How Have I Been Doing?

Kathy 1032 writes:

Three years ago as I was approaching my 50th birthday I was exercising and thanks to your book, about 20 pounds lighter than any other time in my adult life. I did your "diet" for about a year and then slowly slipped back into old habits. Now I am approaching 53 and want to get back there again. Have you written any new books, not cookbooks, and how has YOUR life been going since you wrote the one in 2003. I don't see any "contact us" spots on any of your web pages so I am trying this. Thanks.

First of all, no, I have not written another non-cookbook. I turned in a proposal for one last year -- I wanted to write about keeping the weight off, and staying low carb long term. I got a couple of hundred great stories from readers, both successful and unsuccessful. Since no publisher picked up that book, I hereby promise to go through those stories again, and start writing about them here. Heck with the publishers.

(Okay, I didn't really mean that. If you're a publisher, and you're reading this, and you'd like to pay me to write a book about long-term low carb success, hey, I'd still love to write it. But I'm not going to wait around for you.)

About me and my long-term low carbing? (I'm assuming that's really what Kathy was asking about. My life since then has been -- well, stressful. See my very first blog post for heart-rending particulars.) Here, in boring detail, is the saga of my low carb ups and down:

I started low carbing on the day after Labor Day, 1995, so I'm approaching my thirteenth low-carb-iversery. (I meant to do something special on the website for my tenth, but life got in the way. Maybe for my fifteenth?)

I weighed between 195-200 pounds, and was a size 20. Well, okay, I hadn't bought any size 20s yet, but I was asking a whole lot of my size 18s, if you know what I mean. I had gained rapidly all summer on my low fat diet, and for the first (and last!) time in my life I sat down at the free blood pressure machine at the grocery store to discover I had borderline high blood pressure. I also had nasty energy swings.

I was getting panicky -- I was doing everything the "authorities" told me should result in weight loss, high energy, and great health, and I was getting fatter and sicker by the day. It was at this point that I read Gayelord Hauser's New Treasury of Secrets, a nutrition book from the 1950s I had picked up at a used book sale. One statement leapt out at me -- that obesity has nothing to do with how much you eat, but is, instead, a carbohydrate intolerance disease. I thought, "What do I have to lose?"

I'd been fascinated with nutrition for 17 years at that point, so I was clear on which foods were high in carbs. I didn't pick any particular diet, I just stopped eating bread, potatoes, cereal, pasta, starchy vegetables, most fruit, and low fat butter pecan ice cream with Hershey's syrup ("Now, as always, a fat-free food.") Three days later my clothes were loose, and my energy level was skyrocketing. By a week in my blood pressure was low normal. Clearly, I had figured out what my body wanted.

(I have to mention that carbohydrate restriction was not a new concept to me. When I was growing up, everyone knew that if you wanted to lose weight you gave up potatoes, spaghetti, bread, and sweets. Youngsters would be shocked to realize just how new the idea that grains and beans are the Golden Road to Health and Slimness really is. Late 1980s, kids. That's about as far back as it goes. Before that, "diet plate" meant a bunless hamburger patty and a scoop of cottage cheese with lettuce and tomato.)

Between September 1995 and Spring 1996, I lost 40 pounds. I was excited, and read everything I could get my hands on -- Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution, The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet,The Zone and a bunch more. I tried several approaches, including The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet (hated it!) and The Zone (hungry all the time!)

I also joined a low carbohydrate email support list, where I learned that approaches that weren't great for me were working brilliantly for others. Big lesson, that.

My weight loss leveled off at around 40 pounds down. (You'll note my inexactitude -- I weighed "between 195 -- 200 pounds" and my loss leveled off at "around 40 pounds down." You know how it is -- you weigh more at night, less in the morning. You weigh more at some times of the month than others. You eat something with hidden carbs in it, and bump up a few pounds worth of water for a day or two. Etc.) This loss put me at the low end of a size 14/high end of a size 12. Not skinny, but within spitting distance of the size 13 I was when I graduated high school. I'm built like a fire hydrant -- short and stocky, with a short waist, a huge rib cage, and a big chest; willowy is not in the cards. I would have liked to be a little slimmer, but was thrilled with my new body just as it was.

I stayed around the 40 pounds down mark for a couple of years, during which I wrote How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds. I worked out at the local Y, firming myself up even more. That Nice Boy I Married put up $3K of his money, and we prepared to self-publish and self-distribute the book.

Then a funny thing happened while the book was at the printers in the spring of 1999: I discovered breathing exercises. And by the time the book came back from the publisher, I was down another 10-12 pounds. My size 12s were loose on me. Very heartening when I was facing television and book signings for the first time in my life.

