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.

[GLC1968]

This is part of my strategy too. An egg for breakfast would never satisfy me. So, I put a little water in the bottom of a saute pan (no oil), toss in a cup of mushrooms, some diced red peppers, some onions, some garlic, a couple of handfuls of spinach, maybe some asparagus is I have it on hand, etc. I steam saute all of that until tender, then toss an egg (and usually a 2nd egg white) on top of the whole thing and toss it all together into a scramble. I end up with a nice pile on my plate, that takes a long time to eat, all for 2 WW points. I sometimes add some habanero peppers to the saute, or some salsa at the end. Last weekend I wrapped it all up into a high fiber tortilla (3 pts) with salsa.

At lunch I always have a big spinach salad - spinach, 'shrooms, peppers, perhaps some jicama, maybe some tomato, etc. Topped with a balsamic/olive oil dressing (ration of vinegar to oil is about 20:1). These are huge salads, so even though nothing is a trackable point with WW (veggies are free), I still charge myself 3 points for it. 1 for the olive oil (even though I don't think I'm even using a teaspoon's worth) and 2 for the veggies. Then, I charge myself for all the "toppings". 2 oz of chicken, perhaps, or 1/4 of an avocado. Add a piece of fruit on the side and it's a pretty big meal.

Dinner always involves large quantities of (usually) steamed veggies. Last night I steamed a pile broccoli & cauliflower. A tablespoon of sriracha makes a great dipping sauce. A few ounces of protein on the side and I'm good to go!

I've learned that I make BAD choices when I'm hungry, especially at night. So, if huge piles of veggies are what it takes to fill the empty space in my stomach, then that's what it takes.

Of course, I'm super busy, so the only way I can make all these meals is by doing prep work for multiple meals at once. I chop enough veggies for multiple meals and store them all in containers in the fridge. I buy pre-washed organic spinach and lettuce. I don't peel things like carrots and potatoes (I eat the skins). I make my lunchtime salads the night before, when I'm making my dinner salad. Etc.

Just in case you were wondering - this is a very paleo-like meal plan.

I know it'll add points, but if you are finding yourself hungry - you could increase the fat a little. Particularly on the salads as all the good nutrients in a salad are fat-soluble so you'll absorb much more of them when they are eaten with a little more fat (not a lot...just a little). It REALLY helps with satiety, too...much more, even, than protein does.

[GLC1968]

I gained half a lb. last night so it's either the quinoa, the soy marinade, or having (my normal) 2 thin pork chops. DH gained also. Back to the drawing board.

Wait, a half a pound? Seriously? There is no need to return to any drawing board for 0.5 of a lb.

Not only could it be water like others suggested, but it could also just be the physical food still in your system. No one 'empties' the exact same amount at the exact same time every day - so a 1/2 lb fluctuation should be completely ignored (unless it happens 10 days in a row ).

[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?

[Veronica]

V, how long is your long run? Just curious.

Right now I'm running for about 90 minutes.

I eat no carbs most nights. Dinner is generally a plate of protein in the form of fish, chicken or filet mignon. So adding any carbs at night is "carb loading" for me and a normal dinner probably for most people.

Veronica

[Susan Otcenas]

Just in case you were wondering - this is a very paleo-like meal plan.

Oh, I know. Except that pesky tortilla, of course. And the fact that some mornings I do oatmeal instead of the egg. And that sometimes my evening side of protein is tofu. :-) And I could never give up beans and lentils. Or quinoa...

All that said, I find that to be truly successful on WW, I do have to dial back the bread/pasta/rice/grains, etc. and NOT because I think those are bad things to eat. They all have lots of healthful benefits and I would never cut them out entirely. The reason I end up reducing them is because they are calorie dense at a given volume of food. For me, being hungry or not is mostly about the *volume* I put in my stomach. 1 cup of broccoli or a cup of pasta take up the same amount of space, but the broccoli is lower in calories AND packs a greater nutritional punch. So, I pick the broccoli 9 times out of 10.

I know it'll add points, but if you are finding yourself hungry - you could increase the fat a little. Particularly on the salads as all the good nutrients in a salad are fat-soluble so you'll absorb much more of them when they are eaten with a little more fat (not a lot...just a little). It REALLY helps with satiety, too...much more, even, than protein does.

That's why I"ve been adding some avocado to my salads periodically. 1/4 is 2 points, which I can spare. And avocados are soooo yummy! I *want* to add a few nuts, but there's no such things as "a few nuts" in my world, so that's a non-starter. In the morings, I sometimes add a chicken sausage (Casual Gourmet Roasted Red Pepper Chicken Sausages, 3 pts each) which so a REALLY good job of adding some protein, and 4-5 grams of fat; totally satisfying and so yummy.

