Christmas in Sweden

This blog has almost fallen in to the winter-sleep but the reason is that I finally got a job, after 15 months of being without.
I am sooo happy for my new job and loves it but at the same time I am very tired because of that long time, I have been home. I could spend hours on my blogs, both this one and my swedish blog and now I don´t have that much time. Christmas is close and most of my friends are so busy, buying christmas-stuff, making food and baking cakes. All Christmas in Sweden is about food and christmasgifts and this is one of the hardes holidays of the whole year, when you are a sugaraddict - where ever you are or look there is lots of triggers for sugaraddiction.

We all have "soft spots" what is triggering us and one of those for me is swedish gingerbread-cookies.
You can buy them everywhere and there is shops who put boxes of gingerbread-cookies by the cash registers, so when you pay, you get that smell right up in your nose...and yes, it smells soooo good!
I try to put my nose in the other direction and not even look down in to the box...what I don´t see, dosen´t exist! That´s how I try to survive the cravings.
I don´t have any physical craving but in my mind, there will always be one.
Every Christmas has been a struggel before I started my life as 100% dedicated to Low Carb High Fat. Now it makes it easier but there is always situations wich is harder to deal with then others, off course.
The main rule is:
Don´t fool yourself to think that you CAN eat all that yummie stuff for a week and then stop!
The best comment I heard about that is: I started to eat Christmas-food and I haven´t stopped yet and now it is is july...
But that is so true: You think you can treat yourself a week between Christmas and New Year but when that week is passed, you can´t stop anyway.
I don´t even make substitutes for my cravings. Yes, there is recepies for example of gingerbread-cookies without starch, sugar and gluten but I CAN NOT BAKE THEM! Why?
Because it is a trigger for me!
So, make a list of your Christmastriggers and decide to not fool yourself and make substitutes, if you are not 100% sure of not continue eating the real stuff after.
The only treat I will make for Christmas is choclad truffles with different tastes, as vanilla or minth. I use 90% cocoa wich is the strongest cocoa-level you can make treats of.
100 grams of 90% chocolate, wich you melt on low heat
3/4 deciliters of full fat cream, wich you whip in to the melted choclate together with a tablespoon salted butter. You can use some kind of sweetening, like Stevia.
Add also some flavoring like minth, whiskey, vanillapowder or what you like or just as it is.
Put it in the fridge for an hour, take it out and role them to small balls and and role them in pure cocoapowder or coconutrasps.
I will also make a Christmascake and this I made for my sons birthday this summer:

8-10 pieces

Cake base:
150 g butter
150 g dark fine chocolate (70-85%)
3 eggs
2 cups sukrin (sweetner)
1 tsp vanilla powder
1 cup almond flour
Glaze
1 cup whipping cream
100 g dark chocolate (70-85%)

To do this:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Grease a springform tin with melted butter.
Chop the chocolate finely and add the chocolate into the melted butter. Stir constantly and let the chocolate melt on low heat.
Beat eggs until fluffy with sukrin in a bowl.
Add the chocolate mixture into a springform (20-23 cm) and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
Let the cake stand and cool, preferably in the fridge.
Pour the cream into a saucepan and break down the chocolate. Heat over very low heat. Stir constantly. Pull the pan when everything melted and let cool. The icing will become thick.
Remove the cake from the mold and spread the icing over the cake.

As you see I added cherrie-halfs on my cake but for christmas there might be other options like, coconut rasps, other berries or just as it is!

Merry Christmas!

A picture taken last saturday where I live. 

A small update!

I am soooo sorry for not writing here right now but a lot of things is happening right now. I just started an education as a chef, wich is really fun and interesting considdering my "obsession" of food! *ha ha*
I will try to find the time and energy to write more in here in time, also translate more of my food-recepies wich I have at my swedish blog: www.startarom.blogspot.se
Follow the blogs and links in the list I have here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Primal North, Jimmy Moore and all the other low-carbeaters!
I started a new fase in my diet also, because of my low change in loosing weight where I realised that I eat to much carbs even though I thought it was low and I call it ketosis-eating, wich means that I eat more fat, more proteins and almost no veggies at all and lost another 4 kilos in 1,5 month.
I will continue doing that until Christmas, first of all.
I really, really want to loose my last kilos of overweight!

Writing soon!

Me in my school! 

Modern wheat a "perfect, chronic poison," doctor says

(CBS News) Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world's most popular grain.

Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year."

Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping substantial weight.

"If three people lost eight pounds, big deal," he said. "But we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day."

To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food," such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "(It's) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it's not barley... or flax. It's going to be wheat.

"It's really a wheat issue."

Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on "CTM" they're just offering a poor alternative.

"All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched products with something less bad, whole grains, and there's an apparent health benefit - 'Let's eat a whole bunch of less bad things.' So I take...unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes, you should smoke the Salems. That's the logic of nutrition, it's a deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say, 'Let's eliminate all grains,' what happens then?

"That's when you see, not improvements in health, that's when you see transformations in health."

                        Watch Davis' full interview in the video  in the link belove:

CBS News  

Sugarholics

Don't amputate a healthy part of your body!

Why do everyone think that it is the stomach who make us fat, sick and depressed? 

Why should we remove a big part of our stomach and intestent just because we are sick or obese?
What did that stomach do, to deserve that?                                                    
Actually - nothing.
It workes just as it is supposed to do, intest the food you eat. But if you put in food in your sensitive stomach  wich make you sick or fat, you can still not blame your stomach.
There is many reasons why you get sick or fat - it is not the stomach who is the problem!

If you got migrains - do you cut your head off?
No, didn't think so, because you know that you need it!
The same reason - you need your stomach!
Over the years I lived with my amputated stomach I realised that it is not the heart who is the center of my body, it is my stomach.
When I got my flickering heart, I didn't feel any pain, just feeling very uncomfortble but when I get something bad in my stomach, my whole body feels sick. Nothing workes when your stomach is in pain or any kind of unbalance.
Those people who wants you to reduce your weight through amputation of your stomach, don't think about you - they think about them selves! They are the ones who gains something out of your missery! Not you!
You think that your weight is making you misserable, but you don't really know what missery is when your stomach is not working anymore!
- That will not happen to me!
- How do you know that?
Nobody knows how many out there actually died from the surgery, because they don't want to tell you!
They will tell you that you will be free from your Diabetes 2 and loose your weight!
WONDERFUL!
Right?
And they will tell you to continue eating fullgrains, pasta, potatoes, rice, fruits and strange shakes because it is good for you!
That is simply not true!
The onlny reason you might be free from your Diabetes2 is that you eat a lot less than before but after a while you will also realise that you CAN eat those things you got sick and obese of, from the beginning.

There is statitics about the risks but I promisse you, those numbers are not true.
In Sweden they count the numbers of deaths, just the next 30 days after the surgery. If you die, day 31 you are not in the statistics.
If you survive but are so sick that you can't live a normal life, you are not dead and wont be in the statistics either!
You are just a number, something to get money from.
What happens to you, your family and your life is not important!

