Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

So....It's been a crazy, crazy, CRAZY couple of months. As you may have surmised, that new job I talked about? Got insanely busy overnight, and just sort of dropped the ball on a lot of things. In addition, I seem to have figured out (trial and error people!) that the Very Low Carb version of myself? Doesn't play well with others. To add insult to injury- my weight loss didn't happen. I kept gaining and losing the same three pounds for a few months, and taking involuntary naps.

I kept beating myself up about it, and somehow emerged on the other side with the realization that my health is the most important thing, and losing weight was just going to have to take a backseat to Things That Are Important To Me Right Now. (TTAITMRN.)

So I decided to write down all the crap I have been through, in order to accentuate the positive when I get down in the dumps about the freaking scale. And at the end of it, I thought, "You know- I am a success. I feel better than I ever have in my life, I am healthier, stronger, and happier, and- well, to hell with the "After" pic in the bikini."

I sent it in to Mark's Daily Apple.  And nobody was more surprised than I was when I heard back from Mark himself within a day or so, asking me to sign a release. The reaction to my story is still something I find amazing. I am still not at the end of my journey (Far from it!) but am thrilled that my experience rang true and seems to be helping other people. And there were so many kind compliments about my writing, it has made me want to get to work on this blog again- and maybe even take it to the next level! We will see.

In the meantime, I have tweaked my eating habits yet again. Not super low carb- a serving of fruit daily, and some starchy vegetables (squash and jicama are faves), along with limiting dairy to cheese and butter, plus working on cleaning up my food sources. Everything is organic, and if it's meat, at least 80% is pastured and locally raised.  So it's actually closer to standard PB protocol, and I am cautiously optimistic! Because the scale appears to finally be shifting a bit.

While it is within PB parameters, the general guidelines come from an endocrinologist, Diana Schwarzbein, and her book, "The Schwarzbein Principle".  Dr. Schwarzbein has worked with many people who have damaged their metabolisms with low-fat and low calorie yo-yo dieting: something of which I am definitely guilty. She explains in detail how such dieting messes up your hormones, and how you have to get your hormones back into balance before you can get your body into a state where it is willing to lose weight. It made sense to me, so I am going to continue down this path, as it really isn't a big change for me!