And This I discovered via self-experimentation, anyway... :) A revisit of my DNA Test for "optimal diet" for my genetic type...and how you can use tracking to figure out what's best for you!

Those of you who have read me since the early days of this second weight loss blog of mine--the first one being Once Upon a Diet, where I spent time learning and trying to get my act together--will remember the Inherent Health DNA test that I took to help me with my journey.

It gave me some dire, but interesting info. Yes, I am genetically a high fat absorber and a fat hoarder. I have to exercise harder than the average person to burn fat. I am simply disposed to pack it on and keep it on. I gots some o' dem dere fatz geenz.

They then suggested I trim fat and use a diet similar to the low-fat model the government and many dietitians suggest. 65% carbs, 15% fat.

I had done that type of diet multiple times in the past with registered dietitians and using magazine low-fat diet menus, and really, never could do well on them.

I decided to go back to worked on my journey. Reducing carbs. I went to a dietitian who decided with my medical issues, reducing starches would be best to one serving a day, no more. I thrived, lost better than ever. I noticed in my SparkPeople tracking that I did best--weight loss wise--when my ratio was in the ranges where carbs were no more than 40% and fat was no more than 40%. Just observing the feedback on Sparkpeople. I mentioned that on this blog, how "Zone" type ratios seemed to be happy-making for my weight loss. If I kept my carbs to 80 to 100, I lost better and appetite was really low. My main temptation to not keeping that low is I adore fruit. :-)

I experimented with upping my starches again, for other health reasons, and this was not beneficial to the weight loss, I can tell you. Cravings came back hard.

I'm  back to working this week that plan of no more than 1 starch serving a day, and using fruit and veggies for my carbs. I am not dong LOW carb by the standards of Atkins type low-carbers, as my carbs can easily reach 150. Ideally, I'd like to keep them more in the 80 to 120 range. Ideally.

The reason I originally lowered my carbs in this journey in 2010 was due to my insulin resistance/prediabetes/Metabolic Syndrome. It seemed the best way to approach that condition from what I'd read.

I remember going to Inherent Health's FB wall and leaving a message that while they may advise me to do Fat Trimming type High Carb dieting, my weight loss went better with Carb Reducer type levels. So, sorry, I had to do it my way. But I'm glad to be armed with the reality of my DNA strikes against me.

So, all that preface to say that today, in the mail. I got  a letter from Inherent Health. And it states that while the DNA doesn't change--and no, I won't go into epigenetics, heh--their recommendations based on an expanded study they undertook that reveals"newly discovered correlations"  that show the optimal diet for my genetic type is not what they originally recommended. I should not trim fat.

They now recommend I follow the CARB REDUCER diet.
:-/

My reaction after reading the letter?

"No sh*t, Sherlock."

Well, I'm glad their expanded study and correlations back up what I learned on my own. They do emphasize it's for LONG TERM success at weight loss. Well, shoot. Ain't that what we're all after? Not short term, not razzle-dazzle lose a lot in 2 weeks. I want to lose it LONG TERM.

Now, to just apply it. Get back to that "Zoneish" whole foods way of eating --the 33-33-33 or 40-30-30--that worked well in 2010 and 2011 when I hit that sweet spot.

You can track your food for a few weeks/months and figure this out without any genetic tests. What works best with your body. Look at the feedback on SparkPeople...see which weeks fat just melted off. You may do better with more carbs or more fat or more protein or this ratio or that ratio. You can investigate it with diligent tracking.

BONUS: With detailed tracking, you'll also find where you fall short in your meal plans, as I learned from the SP nutrition tracker that I often fell short of zinc, copper, magnesium, potassium, iron, and folic acid, partly cause I was doing low calories and part because I can't eat a host of foods (allergies and sensitivities). I knew I had to supplement. And felt way better. :D

I will add that I had tried South Beach and Atkins first phases in the past, and felt like crap. (Lost loads of fluid weight the first weeks, which is always a boost, but felt like crap on very few carbs, hence my not doing low carb now, meaning induction type, 60 grams or fewer.)

