Of refeeds and diet breaks
Replies
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YAY! I finally got my 10-mile run in. I haven't done that much since my half marathon back in July, so that was *amazing*.
It was slow, and cold, because it was snowing and although our county usually maintains the trail pretty well... today they did not. So I walked more than I would have liked. But I got the mileage done, and that was the important thing, so it's all OK.10 -
collectingblues wrote: »YAY! I finally got my 10-mile run in. I haven't done that much since my half marathon back in July, so that was *amazing*.
It was slow, and cold, because it was snowing and although our county usually maintains the trail pretty well... today they did not. So I walked more than I would have liked. But I got the mileage done, and that was the important thing, so it's all OK.
Congratulations!1 -
collectingblues wrote: »YAY! I finally got my 10-mile run in. I haven't done that much since my half marathon back in July, so that was *amazing*.
It was slow, and cold, because it was snowing and although our county usually maintains the trail pretty well... today they did not. So I walked more than I would have liked. But I got the mileage done, and that was the important thing, so it's all OK.
Congratulations!
And I'm sorry -- I only saw your comment after I posted. I hope I didn't come across as insensitive. I'm sorry you're having a rough go of it today.
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Hugs @mph323, bad DOMS suck the worst.
Yay for run @collectingblues
And........
Yay for cat doesn't have cancer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Instead he has a bunch of things for which he is completely asymptomatic. Whether the thyroid meds caused it, or uncovered it, is a chicken and egg scenario to which we will never know the answer. So, Triaditis - irritable bowel syndrome (no clinical symptoms, bowel looked perfect according to the surgeon), low grade pancreatitis (pancreas also looks perfect), liver inflammation. Because it is all low grade, we'll be managing it with diet, which will be homemade by moi in accordance with a recipe we'll get from the vet school nutritionist.
He's already up 1/2 a kg from two weeks ago (I know how to overfeed
), and appetite is good other than when we're battling heat.
Two bloody weeks of thinking my cat had lymphoma. Guess I should probably stop eating my feelings now
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Dear Mario: Don't pull that stunt on your human again. I'm sure she would have made you custom food if you'd asked nicely, instead of being DramaCat.6
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collectingblues wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »YAY! I finally got my 10-mile run in. I haven't done that much since my half marathon back in July, so that was *amazing*.
It was slow, and cold, because it was snowing and although our county usually maintains the trail pretty well... today they did not. So I walked more than I would have liked. But I got the mileage done, and that was the important thing, so it's all OK.
Congratulations!
And I'm sorry -- I only saw your comment after I posted. I hope I didn't come across as insensitive. I'm sorry you're having a rough go of it today.
Actually, I found your post extremely inspirational! If you can get out there and run 10 trail miles in the snow, I can certainly get out and walk in what we Californian's call "cold" weather with a little rain. Thanks!4 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hugs @mph323, bad DOMS suck the worst.
Yay for run @collectingblues
And........
Yay for cat doesn't have cancer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Instead he has a bunch of things for which he is completely asymptomatic. Whether the thyroid meds caused it, or uncovered it, is a chicken and egg scenario to which we will never know the answer. So, Triaditis - irritable bowel syndrome (no clinical symptoms, bowel looked perfect according to the surgeon), low grade pancreatitis (pancreas also looks perfect), liver inflammation. Because it is all low grade, we'll be managing it with diet, which will be homemade by moi in accordance with a recipe we'll get from the vet school nutritionist.
He's already up 1/2 a kg from two weeks ago (I know how to overfeed ), and appetite is good other than when we're battling heat.
Two bloody weeks of thinking my cat had lymphoma. Guess I should probably stop eating my feelings now
OMG, best news ever!2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hugs @mph323, bad DOMS suck the worst.
Yay for run @collectingblues
And........
Yay for cat doesn't have cancer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Instead he has a bunch of things for which he is completely asymptomatic. Whether the thyroid meds caused it, or uncovered it, is a chicken and egg scenario to which we will never know the answer. So, Triaditis - irritable bowel syndrome (no clinical symptoms, bowel looked perfect according to the surgeon), low grade pancreatitis (pancreas also looks perfect), liver inflammation. Because it is all low grade, we'll be managing it with diet, which will be homemade by moi in accordance with a recipe we'll get from the vet school nutritionist.
