Ok, so I am copying and pasting from my journal entry today, and I'm not sure whether this is frowned on in the forums (if so, I apologise, I'm a newbie!), but I just feel like I want to say this and get feedback on it, because it has been such a powerful thought for me.

I know other people have come to this realisation, and it's old news in many ways to other low-carb eaters. But it has just struck me with the force of a personal revelation: what this LCHF way of eating has taught me is...

I AM NOT GREEDY.

I always thought I was a greedy person! I must be, I want to eat all the time, and even when I eat, I'm often thinking about the next meal or snack immediately afterwards. I made peace with that, I decided, right let's be honest about yourself, you are just a greedy person, and you are always going to have to struggle with greed! I divided the world into two camps: the greedy and the not-greedy; I assumed that my being greedy was something I had inherited from my food-loving, booze-loving, hedonistic, type-2 diabetic father, and that was that.

When I lost almost 20kgs ten years ago on the standard calorie-controlled, low-fat (and low-sugar ergo slightly lower carb, though not by design) diet, I struggled every single day for two years with constant thoughts of food, constant hunger. And I put that down to greed. "I just don't have an 'off' button," I would explain to myself and others. It took a massive effort of will to keep it up that long. I put almost all the weight back on a few years later, of course, and again I attributed that to my natural greed.

But now...

I'm eating LCHF, and I am not greedy. I eat as much as I want, and I don't feel hungry and food-obsessed all the time. I am slowly losing body fat, and I am not feeling deprived. Occasionally I feel resentful that I can't eat things I used to enjoy - but really very occasionally, and it's a totally different feeling, a feeling of the mind but not the body. What's gone is that powerful, uncontrollable hunger, that feeling of being on auto-pilot, like a heat-seeking missile looking for food.

And so I can't help thinking, am I NOT a greedy person? Was I NEVER a greedy person? Does greedy even have any meaning for me anymore?

I use to OWN greedy. I owned it to avoid other people putting me down with it. But maybe I wasn't greedy, just hungry. An out of control hunger driven by carbohydrates and their effects on my brain and my blood sugars. And now it's gone - that is astounding to me. That is the thing more than any other, that makes me feel so happy about eating this way.

One other part of this realisation - I feel kinder towards other people, like my dad - who I have always loved, but always felt impatient towards, mentally labelling him as greedy, judging him, just like I judged myself. In him I saw the results of our shared greed.

Now I think, jeez, my poor dad. His real hunger, his real attitudes to food and drink are hidden under that carb addiction/intolerance and alcohol addiction. And he may never uncover them, considering that he is dying from diabetic complications.

I feel so sad about my dad, but I forgive him for being so sick (I know that sounds like I'm crazy, but tbh I really think I have been blaming him for years).

He's made some bad choices in his life (about other things), but choices about eating and drinking were high-jacked away from him, right inside his brain.

Phew. That was a hard one to write!