Tolerance threshold?
 

I'm putting this here, because it's not a body image issue per se, and I think that if someone has had a chance of having experienced what I'm going to ask about, it must be a maintainer rather than someone who is just starting their weight loss journey. I hope I'm not in the wrong forum all the same. :)

I've been pondering a thought, and this is: is it possible and even common that one's 'tolerance threshold to wrong foods' may/will change the more and the longer they stick to a healthy lifestyle?

I may be mistaken, it may be due to many other reasons, it may just be in my head, but in the past weeks, I've had the feeling that I just cannot take as much as I could before. In a couple of occurrences following a very bad eating day, I've even found myself half-sick--when I know that before, when my eating habits were a catastrophe, I wouldn't even have batted an eyelash about that. If I decide to go eat at McDonald's, I know that I'll have to face two days of, uhm, unfortunate consequences. And this past week (cf. the birthday thingy in that other thread), for the first time in my life, eating a little too much chocolate/very sugary food sent me into quite a bad fits--that is, it seems evident to me that cold sweats, headache and trembling hands aren't exactly the result you expect from eating a little too much cake. (Well, alright, it wasn't "just a little": that cake was really, really good, home-made and all, and I was not the only one to go on eating it when I was already feeling full and even a little sick. Everybody at the party did just that. Yuck.)

Anyway--has any of you experienced something similar? Can one's body, if fed with the right foods for long enough, become intolerant to some of the crappy, junk, processed foods it was able to digest well enough before? (Or are such reactions totally abnormal, which would mean there is something definitely wrong with my health... Heh.)

Kery, while you know I'm not a maintainer right now, I have been there before for quite some time. I definitely had these issues and STILL do, even being overweight now. Some "bad" stuff has a horrible effect on my body, even when I ate that stuff when I was overweight prior to joining WW in 1999. So, I think what you are going through is "normal" , at least from my experience and perspective.

Like fast food - I just can not eat it without dire consequences. My body is not used to it anymore and therefore pretty much rejects it. Also, fatter milk - I find it rather disgusting, but I had no problem drinking whole milk or even 2% prior to 1999. Just a few examples for you :)

By the way, totally meant to post and wish you a happy birthday!! Happy belated!!!!

Kery, this is an amazingly timely post for me! I went out to dinner last night with DH and was going to post about it this morning. So you beat me to it!

Yes, yes, YES! Let me tell you about last night and then about what I've concluded.

DH and I went out to celebrate our anniversary (28!) to a lovely restaurant in an old mansion. I was determined not to count calories and just to enjoy a wonderful meal because my weight is right where I want it to be. I had a bowl of fresh corn soup, a small salad with a tiny bit of dressing, a little bit of smoked salmon, and a small steak. I ate a bite or two of the potatoes that came with the steak. And I had two little pieces of bread dipped in olive oil. The portions weren't huge and everything was served like a work of art.

I was very hungry and the meal stretched out over a couple of hours. Compared to others there, I wasn't pigging out. And I was eyeing the desserts as they went past with every intention of having one (they had strawberry shortcake with homemade ice cream and fresh peach tart :faint: ).

But ... I started feeling faint again. This is now the third time it's happened to me in the past year, all after meals in a restaurants. The first time I actually passed out (in the lobby of a four-star resort - they even called a paramedic :o). The second time I was smart enough to ask DH to take me outside, where I laid on a park bench for 15 minute until I felt better. I was really close to passing out again that time and was weaving as I walked, the world was getting gray and closing in etc. Last night, thankfully, it wasn't as bad but I knew I had to stop eating right then. No dessert, no coffee, let's get out of here!

Of course, I went to my doctor after Episode One and she checked everything out (the stress test was a blast due to all the cardio I do :D) and there wasn't anything wrong. So her conclusion was that it was low blood pressure due to eating (my blood pressure was only 90/50 when the paramedic took it 15 minutes after my little episode in the resort). My BP normally is about 103/60 now that I've lost weight and she said it doesn't take much to drop it into the danger zone. Apparently, eating will pull the blood from your extremities and send it to your stomach to help with digestion and that's when I get into trouble. Fainting is just your body's way of getting blood to the brain. I guess mine was all in my stomach! :lol: I think it's the same reason why I always get cold after I eat.

