I know that feeling all to well. When you feel like you are the “fat friend”, the one with the great personality that has everything going for them, but the rocking size 8 body that you want so damn much. And that you have tried every damn thing and diet that has come down the pike, eaten barely nothing for days, exercised until every muscle you own screams. And still the scale refuses to budge, along with the tape measure. So you just give in and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. I have been there!! 

Finally after researching the crap out of it I dipped my toe into the Low Carb/High Fat (further known as LCHF) lifestyle. And damn it, it worked. The pounds began to come off, it took a bit for my brain to get with the program. To understand that Carbs are the enemy not Fat Grams. But once both my body and my brain became Keto Adapted, it was easy. I learned to adapt favorite recipes, combat constipation and realize that my body doesn’t know natural sugar in fruit from table sugar from sugar in bread, rice or my personal favorite pasta. 

I love bacon, steak, sausage and chicken thighs. I have re-trained my family to accept what is for dinner and deal with it. My cholesterol is great, so don’t even give me the spiel abt how it will raise those numbers. My body is healthy and it is working for me. 

I may never be a Size 8 again, at 5’9″ tall and with my build a size 8 with the weight that it brings is kind of unrealistic and might make me look pretty undernourished and sickly. I will b happy when I get to a 12 and securely out of the Plus Size realm. Right now I am sitting at a standard 16, a size I haven’t seen in 3 years, with a bra size that I haven’t seen in twice as many years. I am also learning not to be scale obsessed, to be more concerned about things that fit and how they look.

Thinking Outside The Box of the Standard American Diet has led me on a journey to be happier and healthier than I have been in years!😊

     
     If you know me, you know that my extended family is a few sandwiches short of a full picnic basket. This makes me both angry and baffled at the same time.  My parents are amazing people, I learned all sorts of real world skills from my Dad; changing a tire, changing the oil, spackling a wall, painting that same wall (albeit I am not very good at painting), hanging curtain rods, how to split wood and knowing when I am out of my league and to call a pro.     

     My Mom taught me patience, something my dad isn’t very good at. She taught me how to make killer spaghetti sauce,amazing lasagna, how to roast a chicken and a turkey. How to make melt in your mouth cheesecake and fantastic chocolate chip cookies. From her I learned how to soothe a baby and how to make a bed, how to balance a checkbook and how to do my taxes, and how to hang those curtains on the rods that dad showed me how to hang straight and plumb.

     In short between the 2 of them I went out into the world pretty well prepared with some common sense and some real world smarts. I also learned the most important lesson from both of them early on. Their love was unconditional, their was nothing I could do that would make them change their love for me. I was their daughter and nothing would change that. I tested that ideal quite a few times throughout my teen years, and the outcome was the same. They would be mad, there would be consequences, but I was still loved and I was still their daughter.

     I have no comprehension of people or parents that just walk away from their children as if that part of their life no longer exists. Walk away from a former spouse a girlfriend, be my guest but your kids?  That takes a certain kind of callous human being that I just don’t understand. I know we live in a disposable society, but human beings are not disposable.