Whine with the Cheese

Kaylee went off to practice musical with a swing in her step.  She really enjoys it, that's for sure.  I'm giving them my oval mirror for the play, as they sent out a "we could use one of these" and I seemed to have the perfect one.  Glad to be able to help some for once on that.  :)

Now I'm going to whine a little bit, and be a little overly personal.  I'm kind of sad.  Around the end of December I started working on my health more.  I got back up and started walking again.  I have only missed around 4 days in almost two months of getting in at least a minimal amount of walking a day.  Usually it's around 45 minutes to an hour which I dedicate to walking to get exercise in again.  I have cut back on alcohol to where weeks go by before I have anything, and then it might be a glass of wine with a dinner, or a small snifter of a new type of something the guys have on the deck.  I have cut back on soft drinks, even the diet ones, and mostly drink water, unsweet tea, and sometimes a coffee.  I may have a can of Vanilla Coke Zero once every few days.  I have started working on my calorie intake again.  I haven't been perfect here, but most days I have been very close to around 1500 calories or less.  In the first two weeks I lost 5 pounds.  I have not lost any additional weight in the the rest of January or February.  I'm overweight, which means weight should be coming off easier. But my body gets used to what I did in the past and basically seems to say "Nope, not going to fool me this time."  I'm also about to turn 48, so I'm assuming the spread in my middle section has to do with that, as well, and the increase in headaches may too. And the fatigue.  And the muscle/joint pain.  And the higher than it used to be glucose numbers, even though they're still in the normal range.  Of course, you know what they say to help with most of that?   Lose weight.  Fine.  So how do you suggest I do that, if restricting calories and exercising an hour a day isn't doing it?  Why do my legs and joints and feet still hurt after 6 weeks of exercising regularly?  So I dig into some research, including for women my age.  And this is where I am the most sad.  In fact, I feel pretty defeated at the moment.  One says "I've been doing this for 30 years and have helped millions of women and what you need to do is eat small meals 5-6 times a day, do not fast, ketosis is bad, do not cut calories, and you can't walk because your body won't release fat that way, you have to do something different."  The other says "I've been doing this for 20-30 years and have helped lots of women and what you need to do is intermittent fasting, fast for 16 hours, then eat in an 8 hour window, as it will allow your body to burn the fat and not just glucose.  And walking is one of the best exercises you can do!"  Another says the whole I've been doing this awhile thing and then says "Do NOT snack, because it just keeps your glucose levels high all day and your body only burns glucose, not fat!"  They all agree you should eat healthy, but some want you to cut carbs and some want you to reduce fats and some want you to increase proteins and some say it doesn't matter.  The one says the more you do diets like the ketosis thing the more you're screwing up your system, and the ketosis thing says this is the most proven and effective way to lose belly fat with tons of studies over the years by now.  One says using hormones to stay in balance will help with weight loss and the other says using hormones will trigger your body to convert more belly cells into fat.  Tons of articles, tons of books, tons of research, tons of science, behind...everything.  Everyone agrees on WHY you get bigger at this time, but they can't agree on what to do about it. 

I don't feel the greatest most of the time.  So I'm trying to do better, I'm doing what I know to do, which is small changes, eat less, move more, it doesn't seem to be doing anything, and I haven't even hit the time when you're going to gain even more weight most likely, but it's coming in the next 10 years.   And NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.  Lots of people think they do, but if there was an answer, seems like it would have been found by now.  Instead it seems to be "good luck, pick something and hope it works for you."  I cannot live the rest of my life low carb.  No pizza, bread, pasta, sugar.  I cannot make pizza crust out of cauliflower and just eat vegetables and meat.  I cannot exercise more than an hour every day, and my joints won't take anything high impact.  I can't even do some of the floor exercises like burpees and jump rope right now.  I weigh too much and it hurts my feet, ankles, knees.  I can't restrict my calories back to less than the 1250 I did last time I lost all the weight, because lower than that, everyone agrees is unhealthy.  So I'm sad.  It feels like I'm left pushing a boulder uphill just to get more fat and tired and unhealthy anyway, just slower than if I don't try at all.  Men's fat cells are 5 times smaller than women's, they release in half the time of women's, and men don't go through the same hormonal issues causing even more sticky weight issues.   Maybe if I identify as a man, it'll go away.  ;)  So, do I snack in small amounts throughout the day to keep my system in balance or will that just keep my glucose levels high?  Do I try intermittent fasting to burn fat or will that just cause my metabolism to freak out and finish shutting down?  I wonder if meth would help.  I don't know too many fat meth-heads around here, except their skin and teeth are in terrible shape.  *sigh*

So pardon me while I and my roll around my middle pout about this for a little while...