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Old Wed, Aug-21-19, 08:48
khrussva's Avatar
khrussva khrussva is offline
Say NO to Diabetes!
Posts: 8,671
 
Plan: My own - < 30 net carbs
Stats: 440/228/210 Male 5' 11"
BF:Energy Unleashed
Progress: 92%
Location: Central Virginia - USA
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Very nice post, Kathleen. That's an interesting topic and question.

Three years ago this month I was at my lowest weight on this journey - 190 pounds. After decades of obesity I felt like a skinny old man -- not all that comfortable in my own (loose) skin. The reality of it had not quite sunk in. Loosening up a bit on the rules that got me to that weight my first year of maintenance turned into a slow and steady climb back up to my original goal weight of 210 pounds. Since then I've been doing sort of a mini rollercoaster LCHF diet -- tightening up the diet to lose a few pounds only to get less attentive again and put some pounds back on. So maintenance has been a bumpy ride, bouncing up and down between 200 and 220 pounds.

The problem isn't the occasional slip up with carb loaded junk like a cookie, cake, pizza or French fries. I truly have accepted that those are not foods I cannot eat. They are the foods that broke my system and if I let them back into my diet all the success that I have had will be flushed down the toilet. My LCHF WOE is a lifestyle for life. I stay out of the junk and these days I'm rarely even tempted by it. But as you pointed out in your post, the problems starts with too much cheese. Well, not only cheese but also other OP foods that should be consumed in moderation or at least not be in my everyday food rotation. BP coffee, fat bombs, and LC cheesecake are more examples. Today if I eat at the same levels that I did the first few months of my LCHF journey I will gain weight. I can't eat that much anymore. Unfortunately my "Off Switch" is still unreliable. It breaks completely when I eat excessive carbs. Finding my boundaries has made that clear. I can't climb very high up the Atkins Carb Ladder. Only when I am strictly keeping the carbs very low will I make the right eating decisions consistently. Even eating healthy, whole, LCHF foods everyday my satiety cues cannot be trusted. I've come to accept that, too. I need to know when I've had enough and walk away from the plate when I've reached my limit. I do a much better job of that when I'm eating keto.

One other issue of note has been my high cholesterol and the resulting battle with my doctor over taking a statin. I am one of the select few who have extremely high LDL cholesterol eating a VLC/Keto diet. My doctor wants my LDL-C below 120. Eating Keto (<25 net carbs) my LDL-C usually exceeds 250. I've found that when I add back more carbs (say 50 to 60 net) my LDL will fall below 110. But eating that many carbs puts me in weight creep mode. In 2017 I had a CAC calcium scan and found that I had significant heart disease. My score was in the 91st percentile for my age - first in line for a heart attack. With that result my doctor wrote a statin prescription whether I wanted it or not. I refused to take it. And over the past 2 years I've altered between Keto and that 50 carb diet - depending on whether I'm focusing on weight loss or my LDL. This has put quite a strain on my doctor/patient relationship - especially on visits where my LDL is double what my doctor wants it to be. A few months ago I finally had my first follow-up CAC calcium scan. In the past 2 years the volume of calcium in my arteries has dropped by 54% (2017 score of 347 dropped to 158). That result put me at ease with my high cholesterol issue. I have some weight to lose, so I've decided to do keto level carbs again for the foreseeable future.

To answer your specific question, there is really nothing that I can think of that would lure me back to my old S.A.D. WOE. I've gotten quite used to the new 'fit and active' me. There is no going back. But if I knew that the world was soon coming to an end would I dabble in some foods that I consider off plan? Yes - more than likely. And if I were the main character in The Life of Pi -- adrift at sea in the lifeboat along with a tiger and a large box of crackers -- yes, I would eat the crackers. But I'd think really hard about how I might eat that tiger first.
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