In my supportgroup at Facebook a woman from New York told this:
" I had GBS in 2007 and it's ruined my life!! And there's no turning back once it's done!! I would rather be back to the somewhat healthy 250lbs me, then the very unhealthy, sick all the time 115lbs me. I was diagnosed May 2011 with Epilepsy. So rhyme or reason. Just started having massive tonic colonic seizures. I'm no longer allowed to drive and waiting on approval for SSDI at age 32. And I believe 100% this was caused by Gastric Bypass along with the other physical issues I deal with daily.
------
The neuro doctor I go to won't confirm the seizures are caused by the surgery. I can't believe someone with no fam hx or head trauma is just one day going to have a GM seizure. Ive done some research that suggests being so malnurished can most deff lead to seizures. And I'm deff malnurished. I just don't know how to look into it further. I wish there was a dr out there that could/would do testing to prove the surgery caused that. Every time you watch tv there's a new commercial for a "bad" drug and to call a lawyer. What about GBS gone bad?!?
-------
Being 5 yrs post op I eat anything I can keep down. Right now I can't stomach meat. It's mainly high fiber cereal, or soup. I "eat" a bag of ice a day and drink maybe 8oz of crysal light. Pretty much it. My sugar goes crazy with off the wall foods. I crash to the low 30's, even as low as 25 at one point. I can eat a candy bar and be fine but eat a bowl of pasta and it drops. It's really weird.
-----
I would love to start a site talking about the "dark" side of GBS. The side that they refuse to talk about. When people go to support groups to get info about the surgery no one stands up and gives the cons about it. It's always how it saved their lives. Well what about us that it's ruined!! I just don't know where to start, or what I could really do to help people. I wish I knew doctors that would back this up to prove that our issues aren't in our heads that they are real.
------
My kids are 12,7, and 4. I got preg 6 months after surgery. I was still in the rapid weightloss time frame. But that's when I felt the best. I'm sick everyday. I just don't feel well at all. My kids just started school and my day consists of laying on the couch. I have no energy to do anything. During the summer that's pretty much what my kids see. Mommy sick laying down. My oldest moved in with her Aunt 2,300 miles away (Nashville, Tennessee) because I couldn't keep up with her school work. That and my 7 yr old has ADHD so they would fight all the time and I just couldn't deal. I miss her like crazy. She comes home for Christmas and summers. But that family has taken full control and I'll be lucky if I see her again : ( i feel im a horrible mother because i can't go out and play with them or pick my son up and play. I had the surgery done pretty much because my husband would call me names and make fun of me. He left me February 2007 the next month I had the surgery thinking he would want me and come home. Not the case at all. Now he calls me a crack head because I'm so thin. I hate my body. I may be 115 pounds but look fat because of the hanging skin. I think I'm harsher on myself now then before. It's ruined my intimate life, well my whole life in general."

This is just ONE story, I just copied from the group!

This is happening all over the world! 

Not just in Sweden! 

The picture is from www.dietdoctor.com where you can read about the fail in Weight Loss surgery:

"Weight loss surgery, cutting away healthy stomach organs, is promoted as the only effective treatment for obesity. But the cracks are starting to show now – not surprisingly. Yesterday a 20-year follow-up of the largest study on weight loss surgery was published and it could be the largest setback yet.

It turns out that obese people undergoing weight loss surgery get an INCREASED need for medical treatment, even years after the surgery. Despite their weight loss! For example they need more inpatient care in hospitals. During the first six years after surgery the increase is very large (see figure above).

The cause is either complications from the surgery (like bleeding, infections, leakage of stomach contents into the abdominal cavity) or long-term dangers like bowel obstruction, anemia, gallstones or malnutrition.

Bloomberg News: Weight-Loss Surgery’s Health Benefits Found to Have Costs

Obese people who did not receive surgery ultimately needed less medical care. So how healthy is it to lose weight by surgery?

There was also an increased need for psychiatric medications (e.g. for depression and anxiety) for weight loss surgery patients.

We need a safer and wiser treatment for obesity. Amputating healthy organs is just an emergency solution. We need to stop giving simplistic calorie-fixated advice (the least effective advice in study after study) before exposing patients to risky surgery. These operations should be the last resort. Thus patients should first be offered advice on low carb (the most effective advice in study after study) and adequate support.

Weight loss surgery may be extremely lucrative for hospitals (the complications are an added bonus!) but if you are a patient: Be warned. And make sure you have good insurance."

http://www.dietdoctor.com/does-weight-loss-surgery-make-you-healthier-maybe-not 

Get real!
Change your way of eating and do NOT listen to all those doctors and dietists who put there own wealth in front of yours.
The "biggest" doctors in Sweden who claims they are working for obese people are payed by McDonalds, Coca Cola, NOVO, GSK, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Sweden (MSD), Sanofi-aventis, Schering-Plough, COOP, Unilever, Sveriges Försäkringsförening, AFA, Nordea, Posten...

Where is the benefits for you in this?
This is worse than I ever could imagine when I put my self under the knife 1995.
If I had known what I know today - I WOULD NEVER DONE IT!

Now you know it, you don't have to do it!

Genetic Roulette

Movie about Genetic manipulation of our food 

Cheese muffins

I found a recepie in one of the LCHF-groups at Facebook and got inspired and made this!

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 cup cream
1 cup creme fraiche
1 tbsp almond flour
0.5 tablespoon of coconut flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
about 1-2 cups grated cheese
3 tablespoons melted butter
Salt, pepper and I added dried thyme and chiliflakes.
Whisk everything, except the cheese, wich you add directly into the muffin mold.
Pour the mixture over the grated cheese into the muffin mold.
Bake at 200 degrees until the muffins have browned - about 20-30 minutes.

When I made these so I came up with ideas that you can fill them with some other goodies, such as chopped olives, pieces of ham, small pieces of smoked salmon or similar. Things that give more character to the muffin. They were good, both hot and cold and if you make many, you can heat them up quickly in the oven at 100 degrees C, before serving them, such as at a party.
Works very well as breakfast and evening snack. Or why not as something you bring with you in your bag if you are out shopping, or to a picnic?
There is no Physillium husk or lots of firbrer in it, so if you are GBP-operated, the stomach wont swell in  the same way as with recipes containing Physillium husk for example.
Highly recommended!
Thanks Anna Haeggman!

I tried everything!

How often do you hear people say that they have tried EVERYTHING to lose weight?
That comment comes out of everyone's mouth, but I think especially of all those who weigh more than 100 kg and are thinking about the option to do gastric surgery. They see no other options, because they have already tried everything.
I had those thought that day when  I phoned the hospital,  to ask how I would do to get to a gastric bypass surgery. I felt that there were no options left for me. 
There were no suggestions for alternative either, for that matter.
But how honest are we when we say that we tried everything?
What does "everything" mean?

When I started to read about Dr. Atkins diet, in 2005, I learned something new - I had never tried to cut down on carbohydrates.

When I did, I experienced exactly the same feeling as I do now when I eat according to LCHF - I feel good, I am not hungry all the time, I don't  have any sugar - and foodcravings and going steady, slowly down in weight. I have't gained one single kilogram since I started to cut down on carbohyrdates in three years.

My motivation is the key to manage and it's just the motivation that many lack, or as some call - the will.

In my support group on Facebook (Gastric surgery - the only option?) and elsewhere, I have read several times about people who want surgery because they already have tried everything, even LCHF, and it did not work. They did not lose weight, they got a stomach ache, the pain became worse etc.

My question remains: How long time did you try it? Did you really follow the "rules"?

Did you realise that you injured the inside of your body badly through yo-yo dieting, abusing food, hormone disruption or got intoxicated by all additives in the food you eat/ate wich made your body to not respond until you get balance, when you eat better and first of all when the body actually tells you how you feel? 

When I got my diagnos carpal tunnel syndrome in my hands, I really didn't wanted to do the surgery and through my fear I got motivated to stay consistent to LCHF. The journey didn't become what I thought from the beginnin. I could have just stayed to my personal life according to LCHF and not either started to blog about it or tried to start my own coaching activity to help others. But that is not me - I want to and have to inform and help others, that's in my heart, soul and nature.

You are in the doctors room and you say that you want to do a Gastric Bypass because you have tried "everything"...

The doctor put your name on a waitinglist and you get instructed to loose as much weight as possible until the surgery because it is very risky to anesthetize an overweight person. 

You go hom, filled with energy and motivation, because you really want to do this surgery. You start to diet or even fast, starving yourself because you are af'raid that you wont get the surgery unless you don't loose weight. 

HORRIBLE! 

You rather die, wont you?

You want, just like everyone else, live a normal life, in a normal body with normal weight...

I don't want to stop living according LCHF because I don't want to operate my hands.

YOU dont want to try LCHF because you WANT to operate your stomach.

I dont want to stop living according LCHF because there is no other options - I tried everything else - even the surgery! 

YOU don't want to try LCHF because according to you LCHF is something new wich will give you an heart attack, high cholestorol and kill you. 

