Hello!

[franchise]

Hey all, I'm Rebecca. I've been hearing about this site since Steve started it I don't even remember when, but have finally come over and checked it out, and joined the party.

A little about me: I've always strugged with weight. Even during my 10 years in the military, I was always at the top end of the weight range, and usually over, requiring tape measurement for body fat to prove that I was within standards. That right there is enough to give a girl a complex! Just before leaving the military, I lost nearly 30 pounds on weight watchers. Within about 6 months of getting out, I had settled with about 10 of that back. Then my job started to look like it wasn't going to last, and then I lost it. In about 5 months, I managed to gain back the rest of that 30, plus another nearly 20. I'm 5' 8 1/2, and weighed 223 pounds. Once I got resettled into gainful employment, I made it down to 209, but for the past 2 years have been between about 210-218. I've been doing weight watchers, but not as strictly as when I lost all the weight. I recently moved jobs into one where while I still sit at a desk 8 hours a day, I at least walk to and from public transit, and I work in the Pentagon so I walk a lot more during the day than I used to. Otherwise, I don't work out much, mostly because I'm lazy. If I had to throw any other excuse out there, though, part of it is also because I'm tired by the time I get home from work, and I also have a sleep disorder (borderline narcolepsy) that adds to being tired at the end of the day. Realistically, chances are not good that I'll up my workouts significantly, because my past history shows that unless someone is forcing me, I won't do it.

My biggest problem, though, is food intake. I have a problem where that little switch in my brain that's supposed to tell me that I'm full doesn't work. I also really, really, really like carbs - pasta, bread, potatoes, doritoes, tortilla chips, you name it, I like it. I don't do the junk food much anymore, but I've never seriously tried cutting the other carbs, and I tend to be a mood eater - when I'm in a bad mood, or when I'm bored, or when I'm sad. Or if it tastes really good, or if I'm at a party, or if everyone else is eating, or I smell it.... you get the picture.

I've tried the weight watchers forever. I've tried switching to low fat / reduced calorie. But Steve's blog post spelling out the paleo diet, along with some other research that I've done, has convinced me that this is worth a shot. I'm not going 100% paleo, at least not right away - there are certain things that will be really hard for me, like losing the salad dressing on my salads and going all organic / grass fed / etc, or completely condiment free, and I like wine, and my boyfriend, who I live with, does most of the cooking and while he's willing to support, he's not willing to lose all of the condiments that he cooks with. And I'm gonna want the occasional cheese on things. But for the most part, I'm going to give this 30 days and see what happens. Can't hurt, right?

D'oh! Edited to add where I'm going, because I suck and forgot!! Really, my goal is for my clothes to fit better, to have more energy, and, I'm not gonna lie, for those numbers to go down on the scale. My cholesterol and blood pressure are on the lower ends of normal, so I'm not necessarily UNHEALTHY, I just feel kinda fat, and I don't wanna. I want to be able to feel good in my clothes and my bathing suit, and I want to feel good. So pretty simple

I appreciate in advance the support that I hope I'll get from this group!

[Thor]

Hey Rebecca,

welcome to NF - this proves that you are smart :-)

Remember that you should only make changes that you can live with, right ? Paleo is - for me - the best way to go. Yeah, I miss bread, pizza, chips and noodles a bit, but knowing that my body is being fed really GOOD stuff makes it easier. I didn't drop all of the non-paleo foods at once, I eased into it. Leave out chips first, replace with carrot sticks. Next week drop the bread, replace with more salad and/or eggs. And so on.... you get the picture.

I still use salad dressing and condiments (like catsup, mustard and such) - I wonder where you read that ?

Leaving all that sort of stuff out would be a change that I couldn't live with (right now) - so I don't.

On the overall scale I'm still doing myself LOADS of good.

And red wine : The cavemen often had old grape juice laying around, so red wine is paleo *for me*.

What Im saying is : Go slow, change stuff that you can (and want to). An 80% solution is SO much better than none at all. And when you are at 80%, THEN you can slowly creep up on the 100% mark.

But even with paleo the bad news is : You still need to eat less energy than you consume to lose weight.

So now go and make a list of what you will leave out and when. Goals are the only way to go. And post them here.

Good luck on your journey, there are so many people here to help.

Thorsten

[franchise]

Thanks for the encouragement. You're not the first to tell me that 80% is better than nothing - that's part of what attracts me to paleo.

I guess I just assumed that salad dressings weren't paleo. I'm still pretty sure that ranch dressing isn't, but oh well - I likes what I likes Good to know about condiments. The hardest part for me is going to be when the boyfriend eats things that I'm trying not to eat. But I think that will get easier as I realize I'm feeling better. Which I'm hoping will happen soon.

Right now, I've started small, with dairy being the biggest thing I'm leaving out:

My morning smoothie no longer has yogurt, juice, or peanut butter. Instead, I'm using pureed sweet potato and water with my mix of fresh fruit and spinach, and if I need a snack mid-morning its tuna or a handful of almonds.

At lunch, no cheese on the salad I eat 3 days a week, and no bread or other grains when I bring it. Instead, I've thrown in extra fruit and baby carrots. Although I may have to find something paleo-friendly to dip the carrots in, because I really don't think I can eat plain raw carrots. Any dip ideas, anyone?

At dinner, I'm aiming for an extra fruit or veggie instead of the starch that was the norm.

And I absolutely will not completely give up red wine. I like it far too much. The other thing I'm unsure about are potatoes - some of the things I've read say no potatoes, but others say that because they grow from the ground and we eat them in the same form, they're fine. Thoughts?

[franchise]

Thanks Athena - a guac-type dip sounds amazing. I will have to try that. Also, good suggestions on the pictures and measurements. I'm usually pretty good about pictures - I like to take lots - and weighing, but not always as good about measuring. I'll have to do that.

My issue with WW is that I don't plateau when I stop - I gain. So its either stay on WW forever, or make some real changes. Which is what I'm looking to do here

As for my sleep disorder, no, its not one that's generally affected by weight. Sleep apnea is the one that is generally most associated with weight. But I wasn't finally diagnosed until after I'd started to gain a good bit of the weight back, after several years of knowing something wasn't right. I'm not much of a snorer or anything like that - just experience a lot of daytime sleepiness no matter how much sleep I get because my sleep cycle doesn't function the way its supposed to, or something. But who knows - maybe this change will affect that as well. That would absolutely be a welcome side effect