diet update

Well, I'm 2 and a half weeks into the Schwarzbein diet - low carb but not low fat. I need to eat more vegetables, I think. The update? Well, I'm having what she calls in her book and on her web-site a healing crisis. She says people who are more out of balance can have an adjustment period including weight gain, mood shifts, hormone shifts, etc. I feel like my butt is growing an inch everyday. My clothes are getting really tight. Do I need to get some a size up? I'm having mood swings. My face is breaking out. I must have been really out of balance.

Her explanation (or my understanding of it) basically is that on a low fat high carb diet, your blood insulin level is high and your metabolism is slowed down - which is why you often feel like you have to eat less and less to maintain weight loss on long term low fat diets. So when you change over, your metabolism is still slowed down and your insulin is still high and so the insulin makes you deposit the extra fat you're not used to eating around your middle - thus the growing butt. This is supposed to shift over time. With lower blood insulin levels, your metabolism gets faster and you lose the fat that you've been depositing. It takes time. I hope it doesn't take too much time. I'm finding the weight gain a bit demoralizing. Do I ditch the diet or do I keep believing that it will work and keep plugging away? It's too soon to say, I think. If she's right, and my hormones will be more balanced by following the diet and since I had gestational diabetes twice my risk of Type II diabetes is higher and this should definitely prevent that, then it will be worth it in the end. Here's hoping.

Then since all hormones are interrelated and since insulin is a hormone, insulin levels effect other hormone levels - like seratonin and estrogen and progesterone. Another reason, is that many of our hormones are made out of fat so long term low fat diets can mess with your hormone levels because your body has a harder time finding the building blocks to make your hormones. My hormones feel very wonky and I've been more on the depressed side of things. Feeling fat, ugly, depressed and useless is not so much fun even if you know it's temporary, in your imagination, and because of your dietary changes. I've been dreaming of white bread and sweets and other forbidden goodies. I almost didn't eat lunch yesterday because all I wanted was the forbidden and because I felt fat and ugly. Warning bells harkening back to my eating disorder days rang in my head and so I did eat. (Note: anybody that knows me, I imagine, laughs at the idea of my feeling fat which is both true and also makes me feel bad that I feel fat when I shouldn't.) Here's hoping that feeling shifts, too.

Some yummy things I've found on the diet: Creamy baked eggs (two eggs into a lightly buttered ramekin, pepper to taste, parmesan cheese, and 2 T heavy all dairy cream - bake in the oven at 325 until set to your liking) and faux steamer (2 T heavy all dairy cream, vanilla to taste, stevia to taste, hot water to fill up cup) because milk has carbohydrates in it and sometimes you just need something with a little sweet taste.

And some pants I'm thinking would be good. Comfortable, stretchy and still nice enough to wear out and about. Or these. If I haven't started to shrink by four weeks into the diet, I think I'll have to find something.