Location: Home of the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins
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I went through and researched a bunch of articles about Mindful Eating and bookmarked them so I can go back and read them. Mindful Eating is different from Intuitive Eating in that you really pay attention to the whole process. Here is one thing I just read that I wanted to share. How often do we eat our whole meal without even noticing it.
Mindful Eating as Food for Thought
TRY this:
place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli.
Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry.
Today’s experiment in eating, however, involves becoming aware of that reflexive urge to plow through your meal like Cookie Monster on a shortbread bender. Resist it. Leave the fork on the table. Chew slowly. Stop talking. Tune in to the texture of the pasta, the flavor of the cheese, the bright color of the sauce in the bowl, the aroma of the rising steam.
Continue this way throughout the course of a meal, and you’ll experience the third-eye-opening pleasures and frustrations of a practice known as mindful eating.
Carol Sue My sister has been doing the Mindful Eating when we go to Whataburger. She takes a bite and then puts her fork down and then chews her food slowly. She talks and visits and then takes another bite. She usually finishes her food, but does it very slowly.
I on the other hand have the attitude that I'm eating these calories and I want to eat it and get it over with. I know that I need to slow down. At home, I have noticed that I want to eat and get through and get my kitchen cleaned up and get out of there. I don't know why I act like that, but I need to start slowing down.
I purchased the $.99 kindle book that you told me about. I am also on a one month free trial of goodreads so I downloaded a book for free called Intermittent Fasting The Easy Way. He says you can fast 14 to 16 hrs with a feast window (I like that name) of 8 to 10 hrs. I'm doing the 14 hr fasting each day. He says some people think you can eat as much as you want during the feasting hrs, however, you do need to eat less calories. And he suggests exercising at least 30 minutes a day. So this is what I plan to do although right now I am exercising 21 minutes each day to get my 2 miles in on the recumbent bike and I still do the 10 minute back exercises I do before I even get out of bed to strengthen my core as well as help my back. Those are the exercises that the therapy taught my DH to do after his neck surgery. Plus I am busier than I used to be meeting DD and DS 3 days a week. I usually go to some store some of those days which also adds walking time to my exercise. I am also working to keep my house clean without having to do a lot of hard house cleaning which also adds some other exercise. The craziest thing is that I am eating more calories like the previous doctor told me to do and I am dropping weight right now at the rate of 1 lb a day. That may stop eventually, but I will take it while I can.
Oh, I did end the month with a 4.4 lb weight loss. I've done this before, but this time I surely do hope that I will be able to keep it and keep losing.
I hope you don't mind me sharing what you wrote about the ice cream incident with your DH with my DH because I wanted to ask him why your DH would taunt you like that. He doesn't think he is taunting you. He thinks he is being polite. DH said that he would offer it to me just to be nice. So maybe that is all your DH is doing. Maybe he just wants to feel better about eating it in front of you by at least offering it to you. But of course, we don't know him and I realize that you do. If it won't start an argument, maybe you could even ask him why he does it. Maybe he doesn't understand how he makes you feel. Of course, you know whether you can talk to him about it or not. It will either help y'all or it could cause problems so do whatever you feel comfortable doing. To be honest, DH and I cannot talk about my weight problem or my diet. It just turns into an argument for us so I'm not telling you what to do.
I know that some on the IE group would disagree with me but I am eating what I want as IE says, but I am counting calories and using IF along with it.
It works for me and that is all I care about no matter what you call it.
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Trish I don't mind you sharing my story with DH. After all, it's here on the internet for all the world to see. We have 76 posts, but over 2,000 people have viewed the thread. LOL I do feel that DH taunts me about food like with the ice cream, but I don't feel that he's doing it to be cruel. He thinks it's funny. He doesn't really understand how upset I get about my weight. Also, the few times we have discussed it, he says that just because I can't eat something doesn't mean he can't, and it's true. All my life there will be circumstances when food is available and I have to be able to resist eating things that are not good for me. He is not putting the food in my mouth, I am, and I accept that. I am just not strong enough to resist the food sometimes.