I paid for a test. And I'm glad. But I also did the tracking, observation, measuring, pondering. I guess I did my own self-study. :D

I've been having about 120 carbs daily this week. And Tanita-San just put me back in the decade I had dipped into but not stayed in:  179.8

It's nice to have affirmaton. But hey, I knew what I knew..it's always application and consistency that are the keys to making the "I know" work.

All of you who have many dieting experiences behind you have a store of self-knowledge. If you don't remember or never tracked, try it. Learn. Apply.

This is a VERY stressful time in our household (again), so applying is a challenge, but is necessary. Life always has stressful times. We need to deal with those without a host of excuses. I don't want to make excuses. I want to....be in control. :D

Reducing carbs makes it a little easier for ME.

Happy Friday.

Be well...

A Summer of Self Challenge To Battle Complacency...An NSV..and Facing the Fact We're Food Junkies Who Have No Right To Our "Drugs" Of Choice...

Yesterday, I had 200 more calories than planned, but I did 1 hour of Pilates and 40 minutes of Playwalking. It helped make up for the ounce of queso blanco and the extra teaspoons of EVOO on my arugula salad.

Tanita-san: 200.8

ARGH. SO CLOSE! :)

It's the kind of thing that makes a gal wanna do liquid protein dieting. hahahah.

No, not quite.

Since Phase 6 is in full, liquid swing and Phase 5 seems to be in a coma, I just won't tag my posts as related to the challenge anymore. No one seems to care about P5 anymore. Let's call it defunct as Allan isn't taking weigh-ins or keeping the Phase 5 stats--with Elizabeth C the clear winner so far, and has anyone ever heard or seen a blog or comment from this person? I have wondered about her since she started doing so well. Anyway, odd that.

And, yeah, so....I'm still wanting my own challenge for this summer. (Debbi, are we still gonna do this thing?)

I want to challenge myself. I'm not at goal. I can't become complacent. We all go through that phase, the one that says hey, I did well and I feel great and I look better and heck...how about an extra serving of this or that.

I guess my challenge to myself may have to take new forms. I'm already eating as low calorically as I plan to. I am not into deprivation or VLCD. I have no objections to asceticism or liquid diets or VLCD. I just want to eat NOW the way I need to eat for life. I am  establishing my new way of eating for FOREVER..now.

This is life for me now, not just dieting: Eating less and fresher and moving more and in variety. I want to set into a groove NOw the habits I carry into maintenance. I really am establishing those habits, every day, making the choices more automatic every day. It's still work, although it's not anywhere near the work it was before.

It really is so much easier than when these challenges started for me in June of 2010 with SUMMER SLIMMIN' on my old blog. (That was the first challenge I was able to make some real loss, though only half of what I had at goal to lose. I was taking those hard initial steps toward change, real change, and I semi-failed, semi-succeeded.)

But it being easier, that's a great thing, but that can be a pitfall. It can lead to laxity.

I have been losing well, so I stopped tracking food. I mean, when you eat pretty much the same sorts of meals over a week in the same portions, you kind of start thinking, "Why bother."

One of my challenges this week is to re-bother. To track again. And for life, I will need to do this periodically. I think it reminds us that yes, those calories add up, and look, that day you had too little iron, and well, maybe you overdid the olive oil this day. Tracking is a totally useful and necessary thing when one embarks on a weight loss journey, I believe. Firmly believe. It's eye-opening. It's educational. It's accountability and knowledge combined. I mean, I don't eat any meal without at minimum mentally calculating calories or points (I sometimes default to points out of habit, the old points system which was about 50 cals per point.) I have to. For life. I have to know how much goes in, even if it's just a mental tally that I carry meal to snack to meal.

And as we become entrenched in a healthier eating and moving lifestyle, tracking (even if sporadic or periodic) is a way to check if we've gotten lazy with portions--spoonfuls, half-cups, cups, etc. It happens. I've read articles about it and I don't wanna be the "Lazy Portion Statistic Girl" who gained it back, small portion fudge by small portion fudge.

