LCHF diet week 4

Today I weighted myself and the scale showed the needle (it is old fashioned indeed) slightly below 73 kg. The rate I was hoping for, 1/2 kilo per week, has slowed down. I did have some influence to it though: last couple of weekends I really overdid it with the wine. I drank waaay too much wine (like a whole liter) in the course of the evening. And as I have been learning recently, the body metabolizes ethanol in pretty much the same way as fructose. This means you get these fatty liver problems that sound so nasty. The weirdest thing about the wine was that it didn't feel (at the moment) like a lot. So it seems this diet helps me to not get so tipsy and so hangover the next day. My boyfriend did not have the same luck though.

I suppose it is time to admit it: I will have to "help" the weight reduction with some exercise. Actually more than my weight it is my size and my health I am most concerned. The thing is, until very recently, I felt so heavy and sluggish that I couldn't exercise. And the moment I started moving, I got joint pain right away. I am hoping it is not the case now. And I was hoping I could delay this exercise issue till it was warmer and nicer outside. To go to the gym and feel like an idiot surrounded with other idiots moving like lunatics at some musical tune is really not appealing. But even less appealing is to hook myself on a machine to pull weights and grunt and sweat. It is so stupid! I have never been able to play or enjoy group sports, as my asthma really is an impediment. I need some aerobic type of exercise, or I get an asthma attack right away. Perhaps swimming?

The books about LCHF: Hjärnkoll på vikten

Disclaimer: I read this book a long time ago, so there may be loads of things I just don't remember from it. It is not a good review from that perspective.
My journey to a LCHF lifestyle began a few years ago, actually. I went to visit my friend Nina once more and she had a book lying around her place. I started to read the book and got immediately hooked. The book is in Swedish, and its name is Hjärnkoll på vikten (a loose translation is "brain control of the weight"). What I loved of this book were two things: it was written by doctors (no health gurus) and every claim was supported by a reference to a publication in peer reviewed medical journals. In other words: science. I believe and understand science.
The book had a few novel ideas that struck me: the first one was that saturated fat is not that bad for you. The usual dietary advice is that saturated fat is a very bad type of fat, promoting cholesterol and therefore atherosclerosis and therefore heart problems. Well, the authors claimed in the book that the most recent research indicated that saturated fat was neither good not bad for you, and some studies suggested that it could be even beneficial. I was astonished. My thought was: "but surely the other claim had to have a scientific basis as well?". Well, the saturated fat story is far from finished and wikipedia actually shows the ongoing debate with snippets from different articles. This story is not over, but most importantly, not as a closed case as I came to believe earlier. The authors from the book go even further: they claimed that unsaturated fat was excellent when raw, but when cooking it, even at kitchen temperatures, you would start the process of hydrogenation of the oils, and therefore creating the evil trans fats in your own food. The natural consequence is that you should use saturated fat (butter) for cooking, because this fat cannot change its composition when heating it up. I didn't know what to make of such claims, as it was the total opposite of what I had been told all my life.
The other claim is that the brain loves sugar and it becomes addicted to it. Well, that wasn't so surprising. Years ago I had tried to quit putting sugar in my coffee (I took ridiculous amounts of it) and it took me several weeks of slowly reducing the amount to quit it. It was impossible to quit cold turkey. I knew then that sugar had an addictive quality to it, and that probably I was a sugar junkie.
Other idea the book gives is to work with the brain's reward system to go down on weight, not against it. It goes on to show that the usual "eat less, exercise more" dietary advice is actually going against the machinery of the body and that's why it is so hard to follow that advice and to maintain it.
The authors don't give dietary advice per se, but they praise the GI type of diets. This is the reason I bought myself two more books about GI diet and Patrick Holdford GL diet. I will review these in another post.

I recently re-read this book so below I discuss more "recent" memories.

