Apparently, carbs make food taste good.

Today's weigh-in: 229.4

I'm embarking on an experiment, one I fully expect will not last long.  A friend of mine has lost more than 100 lbs in the past 6 years, mostly following a low carb diet through a meal plan company (not WW but one of those).  She's an incredible person and a huge inspiration.  After all her success, she's now become a health coach and is encouraging her husband to do the same.  He's following a similar plan, although I believe they are cooking at home instead of getting the premade meals, and he's lost a bit of weight so far (I don't know how much).  All this (along with a fitness check for his work that didn't end with pleasant results) inspired my husband to give the low carb diet a shot.  He started about two and a half weeks ago, and he's lost about 20 lbs.  That's pretty inspiring to somebody who has never lost more than two pounds in a week (me).  I decided that, once the birthday season was done (my birthday followed by my son's), I would give the low carb thing a try.  I started this morning, and, after about 12 hours of doing the low carb thing, I'm severely depressed. 

I used to joke that calories were the things that made food taste good.  I was wrong.  Carbs are the things that make food taste good.  I know I'm a sugar junkie, but I never realized how much of a starch junkie I was.  Potatoes, bread, pasta, rice...oh how I love them.  And things that I never realized had lots of carbs, like carrots, bananas, corn, birthday cake...ok, I knew that one.  Even my gum, which is sugar-free, has 2 g of carbs per  piece.  How does that even happen? 

A couple of weeks ago, I tried to make mashed cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes.  It didn't go well.  Oh, I know I could doctor them up with a lot of sour cream, butter, salt, and garlic, but they still wouldn't be mashed potatoes.  I know you can make zucchini "noodles" or use spaghetti squash.  I know you can make a crispy cheese "crust" for pizza.  Yes, I know these things, just like I know that there are vegetarians who eat bean and grain "burgers" and tofurkey.  I know these things.  But I also know that real food, the stuff with carbs in it, tastes best.  I don't even want to start on the low carb desserts.

We went to a buffet last night for my father-in-law's birthday.  We chose the buffet because we figured it would be easier for my husband to find low carb offerings than a regular restaurant.  He found a few things to eat, but it was very hard for him to see them side by side on the buffet display with all the foods that he can't eat. 

Yes, my husband has lost an impressive amount of weight in the two or so weeks he's been doing low carb, but I haven't seen him happy or content after eating.  Instead, he wistfully opens and closes the fridge and pantry, looking for some miraculous low carb offering that will satisfy his cravings, but none can be found. 

So, I decided I would try as well.  I've never lost weight quickly, and I'm about 80 lbs overweight, so I need something to jumpstart things for me.  I'm hoping the low carb thing will do it, but I just don't know how long I can keep it up.  Today I had a cup of Keurig cappuccino (10 grams), carrots and peanut butter (a combined 24 grams), a cheese stick (1 gram), and four pieces of gum (8 grams).  I'm not sure what my dinner carbs were, but I had a lettuce/kale/spinach/chicken salad with cheese, some slivered almonds, a few tortilla strips, and some southwestern ranch dressing, so I wouldn't think it was more than 15 grams.  That puts me at around 53 grams of carbs today.  That might not be the ideal below-50 level that many low carb diets recommend, but it's surely way fewer carbs than I usually consume.  It's probably also fewer calories, because I couldn't find anything else to eat. 

Oh, and I had a square-inch cube of birthday cake.  That was probably another 15 freaking carbs right there.  Whatever.

Anyway, we'll see how things look in the morning.  If it looks like I'm getting a weight loss jumpstart, I'll try to hang with it as long as I can.  If not, I'm eating some damn toast for breakfast.