About Me, SLD, and Life

NOTE: SLD=Shangrila Diet; AS=Appetite Suppression

I am a professional writer in North Florida who has fought being overfat most of my life. The cruel irony of this is that as a child, I was of normal weight, but my mother’s own terror at being overfat boiled over into my life. The result was many lo-calorie diets for me growing up while living a very sedentary life in homeschool. All those factors (plus more) messed up my metabolism/set point. In college I weighed about 190, give or take. My highest weight was 218 a couple of years ago, but I’ve managed to float around 200 for the past few years overall. My GOAL is 140 lbs., which on my stout 5′6″ frame is quite nice. Angelina Jolie averages 130 on her 5′7″ hotness, so that should give you an idea. Heheheh.

I actually am fairly active. My husband and I play racquetball about three times a week and I have been jogging on and off for two years (I did a 5k in late 2006, even!). Living in Florida does not help, as I hate the heat and humidity and try to avoid being outside. I enjoy yoga and would really like to do that daily, but you know what? There are only 24 hours in a day! Which is topical for me because both Husband and I work full time, are full time college students, and are trying to start our own business together. Are we insane? You decide!

In my search to lose weight I’ve tried most every diet out there, and lost on many of them. Willpower is not my problem. I even fast regularly, about twice a year at least, in order to clean out my digestive system and improve my health (as my mother died of colon cancer, and blood diseases run in the family, this is a major concern for me). Yes, I always lose weight when I fast, and no, it never stays off. Who’s surprised, right? The problem is my appetite. I don’t know from clinical but I believe my wiring was screwed up as a girl and I do not know when I am full, or I don’t listen to the signals, or whatever. I’ve noticed that when I eat, I just get hungier; but not eating at all is worse than being fat. It’s like the “middle way” was forever lost to me. At least, I thought so. Then I read about Seth Roberts’ discoveries and everything made sense: my appetite, my set point(s), my cravings. I was particularly struck by his description of how, when you eat a lot of something you like, you just get hungrier for it. Have you ever seen me eat pasta? Then you know what I’m talking about. Everything he wrote “clicked” in my brain with many of the experiences I’ve had. I decided that his brand of advice was a lot cheaper, a lot easier, and a lot less risky than some other diets out there so I tried out SLD for size (pun intended).

I started this blog on the second day of SLD. In fact I had not bought the book yet, I was just going off the advice in Seth Robert’s SLD forums. I was so broke I could not afford to by the book or the extra-light olive oil (ELOO, for those in the know) so I used the sugar water method. If you read my first post you will see what happened. It was like a miracle! And the next day was the same! No hunger! My brain almost did not know what to do…”hungry? Not hungry. Hungry? Not hungry…” and so on. Ha! It was as if a huge giant monster inside of me was finally put to sleep.

Losing weight is great and I hope to lose a lot. But even if I don’t — always a possibility — then at least I know a way to quiet my hunger daemons. That, if nothing else, has made SLD a precious discovery to me.

The purpose of this blog is to have a place for me to riff on my SLD experiences. Some of it will be mundane, some of it inspirational, and hopefully even a bit educational. I expect to be writing about how it “feels” to have changed from Ravenous Food Craver to Satiated Food Enjoyer, and what a difference this program has made in my life. I assure you, that difference is astounding and nothing short of a miracle.

Last but NOT least: Thank you, Seth Roberts.