Becky, I think a long time ago you posted something about your brother and I was wondering how he and you were doing. Hope all is well.
Thank you for asking, Carol. My brother has been out of rehab for about a month or so now, and is staying clean and sober so far. He's still living with us, and knows that this is his last chance. If he blows it, he's out, and we'll feel no guilt about that, since we've given him many opportunities to get his life on track.
When you feel your heaviest, do you grasp at straws?
Hi, ladies...Hope you're all well--and I hope you're feeling better today, Carol. My husband has been battling that same thing this week. Lots of it going around here.
I continue to mess myself up by reading diet boards and blogs. I think it's because I'm so desperate about my weight right now.
I was feeling great when I was down 15lbs, and thought I could keep it going, but that didn't happen. The regains always make me start casting about for "something" that will work, but at the same time, trying to rope myself into any of those eating plans (aka diets, no matter how much they say they aren't) just causes me to obsess about food, weight, body size, calories, carbs, etc. all the more.
I'm at the point now where I could just cry. I don't want to leave the house because I look so bad and feel so rotten. I don't want anybody to see me. My mind is filled and overloaded with that elusive "answer" to my weight that just has to be out there somewhere. I really drive myself crazy with this stuff.
I don't even like to say I'm trying "intuitive eating" because so many people have made that into a diet of sorts too. I just want to go back to eating something, enjoying it, then moving on--not worrying about whether it has too many calories, carbs, fat, or whatever we're counting these days. I don't want my mind to be constantly focused on my weight, my size, how bad I look, etc. I would like to feel better though.
Two of our teenage grandsons are coming over this afternoon to stay overnight, so that'll take my mind off diets and weight loss!
Hi Becky. I think we've all been in that situation and IE is a slow process but it is a lasting one. After 3yr. I'm down about 40lb and even though I know I have about 30 to go, this is the first time I have lost weight and not regained it all back. If you study IE you know that diets slow your metabolism and when your body can't take the diet anymore you go back to eating and gaining. It makes sense that God gave us hunger and fullness for a reason. It is amazing that I don't even crave sweets anymore even though I might have a little dessert every day. And food tastes so much better when you're hungry. You have to be very patient. Have a great time with those grandsons.
Hi Becky. I think we've all been in that situation and IE is a slow process but it is a lasting one. After 3yr. I'm down about 40lb and even though I know I have about 30 to go, this is the first time I have lost weight and not regained it all back. If you study IE you know that diets slow your metabolism and when your body can't take the diet anymore you go back to eating and gaining. It makes sense that God gave us hunger and fullness for a reason. It is amazing that I don't even crave sweets anymore even though I might have a little dessert every day. And food tastes so much better when you're hungry. You have to be very patient. Have a great time with those grandsons.
You are so right, Carol. 40lbs in 3 years is excellent! And the best part of it, probably, is that you're able to keep it off.
While I was reading around some other threads on other parts of the boards this morning, I ran across this link about calorie counting that somebody had posted.
It seemed to be about the "necessity" of counting calories, and there were some comments about how intuitive eating didn't really work because people could cut down, but really couldn't cut down enough probably, unless they started being more precise with their calorie counting.
Have you found ANY need, so far, for doing any kind of calorie counting, or substituting foods during your weight loss?
Inside, I feel like this is the right way to go, but running across viewpoints like in the article really makes me second guess myself.
A quick hello this morning getting ready to go to church. I had my WI this morning and I have finally got my 1st 10 lb loss. It has taken me a long time (months) getting here. Now that my eating has kind of taken a certain direction on its own maybe it will start coming down.
Carolr Thanks for the May's article. It really helped me a lot because I forget to listen to my gut feelings when it comes to eating. I am so bad about doing what I "think" I should do rather than listening to what my body tells me it needs. That is a biggy I think when it comes to Intuitive Eating. That is just as much a part of IE as learning to know when I'm hungry and when I am satisfied. Maybe what our body sometimes craves is what it really needs right then.
Yes, Becky, I still think about calories but I don't count them. I think I probably know the calories in most foods and I don't think I"ll stop thinking about it but I just don't pay attention to it.
Hi, ladies...I'm always in a quandary. On those days when I feel heaviest and worst, I always feel like I "have to do something" really major about my weight. Yesterday I was feeling that way, so I tried to do a low carb day. Ate protein and fat for my meals (but enjoyed two brownies in the afternoon).
I'm two or three pounds down this morning, and feeling "lighter". It was all water weight that went, but even so, it messes with my mind and makes me wonder whether or not I should try to battle myself into a low carb way of eating.
But low carb isn't something I can do for the rest of my life. It isn't something I can do for a couple of days, so it certainly can't be the answer for me (even though many times I wish it could be, simply because I think there are lots of health benefits from eating that way).
Even though I ate a plain hamburg patty with cheese on it for breakfast, I think I'm back to "eating whatever" for the rest of the day.
I really wish that my weight, my size, and what I'm eating or not eating wasn't such an obsession. I waste an awful lot of time and life worrying about this stuff.
Awe Becky I am so sorry I don't have any answers because I fight the same battle. I love low carb woe, but I like other foods too so I never know for sure. I read so many good things about it and I love the benefits. But I too think some of the other foods especially fiber foods are good. There is a lady that writes on many threads on 3fc named kaplods who does a modified low carb/low calorie that she made up of her own. I've kind of incorporated some of her ideas myself. You might see if you can read some of her ideas.
Got to run have a dental appt. So I'll catch you later.
This morning I was thinking about how sometimes, old ways can be best. I'm thinking that might hold true in what we eat too.
