Note: Thanks to those who chimed in with suggestions in my previous post regarding the devotional project. I appreciate it. :D Please feel free to add more suggestions. On to our regularly scheduled post...
Sunday is my normal weigh-in day for this blog (or Saturday or Monday when I forget). And it's Sunday, the 6th. Three Kings Day. Dia de Los Reyes. The Feast of the Epiphany. It's the 12th Day of Christmas, as well. With this, Christmas is officially over and the trees can come down.
But we'll get to that later. First, the weigh-in:
180.4
The right direction. It was 183.2 New Year's Day.
So close to my goal decade.
Interestingly, when I went to log the weight on my sidebar weight journal (see left sidebar), I wrote in "God" instead of "Goal" when I added the note about 2013: "End Goal for Year = 170 lbs" I had first typed: "End God for the Year."
That slip of the brain made me think about how some of us make weight, our bodies, our "look" and size--we make those our God. Our diet becomes our God. It consumes us and defines us and we create an idol. It reminded me to keep this in perspective. It's something that requries attention, energy, study, work. But it should never become my idol. I've seen more than a few bloggers who turn food and exercise into their idol--that's what creates and directs them in such an obssessive way that it's a bit worrisome.
And in the other extreme, there's those times we and other folks don't give a damn about what we/they eat, don't care about our health and just act immaturely or apathetically and refuse to listen to wise counsel, not our own internal wise voice or the sage words of loved ones or the helpful direction from a professional only interested in our well-being.
Both apathy and idolization about our health and food issues are sick extremes.
I just want to normalize.
I don't aim to be cut/buff/perfect. I don't aim for a size 2 or 4. Orthorexia isn't my goal. I don't want to freak if I have a deviation now and then from my plan. Only if it's a pattern, if the deviation begins to become the norm.
Normality about eating and better health from lifestyle changes--that's what I want. Not to obsess about food. Not to not care about food. Not to self-destruct. Not to idolize my body.
It may be an epiphany for you to accept that it's easy to make food a god--either worship it eating too much or thinking about it too much. Yes, you can make your body a temple or an idol--one is good, one is not.
Treating it with respect and making it work well for your life purposes: good. Valuable.
Treating it like the end-all, be-all of your self-esteem, feeding vanity along with perfect meals, feeling superior to others because you look "like this" and not "like that": not good. Bad.
I'm looking for the good path between extremes. How about you?
Anyway, on the personal front: I've had trouble bringing my calories down and getting back into the eating format/pattern/manner that I ate in my main losing phase in 2011.
This is normal.
After increasing intake, after allowing those treats and caloric foods--things like chocolate truffles, mousse made with real sugar, fried New Year's empanadillas, fried stuffed potatoes on Christmas--the body wants more of that. The brain has been brought into those old habits of pleasure and stimulation and it wants more.
What did you let yourself indulge in that made you have a hard time with appetite? Holiday pies? Fried foods? Junk drive-thru foods? Now, you will have to pay the price.
Like junkies, there's gonna be a bit of withdrawal. The brain does want the "fix."
Control is harder. There it is. I have to get through the "pulling in the reins" phase, and it's gonna be hard and hurt a bit, but I remember that the easier phase comes after. When the brain calms down, the body adjusts, the stomach shrinks, the habit of control reasserts.
It will come. If you're going through this same adjustment phase, just hold on. It will come.
Like I did in 2010 when I began, I'm gradually decreasing intake. I'm not in strongly restricted zone yet. I found for me, stages works best.
In fact, some dietitians advise slowly readjusting. Instead of slashing calories radically--say 2500 or 3000 or 4000 to 1400 or 1200 or 900--some do better just to ease off the problem foods and higher calories down to better eating and lower calories in steps. Steps. Bit by bit. Not from feast to starve, which can be jarring or lead to a binge. No, rather, it may help to go from overeating or bad eating to more normal eating, then from more normal eating to moderate caloric restriction or deficit, then consider dipping into stricter calorie-deficit dieting levels.
Granted, there are exeptions. There are folks who do great slashing away and feel totally in control right off with tiny portions.
Given the blowback of binges I see round about when some folks try to do that, I say give the 'steps system' a go. Bit by bit. Cut back, change, refine, bit by bit.
On the matter of epiphanies, revelations: One of those books that delivered an epiphany for me in 2010 and made it possible for me to get a grip on my binges (I haven't binged since May 2010) was THE END OF OVEREATING, which opened my eyes to how hyperpalatable foods can send folks into chronic overeating. Those types of foods do set me off. can literally make me go into this frantic thing where I shovel, shovel, shovel food. If I eat them again daily, consistently, that will happen again. I know it.
I don't allow that. (Or haven't yet.) The daily indulgence in the hyperpalatable.
But I have allowed intrusions more often than is healthful for ME.
During my illness and holiday weeks late in 2012, I allowed some of those hyperpalatable foods (ie, some salted olive oil potato chips, sugary treats, fried and salted foods with carbs--the triumvirate of overeating (fat with starch with sugar.) Not every day. Not every meal. But enough that it's done something to my brain and tongue and desires again.
I felt my appetite increase. I felt the monster begin to return.
How's your appetite beast? What are you doing to manage it?
For me, managing that beast involves refusing to eat hyperpalatable foods, cooking more at home, keeping tons of fresh produce in the house, drinking lots of fluids, increasing protein (even using whey between meals), and moderating carbs/starches (for me, that moderation of carbs/starches means, ideally, 80 to 120 carbs a day, and definitley no more than 150. I don't do well on VLC--my thyroid rebels--but I don't do well on higher carb/starch--my appetite wakes up like mad).
