enjoy a handful of nuts, or an apple (dunked in peanut butter sometimes) or a few bites of cheese.

On my birthday, I allowed myself a piece of fresh bread with dinner, and of course ate dessert.  When eating with friends, I split a dessert. As Thanksgiving approaches, I intend to have a spoonful of sweet potatoes, a slice of pie, some stuffing.

Our pantry shelves are gradually emptying out as the kids take away our carbs.  On our son's last visit, he packed up all but one box of pasta.

Packing lunches for work has been easier than I expected.  I pack a sliced apple (is the Honey Crisp Apple the best invention ever?), a little peanut butter for dunking, and last night's leftovers.  If there aren't any leftovers, I pack a few stalks of celery and some tuna salad.  (I avoid taking nuts to school because some kids have severe peanut allergies.)  Sometimes I pack cheese.  It's working.

One factor that helps quite a lot is that my husband and I are both eating this way.  I'd like to say the synergy is what makes it work, but really, the reason it helps is that I'm not buying one set of groceries for him and another for myself.  At mealtimes, we both eat the same thing.

So yes, I can sustain this plan.

Oh, and I've lost eleven pounds.

Six Pounds

I got on the scale this morning, something I try not to do each day, and discovered I've lost six pounds.  This is amazing.

When I devoted my life to fitness and low-fat, high-fiber eating, I lost nine pounds in six months, or a pound and a quarter each month.  And I was exhausted.

I've now lost three pounds per month and I feel pretty good.

Oh, and I cut my nightly dose of nortriptyline in half.

So what do you eat??

My biggest worry about eating no carbs (and let's clear one thing up right away:  I have been eating some low-carb fruit.  I'm eating *virtually* no carbs.  But it's extremely difficult to eat *no* carbs.)

Where was I?

Right--my biggest worry about this eating plan was that I didn't know what I'd eat for my meals.

Breakfast was a challenge.  I had been eating natural peanut butter on whole wheat toast for ages, and was reluctant to give it up.  A friend happened to mention that she ate frozen blueberries on cottage cheese, so I tried it.  I love it!  And eating it each morning is no more or less boring than eating peanut butter on whole wheat toast.  While they are in season, I'm adding fresh raspberries and strawberries.

I usually eat some leftovers for lunch, but worried I wouldn't have enough leftovers.  We keep frozen hamburger patties on hand, and these make the perfect lunch.  I cook mine in my Cuisinart grill (I love this thing), top it with cheddar cheese, and eat it with a sliced tomato or a packet of edamame.  This is so filling and satisfying that I often don't want dinner.

For our dinners, my husband and I are eating many of the same things night after night.  But that's OK for now.  We'll grill some steaks or some salmon (thank you, Costco) with sauteed onions.  Some nights, we throw chicken breasts in the Cuisinart and eat them with peanut sauce.  We are glad we can continue to eat my home-made Caesar salads (my dressing is lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, garlic, parmesan, salt, and pepper).  We keep field greens and tomatoes on hand to make salads with our leftover meat.  Recently I made Beef Stroganoff and served it without the noodles.  Wonderful!  There are other meals that we normally eat over rice or mashed potatoes or pasta that we can still eat:  Chicken Marsala.  Garlic Chicken.  The possibilities are endless, and I expect we will eat them when the weather cools.

If we're not particularly hungry at mealtime, we often make up a batch of tuna salad and eat it with celery.  Of course, celery and peanut butter makes a fine snack.  We eat beef jerky or cheese or nuts.  These snacks are so filling that we seldom find ourselves wanting more.

I still miss juice.  I haven't had soda in ages, and had turned to lemonade and apple juice (cut with half water) to quench my thirst.  Right now it's water, herbal tea, or coffee.  Once I've lost some weight, I will try to add this particular carb back in.

But that's really all I miss.  And I don't miss the headaches.

Can you really live without carbs?

I think many people avoid this diet because it's so hard to imagine life without that familiar bowl of cereal for breakfast.  It's hard to think of a lunch sans sandwich.  And so many wonderful dinner entrees sit on a bed of pasta or rice.  Finally, there's that dessert.  We love our desserts.  Giving all this up sounds hard.

But you know what's hard?  Giving up alcohol was hard.  It's a social activity.  Whenever I got together with co-workers after work, they sneered when I didn't order wine.  They'd ask why I was drinking water or juice.  It feels weird.  But I learned to be brief.  "I have migraines," I'd say.  Then, they'd ask about the headaches instead of my weird beverage choices.

When I confirmed that soy sauce and processed meats really do give me headaches, I thought it would be hard to give them up.  I live in the Pacific Northwest, where we love our teriyaki chicken.  Our family probably got some form of teriyaki take-out three times a month.  Or more.  And giving up processed meats meant giving up those healthy Subway sandwiches that my children loved.  Well, guess what?  Not having headaches is pretty fun, too.

Having my period without the associated migraine is also fun.  And that's what I get from eating no-carb.  Virtually no headaches.

Sure, I miss sugar.  I mainlined hot tea with sugar for years.  But I can drink it without.  I miss my square of dark chocolate after meals.  But I can live without it.  And I really miss fruit juice.  That's going to be the first thing I add back in once I have lost some weight.  But I'm full after each meal.  And if I'm not, I eat a piece of cheese.

I'm not getting headaches.  I can live without the carbs.