I don't want to stop living accoriding LCHF because I don't want to be a sugaraddict. Yeah, you can actually eat a big bag of Cheese Doodles, even as gastric bypass-operated. 

I eat LCHF-pizza and are full all day.

YOU eat a regual pizza and craves for icecream after eating it.

When you make a life changing decision wich will affect the rest of your life, then you also have to be able to become looked at all through your mind, get criticized and questioned 100%. You should be able to say that you tried everything - not jus what you think is everything.  

If you can starve yourself to get surgery you would be able to eat yourself less heavy to avoid it. 

The biggest fear should be, that the doctor says: - NOW you have to loose weight or else we have to cut inside of you and THAT is NOT fun! You will suffer for the rest of your life more than you ever could imagine.

You think it is hard to be big and heavy but just imagine all the diseases, injuries and problems you will get if you do a Gastric bypass-surgery, then we can talk about hard life! 

Unfortunately, there is no doctor's who says that but it should and until that happens you will hear it from me and everybody else who live more or less in hell because we put our bodies on the surgery table with just one wich - to get a normal life in a normal weight and instead got a sick life and had to continue the struggle against the weight. 

I wonder how many billions the manufacturers make of just to produce B12-vitamines? 

You have to eat that every day for the rest of your life as a gastric bypass-operated. 

I wonder how many billions they make for selling minerals- and vitamines to all gastric bypass-operated wich suffers from chronic malnutrition?

How much does the government safe on all sick leaves, re-surgeries, hospital visits wich all theese gastric-bypass-operated people are doing?

For WHOM do we really do this bariatric surgery?

When we, as food addictited and sugar addicted people feels lite we never get any form of support - then we amputate our stomach, when the problem really is in the head. 

Why not lobotomy?

Yeah, why not? The surgents want to "cut off" the thing wich is not working on the human body so if they realise that it is in the head our food addiction sits, then the thought is not so far away, really. 

Is that enough for you as motivation to NOT amputate your stomach? 

Mediterranean Inspired Meatloaf

Minced meat is a fantastic type of food wich you can do a lot of different disches of.
A meat  loaf is always a good choice but instead of doing it the swedish way, I got inspired to make it a little bit different this time:


I begin with the minced meat:
I put the minced meat in a bowl, in which I also put in the finely chopped onion and garlic (much), salt, black - and white pepper (freshly grounded), eggs, a teaspoon of Physillium Husk and a dash of cream. "I mash" it with my hands, it works best.
Then I cut peppers, olives, feta cheese and mushrooms into small pieces. (not minced).
Moulds minced meat in a greased baking dish (butter, of course) and make a "cave" in the middle where I put the filling and then molds the minced meat together, so it covers the filling.
Adds a few pats of butter on top and salt, pepper and spice it a bit with dried herbs. (If you have it)

Put into the oven at 200 degrees Celisus and cook it until the meat juice is clear from colours. You can add some aluminium-foil on the top so the  meatloaf not burnes while it cooks al through the meat.
To this I serve cauliflower mash:

Boil Caluliflower and mash it with a potatoe-masher, put some butter, blackpepper, salt, nutmeg and a tablespoon of Creme Fraiche or Philadelphia cheese in to it.

What do you do with the left overs?
I barely throw any food and got a small piece of meatloaf left...what do to with it?
Well!
A toast!
I just sliced it, put it on a oven plate, added some sliced tomatoe, leeks and cheese on the top and put in the oven for 10 minutes. Better than pizza!

Fish gratin/pudding

I like fish, especially white fish. I don't like salmon and tuna so much, but eat it in various forms anyway.
I had Cod and spinach in the freezer and took out two packages of Cod and one bag of spinach.
One of my friends at Facebook tipped me about her own fish puddning and I noted that there was cottage cheese in it, plus asparagus and Hollandaiesås.
I chosed base my food on what I had at home but went down to the store and found leeks for special price and also some smoked salmon in thin slices that ended up in the basket.
In my friends recipe, the fish is already cooked but mine was raw, so I cutted it to small pieces, shredded the leek and parboiled the frozen spinach for a few minutes and let it drain in a colander and also I pressed out as much liquid I could before I used it in my pudding.

So I made this!
  * Added butter in to a baking dish.
*  I mixed 3 deciliters of creme fraiche, 4 eggs (I made a BIG batch), 3 deciliters of cottage cheese, about 4 cups grated cheese and about 1 cup cream when it became a bit "dry" with only sour cream. I whipped all together + salt, pepper and a little bit of nutmeg.
* Cut the fish into small pieces, shredd the leek and mix this along with the blanched spinach in a bowl with the wet ingredients.
* Poured it to the baking dish and "spread out", put sliced ​​tomatoes on top and added some pats of butter and a little salt and pepper on top.
* Into the oven to 200 degrees C - my gratin was big so I baked it for over an hour! Stick in the middle with a baking needle and see if it is ready, is the best way to do it.

Click on the picture and it opens in a bigger size.

My old winterjacket

A copule of years ago I found a really nice, big winterjacket wich I have worn since until I started to loose weight. Already the first winter 2010 the jacket started to be to big. The cold wind sneaked in under the jacket and I tried to wrapp it closer to me and thought it was time to find a new jacket in a more suitable size...
All last winter I was looking for that "perfect" jacket! There was one "have-to-have"-demand on that new jacket: A hood on it, because I refuse to wear beanies and also white and warm!
If I found one it was to expencive or the wrong size, so I froze a lot last winter. Happy it wasn't that cold also.
Well, I got lucky just a week ago!
I didn't even look for a jacket when I found it.
It is not white but all the other demands was satisfied: a hood, warm and a good price.
What to do with the old one?
I really hate to throw good things away and I don't know anyone who can wear it! Not even my biggest son (the younger one) can have it.
I took it out and forced him to try it on and yeah, it was to big.
My older son wich is the smaller in size took it and started to play with it, pretending that he lost weight, pulling it out from his body to show how much bigger the jacket was.
I told him that, that is the wrong way to do it because it is not just the belly who gets smaller, it is all arond.
I took the jacket of him and put it on myself and really...it is sooo big!
My son came up with an idea...

Watch and laugh! We did!

Strange hairdoo...

What's behind?

Surprise!

PUT ME DOWN! 

I am laughing so hard, I can't breath!

Well, we are a bit crazy in this family but it is really fun to be also! I can also feel proud of my self and my smaller size even though my kids can lift me, wich never happend before. They call me "little mum" nowadays.

Tunafishcurry and Cabbage Hash

In the late '80s, I was served a pasta sauce that was made ​​with tuna, crayfishtails and curry. It became one of my favorites over the years. So ... then I make a LCHF- adaptation to this sauce:

Fry one chopped onion, garlic and curry in oil, butter or Ghee.
Add  thin, shredded cabbage and cook it together with the onions and curry.
Add tuna (in water, not in oil = bad oil)
Add creme fraiche or cream.

Let it on simmer on low temperature until the cabbage is soft. (depends on how thin you shred cabbage)
When the dish is ready add the crayfishtails or shrimps in the dish. Don't let it cook after because then the crayfish/shrimps become like rubber.

I had no crayfish or shrimps at home today, so I topped with some chives.
Chopped fresh tomatoes are also good.

Another way of making food is to cook "all-in-one" as a Hash - in Sweden we call it Pytt i panna, wich bacically means you fry meat left overs with potatoes and onion.
Well, in at the LCHF-planet, we don't eat potatoes and cabbagage is the most handy vegetable I know.
This is a version of Cabbage hash:


Shred the smoked pork and bacon, cabbage and onions.
Fry the bacon cripsy, add the smoked pork or other smoked meat, cabbage and onion. Add black pepper, but no salt, the meat is salty so it is enough. Dinner ready in 20 minutes!
Use your own imagnination and add the things you like to eat. The smoked pork can be replaced with sausages, smoked fish or what ever you like.
Be aware of that sausages also contains lots of additives and sugar - try to find one with high level of meat and not so much additives. Not easy but you might be lucky!