I'm glad your new plan is working for you. Staying busy really helps, and I understand you are spending a lot of time with your family, when you stayed home more when you lived in SC. That's good that you're out and moving around. I know that when we are out shopping I rarely think of food, plus I'm getting in a lot of walking.
Next week I have 2 doctor's appointments. I dread the cardiologist visit. Since my weight is up about 5 lbs from last time, my BP will be up, too. I had intentions of losing since the last visit, but that went out the window. The second appointment is with the pulmonologist. I think my visits with him are a waste of time, but I have to do it so I can get my CPAP supplies. I should have stayed with the other pulmonologist. I might go back to him next year. I thought he was bad, but this new guy seems like he's just in it for the money.
Trish, why can't I just keep my mouth shut and quit eating!!!! LOL
Carol Sue One of these kindle books I'm reading mentioned dieters experiencing Dieters Fatigue. I think that is what you are experiencing. I think it is in the book you told me about in the $.99 book. He talks about how he would get down almost to goal and then eat and go back to his old habits because of the Dieters Fatigue. I hope I find some answers in his book because I have noticed that when I get close to getting under 200 lbs, I mess up and gain the weight back. I'm beginning to think there are emotional stages we go through when losing weight and if we don't learn how to get through those stages that we will never reach our goals.
There have to be ways to get through it so we just have to learn how to get through it.
Carol Sue I am really enjoying reading the Lean Fast Diet book. I think it was good that I read the book Intermittent Fasting the easy way book first. I also like the idea of being able to fast 14 - 16 hrs a day. I do better with that choice.
I am going to make a suggestion that might help you and your hubby with your dieting. If you still do like I do and start eating around 10ish to 11ish am, then just set your stop eating time at 8 or 10 hrs after that. I make my cut off time at 8pm no matter whether I start eating at 10, 11 or 12 am. I think it is just better for me if I have a shorter eating time some days because I do not do one meal days. Use Fitday to keep up with your calories. Set your calories a little higher than you usually eat so that those days when you eat something like the ice cream or pancakes etc, it is just part of your plan that day and you are still within the calories. You get rid of the guilt and you can relax and enjoy your way of eating. Then eating Mindfully and Intuitively, you will probably find that you will not want more. The Intermittent Fasting made easy author seems to think we need to only do around 30 minutes of exercise each day and just be active. He thinks it isn't good to stress our bodies overdoing it because our body rebels because it can't handle all that.
Got to go. I'll be back later. Hang in there girl. I have found what works for me and I want to help you do the same so you can do this with peace.
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I just read up about Dieters Fatigue. Here's what I think about it. I do not consider myself to be on a diet. I am trying to make lifestyle changes. Other than the starchy carbs that spike my blood sugar, no food is disallowed. I believe I have gotten to the bottom of this, and have decided that my problem is portions, eating when I am not hungry, mindlessly eating between meals. Even though it is healthy food I'm eating, I'm eating more than my body needs. I can't look at any WOE and say I am going to follow this one or that one. It is all behavior changes I need to make, nasty habits that I have had for years. Habits are very hard to change. Sometimes I think that if I just give up on this, I will automatically make those changes, once the pressure is off. I don't know.
Right now I am doing this Mindful Eating Daily Checklist. I have chosen 3 things I want to change in the month of December. Each day I am successful with each change, I put a checkmark on that day, hoping to have checkmarks on most days for the month. It makes me feel like I'm back in Kindergarten, but maybe that's what I need. The 3 things I have chosen are water, leaving food on my plate at each meal, and no in-between eating. That last one is going to be very difficult. I may have to do that one for more than 1 month before I can change it. You don't have to be perfect and do it every day, but most days, and having the daily check list shows you how well you are progressing. It's right in front of you in black and white. No room for denial. I usually hate silly games like this and think they are stupid, but it's one thing I have never tried before. Who knows? It might be what I need.
