Low Carb-ness

I don't make New Year's resolutions. In fact, I don't even celebrate New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. It is a non-holiday to me. So when I say that I'm returning to my low carb way of life today, it has nothing to do with the calendar, but everything to do with my life.

I started eating low carb a few years ago. I lost quite a bit of weight, then realized that all the hanging skin and saggy flesh moving earthward thanks to gravity was despicable. I hated it and, even though I wasn't quite to my halfway point in pounds lost, I decided to stop and maintain. First, I wanted to give my skin a chance to Do The Right Thing, and suck up to my new body size. Second, I wanted to stop the horrible process of making my body ugly, until I saw the results of my "skin test".

I maintained well for the next few years, and enjoyed all the healthy advantages that come from eating a low carb diet, including digestive improvements (from GERD to gas), clear skin for the first time since puberty, more energy and better sleep, a greatly improved blood lipid profile, lower blood pressure, etc. Excellent!

Then about 10 weeks ago I had a "cerebro-vascular incident" followed by weeks of an unidentified neurological problem that left me at my husband's culinary mercy. His shopping and cooking wasn't necessarily low carb. And frankly, I had bigger concerns than what I ate. 2 hospital visits during this time when I was given their version of a "heart healthy" diet (read: loaded with carbs) didn't help - nor did the 2 courses of oral steroids that made me ravenous...

With any weight loss diet, when you stop doing it and go back to eating the foods that made you fat, guess what? They'll make you fat again! I gained about 25% of my lost weight back. I didn't care at first, worrying more about my brain than my weight. But once I started showing improvement, the dissatisfaction with the way I'd been eating started to surface. So when I finally improved to the point of being able to once again be the main shopper and cook of our household, it just happened to be January 2nd. And so, it just happens that I'm thankfully resuming my low carb lifestyle at the beginning of a new year.

Today I slept in, then ate a salad with ranch dressing and a heavily seasoned fried pork chop for "brunch". Suppers was a ground beef patty, fried with a small chopped onion and some mushrooms, with a hefty side dish of buttered green beans. My evening snack was salami "crackers" (lay out hard salami sliced on a paper-towel-lined, microwave-safe plate and cover with another paper towel; nuke for 30 seconds, rearrange slices carefully because they're hot, and nuke for another 30 seconds; depending on how powerful your microwave is, you may or may not need another 30-second burst; let them stand for a few minutes and they'll crisp right up) and cream cheese - 7 "crackers" with 1 measured tsp of cream cheese, full fat of course, on each. I also drank several cups of coffee with sweet'n'low, SF vanilla soy milk, and a squirt of whole milk in each.

I'm feeling better already.