Sour Cream / Creme Fraiche

I use a lot of Creme Fraiche in my cooking and have translated it to "Sour Cream" wich is not exactly the same thing. In Europe, I think everyone knows what it is but I am not sure.
When I found the foodblog for making Ghee I found a lot of good recepies and one is about making your own Creme Fraiche (click on the word "foodblog" and u get the recepie from the blog).
In Sweden the Creme Fraiche contains 34% of fat but real cream contains 40% - according to LCHF, the higher level of fat it is in a dairy product or any food product, the better it is.

I will try to make my own!
Then I know what I get and hopefully I can make it fatter than the one in the stores.
The taste would be nicer too, I hope.
Not hard to do even if you think 8 hours is a long time.
But just put it in water, in to the own on 50 degrees over night and it is done in the morning when u wake up!
How hard can it be?

Ghee

I started to use Ghee in my cooking and the first reason was that when I fry eggs in butter it splatters so much and I got butterdropps everywhere. But if you fry in Ghee, you don't get that.
Ghee is mainly used in indian cooking and you can buy it in stores where they sell food and ingredients for foreign countries.
But I prefer to do my own, then I know what I get.
I found a good food blog where it is described how to do Ghee.
The best of all is that Ghee dosen't content milkprotein or casein wich actually is not so good for humans.

But also on Youtube, you can find many filmclips on how to cook Ghee, like this:

There are some small differences between how to make Ghee, so look at more than one filmclip to make sure you really get how to do it before you try it.

Just one very important warning:

 BE CAREFUL - HOT OIL IS VERY HOT AND CAN START TO BURN! NEVER LEAVE IT UNATTENDED!!

Taco pie

I started by making Crust from Birgitta Höglund:

3 cups almond flour
50 gr fridge cold butter
1 tablespoon psysillium husk
1 pinch sea salt
1 Organic Egg

* Cut the butter into small cubes. Pour the almond flour, psysillium husk and salt in a bowl. Add the butter cubes and crack in the egg.

* Mix the dough with electric mixer (you can use a fork or your hands also if you prefer) until the butter is well blended with the rest of the ingredients. Spread the crust-dough to a pie plate. I prefer those with a removable bottom..
* To make the pie crust really smooth, put plastic wrap over the dough and press with your fingers, out the dough over the bottom and up to the edge. Smooth the edge around with your thumb.
* Set the crust in the fridge to harden for 30 minutes, so it wont fall down during baking.
 * Remove foil and pre-bake the shell for 5 minutes at 200 C °.

While the pie crust is in the fridge, I set off with the filling:

Around 500 grams of ground beef (I make the large quantities when I cook because of my two hungry boys)
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
A yellow and a red pepper
Taco Seasoning:
 (you can mix it yourself - 1 ½ tsp salt, 2 teaspoons chili powder, 2 tsp paprika, 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
1 teaspoon onion powder)
and extra cumin and chili flakes if you want stronger taste
mozarella
Philadelphia cheese 100 grams
Sour cream 1 cup (about)
grated cheese



Chop the onion, garlic and cut the peppers into small pieces. Fry quickly in the pan with cumin and chiliflakes.
Add the minced meat and fry it together with the ingredients  above until browned. Pour taco seasoning, tomato paste and let it simmer for a while to remove most of the liquid.
Bake the pie crust!
Mix Sour Creme and Philadelphia cheese.
Pour over meat mixture into the pie crust and press down  pieces of Mozarella in the minced meat.
Strike the sour cream - and philadelphiamixture over the meat sauce.
Add sliced ​​tomatoes over and finish with grated cheese. Not too much because then it is closing it and the filling becomes get very "wet".

Into the oven at 200 degrees until the cheese is golden.
Eat it with a fresh salad, and guacamole or my own salad dressing with avacado:
Take half mayonnaise, half of sour cream or yogurt or smetana.
Mix avacado and garlic, black pepper, salt, lemon juice and a pinch of curry using a blender of some sort.
Mix with mayonnaise and sour cream. Done!
You can replace the avakcado with what you like, such as blue cheese, pesto, curry, dill or whatever you think is best suited to what you should eat.

Cottage Cheese Toasts

Found a version of Åses Cottage cheese pancakes  renamed as LCHF Toast, wich meand that you don't eat them with cream / yogurt and berries, but as a Toast.
Thought it seemed like a good idea because of how easily I trigger on anything that resembles sugar.


Ingredients in the "pancake":
1 egg
125 gr cottage cheese
3/4 tablespoon of psyllium husk
a pinch of salt
Mix with a hand blender and let it rest for a little while, until the fat in the pan is hot.
I used Ghee instead of butter or coconut oil to just test if they were burned as fast as when I am using butter.
It did not, but got more color than the original recipe.
Åse fills her with ham, cheese and dijon mustard but I had no ham at home, so I took sliced ​​tomato and a swedish cheese, thick slices.
It tasted very much "pancake" so adding something like smoked meat or something else with strong taste is to prefer.
Since my stomach can not hold as much I can say I was stuffed!
Next time I'll probably just take pancake instead and save the other or doing double duty as one of the sons get a portion too.
Otherwise, I think these works to eat them just as they are without something to all.
8/9: Now I made theese "toast" three times and learning how to do it more easily:
Mix the egg, cottage cheese with pepper and a little bit more salt then you thought from the beginning and add the Physillium Husk afterwards with a spoon instead and let it swell for a copple of minutes. Then the batter wont stick to the mixer. Use a spatula to add the small toasts in the fryingpan. Add a little bit of grinded cheese on the top after turning them around, put down the heat to half,  and when the cheese is melted, the toast is ready.
Right now ....I got som nice slices of bacon in the own! *yummie*

My fat story Part 7

Me and my son June 2010

I go out from the Hand Surgery September 15th in the afternoon, and there is only one thought in my head:
- I need to lose weight because I refuse to operate on my hand!
Back to Atkins!
I knew that it worked, if I only could keep myself from  "cheating" and not lose the motivation. Now I had the best reason ever that motivated me at least as much, if not more, than when my sister got married.

The Surgical images on a open hand was stuck on my retina and filled me with pure fear.

I just need to get the fat wich squeezed my carpal nerve in my hand ... best whip ever to get started. Now it was not about loosing weight and becoming stylish", it was about to avoid an operation.

I guess it was as effective as if someone told me that if I did not stop smoking NOW, I will die of cancer in a year or if you don't stop eating sugar and carbohydrates NOW you will have diabetes within six months. Yes, just choose - a whip that is beyond what you dream about. No one wants to be sick, and I had been through enough because of my excess weight that I would knowingly continue being that.

Egazil (the anticonvulsant medication that I began to take in February 2010 because of my throbbing sensations in the body) had taken away the "thump" in the body up to 75%. Not quite, it still pulsed when I been eating and I could feel it a little when I was going to bed but I was able to sleep again without a percussion in my head. However, I had about one sick day a month (sometimes more often) then I just could not manage to get to work, when the stomach didn't move, and the energy was so low that I couldn't do anything that day. It was hard to to call to work and tell that I was  sick so often without any good reason - how could I explain why I couldn't mangage to work when there were no "obvious" fault with me? I did the same track as I always did - ate cakes, sandwiches and anything else that I "shouldn't" eat.

I could not even control myself at work when it was served . I could be on border of dumping after eating lunch but STILL, I just had to get  a piece of that cake or wheat bun. I knew EXACTLY how much I could stuff in me without vomiting but yes, I lost control at times and was forced to throw up what I ate. The bad conscience tapped constantly in me but I couldn't stop my self anyway ...

I noticed how my clothes began to tighten especially  over the belly wich was so hard and bloated and got cramps several times a day and at night too. But it was still not enough to find that "damn-it- feeling" that I knew was there, somewhere inside of me ...

Not until that day the Hand surgeon!

I came home and didn't hesitate one second about what I would eat and not. It was as little carbohydrates as possible was the main goal! I knew this!  