He's already up 1/2 a kg from two weeks ago (I know how to overfeed ), and appetite is good other than when we're battling heat.
Two bloody weeks of thinking my cat had lymphoma. Guess I should probably stop eating my feelings now
I've been thinking about you a lot lately and hoping for the best. I'm glad this is how it turned out. I know exactly how much of a relief it is for a beloved pet to turn out "less sick". Waiting for a result is the worst, the mind goes to all kinds of places.4 -
Yay Mario!1
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Whoop Whoop for no cancer!1
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Thanks everyone
It certainly is a relief to end up with a preferable diagnosis, especially when those things had pretty much been taken off the table. My vet did give mild pancreatitis as a possibility two weeks ago, then that was nixed on ultrasound. She also called the hepatitis as a possibility, but everyone really was leaning towards lymphoma as the most likely, so that's what I was prepared for. IBD was never even mentioned, other than as 'not that', because of the complete lack of symptoms.
I was remembering when my Goo was diagnosed with diabetes 15 years ago. I cried buckets, because I had no idea what to expect. I wouldn't even bat an eyelid at that diagnosis now, because a) I know how manageable it is, and b) I have had far, far worse diagnoses for various cats since.5 -
Congrats to Mario! I'm not sure if pancreatitis in felines is similar treatment to that in humans, but the usual treatment that I'm aware of is fasting. What that translates to in cat time will vary, of course. As long as he's keeping down food and not manifesting symptoms of pain then I think he'll be well on the way to health
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Me three, as to the holiday diet break. It's been -- and is being -- a real fight to stay within calories, and I don't always succeed. I get seriously hungry around midday some days, and my regular lunches just don't seem to cut it. And I'm craving more carbs -- semi-sweet, peanut-buttery carbs. I know I can get on top of this, and for a change I don't feel as though I'm circling the drain with my weight loss, but I miss my good deficit habits.
I think (maybe) a big difference in my two diet breaks was that during my first one, I ate pretty much the same food that I was eating during my deficit, just more of it. Probably 85% health conscious choices. During my Christmas diet break, I ate whatever I saw, which was alot of cakes, pies, candy, cookies, tamales, enchiladas, bread, eggnog, ponche, white russians, and such. I kept within maintenance, for the most part, but the types of food were definitely different than what I allow myself during deficit. I just don't have enough calories to eat those kinds of foods in quantity and get the nutrition that I need in my deficit calories. I have alot to learn about sustainability, but I am working on it. Could those rich foods be what is calling to me now? Could a block in weight loss have more to do with emotional attachments than sheer will-power or body requirements?
To both of these sentiments, there's a predominant theme which likely applies to the majority of dieters: there was a habit formed to create and stay within a deficit by eliminating or reducing the intake of hyper-palatable foods; as soon as the holidays came around, that habit was broken with reckless abandonment and now there is difficulty in going back to prior habits.
Hyper-palatable foods are the primary driving force behind increasing rates of weight and fat gain. It's not necessarily the fault of the consumer or the manufacturer, but convenience food is specifically designed and engineered to be damn tasty and drive sales up. Along that same of thought, even the tastiest foods and recipes we cook are usually a mix of salt, sugar, and fat, creating our own versions of hyper-palatability.
This leads to asinine conclusions that "sugar is addictive!" and other forms of horse$hit with over-reaching statements. Sugar in itself is not addictive, but when you combine it with contrasting flavors and consistency, this amalgam of explosive flavors sends a surge of stimuli to your reward center neurotransmitters and all of a sudden foodgasms become the only thing our bodies respond to, and anything less is just unsatisfactory, usually leading to difficulty in trying to cut calories in the long run.
The problem seen in a lot of dieting strategies is that people seem to misinterpret the reduction in hyper-palatability as "completely eliminate them from my diet because will-power alone is weak" or something along those lines. I've said before that it takes years to develop the habit to become overfat. That means you've trained your body to respond excitedly to foods that stimulate pleasure and become averse to foods that don't meet that sensation, for years. It will take years to train your body to respond positively to nutrient dense food as well. And that doesn't mean you have to learn to love eating kale. Srsly fk kale.
