4 hr eating window today was so easy. Tomorrow will be Day 3. They always say that is the hardest. I hope this plan will be easier. Goodnight.

Trish, I just realized that I missed your post yesterday afternoon because we posted at the same time. I didn't see it until this morning.

I don't think Cracker Barrel has salmon. I see they have salmon patties but they are not healthy. They are coated with cornmeal and fried. There are healthier versions to cook at home. The salmon I buy are frozen fillets. I think the salmon in restaurants is fresh salmon. I will eat mine, but DH will not. Very few restaurants in my area still have it on the menu because it is expensive. I want to find a way to cook it so it is moister and not so dried out.

I did not sleep as well last night. I think I did everything the same. I don't know why.

You are doing great eating in 4 hour window. Mine is more like 5 or 6 because DH keeps cooking breakfast early. I would rather eat at 10-11.

The club where my BIL and step daughter go has closed. Several people who go there have tested positive for covid 19. I can't say positively that my BIL caused it, but my step daughter was the one who told me he tested positive and then was up there a few days later, coughing. I'm starting to think I might never have family get togethers here again. His wife was the one who came here sick a couple years ago. DH and I go out of our way to avoid getting sick, colds, flu and the like, and avoid passing it to others. I love my family dearly but if they are not going to be considerate of others I don't need to socialize with them. I don't know what else to do.

DH couldn't sleep so he got up and cooked breakfast at 7 AM. Yikes! Sure put a cog in my wheels. Now he is asleep in his recliner. The Steelers don't play today so its going to be a very long day for him. Its going to be a long time until dinner. I'm thinking its going to be early.
​​​​​

Doing my usual- want to work extra hard in December and then do even worse with regards to eating. I'm not sure why that is but it is frustrating. Weight is up a little bit today as a result.

We got our Christmas tree and it is a really beauty this year. We even splurged and got new lights for it. The old ones were 27 years old and taped back together after the cat chewed them up. I need to finish ordering Christmas gifts.

I tried to use a different type of elliptical at the community center (different place than my usual rec center). I definitely can't do it without my braces. I tried it with my braces and I still can't use it. It affects my knees. My knees in general are in really good shape. One was really sore after PT this summer because I aggravated my small meniscus tear. I tore it eight years ago and it healed without issue (no PT, no surgery). I have bad ankles/feet but knees are good. The rec center limits us to only three visits per week. I had been going four. That's why I was trying make the community center work.

Fall thread results summary: | | | |

Carol Sue I like salmon patties but DH won't eat them. I used to make good ones and corn meal is a 0 pt food on SF plan so that fat would be pts, but that would be no problem with weeklies. However, I wouldn't want to use them on salmon patties. If I was going to do that, I would just have the fried catfish that I like, but I will probably stick to the baked because I can cook fried fish at home and use my 2 T oil for that day.

PIpsicle I actually hurt my knees years ago using a machine at the YMCA that I really loved doing. So we have to be careful what we use as we get older. My knees are the reason I use my recumbent bike. It actually helps them.

Right now I am really enjoying doing 2MAD. since I stay up late with DH I decided to make it work for me. If I eat breakfast, then I know I will have 3MAD so I need to not eat early in the day. I remember Daddy telling Mama one time that he was fine if he never took that first bite of food each day. He could go all day without eating that way. I also noticed when DBS stayed with us when Daddy died that she doesn't eat all day. She did a liquid fast as she drank coffee most of the day until she got hungry. She loves tuna fish and would make a big bowl of tuna salad and then would eat just a enough bites of it when she got hungry to satisfy her hunger. So I've decided to do the same thing doing 2MAD. I don't have to cook a meal until I cook for DH and me around 3 in the afternoon. I don't go to bed until around 12:30 or 1 am to be with him on his schedule.. I heard years ago that we should stop eating at least 4 hrs before going to bed. So if I eat some where around 3 in the afternoon and stop eating before 8 pm I'm good. Most days I can do 4 hr window by not eating after 7 pm however there are days I'm not hungry until after 7 so on those day I will do a 5 hr window. So I figure that my eating window most days will be 4 or 5 hrs. I hope there will come a day when I might be able to throw in a OMAD but I'm not planning on it. ln fact I also know there will be days when I will have a 3MAD and that won't be a bad thing either because I read it is good because it doesn't cause our bodies to go into starvation mode. And the main thing is that I won't feel like I'm dieting and I won't feel deprived of anything because this will become a lifestyle because this is the way I ate when I was thin. Will I ever get back to my 150 lb goal? I don't know but I will be healthy and that is a big goal right there.