We are going to the casino either today or tomorrow. What a time to be starting this checklist. LOL
Carol Sue Sounds like you have a good plan. As for going to the casino, you always do very well when you go there because you have told us about the wonderful choices they have that you like. I suspect that you will do very well. The check list just might be a good thing too. I have played those little games too just to keep me OP. Hey if it works, it works so I would say go with it. Another good thing about the check list is that it will definitely help you see how you are progressing. I think it will help you to see that you have more good days than bad. (Sorry, I don't think we should be thinking good/bad days, but lack of a better way of saying it is why I used it; however I'm sure you know what I mean.)
I wasn't going to write down my weight each day, but having done it, I can see how well I'm doing. I was so disgusted with me having lost down to 217 and then gaining it back even though I knew having lost it by being sick that it would come back up. I guess I hoped that I could keep it off. I thought I had done so badly this month, however, when I looked back to where my weight was on the Nov 1st and what it was on Dec 1, I found I did have a loss. It wasn't as good a loss as it could have been if I had been eating right, but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. So sometimes we have to play the games.
My plan is to continue the 8 to 10 hour eating window and the 14 to 16 hour fasting. My sister asked me today how I can do that with diabetes because her son had said his eating window Friday was 5 hrs. I reminded her that was just on Friday. He had told me that he usually does an 8 hour eating window. I also explained to her that I eat my calories within an 8 to 10 hour window and that 8 hrs of my 14 hr fast that I am asleep and that she can make her 8 or 10 hrs of eating whatever time she wants. When I meet her and Daddy that my eating hours start when we eat and that I always try to make my time to stop eating around 8 pm. I explained to her that I do that because I'm a not eater and I just learned to fit my eating window to include my night time snacking and she can fit her eating time around times that fit her lifestyle. My Daddy was there and I know he is trying to learn to do IF because my nephew does it.
As part of my plan, I will finish this week with my 20 miles 6 days a week and I will take off Sunday and then start Monday with 30 minutes a day.
My Daddy is supposed to get the recumbent bike delivered Monday. DH and I will go over when he gets it so DH can put it together for him. We may do that Tuesday since we will be in that part of town that day. We will meet him for an early dinner and then go back to his apartment for DH to assemble that and maybe take some pics off of his computer so DH can organize them for him. Next week is going to be really busy doing that, my 3 days to meet DD and DS and lab work on Thursday for both of us.
Next Saturday, I plan to go to my DS and pick out the clothes I want out of her closet that she wants to get rid of. She says they will be too big, but I can wear the blouses around the house with my sweat pants. Also I want to go to Walmart as they have some sweat pants for $6 a pair. Sure can't beat that price.
Well, I got long winded so I guess I better close off. Have fun at the casino. Relax and enjoy it.
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Trish, way back when we were growing up....waaaaaay back, LOL .....we got up and ate breakfast. Then we went to school, and ate lunch. Then we came home and ate dinner. Then we didn't eat again until breakfast the next day. Unless some of us ate dinner at 9-10PM, we were doing IF. All this night-time snacking didn't start until years later. Kids today think it's normal, because we have always had all that snack food in the house. Even when my kids were growing up, they are 50ish now, I only bought 1 treat per week. It was EITHER, a pkg of cookies, OR a pkg of ice cream, OR pretzels. And when that was gone, they waited until next payday. When DH started shopping with me, there was all 3 in the shopping cart every week, and I also baked a cake every Saturday. When I was growing up, my mother only baked a cake when it was someone's birthday. 5 family members, 5 cakes per year. LOL So to me, IF is just going back to the old days, when eating meals was for the purpose of nourishing your body and providing energy for your day. Your father probably remembers when it was like that, too. And there weren't any restaurants back then, except Howard Johnson's on the interstate, when you traveled. DH's mother even used to pack a lunch in a cooler for when they traveled, instead of going to HJ. All your meals were eaten at home or school, and workers carried their lunch in a brown bag or lunch box. The lunch was made at home in your mother's kitchen. So now we are going back to that, and giving it a special name.