It's always the basics that I will have to hang on to like mad: Lots of water/fluids. Easy on salt. Forget sugar (or absolutely minimize). Quality REAL food. Good protein and colorful assortments of veggies above all, with fats and fresh fruit and cheese as flavor treats and nutrition helpers. Oodles of spices and no-sugar/no HFCS/no trans fats condiments to perk things up. Starches as rarities (for me, this is about me and my basics). Tracking periodically to make corrections. Exercise nearly daily, and with assorted exercises to keep the fun in working out. Finding non-food stress relievers. Joy and hope with everything. The basics for me...

I was a binge eater and chronic overeater. Inside me lurks that beast, I'm sure, ready to take any opportunity to revive itself and grab control.  The beast is in hibernation now--I haven't binged in about a year--and I want it to stay asleep. Some scoff at food addiction, but I don't. What pizza does to me is not a sane thing. It's like meth or coke and such to others.

My paper this morning reminded me of this by having a brief article that focuses on the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. You probably read about the results released last month of one of their studies likening food addiction to drug addiction in how the brain responds. If you didn't see that one (though it was talked about in assorted online sites and blogs), here, read this.  

Women whose relationship to food resembles dependence or addiction -- those who often lose control and eat more than they'd planned, for example -- appear to anticipate food in much the same way that drug addicts anticipate a fix, according to the study, which used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans.

When these women saw pictures of a chocolate milk shake made with Häagen-Dazs ice cream, they displayed increased activity in the same regions of the brain that fire when people who are dependent on drugs or alcohol experience cravings. When presented with the same milk shake, women who don't feel addicted to food showed comparatively less activity in those regions.

It wasn't news to me. I've experienced it. I've read similar studies highlighted in articles and books I've read, THE END OF OVEREATING for one.

I spent years perplexed by the animal-out-of-control that was my appetite. I'd weep after crazy  meals wondering why I could not stop. I'd wonder why I'd be hungry so often and feel not-full with normal quantities of food. I really felt like a junkie--totally obsessed, out of control, shaky with needs that were puzzling to me. "Why am I hungry all the time?" I'd wonder aloud to hubby and sis. "What is wrong with me?"

Well, it's not just me. We don't have an obesity epidemic cause it's "just me". It's a lot of us with issues. And if we expect alcoholics and drug addicts to seriously attack and fix their issues in order to be responsible citizens and not cause damage to their brains/bodies, then we need to see ourselves as addicts who have to be ruthless addressing our issues. Sorry, but the days of feeling sorry for ourselves have to end and the days of bucking up and rolling up our food sleeves and yelling "Just say No!" to the foods that trigger us have to begin.

Yes, I'm a recovering binge eater/food addict. I do not have the right to buy that cake or order that deluxe pizza or make that quadruple decker lasagna. I don't have the right because those are my drugs. And junkies shouldn't be buying/using drugs. I shouldn't be buying/cooking/eating my drugs. When I do, I am no better than the heroin user getting their dose or the alcoholic traipsing to the corner booze shop to get a few bottles of rum.

If the Meth Head doesn't/shouldn't be ingesting meth, then I shouldn't be ingesting Coke and deep dish pizzas. Only the legality is different in my eyes. The loss of control, the pleasure centers firing, the eventual damage to the body....I see it as really similar.

That's how I see it. It may not be how YOU see it, but if you are a binge-eater, a chronic overeater, morbidly obese/obese, and feel out of control around food, then baby, that's you, too. You need to look at your trigger foods as poison. As dangerous. As illegal.

Allan looks at those foods as contributing to fat cancer.

I see them as contributing to food addiction. To making me a junkie.

I don't want to be a junkie. I want to be sober and stay sober and live a live unshackled from the drugs that are advertised on tv and smell great on a drive to here and there and are offered at my loved one's homes.

Just say no, baby.

And what's that NSV from the post title? I tucked in my shirt yesterday. Yep. It's been a long time since I wore pants with the shirt tucked in. I mean, who wants to bring attention to an appley fat abdomen, blubbery waist, and lumpy ass? Seriously?

I still prefer shirts that cover skim the belly/hips area, but yesterday, I had a pair of yoga banded waist pants on, and the waist had a pretty trim, so I tucked in my camisole top. And went out like that. On errands. Then on my walk. Yep....I gots a waist now. And if the belly is still huge, too bad. I'm showing off my waist!

Be well ....do something that makes your life healthier today....