All it means is that you need to adjust your food choices to be a bridge between palatable and nutrient dense. Instead of chicken nuggets, fries, and a coke, opt for grilled/rotisserie chicken, roasted potatoes, and a diet coke (and if you have an argument against diet coke because cancer, rat studies don't count). You haven't changed the macro composition, but you've eliminated refined vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup already with that change.
The point is you can still enjoy food that is both tasty and nutrient dense, just not to the point of "zomfg I need to change my underwear" calorie bombs. And if you want a quick tip to help you naturally cut calories, if you focus solely on whole food protein sources, your body will almost always feel uncomfortably full before you can eat anything else. In itself, protein is self-limiting in that way. Think of what you gorged on over the holidays. How much of it was protein dense? Probably not a lot.
TL;DR - Protein is, was, and always will be a priority macro. Eat a lot of it and eat it first before anything else. Simplify your diet to follow a 70/30 or 80/20 rule: 70/80% nutrient density and 30/20% whatever you like. That keeps you sane while remaining adherent to your goal. Don't do extreme restrictions on any one food group, but don't make crap the majority of your meals either. And it's a learning process. Enjoy the knowledge you give yourself as you find out what foods you like, tolerate, and can't stand. Because fk kale. With a rusty spoon.
I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it (said Alice).
I really do know from experience that the simpler I eat, the better my success, and the more protein (within reason), the better – but I keep wanting to elaborate on that. I read the forums and keep seeing, “eat what you like, but in the right portions” and “no food should be forbidden”. I do wonderfully with things like chicken or shrimp stir fries, grilled or broiled meat and fish, simple steamed veggies, yogurt and fruit. It’s when I start adding in things like bread/pasta/rice/potatoes that things start to go south. I have diabetes; I have to control starches and sugars for the sake of my blood glucose, so I try to keep them minimal. I can keep them minimal for a good while, but I’m all too fond of starchy carbs and eventually I start to build up cravings and a bread orgy looms. Even that wouldn’t be too awful if it was a one-off, but it takes me a while to get myself back down to being happy with “minimal” again. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with tortellini, chicken sausage and pesto, or a turkey club sandwich with a spinach salad on the side – but it starts me on a bad tangent.
The holiday diet break was like that. Yes, the sweet hyper-palatables are definitely a big old trap for me, but that’s one I can see coming. Cookies, candy, cake, holiday specialties, those don’t really surprise me, and knowing the enemy helps. It’s when I think, “oh, I can have a small baked potato with a grilled steak and green veg, it fits in my calories” – that’s the thin edge of the wedge.
I know this, I KNOW all these things. I think I just keep hoping that I can open up my food repertoire and try something less plain to eat, and I’m not ready for that now, if I ever will be. So back I go to simpler and greener and minimal-er carbs for a few months, when I’ll try another break with better-tweaked macros.
And fk kale indeed. It actually isn’t bad, it’s just been so overhyped as a superfood that I don’t ever want to see it again.
This post has been sitting in my drafts for days under rewrite while I tried not to sound like a whiny four year old.
If you're diabetic, all the more reason that protein will be necessary since the rate of gluconeogenesis is accelerated, and you'd rather have that protein turnover come from food rather than skeletal muscle. Also, for diabetics especially, the worst combination of macros together would be excessive carbs + fat since the two together completely take over the priority of oxidation, meaning carbs will be first in line to take over burning for fuel and any fat will go straight to storage, but diabetic fat cells are already full for the most part, so that fat gets stored into other cells that weren't meant to store fat; i.e. liver, pancreas, kidneys, etc.
And if excess glucose can't get stored (because of full fat cells), it remains in circulation and will linger and potentially stay in the smaller blood vessels like fingers, toes, eyes, kidneys which are what cause neuropathy, retinopathy, nephropathy, respectively. I don't really need to state the end-stage of those problems, but the worst case scenario is loss of those nerves.
So things like pastry and dessert, which are easily a heavy combination of sugar + fat, are exacerbating diabetes on a biochemical level.