So ... this is the long way of saying that my body has become used to small meals of about 250 calories. And when I overload the system with a "normal" meal, it can't cope with the increased demands. The blood rushes to my stomach, my normally low BP plummets and I start to pass out.

Isn't that the weirdest thing ever? It's a built in inhibitor against eating big meals! My body can't handle a lot of calories any more. Believe me, back in the old days, I could have eaten that dinner and then roared through two desserts with one hand tied behind my back. But no more.

I know a lot of people get sick when they eat the wrong kinds of food, like your cake, Kery, or fast food. My body just seems to be unable to handle a large volume of food, regardless of what it is. It's actually a good thing because it keeps me on the straight and narrow -- but I'm not the most fun dinner date in the world. :rofl:

PS -- I'm really annoyed because the scale is up 2.8 pounds today. :p

Hey!

Meg, that's some story! BP, who knew! Mine, as you know, is also in the lower range these days, but I haven't had your experience. I hope I don't! :(

Kery, there is definitely a change in what one wants to eat and can eat. That's been true for me. I used to eat everything they brought me in a restaurant, and these days I'm full pretty quickly and either take home or leave half the food. I almost never have room for dessert--if I want to eat a dessert-type food, I have to plan it separately from a meal, that is, go out later for dessert and coffee. Most of the time I don't make it there.

I haven't had your experience of being sick, Kery, but I generally haven't kept eating after I am full, and especially not sweet foods. If I do overeat sweet foods, especially late at night, I wake up with a sugar-hangover headache.

Velveteen, yes, 1% milk tastes normal to me now. I used to drink whole milk and loved it, and I used half-and-half in my coffee. So tastes do change!

Jay

OMG...finally a reason why my fingernails turn purple and I have to put on a sweater, even when it's 90 degrees...after lunch every single day. For some reason it's only lunch although the purple fingernail thing happens after dinner sometimes. Thanks Meg for this incredible insight into something I have been wondering about for a year!!!!

OK, so it's not just me. I don't know if I should consider this phenomenon a blessing or a curse... but I guess a blessing will do. After all, it does help in keeping in control; that ice-cream doesn't look so appealing nor tempting anymore if you already know you're going to spend the night on the toilet. :D

Meg, that's an interesting thing as well. Now if we had any idea of why our bodies react this way, with a change in BP and all (I'd never have thought this could happen!).

Our bodies react that way because they're supposed to. It's normal. :)

Jay

Come to think of it, rejecting crap, that's indeed quite a normal reaction. You're so right!

Yikes, Meg, that doesn't sound fun at all! Your husband must be thrilled :P

I'm finding that I have a lower tolerance, and less space, for high-fat foods. I run into a little bit of GI distress, but the main thing is that I feel full really, really quickly. I can eat giant plates of vegetables, but if the food is cooked with lots of butter or oil, I feel full and sick fairly quickly.

I went to a party last night and my friend had made pate and baked brie and some delicious chocolate-puff-pastry concoction. I can't resist any of those things and they're rare treats, so I ate a fair bit of them, especially the pate, but not as much as I'd have eaten in the past (I skipped the bread in favor of crackers, for one thing). Before long though, I really was feeling uncomfortably full and had a bit of a tummy ache and my digestive system is unhappy with me this morning.

I had a similar experience at an Indian restaurant in Seattle a couple of weeks ago. I ate a normal volume of food, but it was cooked with much more fat than I'm used to, so I became uncomfortably full very quickly and without really pigging out.

It's a good thing really. My body wants its volume through delicious veggies and not through excess oil or butter.