[Crankin]

I know for most people .5 lb. is nothing. On someone my size, it is. I am trying to discover why I dropped so much weight in the 3.5 days before. I *am* restricting my carbs even more than usual, but not totally. I allow myself one piece of whole wheat bread a day, or a couple of dried apricots/cranberries.
I haven't had a Luna Bar in 6 days.
What I have done fairly easily, is give up most fruit. I don't really want to do that. I don't like vegetables that much! They don't fill me up and I can't make them the main part of my meal. I always have a salad or maybe some sauteed zucchini, peppers, or other squash with dinner, but anything else either makes me gag, or hurts my stomach. Not to be gross, but it's pretty hard for me to digest most veggies and I have been to the emergency room more than once because I ate broccoli. So, I have to balance my "delicate" stomach with having to increase my veggie intake. This is good for my health overall, not just for losing weight.
Like Goldfinch, I am never "not hungry," and rarely "full." Truthfully, I can eat more than most people twice my size. Sometimes it is stomach rumbling hungry, other times, just the gnawing emptiness. I try to eat until I am just not hungry. I don't want to be one of those women who is always starving and just pushes food around on her plate.

[goldfinch]

I know for most people .5 lb. is nothing. On someone my size, it is. I am trying to discover why I dropped so much weight in the 3.5 days before.

I also am a small person but my weight can vary a couple of pounds or even more in the course of a day. I can easily weigh 108 in the morning and 110 in the afternoon. After all, we eat, drink, sweat and pee and our weight will change with the changes in water. I just figure it is statistical noise. If I weigh myself at the same time in the early a.m. under the same conditions, like I do for the weight challenge, I should have less variability but I do have variability there as well. When I was actively losing weight some weeks would stall and others move quickly, not necessarily correlating to how much I ate, which was fairly consistent. However, exercise was harder to measure and may have accounted for the differences. Now that I am maintaining my weight I seem to still have variability, ranging usually within three pounds up or down. I have no idea if it is gains or losses or just noise.

[Susan Otcenas]

I'm kicking myself here because I'm falling back into old eating habits - no self control. I even recognize it while I'm doing it and I can't stop myself, or I've been unable to stop myself or unwilling or whatever. Damn Trader Joe's and their "healthy" snacks. Baked cheese puffs, my big Aunty Fanny.

I know I'm the only one who can control this. I don't know why I can't.

Roxy

Oh, Roxy, I wish I could give you a great big hug. You aren't alone. Really. I could have written these exact same words (except that nuts are my Kryptonite, not Trader Joes ) any time over the past year. I knew what I should and should not be eating. No one was holding a gun to my head when I walked down the bulk foods aisle and bought a nice big bag of roasted salty nutty goodness. (and then repeated the pattern every other day for months... ) Sometimes it was like I was having an out of body experience. I'd watch myself walk down that aisle, fill the bag, all the time wondering what invisible hand was pushing me along, all the while knowing I shouldn't be buying the *as I was buying them*. Then I would eat them. And because I knew I *shouldn't* be eating them, I didn't get nearly enough pleasure out of them. Then they'd be gone and I'd be miserable, wondering what was wrong with me.

The trick is, how to break out of that cycle? Good question. The million dollar question, in fact. If there were one nice pat answer to this, we'd all be thin and happy, wouldn't we.

I wish I had an answer for you, Roxy. I truly do. I've finally managed to break back out of that cycle (Ironman Canada being the trigger that has finally snapped me out of it, or more accurately, scared the crap out of me enough to force me to get serious...) But I believe that you WILL find that place of strength deep inside you, the one that knows that those baked cheese puffs are not what truly makes you happy. Keep the faith, girl. I believe in you.

I was talking about carb loading for what I thought was a long ride and DH poo-pooed it, saying, "You don't need to carb load for 20 miles."

Honestly, he's probably right. It would be good for you to eat a normal-sized meal a few hours before a ride (say, a bowl of oatmeal, a banana and a glass of milk). Give yourself time to digest. I can often ride two hours with nothing but water, but usually around an hour I want 100-250 calories to help me ride better during that second hour. But that really is all most people will need. Our stomachs are not physically capable of digesting much more that 200-300 calories per hour when we are being aerobically active. Anything more than that will cause digestive distress.

[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.

[goldfinch]

Okay. This is simple. Ready for it?

There is nothing you shouldn't be eating.

There is nothing that is not allowed.

There is no: I can't eat this, even though others can.

If you want something, calculate the calories. Measure it. Write it down. Do it with everything else too. Eat a reasonable amount based upon your daily total that works for your body size and metabolism.

