More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Me

So in a very Dear Diary way, here's my story... I've been really fat for brief moments (okay, months at a time), I've been skinny for brief moments (days at a time) and have been usually pleasantly plump (all the years in between). Cute, but chubby. That is, until now. This is one of two times in my life where I've been healthfully lean and the only time that I've ever been, as my sister puts it, "freakishly strong." I lift weights, I do yoga (hard a$$ "challenging" Forrest Yoga), I spin (as in indoor cycling) and I take my borderline obese chihuahua mix for morning walks.

But this is the New and Improved Me. It certainly wasn't always this way...

It all started at about ten years old - the first diet. (I warned you this was more than you ever wanted to know about me!) I learned to diet/starve at home from my chronically dieting mother.  Her breakfast was usually a Tab (later switching to a 6-pack a day of Diet Pepsi) drunk from a wine goblet with a small bag of M&Ms.

I rarely saw her eat real food. She kept diet bars (basically just a candy bar with carbs and a bit of protein with a chocolate coating) in the freezer so she wouldn't eat all of them at once, hoping the frozen bars would slow her down. And the shake only diets that she did periodically throughout the 80's. Her weight fluctuated from starving skinny to packing on 50 pounds. After each diet, she would lose a bit more lean body mass and add more fat. Every few years she would try Weight Watchers and she took up walking - she would walk for hours, sweating and beating her feet into the ground. No balance. It was always all or nothing. Meanwhile, my skinny ectomorph father started to gain, about ten pounds a year under the stress of being self-employed. Gained 10 pounds a year for 20 years.

To say I struggled with my weight is like saying Starbucks Caramel Macchiato ice cream is 'pretty good.' Uh...yeah it's good! And yeah I struggled! I was always hovering just at the cusp of fat. Carbs in the morning, skip meals and struggle with food obsession at night, trying not to eat.  A matter of willpower and self-denial from a girl with raging body image problems. But then biology took over and I would EAT. And keep eating...

Then at fifteen years old, I read Susan Powter's Stop The Insanity which preached the fat free gospel. It was a lightbulb moment for me. "Fat Makes You Fat!" I went vegetarian, except for occasional fish, and everything I ate was fat-free. Tried veganism. I lost a lot of weight. Then gained it all back (and when you eat fat free, you crave fat, fat, fat but fill the hunger with carbs, carbs, carbs. Nothing like fat-free vegan and periodically crash dieting to screw up your body. Take away all fat and even your cell membranes want to crawl into a hole and die. Ever heard of fat soluable vitamins?). Telling a body starving for fat not to eat it is like telling an exhausted body not to sleep. You can only fight a body's needs so long. As Geneen Roth says, it's a universal law that for every diet there is an equal and opposite binge.  With yo-yo fluctuations, I stayed 15-25 pounds overweight, sometimes higher, rarely lower. But Mom and Dad were now morbidly obese.

Then I met a cute guitar playing-former-surfer turned engineer boy who loved me just the way I am (crazy and prone to chubbiness). After years of me badgering him, he eventually gave me a ring. It's all very fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure there were some people there, I wore a white dress and said I do. But to get into that sexy white dress, I saw a doctor who gave me a bottle of pills and a sheet of paper that said to avoid carbs. What?! I'd been always trying to eat fat free and here this guy was saying some fat was just fine, but don't eat a bowl of popcorn? Whatever. I followed the rules for 8 weeks, took the pills, was crazy anxious and couldn't sleep. Gained 20 pounds immediately following the wedding with lots of great Mexican food in San Diego.

I remember the time my  naturally thin, gorgeous mother in law told me, "fat doesn't make you fat. Calories make you fat." What the $%^&@  would she know? Complex carbs were the WAY to go for me. I was sure. No fat. I couldn't be trusted around fat. Telling someone who struggles with their weight to eat fat just seemed dangerous! Guacamole? I'm sure I would eat the entire bowl. Mixed nuts? No way. And as for exercise, I avoided it like the Swine Flu because it was simply torturous. Sometimes I found some momentary joy in walking or hiking, but I approached most physical movement with the of 'must burn calories' mindset.

Life continued, we moved to Idaho, had a baby, read The Zone, The Atkins Diet, The Truth About Beauty (great book by the way), The Rosendale Diet, The South Beach Diet, Real Food (another great book) and just kept reading... Got a vita-mix on Kat James' recommendation. Weight stayed the same even though I was eating foods richer in healthy fat. I joined a gym (desperate for the daycare) and walked the track. Apparently walking is like a gateway drug, because before I knew it, I was trying yoga, dance and even indoor cycling. I was getting fitter. And then for some reason, I walked into the weight room and decided to pick up some weights.

With no idea where to begin, I started researching on the web found stumptuous.com and then Precision Nutrition. Lost a few more pounds and was getting stronger. My body learned to sweat. I discovered the comaraderie of group exercise. One day, I broke through a fitness level where suddenly exercise felt GOOD. Had I been missing this my whole life? That magical place where endorphins and movement dance together? Where was the torture? Where was the misery? This felt, and still feels, great.

Somewhere along the maze of diet books, fads and even Food Pyramid craziness, I figured it out: The "magic bullet" that works for me. Controlled carbohydrate/low sugar, lean protein, getting enough fat balanced between mono/poly/saturated and an unholy quantity of vegetables along with mindful eating and movement. Yes, that's a seriously "big magic bullet". (Doesn't movement sound better than exercise?) My body doesn't need as many starchy carbs as I wish it did. But it does need some, added at the right time.

(Meanwhile, my mother's weight reached an all time high by 2008. Feeling out of options, she had a gastric bypass and has lost 160 pounds. Then in August 2009, my father had a massive heart attack and survived. His life now depends on managing his weight and his stress.)

Every once in a while, I"ll try an "experiment." It usually occurs around 5 pm at my sister's house. I'm hungry and the junk food beckons. I'll eat a handful of something awful like Chex Mix or breakfast cereal. Within minutes, I'm eating more and can't stop. The cravings last for hours... Funny how that never happens with roasted veggies or raw almonds. Human willpower is simply no match for biochemistry and food scientist research.

So why Pimp My Protein Shake? Because I Eat Mostly Whole Foods and Have a Protein Shake or Protein Snack At Least Once a Day just wasn't as catchy... Besides, a protein shake doesn't even have to be a protein shake. Your 'protein shake' might be a bowl of cottage cheese topped with cinnamon and walnuts or a heaping plate of scrambled eggs (mixed yolks and whites) with sugar-free ketchup - for me, protein helps keep me satiated.

I've learned a few lessons:

• Find a form of movement that you love and move
• You can't out train a bad diet
• Eat starchy carbs judiciously
• Eat enough fat
• Eat more vegetables
• Eat lean protein 
• Don't Try not to emotionally eat...

So here I am. Just me. Strong and lean. Still struggle with emotional eating. Still on occasion want to eat giant gobs of carbs and fat. Pleasantly plump women are beautiful. Muscular women are beautiful too. A balanced life is even more beautiful.

Cheers,

Allie (the former fat free carbohydrate binge-eater/chronic dieter turned Protein Girl)