That's not to say that you can/t eat carbs or fat (diabetics usually choose one over the other), but since T2D is a more severe form of insulin resistance, many diabetics tend to respond better to a low[er] carb diet. In any case, earn your carbs since carbs are versatile but primarily used as fuel, and not meant to be stored long-term as evidenced by their limited storage capacity.
Decreasing inflammation in fat cells (by losing fat) is what helps regain insulin sensitivity and carb tolerance, but once you're diabetic, you're practically compromised for life. I, myself, am a recovered T2D, but by no means am I able to handle excessive carbs on a daily basis like a non-diabetic and expect my blood sugar to remain in normal ranges. Because I work out relatively intensely 5-6x/week, I can handle up to 150-200g of carbs daily and be okay (~77-83mg/dL), but if I were to keep that intake without working out, then I'd slowly see fasting glucose readings well into the lower 100s. So on days I don't work out or have lighter intensity days, then I'll have a higher fat/lower carb day just to meet calorie goals.7 -
Congrats to Mario! I'm not sure if pancreatitis in felines is similar treatment to that in humans, but the usual treatment that I'm aware of is fasting. What that translates to in cat time will vary, of course. As long as he's keeping down food and not manifesting symptoms of pain then I think he'll be well on the way to health
Fasting a cat is a quick ride to hepatic lipidosis. Withholding food is only done for 24 hours in severe cases of vomiting. So for Muz it will just be nutritional support and keeping him eating and hydrated. Even keeping fat low is now thought to be unnecessary for cats.3 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Congrats to Mario! I'm not sure if pancreatitis in felines is similar treatment to that in humans, but the usual treatment that I'm aware of is fasting. What that translates to in cat time will vary, of course. As long as he's keeping down food and not manifesting symptoms of pain then I think he'll be well on the way to health
Fasting a cat is a quick ride to hepatic lipidosis. Withholding food is only done for 24 hours in severe cases of vomiting. So for Muz it will just be nutritional support and keeping him eating and hydrated. Even keeping fat low is now thought to be unnecessary for cats.
Ah, gotcha. I've heard the advice to never fast a cat, which I've never done, but I never went further into the reasons why.0 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Congrats to Mario! I'm not sure if pancreatitis in felines is similar treatment to that in humans, but the usual treatment that I'm aware of is fasting. What that translates to in cat time will vary, of course. As long as he's keeping down food and not manifesting symptoms of pain then I think he'll be well on the way to health
Fasting a cat is a quick ride to hepatic lipidosis. Withholding food is only done for 24 hours in severe cases of vomiting. So for Muz it will just be nutritional support and keeping him eating and hydrated. Even keeping fat low is now thought to be unnecessary for cats.
Ah, gotcha. I've heard the advice to never fast a cat, which I've never done, but I never went further into the reasons why.
Yup, this is why a cat not eating at all for more than a day equals vet trip. It can go bad real quick. Even low appetite my cats generally only get a day or two before they're packed into the carrier.2 -
@Psychgrrl if your exercise is of a consistent step based type, I would just calculate a percentage difference between expected and apparent tdee and just take it into account. For example my difference is about 5%. (It is actually almost 6.5% when over 20k steps and a bit less than 3.5% when under 15k steps as far as I can tell; but on average about 5%)
@PAV8888 I was going by this info which is right in line with cutting my steps calories. My regular steps adjustment is HUGE! My "exercise" steps, even on the same route, are much less. Weird, huh? I know there could be things I can't account for such as my pace being faster when it's not officially "exercise." But I normally watch TV and and watching out for cars and other pedestrians, stray cats. And to be honest, I'm just not coordinated enough to subconsciously go that much faster on one or the other.
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And today was another failed food day. Grilled over 3lbs of chicken breast this weekend, brought 300 grams with me, a giant bowl of greens, 1.6 servings of quinoa (made 6 servings this weekend), a dozen egg white muffins. And it all sat in my office while I ran around campus in meeting that got scheduled on top of each other.