The book starts with a discussion that sort of supports the paleo movement of eating: our body and brain evolved millions of years to adapt to a particular lifestyle (paleo) and agriculture and extensive farming made food available that otherwise would have been really scarce. The consequence is that our bodies are really "old" in a new environment, so all our instincts guide us to wrong habits when it comes to food.
Then it follows to explain that the main function of the body is to keep the brain working, and therefore, because the brain eats glucose, the brain loves sugar. Since early childhood we associate sweet taste and sugar with food to be eaten. We are programmed to be sugar junkies. It is actually the brain that makes you eat so much short chain carbs.
It claims that the way our body metabolises sugar makes you hungry for more very quickly after eating: that's why you can have a whole 1/2 liter cola and still be hungry afterwards. The reason for this is the central role insulin has on the control of blood sugar and feelings of satisfaction and hunger. When sugar is released in the blood stream (apparently is even earlier, when sweet taste is perceived by the mouth), a hormonal chain reaction triggers the release of insulin. This insulin reduces the amount of blood sugar. The release of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for the  feeling of hunger, responds to the negative gradient of the blood sugar. This means that if you eat something really sweet and rich in short carbohydrates, the amount of blood sugar will go very high, to be later whipped out by insulin, and therefore have a substantial drop. This will trigger the feeling of hunger once more, and hunger for something that increases your blood sugar once more, therefore, more sweets.
The book continues with the fat apology that was what I remembered most: don't be so stingy with fat, avoid trans fats, eat more fish fats and meat fats of cows that are freely eating on the grass.
Afterwards the book focuses on what to do if you want to go down on weight. It tells you to listen to your body, to pay attention when and how you eat. In particular if you eat sweets of white breads (they call this hyper-foods): that afterwards you start your roller coaster of blood sugar and that like this is impossible to keep out from foods that make you fat. The policy they advise is that once you pay attention to your body, you can avoid the foods that make you go into the roller coaster to begin with. This is individual-based and there are no general recipes for anyone. Me, for example, is cookies. I cannot keep out, once I had one, I must have the whole package!
It continues to explain that traditional weight-loss strategies of eating too few calories go against the machinery of the body: that if your body feels undernourished, it will go into starvation mode and you will not spend any energy on anything. You will feel tired and sluggish, and cold, because the body will save energy on heating up the body. As most of our energy goes on heat, this is really counterproductive if you want to go down on weight. They argue the contrary: eat till you are satisfied (not full) and eat enough fats to keep you satisfied for longer. Don't eat hyper-foods (sugar, white breads, pizza, pancakes, quick pasta) and focus your carb intake in carbs with low GI index. Then the kilos will disappear, they claim. Afterwards they enter into the apology of exercising, and how good it is for the body's functions to move.That exercising should be incorporated into the daily routine, and preferably should be mild and every day of the week.
Then the authors analyze the social effects of obesity. That it is sort of "contagious" as it takes place into whole families. That children copy what they see, not what they are told, therefore good practises start at home and with the parents. It end with an analysis of the situation in the US and how it is correlated with Sweden.
It is a great book and was an eye opener for me.

LCHF week 3

The third week I actually went a little up on weight, I weighted 74 kg. But I had my period, so I don't know if I just was bloated because of it, and when the period goes away I will discover that I went down anyways.
I made a nice discovery then: usually the week preceding my period I had the worst cravings for sweets. It would be always in this week when I would indulge. Not anymore. I had no cravings at all!
Also I would get terribly moody and angry. I am quite sentimental now, but not angry. My boyfriend is welcoming the difference :)
This week I developed a routine. What is tough with lifestyle changes is that all the usual rituals around food are gone. I used to have oat porridge for breakfast. Made without sugar, just water, milk and oats, till it became thick. I made one big pan and then put the mix in small Tupperware containers to heat up later. From the perspective of the calories it wasn't too bad and it kept me going. But from the perspective of carbs, it was a lot. What to eat now then? Now I have 2 boiled eggs. Sounds little but actually eggs are quite filling.
One of the biggest drawbacks of this diet is that you cannot deviate from it. It is really not advisable. One night we invited some friends for dinner. We had the usual LCHF fare: a piece of red beef with mashed broccoli with cream and cheese and a salad of tomatoes and avocados. For dessert we had raspberries with (unsweetened) cream. Delicious.
But the following day I was craving sweets again. I suppose it depends on your metabolism, and how sugar-addicted you are how much it affects you. For me it is very strong. A tiny bit of a sugar-ish thing and I am pinning for more. 
I am so happy on this diet that it got me thinking. I am following this diet to go down on weight, but the diet is not sustainable. To spend life never going to restaurants, never eating at friend's houses, it is just not possible! My plan when I reach my desired weight is to go in and out of it. Follow the diet a few days in a row and then eat some carbs. It will be difficult I think. But what this diet proved to me is that sugar is strictly off-limits. I am a sugar junkie.

