Why this blog? Where I began, where I am, where I'm going.

I've always been a fat kid.  I can't remember a time that I didn't at least think that I was substantially overweight.  I never really felt like I was in control of my weight.  I didn't clearly understand why it seemed like I had a harder time staying lean than other people I knew, and I didn't know how food was impacting me and actually making me sick.

I got there as a result of making all the wrong choices, and being unaware of what was going on in my body.  In college I was broke and lazy and turned to carb-laden junk food far more often than I'd care to admit.  I drank too much, and always the sugary, fruity stuff.  By the time I graduated and started working a desk job, I was eating fast food and at restaurants with appalling frequency and the portion sizes and carb and fat content of what I was eating was entirely horrific.  My life was sedentary and my energy for anything beyond work very low.  I had gotten really, really fat quite quickly without even realizing what was happening.

A visit to the doctor in 2006 where, at 5'4" I weighed in at 290 pounds came as quite a shock.  I knew something had to be done.  I saw a nutritionist and devoted myself to strict diet and exercise and by mid-2007 I was down to around 200.  But I was really, really hungry.  All. The. Time.  My exercise routine, while effective, consumed at least a couple of hours every day, and I was getting bored and feeling like I was sacrificing more time than was reasonable to the gym.

At about that point, a lot of drastic changes started happening in my life.  I opened and closed a business, got divorced, lost my home, and dealt with some health issues.  By October of 2008, I was living in a new state, trying to start over, but feeling as though I had little footing or control of my life.  All of these changes lead to a departure from many of the healthy habits I had acquired and it wasn't long before I got back up to about 240.

When, in July of 2009, I started cosmetology school to forge a new life direction I decided that the first day of class would also be my first day of vegetarianism.  Ethically and environmentally I had known for a long time that I wanted to make that change and the first day off class seemed like a good day to commit to the change.

Because I was very, very poor, I also stopped taking anti-depressant and birth control medication, cold turkey, shortly after starting school.  Initially, detoxing from the medications in that way was awful (and a terrible idea), but slowly, wonderfully, a cloud lifted, and I came alive.  After nearly 15 years on medication, I didn't have any idea what real life felt like.  Suddenly, I was vital in a way I never had been.  While I ate the high-carb diet of a broke and poorly-informned vegetarian, I dropped to about 230 over a few months.  The chronic pain I'd had in my feet and ankles for over a decade entirely vanished.

Feeling better and better, I finished school and started work in my new industry.  I loved this new career path and soon found a supportive partner.  In April of 2010, we relocated to Asheville, NC, a vibrant, beautiful, healing place, and city full of resources for the health-conscious.  Finally, I was feeling a sense of balance in my life that I hadn't in several years.  I knew that the time was coming to make some major changes and continue my journey to reaching a healthy weight and lifestyle.

For a while, I had been aware that I had Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), but I hadn't ever been told or educated myself very well about what this meant was going on in my body.  A conversation with a friend at work revealed that she shared my condition and she mentioned something that her doctor had told her about the need for a higher protein diet.  So, I started reading.  The things I learned were incredibly enlightening.  For me, like for as many as 15% of women, PCOS meant that I was insulin resistant.  It explained why, not long after eating, I would often become hungry again in just a couple of hours.  Why my blood sugar would make sudden drops.  Why I'd get shaky, spaced-out, or moody nearly every day.  (All of which would lead to more eating and the cycle starting over.)  Why my body seemed to store everything I ate and putting on weight had always happened so quickly.

My body hated carbs.  When I ate high-carb foods, particularly without high protein alongside, my body was producing insulin that it couldn't absorb.  Resultantly, my blood sugar would plummet and lead to all of those feelings I was having of near-immediate hunger and discomfort, and causing my pancreas to have to work overtime.  

When, around this time, my boyfriend came to me and said that he had found this great iPhone app called MyFitnessPal and wanted to start using it to lose some weight, I was more than ready.

Starting in early November, 2011, every single thing that I ate started being entered and tracked in my food diary.  I started reading more and more about PCOS and Insulin Resistance.  I joined the r/Loseit forum on Reddit and found an amazing support group and a wealth of information.  I learned about ketogenic eating.  As I learned, I adapted how I cooked.  I played with my carb, protein, and fat ratios to see what felt right, what was sustainable, what kept me feeling full and energetic and as though I was getting diverse, whole nutrition.  I nixed pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, and other high carb foods from my life.

Weight started coming off rapidly and this time, unlike when I had lost weight a couple of years earlier, I felt great!  I didn't feel hungry all the time.  After I ate, I'd stay full for hours, and when I did get hungry, it was a "normal" feeling of hunger, not that awful feeling of low blood sugar.

It became clear very quickly that unless I started getting creative, I wasn't going to be able to sustain my high-protein, low-carb, vegetarian lifestyle and keep it interesting.  As I learned more about of some of the issues associated with soy that were related to phytoestrogens, thyroid and reproductive issues, and the likelihood that a high-soy diet made weight loss more difficult, I reduced my soy consumption to once a week or less.  This meant I was going to have to get really creative.  And any chance of being able to eat at restaurants?  Basically gone.

So, I started cooking.  Seeking out and trying recipes, adapting meaty keto recipes to vegetarian ones, trying all the creative ways that carby foods could be replaced.  Suddenly, it was getting fun.  I was having an increasingly good ratio of successes to failures and I found that some latent instinct I had for creating and understanding flavor profiles emerged.  Maybe it was all those years of watching Top Chef and eating at restaurants.  Following recipes and living with a professional cook helped me learn tips and tricks that meant I made fewer mistakes and developed better instincts.

As of the date of this post, it has been 121 days since I committed to this lifestyle change and became a genuine geek on the subject of insulin resistance cooking.  In that time I have consumed hours of information and cooked something new at least once a day.  I still have a lot to learn, but I have come a long, long way, and I can confidently say that I am no longer a terrible cook.  Also, in those 121 days, I have lost 40 pounds, and it's still coming off at a rate of about 2.5 pounds per week.

I know that what I've learned could be helpful to others out there who are vegetarian, dealing with insulin resistance, PCOS, diabetes or pre-diabetes, intimidated by cooking, and wanting to put delicious, diverse, nourishing, whole, organic, healthful, balanced food in to their bodies.   I'm starting this blog so that I can share this thing that has changed my life and my body.

I have a daily motivating thought and mantra that I'd like to share with you as we begin this journey together.  I hope it will become yours, too, and that you can experience joy and freedom that comes from being in control of your destiny.  It goes:

In this world, we are surrounded by defeating forces.  They are in the form of the food that is made available, marketed, pushed upon us, the ways in which lazy, unhealthful lifestyles are encouraged and enabled, the misinformation and deceit with which we are constantly inundated.  I refuse to be one of those defeating forces to myself for another minute.  I commit to myself to rise above these forces, and the nonsense, and all the things that would prevent me from being every bit as healthy and strong as I can be, and become my own superhero. 

Thanks so much for joining me.  I encourage your feedback and suggestions as I post my recipes and thoughts.