So, the positive thing is, I have nothing to do to get food together for tomorrow--it's already in my fridge in my office. The bad news is, I did not eat like I wanted to. Had two egg white/quinoa/turkey sausage muffins for breakfast at 7. Then nothing until ... 1:30 when I ran through (literally) and grabbed a bag or protein chips from the stash I keep under my desk for just this reason. And then ... yogurt at 5pm. (That Skyr stuff is A-MAZ-ING.) I will have a proper dinner when I get home. Drinking a protein shake now. Macro-wise, I did fine. Micro/vitamin/mineral, not so much.
This is why I take vitamins.
And under my calorie goal by far. Need to make up a little.3 -
And today was another failed food day. Grilled over 3lbs of chicken breast this weekend, brought 300 grams with me, a giant bowl of greens, 1.6 servings of quinoa (made 6 servings this weekend), a dozen egg white muffins. And it all sat in my office while I ran around campus in meeting that got scheduled on top of each other.
So, the positive thing is, I have nothing to do to get food together for tomorrow--it's already in my fridge in my office. The bad news is, I did not eat like I wanted to. Had two egg white/quinoa/turkey sausage muffins for breakfast at 7. Then nothing until ... 1:30 when I ran through (literally) and grabbed a bag or protein chips from the stash I keep under my desk for just this reason. And then ... yogurt at 5pm. (That Skyr stuff is A-MAZ-ING.) I will have a proper dinner when I get home. Drinking a protein shake now. Macro-wise, I did fine. Micro/vitamin/mineral, not so much.
And under my calorie goal by far.
Just reading the prep sounds like a lot of low cal days coming lol. This is basically psmf modified for additional carb intake AKA low-fat diet, from what it sounds like 0 -
And today was another failed food day. Grilled over 3lbs of chicken breast this weekend, brought 300 grams with me, a giant bowl of greens, 1.6 servings of quinoa (made 6 servings this weekend), a dozen egg white muffins. And it all sat in my office while I ran around campus in meeting that got scheduled on top of each other.
So, the positive thing is, I have nothing to do to get food together for tomorrow--it's already in my fridge in my office. The bad news is, I did not eat like I wanted to. Had two egg white/quinoa/turkey sausage muffins for breakfast at 7. Then nothing until ... 1:30 when I ran through (literally) and grabbed a bag or protein chips from the stash I keep under my desk for just this reason. And then ... yogurt at 5pm. (That Skyr stuff is A-MAZ-ING.) I will have a proper dinner when I get home. Drinking a protein shake now. Macro-wise, I did fine. Micro/vitamin/mineral, not so much.
And under my calorie goal by far.
Bah, days like that suck! But at least you have lunch already prepped for tomorrow!
I have not tried skyr, investigated it a little yesterday when @PAV8888 mentioned it elsewhere, to see if you can make it at home (yes, not difficult, but time consuming so I'll stick with making Greek yoghurt. Who has time to stand stirring a pot of milk for an hour??). Have now investigated if you can buy it here, apparently only flavoured (which also nixes making my own, unless I want to go really old school and leave the milk out to collect bacteria). Someone will bring out a plain one eventually.0 -
@Psychgrrl if your exercise is of a consistent step based type, I would just calculate a percentage difference between expected and apparent tdee and just take it into account. For example my difference is about 5%. (It is actually almost 6.5% when over 20k steps and a bit less than 3.5% when under 15k steps as far as I can tell; but on average about 5%)
@PAV8888 I was going by this info which is right in line with cutting my steps calories. My regular steps adjustment is HUGE! My "exercise" steps, even on the same route, are much less. Weird, huh? I know there could be things I can't account for such as my pace being faster when it's not officially "exercise." But I normally watch TV and and watching out for cars and other pedestrians, stray cats. And to be honest, I'm just not coordinated enough to subconsciously go that much faster on one or the other.
Whatever works and gives you repeatable/actionable results... works. At least as far as I was concerned.
To my brain it has been easier to off-load the various calculations to Fitbit, evaluate a % error between what Fitbit and MFP think and what reality suggests over a period of time, and then just apply that error to my calculations without having to calculate individual exercises.
