Another new adventure...

With all of the time, energy, and thought I've been putting into my health lately, one thing I was doing, and had been doing for a long, long time, suddenly seemed absolutely incongruous with my lifestyle:  taking the pill.  You know, THE pill.  Birth control.  Let me say something right up front:  I don't regret having taken birth control during my teens and twenties.  There is a lot of hullabaloo on the Paleo/Primal/Bulletproof forums about birth control and health, and I definitely share their concerns.  However, for me personally, it was a very important decision.  I first chose to go on birth control after two unplanned pregnancies, neither of which was carried to term.  I was eighteen years old with a new boyfriend and in my second year of college, having just gotten my life straightened out after my high school drug and alcohol abuse problems, but I was still very willful and a little wild.  I knew I lacked the discipline and self-control required to practice the use of abstinence, barrier devices, or natural methods for contraception.  And when confronted with the choice between taking a shot four times a year or a pill every day, I knew I couldn't be trusted to take the pill, so the shot it was.  And it was great in a lot of ways, apart from the regular visits to the gyno.  But I started gaining weight almost immediately.  Then when I was about twenty the patch came out, and it was supposed to be a lower dose that didn't circulate as far in the bloodstream, or some such nonsense.  So I made the switch.  And it was great, when it didn't fall off.  I used it for a few years.  Then in my mid-twenties, after some lawsuit threats against the patch, and after I no longer had health insurance, I finally made the switch to the pill.  The first few months were hell.  Even though I had already been in an altered hormonal state for years, it took me a while to get used to the hormones in the pill for some reason.  But once my body adjusted, it was great.  My periods were regular-ish (though actually slightly less so than they had been when I was a teenager) and extremely light (so light sometimes that I wasn't sure it wasn't implantation bleeding), and I haven't had real cramps in years. 

But I'm not in my twenties anymore.  I took birth control for twelve years, and I am very glad that I don't have any children yet.  But I do want them eventually, and since I'm already in my thirties, once I'm ready, I don't want to have to wait the six months to a year for my body to adjust to its own natural cycle.  I trust myself and my partner enough to know we can make a combination of barrier and natural birth control work, and even as unprepared as I feel for a baby, an unplanned pregnancy at this stage of my life might be far less disastrous than it would have been before.  My best friend, who is two years younger than me, thinks I'm nuts.  And maybe I am.  But I am also feeling my mortality more and more every day.  Every time a family member gets diagnosed with cancer or diabetes; every time I see my mother growing more and more feeble or my father taking more and more medications, I am reminded of the importance of both family and good health when it comes to happiness and longevity.  Beyond that, I am also more acutely aware of my role in our national healthcare crisis as one of the uninsured.  Every time I leave the house I risk major medical debt that could end up ultimately costing someone else a lot of money.  There are some things I can't control - like other drivers or the structural stability of my office building.  But I can control the things I am putting into my body.  The risks associated with long-term birth control use, especially for a former smoker, far outweigh the benefits at this point in my life.

That brings me to two weeks ago.  It was time to pick up my prescription.  Normally I pick it up on Fridays because the pharmacy is closed on weekends.  But Friday passed and I completely forgot.  Monday and Tuesday came and went.  On Wednesday morning, I opened up the online refill form, but I hesitated.  I had been researching natural birth control and the risks of hormonal contraceptives for a few months.  My boyfriend and I don't even see each other enough to watch a movie, much less make a baby (seriously, how any PhD student with a full time job finds time to have sex is beyond me).  And for all this work I've been doing to take control of my body and my health, I was going to put that stuff in my body again?  What's worse is that I never have been very good about taking it, which increases the associated risks exponentially.  So I closed the form and made the decision then and there that I wouldn't go back.  My boyfriend is nervous but supportive.  Until I get my period and start understanding my cycle better, we are practicing abstinence. 

What's happened so far:  First of all, since I went off the pill, my fella and I have seen each other for about an hour collectively, so no problems there.  I have had some brief and relatively minor mood swings, and I felt cramping that felt like what I remember of ovulation cramping a few days ago, which was accompanied by mucus changes.  I haven't experienced any major side effects or consequences, but it's early days yet.  I'll keep posting about it as things develop. 