I decided to take a peak at the scale this morning and my weight is the same as it was Friday when I started back on 2MAD. That is awesome to me since I'm eating what I want, when I want it and really enjoying it just as IE teaches us to do. BTW I found the newer version of the IE book on my kindle. I didn't remember having it so instead of buying the work book I'm just going to read it. I also noticed that Amazon has a lot of EI and Mindful eating books I can get on my kindle of $0. So I may read some of those too so I can get better at this.

Have a nice Sunday everybody.

Trish, its funny that you mentioned that your Dad was not hungry until he ate the first bite because that's how I am. Then after I start eating, I don't feel satisfied until I'm stuffed. That's where my problem comes in, and I need to correct that. I think if I learn to eat slower that would help. I have a lot of PDFs about IE and Mindful Eating on my tablet so I will read them over and see if that's something I need.

I made good lasagne tonight and DH will eat the leftovers for his lunch. Maybe I will make salmon patties this week.

You are doing good with your eating window and will probably continue dropping. Good job!

Carol Sue I recently realized that I am like my Daddy when it comes to eating. I noticed one day that I was fine if I didn't eat breakfast. Last Friday when I decided to go to the beauty shop and come straight home after instead of going to the store, I decided it was too early to eat breakfast before going to the beauty shop so decided I would wait until I got home since I was working on a 16:8 IF ratio. When I got home I made a cup of coffee and set down to check email while drinking it. Suddenly I realized that it was almost noon and I hadn't eat anything. That was when I realized that I could wait till I cooked our late lunch. It went so well Friday that I decided to do it again yesterday. That went so well that I'm doing it again today. Remember how I get so hungry after eating breakfast on Sunday for lunch. Well unless things change, I may end up not eating a 2nd meal. Since I'm doing this intuitively, I will just see if I get hungry and if I don't I will see if this can be a OMAD. I think I'm in that stage of learning to recognize hunger. It has been a lllloooonnnggg time since I've been able to do this. The only thing I'm not good at is doing IE putting weight loss on the back burner because I want to lose weight. LOL

We will go to the store tomorrow when we go mail out the family calendars we do every Christmas so I think I will get a can of salmon as I could make up some patties to eat for supper since DH doesn't eat it with me.

I had a bad couple of days. Felt so discouraged. So I ate pretty normally, but smallish portions. Today I am 158. so not horrible.
I will go back to fasting today and see where I get this week.
I have a busy week especially from Wednesday on, I have my last day of clinical work doing final visits, then a 2 day meeting, on zoom, for my trust work.
After that I just have two half days of trust work for the month.

Carol: I hear you about relatives. We are kind of risky having younger DD here if she comes for Christmas brunch. She and her partner are careful and always mask and social distance at work. they are socializing virtually so they are fine. But Christmas eve they will go to his mother's house over night. I don't know who is in her "bubble" and we are debating if DD should come over after that.
She is worried about going to her partner's father's place, because they are not careful. She says she will keep a mask on( N95 without the valve) and not eat.
If she went there first, for sure I would say not to come here after ward.
So we have some chats about Christmas day to come.
It will take quite a while for the vaccine to get distributed, but I sure look forward to it.

I spent a lot of time in bed but most of the time I was not able to sleep. Fitbit says I was in light sleep but I felt like I was awake. I didn't take Tylenol. I have been trying to break that habit. The night before that I took it because my back hurt but it did not help my sleep. I did notice that the two days I slept well I was busy those 2 days instead of sitting so much. So the key could be to be more active.

IE is not really for weight loss. It is meant to correct eating disorders like binge eating. You are not meant to consider yourself to be on a diet and are not supposed to weigh. I have been watching my weight since I was 21 and it is a firmly planted habit that is not going to stop now. But I believe the principles of eating only when hungry and stopping when no longer hungry can be helpful for weight loss as overeating is mostly a habit that has developed over time and in many cases it develops because food is so readily available compared to back when I was a kid and the only food available was the food my mother prepared for meals. Nowadays there seems to be food available that can be eaten at any time. Convenience food. It is not necessarily unhealthy, but if it is food eaten when not hungry it is giving the body fuel that it does not need and its stored as fat. The fat is stored for fuel when food is not available but that time no longer comes. Food is always available.

When I was in school I never ate breakfast. I was always nauseated when I first got up, maybe nervous about school, but once I started working I went back to eating breakfast. It was always eggs, and I consider eggs to be good nutrition. Once I started watching my weight I focused on protein. I like oatmeal, but I would always choose eggs over cereal. I guess this is why I always have an early eating window. Night eating has always been considered bad for me, although I now know that there are those who have no interest in eating in the morning. I don't think one or the other is wrong.

