A2C: Allergic to Carbs

I haven’t written on here in over 6 months. A blog where you discuss the trials and tribulations of weight loss doesn’t exactly work if you aren’t genuinely trying to lose weight anymore.

And that, is exactly what happened.

After my last 211 weigh in I was able to get even lower. I was able to drop down to, at my lowest, 202. I saw the scale say it. Admittedly I was probably dehydrated, no food in my intestines, and about to have faint, BUT DAMN IT IT SAID 202. With the encouragement (Yes, I am easily manipulated) of friends and family (Everyone decided i was too thin) I went back to my old ways. And over the next 6 months or so I have managed to regress quite a bit. Thankfully I am not close to where I started (I was 252 point something or other, but that was also after a few days of dieting. Im pretty sure i was close to 260) and currently I am back to 224.

At first I thought it was acceptable.

As I said, I was told I looked too skinny. As you can see from the picture on the right I WAS quite smaller than I had been. My mom literally expressed concerned for me.  A friend said I had a lolli pop look about me. And did I mention I was hungry? I was tired of being good and constantly on top of my diet and getting my ass out there to exercise. I just wanted to go eat, drink and be merry with no constraints. And that folks, is what I did for the better part of 6 Months. I would go back to the Low Carb/Diet life for a week here, few days there, but I would inevitably go BACK to all of the bad habits that got me to 260 in the first place. Funny enough, I think I forgot WHY I was trying to lose weight. I wasn’t thinking about all of the health problems my mom has and the fact that I was right on track to experiencing everything she went through, plus perhaps, a bit extra. It became more about how my friends responded to my new frame. What clothing I could put on that I couldn’t dream of before. I was trying to be a model as opposed to healthy Elon.

And now here I am. January 6th, 2010. 224 Pounds.

I haven’t actually said out loud how much I gained because I didn’t want to acknowledge my failing. I was still much smaller than everyone remembered me being so I’ve sorta rode this out silently. But reality has in fact set in again. My mother continues to have health issues due to complications with her diabetes and for a few days I wasn’t feeling well at all and I thought perhaps my Blood Glucose was elevated.  Upon testing it I found that i was actually not that high. I wasn’t within normal range but i was no where near as high as what my body was telling me i felt. Which, I found…strange…

I did some research and I came across the guidelines for Diabetes. I had never been to a Dr. specifically for my Diabetes. I worked in a hospital, and felt sick one day, and my mom tested my Glucose and it was sky high (Her meter actually just said “High” and then the her friends down in the nursing station tested it and it said “High” again. At this point it was a far gone conclusion that I must be diabetic.

But with my recent testing of my blood glucose levels it didn’t add up. A non-medicated, non-exercising diabetic should have had higher readings, i thought. So I continued researching and found the way that Diabetes is actually diagnosed is through 2 tests. A fasting glucose reading and a 2 hour glucose tolerance test. you have your blood glucose levels tested after ingesting 75 grams of Glucose (i.e. 1/3rd cup of sugar i.e. a little more than a 20 oz Coke…i’m not kidding) If you fall under 180 (some say 200) on the test you are NOT diabetic. You are Pre-Diabetic (theres 2 forms of pre-diabetes but I dont remember the acronyms right now) and those 2 forms can be dealt with way easier than ACTUAL diabetes. You can push off diabetes for YEARS.

After doing the tests myself (I have a glucose  meter and I have access to medical grade 1/3rd cup of sugar) I found that i am in FACT pre-diabetic. I believe my smaller frame adds to that cause. Perhaps really fat Elon would have failed that test. Slightly Chubby Elon falls under the line. Upon further reading it says that if you dropped 7 to 10 percent of your body weight you would be in even BETTER shape to deal with this crap. (Read: If perhaps I was still at my lowest weight since I lost weight, I’d be in BETTER shape to deal) and all of a sudden, my focus returned.

My Mom is a living, breathing, 20 years older version of me (we look alike in all honesty) and I watch her suffer a lot. I can’t sign up for that. I’d rather just not be alive than go through the surgeries and the complications and all of the terrible things that seem to all stem from Type 2 Diabetes, which although hereditary, still controllable and preventable. So I’ve cut the blog back on. I’m on my 2nd day back on the Low Carb wagon. I’m in my exercise gear ready to go for a 5 mile run/jog/walk/some sort of movement. I’m trying to remember the focus i had on this very blog 7, 8 months ago.