Second week on the LCHF diet

The second week became easier. As I said, the first week I still did not add enough fat to the food to actually feel satiated for long. The first 2 days I was hungry. I had exchanged the carbs for protein. That is not good, too much protein is not good for you.  But I read the recommendations on Andreas Eenfeldt site again and it says: "don't be afraid of fat".
The thing is, since I started to pay attention to nutrition, the insistence is on reducing the amount of fat. Eat "good fats" but in moderation. But, what is moderation when it comes to fat? Half a cup? A tablespoon? A teaspoon? As a result, I had become fat-phobic.
Well, I gave it a try. I cannot eat cheese with butter (some people do that), or make myself "bullet coffee", a mixture of butter and coffee to get going in the morning. To my fat-phobic self that just sounds gross. But I added a little cream to a simple courgette and bullion soup, and all of a sudden, I could have 2 small plates of soup and be satiated! The best discovery is the mashed cauliflower with cream and cheese. Fantastic and very filling.
I searched the Internet for recipes and I found Chef William's movies. He is a cheeky swede living in Zurich, making funny videos about cooking LCHF style. He is an inspiration.
 What came extra with this diet, something I could not have foreseen is the state of well being I got. I feel more energetic, more rested (I sleep better). I can concentrate much better at work and I don't have those terrible headaches when finishing the working day. My skin looks amazing. My nails look amazing. My hair too. But most importantly, I don't feel sick anymore. I haven't had a single "spontaneous sickness" since I started this diet. I feel fantastic! And there are no more cravings for sweets. I feel less hungry. When I come home I am happy, energetic, inspired to cook.
 Last but not least: I weighted myself and I went down another 1.5 kg (I guess there was some remaining water after all) and I was at 73.5 kg.

Obesity feelings

This short diet journey has me swirling in emotions. Any type of sentimentality around me and the tears come down. I have still to figure out why.
But this is not what I set to write in this post. What I would like to discuss is the feelings on being overweight, obese, and all that it entails.
In some sort of unconscious bizarre protection, I have never seen myself as obese. If I looked at myself on the mirror I would notice some bulge, but somehow I never saw the extent of my obesity. I just can guess that my unconscious was protecting me from it. And because I was a rather slim person all my life, (except the past 4-5 years) in my head I still felt like that.
This said, I could not escape reality. Any picture of me and I would cringe. I was wider than tall. My butt ballooned, my hips, my belly, my boobs... I became some sort of parody of an overweight Latina. I hated it. I felt so ugly, so undesirable, so repulsive. I still feel that way. I am still heavily overweight, although hopefully on the path to recovery.
One of the most dreadful things was to go shopping (an activity I dislike per se). It was glaringly obvious then how much bigger I had become. When I arrived to The Netherlands I was a nice size 34. I am now between 42 and 44. At my height, with so many curves and wobbles, to go shopping is panic-inducing. And because I was constantly gaining weight, I would always take a size to end up having to change it for the next bigger one.
Another thing is the whole stereotype you feel on you. "You are fat, therefore you must be stuffing yourself in chocolate cake" (not true). "You are fat, therefore you are a glutton and a sloth". "You don't exercise enough". Let me tell you, I love walking, biking, moving around. I get a big smile on my face when I do those things. But when you are so overweight, your body kind of cannot take it anymore. If I went for a walk during the weekend, I got very painful joints as a result. If walking hurts, you don't want to do it anymore. And indeed you end up like a couch potato. But to me, I became a couch potato because I was so fat.
Other stereotype is that because you are fat, you must be a person with no self control, no will. But I managed to get done a lot of things in my life on pure willpower. To carry through a PhD, for example, requires dedication, persistence, patience, long-term sight and yes, loads of willpower. I don't think there is anything wrong with my willpower, my self-control. That said, if I try one cookie, I must have them all. But I believe everybody has a weakness on the food department. I can be chocolate, bread, ice-cream, chips, but most people cannot stop themselves with some indulgence food of some sort. My solution to it is never try to delude myself on thinking "I'll just eat one". I know what will happen. I just don't try just the one, that's it. Don't touch them. Isn't that self control?
What is scary of the stereotypes is the underlying presumption: you must be fat because you chose it so. Not true.
I begged my doctors to try to find out what had changed in my body for me to become so fat. They told me it was the aging process. That the metabolism had slowed down and that there was nothing I could do about it. Do you have any idea how discouraging that is? "The only solution", they said, "is to eat smaller portions and move more". Well, that requires monstrous amounts of willpower. To be hungry trying to perform harder, that is really tough. And I had tried it and tried it to no avail for a long time.