Another important principle of IE is eating what you want. I find that if I eat what I think I should be eating it does not satisfy me and I continue to look for something to eat to bring satisfaction. If I eat what I want i can eat a small portion and I am satisfied much longer. I believe that this is why people who are normal eaters don't give any thought to what or when they eat. Their internal mechanism is working properly. They automatically eat according to their needs and that is reflected in their weight. They pay no attention to their weight unless their clothes become tight or loose. This is how we all should be. This is just my opinion. If I knew the answer I would not be so overweight!

To sum it up, I want my plan to be eating when hungry, something that is nutritious and enjoyable to me, and stopping before I am full. Eating reasonable portions, realizing I can throw food away if there's too much. Better in the disposal than in my belly!

Mad, I understand your wanting to spend Christmas with your girls. Its normal. I was recently surprised to hear DH say he is concerned with his daughters social life and the effect it can have on us. And she understands and has her own plans. I would never tell him he can't see his children on holidays or any other time. Step sons in laws are staying in town until Jan or Feb and his wife always chooses to be with her parents. The only time they come here is when her parents are in AZ for the winter. Her mother had surgery last week so they are staying here thru her recovery for doctor visits. DIL has tried to have the holidays at her house with both sets of parents but we have other people to consider so we don't go. This year it is settled that we are content to spend it with each other.

Pipsicle it is impressive that you continue to do everything you can to keep up your exercise despite circumstances.

Fatmad Sorry you are having a struggle with your eating, but I'm sure you will get it going. Sounds like you are having some changes in your life that might make it easier when things will eventually get settled. Maybe you can spend some time with your DD and her partner before they go to his family.

Carol Sue What I call IE isn't what most people would call IE because of me also doing IF. In fact, when we had the active IE on 3fc, I finally left the group because I was told I wasn't doing IE. However, I wasn't doing IE to learn how to eat more or binge, I was doing it to learn how to eat less. As I've always said (read somewhere else), if I eat because it is time to eat and I'm not hungry, I just "over ate". Maybe that is why the old WW SF plan works better for me because they just say eat when you are hungry and stop when you are satisfied. That was one thing I didn't like about IE was that they said when you are full, but I like satisfied better as I think when I start feeling full, I've eaten too much. I want to learn how it feels to be satisfied not full. I do like the idea of eating what you really want to eat and savor or enjoy it. When I made my 0 pt spaghetti with low pt garlic bread, I thoroughly enjoyed every bite. When I started feeling full, I threw the rest down the garbage disposal. I too have learned that if I don't eat what I really want and eat something I should eat instead, I noticed that I end up binging because nothing satisfied me. However, if I eat what I really want, I not only can eat a few bites or a serving and then forget it and not eat another bite the rest of the day. So I guess I'm doing my personal way of IE that just happens to fall within a IF ratio which varies between 4 to 8 hr windows depending on hunger that day. Using the SFPF as my guide, I'm doing it healthier. It works for me so who cares what anyone else thinks.

Weight was down to 188.4 this morning. FBG which was going up is starting to come down again. I ended up with a 5 hr eating window yesterday. Today is day 4 of of IF which looks to be a 4 or 5 hr eating window. We are going to post office to mail the family calendars and go by the store to get a few things. Not sure if we will go to Walmart or local store. We will either get McDs or Taco Bell. I can now do either one will low pts or no pts. I still have 36 weekly pts since I didn't use any weeklies yesterday.

Have a nice day everyone.

That's what I was saying, Trish, more like Mindful Eating. There is a Japanese custom called Hara Bacha Bu which means they eat until they're 80 % full.

This is why many of them live into the 100s.

I did OMAD yesterday and am still 158 this am. I do plan to eat supper tonight because older DD will be here. Getting the car back from her after her trip away for her birthday. Tomorrow is the only day both DH and I need a car. We would be fine with just one vehicle, but that will not be true when things open up again this summer. Not counting on being able to travel much before then. But once that happens, we should be free to go out and about more. It would be more important to have 2 cars when DH is up at the cottage and I am not. It does seem wasteful to have 2 vehicles though. We will see how it goes over the next year or two. These months don't count. And I don't want to feel restricted. I know its why my parents still had 2 cars.
In any case. I hope everyone stays well and safe and you can get vaccines this winter if you choose. I am not sure how it will roll out there, we are getting specifics about how it will work here in our province.
Have a good day friends.

We have exceeded 500 posts in this thread.

Follow this link to the Winter thread.

Diabetes and Prediabetes Chat Winter 2020/2021 - 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community