I also do better with two good-sized meals than many mini-meals. My stomach stretching some to contain fluids and food, sending those signals for satiety, that system sets me up for happy hours of non-food-thinking.
During the last two months of last year, I went back to snacking. I was sick. Often couldn't bother to get up and fix meals while hubby was at work. Didn't wanna do delivery and set myself up for some bad food mojo.
Well, snacking, yeah, that didn't work so well. It does not satisfy. Just makes me want to snack more. Doesn't matter if it was a small 140 calorie bag of olive oil tater chips or nuts and fruit or a wedge of cheese or a boiled egg. I just wanted MORE.
This month, I'm cutting back number of times eating. I want no more than two meals and one snack. That's the goal. Two meals, each 600 to 700 cals, and a snack only if appetite is out of bounds and I can keep to no more than 1500-1600 calories.
For some of you, what works to control appetite is a bit different, cause we're different. Though, in general, protein is the most satiating macronutrient. It really is.
BUT..for you, maybe it's high fiber that controls your appetite. Or fiber with lots of water. Or Several small meals. Or keeping out starches altogether. Or keeping out fruit altogether. Or eating more fat. Or having a lot of liquid protein. Or nuts between meals. Or hypnosis. Or meditation. Or prayer. Or a walk. Or singing. Or chatting on the phone with friends. Or sex. (That one actually worked really well in my faster losing phase. If I wanted to eat, I'd jump hubby. Voila. No more cravings.)
Whatever works that's not immoral or illegal--go for it. :D
Today, after worship service, we meet with family to celebrate Three King's Day (as it's commonly referred to down here), the Feast of the Epiphany, when the wise men from the east finally located the Christ Child (not baby, child) and presented homage and gifts. The Bible never mentions how many there were, but tradition counts three--Balthasar, Melchior, Caspar--to match the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
They traveled a long way. They were dedicated to the journey. When they found their goal, they surely went off rejoicing, a lot lighter in baggage and a lot lighter in heart.
It was worth following the star, being away from home, being exhausted from a long day's ride, day after day. It was worth bad weather and the threat of robbers. It was worth risking the wrath of a jealous, murderous Herod.
Because what awaited the end of that search was AMAZING. Miraculous. Life-changing. Eye-opening. Empowering. Satisfying to the soul.
If you're reading this long, long post, you're on a journey like mine, right? We each have that guiding star--look for it.
We each need to sustain ourselves, cause we might traverse some perilous places and it may take YEARS. YEARS AND YEARS. It may not be as easy or quick as you imagine. But it's going to be amazing.
You'll see great things, in yourself and in others. You'll experience epiphanies. It may not involve gold or myrrh or frankincense--or it might, as I often had my hubby anoint me with scented oil and pray over me on those hard, hard days--but it will involve finding treasures. You learn a lot about yourself when you overcome stuff
And setbacks? You just climb back on that camel, adjust your robes, and keep looking at and moving toward that star.
God bless on this feast day. Great things await the true seeker willing to move and change...
Be well...
Showing posts with label The End of Overeating by Kessler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The End of Overeating by Kessler. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Day 13 of 84 in the StSC: Another pound down, a great few pages to help you overcome overeating (ie, REHAB yourself) from the book that helped me the most, and the value of sleep...
Tanita-san: 191.2
Yep. Another pound down. I was afraid my "carby" vegetarian eating day yesterday might slow me down or give me a slight bit of carb bloat (I got up to 118 carbs), especially since I had a lot of cheese (mozza and parmesan) on my spaghetti squash (ie, added sodium). But no, worked out fine.
Friday calories: 1088
Part of that is that I'm sleeping fine again. Eight hours. Good rest, I find, makes for good losses. When I sleep poorly or sleep little, the scale stops budging or goes back up. So, yeah, I see this as the factor that has helped the no-cardio week not impede me. I am so antsy to walk, but I won't be a fool and strain what is already strained. I have to recover and be patient. So, no walking. :(
I'm 6.2 pounds away from a merely overweight BMI status. Go, me!
I really enjoyed my veggie day. What I ate:
Brunch: I cooked a smaller sized spaghetti squash in the nuker, and it yielded a lot of "pasta". I made it marinara style (melted mozza, sprinkled parmesan) with zucchini on the side (sauteed in EVOO with some parm on top) and used the Mrs. Dash Italian Medley for flavor. I ate a fresh organic pear and 1 gluten-free (almond flour and coconut) low-carb cookie for dessert. Had coffee and my loads of water.
Dinner: More squash, this time with pesto Calabrese style (red pepper pesto) and mozzarella melted on top. A bit of spinach and mushroom saute on the side (flavored with garlic). Had half a baked apple with walnut butter for dessert. Zevia grape flavored and coffee and water. My Frieling French press has been getting good use lately. Lovely java.
This is a higher carb day for me, but it came from the fruit and veggies, which I don't mind. That's good carbs in my book. :D
I mentioned how I had cravings earlier in the week that I fought off. I do believe that fighting off cravings matters. For some people, just giving in and having some of a craved food seems to be their solution. It can't be that for me MOST of the time. I find that to continue to have control, I must USE control. I must use that self-control to keep those new habit pathways working as primary. I don't want to default to the REWARD system for things like junk food or sugary treats or trigger foods.
For me, the rehab system described by various sources--for me, notably Kessler in THE END OF OVEREATING and Gillian Riley's work on beating overeating--and part of that is simply saying no. Not justifying caving. Just refusing to cave to "fave food/trigger foods" and old reward systems. When I do that, the cravings pass and I go back to low appetite, calm eating mode. That was yesterday. I wanted a pasta-ey thing, and I didn't want old trigger foods (pasta, pizza), so I made my lower carb, plan-friendly "pasta" dishes.
