Introducing myself
Sep. 20th, 2010 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blueberrycream posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
playeatsleepThank you, rydra_wong, for alerting me to the existence of this community. I hope this will be an active, interesting place to discuss paleo/primal stuff. To add to the activity aspect, let me introduce myself (I can't guarantee the interestingness of this :D ).
My name is Blue. I'm not new to journaling in general, but this particular journal is new and is devoted entirely to this food thing that we must do in order to stay alive.
I've been low-carb and/or paleo on and off for over six years. Mostly off, to my consternation. I discovered low-carb eating in 2004 when I was struggling with pains that were like fibromyalgia but apparently not enough to warrant the diagnosis. I read somewhere that someone had had help with the pain by watching what they ate and listening to what their body said, and I thought, what the heck, it doesn't hurt to try. Conventional medicine had failed to help me in any way, and I was desperate for some relief.
But what foods to leave out? That was the question. And when I was looking for the answer, I stumbled across the books by a Finnish doctor Antti Heikkilä. Heikkilä is the most prominent proponent of low-carb diet in Finland. His style is provocative, but what he was saying made sense. So I looked for more and more information, and it began to change my outlook on nutrition. Previously, I'd been very much anti-low-carb without knowing anything about it at all. However, when I read about low-carb diets from a variety of sources, it all made sense to me.
Did the diet work in lowering my pain levels? Well, no. Not at all. And yet, I was feeling much better than before. I was losing weight, I was less tired and I didn't have cravings for sugary food as much as I had before. I lasted some months on the diet, and then, for some reason, I quit it. I don't remember why, but I suspect it was because it was getting so difficult to maintain. You see, I was a purist. I'll get to that particular character trait in a moment.
So, during the years, I've been on and off low-carb diet. I've read a great deal on it, though, and at some point my thinking changed again. I change from thinking I follow a low-carb diet to thinking I should follow a paleo-diet. It made the most sense.
However, every time I tried to follow the diet, I failed. I couldn't stay on it for a long time. I think now that that's because I was, and still am really, a perfectionist. If I can't do something properly, I'm not doing it at all. That's my thinking. And I think that's been a mistake.
Anyone who struggles with perfectionism knows that it's not easy to overcome it, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to be more forgiving of myself and my food choices. I'm going to try not to feel guilty if I have to buy a sandwich from the university cafeteria because I have no time to stop for a proper lunch. I'm going to try not to feel guilty about taking a little bit of rice with my meat and vegetables when I'm eating lunch at the same cafeteria.
I hope that this time I'll succeed in permanently changing my eating habits. I need to do something to help myself. I'm really overweight and I'd like to be slimmer. I'm also so tired all the time; it's as if there's not enough sleep in the world to satisfy me. And my stomach, it does not like grains, even though my addicted-to-starch part tries to hold onto them as fast as it can.
I'm planning on basing my diet on meat (including fish), vegetables and natural fats. I'll also add some non-paleo ingredients such as milk products and small amounts of sugar as long as my body doesn't protest. I'm done with trying to be perfect. I'll settle for feeling good. :-)
rydra_wong, for alerting me to the existence of this community. I hope this will be an active, interesting place to discuss paleo/primal stuff. To add to the activity aspect, let me introduce myself (I can't guarantee the interestingness of this :D ).My name is Blue. I'm not new to journaling in general, but this particular journal is new and is devoted entirely to this food thing that we must do in order to stay alive.
I've been low-carb and/or paleo on and off for over six years. Mostly off, to my consternation. I discovered low-carb eating in 2004 when I was struggling with pains that were like fibromyalgia but apparently not enough to warrant the diagnosis. I read somewhere that someone had had help with the pain by watching what they ate and listening to what their body said, and I thought, what the heck, it doesn't hurt to try. Conventional medicine had failed to help me in any way, and I was desperate for some relief.
But what foods to leave out? That was the question. And when I was looking for the answer, I stumbled across the books by a Finnish doctor Antti Heikkilä. Heikkilä is the most prominent proponent of low-carb diet in Finland. His style is provocative, but what he was saying made sense. So I looked for more and more information, and it began to change my outlook on nutrition. Previously, I'd been very much anti-low-carb without knowing anything about it at all. However, when I read about low-carb diets from a variety of sources, it all made sense to me.
Did the diet work in lowering my pain levels? Well, no. Not at all. And yet, I was feeling much better than before. I was losing weight, I was less tired and I didn't have cravings for sugary food as much as I had before. I lasted some months on the diet, and then, for some reason, I quit it. I don't remember why, but I suspect it was because it was getting so difficult to maintain. You see, I was a purist. I'll get to that particular character trait in a moment.
So, during the years, I've been on and off low-carb diet. I've read a great deal on it, though, and at some point my thinking changed again. I change from thinking I follow a low-carb diet to thinking I should follow a paleo-diet. It made the most sense.
However, every time I tried to follow the diet, I failed. I couldn't stay on it for a long time. I think now that that's because I was, and still am really, a perfectionist. If I can't do something properly, I'm not doing it at all. That's my thinking. And I think that's been a mistake.
Anyone who struggles with perfectionism knows that it's not easy to overcome it, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to be more forgiving of myself and my food choices. I'm going to try not to feel guilty if I have to buy a sandwich from the university cafeteria because I have no time to stop for a proper lunch. I'm going to try not to feel guilty about taking a little bit of rice with my meat and vegetables when I'm eating lunch at the same cafeteria.
I hope that this time I'll succeed in permanently changing my eating habits. I need to do something to help myself. I'm really overweight and I'd like to be slimmer. I'm also so tired all the time; it's as if there's not enough sleep in the world to satisfy me. And my stomach, it does not like grains, even though my addicted-to-starch part tries to hold onto them as fast as it can.
I'm planning on basing my diet on meat (including fish), vegetables and natural fats. I'll also add some non-paleo ingredients such as milk products and small amounts of sugar as long as my body doesn't protest. I'm done with trying to be perfect. I'll settle for feeling good. :-)