If motivation is what keeps this blog updated. I think I have it. Lets see how it goes shall well we?

So I’m slightly confused.

I’m at a hard plateau. Like haaaard.  I float somewhere around 208 and 211. My body is not trying to drop any more weight than I’ve already done.  Being down 45 pounds seems to make my body hold every ounce of anything it can.  But I’ve been still very much set on the idea of getting down to 190. I even planned to have a 190 party! That’s right, a party to celebrate the awesome that is smaller Elon. (I probably won’t do this anymore but the idea of a day o’ eating and drinking sounded fun!) But I’m starting re-think the whole idea.

For memorial day the G/F and I threw an indoor BBQ and I decided that it would be ridiculous for me to keep my stringent ways on a day that I’m feeding everyone in my home burgers, Mac and cheese and other things that I would normally not allow myself.  So I decided to partake in the awesome and at some point someone took some video of me and my best friend(I can’t SHARE this video because there’s been drinking and really? Who needs to see drunk EJW?) He weighs 176 and I’m sorta jealous. He seems to have no problem keeping that weight.  But here’s the thing: In the video? We look the SAME SIZE.

I literally looked at it 6 or 7 times to make sure I wasn’t nuts. We can’t be about the same size because I outweigh him by 30 pounds. But not only did I notice it, OTHER people have noticed it. He said himself we can swap clothing! How can this be? I know I have more muscle mass than him, but for Christ’s sake 30 pounds?

So as I sit here today, very much back to my full fledge low carb lifestyle I wonder about my weight loss goals. I’m within the body fat range that’s considered normal for men (24.4%. I really don’t believe it) I’m visibly the same size as my 30 pound lighter friend. Should I be still working so hard to drop the final 18 pounds?  I don’t know. I thought 200 pounds was gonna be my safety weight.  If I get to 200 I get strict. I don’t know how to do this at this size. 220 can’t be my safety weight. That’s crazy talk. But I can easily fluctuate 5 to 8 pounds in water sometimes. At this weight I’m too close to fat!

Or perhaps I’m crazy.

Maybe I should be looking at how I look as opposed to the stupid number that my digital scale throws at me. Perhaps the battle I was fighting has already been won? Victory isn’t 190 but just a slimmer healthier me? I’ve trained myself in a new way of eating and I’m happy about it (had a steak for dinner last night because…well…steak is awesome. Don’t need a plate of French fries.) Is the weight loss battle over?  Should I just be working out to be a more sexy EJW? (My g/f does not need a more sexy EJW. I’d literally be doing it so that I could check myself out in the mirror and go “yeah baby”.)

I don’t know.

So there you have it. I think the low carb lifestyle has given me what I wanted and now I have to figure out how to accept it. The battle feels like its just starting really. People are much more tolerant of a fat man saying he doesn’t eat something. But when you seem to be thin they call you crazy. Can I tell you how weird it is that I’ve heard people use the term thin to describe me as of late? I feel like I’ve learned the ultimate form of deception. I’m so good at it that people who are staring directly at me THINK I’m thin but I’m really not.  I have the mind of a fatman.

But I have the blood glucose level of a thin one .

So last night I went out with my g/f and a friend of hers to very nice french restaurant.

Her friend hadn’t seen me in a long time and exclaimed “Oh my God! You look like a different person! You look so good!” I’m always torn with my feelings on comments like this. On one hand, yes, I have dropped a significant amount of weight so my appearance is different and obviously should be noticed but on the other hand…did you just say I looked horrific before? That’s what I heard.  I’m really surprised at the amount of people who saw me before, and thought “That is a hot mess” but never actually said anything about it. They just secretly thought to themselves “That man is a sad creature.”

Or never thought about it even a little bit.  Heh, I have to remind my ego that sometimes people just aren’t thinking about me.

So during the course of the evening there was just various moments when I would twist my face just a little when it came to a food choice.  Although I stick to the lifestyle pretty well ( Do you like how I refer to Low Carbing as a “lifestyle,  as if  I’m a swinger or something? ‘Hey man, if you can handle my LIFESTYLE then you can’t handle me!) I don’t have it down packed. For instance: My g/f makes comments that I won’t go out with her.