I felt satisfied. And I felt victorious for saying no all week to the crap that traps me back in cue-reward old habits. I refuse to let food win. This week, I fought the old cues. This week, I won. You take it day by day, week by week.
Caving to a craving is sometimes okay. But for a lot of us, it can be the trigger to cascade into more cavings and more cravings and a setback. If you're doing well...don't cave Say no. Hold on. Build new habit neural pathways. Get stronger each time you use your "no" muscle.
Cave and you might be back at square one. Seriously. You may not be the sort that does well with sidetracks. It might kill your momentum.
If you have issues with temptation, with caving to overeating, with staying in your calorie level, please read THE REHAB chapter of THE END OF OVEREATING if you can't read the whole thing (highly recommended).
Update so far for StSC:
This week, exercise took a hit due to my injury. So, only got 1.5 hours of exercise in so far this week.
Fluids and prayer were consistent and excellent.
Calories: well under max allowed.
Weekly weight loss goal 1.5 lbs: This week isn't over, but I needed to make it to 191.9 (or less) to make goal. I hit 191.2 today, so I made my goal and exceeded it. Yay!
I haven't quit. I blogged frequently. I encouraged others (though some days were minimal and some days much better).
I am still with my eyes on the prize....
Keep yours on the prize, too.
And enjoy your family holiday....make it about love, not eating.
Be well...
Yep. Another pound down. I was afraid my "carby" vegetarian eating day yesterday might slow me down or give me a slight bit of carb bloat (I got up to 118 carbs), especially since I had a lot of cheese (mozza and parmesan) on my spaghetti squash (ie, added sodium). But no, worked out fine.
Friday calories: 1088
Part of that is that I'm sleeping fine again. Eight hours. Good rest, I find, makes for good losses. When I sleep poorly or sleep little, the scale stops budging or goes back up. So, yeah, I see this as the factor that has helped the no-cardio week not impede me. I am so antsy to walk, but I won't be a fool and strain what is already strained. I have to recover and be patient. So, no walking. :(
I'm 6.2 pounds away from a merely overweight BMI status. Go, me!
I really enjoyed my veggie day. What I ate:
Brunch: I cooked a smaller sized spaghetti squash in the nuker, and it yielded a lot of "pasta". I made it marinara style (melted mozza, sprinkled parmesan) with zucchini on the side (sauteed in EVOO with some parm on top) and used the Mrs. Dash Italian Medley for flavor. I ate a fresh organic pear and 1 gluten-free (almond flour and coconut) low-carb cookie for dessert. Had coffee and my loads of water.
Dinner: More squash, this time with pesto Calabrese style (red pepper pesto) and mozzarella melted on top. A bit of spinach and mushroom saute on the side (flavored with garlic). Had half a baked apple with walnut butter for dessert. Zevia grape flavored and coffee and water. My Frieling French press has been getting good use lately. Lovely java.
This is a higher carb day for me, but it came from the fruit and veggies, which I don't mind. That's good carbs in my book. :D
I mentioned how I had cravings earlier in the week that I fought off. I do believe that fighting off cravings matters. For some people, just giving in and having some of a craved food seems to be their solution. It can't be that for me MOST of the time. I find that to continue to have control, I must USE control. I must use that self-control to keep those new habit pathways working as primary. I don't want to default to the REWARD system for things like junk food or sugary treats or trigger foods.
For me, the rehab system described by various sources--for me, notably Kessler in THE END OF OVEREATING and Gillian Riley's work on beating overeating--and part of that is simply saying no. Not justifying caving. Just refusing to cave to "fave food/trigger foods" and old reward systems. When I do that, the cravings pass and I go back to low appetite, calm eating mode. That was yesterday. I wanted a pasta-ey thing, and I didn't want old trigger foods (pasta, pizza), so I made my lower carb, plan-friendly "pasta" dishes.
I felt satisfied. And I felt victorious for saying no all week to the crap that traps me back in cue-reward old habits. I refuse to let food win. This week, I fought the old cues. This week, I won. You take it day by day, week by week.
Caving to a craving is sometimes okay. But for a lot of us, it can be the trigger to cascade into more cavings and more cravings and a setback. If you're doing well...don't cave Say no. Hold on. Build new habit neural pathways. Get stronger each time you use your "no" muscle.
Cave and you might be back at square one. Seriously. You may not be the sort that does well with sidetracks. It might kill your momentum.
If you have issues with temptation, with caving to overeating, with staying in your calorie level, please read THE REHAB chapter of THE END OF OVEREATING if you can't read the whole thing (highly recommended).
Update so far for StSC:
This week, exercise took a hit due to my injury. So, only got 1.5 hours of exercise in so far this week.
Fluids and prayer were consistent and excellent.
Calories: well under max allowed.
Weekly weight loss goal 1.5 lbs: This week isn't over, but I needed to make it to 191.9 (or less) to make goal. I hit 191.2 today, so I made my goal and exceeded it. Yay!
I haven't quit. I blogged frequently. I encouraged others (though some days were minimal and some days much better).
I am still with my eyes on the prize....
Keep yours on the prize, too.
And enjoy your family holiday....make it about love, not eating.
Be well...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
A Summer of Self Challenge To Battle Complacency...An NSV..and Facing the Fact We're Food Junkies Who Have No Right To Our "Drugs" Of Choice...