I would like to start getting back to recording in Fitday. That actually gives you a graph that shows the ups and downs of your weight, although for me, lately, it would just be a flat line, but this might change after I get going with my 3 changes.
I had no carbs at the casino buffet, but I felt like I ate a side of beef. LOL I had a salad and some veggies, and the rest meat and seafood. It was very good, but I still tend to overeat there. It's hard not to at a buffet. But they have all kinds of potatoes and pasta dishes that I never even try. Just pass them by. For some reason, their rolls are always stale, not good at all, so as much as I love bread, it doesn't tempt me. They let them sit out and there's no way to keep them fresh. Good thing for me!!
I don't think a person with Type 1 Diabetes can do IF. Injecting insulin makes it imperative to eat at certain times. But type 2s can usually do it with no problem, depending on their meds.
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Lately I have been reading a lot about breakfast/no breakfast. Many say that calories eatrn early in the day are burned off more quickly than those eaten later. For so many years before I met DH I ate like that, because I would not want to come home from work and prepare a meal. The food I ate at breakfast and lunch was enough to sustain me and my body was very happy with that schedule.
I understand that many people who eat breakfast find that it just gets their appetite going and they eat more the rest of the day. So for someone like that, I can understand that skipping breakfast is beneficial, and some people just aren't hungry in the morning. I don't think it should be forced either way. I don't think the non eaters should force themselves to eat breakfast, nor should the eaters go hungry for hours just to follow a certain plan. And I think that if there is someone who has a longer eating window because of this, it's OK, if it suits their lifestyle and they don't end up overeating. For some, having a specified eating window makes them tend to really stuff themselves during that time, since they know they have to stop eating at a certain time. There are so many different factors. JUDDD and 5:2 are both a form of IF, and some people can do much better that way, cutting way back every other day or two days a week. The key is to eat NORMALLY on your eating days. Not pig out, just because you can.
My BIL told DH that his next door neighbor has lost a lot of weight by eating every other day. He thinks the guy invented that! LOL
Carol Sue You aren't ready to give up. I think if you were that you wouldn't be thinking/evaluating the different ways of eating. I like one statement this man said in Lean Fast Diet. He said think of your past experiences with dieting as periods of times you were learning what works and what doesn't for you. I think that is what you are doing.
One of the things both of these books said is that some IF books leave people thinking that they can eat as much of what they want to eat during their eating window and still lose weight. They both said that is not true. We still have to cut calories regardless if we are going to lose weight and we have to eat healthy foods to get healthy.
My DD and I have been talking about how they ate when he was growing up. One thing is that the foods they ate were never processed foods as they raised almost all their food. The only things they bought were things like flour. I find it interesting that they raised their on hogs and Daddy said that at pork all the time, but that his grandfather was very particular about how they fed them just before they butchered them. He said that a few weeks or months before butchering they would change their food to some sort of special grains so that the meat would not be bitter. He said that they knew to do certain things that were healthy whether they knew why they were healthy or not. I suspect eating foods that were fresh and no processed foods was the reason they were so healthy. They worked in the fields farming and as you said they ate 3 meals a day. Also, they got a good nights sleep because they were not distracted by tv, computers, etc that we are distracted with today. I know for me that setting my window to cover hours to include eating until 8ish is so that I can have a snack in the evening. My great grandmother would never have that problem.
When I was growing up, I never ate snacks. I could go out with dates and have a Dr. Pepper while everyone round me ate. I just wasn't hungry. Friday Daddy told my sister and me about a man who worked with him that actually thought eating was a waste of time. He said eating was for just one thing to fuel your body so that you can function. I honestly believe that there was a time in my life when I actually thought that way myself. I have to wonder when and why I changed.
