h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Don't ask me why, but I found myself in York today and decided to wander around the Cathedral. Having lost 47lbs in only five weeks has made me feel full of beans, so what better way to test one's fitness than to climb the 275 spiral staircase steps of the central tower of York Minster.

I did it! It took five minutes for the power of speech to return (be fair, I still weigh over 22 stones), but I did it! And I now have a Certificate to prove it!

I must need certifying....

Hello, Eric! I found you in a roundabout way from several other researchers' pages. I'm glad to hear that your diet is going well and your diabetes is under control. Yay!!! I'm going through a similar situation right now--diabetes runs in my family and thanks to genetics and weight I was in the early stages of the disease. After consulting with my doctor, I went on a low carb diet just after the first of the year and as of last week, have lost 41 pounds. Although it's not working as fast as yours or Kelli's diets, I'm feeling (and looking) much better and my blood sugar is nearly back to normal. The diet is not as extreme as the Atkins diet (let's face it, he got his ideas from a diabetic's diet anyway), but I have cut out most bread products, white flours, sugars and rice and increased my intake of meats and veggies and it has worked marvellously.

I hope you are successful in reaching your goal!

Oh, FG.... would you ever forgive me?

I am so sorry to have apparently ignored your really interesting post... but my excuses are many, varied and true: I have been doing some DIY at my daughter's new flat in London (which is the other end of the Earth from my home in Wigan) - away from the Internet and all me mates....

I used to be in charge of hiring and firing (and many of the bits in the middle) at a pretty big UK company, and probably as a consequence of this I became absolutely committed to the principles of gender equality. Which led me to take my two daughters - when they were in their early teens - into the Sanctum Sanctorum (my shed) and introduce them to the secrets and delights of DIY. Never again would they be dependent on some other person to do practical tasks for them. It worked: both made some beautiful artifacts from wood, and they retained most of their fingers. When it came to Christmas, my younger daughter actually asked for a jack plane, but asked us to lie to her friends that she really had got a dress or something more girly. And whenever I went to tool emporia, I would always return and give Sarah, the youngest and keenest, a present of a tool for her kit. I took Katie, the older, to one side, and asked her if she was okay with this apparently unequal treatment.... she just didn't seem as keen on tools and stuff. She said it was fine: "I'll have something Sarah will never have...." she said. "What's that?" I asked. "Sarah" she replied..... This was the first warning sign that my older daughter was destined to become an Accountant. Which she now is.

The unfortunate thing is that kids tend to learn off each other, and over the years, Sarah has learned that DIY should stand for "Dad is Yuseful". She is also destined to be an Accountant.

Ah well.

There are worse things, I suppose. Actuaries.

Enough! I have a whole ream of other excuses for not replying promptly.... you don't want me to list them do you? I mean, you're not an Accountant, are you? (I do hope not, or I fear I have insulted you)

But here's a good Human Resources face saver in reply : "Tell me about yourself".

The damnable thing is that now I am retired, I actually would like to know more about you. Getting your blood sugar under control is fantastic, isn't it? And 41lbs.... bloody impressive. Without the help of my silly regime, I was a pathetic dieter: my previous efforts amounted to worse than nothing.... I yo-yo'd up to a weight where I was knocking at death's door. So you are clearly made of sterner stuff.... and I salute you.

But can you help me with a really difficult question? Why do most people who have lost significant amounts of weight ultimately not only fall off the wagon, but rebound to an even more gross weight than before? I have my theories, but I'd like to hear yours - and your strategy for avoiding this in your own case.

Would love to hear from you, BigE

No problems with not replying sooner, Eric. I know that people have very busy lives IRL and not everyone is on hootoo all the time waiting for responses to their posts.

My strategy for keeping it off is very simple. In order to avoid full-fledged diabetes, I have to stay on this diet the rest of my life. I have two very good examples of what can happen to me: diabetes runs in my father's family, and one of my sisters is Type I, and has been administering insulin shots since childhood. My father has Type II, and thanks to a bizarre series of circumstances, lost both of his legs to it. So, not only will I be losing weight, I will be losing for the rest of my life. The interesting thing is that I don't know where I will bottom out. I do have one plan though. Once I hit a single-digit clothing size (in American sizes) I'm getting another tattoo to celebrate!