Yesterday, I had 200 more calories than planned, but I did 1 hour of Pilates and 40 minutes of Playwalking. It helped make up for the ounce of queso blanco and the extra teaspoons of EVOO on my arugula salad.
Tanita-san: 200.8
ARGH. SO CLOSE! :)
It's the kind of thing that makes a gal wanna do liquid protein dieting. hahahah.
No, not quite.
Since Phase 6 is in full, liquid swing and Phase 5 seems to be in a coma, I just won't tag my posts as related to the challenge anymore. No one seems to care about P5 anymore. Let's call it defunct as Allan isn't taking weigh-ins or keeping the Phase 5 stats--with Elizabeth C the clear winner so far, and has anyone ever heard or seen a blog or comment from this person? I have wondered about her since she started doing so well. Anyway, odd that.
And, yeah, so....I'm still wanting my own challenge for this summer. (Debbi, are we still gonna do this thing?)
I want to challenge myself. I'm not at goal. I can't become complacent. We all go through that phase, the one that says hey, I did well and I feel great and I look better and heck...how about an extra serving of this or that.
I guess my challenge to myself may have to take new forms. I'm already eating as low calorically as I plan to. I am not into deprivation or VLCD. I have no objections to asceticism or liquid diets or VLCD. I just want to eat NOW the way I need to eat for life. I am establishing my new way of eating for FOREVER..now.
This is life for me now, not just dieting: Eating less and fresher and moving more and in variety. I want to set into a groove NOw the habits I carry into maintenance. I really am establishing those habits, every day, making the choices more automatic every day. It's still work, although it's not anywhere near the work it was before.
It really is so much easier than when these challenges started for me in June of 2010 with SUMMER SLIMMIN' on my old blog. (That was the first challenge I was able to make some real loss, though only half of what I had at goal to lose. I was taking those hard initial steps toward change, real change, and I semi-failed, semi-succeeded.)
But it being easier, that's a great thing, but that can be a pitfall. It can lead to laxity.
I have been losing well, so I stopped tracking food. I mean, when you eat pretty much the same sorts of meals over a week in the same portions, you kind of start thinking, "Why bother."
One of my challenges this week is to re-bother. To track again. And for life, I will need to do this periodically. I think it reminds us that yes, those calories add up, and look, that day you had too little iron, and well, maybe you overdid the olive oil this day. Tracking is a totally useful and necessary thing when one embarks on a weight loss journey, I believe. Firmly believe. It's eye-opening. It's educational. It's accountability and knowledge combined. I mean, I don't eat any meal without at minimum mentally calculating calories or points (I sometimes default to points out of habit, the old points system which was about 50 cals per point.) I have to. For life. I have to know how much goes in, even if it's just a mental tally that I carry meal to snack to meal.
And as we become entrenched in a healthier eating and moving lifestyle, tracking (even if sporadic or periodic) is a way to check if we've gotten lazy with portions--spoonfuls, half-cups, cups, etc. It happens. I've read articles about it and I don't wanna be the "Lazy Portion Statistic Girl" who gained it back, small portion fudge by small portion fudge.
It's always the basics that I will have to hang on to like mad: Lots of water/fluids. Easy on salt. Forget sugar (or absolutely minimize). Quality REAL food. Good protein and colorful assortments of veggies above all, with fats and fresh fruit and cheese as flavor treats and nutrition helpers. Oodles of spices and no-sugar/no HFCS/no trans fats condiments to perk things up. Starches as rarities (for me, this is about me and my basics). Tracking periodically to make corrections. Exercise nearly daily, and with assorted exercises to keep the fun in working out. Finding non-food stress relievers. Joy and hope with everything. The basics for me...
I was a binge eater and chronic overeater. Inside me lurks that beast, I'm sure, ready to take any opportunity to revive itself and grab control. The beast is in hibernation now--I haven't binged in about a year--and I want it to stay asleep. Some scoff at food addiction, but I don't. What pizza does to me is not a sane thing. It's like meth or coke and such to others.
My paper this morning reminded me of this by having a brief article that focuses on the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. You probably read about the results released last month of one of their studies likening food addiction to drug addiction in how the brain responds. If you didn't see that one (though it was talked about in assorted online sites and blogs), here, read this.
It wasn't news to me. I've experienced it. I've read similar studies highlighted in articles and books I've read, THE END OF OVEREATING for one.
I spent years perplexed by the animal-out-of-control that was my appetite. I'd weep after crazy meals wondering why I could not stop. I'd wonder why I'd be hungry so often and feel not-full with normal quantities of food. I really felt like a junkie--totally obsessed, out of control, shaky with needs that were puzzling to me. "Why am I hungry all the time?" I'd wonder aloud to hubby and sis. "What is wrong with me?"
Well, it's not just me. We don't have an obesity epidemic cause it's "just me". It's a lot of us with issues. And if we expect alcoholics and drug addicts to seriously attack and fix their issues in order to be responsible citizens and not cause damage to their brains/bodies, then we need to see ourselves as addicts who have to be ruthless addressing our issues. Sorry, but the days of feeling sorry for ourselves have to end and the days of bucking up and rolling up our food sleeves and yelling "Just say No!" to the foods that trigger us have to begin.
Yes, I'm a recovering binge eater/food addict. I do not have the right to buy that cake or order that deluxe pizza or make that quadruple decker lasagna. I don't have the right because those are my drugs. And junkies shouldn't be buying/using drugs. I shouldn't be buying/cooking/eating my drugs. When I do, I am no better than the heroin user getting their dose or the alcoholic traipsing to the corner booze shop to get a few bottles of rum.
