The Evil Word... Diet. or, "The bread-loving girl gives up carbs"

It's been forever since I posted. There are a couple reasons for this: one, writer's block, two, lack of time, and three, I had writing projects due for work, which demanded precedence. 

Life has recently been about: rushing to get church work done, working at the medical office, being involved in two choirs, finding time for fun art projects (yay!) and spending time with Jesse. Besides that, there seems to be little time for anything else. 

I've been TRYING to eat a low-carb diet, but I've been finding it very difficult. This may sound silly, but I'm realizing what an emotional attachment I have to my food, or specifically, to bread. I know a lot of people that are "sweet" people. They crave the candied rush of sugar. While I love a good cookie and have a special fondness for key lime pie and apple crumble, I really love salty carbs. Pretzels. Pasta. Rolls. Chips. You get the picture. 

I don't know how familiar you are, reader, with just how many carbs are in our daily diet. From a young age, I remember learning about the food pyramid, which shows bread as lowest and most important tier (false). I don't want to go into into the science of how bread makes us fat (there are lots of documentaries and books I could offer if you want the information), but suffice it to say: breads and sugar make us fat. The body doesn't know how to break down carbohydrates, so it turns it to sugar and sends it directly to be stored as fat. The premise of of this diet is our body craves fat. Animal products, byproducts, healthy fat and leafy greens are where it's at. If we eat these things, we give our bodies time to tap into our excess fat storages and burn it off. 

Prior to this diet, here is what I would eat (and what I would think as healthy-ish):

• Breakfast: bowl of cheerios, toast, banana and orange juice
• Lunch: sandwich, chips, an apple and maybe a soft drink
• Dinner: Pasta with red sauce, broccoli and chicken, glass of milk
• After Dinner Snack: bowl of popcorn

Doesn't that seem like a reasonably healthy meal? I thought so... until you factor in how many calories AND carbs are in that day: just over 3,000 calories, 416 grams of carbs... that's a pretty bad day. Well after eating like this (with the occasional cheeseburger and fries thrown in like a reasonable person) and exercising about 3 times a week, I was seeing ZERO results- even slowly, over years, gaining weight!

This diet.... has had to completely reshape the way I eat. I've added a lot more protein to my diet and a lot more vegetables, which has been good and actually, quite tasty. But leaving out the bread leaves me feeling like I've left a part of my soul away lol. You'd think I was Italian or something.

Meal now (if I'm good and stick to the diet):

• Breakfast: piece of bacon, boiled or scrambled eggs, strawberries, big glass of water
• Lunch: Salad with chicken, any fattening dressing, no croutons, apple, maybe soup (no noodles!)
• Dinner: Talapia cooked in butter, broccoli with butter, cauliflower mashed potatoes or squash
• Snack: piece of chocolate

The reasons why this diet is great:

This diet naturally has fewer calories- this day would be 1,184 calories and it has fewer carbs: 56.8. And I am still eating quite a bit of fat: any vegetables I eat are cooked in butter, I've started cooking my fish in butter (crazy good- so much better than olive oil!) and I'm snacking on things like pepperoni, berries and nuts. I'm never hungry on this diet, and if I am, I eat fat and am satisfied.

The reasons why this diet sucks: 

1. It's expensive for a newlywed couple (or for poor people in general!)
2. The food generally takes more time to prepare
3. Eating out is difficult
4. and for me personally, it's depressing and more challenging then just counting calories. 

I can count calories like no bodies business. I did that to prepare for the wedding, and it was painstakingly slow-moving and gave me no energy. And, because I was cutting out fat, I was MORE hungry, causing me to eat more bread, and halt weight loss.  

I've never realized how much I depend on that "I am ridiculously full" feeling to be content. It's been sort of a spiritual discovery for me. I'm seeing how much I rely on comfort food to help me feel better when I am sad, or frustrated, or angry. So, this diet has certainly given me the opportunity to lean more on Christ.

That said, I haven't been great at following it. It's hard to break lifelong habits and it's not that practical for my go-go-go lifestyle. I haven't kept it strictly, and so I haven't seen much results on the scale, but I have seen results in inches. But I've certainly been cutting back in carbs and at least sticking to under 100 grams of carbs a day. This week's goal is to stay at or below 50. I'm writing it down so I hold to it lol. In fact, let's write it in bold and make it a font larger:

THIS WEEK'S GOAL IS TO STAY AT OR BELOW 50!!!!

I'll write back about the results next week. :)


This post wasn't really interesting. It was more of a crazy weight conscious lady moment. Sorry lol.