And she’s right to an extent.

I like to know exactly what I’m eating.  Sauces and such scare me. You can only ask but so much “What is in this?” before your waiter decides to PUT something in it(If you catch my drift.) I much prefer cooking at home. Not to mention I’m a Badman in the kitchen. I don’t enjoy most dining establishments as much as  I do my own food.  But if I would like to continue dating this lovely young lady I better work something out.

You know what people LOVE to do now? Tell me that its totally okay for me to eat something that I don’t want to eat. For example:  I ordered Steak Frites.  Now you probably know that that’s steak and fries. I, with my brilliant mind, decided that steak frites was actually steak cut up in the shape of fries! Probably sold with a bit of salad. A delightfully low carb meal!

Then a crap load of fries arrived.

My g/f’s friend quickly told me “Oh its FINE! Enjoy yourself! You look great. It’s Friday! Live a little!”

I did NOT cut her, although I did consider it.

I realize that she thinks she’s helping, but Us as Low Carbers know she’s not.  A lot of people will tell you what you can and can’t do. Try to rationalize TO YOU why its okay for you to have those beers or that plate of fries.  Did I mention she was very thin? That’s the best part, when someone who isn’t heavy, and doesn’t have any food issues tells you its okay to have something.

It’s something that I struggle with constantly. Being told I can try something when I say no. It can become a terribly awkward situation. Occasionally people will put food near my mouth trying to get me to eat it! And when I move way I’m an asshole and just totally crazy with this whole “no carbs” thing. Yes. I’m crazy. You’re doing the equivelent of  mouth rape with food to me, but “I’m” crazy.

My G/f has learned to leave me be  (for the most part. She still has her Carb Rape-ey moments.) She’s even learned to step in when people really start pushing me. Can you imagine if someone who was an alcoholic had people trying to pour whiskey down their throat? It would be horrific, but putting cake in my face is fine.

As hard as it is, I think we have to explain in clear terms to people that its not okay to do this. I don’t care if  “You” think it won’t hurt.  Sometimes it won’t!  A bite of cake doesn’t have enough carbs in (most times) to destroy my ketosis. But guess what? That’s not the point. It’s about what I’ve decided to do.  It’s my choice. My body. I don’t give a shit if you think I’m crazy. I’ll just have to BE crazy with my rock solid glucose readings and lovely weight loss.  Sign me up for the insane asylum but for christs sake I don’t want any fries/cake/beer/anything I say no to.

My name is Elon James White and I approve this message.

I realize that the title of this blog might seem odd to people.

“You can’t be allergic to Carbs asswipe.”

See, in my head, people who read this are also unnecessarily mean and use the term “asswipe” as if it were the year 1997.

The title of this blog came to me during my research (read: hours and hours of surfing the web) and I came across an article discussing the idea of a low carb diet. I had done the whole “Low Carb” thing around 2004 and dropped down to the lightest I’ve been since I started getting fat (A svelte 225) but I followed up this diet with a carb frenzy and was so confused as to why I gained the weight back. The site I came across pointed out that diabetes can be controlled via a Low Carb diet. This wasn’t something that I was completely unaware of.

Back in 2003, my first stab at the low carb diet, I did it because my mother, nervous that I might be in full blown diabetes tested my glucose with her meter and it read “Hi.” Now I thought perhaps this was just he machine saying hello to me since this was the first time it received my blood and that the creators of this device were extremely polite. To find out that this was not the case. The machine had the capability to read up to 550. Any glucose reading past that was was read as simply “Hi.” It was suggested that if you happen to get one of these “Hi.” readings, you might want to go to a hospital ickly-quay. Me, being young and thinking that I may, in fact, be Superman, decided that a hospital stay would be ridiculous and that I would just figure out another way of handling things. A co-worker of mine had mentioned this whole Low Carb thing and after hearing that I could eat a pound of bacon and I’d lose weight, it seemed like the obvious choice. I did it and boom. My sugar readings were rock solid.

The thing is I never really sat down and thought about what eating a low carb diet did. It wasn’t until my mom was sick, and i had been feeling really shitty, that I decided to handle my glucose readings. But here’s when I had the epiphany. I was reading about the fact that the ADA admitted that a low carb diet could help control diabetes but they didn’t want to recommend it because it was too hard to follow. Another article written by About.com’s Low Carb expert Laura Dolson then said “No one is going to tell someone with a wheat allergy that it would be too hard to give up wheat.”

