07/20/2016
Adele, I've been meaning to ask you a question for some time now, but kept forgetting.
Do you eat at set times (breakfast, lunch, & supper) regardless of hunger, or do you ONLY eat if you're hungry?
Adele's Response:
Well... I don’t really eat at SET times (i.e. especially now that we’re both retired we might get up at 7 and not eat breakfast until 9), but I almost always eat three meals plus one snack every day. I have always had a pretty big appetite so it’s pretty rare that I’m not hungry. But if I’m not hungry at snack time, I’ll skip that. I probably skip my snack once a week, no more than twice, usually when I’ve had a big—or late—lunch. But I never skip lunch or dinner, and I almost never skip breakfast. I almost always eat the same thing for breakfast (3 eggs, cooked in oil), which leaves only 14 meals/week to think about.
While I won’t say I *never eat after dinner, I try not to and rarely do. But if we had a smaller, lower-fat dinner, I’m sometimes hungry before bed and will eat an egg or two before bed if that’s the case. Turkey breast as the protein choice for dinner is usually what has me hungry before bed, lol. The same thing would probably happen with fish but because DH hates fish, we never have it for dinner. I sometimes make fish for my lunch.
Just because I was curious, I dabbled a few times with intermittent fasting within the last year—that’s supposed to be the latest and the greatest for health/weight loss. But it turned out that for me, adding clock-watching to my fairly rigid, paleo-style diet ended up causing me obsess to and worry about food much like I used to, which I really don’t want back in my life. I came to the conclusion that I was trying to fix something that ain’t broken, as the saying goes, so I’m back to doing what I found works so well for me: Three filling meals, boring foods to most people, but peaceful ones to me.
(This is not to say that YOU shouldn’t try intermittent fasting if you read up on it and decide it might be for you. I really get that we’re all individual and have to find—within certain parameters of course—what works best for ourselves.)
Does that answer your question? Hope so!
Adele
132 this morning
Me:
It does answer my question, yes. There are nights when I'm not terribly hungry at suppertime, and I find myself wondering if I should simply skip eating. I used to do that on zero carb (meat only); eating ONLY when one is truly hungry is emphasized strongly. (But then, one must also learn what is "true hunger"--often difficult for people with eating disorders.) Thanks Adele!
07/22/2016
174.5 this morning
Some days I wonder how long can I sustain this way of life* (eating). As if some external force is in charge of my eating habits, or there's a genie somewhere who has granted me a wish of clean eating-weight loss, but only for a limited time, and that time will run out any day now. And then I have to remind myself that it's me...that I am in charge of this thing, this wonderful "thing" of clean eating that is enabling me to get healthy AND lose weight (at the same time!). That if I fail it is on me, because the tools I have now (from Leading With the Diet) are more than enough for me to succeed. I simply have to be strong enough to admit the reality of how really weak I am, and face the knowledge that I will end up back in carbohydrate hell if I go down that road again. It's a dark, scary road with potholes big enough to swallow the whole universe and there's no one around with a winch to pull my arse out. There is a certain amount of strength in weakness.
*My pattern seems to be around 3 months of dieting before crashing.
Adele's Response:
Some ramblings from me:
I think it's really good--maybe even critical--that you recognize your pattern. That's a big step to changing it! Just keep telling yourself no, we're not doing that this time. We're doing something different. That didn't work.
BTW, I still think about, and relate to in many ways, your post where you talked about being alone with a candy dish at your husband's office. What pleasure would you truly have derived from eating that candy? Nobody around, nothing to celebrate, just a little party in your mouth that you used to be able to do. Would that really have been any kind of wonderful? Isn't it interesting and telling that we want and have to resist such meager "pleasure"?
I just stumbled onto this guy, Butter Bob, who I think I love. He's a big proponent of intermittent fasting, I mentioned that in my last post and that it doesn't work for me, at least not right now. I'll never say never though, lol. Anyway, this video in particular really resonated with me about simplicity. Mingled, in his case with the intermittent fasting, but I still loved and really related to what he says about simplicity and how it changed him. Leading with a simple diet WILL change you and I'm not just talking about your weight. Living with the changes over time is what does that. If you can't/won't live with the changes, then you haven't changed. See?
Keep going and keep posting, Trisha.
Adele
133 this morning
(Adele included a link to a Butter Bob video)
08/02/2016
173 this morning
...and the pounds continue to drop, slowly but surely. No calorie counting, no exercise, just healthy high fat/low carb foods.
On Sunday I cooked fried chicken (drumsticks) using Ol' Butter Bob's method with lard. Lard is wonderful stuff.
I've gone back to scrambling my daily eggs in butter, although I'm still using the olive oil for my salads.
Now, my husband has finally admitted he needs to lose weight. I don't know if my weight loss has had an effect on him
or not; I never nag or cajole. I figure an adult person needs to be responsible for their own health and well-being. If you're
going to change a bad habit, such as smoking or weight loss, then you MUST do it for yourself and not for the sake of anyone
else; otherwise the change won't "stick". (Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.) But anyway...he made the decision to
return to a low carbohydrate eating plan, starting yesterday. I...how do I say this? --I will help him, but I cannot/WILL NOT
be his conscience. For instance, this morning I packed a lunch for him (3 of the chicken drumsticks and a salad). Whether
he sticks to the eating plan, though, is entirely up to him. As I said, I do not nag; you're an adult--do the right thing. To me
it's that simple. Assuming he's truly committed to losing weight, I figure I'll help him get his food choices under control first,
and then we can tackle his soda addiction. That's going to be a toughie.
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