If you’re new to eating Low Carb, and/or
especially to Very Low Carb (as I eat), and you’re human (as I am), you
probably have a couple of challenges ahead of you. If you live alone, you’re
lucky, at least in this respect: The only food in the house is the food you bought. You have no one to blame but
yourself for your bad choices.[1]
Of course, if you blame someone
else for the food choices they made,
by buying food you’re trying not to
eat, you have another problem: taking
responsibility yourself for the food you decide to put in your mouth. But
we’re all human, as I’ve said, and I’ll have to admit it is sometimes hard for
me not to eat the food I’m trying to avoid IF IT’S AROUND ME ALL THE TIME
(especially in open boxes, containers
and bags), or worse JUST SITTING ON THE COUNTER. Most of my neurotransmitters
still work. Have you heard about the cephalic response?
But the fact is, “if you live
alone…the only food in the house is the food you bought” includes a vestigial accumulation of “before” foods. In
transitioning from eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) to eating Very Low
Carb, you still have goods in your pantry (and frig) that remain from those
halcyon days of yesteryear when you ate processed foods and sweets to your “heart’s
content” (!!!), or more correctly to satisfy your brain’s addiction to foods developed and produced to addict you to them. When you blamed yourself for that, you called it a
“craving.” It’ll be awhile before you’re weaned off them and realize you no
longer want them.
Until that time you need to take
steps to reduce the temptation to stray from the course you have set for
yourself. The Way of Eating you have chosen may seem difficult at first, and
confusing until you learn when and what to eat, and not eat, but
you will eventually sort this out. When you follow a Very Low Carb (VLC) Way of
Eating for a period of time (the length varies), and you lower your blood
insulin and deplete your liver glycogen supply of stored glucose, you will
transition to being a “fat burner.” You will not be hungry then.
But, if you’re like me, that
doesn’t mean you won’t be tempted to eat carbs, both the highly processed ones
and sweets. So, the best defense is a strong offense. You need to take charge.
Clean out your pantry and frig of all
things that might tempt you when you “raid” the kitchen looking for something
to put in your mouth.
When you were a “sugar burner,” you
were probably told you should eat 5 or 6 times a day, that you needed these
infusions, or “snacks,” for energy. That
was true. When you followed the SAD, which is 55% to 60% carbohydrate, and you have Insulin Resistance (IR), your
blood sugar goes up and down like a roller coaster, but your blood insulin level stays high (because of your IR). And
because your blood insulin is still
high, you don’t have access to your body fat for energy. So, you need to snack on carbs (or fat), for
that “energy boost.”
But when you eat VLC, you’re not
hungry. You have access to body fat for energy so you don’t need to snack. If you do snack, it’s
just a bad habit. It’s time to face up to it. Eat only when you’re actually
hungry, not caving to a bad habit when you’re not actually hungry. Eat only, at most, three small meals a day.
Even two, or one (OMAD). EAT ONLY WHEN
YOU’RE HUNGRY. Your body will feed itself (on you) the rest of the time. It
works.
So, start with the pantry. It
will be cathartic, and it will boost your confidence that you have finally
crossed the Rubicon and there’s no going back. You can probably throw out
almost everything. Think of the space you will create! I started with the “vegetable”
oils. They’re all oxidized and rancid anyway. And the Crisco (trans fats).
If you have unopened jars of jelly or honey or
boxes of sugar, donate them to a food bank. Virtue signaling will make you feel
good. Fill a garbage bag with open
containers from the pantry and frig. That’s what all the sugar-filled,
processed “foods” are anyway. Garbage. The exercise of clearing away the past
and preparing to go forward into a future that you have envisioned for yourself
is very Jungian. It’s the kind of self-therapy that supports the future you
have chosen for yourself, a future in which you self manage your type 2
diabetes by treating this disease for what it is: A DIETARY DISEASE.
You can eat your way
out of it…by eating VLC.
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