It hit me so hard. She was absolutely correct. My g/f has a nut allergy and let me tell you, a SHITLOAD of things have nuts in them. The idea that she’s just going to die because figuring out what has nuts in it is just too hard is ludicrous. We make sure that things that we buy aren’t made in a factory that uses tree nuts. WE READ LABELS, we ask restaurants, we do what we do. And I asked myself, whats the difference between her not eating nuts and me not eating carbs. The answer? I’ll take way longer to die, but It’ll happen and it’ll probably be really painful.

Now whether you believe carbs aren’t that great for you is a completely different argument. One that I will be making here in the future…alot.

I’ve blogged about various things in my blogging lifetime.

Anything that happens to come to mind that I find interesting or think that perhaps my thoughts on a subject needs to be published to the masses (Ego much?) but very rarely have I been as interested and intrigued by something as I am about the concept of…well…food.

I’m a fat man. I have been a fat man for many, many years now (and by many, I mean around 10.) I was an extremely thin child and then somewhere around 19 to 20 the weight caught up to me. but it didn’t hit me hard. I remember weighing in around 21 and being between 213 and 220. I thought I was heavier than I used to be but still wasn’t fat right? (I wore my extra pounds well)

Fast forward a few years. I stand at a whopping 252 pounds. Oh, and on top of it I’m flonkin‘ diabetic(Type 2, blech). I knew that I might be diabetic but I wasn’t absolutely sure. Then my mom got sick (diabetic complications) and I decided to start testing my blood sugar. after a week of fasting numbers of over 300 I realized that I was on the same path as my mom, my uncle (who died at 49 due to complications of his diabetes, oh and he lost his leg before finally dying) and I knew for a fact that it ran on my fathers side as well. What am I going to do?

Well something clicked.

Okay, not really clicked, but more like scared the shit out of me. My mom had a triple bypass surgery when she was 41 due to about 3 heart attacks she had in a 12 hour period. This is very, very interesting since my grandmother DIED a the age of…drumroll please…41. Heart attack. But since it was back in the 60’s the technology we have today wasn’t really around and hence my mom was saved by our technological magic. I assumed I was on the road to the magic #41 heart attack. But my Mom is okay NOW, mean, besides constant heart pain and numerous hospital stays. But she’s a girl. I’ll be more okay. But then I found out that my Mom’s surgery has an expiration date. Meaning the veins they replaced are going to have to be replaced between 8 and 10 years of her initial surgery.

I. Did. Not. Know. That.

It’s funny how denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. Once I realized that this was something that happens every 10 years or so, my brain suddenly remembered quite vividly the absolute hell that was my mom’s initial heart surgery. It took her 6 to 9 months to recover from it and she was still shaky then. I have never seen someone as sick as my mom right after the surgery when they had tubes going down her throat and she couldn’t even speak. It looked as if she had gone been thrown out of a 40 story building and hit a few things on the way down. I hired a nurse to stay with her so that she would have someone around because there was no way she could survive on her own with some sporadic visits from friends and family.

And I was on my way to that. An uncontrolled fat diabetic with heart disease in his DNA.

So on February 3rd, 2009 I embarked on a mission to lose weight and get my blood sugar under control. I, like many, many Americans, don’t have health insurance so I didn’t really have the option of tons of medication to get me better. I actually was able to procure some metformin (I know people who know people ) and it actually wasn’t working. DIABETIC MEDICATION WASN’T CONTROLLING MY DIABETES.

So I kicked up some diet and exercise. I needed to get some weight off of this frame. Being 70 to 80 pounds overweight could NOT be helping the situation. Now what I haven’t mentioned is that I also suffer from ADD. So on occasion I will hyper focus and over read. I’ve done nothing for the past 2 months but research virtually 12 hours a day on diets and weight loss and funny enough it all lead me to diabetes and things of that nature.

That’s why I’m here right now. I’ve read too much. I know there are blogs out there about this stuff already but I feel there needs to be more. Hence my entry into the battle. I have more to say on what lead me here but I think this is a good start. My name is Elon James White and I’m allergic to carbs.