If the Meth Head doesn't/shouldn't be ingesting meth, then I shouldn't be ingesting Coke and deep dish pizzas. Only the legality is different in my eyes. The loss of control, the pleasure centers firing, the eventual damage to the body....I see it as really similar.
That's how I see it. It may not be how YOU see it, but if you are a binge-eater, a chronic overeater, morbidly obese/obese, and feel out of control around food, then baby, that's you, too. You need to look at your trigger foods as poison. As dangerous. As illegal.
Allan looks at those foods as contributing to fat cancer.
I see them as contributing to food addiction. To making me a junkie.
I don't want to be a junkie. I want to be sober and stay sober and live a live unshackled from the drugs that are advertised on tv and smell great on a drive to here and there and are offered at my loved one's homes.
Just say no, baby.
And what's that NSV from the post title? I tucked in my shirt yesterday. Yep. It's been a long time since I wore pants with the shirt tucked in. I mean, who wants to bring attention to an appley fat abdomen, blubbery waist, and lumpy ass? Seriously?
I still prefer shirts that cover skim the belly/hips area, but yesterday, I had a pair of yoga banded waist pants on, and the waist had a pretty trim, so I tucked in my camisole top. And went out like that. On errands. Then on my walk. Yep....I gots a waist now. And if the belly is still huge, too bad. I'm showing off my waist!
Be well ....do something that makes your life healthier today....
Tanita-san: 200.8
ARGH. SO CLOSE! :)
It's the kind of thing that makes a gal wanna do liquid protein dieting. hahahah.
No, not quite.
Since Phase 6 is in full, liquid swing and Phase 5 seems to be in a coma, I just won't tag my posts as related to the challenge anymore. No one seems to care about P5 anymore. Let's call it defunct as Allan isn't taking weigh-ins or keeping the Phase 5 stats--with Elizabeth C the clear winner so far, and has anyone ever heard or seen a blog or comment from this person? I have wondered about her since she started doing so well. Anyway, odd that.
And, yeah, so....I'm still wanting my own challenge for this summer. (Debbi, are we still gonna do this thing?)
I want to challenge myself. I'm not at goal. I can't become complacent. We all go through that phase, the one that says hey, I did well and I feel great and I look better and heck...how about an extra serving of this or that.
I guess my challenge to myself may have to take new forms. I'm already eating as low calorically as I plan to. I am not into deprivation or VLCD. I have no objections to asceticism or liquid diets or VLCD. I just want to eat NOW the way I need to eat for life. I am establishing my new way of eating for FOREVER..now.
This is life for me now, not just dieting: Eating less and fresher and moving more and in variety. I want to set into a groove NOw the habits I carry into maintenance. I really am establishing those habits, every day, making the choices more automatic every day. It's still work, although it's not anywhere near the work it was before.
It really is so much easier than when these challenges started for me in June of 2010 with SUMMER SLIMMIN' on my old blog. (That was the first challenge I was able to make some real loss, though only half of what I had at goal to lose. I was taking those hard initial steps toward change, real change, and I semi-failed, semi-succeeded.)
But it being easier, that's a great thing, but that can be a pitfall. It can lead to laxity.
I have been losing well, so I stopped tracking food. I mean, when you eat pretty much the same sorts of meals over a week in the same portions, you kind of start thinking, "Why bother."
One of my challenges this week is to re-bother. To track again. And for life, I will need to do this periodically. I think it reminds us that yes, those calories add up, and look, that day you had too little iron, and well, maybe you overdid the olive oil this day. Tracking is a totally useful and necessary thing when one embarks on a weight loss journey, I believe. Firmly believe. It's eye-opening. It's educational. It's accountability and knowledge combined. I mean, I don't eat any meal without at minimum mentally calculating calories or points (I sometimes default to points out of habit, the old points system which was about 50 cals per point.) I have to. For life. I have to know how much goes in, even if it's just a mental tally that I carry meal to snack to meal.
And as we become entrenched in a healthier eating and moving lifestyle, tracking (even if sporadic or periodic) is a way to check if we've gotten lazy with portions--spoonfuls, half-cups, cups, etc. It happens. I've read articles about it and I don't wanna be the "Lazy Portion Statistic Girl" who gained it back, small portion fudge by small portion fudge.
It's always the basics that I will have to hang on to like mad: Lots of water/fluids. Easy on salt. Forget sugar (or absolutely minimize). Quality REAL food. Good protein and colorful assortments of veggies above all, with fats and fresh fruit and cheese as flavor treats and nutrition helpers. Oodles of spices and no-sugar/no HFCS/no trans fats condiments to perk things up. Starches as rarities (for me, this is about me and my basics). Tracking periodically to make corrections. Exercise nearly daily, and with assorted exercises to keep the fun in working out. Finding non-food stress relievers. Joy and hope with everything. The basics for me...
I was a binge eater and chronic overeater. Inside me lurks that beast, I'm sure, ready to take any opportunity to revive itself and grab control. The beast is in hibernation now--I haven't binged in about a year--and I want it to stay asleep. Some scoff at food addiction, but I don't. What pizza does to me is not a sane thing. It's like meth or coke and such to others.
My paper this morning reminded me of this by having a brief article that focuses on the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. You probably read about the results released last month of one of their studies likening food addiction to drug addiction in how the brain responds. If you didn't see that one (though it was talked about in assorted online sites and blogs), here, read this.
