Longtime returning lowcarber here. (Waves to old names.) Ten years ago this year, I hit my goal weight after a lifetime of obesity starting in childhood. I lost about 75lbs (I never weighed myself at the highest, but I was up to a US size 22 in jeans). Some details in my journal here.

I have now gained back 25 lbs. 10 of it in 2020. Which isn't a huge shock, because 2020.

The other 10-15 is weight I've tried and failed to shake since about 2017.

Once I realized I'd gained back a full 25lbs, that flipped the switch for me. The problem is that it's ten years later, and everyone is an internet expert/youtuber, the science is all over the map, and it's so hard to know who has good intentions and who is trying to make a buck or has a political agenda.

My default discussion platform these days is reddit, which means /r/keto for the most part--which is a bunch of people telling everyone none of it matters if you aren't in a calorie deficit. So the answer to most posts is: "your calories are too high". Which, while it has always been a lively debate, is not the message I had come away with post-Taubes, and not what ultimately worked for me (I never counted calories).

That said, I am ten years older, and my intermittent attempts to get the first 10-15lbs off have definitely been different from what I was eating when I first lost the weight, mostly from stuff I've picked up here and there from reddit, and god knows. It took reading the 'Croissant Diet' stuff to realize how differently I was eating and wondering if that's part of why I can't take any weight off now, even with IF (which was a magic bullet for my hunger issues).

Back then:

--Lots of red meat, usually ribeye steaks with the fat
--Lots of dairy, often in the form of heavy cream or cream cheese
--A fair amount of butter, usually in the form of a hollandaise sauce
--Salad dressings were always cream based (ranch, caesar, etc).
--Ate till satieated, zero fear of dietary fat
--Macadamia nuts

Now, after whatever messaging I've picked up over the years:

--Big salads with avocado oil-based dressing
--Chicken thighs with skin (I realize the Croissant Diet stuff (the stearic acid theory, essentially) may be a bit bonkers, but according to those principles I'm not getting the right kind of fats by having switched to chicken thighs, and skin in particular?)
--A lot more nuts, but not macadamia nuts. (Why did I do this? Maybe cost.)
--A definite attempt to limit how much I eat/ignore hunger (because now I'm older, right? can't have as many calories, right?)
--A weird phobia about dairy, that I actually can't place the origin of. Mentally avoidant of cream cheese, cheese, butter, heavy cream.
--Avoiding butter in cooking in favor of olive and avocado oils. (Again, I can't really place why I made this change.)

Now, trying to get back on the horse and reconcile all of this with whatever the current 'science' is is a nightmare. A very longtime blogger in the lowcarb community, for example, when I revisited their site after years, turned out to have some ... strong opinions on COVID19 that made me question their biases and ability to sort through data.

Can anyone who's been around the block a bit point me in the direction of some non-youtube resources, or anyone who is taking apart the science in a way I can read? (YouTube doesn't work for me. I want to be able to read stuff and then dig down to the sources.)

Also interested in personal thoughts/experiences. What people have been up to around here.

Random data point: for whatever it's worth, I just got a calcium CT score (what is the feeling on this around here?) and had a zero score. This was nice to see because my cholesterol numbers have always been weird, and of course as I got older I worried that it would turn out I really had done some kind of damage due to not being afraid enough of fat and meat.

(Disclaimer: I know I've mentioned the "Croissant Diet" twice. I'm not going to be doing the Croissant Diet. It just made me think about the fats I was eating and the fats I was avoiding.)

Thanks in advance, and hi again. (Werebear, if you're reading this, it's awesome to see that you blew through goal.)