I'm still here!

As happens, my weight loss has slowed and so has my enthusiasm.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not falling off the wagon or anything.  I've just been less obsessive about blogging and researching etc., which is probably a good thing, especially for the people around me.  I'm hovering just above 200 (201.2 this morning - been kinda yo-yoing between 201 and 203 for about a week), which is right about where I expected to hit a speedbump because it is close to my previous long-term peak weight.  It's my body saying "this is so much better than where you were two months ago. Let's just rest here a minute. We're not eighteen anymore, after all."  And I'm fine with that.  I've lost almost ten percent of my body weight and that's nothing to sneeze at.  I don't worry that I might fall asleep in meetings, and I don't panic if I might not be near food or a bathroom for a while anymore.  Hell, I might even take up hiking again!    

Update:  I weighed myself when I went home for lunch (after a couple of good bathroom trips) and I have officially broken through the 200lb wall!

Damn you Mexican food!

My big remaining weakness - Mexican food (specifically tortilla chips at the restaurant) - has struck again.  It happens every time.  I'm chugging along, dropping pounds like a bad habit, then I decide to test my body on some corn chips.  I know what's going to happen, it happens every time.  Yesterday morning I was at 203.0, and this morning 205.4.  It's not a big deal, I know.  It will come back off.  But it just sets me back another week, basically, for one delicious meal.  The sad part is it's not like I sat and ate a whole basket of chips.  Between my boyfriend and I, we ate less than half a basket total.  And my meal was good - Huevos a la Mexicana (basically eggs with lots of chopped chiles) and a couple of bites of black beans.  Apart from that all I had yesterday was salmon and mashed cauliflower.  So, calories-in-calories-out fails the test again.  WHAT we eat is so much more important than I ever realized before. 

True confessions

For the first time since I started this lifestyle, I AM REALLY HUNGRY!  Not quite constantly, but definitely more than I am used to anymore.  I still haven't let it derail me.  I'm not eating anything I shouldn't.  But I am definitely having to eat more and more often again.  I know it is only temporary.  But I thought it was worth acknowledging. My weight was down from 209.4 to 209.0 this morning, which is a step back in the right direction.  So I won't complain too much.  I know that it is largely from my own choices that this is happening.  I allowed myself to get too hungry too many times last week because I didn't have very much food in the house.  I ended up eating out a lot, including a few small "cheats."  Even when I made good choices, restaurant food is always a little risky.  As of tonight I have a fully stocked, fully cleaned kitchen that is ready for me to whip up some healthy meals to get myself back on track.  I will definitely be eating something again tonight, but hopefully I can make it past 10:30 tomorrow before I eat again, unlike today.  Fingers crossed!

Delayed but not derailed...

The past week was a real doozy, and the upcoming one looks about the same.  Between the stress and the PMS hormones, I made a couple of (calculated) less-than-great choices last week, including corn chips three times (no more than 8 or 10 per sitting), beans, alcohol (one night), and extra chocolate a few days.  I also skipped my BP coffee and had breakfast on Friday morning.  The result is, after seeing a blissful 206.4 briefly early in the week, my weight this morning was up (209.4), and my ketones are down.  However, even after the slight rebound in weight my net loss for the month was ten pounds, so I'm not complaining.  My feeling is that by the end of the week I'll likely be back under 206.4, whether the gain was simple water retention or something else.  Only time will tell!

My food intake today has been almost-perfect.  I had my BP coffee around 10:00, then a little after 1PM had tuna salad (I used the safest-looking mayo and relish I could find, but I think next time I will use yogurt and celery instead).  Then a little later I had yogurt with blueberries, a tablespoon of coconut oil, and a hint of stevia.  Then for dinner, around 6:00, I had wild sockeye salmon (cooked in lots of EVOO and ghee with about a half a teaspoon of honey) with roasted asparagus.  I've also had two cups of herbal detox tea and will likely have one more before bed.  Anytime I eat two servings of fish in one day, even if they are low-mercury species, I try to do a bit of a cleanse as well to make sure the heavy metals aren't accumulating in my body.