I kind of wish I had these problems! Okay, not the fainting one, for sure. The only thing I notice when I overdo it is that I don't sleep well, and have hot flashes that only happen when I overeat or eat rich food. I swear I can feel my body revving up to try and metabolize the excess or unfamiliar food. Wish that stopped me from overdoing it. :( The interesting thing is, however, that I often run better (i.e., longer or faster) the next day.

Do you? That's interesting. I had a good run today, but I was hopeless during my weights session. I couldn't lift any of the weights I lifted last week and I got annoyed and quit halfway through :( I was wondering if the pate and cocktails had something to do with it...

I often run better after eating too much (marathoners do carb load for a REASON)

But yeah, my body does not tolerate certain things- mostly refined carbs- like it used to. I mentioned on another thread I had a run in with a can of reddi whip and I was depressed, irritable, insomnia, hot flashes, night sweats

Come to think of it....I did run well the next day though :rofl:

When I eat foods that I shouldn't eat, I get sick from it. Especially ice cream. I had always figured it was my blood sugar crashing that causes the problem. Interesting though it may be my blood pressure. My blood pressure normally runs about 110/60 now. It's amazing how our bodies have a built in mechanism to help prevent us from eating junk or from overeating. I just need to heed this warning.

Me too. I might get a little gassy afterward, but mostly it is no problem. The main problem is that I want to keep eating that way.

I figure when I'm running better the next day, just go with it and work a little more of it off.

Anne

Ice-cream has become a serious weakness for me as well--perhaps even more than the regular chocolate/cookies/cake themselves. It's going to be hard to check if it's blood pressure in my case as well, if only because, uh, I don't feel like eating ice-cream just to check that! I thought it was blood sugar as well. Oh well. I have no idea any more. Let's say I just need to avoid eating that stuff, and things will be alright. :D

Although I sometimes get light headed when dieting (and I'm sure it has to do with low BP) I haven't experienced what Meg described. Instead, I'm "blessed" with a kind of dumping syndrome after eating anything with high fat. I've found some probiotics that seem to keep the problem in check, but there was a time where a meal that included something high in fat would lead to serious stomach cramps and diarrhea within a couple hours of the meal. I wonder if people who are taking Alli experience this same type of thing?

It's not just me??? I definitely am much more sensitive to overeating and overdrinking now than I ever was. I will feel faint, dizzy, even nauseous overeating on "bad" foods (feeling is not as bad, or doesn't come, overeating healthier foods though). I tend to get lots of extra ahem, gas, sometimes other intestinal problems. Drinking alcohol will also sometimes make me sick to my stomach (even if I've only had 1 or 2 drinks - I'm not talking about getting sick from drinking excessively), and if I'm trying to eat foods I don't normally and drink alcohol as often happens at a party, well, watch out. I wish I could just learn to control my eating in social situations...I'm better but not quite there yet.

Actually eating or overeating 'unusual' foods also affects just about everything, and I get a lot of the symptoms mentioned here. I get more headaches, don't sleep well, feel like crap, feel really tired and cranky - just generally am not fun to be around.

I have a story similar to Meg's about fainting and I'm glad to finally learn I'm not the only one. A little over 2 1/2 years ago I had just started a new job. I'd been totally OP for about 4 months, went on travel for a meeting at work, and ended up eating a meal that was much, much larger and full of white carby, fatty foods I hadn't eaten in quite a while. I ended up fainting an hour or two later in front of my new boss and new co-workers, swan diving onto a concrete walkway and cutting my head right above my eye. Thank goodness the cut wasn't deep and my eyebrow, though never quite the same, hides the scar completely. I never went to a dr. b/c of lack of health insurance. Glad to know I'm not alone. BTW, though my boss joked for about two years whenever he saw me with a drink "who's going to follow Megan with the pillow?" my relationship with my colleagues was none the worse for wear.

My BP has always been quite low. It is about 110/70 now, but it was always low before I lost weight, too, in fact even lower (90/60 was not an unusual reading for me). Hmm...

Thank you very much for this thread. If confirms some experiences I have had eating things my body can no longer tolerate.

Yes, it is healthy to reject what is unhealthy.

You all are super! :)