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I just typed up a long post and don't know where it went. LOL
Trish, I am no longer making the effort to lose weight. I am trying to correct my bad eating habits. In the end, I might lose weight. I think all this weight loss effort had screwed up my mind. Sometimes I will eat something because I heard it's good for weight loss, then I think to myself, why did I eat that...I wasn't hungry.
December is definately a practice month because I keep forgetting. I have been forgetting my water, and to leave food on my plate. This morning we just had coffee. Around noon, we were going to Target, so we stopped for breakfast. I had the $3.99 special, which is just scrambled eggs, turkey sausage and toast. I forgot to leave some, but it was a very small breakfast. Then at dinner I did leave some fish, cole slaw and a few fries, and dumped them down the disposal. I really wanted to eat them, but that was just my clean plate habit. I was satisfied, but not stuffed. So I had 2 meals today. No snacks. It's bedtime now, so I am not going to eat my bedtime snack. Not hungry, no snack. Right? Right!
I tried to find the other book you mentioned, IF the Easy Way. Who wrote that book?
Location: Home of the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins
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Go to UTUBE and watch this Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Canon. It is so beautiful. My step-daughter walked down the aisle to this. It brings tears to my eyes.
Location: Home of the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins
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My diligence paid off yesterday with a 1 lb drop. Hope I can keep it!! I'd like to be back in Onederland soon.
Guess I didn't give up. I was just feeling sorry for myself that day. I've just changed my approach. I did eat a few carbs yesterday and my blood sugar is up, but I feel that good weight loss will have an effect.
Carol Sue I knew you weren't giving up. We are too much a like. I have kept trying all these years believing that someday I would find what I can live with. I still believe IE combined with IF will work. IE people have a problem with this because of the idea of eating when you hungry and not eating when you are not. However, I honestly believe in order for IE to work 100% for me that I have to learn to recognize true hunger as it can disguise itself in so many way. Example, sometimes what we think of as hunger pangs are not hunger but our body needs water. I'm not sure I know the difference even after all these years. I do know that when I'm hydrated really well that I do not get hungry as often.
I am proud of you sticking with it and as the guy in the $.99 book says, keep doing what you are doing and let it work. He says that if we don't get the results we want that we give up where as if we had kept doing what we were doing it would work. I sure know I am guilty of that one. I think the way I'm eating now has to become a lifestyle for me NOT a diet. I do need to tweak it to be a lot more healthy than I did yesterday, but I am losing. My WI today showed a 2.8 lb loss. My tendency is to want more. I need to realize that 2.8 not only as a good loss, but it is a healthy loss.
Congratulations on the 1 lb loss. I agree that we need to be going for Healthy 1st and the weight will follow.
Oh. The other book is IF The Easy Way by Zac Jefferson.
Location: Home of the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pattygirl63
Carol Sue Example, sometimes what we think of as hunger pangs are not hunger but our body needs water. I'm not sure I know the difference even after all these years. I do know that when I'm hydrated really well that I do not get hungry as often.
Oh. The other book is IF The Easy Way by Zac Jefferson.
Trish, funny you should mention the water. Back when I was single, I used to do small fasts, like a day or two, to try to control my weight. One of the things I did was drink a big glass of water if I got hungry. My thinking at the time was that it would fill up my stomach and curb the hungry, and it usually worked. Of course, sometimes I think that doing little tricks like that lead to somewhat of an eating disorder, which eventually led to the weight gain.
I can't find that book free. It's $2.99 and I have to give that some thought. LOL Being on social security really makes me frugal.
I know that I need to slow down. At home, I have noticed that I want to eat and get through and get my kitchen cleaned up and get out of there. I don't know why I act like that, but I need to start slowing down.
Hang in there girl. I have found what works for me and I want to help you do the same so you can do this with peace.