The stevia is a new thing.  I used it some for my parents when I was playing personal chef for them, but I don't really feel much need for it myself.  I mainly got it to take the edge off of apple cider vinegar when I use it.  I feel like it may be effecting my insulin sensitivity, however, so I may cut it back out and try to get the ACV down without it (2T mixed with a glass of water or herbal tea).

Another odd thing, along with the slight weight gain, is that my joint pain has been sneaking back up on me.  My best guess is that it is from the tiny amount of breading I actually ate a few nights ago when I ordered a dish that doesn't normally have breading but apparently did at that particular restaurant.  It was covered in sauce so I didn't see it on my first bite.  The sauce and chips may have also been wheat-contaminated.  At the moment, however, I was aware of the risk I was taking and made my choice.  It is all part of the learning process after all!

Day...Oh who knows?

I have a meeting shortly, but it's been a while and there are a few things I need to get out.  First of all, apart from one desperate "cheat" on Monday when I was starving and on my way to the grocery store (went to a Mexican restaurant and had a small handful of chips and some beans), my diet has been pretty excellent to the extent that I can control it.  I've had to eat out a couple of times due to lack of groceries and time, but I've had grilled fish and steamed vegetables when I have.  My hunger level is comfortable (I usually start getting hungry about an hour earlier than I am ready to eat, but I can manage), and my weight is down but stabilized at the moment, probably because of PMS.  While I was at my parents' house last week, I lost about 4.5, I think.  As of this morning I was down to 207.2, which is a total loss of 12 pounds since June 19th.  My current waist measurement is 38, down from 41, and my bust and hips are at 46, down from 48 and 48.5, respectively.  Getting below 210 again is a small victory for me, but not a huge one because I hadn't been above it for very long.  But my "fat" jeans fit comfortably, and that makes me happy.  I think I am a solid size 16 now instead of a snug 18.  16 is a size I can live with (though hopefully I won't have to for long!).  Basically I am where I was about a  year ago, which is pretty awesome.  Four weeks to erase a year of damage?  Hell yeah!  My two weight loss goals for the next month:  getting my waist circumference under 35 and weight under 200.  A more important goal:  eating out no more than once a week.  That's a toughie on my schedule!

My parents are struggling on without me.  I've been calling my mother every day to check on her diet and so far she's doing pretty well.  She's not adhering strictly to the program I had her on, or to Wheat Belly, but she's still using her Bulletproof coffee, avoiding grains, and limiting her carbs.  I think for her the key is going to be eating a lot of veggies cooked in fat and salad with an olive oil-based, homemade salad dressing.  She's getting bloodwork done by her endocrinologist sometime this week and I hope that her cholesterol readings don't scare her off of the diet, because they might be high.  But I know that she is encouraged.  By the time I left on Sunday, her weight was down lower than it has been since her forties (she and I are actually neck-and-neck), and her attitude was mostly much better, apart from a breakdown Sunday morning because she didn't want me to leave. 

On my way back to Tennessee, I stopped for coffee with my sister to discuss my findings for the week.  She lives about three hours closer to them and tries to get down every two or three weeks to spend a couple of days, and is on a similar (but less regimented) nutritional program.  We discussed our parents' situation at length, and concluded that our mother is exhibiting signs of early stage Alzheimer's.  Depression, personality changes, asking the same questions and telling the same stories repeatedly - we've seen it all before.  My mother's mother was diagnosed at 75.  At the time they told us she wouldn't live five years.  Instead she lived on for ten as a shell of herself.  I do not want to watch that happen to my mother.  Neither my sister or myself are prepared to take in my parents, and I don't want to see them go to a home. 

My father is is own can of worms.  His blood sugar is out of control, and he is starting to have foot problems.  If he loses his feet, especially before turning 65, we are all going to be in a lot of trouble.  I think he is FINALLY starting to come to terms with his situation, and expressed genuine interest in what I am doing, even buying a copy of Wheat Belly.  I think if he can follow the WB plan, which is far less restrictive than what I had Mom on last week, they could both benefit tremendously. 