But on June 1, 2000, I was in a serious car accident. I escaped without broken bones, but my right leg got jammed into the brake pedal at forty miles per hour. For a frustrating two years, leg and hip pain kept me from exercising. And for a few years after that, I had to be very careful what sort of exercise I did, for fear of setting off leg and hip pain again. It's been a long, slow process of discovery, learning which exercises give me the most fitness gain without setting off my old injuries. (Hands down, the breathing exercises give me the best return for the time and effort invested -- about 15 minutes before breakfast every day.)

During the two years I couldn't exercise, I kept on low carbing. Indeed, I have never stopped, or even taken a break from eating this way, just the occasional Indulgence. Still, unsurprisingly, I did gain weight, especially when I started working on cookbooks. Yes, all my cookbooks are low carb, but I still eat more, and consume more carbs, when I'm trying three or four new recipes every day. It's hard to get lower carb than plain fried eggs and plain broiled meat, but nobody wants that in a cookbook!

The worst of it was the spring of 2002; I got up to a size 16 again. But having turned in the manuscript for 500 Low-Carb Recipes, I shrunk back into my size 14s by that summer. I never have gotten back down to a size 12, but on the other hand I haven't gone back to a 20.

Most important, I'm healthy. My blood pressure, HDL/LDL ratio, triglycerides, liver enzymes, blood sugar, kidney function, all test great. I feel terrific, lots of energy. My doctor is pleased, and has been all along.

There have been some other challenges. In particular, I have apparently inherited my mother's hypothyroidism. As any of you who have a slow thyroid are aware, it does bad things to one's metabolism, not to mention making one feel downright rotten at times. I have learned that when I'm tired and depressed, and when -- big clue! -- one session of modest exercise leaves me flattened by pain for the next three days, it's time to see my doc and get my thyroid dosage adjusted. I suspect that my thyroid is part of the reason taking off the "accident weight" was so hard.

So where am I now? As I write this, I am wearing size 14 jeans I bought four years ago. This tells you two things: One, my clothing budget is pathetic. And two, I haven't either gained nor lost a lot of weight since then. (I don't know my weight. When I moved two years ago, I tossed my ancient scale, bought with S&H Green Stamps in the '70s. I go by my clothes.) Actually, I can, with a little wiggling, take these jeans off without unfastening them, so maybe I'm a little smaller.

Here's the current challenge: I was feeling frustrated that no matter what I did, I couldn't get my belly to shrink. You know how it is, those of us who are carb-intolerant tend to gain weight on our guts instead of on our butts and thighs. Still, hey, I'm a weight loss and nutrition type, right? You'd think I could shrink my tummy.

(WARNING: MAJOR PERSONAL INFORMATION ALERT! DO NOT READ FURTHER IF THIS SORT OF THING WEIRDS YOU OUT!)

Then I saw my doc, and got the news: I have a fibroid. Nothing dangerous, but it makes me look like I'm 5 months pregnant. I don't have a fat gut, I have a big fibroid. Which explains why I don't have a double chin, and my butt looks fine, but I still have the belly.

Well! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The good news is that it's not that I've been doing anything wrong. Indeed, since I'm still wearing my size 14 jeans, I'm probably really a 12, or even a little smaller, minus the fibroid. It was a nice reaffirmation that I'm doing the right thing.

The bad news is the rest of the world doesn't know it. People who see me casually may well be thinking "Geez, Dana talks a good game about diet and exercise, but look at that belly!" It kills me to think that they may dismiss low carbing as a result of that.

And the worse news is that the only way to change it appears to be major surgery. Which, I am not embarrassed to admit, scares the heck out of me. Scares That Nice Boy I Married, too; he's fond of me. Too, it's hard when I'm feeling so good to make the decision to do something that will make me feel awful for a minimum of four weeks, and maybe as much as six. I wouldn't even be allowed to drive for four weeks! And how would I explain to Nick the Pug why Mommy can't pick him up or let him sit on her lap?

But the alternative is to continue looking like I'm fat. Which sucks.

I haven't made any decisions. If I do decide to have surgery, I'll wait till winter; I don't want to waste my summer recovering.

In the meanwhile, I'll keep eating the same way I have for nearly thirteen years now. It hasn't solved all my problems, but it's improved my health, made me feel tremendously better, and has kept the majority of my weight off for a long time now. Plus it tastes really good, and satisfies my hunger in a way that a diet based on grains and beans never, ever did.

Speaking of which, my Caribbean-Style Ribs should be done about now. Think I'll go try 'em. If they're as good as they smell, I'll pass on the recipe.