The More I Learn The Less I Know

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
- Marcel Proust

"Patience is the companion of wisdom."
- Saint Augustine

Despite feeling good and eating according to plan, I don't seem to have lost any more weight this week. I haven't eaten any sugar or white carbs for almost a month. No bananas or carrots, my favorites. I even gave up coffee for a couple of weeks because some weight loss guides think drinking coffee spikes insulin levels. And still, the scale isn't moving after my dramatic first week weight loss of five pounds.

This is why last January I gave up after six weeks of counting calories and proceeded to gain another ten pounds over last year!

A close gentleman friend of mine (who happens to love large ladies, bless his heart) suggested that some women are going to be heavy no matter what they do. But as I told him, if I accept that and continue to gain ten or more pounds every year, I'll weigh 400 pounds by the time I die, if I'm lucky to live that long.

Some people I know want to stay young. I accept that I'm growing old. I just want to feel good while I'm doing it and enjoy the experience. My mother died at 59 and I will be 51 next week. My dad managed to make it to 68, but both of my parents died of cancer. I know what it's like to lose your parents at a relatively young age. My kids really missed out by not having my parents in their lives, especially my mom who adored them. Assuming my sons have their own kids, I don't want to miss out on being a grandmother.

And to make trying to lose weight even more confusing, the more reading I do, the less certain I am of what course to take.

Is it environmental? Should I get rid of my microwave? Filter my water? Sprout my grains?

What about supplements? Probiotics? Hoodia? Acia Berry? Carnitine? (Which I have actually been taking.) More Carnitine?

And if you take all these supplements, how do they react together? Not to mention how much they cost!

One thing that is working is the MetaCleanse colon cleanse. You can't go wrong taking ground flax. Every current diet and health book suggests taking ground flax. And ground flax is a food, not a supplement. I am wondering about my liver, so the bentonite should be helping there to remove toxins and improve liver function. With the combination of flax and psyllium, my bowel movements are regular as clockwork.

One easy thing I can do is try better in the coming week to drink more water. And exercise more. I have been walking some, but it's been cold at night the past couple of weeks and it's been once around the course and back home instead of the three or four times that make it a mile or more.

I read some quotes this week about homeostasis at PhilosophersNotes from George Leonard's book "Mastery." Homeostasis is defined as "the tendency of the body to seek and maintain a condition of balance or equilibrium within its internal environment, even when faced with external changes." An example of homeostasis would be maintaining a body temperature of 98.6 no matter the outside temperature.

I've been overweight for a long time and haven't lost any significant weight since my mom died fifteen years ago. My maternal great grandmother was overweight. My dad's sister was overweight. My oldest son is heavy. Maybe I just have "bad" genes. But I am not going to accept that and have obesity be a cause of an early demise. I've seen first hand what cancer does to a person. If you had cancer and a doctor told you that you could cure yourself by what you did and didn't eat, don't you think anyone would take that as an alternative to chemotherapy?

George Leonard probably isn't speaking specifically about weight loss when he writes about homeostatis, but I think some of his suggestions about how to change your life certainly apply.

Leonard says that when we try to change, we will always feel a natural pull back to the way things have always been. He suggests "don't panic or give up at the first sign of trouble" and to be willing "to take one step back for every two forward, sometimes vice versa." He also advises to develop a support system, follow a regular practice and to dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.

I'm still going through the stack of books on my desk and have requested more from the library. I'm managing to resist sugar and white carbs. I'm eating protein with breakfast every day. I'm creating a support system with my weekly blog. And I'm not going to give up! It's not about being thin for the sake of being thin for me. It's about creating a balance in my life. If I'm gaining weight all the time, then I can't possibly be in balance.

And on the positive side, I have lost five pounds. As one of my friends pointed out, that's the equivalent of five one pound boxes of butter.

One thing I am going back to though is my morning coffee. Some experts say coffee is fine, some say no. I work for an organic coffee company. The beans come from Maya Indian coops in Chiapas, Mexico. All the coffee I drink is fresh roasted. I think I'll take my chances when it comes to coffee.

Today's weight is 256.5 pounds and my Body Mass Index is 44!