When you start over-riding individual exercises and time-frames it becomes, in my opinion, slightly more manual and complicated and you can't allow MFP-Fitbit integration to do its thing. Your manual MFP exercise over-writes what Fitbit detected. To restore what Fitbit actually detected you have to go into their site and delete the imported MFP exercise, etc, etc.
For me it is just easier to say: "hey I am about 5% less than what Fitbit thinks on average". (ok, because I am me, I do take it much further than that... but!)
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That's not to say that you can/t eat carbs or fat (diabetics usually choose one over the other), but since T2D is a more severe form of insulin resistance, many diabetics tend to respond better to a low[er] carb diet. In any case, earn your carbs since carbs are versatile but primarily used as fuel, and not meant to be stored long-term as evidenced by their limited storage capacity.
Decreasing inflammation in fat cells (by losing fat) is what helps regain insulin sensitivity and carb tolerance, but once you're diabetic, you're practically compromised for life.
I was diagnosed as insulin resistent years ago when I was diagnosed with PCOS and automatically put on Metformin, but my fasting blood glucose has never been over 100 - in fact, it has pretty much stayed steady at 90 all that time, and I don't seem to be overly sensitive to carbs. But my sister has become borderline T2D as is my dad, and my mother is full T2D. Diabetes runs heavy in her family - all mom's siblings have it, as well as most of her aunts and uncles - and that's part of what finally motivated me to try to lose weight once again.
I wish I could get my sister to read this and listen! She eats a very carb-heavy diet with little meat and most of that is processed, quick stuff. She does love vegetables and when I was cooking for them I introduced her to all kinds of new ones that she really liked, but I couldn't break her of the popcorn shrimp, chicken tenders, french fries, etc. *sigh*Nony_Mouse wrote: »Fasting a cat is a quick ride to hepatic lipidosis. Withholding food is only done for 24 hours in severe cases of vomiting. So for Muz it will just be nutritional support and keeping him eating and hydrated. Even keeping fat low is now thought to be unnecessary for cats.
I had read that as well, though my mother doubts what I say (but she pretty much doubts anything I tell her - she rolls her eyes and I can hear her thinking "there goes Bridget know-it-all again.......but my mother is really bad for believing all the old wives tales and doesn't like it when I point out to her where they are wrong......)
Anyway, I've got 6 cats and with my work schedule being what it is and the variety of eating styles they all have, I usually fill a few bowls up of a morning and let them graze as they will, which works for 5 of the 6. I've got 1, however, who is obese and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've tried low carb cat food and they absolutely will not eat it - I've got some of the pickiest eaters in the world! My mother said leave it out and they'll eat it or starve, but when I heard its not good to let a cat go more than a day without eating, I realized this wouldn't work - because they literally flat out refused to eat it at all. I tried the slowly introducing it thing by mixing it in with their old food, but they'd just pick out the old food and leave the low carb stuff behind, and they were still doing this after trying the low carb stuff for over a month. I got tired of wasting $30 bags of cat food, so I gave up and went back to their old stuff (though I have to buy the 3.5 lb bags because if a bag of food has been open for more than 24 hours, then they don't want to eat it, either........and they'd love to live on nothing but wet food - well all but 1 which won't touch the stuff - but I can't afford that!)
I've asked previous vets what to do about her with no suggestions at all. I can't find a vet that really knows cats well - all the vets in this area seem to focus on dogs! I'm still looking down here for a new vet; hopefully they'll be able to give me some answers.Nony_Mouse wrote: »I have not tried skyr, investigated it a little yesterday when @PAV8888 mentioned it elsewhere, to see if you can make it at home (yes, not difficult, but time consuming so I'll stick with making Greek yoghurt. Who has time to stand stirring a pot of milk for an hour??). Have now investigated if you can buy it here, apparently only flavoured (which also nixes making my own, unless I want to go really old school and leave the milk out to collect bacteria). Someone will bring out a plain one eventually.
Here in the States, I've come across Siggi's skyr that I really like, though it can be hard to find sometimes. My local Kroger's grocery store only carries blueberry and vanilla. The Krogers in the next biggest town did have the strawberry and acai mix, but the last time I was in there, it was on a closeout, so I don't know if they plan to continue carrying it. I loved skyr because its relatively low in sugar and calories but has terrific protein content - the same amount of calories as a glass of low fat milk, I can get 15-16g protein!