I started writing documents on my Facebook page about what I ate and also wrote some recipes of what I ate, to keep track of what I ate but also to tell others. I have a friend since many years, which had begun with LCHF a year before and had lost several kilos and told gladly about how good she felt as she also was suffering from ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and also often had migraine and could feel it was more manageable after she started with LCHF. She often commented on my posts that I ate too many carbohydrates and too little fat, etc. .... I ended up very annoyed with her ​​and "snapped" at her at Facebook that I ate MY WAY!

It was probably close to that she stopped to "talk" to me. I had found my own version which was based on the Atkins diet / phase 1-2. So I bought nothing that had a carbohydrate level above 20 g grams/100 grams. Since I could just eat small portions of everything it felt "okay" to be on that level. I didn't calculate how much carbs I ate in one day. Everything I ate was, after all, under 20 carbs/100g.

That way was the way I had lost weight before so why should I start to involve LCHF in my version? They were just eating a lot of fat and meat, and seemed very anyway. I could  absolutely not imagine to just eat fat and meat - so disgusting ! I had seen pictures and read the updates onFacebook from my friend of broths, butter packets and pieces of meat and cauliflower lengthwise and crosswise, and yes, eggs too.

I had eaten so much eggs over the years in my Atkins Periods that I felt sick just thinking of eating eggs again. I kept myself to my "fluid" breakfast wich was yogurt with berries and / or some nuts added.

And the reason to not eat heavier food in the morning before work I popped into a eating coma directly - it got so bad that I almost fell asleep at the tram on the way to work. The same problem at lunch, at work so I learned to cook a soup instead:

My broccoli soup is made of frozen Broccoli, Soure cream and blue cheese - that I was able to eat without completely falling into a eating coma even though I was really tired after lunch for up to two hours.

Already the first week I felt bloated and gassy feeling I had in my stomach was gone and noticed that the belly was softer. I had some adjustment problems as wich is common when you reduces carbohydrates from your diet. I had sugar cravings but I "eased" it sweeteners (of course) in my tea, my coffee and yogurt .... though I had read on the can that it contained almost 100 grams carbs/100 gr - uh,whatwhatwhat? I lost weight! Slowly but I did, I felt it!

In my search for what kind of food I could make, I started to google on recepies and the best way was to search at the webpages for LCHF and I also joined some LCHF-groups and forums at Facebook...slowly I started to understand what LCHF meant - it was not just fat and meat. I found loads of tasty recepies with lots of vegetables and also baking-recepies. Without reflecting so much I ate more and more like the version who was called LCHF. I read about all the health advantages that people wrote about, not just the weight loss. The discussion about if LCHF was good or bad was a big subject at internet, in the newspapers and even on TV. I started to learn more and more about the differences between "good fat" and "bad fat" etc. 

Christmas was coming and this was the time where I always failed! How was I supposed to manage this without loosing my "whip" and continue my new, good foodhabbits?

The answer was simpel - just not CHEAT - not imagine my self that I could treat myself a week of sugar and carbohydrates and after go back to low carb food. Nooo, not trick myself again! 

Christmas in my kitchen 2010

I stayed away from the candy, the cookies, the potatoes and the bread. I decided to eat ONE piece of Christmas bread for breakfast - no more, no less!

And I actually succeded to stick to that! 

I survived my first Christmas without falling back to my old habbits and addiction. 

When I came back to work after Christmas, people started to comment my slight slimmer body (or less fat, as I used to say). I also felt how my clothes was not so tight anymore and I even could wear clothes I had in my closet wich I couldn't sany kilos over that limit. I assumed that I was about 135-140 kilos and in that year I managed to loose more than I did after my Gastric Bypass-surgery, wich were down to 119 kilos. In semptember 2011, the scale was on 115 kg. (Roghly, because I never kept any weight-log).

The strangest reaction I got was probably from one of my neighbors, a woman of my own age with a son of my son's age. She commented me and patted my belly the same week as I started my weightloss and said that I had become fat. I just replied her with a smile and said: - Yes, I know, I'm working on it...

When the spring came and I met her without my thick, big winter clothes, she stared at me and didn't even greet me. She was shocked, I think. She started eventually greet me again but she hasn't spoken to med since that day! Ha ha! Today I have the same size as she has...

At work I got more and more comments about starting some kind of supportactivity for others who wanted to loose weight. I was so passionate and dedicated about my new lifestyle and weightloss and inspired one of my colleagues to start eating according to LCHF, just by telling her what I ate. 

I also noticed other things than just loosing weight:

- I regained my energy and the stomach worked better, wich also meant that my "low energy and bad stomach-days" when I couldn't manage to work reduced too. Even my headache attacks became fewer. I could absolutly not stop eating my Egazil-medicin but I had no more seizures and flickering heart. 

I encreased the level of fat in my food and could even eat lighter lunches of solid food without getting a food coma. 

Life was sweet! 

The problem with my hand got better, but not fully recovered. I used my wrist splint at nights but felt some numbness sometimes when I worked to much with my hand, wich I did as a teacher but I could handle it. 

The main goal was still:

NO SURGERY!

I started to read more about LCHF and what the foundation of this type of "diet" is about - pure, authentic food without additives and what all those carbohydrates and additives do to our bodies...and aslo with my body...because I ate according to LCHF but some subjects, I still hadn't really embraced or understood. 

Time for next "bomb"!

I got told that I might loose (with 10 other teachers) my permanent teaching job and throughout the spring, summer and to August 2011, I went on needles and pins if I was going to loose my job, wich I did, and then waiting for getting another job in the same company up to that I became totally unemployed. During the summer I started to "cheat a little bit" with fruits and sweetened yoghurt and my usual "drug" Sweeteners. It was a great opportunity to lose all motivation because of the emotional stress that I experienced but the comments around med that I should begin to "work" and start my own company to help people to start living according to LCHF had gotten to me. Instead of worrying to much about my situation I saw a new beginning in my life and put 100% attention to start my own LCHF-support activites. 

I was increadibly naive, I had an idea that only if I made a website and spread flyers with my messages and services in the area I live in, people would stand in line to get my help...that never happened. 

I found the Dietdoctors website (Andreas Eenfeldt) and begaan to read his freepart of his book online "The food revolution" and found the logical connections between the food we eat today and the food we are designed to eat. Went to a lecture by him, bought the book and another book about sugaraddiction and realized that I still was stucked in my sugar addiction with my Sweeteners and dairy products. 

OUT WITH IT! 

It was time to stop fooling myself, even substitute sugar is sugar! 

I found my triggers and learned how to handle them or avoid them. 

The 15th of September 2012, I have managed to keep myself from my old eating habits and no, I don't feel like 100 million dollars because I still have one problem - my stomach is still a result of Gastric Bypass-surgery. 

According to LCHF I starve because I can not eat even half of what I am supposed to eat but the quality of what I eat is much, much beter. I FEEL better, both physically and mentally. 

Hm, should I tell you what I weigh today?

When people ask, I usually say I don't know, about 30-35 kilos roghly...

Today my weight is 105 kilos, so yes, I am still obese and the rapid weight loss I got the first year has slowed down, and I know why:

1. I have starved my body too many times by my attempts to lose weight since my teenage. 

2. I don't eat enough to get out of starvation because of my Gastric Bypass-surgery. 

3. Age

4. Nutritional Deficiencies (my levels are good but I lack something anyway wich is not showing on blood samples)

5. The stress to be without a job and always worrying about whether the money will be enought for rent and food, every month. ( It is not easy to find a new job for a woman in my age without a teaching license wich the gouverment in Sweden decided that every teacher should have, wich is the main reason why I lost my job)

6. The fat depots wich still are on my body is mainly on my thighs but I also got more and more loose skin and if I would "remove" that excess skin it would probalbly be 20 kilos less on weight. 

I have not reached my goal for my weight but I have reached another goal - I am free from my sugar-additciont and stopped abusing food to numb my constant cravings and realized that I can live without it. 

