Allyson | Week 6 | Living Low-Carb

There are more diets and ways to lose weight out there than I could even begin to count. I’m sure many of you have tried at least one of these diets at one time or another and may have had success, only to put the weight back on.  *The problem with “fad diets” is that they simply don’t work. Once you deprive yourself of something for any length of time and then are “allowed” to have it again, you go bazurk! Whether it be no sweets, no bread, no bacon, no cheese, no food, no whatever, if you are “not allowed” to have it, it suddenly becomes more desirable. Once you allow yourself to have a bite you’ll go off the deep end and put all that weight back on you just spent weeks taking off.

*I have a tendency to over-generalize.  Fad diets might work for you. If so, that’s amazing -count your lucky stars. But, for the majority of folks, fad diets just aren’t reasonable ways to live and they end up not working.

Diabetes

When we eat foods with sugar (sugar-sugar and starch-sugar; aka: carbs) our bodies use insulin to help convert the sugar to energy. With diabetes, the body either doesn’t produce enough insulin or it has a hard time using it. In turn, the sugar (carbs) builds up in blood cells and blood sugar levels spikes.  (This is the most basic explanation of diabetes/insulin/sugar conversion ever. To find out more, I HIGHLY suggest you check out the book Sugar Busters.)

Diabetes is prevalent in my family and my doctor has told me it’s not a matter of if I get it, rather a matter of when I get it. {Awesome.} If I continued the lifestyle I was living a couple years ago, my doctor said I would develop diabetes in my 50s, but if I changed how I ate and exercised I would push back the onset by decades.  So, basically I needed to start watching my carb intake.

While I don’t have diabetes, and I don’t even have a gluten allergy, I would say I am definitely carb-sensitive and eating high amounts of carbs negatively affects my body. Amidst other immediate ramifications from over-carbing, I gain weight easily when I eat a lot of carbs and, conversely, I lose weight more easily when I steer clear of them. Further reasons why I am a low-carber.

If for no other reason than those wonderful medical ones listed above, I am a low-carber out of competition. A few months before I started my weight-loss process my mom began her own and succeeded by cutting her carb intake. That strategy worked amazing for her so I decided to try it myself. We are both competitive and we motivated each other by an unspoken competition we had. We would see who could cook new recipes or eat at restaurants with the lowest carbs. We would text each other pictures of our low-carb fare and swap recipes and tips to cut carbs wherever possible. My mom was a huge motivator/supporter/ encourager in my transformation to a low-carb lifestyle.

I must admit (I think I already have a couple times, though) that I went a little nutso with the low-carbness. Last spring I dropped my intake to under 30 a day. (This is where the “fad diets don’t work” thing comes into play.) The first week or so that I was under 30 I dropped quite a few pounds, but then I got stuck and the scale wouldn’t budge. Someone suggested I may not have been eating enough calories and my body thought I was starving it. So I counted my calories one day, and to my surprise I only consumed around 700. Ridiculous. No wonder I was at a stalemate. I immediately increased my carb allowance to 50, and strived to reach 1100 calories/day and the pounds started coming off again. {So, if you think you can lose weight by starving yourself, you’re wrong. It seems so backwards, but you need to eat more (GOOD stuff) to lose more.}

Let’s be real, even 50 carbs per day is pretty low. Once my Fit Club competition was over I went off the deep end (as many do with fad diets and/or unrealistic diets). I started eating all the sweets in sight and totally stopped working out. I indulged and enjoyed all the treats of summer a little too much….and then fall…and then the holidays. And here I am,  8 pounds more than at the end of Fit Club.

Since blogging I have gotten back on track. I have been practicing carb-cycling, which I learned from Chris Powell’s book Choose to Lose, where I cycle every other day eating “high” carbs and than “low” carbs. (High is about 60-80; low is about 40-60)

Eating a low-carb life doesn’t mean you have to completely stop eating carbs. On my high days I have carbs with every meal (!)…but good carbs. I have switched to brown rice, rice pasta, sweet potatoes, more veggies, fewer fruits, and lots of protein. I still struggle with eating enough calories on my low days, so I always have a stash of cheese and turkey pepperoni in the fridge to bump me up to a healthy amount of calories. 

It can be easy to fall off the deep end. However, you can avoid that by avoiding fad and unrealistic diets and simply try to live a healthier life style with more whole grains, lots of veggies, little sugar, and exercise.

PS- I still have a Pinterest Board entitled “Dessert is my Favorite”…it still is my favorite, I just try to have it in moderation rather than every single day!

PPS- I am not trying to convert anyone to a low-carb lifestyle. I’m just sharing why it works for me, and maybe it would work for you. If you are stuck at a plateau and have never paid attention to how many carbs you eat, I would suggest track your carbs for a day. If you’re eating well over 100, try cutting down to 100 and see if you begin to make any progress again.