Women whose relationship to food resembles dependence or addiction -- those who often lose control and eat more than they'd planned, for example -- appear to anticipate food in much the same way that drug addicts anticipate a fix, according to the study, which used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans.When these women saw pictures of a chocolate milk shake made with Häagen-Dazs ice cream, they displayed increased activity in the same regions of the brain that fire when people who are dependent on drugs or alcohol experience cravings. When presented with the same milk shake, women who don't feel addicted to food showed comparatively less activity in those regions.
It wasn't news to me. I've experienced it. I've read similar studies highlighted in articles and books I've read, THE END OF OVEREATING for one.
I spent years perplexed by the animal-out-of-control that was my appetite. I'd weep after crazy meals wondering why I could not stop. I'd wonder why I'd be hungry so often and feel not-full with normal quantities of food. I really felt like a junkie--totally obsessed, out of control, shaky with needs that were puzzling to me. "Why am I hungry all the time?" I'd wonder aloud to hubby and sis. "What is wrong with me?"
Well, it's not just me. We don't have an obesity epidemic cause it's "just me". It's a lot of us with issues. And if we expect alcoholics and drug addicts to seriously attack and fix their issues in order to be responsible citizens and not cause damage to their brains/bodies, then we need to see ourselves as addicts who have to be ruthless addressing our issues. Sorry, but the days of feeling sorry for ourselves have to end and the days of bucking up and rolling up our food sleeves and yelling "Just say No!" to the foods that trigger us have to begin.
Yes, I'm a recovering binge eater/food addict. I do not have the right to buy that cake or order that deluxe pizza or make that quadruple decker lasagna. I don't have the right because those are my drugs. And junkies shouldn't be buying/using drugs. I shouldn't be buying/cooking/eating my drugs. When I do, I am no better than the heroin user getting their dose or the alcoholic traipsing to the corner booze shop to get a few bottles of rum.
If the Meth Head doesn't/shouldn't be ingesting meth, then I shouldn't be ingesting Coke and deep dish pizzas. Only the legality is different in my eyes. The loss of control, the pleasure centers firing, the eventual damage to the body....I see it as really similar.
That's how I see it. It may not be how YOU see it, but if you are a binge-eater, a chronic overeater, morbidly obese/obese, and feel out of control around food, then baby, that's you, too. You need to look at your trigger foods as poison. As dangerous. As illegal.
Allan looks at those foods as contributing to fat cancer.
I see them as contributing to food addiction. To making me a junkie.
I don't want to be a junkie. I want to be sober and stay sober and live a live unshackled from the drugs that are advertised on tv and smell great on a drive to here and there and are offered at my loved one's homes.
Just say no, baby.
And what's that NSV from the post title? I tucked in my shirt yesterday. Yep. It's been a long time since I wore pants with the shirt tucked in. I mean, who wants to bring attention to an appley fat abdomen, blubbery waist, and lumpy ass? Seriously?
I still prefer shirts that cover skim the belly/hips area, but yesterday, I had a pair of yoga banded waist pants on, and the waist had a pretty trim, so I tucked in my camisole top. And went out like that. On errands. Then on my walk. Yep....I gots a waist now. And if the belly is still huge, too bad. I'm showing off my waist!
Be well ....do something that makes your life healthier today....
Friday, March 4, 2011
Why that Off Plan Treat May Be a Bad, Bad, Bad Idea....And My Surrender to Salt's Insidious side...as the Intervention Begins ...plus quote from THE END OF OVEREATING
I'm grappling right now with some renewed cravings. Nothing like it was before the challenges. Nothing like it was before my epiphany in the summer of 2010. NOTHING like that.
These are insidious little ones, not big bingey ones.
I really think that the salt cravings that are usually (consistently, inevitably) followed by or preceded by a sweet craving, is a function of the "extra" snack treats I allowed myself on the long weekend (hubby was off Monday, we went on a day of museum and beachy fun).
It's not that calorically I went off the rails. Not at all.
It was a psychological switch, a trip into a different set of rails. Ones that are not quiescent and conducive to a quiet "food mind".
Let me put it this way: Simple sugars and salt are two parts of the triumvirate that --as studies have shown, not as windbags or brain-dead blatherers would suggest, no, as scientists would posit--sends the overeating-prone, the binge-prone into a bad, bad cycle.
You wanna see proof: visit the excellent Escape from Obesity blog and see what happens when Lyn lets sugars back in her life. Seriously, skim the last years of that blog to see what it does to this sensitive, smart, loving, likable gal who has amazing willpower when SUGARS ARE ABSENT. And her willpower goes shot to hell when sugar/carby treats come back into it. It's an amazing bit of a case study to read that blog. Every obese overeater should. Every binge eater should. Not because you need to follow her formula, but because it becomes readily apparent what calms her appetite and what turns it on to high.
For me, sugar has become less of an issue, because our society has quite tasty sugar-free options that can make me feel like I've had a sweet treat without the simple sugars. But I have not found a suitable substitute for salt. I've tried the fake salt. Eh.
The problem is that salt has an effect on me that is kinda like the effect sugar would have, only subtler. If I eat a lot of simpler carbs, I get really hungry. REALLY HUNGRY. And I bloat.
If I eat a lot of salt, I get a little hungry...it's an annoying buzzer of an insect at first, so it's easy to keep adding more sodium into my diet without having the immediate nutsiness of what happens when I have sugars. It's insidious. Then, it hits: The urge for sugar. The urge for all sorts of sweet things. But it's the SALT that was the pathway drug, if you will, that made me want the sugars.
Oh, and I still bloat and my blood pressure goes up.