Life IS easier in every way and if I had know that I know today about sugar addiction, eating disorders and obesity, I would NEVER EVER done the Gastric Bypass surgery that I now have to live with for the rest of my life. I do not know how many years I have ahead of me, especially considering that the surgeons belive that you can extend your life with 20 years after such an operation. I've lived with it for almost 18 years. 

I want to live at least 25 years more...so every year I get is a bonus. The bonus that I so deeply wanted that day when I did that operation. I didn't want to die - I wanted to live.

I promised my children to not die until they manage to take care of themselves and my youngest is 14 years old so I have to live at least 10 more years to know for sure...I hope I can keep that promise. 

My dear kids: Adam, Samantha and Oliver

How is my hand then? ;-)

Well, it works...still! A little numb sometimes, but I don't even have to use my wrist splint every night. 

It will probably never be fully recovered...but you never know!

The motivation-whip - to never get my hand opererated remains, but there is a new motivation-whip also:

I am deeply afraid of loosing my new eating behavior, the fear of feeling like I did before and gain all the kilos  I lost is the main reason for my motivation today. To read and learn about all the additives and genetically abused food the food industry is trying to make us eat is also a very good reason for me. If I am craving for something sweet and yummy, it is enought to read the table of contents in and know what each ingridient does to the body - then I just get disgusted and don't want it.

Now, I can buy clothes in normal sizes, nobody stares at me when I go out. 

No one is thinking about me that I am fat and don't experience any discrimination because of the size of my body anymore. (I can "hide" in a crowd wich I longed for so much when my weight was over 150 kilos)

My body looks horrible naked, because of all the loose skin, but I can hide it with long-sleeved shirts and good bras. The only negative about that is that I will probably never dare to undress in front of man, so I will probably stay single for the rest of my life.

But it is not a big problem - I got two cats and three kids!

Hopefully, I will experience what it is like to have grandchildren in the future too.

I dream about having my own coaching-company, and help people to start their journey to a better and healthier life. I know it takes time. The concept of "giving up" is not often in my system. 

I started to blog about my LCHF-life a year ago (in swedish) and now I write my last part of my fat story, the same month as I started my journey to a normal body and healthier life, three years later. 

I am definitley not done with either myself, my blog or my life!

I will continue, and for my english readers I will continue translating parts of my swedish blog too! 

21 of August 2012 - my 50th birthday! 

Why we get fat

Gary Taubes is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine, and his writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and Esquire. His work has been included in The Best of the Best American Science Writing (2010), and has received three Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers, the only print journalist so recognized. He is currently a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

Watch this:

                                  

An eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes.

Building upon this critical work in Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes revisits the urgent question of what's making us fat and how we can change in this exciting new book. Persuasive, straightforward, and practical, Why We Get Fat makes Taubess crucial argument newly accessible to a wider audience.

Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the calories-in, calories-out model of why we get fat, and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulins regulation of our fat tissue. He also answers the most persistent questions: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid?

Packed with essential information and concluding with an easy-to-follow diet, Why We Get Fat is an invaluable key in our understanding of an international epidemic and a guide to what each of us can do about it.

(Copied the text from Youtube)

My fat story Part six

What do you do, when you tried "everything"? What shall you do to not going around, feeling like a Walrus? Is there actually not anything who actually works?  The bad conscience and low self-esteem raises only the desperation but not the motivation! My God, so many different methods I tried to find that the so-called motivation!

IF YOU JUST WANT, YOU CAN DO IT!
But what - want? I WANT all the time!
Why can I not do it, then?
I felt like a total failure. I could'nt handle anything, damn it!
I could not hold on to a relationship!
I could not even have children with ONE man, with three ...
I could not give my children a WHOLE family.
I could not even stay away from being fat ...

I read in a magazine about something called Doctor Atkins Diet who informed that one should not blindly look at calories but instead, exclude carbohydrates from your food. What a nutcase! You have to have carbs in your body ... or? I read some articles again about this  "diet success" in the United States, that made all Hollywood stars so slim and stylish.
Hm, maybe that IS something to check out anyway? Checked id his book was available in Sweden and yes, but in English. I ordered it and put it on the bookshelf ... where it stood to the summer of 2004, before I started reading it.

I had at that time, managed to get myself a severe gastritis of all the noodle diets that I tried me wich did not give me anything other than just ... gastritis.

It was in that book I first read about insulin resistance, blood glucose curves, ketosis, fat, carbs, etc.. According to Atkins, you should go through four phases: 1.Inductionfase. Wich is the hard detoxification of carbohydrates and where you could stay from two weeks to several months, depending on how much excess weight you had. In the end, wich would be in phase four meaning that you could eat some carbohydrates such as whole grains and fruits.(When you lost all those extra kilos)

Well-read, I decided to test this strange diet with lots of fat and as little carbohydrates as it is possible ... I started the same week, that I started to work after the holidays 2004th. I had no idea what I weighed because I did not even own a scale. There was no point in having a scale when you weigh over 130 kg, when most scales rarely go over 120 kg.
My colleague thought I was completely crazy when ate my coleslaw (cabbage salad with mayonnaise), and tuna in oil for breakfast, nibbled peanuts and had fried eggs for breakfast.
She with her big hips and bum was constantly dieting on diet shakes...


After a few days, I felt something that I never really felt before when I dieted:
I WAS NOT HUNGRY!
I WAS NOT TIRED AND DEPRESSED!
MY STOMACH JUST calmed down!
Yes, that was good, right? 
But did I lose weight?
No idea because I did not have a scale.. but yes, I lost weight! I felt it! 

That craving for sweets did not disappear completley but suddenly I could handle it!

I didn't even my own birthdaycake, two weeks after I started the Atkins Diet. It had NEVER happened before.

Sometime in the autumn, people started to comment that I lost weight.

- Oh, you look so good. Have you lost weight? (Besides my colleague...)

WHY does everyone connect beaty with weight? I still don't get it...

But okay, I actually began to feel more attractive also because it felt like the fat was ranning of me. The clothes stopped tighten upper arms, stomach and especially the waist. I bought new clothes that showed more of my figure than the tents I usually bought to hide the bulges and my big body.

At Christmas I bought myself a Christmas present: A scale!
I bought this hateful device and made ​​sure it went up to 130 kilos, because  I actually had no idea what I weighed.

My reference was 138 kg because that was my weight at one time when I was at the doctor sick from depression, so everything under 138 was good.
At the same time I bought that scale, I decided to make the same fatal mistake as I did before: I would "treat" myself to eat Christmas food, candy, cakes but ONLY between Christmas and New Year. The 1/1, I would continue to eat as the Atkins Diet, Phase 1-2. 

I placed myself on the scale and it showed 126 kg (I think it was) - I had lost 12 kilograms in four months. I thought that was GOOD! It was not the dramatic weight loss I experienced when I did the gastric surgery but I had actually lost MORE than I ever managed to do on your own before.
Now it was only to continue ....
Ha ha ha, yes, it did went SWELL ... sugar cravings, hunger and hell were back.

The only "comfort" was that I actually did not gained those 12 kilos right away which always tends to be the case and preferably some extra kilos to.

But yeah ... now I was right there AGAIN! Bad conscience, the will was there but that motivation was blown away even though I knew that the Atkins diet worked and I actually thought it was easier than anything else I've tried + that I didn't gain 20 kg in a week because I lost the track of my diet. 

But well, I started to read in the newspapers that you could get "stupid" of not getting _ carbohydrates and that you could get heart problems if you ate too much fat etc!
So no, I did not dare to continue with the Atkins diet, it was actually dangerous ...
At the same time I became unemployed (year 2004-05). The school my colleagues and I worked on got shut down. I went up to my sister in Sundsvall and THERE I would certainly get started with my Atkins diet again .. it was there I found artificial sweeteners powder! I "cheated" a lot and could not really find the track again, even though I was not even home.