Hi FG !

I'm back from visiting London... it was supposed to be a holiday, but somehow it worked out as an exhausting experience!

Well, you've come up with a brilliant addition to my list of reasons why it's better not to diet: the inevitable reduction in the surface area means less "canvas" for your tattoo artist to work on.... and even your existing artwork may decrease in size.... or even maybe distort.

London and cars really don't love each other any more and parking at any price has become quite a test of ingenuity. Once you do find a suitable free spot, you are very reluctant to risk losing it. So if you can, you leave the vehicle where it is and walk. All of which led to my walking the 20 minute journey to the local shopping centre from my daughter's flat. A very pleasant exercise. Then doing a nice little Supermarket shop for her, and in the process just doing as one normally does... adding a few "treats" and extras.... a couple of bottles of soft drinks and a couple of bottles of wine, and a nice melon and stuff like that.

I am so used to using the car, it hadn't occurred to me that I now had to carry the stuff back up the hill to the flat! Almost certainly, my payload was less than a third of the weight I have shed in the last 18 weeks.

I struggled. I sweated. I even considered jettisoning some of the shopping. And I marvelled at how I had managed to just move around before I started the weight loss regime. What a timely reminder of how I had been killing myself.....

I actually have type II Diabetes and have collected quite a lot of its complications in the package. I know that sensible weight control could have delayed its onset at the very least, and whilst it's clear you know well enough from your family what the truth about Diabetes is, let me just confirm that it is well worth deferring or avoiding altogether if you are clever enough to do this. I wasn't. And once those beta cells in your pancreas are dead, then they're dead. So I'll never crawl back from that self-abuse (its an indelible error, I'm afraid... a bit like tattoos!). But the best direction (paraphrasing a favourite joke) as to how to get out of the mess is "Don't start from here".

I am amazed at how "normal" my blood sugar can be as a result of ignoring the so-called Professional Dieticians advice to eat a balanced diet favouring complex carbohydrates and instead, choosing to avoid Carbs like the Pox. The high fat of a full-on Atkins diet really scares me (I've survived pretty serious heart disease, got patched, and really don't want to chance my arm with it again for a long while: the heart attack hurt, and the prediction of one week left to live sort of focussed the mind a bit....) so I'm watching the Cholesterol and the Triglycerides and my BP like a bloody hawk... but so far so good, and the theory that Carbs not only play merry hell with your blood sugar levels, but are the source of your blood nasties and also act like a Catalyst for the conversion of food into fat... well, it all seems to be being borne out by my direct experience.

So why are so many people defending the route favoured by the corn farmers and the sugar purveyors and the chocolatiers? Why is there so much hysteria in the Press about Atkins in particular and low-carb diets in general? We are just getting a lot of publicity over here about a poor American 16yr old whose Mum blames her Atkins diet for her collapsing and dying from heart failure.... with barely a mention that such a fate is a significant risk for a kid who suddenly exerts herself in 102 degree heat and weighs in at 250lbs at the age of 16 ! But the British Press are saying it's Atkins' fault... after all, he's dead, y'know.... Mindless Morons. Ooops, there I go again answering my own rhetorical questions!

And as for losing weight and staying at a normal weight, I am fast reaching the conclusion that I have been looking at the problem from the wrong perspective.... the medical perspective, which treats obesity like an illness and seeks to cure it. Maybe there is no cure for those of the frugal genotype. Maybe we are doomed to always crave Carbs, lay down fat at the drop of a scone and always be vulnerable to rebounding in body mass. But maybe this is the wrong tack.... maybe we should be seeking to change rather than to cure.

If you traded in your crappy old, slow truck for a sports car, you'd expect different things from it.... and more importantly, you'd expect to drive it differently (maybe you'd even have to learn how...). Now I'm not yet a Ferrari, but I'm no longer a shed-on-legs. Maybe I ought to be looking not only about how much fuel I put in the tank, but what sort and how I drive it....

Hmmm....

Thanks, mate. Good luck to you and yours. I hope you are one of the few who remain successful (because let's face it.... your Dad's method of losing body mass is effective, but not so bloody appealing, if we can just summon up the sense to avoid Diabetes for as long as we can....)

But you have certainly set me thinking.... Hope I can do the same in return. Regards,

BigE