First week on the LCHF diet

So I searched the Internet for the LCHF diet. I found the site of Andreas Eenfeldt. I read the dietary guidelines: cut the carbs (no sugar, no fake sugar, no pasta, bread, rice, potatoes). No starch. Eat meats in moderate amounts (no huge steaks), eat veggies like cauliflower and broccoli, salad, tomatoes, etc. Eat eggs. Add fat to food to make it "filling". What fat? Butter, cream, animal fat and the usual: olive oil, avocado, etc. Don't touch margarine. I decided to give it a try. It became "my new year's resolution".
The first advice is to clean the pantry. I took all the grains, pasta and bread out. The pantry became virtually empty. I was amazed at the amount of sugar and carbs we ate on a regular basis.
The first days were tough. I had sugar withdrawal symptoms. I spent the whole day thinking of chocolate, cookies, ice-cream. I curbed it eating nuts and chewing sugar-free chewing gum. Not the best, but I was desperate. On the third day I became very ill. Nothing related to the diet, it was a cold I had caught before. I decided to keep on going. I harassed my poor boyfriend (that is joining me on the diet, sweet guy) to make some food for me. We were still fat-phobic and a stir-fry of veggies is actually not very filling. I had huge pieces of salmon. I had fever also, and was sweating a lot. I was constantly thirsty. I went to the toilet a lot.
After 10 days on the diet, and a week being ill, I finally was healthy again. I weighted myself. I could not believe my eyes when the scale showed that I had gone 5 (yes, five!) kilos down. Mostly water I grant you, but it is a LOT OF WEIGHT. I started crying. I weighted myself many times, I just could not believe it. I was on 75 kg then.
That weekend I went to a party. People commented on my weight loss. I looked slimmer. I was radiantly happy. Also proved that it was not my imagination...
I don't know what made it so staggering. I have many theories. I suppose the truth is in between. I think I had a huge inflammation, getting bloated beyond belief when I started. And being ill "helped" as the body had to spend a lot of energy getting well again. And the water loss was probably even stronger, as I was sweating so much.
I am avidly reading all I can find about sugar and carbs (I bought a book by Dr. R. Ludwig that looks promising). Also I want to know why the carbs where making me so bloated.
Wish me luck.

Lactose intolerance, weight gain, and the dietary advice I got from the dietist

I figured out I had lactose intolerance. But I wanted to get a doctor confirmation of my suspicions, and also I needed the doctor's opinion because I kept on being sick once in a while without knowing why. I had removed lactose from my diet, I barely ate out, but kept on being sick on a regular basis.
The doctor sent me to a specialist. The specialist sent me to be tested. It was positive. In spite of my insistence that I already was following a lactose-free diet, the specialist sent me to get a dietist advice.
The dietist looked at a food journal I kept for her (all this took forever, I had enough time to record my diet for 2 weeks before visiting the dietist) and literally told me: "I have almost nothing to tell you". According to her I ate a balanced diet. If anything, I ate too little fat (following the usual dietary advice I had become fat-phobic) and too much fiber (?!). I was to cut down the fiber a little, eat more fat, and take a vitamin and mineral supplement. On the fact that I still was getting sick once in a while, and on me being overweight, she told me: "you could be suffering from chronic stress". The solutions: cut down the portions, exercise more. In other words: "you are a glutton and a sloth".
I wasn't very convinced. Cutting down portions meant I was hungry a lot of the time. My portions did not look like a lot to me.
"Exercise more" sounds easier that it is: you need to find the time, the energy to put hours to it. Even "take a walk of 30 minutes every day" is tough. When? At work, when such a thing is frowned upon? After work, when it is dark and cold, and I was hungry? Go to the gym after work, exhausted and hungry after a whole day? Before going to work? The closest gym does not have classes until 10 in the morning, and this means to go to work very late (more frowns). It just didn't work. I tried for a while.
What it did work was  that I was thinking outside the box a little more. It was clear I was headed to desease if I didn't do a lifestyle intervention. Could I have chronic stress? It felt off. I am a nervous person, but also I exteriorise my feelings easily. I don't bottle up. But I didn't write it off as "nonsense". And I was on the hunt for a diet that worked.

