The story continues

 Well, the neck issue resolved itself enough that it was no longer a problem though it left some weakness in my shoulder that may be permanent. I started taking blood pressure meds that at first had little effect, after a change in dosage they had a better outcome but it was only for a short time while they were in my body. At that point I got fed up and thought this ridiculous, high blood pressure isn’t the problem it’s a manifestation of the problem which is you can’t be 100 lbs over weight especially in your late fifties. Although I knew I had to lose some weight I had a long journey with diets and knew they just didn’t work. You would stick to it scrupulously with little effect till you inevitably would just give up. But I was willing to try again so I went to the internet trying to find something that showed me something I could try. At first I found the same clap trap that I knew was wrong and I knew exactly what would happen if I were to go down that same pointless path. But then I came across a video on YouTube from a doctor all the way on the other side of the planet in Australia called Doctor Phinney. The video had a title something along the lines of  Why Low Calorie , Low Fat Diets don’t work. It was a shock to find someone saying straight out what I knew to be true. The video was somewhat science heavy but I’m a science oriented guy and had little problem following what he said. Once it was stated outright I knew it was correct and knew immediately I would give up sugar entirely and start living in a sugar free lifestyle. I didn’t cut out all the carbs just the pure sugar and tried to keep all other carbs below about fifty grams per day. I didn’t cut the calories either, my feeling was just cut the sugar and then we’ll go from there. Cutting out the sugar was hard at first be cause I had both a psychological addiction to the pleasure of sugar and a actual physical addiction where I would get tremors and my brain was screaming at me that we need it we need it! I discovered I could placate my brain by using sugar free candies that would pacify the cravings until I would eat again. I went several days with a pocketful of Wethers sugar free hard candies always at hand and might go through a dozen a day. Within a week I needed them less and less and finally stopped carrying them at all. I lost a lot of water weight initially, which was not surprising but it also drained me off electrolytes and I experienced was is now called the Keto Flu where the lack of Potassium and Magnesium leave you weak and with very low energy. It does really feel like your coming down with something. Once I figured out what was happening and started supplementing them it quickly went away. The loss of eight hundred to a thousand kcals a day from no sugar was a caloric deficit and even without trying to control any other calories I began to lose weight consistently. The blood pressure problem also starting abating as well and over the next year I lost around seventy lbs. I’ll go into more details about that next time.