January/February weight management challenge

[azfiddle]

Lately it seems like I have been relying too much on carbs. I seem to be over my allotment of calories or WW points almost every day.

Just trying to do something different, today I tried celery with some eggplant red pepper spread with my lunch, also some leftover weightwatchers cabbage soup with a little oriental twist, ginger, snow peas, broccoli etc, a little rice and chicken, and a little soy sauce and sriracha sauce to give it some lift. More vegetables, anyway.

[goldfinch]

I read an article that says that in cultures where people generally are NOT fat despite rich foods (like in France) is because they are taught to stop in a different manner than we are.

In the US and many other cultures, we stop eating when we are full.
In France, they are taught to stop eating when they are no longer hungry.

It's a subtle difference, yet intriguing. I've tried to retrain my thinking in this manner. I don't want to feel full. I just want to be "no longer hungry".

Maybe.

I know that I am never full and I am always hungry. I just aim for "less full" and "less hungry."

[ny biker]

Maybe.

I know that I am never full and I am always hungry. I just aim for "less full" and "less hungry."

Do you mean your stomach is always rumbling?

[goldfinch]

Do you mean your stomach is always rumbling?

It is more the drive, the desire for food. Appetite is more than a rumbly stomach.

I even remember when this started, though my doctor poos poos this. Years ago I got pregnant and ended up with way out of whack hormones. This made me ill and I would vomit many times a day. Think morning sickness times 100. I had to be fed through a feeding tube and given liquids intervenously. I lost a lot weight that I could not afford to lose. This went on for a couple of months and then I miscarried. The hormones went back to normal and I was Hungry. I was hungry like I could never have imagined before being hungry. I never was not hungry. I never was full. I gained a lot of weight.

I think this is what happens with many people who go on starvation diets. Their bodies are driven to eat.

For years I felt the ever present hunger. It eased off somewhat with time but never has truly left.

I am sure that there are both physical and psychological components to my drive to eat. I have been pretty successful dealing with eating triggers, or as the behaviorists say, the discriminative stimuli. For example, I can't talk about diet and food a lot because it makes me hungry. I am hungry right now and want a snack, even though I am 100 calories over my daily allotment. I need to go do something else, that does not trigger an eating desire, but cues something else, like getting sleepy.