My interest in nutrition goes back to the early 60s when I was mum to a two year old and still dragging around my baby fat. We didn't call it that in those days but that is what it was. I had piled on the pounds during pregnancy and it had stuck there. I didn't know who to turn to for help, it was long before slimming type magazines were about. Occasionally women's magazines had articles but we were very poor and I could not afford such luxuries.
To eke out my meagre £3.00 a week housekeeping (yes £3.00) I would walk three miles up into the city centre on the Tuesday to check out what would be the cheapest prices that week and on the Friday I walked up again with my large pram and went shop to shop for my groceries. The first supermarket came in just about this time but mainly there were different grocer, butcher and fishmonger shops. On one of these forays I strolled round a large chemist still on our high streets called Boots.
I noticed a rack of small pamphlet type books and the title of one caught my eye. Can't remember the exact words but something simple like How to Loose Weight. I used some of my precious housekeeping money and bought it. I can still see the orange card cover. Back home I soon had read its few pages.
It said 'Cut out Bread, Biscuits, Cakes, Puddings and Potatoes and eat just meat, vegetables and fruit'. This must have been the last knockings of this kind of diet before the low fat craze came in. I followed its instructions and quickly returned to my size 10 wedding size. Now why, I asked myself in later years, why did I not remember this?
Time went by, another baby, a divorce and remarriage. Weight came and went with various diets and ways of eating. Never returning to my smallest size, 14 being the best try. (English sizes) I remember when working in an office in London I saw what must have been one of the first editions of a slimming magazine and I became addicted to them. Not sure which one it was. By this time it was all eat low fat, small portions and I felt hungry all the time. How often I have said to my second husband 'why do I always feel hungry, its painful' To somebody who who could eat anything and never put on weight it was, of course, a complete mystery how I could feel so hungry. No less a mystery to me. So I ate and I dieted, ate and dieted, went to slimming clubs, gyms and even took a class of aerobics myself at the age of 46. Yes, I am a trained PE teacher from my teen age years in the Air Force.
About 40 years ago I started having pains in my abdomen and severe Diarrhoea attacks. It started years and years of doctor visits, examinations, mostly painful and embarrassing, x-rays and operations. None of which helped. Ending a couple of months ago with a rectal bleed. I had the latest colon scan and nothing was found to be wrong. No diverticular pockets, and, thank goodness, no cancer.
I despaired of medics and their torture that leads nowhere. But now I lived in the age of the Internet. I resorted to my iPad and Google. I discovered Professor Robert Lustic and his crusade against Sugar. Youtube was wonderful, for every lecture or blog I clicked they suggested further viewings. I am not academic but I hope not stupid. I am also an artist and pictures mean more to me than dry med documents. I watched well over 200 videos. Now I am reading books on my Kindle, cheaper.
I plumped for the Zoë Harcombe diet, mostly because it was British like myself. Food I recognised. During the researching I began to cut out any processed food not that we ate a lot, and had my first taste of 'have a biscuit (cookie), one won't hurt you’ from friends. Then one day I said to my beloved husband who does all the cooking 'this is my meal plan for next week. No - he was very good, followed it to the letter and I lost four and a half pounds.
I have moved on and learnt a lot since then but that is for another blog.
Julie Gale LCFH81
My Facebook link is https://www.facebook.com/LCHF81/
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