Weight loss? Uh, not really.

I remain frustrated with the needle on my scale.

But that's the only problem I have with this carb-free diet.

I've been virtually headache-free since starting it.

I haven't wanted a nap since I started eating this way.

And I feel thinner.  I feel as if clothes are not as tight.  Am I hallucinating?  I don't know.

Two Pounds!

I got a nice surprise this morning on the scale:  244.  I've lost two pounds.

That's about a pound a week, and I'm happy with that.  Remember that in my most recent 'diet' or weight loss attempt I lost nine pounds in six months.  That wasn't even two pounds per month.

And I'm not hungry.  I feel satisfied.  Enjoying celery sticks and peanut butter for lunch.

I did wake with a headache this morning, however.  Clouds had rolled in and the barometer dropped.  Grrr...

Why would anyone believe that eating fat makes you thinner?

You may be wondering why I'm so willing to believe Gary Taubes.  Why I'm so eager to abandon sugar and Nutella and breakfast cereal and cinnamon toast.  And pancakes.

I began 'dieting' (which I'll use as 'trying to lose weight') when I was in high school.  My clothes were getting tighter, and I didn't want to buy bigger clothes.  A friend had an eating plan from her doctor, so I copied it and followed along.  I believe the goal was to eat about 1400 calories per day.  It was an easy 'diet' because I wasn't really overeating.  I'd essentially give up fat and sugar for a few weeks and lose five to ten pounds.

Of course, I gained weight in college.  I gained weight after college.  So after I was married, I decided to get into shape once and for all.  I joined a gym with my sister-in-law.  I abolished fat from our home.  I ate more fresh fruit, more yogurt, more vegetables.  I started at about 150 lbs and got as low as 137.  At 137, my hip bones protruded in a most unattractive way.

But at 137, Dave and I decided to have a child.  I didn't know a person could be so hungry or so tired.  Pregnancy took over every moment of my life.  I drank gallons of milk, ate everything in sight, and gained weight until I weighed about 180 when Kirsten was born.  So I started my weight-loss effort again.  Only this time, nothing happened.

I walked hundreds of miles with Kirsten in her stroller.  I joined a new gym, and worked out in the mornings before going to work.  I think I got down to 165 before deciding I'd just eat healthy--low-fat and high carbs healthy--and try not to gain any weight.

I weighed at least 180 when I got pregnant with Graham four years later.  Oddly, I lost weight early in that pregnancy.  People didn't believe I was pregnant because I appeared to be shrinking.  When Graham was born, I weighed over 200 pounds.

After his birth, however, I lost weight without even trying.  I could eat anything and lose weight.  Graham was a much more vigorous nurser than Kirsten, and I got to breastfeed him for much longer.  And once he was bottle-fed, the pounds came back.

I observed many things during these efforts to lose weight.  First of all, except for during pregnancy, I seldom ate any more than anyone else in the room.  I'd be at lunch with two or three significantly slimmer colleagues, and we'd have the exact same entree.  Yet they were thin and I was fat.  I also thought it was strange that in my childhood, when I was underweight, I ate a steady diet of roasted meats, gravy, whole milk, and lots of butter.  Why was I skinny then, but heavy now?

In 1996 I quit my job at Microsoft and became a stay-at-home-mom.  My first priority was to join a gym and lose all that extra weight.  For six months, I wrote down every morsel of food that passed my lips.  For six months, I went to the gym five times each week, and then walked three miles on the weekend.  After six months, I had lost nine pounds.

I took my steno pad to my doctor, who agreed I should have lost more.  She gave me a prescription to Phentermine for two years.  Phentermine worked *great* and I got down to about 170.  But once I went off the Phentermine, the weight came roaring back...and then some.  I weighed 230 and wore a size 1X.

For the next several years, I just ate what I felt like eating.  And to my surprise, I remained the same size for fifteen years.  I lost a little weight taking Topamax and gained it all back when I switched to Nortriptyline.

So there I was, convinced that low-fat, high carb diets don't work.  I knew that I wasn't overeating, or lying about what I ate.  My mom would come visit and insist I had to do something about my weight.  I'd ask her what I should give up.  I'd eaten exactly what she'd eaten during her stay, and in fact, I'd eaten much more than usual because she always either buys or makes us a luscious dessert during her stays.  She also likes to sit down at 3:30 or 4 for a cup of coffee and something sweet.

So when I read in "Why We Get Fat" that I've been overeating *because* I'm heavy, I'm interested.

No weight loss yet.  Stay tuned.

No more carbs for me

Today marks this blog's re-birth.  Formerly it was simply an accounting of one migraine-related incident:  my NSAID ulcer.  Now, it will chronicle anything and everything related to my headaches.

The big story today is that I've decided to avoid not just sugar, not just gluten, but all carbs.

I came to this decision after reading the book "Why We Get Fat," by Gary Taubes.  In this remarkable book, he cites study after study after study clearly showing that we must eat fat to burn fat.

What?

For eons, we've been told to eat high fiber carbs and low-fat foods.  Turns out that's exactly the wrong thing to eat.

And it may be why I gained so much weight eating high fiber and low-fat.

Guess what else he disproves?  That notion that we must eat fewer calories than we use up each day.  Bad science.

I'm willing to give it a try. 

Starting weight:  246 lbs.  I am obese.