In the spring of 2005, I received a short-term employment at another school, and connected to starting a new job, I also started to diet again. My steady lunch was Turkish yoghurt with raspberries ... AND artificial sweeteners powder! I was gastric operated so I quickly became full on my "light" fat lunch.

http://goodshiplollypoop.blogspot.se

I lived on sweeteners, both in coffee, tea, and especially in dairy products. Otherwise, I ate regular sugar but not in coffee, tea and yoghurt for example. It was much tastier medsötningsmedel, which I started using years I was in Tranås at the Obesistas clinic. That was where I discovered that rosehip tea with ten sweeteners was crazy good.
Yep, it was sick ...I had no problem to put 15 sweeteners pills in a cup of tea.

Of course it was bought skimmed milk and cream for the kids so they would not become obese and instead of regular lemonade and softdrinks, we drank gallons of lemonade with non calorie sweeteners pills called Fun Light. The kids would not eat sugar ... and when I had my Atkins Periods, I drank probably a bottle of Fun Ligth every day. Samantha hated Fun Light and complained a lot every time there was nothing else to drink ... she drank water instead ...(smart girl.)

But when I ate according to Atkins, I bought more fatty products and loved to cook dinners for myself with fat gratins on broccoli, blue cheese and sour cream that I ate together with grilled meat (in the oven). The kids was still eating food with less fat content and sugar content. A lot of pasta, rice and potatoes. I've always been good at cooking and could make tasty dinners on cheap raw materials, based on rice, pasta and potatoes. The important thing was that the kids were getting vitmines, minerals and filled  stomach so they didn't go hungry.

EVERYBODY knew that sugar is not good!

I scanned all the foodshops for things that were UNDER 20carbs/100 grams and was really looking for food that I craved for and had put it back, because there is not really a single pastry, no pasta, rice or fruit that contains less than 20 carbs/100g.But I found dairy products that were below 15% carbohydrates and ignored the sugar in, it was so LITTLE! If I thought something was too sour, I just added sweetneres to it.

Consoled myself with my own little candy, yogurt with berries and artificial sweeteners powder, fun light-drinking and dark chocolate ...and yes, my Atkins periods always got interrupted by something.

Christmas, Easter, summer, weekend, Fridays, the party, crisis, money ... yes, there are lots of reasons to not stick to the "diet", at the same time, I read about a doctor called Annika,here in Sweden, who started giving her diabetic patients advices to exclude carbohydrates and increase the fat in the food and they got remarkably better blood glucose curves and could even be free from their disease!

WONDERFUL! I adviced a man I e-mailed with, which was severely overweight and had Diabetes2, to exclude carbohydrates and what he could eat. He was fully recovered only after six months, unfortunately I do not think he held his new eating habits...how hard can it be? *ironic*

Read at the same time, that children need fat to grow and stopped with skinned milk and started buying Milk with 3% fat and liquid margarine with canola oil and butter - it was better than hydrogenated fats for the children's sake ...
Actually, I'm not stupid: Health, food and medicine has always interested me so I am well-read, I have probably  always been. But intelligence and sugaraddiction is not intelligent and logical combination.

Sometime in 2004-2005, I also started getting some strange "cramps" that began somewhere in the middle of the spine and then beamed up to the oral cavity. It was incredible scary and I took painkillers every time it came then it stopped ... There were lots of Nurofen ... until I had no painkillers available and only drank water out of desperation and it dropped as fast as before. It was  not the painkillers that worked without just simply the water. Tested to drink other things too but it did not work at all. But what did theese cramps coming from?
- Tumors of the spine?
- Something wrong in my teeth?

In the end I just had to find out the reason of this cramps. _ First I went to the dentist because it made a lot of pain on the left side of the mouthand where I had a broken tooth. To my surprise there was no big problem with my teeth, a plomb had dropped but I did not even have an inflammation in the tooth.
Okay, there was no dental problems ...

I wen to my family doctor and tried to explain my symptoms. He said it was probably gastritis but since I'm gastric  operated, it feels different for me than for someone with a norma stomach. I started eating Omeprazole (gastritis medicine), while my doctor sent a referral for x-rays of my stomach. He wanted to see that everything was good with my esophagus, cardia and stomach (the one I don't have) because it CAN to be a hernia somewhere too ...
I started to work again in november 2005 at the school I got the temporary job in the spring. During the fall, I had renovated at home, went for long walks in the woods with my camera while Adam started first grade in school. I was in pretty good shape, used to move daily and was not VERY FAT, also because of my periods without carbs and "sugar".

I remember I started to feel something that felt like an "extra heart" in my throat in the mornings and I had trouble breathing. It was suddenly very heavy to move and I had to go much slower than I used to. It was really scary and I called my doctor to see him ... but I did not get that far.
In February 2006, I was home with my son because he had a cold. I woke up on Wednesday morning and vibrated like a Duracell Bunny! Lightheaded and totally dizzy in the head, I called the Medical information where I got a lot of drivel that no, it can not be menopause and no, not a heart attack either .. it's probably just stress. Try and rest and if it has not stoppedd until the next day, call your doctor.


I woke up on Thursday morning and it was exactly as bad. I called my family doctor who wasn't there and had about the same conversation with a nurse at the clinic as I had  the day before with the Medical information. She promised to tell my doctor to call me.
On the Friday I called again and got an urgent-appointmente and went straight to my doctor.
I got an ECG directly and my doctor said as he wrote a referral to the Sahlgrenska University Hospital:

- You have atrial fibrillation, and I can not do anything about, so here you get a referral to Sahlgrenska ..

- Huh? Atrial fibrillation? What is it? When should I go to the hospital then?

He explained what an atrial fibrillation is - that the signals between the heart and the brain are out of balance, and my heart beats too fast. There are no "fatal" and about 5% of all over 70 years old can get this .. okay, but Bu I'm only 40 years!!

Weird! 

- Which tram runs from here to Sahlgrenska?
- YOU TAKE A TAXI, my doctor says .. and calls a taxi for me.
I go vibrating out to the taxi and gets driven up to the emergency at Sahlgrenska.
I know that it usually takes hours to wait in the ER, so I go first and buys something to drink, a sandwich, some chocolate and a newspaper to be prepared for a long wait.

I am going into the ER, leaving my referral and is on my way to a chair to sit on ... then I hear my name, and three seconds later I am lying on a gurney with five people around me who put _ electrodes on my chest, air hose in the nose, an IV-needle arm and a pulse measure of my finger and I just look wide-eyed at them and ask what they're doing!!
- You have Arrhythmia and we need to be sure that you will not die ... (I do not remember exactly what they said).
They run me in to a room with a large monitor in front of me and promises that the doctor will come within fifteen minutes. Ha ha, right! Usually you have to wait for the doctor for more than fifteen minutes! 

I'm trying to decipher those curves and digits on the monitor that oscillate between 130-146 and understand that it is probably my pulse / heartbeats.
The doctor comes in after the within fifteen minutes!
Explains to me a little more clearly what Atrial fibrillation is and I get lots of questions if there is any heart disease in the family, if I drink a lot of alcohol  and just shakes his head when he can not find of any reason that I, as only just over 40 years old is there in front of him with Atrial Fibrillation.

I receive beta blockers to lower the my pulse and the doctor hopes that the flicker to give in by itself because it is not "normal" that I should have it.
I had to lie there for a few hours and no, the flicker did not stop. I learned something new when I was there in that room too:
In the ER they have different color codes for the seriousness of the condition of a patient;
Red - very great danger to the patient's life - life support directly.
Orange - serious with a certain danger to the patient's life if no action is taken.
Yellow - no overhanging danger of the patient's life.
I was Code Orange. I COULD died if I didn't had gone to the doctor I realized. I also learned that if I had arrived in within 48 hours from I  started to I  didn't been addressed directly with cardioversion (electric shock to the heart) but if crossing that limit, you must eat blood thinning medication (Warfarin) to not get a Stroke. The blood "whisks" and can cause clots in the brain. So I had been able to die if hadn't realized that I should go the doctor. Was that "pulsing sensation" and the fatigue I had before Christmas beginning of my atrial fibrillation? 

