Two sites last week. I've been feeling extra frustrated and anxious, so we're trying to prop up my brain a bit more in hopes that it'll help. I find it kind of hard to tell if it's working, but I'm sure, cognitively speaking, it's doing something useful.
I've kind of had my feet kicked out from under me regarding diet change and weight loss. My LENS-doctor, who also has a doctorate in nutrition, pulled the most exasperated face when I describe the heart-doctor's recommendation for weight loss. And proceeded to tell me that even if I went on a diet of 800 calories, I might still not lose weight, and certainly not healthily. The key, she reminded me, is not how little you eat, but what you eat. You could do an 800 calorie diet while eating just Oreos, and you would not lose weight. Or you could do a 1,600 calorie diet eating lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and you would probably lose weight.
A lot of my favorite foods involve white flour and sugar, so this does kind of suck. But to add insult to injury, she also suggested I consider cutting dairy out of my diet. Dairy, you see, tends to inflame the digestive tract, even in mutants such as myself that retain the ability to digest it beyond childhood. (Most of the world does not produce lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose in milk, after childhood. Western Europeans apparently mutated to do so, but that doesn't mean it's good for you.)
Dairy. So, no ice cream, no milk, no cheese. Possibly no butter. I have a friend with an actual allergy to dairy, and he has to avoid butter too. At which point, I basically can't go out to eat ever again, have to make all my own food, and can't be polite and accept offered food at parties or social occasions. So basically I'd be even more of a social outcast than I currently am. It's already anxiety and difficulty-inducing that I'm picky about my meat. And that's just a simple "swap this for this, or better yet, let me bring the meat!" If I start having to avoid cheese and other dairy, I might as well kiss my social life goodbye.
This also would basically make 90% of the food in the grocery store no longer edible. It's already depressing enough walking past all the meat and fish offerings, and the snack aisles, most days. When I first became vegetarian, I found out the best way for me to avoid meat was to designate it "not food." But that tactic gets a bit old when I'd essentially have to designate the whole of the grocery store "not food."
Finally, I know where this particular rabbit-hole leads. If I eliminate dairy, and it doesn't solve my weight loss/systemic issues, the next thing the doctor will suggest is eliminating gluten. Without letting up on dairy. So then I can't even have my whole wheat flour, I'd have to shell out for almond flour or whatever other kinds of flour are around that practically no recipes exist for.
In short, I am very unpleased. Counting calories is fairly simple for me, since I have an app that helps automate it. Simultaneously, it keeps me accountable for what I eat, since I tended to input what I ate just before or just after I ate it. That made it fairly easy to guilt myself into not eating bad things, or at least not eating very much bad things. Finally, counting calories gives me a goal, which I can take many paths to getting to, and it doesn't entirely cut out sweets, just limits them immensely.
But apparently all that is pointless, so I'm now floundering on changing my eating habits. I don't know what to do. I picked up a different app that doesn't focus on calories, but it also doesn't let me input precisely what I ate, and without that the accountability aspect is severely reduced.
Exercise is going. It's sadly not predictable, because my friends keep canceling for various reasons, and Chris only wants to commit to one day a week, if that. I do best with a schedule, but I'll take what I can get. It would be safe to say I am only occasionally making the 3/week exercise I should be doing. Sometimes more than that, often less.
I might go out to a nearby park today. It's not that far from home, and while I have serious concerns about being female and out all by myself, it might be okay? Plus that particular park is supposedly a hotspot of a Pokemon I really like...
I've kind of had my feet kicked out from under me regarding diet change and weight loss. My LENS-doctor, who also has a doctorate in nutrition, pulled the most exasperated face when I describe the heart-doctor's recommendation for weight loss. And proceeded to tell me that even if I went on a diet of 800 calories, I might still not lose weight, and certainly not healthily. The key, she reminded me, is not how little you eat, but what you eat. You could do an 800 calorie diet while eating just Oreos, and you would not lose weight. Or you could do a 1,600 calorie diet eating lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and you would probably lose weight.
A lot of my favorite foods involve white flour and sugar, so this does kind of suck. But to add insult to injury, she also suggested I consider cutting dairy out of my diet. Dairy, you see, tends to inflame the digestive tract, even in mutants such as myself that retain the ability to digest it beyond childhood. (Most of the world does not produce lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose in milk, after childhood. Western Europeans apparently mutated to do so, but that doesn't mean it's good for you.)
Dairy. So, no ice cream, no milk, no cheese. Possibly no butter. I have a friend with an actual allergy to dairy, and he has to avoid butter too. At which point, I basically can't go out to eat ever again, have to make all my own food, and can't be polite and accept offered food at parties or social occasions. So basically I'd be even more of a social outcast than I currently am. It's already anxiety and difficulty-inducing that I'm picky about my meat. And that's just a simple "swap this for this, or better yet, let me bring the meat!" If I start having to avoid cheese and other dairy, I might as well kiss my social life goodbye.
This also would basically make 90% of the food in the grocery store no longer edible. It's already depressing enough walking past all the meat and fish offerings, and the snack aisles, most days. When I first became vegetarian, I found out the best way for me to avoid meat was to designate it "not food." But that tactic gets a bit old when I'd essentially have to designate the whole of the grocery store "not food."
Finally, I know where this particular rabbit-hole leads. If I eliminate dairy, and it doesn't solve my weight loss/systemic issues, the next thing the doctor will suggest is eliminating gluten. Without letting up on dairy. So then I can't even have my whole wheat flour, I'd have to shell out for almond flour or whatever other kinds of flour are around that practically no recipes exist for.
In short, I am very unpleased. Counting calories is fairly simple for me, since I have an app that helps automate it. Simultaneously, it keeps me accountable for what I eat, since I tended to input what I ate just before or just after I ate it. That made it fairly easy to guilt myself into not eating bad things, or at least not eating very much bad things. Finally, counting calories gives me a goal, which I can take many paths to getting to, and it doesn't entirely cut out sweets, just limits them immensely.
But apparently all that is pointless, so I'm now floundering on changing my eating habits. I don't know what to do. I picked up a different app that doesn't focus on calories, but it also doesn't let me input precisely what I ate, and without that the accountability aspect is severely reduced.
Exercise is going. It's sadly not predictable, because my friends keep canceling for various reasons, and Chris only wants to commit to one day a week, if that. I do best with a schedule, but I'll take what I can get. It would be safe to say I am only occasionally making the 3/week exercise I should be doing. Sometimes more than that, often less.
I might go out to a nearby park today. It's not that far from home, and while I have serious concerns about being female and out all by myself, it might be okay? Plus that particular park is supposedly a hotspot of a Pokemon I really like...
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