And now, a brief break from polls and debates--
Yesterday I was informed by a RN who is a Diabetes Educator that in order to lose weight I need to eat MORE. This struck me as so backwards and nonsensical that I actually laughed out loud.
But after talking to some others, and doing some Google research, it seems to be a key idea that somehow I'd missed in more than 50 years of travails with diet and weight. The point of this short, personal diary is to solicit comments and advice from others who may have encountered this apparent paradox.
More below the apple fritter, something I can no longer eat.
I've had a lifetime of ups and downs with weight. As a child I was pudgy, but strong and healthy. We played baseball, and other sports, all the time.
As a teenager and young adult, I was active and got down to a good weight. I've always been rather short and stocky (Scottish heritage, I like to joke) but I was healthy in those days. It was not uncommon for women to turn their heads as I walked by, something that hasn't happened in quite a few years.
In my late 20s I went through some family tragedies, dropped out of graduate school due to depression, and ballooned up to 240. But after about a year of that, I had a spiritual revival and got back down to normal weight, and kept it normal for many years.
But about 15 years ago I gave up cigarettes, and generally stopped exercising, and my super-sedentary lifestyle caused me to put on many pounds. During these years my wife and I tried various diets, especially Atkins, but nothing worked very long.
A few years ago I weighed myself on my high-quality scale at above 300! I was so shocked I stopped using scales or mirrors. I thought I was doomed to have only a few years to live. I thought the weight would steadily rise. And indeed it may have gone up as high as 320.
After ignoring doctors for many years, out of fear, I finally faced the music two months ago. To my amazement, I weighed about 250, showing I'd lost at least 50 pounds (and probably quite a bit more) without even realizing it. Hard to believe. (Dramatic weight loss, by the way, can be a symptom of out-of-control diabetes.)
I was also finally diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, and told I need to lose another 30 pounds because I need a serious surgery that requires open incisions.
So, delighted to have lost so much weight and now with a glimmer of hope, I've been really busting my butt with a strict, low-carbohydrate diet and what is, for me, an astronomical amount of exercise (at least 45 minutes a day).
I've got the blood sugar completely under control, considerably quicker than expected.
But despite the very disciplined diet and exercise, my weight seems stuck. Maybe I've lost two pounds in two months. I'm stronger and feel better, but not lighter.
Now I'm trying to get my mind around the seemingly ridiculous idea that I can only jump-start my metabolism and lose more weight by eating more and bigger meals. How can this be?
If you Google something like "eat more to lose weight," you'll find all kinds of articles and forums about that. Apparently this has been obvious to many people for years. But I'll bet that most people don't know this.
Does anybody here have experience with this? For me it's a matter of life and death.
Incidentally, I read a lot about this yesterday, and it's not computing for me. I feel clueless about trying to implement this radical idea, and rather scared that it may have the opposite effect.