The feeling "death anxiety" got a whole new meaning for me.
I was TERRIFIED of dying! I almost went on tiptoe on the cardiology ward with my vibrating heart and I could not even tell my children. Oliver lived in Norway with his dad, Samantha was very angry at me and did not talk to me and Adam was too young to understand ... after a night on the Cardiology, I got to go home with a bag of pills (beta blockers and warfarin) and a note to appear before at the Östra hospital to set the waranfin level in the blood in order to make a cardioversion to get the heart in the right rhythm again. This I got to do every Thursday for the next three months because it took that long time before I had the right waranfin level in the blood. I had a  warfarin badge around my neck because if the blood is so thin , you can bleed to death if you get injured.

I worked and it was probably just all I could manage. Sometimes struck the devastating fatigue the same moment  I stepped out from work or when I got off the tram and should buy some food for me and the kids. I became so tired that I could hardly walk - never felt such tiredness in all my life before. On the Thursday before Easter, I finally got to do my Cardioversion.
You become sedated in a maximum of five minutes, and if all goes well, you get to go home a few hours afterwards. It went very well and I woke up without that feeling, that something was wrong in my body - finally everything was fine again!

But yes, I was also TERRIFIED to flicker again, of course.

I stopped "almost" to smoke and drank _ bland coffee with more milk than coffee to not increase my pulse in any way. I had to continue to eat my Beta blockers not to trigger the pulse so that I would get flickering again.

In the spring, I also did an x-ray of my stomach when the cramps hadn't  stopped. I had been delayed because of my flicker.

There were no objections to at the x-ray and I  saw for myself how the contrast fluid passed from the esophagus through my tube wich was my stomach and into the small intestine. It went on for half an hour.

I were examined at the Cardiology for my flicker and they could not find anything fault anywhere ... I was so very healthy and yet I was sick!
My doctor had a theory that I had atrial fibrillation because of my Gastric bypass surgery since it goes nerve fibers from the stomach to the heart , the cramps in my stomach maybe was triggered to start the flicker and continued to feed me with Omeprazole and a bunch of other pills that would help my body to digest the food who went undigested into the small intestine. He tried to explain that my internal organs was working on overtime, day and night to digest all the food that I ate. Now I had lived with my stomach surgery for over ten years, and the issue was / is - how long time can my body work with this burden?

I could also not understand that my heart is not flickered because it pulsated in my whole body! It felt like I had several hearts in the body, one in the head, one in the throat, one in the stomach and my "real" heart that I felt all the time so I could not lie on my left side when I should sleep or even sit anywhere who pressed against the left side. It did not disappear even after cardioversion ...
And yes, I got several atrial fibrillation over the next few years, and no, there was nothing that talked about why it pulsated in my body all the time! The pulse was good, even too low so I had to stop taking the beta blockers because it felt like I had braking oil in the blood. To go up a small staircase or a small hill was sooo hard! I had a jar of Beta blockers with me all the time in case I would get flickering again ... 

Photo: Philippe Rendu

The only thing that was "positive" was that nobody told my flicker depended upon my weight. Otherwise everything usually depends on your overweight...  _ _ _ ... The longest time I could stick to the Atkins diet was the year when my sister Helena got married in July 2006. I was assigned to be her wedding photographer and I nervous - I would stand in the front in the church and EVERYONE would not just look at the wedding couple but also at me and think:                     
- Oh, Maria she's as fat as always ...
Then dammit, I took control over the food again and managed to stay away from carbohydrates (according to my own interpretation) and didn't "cheat" until Christmas came ... (again) and I lost about 20-25 kg that period. I felt so good and felt so beautiful! The only cloud in my sky was the fear of flicker and that pulsating my body that never stopped. 

In early spring ... and it was time again - in in the ER with an elevated heart rate and atrial fibrillation. Now I had learned at least how it felt so I called on time and was defibrillated the same day and came home in the evening ... during the spring, I ended up in an incredibly difficult crisis at my work and as icing on the cake my oldest son moved back home after living with his dad in Norway for four years - an emergency measure when the my little family was about to totally collapse and I had to choose which of my children I to rescue. Adam felt very bad because of his big brother, Oliver felt terrible because of all the conflicts that he caused at home and in school .. but after 3.5 years with his dad, it didn't work anymore. 

Upphovsman: Elisabeth Andersson
Upphovsrätt: Göteborgs Stadsmuseum

His father was not able to handle Olivers puberty and the problems that came with it - Samantha had moved moved back home after two years of her  own accommodation and became homeless. I had my "dream home" on the opposite side of my apartment, a small terraced house with your own courtyard and flowerbeds. The accomodation was completely dilapidated both in - and outside, and I made a "deal" with the housing company that I would take care of the outside if they took care of the inside. The whole apartment was renovated and I struggled with the shovel, wheelbarrow, and saw and worked with my bare hands to bring order to the outside. I worked like crazy, and the level of stress in me was probably in top  while I struggled with my totally lost confidence because of the crisis at work, at home.

In August, it was time to start working again and I was so broken that I had anxiety when I had to go towork, I was simply afraid to run into my ex-students who had exposed me to a witch hunt worse than I've ever been experienced in my life. Two weeks later, we moved into the new home and everything calmed down. I had such PAIN in my body! Oliver tried to massage my bad feet but I screamed as soon as he just touched them but it almost did hurt more not to touch them.

I made ​​an appointment for a massage at work in September because _ the pain in my body didn't stop. The masseuse was totally shocked my tensed muscles and didn't "dared" to massage so hard and focused more on just getting me to relax ...

The day after the atrial fibrillation came back as a letter in the mail!

I felt a struck when I turned the bed to sleep. I knew that I had 48 hours to get to the hospital and I tried to sleep before I took the tram to East Hospital where I was after various examinations got defibrillated later in the afternoon. 

I complained at the cardiologist again that it pulsated in my body all the time and he listened to my heart but could not "hear anything" ....
This was how it was all this period.
Flicker every few months and chewing pills, cramps in the body, fatigue, insomnia,  and because of my heavy body I had pain in the hips, legs, back, shoulders ...

The misery ended when I changed doctor in January 2010 and met with a doctor who is a surgeon and said directly that _ the pulsating was cramps in the internal organs - an effect of the gastric surgery. Especially from the pancreas, which pumps desperately out gastric juices to digest the undigested food that comes out in the small intestine. He gave me a prescription of a medication called Egazil who is antispasmodic and blocks the nerves which turn inhibits the production of gastric juice. Side effects include slower intestinal activity and dry mucous membranes.

But I can NOT be without this medication because after I took the first tablet I hadn't gotten anymore atrial fibrillation. I'm terrified that it will stop working and the pancreas starts to begin "seizure" again or just quit working.

As if that was not enough?

Nooo! 

I also got carpal tunnel syndrome,  the summer of 2010 wich becomes so bad that I woke up several times a night because of cramps in the hand all the way up to the shoulder. 

I return to my new doctor who is gives me a cortisone Injection straight down into the wrist but it did not get better so he wrote a referral to a hand surgeon.
Until that day, I rubedb my hand with a painkilling gel and sleept with a wrist splint to not bend the wrist when I sleep.
In september I went to the _ hand surgeon and he said yes, I had the right diagnosis and I need to operate the hand.
NOOOOO!
I will notI had Googled at  surgery pictures of this type of surgery and had them in my head and I got told that it is performed solely under local anesthesia.
Here is a woman who has gone through everything one could possibly do in health care, but is terrified of a wrist surgery.
I said to the doctor:
- Is there nothing else you can do. I thinks it sounds a little weird to remove an inflammation with surgery...
- Yes, you can lose weight!
- Huh? But ... I had don't have any fat hands, I said, and pulled them out.
- It is not visible on the outside but it is  in the ligaments and clamps the carpal nerve
- Okay, then I guess I have to loose weight then!

I walked out of there and decided that NOW is the end to this "nonsense"!

Yes, there will be a part 7 too!!!!