Now. There are many things I don't want to eat because I've decided they are too processed. They don't provide adequate nutrition for the amount of calories consumed. Perhaps they don't taste quite good enough for the number of calories they give. Those things I don't eat. But it's because I truly don't want them. Not because I cannot, shouldn't, don't qualify to eat them. And frankly, those words are red flags for me. They lead to some very unhealthy habits. (For me, not necessarily for anyone else here).

If I want something. I eat it.

Guilt is not an option. It's food.

YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO EAT FOOD.

I agree. When I started losing weight I went low carb. This probably was a good idea as it totally shook up the way I was eating and made the diet more of an adventure in new and tasty foods. It wasn't suffering. It made sticking to 1200 calories a day doable. But over time I've drifted away from low carb and now have no forbidden foods. That said, I at least make an attempt at decent nutrition and don't live on chocolate and jelly rolls.

I count all the calories. I have to. I have no reliable judgment about when to stop eating if I don't keep a running total.

[Crankin]

I wasn't complaining over .5 lb. gained over the course of a "normal" day. It's more like, OK, I changed my eating a bit, lost 3.5 lbs in as many days. Then, the next day, when I was just really hungry, I had one -two different, but not necessarily bad things and my weight went up. Why, when on one of those other days I had 2 glasses of sangria, which is, as far as I know, not on anyones list of good dietary habits!
Yes, my weight always goes up 2 lbs. over the course of a day, unless I am in a phase like I am now, (or I am running, which keeps my weight stable much more than cycling) or I do a hard, but not too long ride. As with others, very long, hard rides make me gain weight, but it's temporary. In fact, over the course of a day, I can almost feel if it is a day when I am losing or my weight will be down the next day.
I don't count calories. If I ate 1200 calories a day, I am not sure if I'd survive. I've seen formulas that say I should eat something like 1100 calories a day to maintain my weight . Realistically, I think I eat about 2,000- 2500, with exercise, of course, and now I might be eating 16- 1800.

[Susan Otcenas]

Not because I cannot, shouldn't, don't qualify to eat them. And frankly, those words are red flags for me.

I don't entirely agree.

First, let me clarify that, at least for me, nothing is totally off limits. I believe that food is fuel. Our bodies need fuel. We shouldn't starve our bodies of what it needs. I believe variety in our diets is critical. Colors, textures, flavors, the more the better. I eat vegetables, meats, grains, etc. (though, very very very little in the way processed foods.)

But, there are absolutely, FOR ME, times when I *shouldn't* be eating certain things. In my case, nuts are a trigger food. I don't know what it is about nuts, but I am incapable of eating just a few. You know those big jars of mixed nuts they sell at Costco? Well, I can motor through one of those in a couple of days. So, FOR ME, nuts are some I simply SHOULD NOT have in my house when I am actively trying to lose weight.

Does this mean nuts are completely off limits? No. If I'm eating at a restaurant, I'll often choose a salad that has hazelnuts or walnuts on it. And I enjoy them, don't feel guilty, and don't go off on a binge after eating them. The difference for me is that they are part of a meal, and what I'm served is what I get and then it's done. I can't keep sticking my hand back into the jar to add more nuts to the salad (which is what I'd do f I were eating the same salad at home. )

Can I explain this irrational behavior? No. But I just know that it... IS. So, why torture myself by having nuts in the house? So, I stand by my original statement which is that I should not buy and eat nuts.

[Catrin]

...
Yes, my weight always goes up 2 lbs. over the course of a day, unless I am in a phase like I am now, (or I am running, which keeps my weight stable much more than cycling) or I do a hard, but not too long ride. As with others, very long, hard rides make me gain weight, but it's temporary. In fact, over the course of a day, I can almost feel if it is a day when I am losing or my weight will be down the next day.
I don't count calories. If I ate 1200 calories a day, I am not sure if I'd survive. I've seen formulas that say I should eat something like 1100 calories a day to maintain my weight . Realistically, I think I eat about 2,000- 2500, with exercise, of course, and now I might be eating 16- 1800.

My calorie "budget" on non-intense exercise days is around 1,350. That actually doesn't change on exercise days, but I estimate the calories burned (I figure about 80% of what my HRM tells me I burned) and try to keep my net intake between 1,000-1,400 calories.

I think one of the things that is going on for me right now is there is little variety in my diet. What I eat is solid, but I need more veggies of all kinds...so I need to figure out how to do that. I am starting to get ideas from the "what did you eat today" thread.

If I didn't count calories or measure...well...that would be bad. My body rarely tells me when it is hungry, and it takes awhile for it to tell me when I've had enough. It's like that connection is missing from too many years of eating too much of awful food. During the summer when I've long ride days that is a different story.