I grew up in the 60s and early 70s, when people still ate a "balanced diet", meaning they didn't try to cut out whole categories of foods the way we tend to do now. People didn't fear fat in foods. You might hear of a lady saying she was "cutting back on bread" for awhile, if she was trying to lose a few pounds, but that was about it.
For the most part, meals contained protein, fat, and carbs. This is how we ate then, and I'm thinking it's how I feel best now, when I make sure to have some of each thing at a meal.
I'm thinking that, instead of worrying about which components to leave out of a meal, I might just go back to the "old ways" of putting a little bit of meat, one or two veggies, and a little bit of a starch on our plates at meal times. I might make casseroles or other things too, but maybe I'll just try to build around those foods, and still leave room for dessert too.
Maybe if I "unlearn" a whole bunch of stuff I've learned through my unsuccessful diet years, I'll be better off. I may or may not lose much weight, but I'd probably feel better, physically and emotionally, if I wasn't constantly in turmoil about the simple act of eating.
The thing about IE is it takes time. If you are continually going off and on a diet whether is low carb or low cal, your body doesn't know that you might be in a famine so it starts to conserve energy. After a long time of not dieting, your body can relax and burn fuel the way it is supposed to. I know how hard it is to accomplish this because very few people advocate it.
Maybe if I "unlearn" a whole bunch of stuff I've learned through my unsuccessful diet years, I'll be better off. I may or may not lose much weight, but I'd probably feel better, physically and emotionally, if I wasn't constantly in turmoil about the simple act of eating.
I think you're spot on!
It has taken me a while to finally learn to relax around food. Unfortunately that meant gaining weight to get there. (And now I am at my highest weight ever.) I know exactly what you're talking about when it comes to grasping at straws and thinking that you've got to DO something or things will just get worse and worse and worse. That is where I've been recently myself. I can't say that I'm "cured" of diet mentality just yet, but I'm finally learning to find the balance between eating the "healthy" well rounded meals that you're talking about and being able to enjoy dessert, too.
It has taken soooo long to break free from thinking that if I eat a cookie in the middle of the day that I had better have two or three more because I may not get another one for a long time. And if I "blew" it by having a few cookies that the whole day is a wash so go ahead and eat junk the rest of the day (on top of meals). To go from that thinking to just relaxing around food and eating the "healthy" (for lack of a better term) as well as the treats has been a huge step for me. I agree with Carol totally here ... patience and time (with a little extra patience!) But this point you are at of realizing that you need to unlearn all the diet mumbo-jumbo is crucial to making IE work!!!
Here's an example of the balance I'm finding at the moment and the thought process behind it ...
For breakfast I had a grapefruit and 1/2 bagel with cream cheese on it. In the past I was not a big fruit eater, but have really taken a liking to grapefruits lately and so I'm eating them because I enjoy them ... and because I know they are "healthy" and "good for me." Now the bagel on the other hand is loaded with calories and in the past I would have eaten a whole one smothered with cream cheese but because I had already eaten the grapefruit and was just wanting a little something else to eat, I had the 1/2 bagel (because I really DO enjoy bagels, too even tho in diet world they are probably considered a "no-no" food because they are packed with calories. But I honored my taste buds there, too.
Lunch was a salad and two halves of two different types of cookies (large cookies, that's why I only ate half of them). I ate the "healthy" salad and still got to enjoy my cookies. The best part, I don't feel deprived like on a low carb diet or restricting calories, etc. I used regular ranch dressing on the salad, too, so low fat diets would frown on that. But I feel great about my meal and have moved on. I'm not secretly wishing I could eat a cookie. I'm not craving one. I'm relaxed and ready to go on with my day. This has really taken me a long time to reach this point but it feels good! Very good.
I have to run, but just wanted to say "hang in there" Truffle! I know sometimes it looks like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but there is!
Becky I have often felt the same way you do about just eating balanced or eat the way I did as a young girl when I augwas thin. I think there are a lot of good nutritional info out there, but what gets to me is that they decide something is bad for you and I quit using it and then all of a sudden they decide it was not or at least not as bad as they thought. Maybe that is why IE says there are no good foods/bad foods.
Blue I know what you mean about getting past those guilt feelings when you eat something you know diets say are "no, nos". That has been a difficult time getting past those "diet" thoughts, but I'm getting there. I am still working through that. I go to the store and pick something up and Tony will look at me and I tell him "hey, I can have it". You are doing good.
Carolr Thanks for helping us with things and encouraging us.
Congrats on the 10 lbs Trish!
Becky, I identify so much with the obsessing over food and diets. During one period I must have read 5 or more diet books in succession. There was also the time I tried Atkins for a few days. I was doing great, had an apple, decided I blew it and never did Atkins again. I like your idea of balanced meals. Certainly when I was growing up we had our share of crazy diets. There was a Stillman diet book which gave various diets, all containing 2 foods and lots of water. One day I ate nothing but eggs and tomatoes!
I went "off" today. There was some anxiety producing news at work about layoffs that may or may not affect me. Also my boyfriend is sicker, and is having more breathing problems. One of the things I did was I inhaled all the crackers in a box in my desk today. Luckily, there wasn't more than a couple of servings left. I was able to come home and have a normal dinner, though--cottage cheese, pineapple pieces and raisin toast, and I think I will have something else. I don't feel panicky about my earlier transgressions.
I am so sorry I don't have any answers because I fight the same battle. I love low carb woe, but I like other foods too so I never know for sure. I read so many good things about it and I love the benefits. But I too think some of the other foods especially fiber foods are good. There is a lady that writes on many threads on 3fc named kaplods who does a modified low carb/low calorie that she made up of her own. I've kind of incorporated some of her ideas myself. You might see if you can read some of her ideas.
