Getting the low-carb religion—again

It's already in place. The 5-7 pounds I accumulate every winter has settled in. This bodes ill as mashed potatoes and gravy loom large on the holiday horizon—not to mention fudge, pecan pie, and the mincemeat treats my 92-year-old mother is, ummm, encouraging me to make. (When an elderly mother encourages, it is more like commanding. And so I will soon be making a mincemeat pie.)

My excess poundage has settled in the strange pocket front & center below my waist, an formation that my sister, who also grows one,  calls her dessert pouch. At least I still have a waist, a fact I don't take for granted. I remember my 20-year-old svelte self looking (down) at older women, who, I'm sure, were younger than I am now, and wondering why so many had protruding insect-like abdomens. Now there's an image I'd rather not apply to my own anatomy.
Like most women I know, I've gone round and round (so to speak) about weight.
In 2002 I took a shortcut to weight loss when I nearly died of an acute bacterial infection (the subject of a future post). When released from the hospital after nine days, I actually weighed a lot more than when I was admitted. My malfunctioning kidneys, the first organs to bail under bacterial assault, and the resulting infusions, created a balloon effect. I was the human blowfish.
After coming home—and dragging my swollen self to the toilet multiple times a night—my morning weigh-ins were ecstatic. I was losing two or three pounds a day. My ankles finally became visible and my scale  settled on a weight that became my new set point—about 15 pounds less than before I got sick. I had a new lease on life in more ways than one. About a year later, however,  the scale began nudging upwards, even though I pursued the low-fat diet prescribed by conventional wisdom. You know the drill. Skim milk, dry cereal, orange juice, baked potatoes with fat-free sour cream, fat-free or low-fat everything including frozen yogurt, cookies, rice cakes, pretzels, and  Junior Mints. I even used fat-free half and half.


Around the same time as the weight crept upwards, I began working on a long-term project that required extensive investigation into nutrition. Result: I became a low-carb believer and practitioner and painlessly lost the pounds I'd gained, and then some. I enjoyed lots of butter, half and half, cheese, nuts, avocados, green veggies, berries, and meats but ditched breads, grains, cereals, and sugar. While I dropped about eight pounds in a few months, PK lost 20! Fearing cancer for his unexplained weight loss—with all the cream and butter he didn't know he was on a diet—he hot-footed to the doctor. He had no disease, just a metabolism that's apparently super-sensitive to carb deprivation. Mine, on the other hand, seems super-sensitive to carb consumption. I eat a potato, it shows up as lumps on my thighs. I've been lax recently devouring all those sweet waxy garden potatoes, and also deprived, by my aversion to riding in cold, wet weather, of the regular bike riding that keeps me honest. And so the pouch development has ensued. I am gearing up for re dedication to stern carb restriction.

Which brings to mind the entire year that I was low-carb religious (just ask my long-suffering friends) and faithfully recorded every meal. One whole year! It is the most boring reading, but I will revisit my food journal for recipes and inspiration because I also kept strict accounting of poundage and exercise - very important. And despite all the butter and cream and meat and satiety, it was effective. My weight stablized below where it had settled after my illness. I wore size 10. (I hate this past tense. I don't have far to go, but damn, 5-8 pounds make the difference and they are stubborn hangers-on.)

This morning's breakfast is a good start. Coffee with half and half. Two medium eggs, yolks broken,  fried in butter. One low-carb, high-fiber tortilla spread with garlic chili sauce and topped with a handful of cheddar cheese and the fried eggs, heated in a skillet, rolled and eaten by hand as I looked back at 2004-2005—my year of zealotry. 

A typical day's repast:
Breakfast: hot cereal made with vanilla whey protein powder, oat bran, flaxseed meal, ground almonds and other low-carb, high-protein, high-fiber ingredients, served with blackberries and cream.
Lunch: Leftover creamy garlicky sherry chicken and spaghetti squash. Handful of thawed blueberries in a little plain yogurt sweetened with stevia and topped with ground flaxseed meal.
Dinner: Green salad with blue cheese dressing, avocado and small bits of tart apple. Sesame dressing.
Curried cabbage with coconut milk.
Sherried creamed chicken breasts.
Wow! sounds great. I can't wait to get back into it. But first.....that mincemeat pie, and a Thanksgiving feast for 18 at which I'm making the traditional bread stuffing.