I've seen a plain version sold here in some stores and I've seen instructions online for how to use the plain as a starter to make my own, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.0 -
My "diet break" has lasted for over 4 months now. I've gained some weight because I just don't have the energy to make weight management a priority. nearly two months of highly stressful 10-12 hours a day work and no weekends off took a toll - I even worked through the holidays. I was happy to be almost done, but due to some miscommunication and misunderstanding on my part I apparently worked on a project thinking it was the one I agreed to take on earlier and turns out the one I agreed on hasn't even started yet, so there's going to be another month of highly stressful brain work and no weekends. Probably going to gain even more weight if I don't put a stop to this somehow. I'm happy about the large influx of cash from these back to back large scale rush projects, but I'm tired and unfocused.
I'm probably going to enlist my mom's help and have her prepare food for me at least for the first couple of weeks where I'm going to tackle the hardest parts of the project because this isn't going to work for me and I want to minimize the weight gain. I've gained too much for my liking right after another gain earlier for unrelated mental health reasons. I'm usually okay with small regains and I plan them, but it's starting to get really uncomfortable to move. Diet management would be hard when I'm so stressed and drained, especially that my NEAT has taken a nosedive with the hours I need to work. Just wanted to unload and tell someone about it.16 -
I'm so sorry to hear about the stress, amused, but the idea of having your mom's help in cooking I think is an excellent idea! there's another thread here on MFP about willpower and its limits, so taking that one responsibility off your shoulders I would think would be a help on the mental front.
Best of luck to you!4 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »My "diet break" has lasted for over 4 months now. I've gained some weight because I just don't have the energy to make weight management a priority. nearly two months of highly stressful 10-12 hours a day work and no weekends off took a toll - I even worked through the holidays. I was happy to be almost done, but due to some miscommunication and misunderstanding on my part I apparently worked on a project thinking it was the one I agreed to take on earlier and turns out the one I agreed on hasn't even started yet, so there's going to be another month of highly stressful brain work and no weekends. Probably going to gain even more weight if I don't put a stop to this somehow. I'm happy about the large influx of cash from these back to back large scale rush projects, but I'm tired and unfocused.
I'm probably going to enlist my mom's help and have her prepare food for me at least for the first couple of weeks where I'm going to tackle the hardest parts of the project because this isn't going to work for me and I want to minimize the weight gain. I've gained too much for my liking right after another gain earlier for unrelated mental health reasons. I'm usually okay with small regains and I plan them, but it's starting to get really uncomfortable to move. Diet management would be hard when I'm so stressed and drained, especially that my NEAT has taken a nosedive with the hours I need to work. Just wanted to unload and tell someone about it.
Understandable. Life isn't controllable, or at the very least, it's impossibly difficult to do, but you can take control of the things you can. While exercise or physical activity may take a back seat to work or projects, you still have direct control over what goes into your body. Just try to keep it simple with the 70/30 (80/20) rule. Keep the majority of your fuel in food that helps manage stress (think nutrient dense micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc.) instead of food that might make handling stress worse (empty calories that disrupt thinking, sleep, mood, etc.).
Your weight will do what it does during that time, and even if you don't log/track your food, you can at least have some comfort in knowing that a chicken, walnut, cranberry salad with bleu cheese dressing was damn tasty and was nutrient dense enough to keep you satiated enough to power through the next few hours. If you're a stress eater, then you might feel better eating for volume as opposed to flavor, so while big *kitten* salads are the usual recommendation, I do have some suggestions: low/nonfat yogurt + xanthan gum + your choice of whey protein + blended with some crushed ice = the thickest frozen yogurt you'll ever chew down and will feel like you ate a bowl of glue. Also, if you make sugar free jello + extra unflavored gelatin + half water / half diet citrus soda or even iced tea = an almost rubber disc of jello you could eat with your hands.
