Another benefit of how I'm eating has reared it's head.
My wife and I had our nephew over Friday night and his mother didn't tell us he was sick with a cold until we picked him up. After very close quarters with him for 24 hours my wife is lying in bed feeling horrible and I'm feeling fine. I felt a little off yesterday afternoon (slight nasal drip and sore throat) but got a good night sleep and feel great today. This is a far cry from the past few years where both my wife and myself would get sick together at the drop of a hat.
Now, to the real topic at hand...
My wife is very overweight (300lb+), as are many of the women in her family, and a large number of health issues run rampant in her family (Type 1 & 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, a bunch of others). She crested 300 pounds in high school and weighed 380 pounds at her heaviest (just before we met 4 1/2 years ago). Over the years she's tried a number of different diets and lost significant weight on them (50-80 pounds at a time) but it always came back.
Not long after we began dating she spurred us to sign up at the gym and between that and eating a sound dinner (the only meal I was around to help prepare in a healthy way), usually consisting of a poached or lightly seared salmon filet and some vegetables, she dropped down to 280 in 6 months time (when they did our 6 month fitness test they determined, through calipers and a handheld ultrasound thing, that she had 202 pounds of pure muscle
). Her perennially sick family, particularly her mother, really raised hell on our time to exercise or eat well, and over time she gained back maybe half the weight.
Over the years we've found some foods which bother her and cut them out (gluten, rice, corn, peanuts) & we've done research into possible underlying issues (she took the depo shot-an injected contraceptive-for years long before we met which is known to cause thyroid issues on such a longterm basis).
All of this doesn't really matter. What does matter is seeing me feel so much better she would like to make some changes to her diet and hopefully lose much of her weight, heal up her battered body, and live a long and healthy life. She wants to get proactive and stop worrying about dying by 50 from a heart attack or something else equally scary.
I need input from the other fine forum members on the best way to help her transition into our way of eating as well as some suggestions on foods. As she does not suffer the same problems from carbohydrates of any form that I do we both think it best if we shoot for a very low carbohydrate regimen; perhaps 20 grams per day, or is this too high?
She is still concerned with the raw meat aspect so we will be starting out with steaks cooked to medium-rare and work our way rarer as she feels comfortable.
She is also very concerned with eating raw fat so I will probably be supplementing with pemmican or at least putting the fat over the heated meat so it melts and makes it fattier.
We will be starting her on grainfed since she can't stand the flavor of grassfed. I personally think the fat on grassfed is a bit mealier/grittier as well so think this will be a smoother transition that trying to go cold turkey with grassfed. We will supplement with the Blue Ice cod liver oil while she eats grainfed.
I will be ordering some of Dr. Ron's Adrenals and Thyroids to help address possible underlying glandular problems.
We've also tried out Betaine HCL. I got the stomach heat and a bit of throat burn at 1 so I'm ok. She needed 6-8 624mg capsules to feel the same burn so her digestion is definitely compromised. I have two 100 cap bottles on hand and will encourage her to use them.
Now for the stuff I need help on.
What carbs would be helpful to have in her diet? All refined starches and sugars are of course out. Would fruits or vegetables be better? She adores lemons so they're an easy choice but what else?
She hates honey so we don't need to debate it's merit here.
Thoughts on Raw Dairy? I know some of you feel strongly against it and I agree that genetically most people don't do well with it. Unfortunately it's one of the food groups that she enjoys most and she'd be less inclined to cheat if she could have an occasional "treat" or some raw cheese or butter.
Any other guidance?
Thanks.