The missing component of that triumvirate--fat--is easier to avoid, since on a 1200 calorie diet, you tend to go to the lower fat options, so that's what is in the house--veggies, fruits, eggs and egg whites, lean meats. BUT...salt is omnipresent. It's in low cal canned soups. Its' in snacks like string cheese or hummus. It's in just about anything processed--breads, condiments, marinara sauce, spice mixes (like the Montreal Seasoning on the original challenge packet).
If you put a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of sugar and said, 'Which do you want to put in your meal"...I would hit the salt.
And then the salt would lead me to want the sugar.
When I follow my plan--and I'm perfect--my appetite is calm. It's calm cause I'm sticking to lower sodium, no-to-low sugar options, lots of veggies and protein, lower fat. It cuts down (or some days altogether OUT) the simplest sugars, cuts down on sodium, and cuts down on fat. The tripod is crippled. I am not hungry. I don't binge.
For some reason, the demon salt is the hardest part of the tripod for me. I thought it would be fat, I swear. I was wrong. It's easier for me to cut fat, to nearly eliminate the simplest sugars (sucrose, HFCS, simplest starches), to minimize the starches (even complex), but the salt, the salt...my tongue wants it bad.
Anyway, I got out my recently neglected Kindle--I prefer my NookColor, but I have books already loaded to the Kindle and I ain't rebuying them, hah--and am rereading the treatment/rehab section of THE END OF OVEREATING, which has been the single most helpful book to curb my bingeing. I have not binged once since I read it last year.
I figure I gotta remind myself of the steps I took to heal my appetite/binge tendencies. I need to remind myself that it's not just sugar or fat. I gotta beat the hell outta the salt addiction, or my appetite will return and I will want to binge again.
I refuse. I f***ing refuse to go back to that. I am NOT going there.
I am not shooting my progress in the foot for a chemical fix. NaCl is not gonna beat my ass.
I'm a junkie, and this is war.
Quote from the book:
I have to remind myself of that. If I let it creep, creep, creep, I have given up the moment of choice--the definitive tactic.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No...
Practicing. :)
And this is why sometimes you see me cautioning fellow fatfighters who are about to allow themselves a trigger food (say, chocolate or a cupcake or pizza) to gauge how they feel the week or two after allowing this into their life. If there is no upset, no change in diet success, then maybe it's not a trigger anymore. But if suddenly they're having more treats, trouble sticking to plan, adding a bit more here and there, a scale going the wrong way--then that release of control, that "Yes", may be the cause. It restimulated the brain. It reactivated in full force those habit pathways in the brain.
It put the overeating response center stage. It woke up the beast.
That cup of caramel corn may only be 250 calories and you may budget for it. But did you budget for the cascade of effects it may have on every other meal after that for a week or a month or a year?
It's not benign for some of us. For conditioned hypereaters, that trigger treat may not calorically put us over. It may put us over in a far worse way. It may reactivate appetite, destroy calm, and shatter a good run of weeks or months of self-control. And once it's shattered and we say, "Ah, what's the use," we spiral deeper down.
That order of sweet and spicy wings (sugar, fat, salt) may send you careening off the diet highway.
That cupcake might be your Wellington and the bakery your Waterloo.
It's worth considering.
Just monitor yourself. Some folks actually CAN handle treats.They don't go off the deep end. But if you have been or are morbidly obese and keep getting derailed, carefully study what you are eating that is derailing you. Study the meals on days your appetite stayed calm. Look at the meals/snacks when you suddenly felt more hungry and went off plan. Study carefully the meals the day or day before you went on a binge.
Sugar. Salt. Fat. Together---they will make some of us turn into crazed rats overfeeding, overfeeding, overfeeding....
Allan gets grief from people who say he's dictator-strict about not having cheat foods. Well, he's actually on to something. Conditioned hypereaters are/may be in danger every time they do use a favored cheat food. How will it affect the brain? Will it send signals for more, so the pleasure response is activated again and again.
There's a reason we feel totally out of control when a binge is on in full force. WE ARE. We have our brain as our own enemy, telling us to keep eating, yes, more of that. And it's not telling us to eat broccoli or an orange. It's telling us to eat more ice cream, Doritos, cookies, pizza, meatball subs, Buffalo wings, blooming onions, cheeseburgers, fries, shakes,cheesey crackers, cookie dough....
Crazed response, conditioned hypereaters.
I'm one of them. But I have tools now.
I have shuriken and swords. It's up to me to learn to use them well or lose the fight.
Okay, off to read more and work on my self-intervention....
These are insidious little ones, not big bingey ones.
I really think that the salt cravings that are usually (consistently, inevitably) followed by or preceded by a sweet craving, is a function of the "extra" snack treats I allowed myself on the long weekend (hubby was off Monday, we went on a day of museum and beachy fun).
It's not that calorically I went off the rails. Not at all.
It was a psychological switch, a trip into a different set of rails. Ones that are not quiescent and conducive to a quiet "food mind".
Let me put it this way: Simple sugars and salt are two parts of the triumvirate that --as studies have shown, not as windbags or brain-dead blatherers would suggest, no, as scientists would posit--sends the overeating-prone, the binge-prone into a bad, bad cycle.
You wanna see proof: visit the excellent Escape from Obesity blog and see what happens when Lyn lets sugars back in her life. Seriously, skim the last years of that blog to see what it does to this sensitive, smart, loving, likable gal who has amazing willpower when SUGARS ARE ABSENT. And her willpower goes shot to hell when sugar/carby treats come back into it. It's an amazing bit of a case study to read that blog. Every obese overeater should. Every binge eater should. Not because you need to follow her formula, but because it becomes readily apparent what calms her appetite and what turns it on to high.