Lactose intolerance, weight gain and the LCHF diet

 I am lactose intolerant and I live in The Netherlands. It is tough.
The Netherlands produces milk and cheese in overabundance. For some reason this abundance results in dairy products creeping on everything. Bread has milk powder. Sausages have lactose. Ham, pate, already spiced meats, margarine to spread, tapenade, hummus.... All typical cafeteria products are contaminated by some form of milk product. I have to bring my own lunch to work every day.
Before I discovered that I had lactose intolerance life was hell. I had bouts of "spontaneous sickness" and diarrhea.  And my weight piled up at top speed.
Well, I recently went to a specialist (after fighting for a while to get a lactose intolerance test) and told him this. That my weight gain had accelerated after I got lactose intolerance. He dismissed my claim. He told me that there was no connection between weight gain and lactose intolerance (something short of telling me "nonsense").
My claim is not isolated. The Patrick Holford GL diet book is full of these. I am sure a lot of lactose intolerant people suffer from being overweight.
I still claim that it is true though. I have my own theories, as the doctors are not very helpful. What happens when you have lactose intolerance? You get bloated, get a lot of gas, diarrhea. But most importantly, your intestine becomes irritated, inflamed. Your digestive system is not working at its best, and then the nutrient absorption gets reduced. Following from this, one might expect weight loss, not weight gain. This is the usual conclusion and medical reasoning. I guess it happens to some people. But this picture is incomplete: this picture assumes that the body would do nothing! What happens when you underfeed? Your body enters what is called "starvation mode". And what happens in this mode? Your body tries to keep the energy at all costs (the body heat expenditure goes down like 20-30%), the pancreas releases more insulin than necessary for the carbohydrate intake (you become insulin resistant on the long term). Insulin cleans up the sugar in the blood (you crave sugary foods then) and also prevents your fat storage from being burned. This promotes weight gain and very little (if any) weight loss. You slowly gain weight, even if you are very careful with the calories you ingest. Even worse, the feeling of this starvation mode is just terrible: your whole body resists to move, to spend energy. You feel tired all the time, have no energy, and due to the over-insulin you are hungry all the time for sweets. We get a couch-potato recipe.
If you consume inflaming foods (sugar), even if they are not lactose, this condition (the irritated digestive system) persist and worsens. So you have an irritated, inflamed digestive system due to sugar. What the body does when this happens is that it pumps up your insulin levels and all this sugar goes to the fat storage right away and you very soon are hungry for more sugar.  This turns in a vicious circle and you gain weight. Even if you have the will to resist eating the cookies or chocolate, eating pasta for a normal meal would be enough to promote weight gain.
When I felt bad due to an irritated digestive system, I took coca-cola. Why? It felt good and I had this idea that it was good for your digestion (as a child I was given coca-cola for digestive trouble). The sugar in coca-cola irritated me further and fuelled the insulin vicious circle. I had no clue that I was damaging myself.
What does this have to do with the LCHF diet? I actually don't know so much of the reversibility of this process. But what I can tell is that on the short term effects of it. Eliminating carbs from the diet removed sugar and all those starchy foods. The very short time effect was removal of one of the irritating things to the digestive system. But also it reduced greatly the amounts of insulin released. Great amounts of insulin in the body are connected with loads of problems eventually leading to metabolic syndrome. So, keeping the insulin under check promotes not only weight loss but also an overall well-being. The fat part also plays a role too: the fat carries some vitamins (among them, the vitamin D) and also those famous omega-3 fatty acids. When I started the diet I had the most bizarre craving to eat salmon (I know, my body has expensive taste). Apparently, salmon has omega-3 in its fat, even the crappy supermarket salmon we get here. Omega-3 has an anti-inflammatory effect. Now I take omega-3 pills every day....
So, indeed I blame my lactose intolerance for my weight gain and overall state of unbalance.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Last year, in December,  I went to visit my friend Nina in Stockholm. I had a great time over there, in spite of being rather ill a few days. I could not pinpoint what was making me ill, but I blamed it on the lactose intolerance I suffer, and of course in the copious amounts of wine and drinks we consumed.
I had been already fat when I went there, and probably the trip, where I indulged myself a lot, made me even fatter. How much, I actually don't know. I had been so fat lately that I just couldn't face it anymore and stopped weighting myself. I had given up.