And then there's my boyfriend.  He's in his mid-forties, is a heavy smoker, and lives on processed food.  I've known six year olds with more sophisticated palates.  However, his father was recently diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer, and I think it has really given him pause.  When I started doing all of the research that has led me to my current way of life, I encouraged him to talk to his dad and his stepmother about making dietary changes to see if it would help.  But his father is of the attitude that if he ain't got much longer he's going to eat as he pleases.  It's totally understandable.  His doctors gave him a death sentence and the only hope they would offer was chemotherapy which, predictably, is killing him.  This is a man who has had six heart attacks and four open heart surgeries; if he were a cat, he'd be just about out of lives.  We found out a few days ago that he has congestive heart failure and his heart is only functioning at 20%.  Yet his doctors insist on keeping him in chemo.  They don't know what else to do, I guess.  The chemo has reduced the cancer growths in his liver, so by that token it is "working," but what else is it killing?  My boyfriend is starting to see what I mean about doctors, at least.  They have a very limited toolbox that is focused more on treatment and intervention than cures and prevention. 

Last night my boyfriend let me weigh him and do a body fat analysis (our stats are almost identical, oddly enough), and he sat and looked at information about nutrition with me for about an hour.  That is a HUGE step.  In just a couple of weeks he has gone from totally dismissive to genuinely curious.  I think if he would give it a chance, he could really enjoy it.  On top of that he has a pre-teen daughter who could REALLY use a good nutritional influence in her life.  She is at a critical age right now and her mother feeds her ice cream and donuts and soda and popcorn like it's going out of style.  When she comes to visit him, she'll easily go through two bags of movie butter popcorn in one night, and he is on the budget of an adjunt professor paying child support, so if they go "out" to eat it's usually McDonald's.  He also has a seventeen year old son who needs $23k worth of dental work because his mother has fed him junk food and Mountain Dew all of his life (my boyfriend only sees him once a year because they live farther away) and never taken him to the dentist.  All but four of his teeth are completely rotted.  At seventeen.  Someone in their lives needs to take the reigns and show them that healthy eating can be awesome.  And it so so so so can!

Day 12: Battleground Homefront

I have been at my parents' house since Saturday afternoon and it has been an uphill battle.  I came with the impression that I was coming to help my mother do something she already wanted to do but couldn't because of her limitations, but she is fighting me at every turn.  My dad shows interest but not enough to comply.  His medication list keeps growing, his bloodwork doesn't change, and neither will he.  He is six years younger than his father was when he passed away 31 years ago.  My mom keeps complaining that her stomach hurts, but that could be the wine and chocolate I can't get her to let go of and the aspirin she takes four times away.  I am only here for a week to play personal chef so she can try out the new diet and see how she feels, but if she keeps eating the same things she won't even know.  Like I said, I didn't think I was trying to make her do anything she didn't want to do.  Sometimes it feels like deep down she has really just given up.  Not that it isn't understandable.  Her situation is miserable.  But I am trying to make it easier on her and her resistance is making it impossible.  I don't want to give up, but there have been many tears shed this week and I expect many more to come.  If they were older, I might have an easier time just saying, "Well, they're old.  I guess they've earned the right to do what they want."  But 63 is way too young to give up on life.

As for myself, I am loving getting the use of their nice kitchen.  My own is rather pathetic - virtually no counter space, no dishwasher, crummy apartment refrigerator, tiny two-sided sink with no water pressure.  It makes everything a little easier to have a better kitchen to work in, and cooking for them (despite their complaints) has been really fun.  Because they are so picky AND require a lot of variety I have had to get very creative.

As for my weight, it is hard to say exactly because their scale is calibrated differently than my own, but my base weight when I got here (weighed Sunday morning) was 216.6, and this morning was 214.0.  My mom's base weight, also on Sunday, was 215.6, and she was also 214.0 today.  I am really hoping that the weight loss will help give her hope.  She recently started thyroid meds and has been stuck at the same weight for months despite her best efforts (she had gone gluten-free ish but using all of the high-carb gluten free products and followed some other more conventional wisdom about fat and calories, so WE know she was really unwittingly sabotaging herself).  So the plateau breakthrough could be just what the doctor (or the daughter) ordered.