Thin’s Blog: August 12, 2011
I am so thankful that I no longer need to diet. Having spent nearly a lifetime trying to shed pounds, I never dreamed that it would be so ridiculously simple to lose 35 pounds and keep it off for life. I have not dieted in over ten years. And, I am happy to say that I have traded in my size 14 for a size 6, and have remained the same size for over a decade.
In 2001, I had reached a point in my life, being fed up with diets. I was on vacation in Florida with my husband, visiting our daughter, Emily, who was attending college. I had lived through two weddings as the mother-of-the-bride, being disappointingly over-weight. Strict adherence to low calorie plans resulted in only minimal weight loss, from a size 14 to a size 12. On this vacation, I was again back up in weight. I was not quite sure that the size twelve pants in my suitcase would still fit by the end of the week. Dieting was a constant battle, and I was losing ground (not pounds) in the battle every year. No matter how strict I was, inevitably I would eat something that would derail all of my previous efforts.
I will never forget the evening that I went to the book store in Fort Lauderdale, determined to find the answer to permanent weight loss. I knew then that any low calorie plan was not going to result in long term weight loss for me. Whatever I was going to do, it was going to be something that I could live with for the rest of my life. There were definite non-negotiables. First, I needed to eat food that tasted good. I was sick to death of fat-free salad dressings, all of which tasted like chemicals; fat free cheese which had the texture and taste of galvanized rubber, and vegetables without butter (yuck!). Second, I needed to be able to follow the plan wherever I was, whether at a restaurant, a friend’s house, or a carnival. I had to have a variety of alternatives to eat that I could enjoy in any given situation. Third, the plan needed to be research-based and tested over a long period of time. I did not want to be a guinea pig, trying a plan, and finding out a few years down the line that I had ruined my vital organs by eliminating certain nutrients from my diet. Fourth, I needed to eat enough food to provide energy, as well as a sense that I was satisfied and not hungry. That night, I purchased Life Without Bread How a Low-Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life, written by Christian B. Allan, PH.D and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D. It presented actual data from the medical files of Dr. Lutz who has used low-carbohydrate nutrition on many thousands of patients in Austria and Germany for more than forty years. After reading this book, I knew I had found my answer.
I became a sponge, soaking up every book and study that I could find on the topic of limiting carbohydrates. Here is a sampling of the books I devoured:
6 books by Dr. Atkins and website
4 books by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades (re: Protein Power) and website
3 books by Diana Schwarzbein, M.D. (re: The Schwarzbein Principle)
Sugar Bust for Life by the Brennans
Jonny Bowden’s Living the Low Carb Life
Dana Carpender’s How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds and website
Lick the Sugar Habit by Nancy Appleton
Thin for Good by Fred Pescatore, M.D.
George Stella’s Eating Stella Style
And recently, Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
One of my favorite websites: Jimmy Moore’s Livin’ la Vida Low-Carb
Another favorite website: SugarFreeSheila.com
With this knowledge, I have achieved the following:
- successful maintenance of ideal weight
- high energy level
- “Everything I put in my mouth tastes great” being my reality
- easy to follow eating plan with flexibility and variety
- extremely good health
Emily and I have experimented in our respective kitchens and have tweaked old family recipes and many new ones to create 55 recipes that have become the basis for a very satisfying low carbohydrate lifestyle. We share every recipe that we use for our breakfasts, lunches, and nightly family dinners, as well as snacks and desserts.
We encourage you to purchase Thin and Thinner in which we provide extremely valuable suggestions to assist you in being healthy and thin for life. Our specific eating plans, grocery lists, strategies for dining out, menu suggestions, and recipes, are all laid out in an easy to follow format .
When purchasing any book that contains recipes, I highly recommend downloading to your computer the pdf version. The pdf version of our book, Thin and Thinner, can be found on Smashwords.com. From the table of contents, you can jump from section to section, and when you come to a recipe or chart that you know you will use, you could just print it and keep it in a handy file, rather than having to store the entire book on your recipe shelf.
We will continue to update this website with additional information and recipes each month. Please visit our site often and let us know how you are doing. We would love to hear from you.
Kind Regards,
Ida (Thin)
