2009 - Doing This For Health, Not Weight

I'm trying to understand why low carbing has not worked for me (as far as staying on the plan) in the past two years. For 2009 I'm trying to take a different approach. I'll admit that I've been in the "diet" mindset this past few years - I've been seeing low carbing as a "diet" and a way to lose the 25 pounds I gained over the two years from stress and changes.

But I realize that this is not the right approach. If I see it as a "diet", I see it as deprivation (which it is not - how can you say a day filled with eating eggs and cheese and peanut butter deprivation???) and I see the limits (i.e., on fruit, whole grains, etc.)

But health has become an issue now. I'm 38 and will be 39 in a few months - meaning that 40 is right around the corner. I know this is a milestone and a breaking point for health where all the abuse that I've done to my body starts catching up with me (and it probably has already). I'm really blessed so far with good health - I have not had any foreseeable problems and I rarely go to the doctor (and simply can't right now because I have no health insurance and have to really watch my finances). I know I've done a lot of damage to my insulin levels and blood sugar levels. If there's one thing that I've learned these two years of trying out different diets and going vegetarian and then vegan is this - I am a total sugar addict. I'm not at all sure I can really handle good carbs either (fruit, whole grains). There's no doubt I do much better with them but I can't really say I don't have binge cravings because I've been binging nearly once a week for the past two years.

I do know that binge eating has to do less with the actual food and more with psychological issues and I'm dealing with that right now (reading Dr. Phil's book). I'm not trying to fool myself here. But I also know that when my blood sugar is stable and when my moods are stable and I feel like I'm accomplishing my goals for the day, it makes it a lot easier for me to resist junk food and work on the issues surrounding my binge eating.

Looking back at these past two years to think about why I have been binging and gaining weight, I come up with this:

2007: I made a major decision to stop going to grad school and take my master's in English and teach. I always talked about wanting to teach adult education and wanting to teach online. I got an opportunity at the beginning of 2007 and went from there. But there was the major stress of starting a new career, being suddenly without funds (I had to borrow from my parents for the first six months) and suddenly going from a highly structured environment (which grad school is) to a non-structured one (since I make my own schedule for online teaching).
2008: I spent the year adding on other universities, doing as many courses as I could to get my financial situation more stable (since online teaching is not a 9-to-5 thing - it's "as needed" with no benefits) and to build my career. Doing so meant keep extremely busy. In addition, I was struggling (and still am) with finding a schedule that worked for me. Waking up late in the mornings (and sometimes in the afternoon!) was a major major issue which made me anxious and stressed to finish my work and left me virtually no energy and no time to myself. Then I'd crash in the evenings, watching TV. Although I ate healthy during the week, I think the stress and anxiety really got to me at the end of the week and the weekends were typically binging.

Looking over the year, I realize that there were a few things that were contributing to my bad habits:
- Again, waking up late was a major issue
- I left no time for myself
- I had no tools (or didn't use the tools I had) to help me destress in a way that wasn't related to eating junk food.

Starting tomorrow, I want to get back on track with low carbing. I want to take a different attitude this time - that I have a blood sugar stabilization problem (no, I haven't gotten tested for this by a doctor but I have done a lot of online tests and they all point to this) and avoiding carbs other than those in proteins and veggies is what I need to do for myself right now. It's not about the weight! Because of this, I'm weighing in tomorrow and then I'm not going to weigh for a while.

My low carb plan looks like this:
- eating vegetarian low carb food - not barring any particular food, as long as it's low carb
- eating lots of low carb veggies
- eating as close to whole foods as I can
- because I'm avoiding as much processed food as possible, that means relying more on dairy and eggs for protein (since, unfortunately, a lot of vegetarian protein is processed )
- because I'm eating more dairy, I'm going to stick with low fat dairy, at least for a while. I'm not doing a low fat low carb diet by any stretch of the imagination - but I feel better eating lower fat dairy for the time being

I'm also going to incorporate other aspects for health:
- Exercising every day, at least for 30 minutes (I've actually been pretty good about doing this this past year)
- Doing yoga as often as possible for stress and relaxation
- Try to stay away from the TV at night - turn instead to reading (good chance to reread my low carb books ) and writing
- Really REALLY make an effort to stop a binge craving when it happens - take a walk, journal. I know this year I am guilty of not trying hard enough to stop a binge thought when it comes and that if I do other things, I can at least make an effort to avoid it.
- Check into this blog first thing every morning (before I get bogged down with my work) and during lunchtime for inspiration.
- Put in my schedule ME TIME! I was seeing Oprah this week and she said something that really hit me - she said how her schedule was so hectic that she always left her "me" time for when everything else was done and ultimately never got to it. So now she's scheduling her "me" time so that there are no excuses.

Here we go!

Tam