The Fat Lady

No I don’t mean me, you dick.

Ok maybe I do, sorta.  Still, it wasn’t nice of you to just assume it was about me.  Just sayin’.

This is The Fat Lady:

No, seriously, the fish is actually called The Fat Lady!  Check the link if you don’t believe me.

Anyway, you know what a fish means!  That’s right, I am the Less Fat Lady!  Another weight loss milestone has come and gone.  This mother of a fish weighs a whopping 60 lbs, which is just 2 lbs less than what I have lost to date!  I’ve lost 62 lbs!  The milestone was 60 of course but I’m still a lazyass and am just getting around to writing about it now.

You know what else weighs 60 lbs?  This Rice Crispy Treat!

Crap, now I’d really like a rice crispy treat. Let’s move on…

I never thought I’d get here because if you remember I hit a monster of a plateau back in April after finally reaching my 50 lbs lost mark and it didn’t go away. I teeter tottered between 50-55 lbs lost between March and July and was really beginning to reach the end of my rope.  No matter how hard I tried, my plan just was not working, Weight Watchers was no longer working.  I didn’t know why, but even though I was biking, exercising and watching what I ate the weight just was not coming off.

This summer while we were visiting my in-laws, they were telling me about how they have been eating a low carb diet.  I was like, you guys are nuts!  Ok I didn’t say that but I admit in the beginning I did think it, sorry guys!  I thought what a lot of other people think when they hear low carb… Omg these people don’t eat bread or potatoes, they eat bacon for breakfast every day and are going to die of a heart attack! (Not true, by the way).

After listening to them talk about how good they feel, what is in a lot of the food we eat and especially after eating what they were cooking for a week, I was starting to think they weren’t out of their minds afterall.

They weren’t pushy, just informative and answered any questions I had.  They also gave me some books to read about food, nutrition, weight loss, cravings and so on.  A lot of things suddenly started making sense to me.  Especially why my weight loss stopped in the first place!!

For the past 1.5 weeks I have been following their diet (The Harcombe Diet) and I’ve been eating WELL.  I eat great meats, about 10x more vegetables than I’ve probably eaten in the rest of my life and best of all I’m learning to cook properly.  Not just ‘add water and chicken’ type of cooking but REAL cooking with REAL food.  It’s a lot more satisfying and feels like more of an accomplishment than anything I’ve done in the past.

The diet’s principles are basically low carb (not to be mistaken with NO carb), no processed foods, white flour, refined sugars (so none other than what is found in fruit), and not eating carbs and fats together in the same meal.  It’s strict, much more strict than what I was doing on Weight Watchers, but it’s working.  I’ve lost 12 lbs in less than two weeks and I feel better physically.  Some of the things I’ve been moaning about physically are actually starting to show improvement.  I think my friends (*CoughPauleKimmyAaronCough*) who have been trying to nudge me to eat a more low carb / real food type of diet were on to something all along.  Sorry guys, I should have listened sooner!

The diet has three phases, one for starting off and ridding your body of all the crap you’ve been eating (eating mostly meat and veg), the second is for losing weight, which is a little less strict allowing for dairy, wheat and other good carbs depending on what you may or may not have intolerances to  (yes I CAN eat potatoes and other things you imagine to be considered the devil in a low carb diet!), and the third is a more relaxed healthy diet with ‘cheats’ that give you more freedom while maintaining your healthy new weight.

I am in phase 2 and as I said, it’s much more difficult than what I was doing with Weight Watchers but I have a lot of weight to lose and I’m really tired of messing around.  I want to lose weight, be healthy and feel good about myself.  If this is the diet that gets me there, I’ll be happy.  Regardless, I am happy for a lot of valuable lessons I’ve learned from this one in regards to food and nutrition.

So, now my weight is moving down steadily again, I’m eating healthier than I ever have in my entire life.  I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes me.  I don’t have any delusions, I know my body may adapt at some point and I’ll hit another plateau but, I’ll deal with that when the time comes just like I did this time.  I won’t give up.

In the meantime, I’ll keep working on getting to 70!  That’s going to be one hell of a fish!