And when I say fat, I mean very fat. I am very short, 1.52 m (4 ft 11.8 in), and when I eventually collected the courage to weight myself, I was weighting a staggering 80 kg (176.4 lbs). By any standards, I had passed the "overweight" label into "obese". I am blessed with good health (so, far, touch wood and all that), and my metabolic markers were ok-ish (cholesterol was slightly high, but nothing outside the healthy window). I had begged the doctor to make such tests after getting so fat so fast. But I am getting ahead of myself.
I live in The Netherlands. Country of tulips, windmills and clogs. And also a country where the food is just terrible. At least for somebody like me. In spite of this, the dutchies are in a vast majority not very fat, and their "old people" live to enjoy their retirement period very much indeed (although this pretty picture is changing). I arrived to The Netherlands with a healthy weight (50 kg). And in 6 years I gained more than half of my initial body weight. The reason? The dutch diet.
The dutch diet consist on eating loads of bread and a little bowl of soup for lunch, then having a dinner consisting on meat, potatoes and some vegetable (like green beans). They are moderated at lunch, but I come from another culture, so eating 2 meager slices of bread and some soup is really too little for me. I was hungry on only those, so I was eating between 4-6 slices of bread, and a little treat for "dessert": a yogurt full of chocolate chips. My dinners would be very often bread again, as I was too exhausted to make proper food.
The dutch diet seems to work well for them, as I said. But for me it was a disaster. After only a few months, I had gained 2 kg. Those "innocent" few extra grams transformed into 5 kg, then 7, then 10. I started to become worried. To make things worse, I was getting periods of sickness (feeling bloated, gas, constipation followed by diarrhea) that I could not understand. I started dieting, and of course, exercising. The diet, was the "traditional diet advise": count your calories, eat fruit, remain wary of fat. I aimed to consume 1500 calories a day. I was constantly hungry (and angry). But I perhaps went down 1 - 2 kg, or remained stable. I just couldn't count my calories forever (and it didn't seem to work), and when in the middle of a PhD, exercising was a struggle, as I was putting many, many hours at the job. It didn't work.
By the end of 2 years in The Netherlands, I was oscillating between 10 and 12 kg overweight. And because the diet didn't seem to work I got discouraged (after all being hungry for nothing is just infuriating) so I abandoned myself to hedonic pleasures in the form of cookies, chocolate, etc. Big mistake. I gained another 5 kg, and was 17 kg overweight. Soon those became 20 kg. I went in the search for another solution. I had heard of the GI index, and the GI diets. I went to the bookstore and bought myself 2 books: one of GI index and diet, and another of Patrick Holford GL diet. They seemed to make sense. I followed the GL diet for a few months and went down 4 kg. Successful, but after that my weight was stuck there and the plateau did not move a millimeter. The GL diet was complicated, where I had to weight each food to get the right amounts of carbs and proteins. It was very difficult and often I was hungry. The holidays came, I took a few excesses, and the kilos came back.
By then I had worked out what was making me sick. I had lactose intolerance. I worked it out myself, because the dutch health system is one of the worse I've ever seen: the doctors tell you to go home and do nothing for you. They don't ask more questions to try to figure out what is making you sick. I suppose they are overwhelmed with the amounts of patients they have, but it is indeed a poor excuse.
After 20 kg, and so little success with the dieting, the kilos just piled up. They kept on creeping on me, and for all my efforts I was rewarded with a plateau of weight, almost never with losing weight. I kept on trying to keep calories at bay and exercise, but to no avail.
When I hit 27 kg overweight I just couldn't exercise anymore. What I mean is that I could not do any more aerobic classes, or run. I could just barely walk, and all my joints were in pain. I felt bloated, sluggish, tired all the time. When you feel like this you reach for comfort foods, sweet treats, I became a couch potato. Then I would feel guilty. I hated to see myself in pictures. I gained so many dress sizes that I was constantly shopping for more, and the shopping trips were a nightmare, I was so unhappy with my size. My waist size became larger than my leg size. I felt ashamed and ugly. I was the typical obese cliche.
Well, coming back to my Stockholm trip. Among many conversations (most of them silly), my friend told me about this "fat diet" that everyone was following. My friend was also trying to lose weight, but the comment came about that all the people she knew were talking about diets and that depressed her. I had no clue what was she talking about. Then she said: "this diet, called LCHF, for 'Low Carb High Fat'. My sister followed it with some success, and a friend of mine went down 6 kg in just one month following a strict version of it.". My eyes lighted up. I had not been able to go down 1 kg in a long time. I went home and looked on the Internet, googled "low carb high fat diet". The rest is history.