For me, sugar has become less of an issue, because our society has quite tasty sugar-free options that can make me feel like I've had a sweet treat without the simple sugars. But I have not found a suitable substitute for salt. I've tried the fake salt. Eh.
The problem is that salt has an effect on me that is kinda like the effect sugar would have, only subtler. If I eat a lot of simpler carbs, I get really hungry. REALLY HUNGRY. And I bloat.
If I eat a lot of salt, I get a little hungry...it's an annoying buzzer of an insect at first, so it's easy to keep adding more sodium into my diet without having the immediate nutsiness of what happens when I have sugars. It's insidious. Then, it hits: The urge for sugar. The urge for all sorts of sweet things. But it's the SALT that was the pathway drug, if you will, that made me want the sugars.
Oh, and I still bloat and my blood pressure goes up.
The missing component of that triumvirate--fat--is easier to avoid, since on a 1200 calorie diet, you tend to go to the lower fat options, so that's what is in the house--veggies, fruits, eggs and egg whites, lean meats. BUT...salt is omnipresent. It's in low cal canned soups. Its' in snacks like string cheese or hummus. It's in just about anything processed--breads, condiments, marinara sauce, spice mixes (like the Montreal Seasoning on the original challenge packet).
If you put a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of sugar and said, 'Which do you want to put in your meal"...I would hit the salt.
And then the salt would lead me to want the sugar.
When I follow my plan--and I'm perfect--my appetite is calm. It's calm cause I'm sticking to lower sodium, no-to-low sugar options, lots of veggies and protein, lower fat. It cuts down (or some days altogether OUT) the simplest sugars, cuts down on sodium, and cuts down on fat. The tripod is crippled. I am not hungry. I don't binge.
For some reason, the demon salt is the hardest part of the tripod for me. I thought it would be fat, I swear. I was wrong. It's easier for me to cut fat, to nearly eliminate the simplest sugars (sucrose, HFCS, simplest starches), to minimize the starches (even complex), but the salt, the salt...my tongue wants it bad.
Anyway, I got out my recently neglected Kindle--I prefer my NookColor, but I have books already loaded to the Kindle and I ain't rebuying them, hah--and am rereading the treatment/rehab section of THE END OF OVEREATING, which has been the single most helpful book to curb my bingeing. I have not binged once since I read it last year.
I figure I gotta remind myself of the steps I took to heal my appetite/binge tendencies. I need to remind myself that it's not just sugar or fat. I gotta beat the hell outta the salt addiction, or my appetite will return and I will want to binge again.
I refuse. I f***ing refuse to go back to that. I am NOT going there.
I am not shooting my progress in the foot for a chemical fix. NaCl is not gonna beat my ass.
I'm a junkie, and this is war.
Quote from the book:
Effective intervention draws us away from the conditioning power of a stimulus before it triggers its usual response. It reminds us that its possible to say no. Intervention begins with the knowledge that we have a moment of choice--but only a moment--to recognize what is about to happen and do something else instead....
The refusal must come early and it must be definitive.
"It's only at the very beginning, when the invitation arises, that you have any control over it."
I have to remind myself of that. If I let it creep, creep, creep, I have given up the moment of choice--the definitive tactic.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No...
Practicing. :)
And this is why sometimes you see me cautioning fellow fatfighters who are about to allow themselves a trigger food (say, chocolate or a cupcake or pizza) to gauge how they feel the week or two after allowing this into their life. If there is no upset, no change in diet success, then maybe it's not a trigger anymore. But if suddenly they're having more treats, trouble sticking to plan, adding a bit more here and there, a scale going the wrong way--then that release of control, that "Yes", may be the cause. It restimulated the brain. It reactivated in full force those habit pathways in the brain.
It put the overeating response center stage. It woke up the beast.
That cup of caramel corn may only be 250 calories and you may budget for it. But did you budget for the cascade of effects it may have on every other meal after that for a week or a month or a year?
It's not benign for some of us. For conditioned hypereaters, that trigger treat may not calorically put us over. It may put us over in a far worse way. It may reactivate appetite, destroy calm, and shatter a good run of weeks or months of self-control. And once it's shattered and we say, "Ah, what's the use," we spiral deeper down.
That order of sweet and spicy wings (sugar, fat, salt) may send you careening off the diet highway.
That cupcake might be your Wellington and the bakery your Waterloo.
It's worth considering.
Just monitor yourself. Some folks actually CAN handle treats.They don't go off the deep end. But if you have been or are morbidly obese and keep getting derailed, carefully study what you are eating that is derailing you. Study the meals on days your appetite stayed calm. Look at the meals/snacks when you suddenly felt more hungry and went off plan. Study carefully the meals the day or day before you went on a binge.
Sugar. Salt. Fat. Together---they will make some of us turn into crazed rats overfeeding, overfeeding, overfeeding....
Allan gets grief from people who say he's dictator-strict about not having cheat foods. Well, he's actually on to something. Conditioned hypereaters are/may be in danger every time they do use a favored cheat food. How will it affect the brain? Will it send signals for more, so the pleasure response is activated again and again.
There's a reason we feel totally out of control when a binge is on in full force. WE ARE. We have our brain as our own enemy, telling us to keep eating, yes, more of that. And it's not telling us to eat broccoli or an orange. It's telling us to eat more ice cream, Doritos, cookies, pizza, meatball subs, Buffalo wings, blooming onions, cheeseburgers, fries, shakes,cheesey crackers, cookie dough....
Crazed response, conditioned hypereaters.
I'm one of them. But I have tools now.
I have shuriken and swords. It's up to me to learn to use them well or lose the fight.
Okay, off to read more and work on my self-intervention....
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