These are just some suggestions for anti-calorie bombs that you could liberally graze on without much caloric impact since recommendations to fill up on liquid just makes you piss and pissed off lol.3 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Fasting a cat is a quick ride to hepatic lipidosis. Withholding food is only done for 24 hours in severe cases of vomiting. So for Muz it will just be nutritional support and keeping him eating and hydrated. Even keeping fat low is now thought to be unnecessary for cats.
I had read that as well, though my mother doubts what I say (but she pretty much doubts anything I tell her - she rolls her eyes and I can hear her thinking "there goes Bridget know-it-all again.......but my mother is really bad for believing all the old wives tales and doesn't like it when I point out to her where they are wrong......)
Anyway, I've got 6 cats and with my work schedule being what it is and the variety of eating styles they all have, I usually fill a few bowls up of a morning and let them graze as they will, which works for 5 of the 6. I've got 1, however, who is obese and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've tried low carb cat food and they absolutely will not eat it - I've got some of the pickiest eaters in the world! My mother said leave it out and they'll eat it or starve, but when I heard its not good to let a cat go more than a day without eating, I realized this wouldn't work - because they literally flat out refused to eat it at all. I tried the slowly introducing it thing by mixing it in with their old food, but they'd just pick out the old food and leave the low carb stuff behind, and they were still doing this after trying the low carb stuff for over a month. I got tired of wasting $30 bags of cat food, so I gave up and went back to their old stuff (though I have to buy the 3.5 lb bags because if a bag of food has been open for more than 24 hours, then they don't want to eat it, either........and they'd love to live on nothing but wet food - well all but 1 which won't touch the stuff - but I can't afford that!)
I've asked previous vets what to do about her with no suggestions at all. I can't find a vet that really knows cats well - all the vets in this area seem to focus on dogs! I'm still looking down here for a new vet; hopefully they'll be able to give me some answers.Nony_Mouse wrote: »I have not tried skyr, investigated it a little yesterday when @PAV8888 mentioned it elsewhere, to see if you can make it at home (yes, not difficult, but time consuming so I'll stick with making Greek yoghurt. Who has time to stand stirring a pot of milk for an hour??). Have now investigated if you can buy it here, apparently only flavoured (which also nixes making my own, unless I want to go really old school and leave the milk out to collect bacteria). Someone will bring out a plain one eventually.
Here in the States, I've come across Siggi's skyr that I really like, though it can be hard to find sometimes. My local Kroger's grocery store only carries blueberry and vanilla. The Krogers in the next biggest town did have the strawberry and acai mix, but the last time I was in there, it was on a closeout, so I don't know if they plan to continue carrying it. I loved skyr because its relatively low in sugar and calories but has terrific protein content - the same amount of calories as a glass of low fat milk, I can get 15-16g protein!
I've seen a plain version sold here in some stores and I've seen instructions online for how to use the plain as a starter to make my own, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.
A healthy cat is probably okay longer without food than a sick cat, and actually I think your chubby one would be at greatest risk of hepatic lipidosis from memory.
It's really hard when you have multiple cats who want to graze and one of them is a chub. My Toby needs to lose the weight he's gained since getting neutered and becoming a house cat. I was hoping he'd slim down again once he was out of the laundry and more active, but nope. I'll need to go to more structured feeding with them once I have Mario's food recipe, so I'll be able to better control Toby's calories then. I'm only leaving his dry down in case Mario decides to eat some, though haven't seen him touch it in the last couple of weeks (freshness thing with him atm I think). I'll try to think of some ideas for you, but while they're grazing it's nigh on impossible to slim one down. Can s/he be separated while you're at work, with only measured food available? Will s/he engage in interactive play? Getting them moving more will help.
My yoghurt, bought or homemade, is 16g of protein per 200g. Nutritional content is almost exactly the same, mine is slightly lower cal than the bought, has a gram or two more carbs, but that may actually just be because I can't account for change in carb content of the milk with bacteria eating the sugars, only what is in the whey that I strain off. And stupid easy to make if you have a yoghurt maker (or an oven you can set really low). If you can get a high protein, low/non fat milk you'll end up with a nutritional profile much the same as Fage.0 -
@anubis609 thank you for starting me on a search for xanathan gum!
@amusedmonkey sorry you're having a hard time!
@Nony_Mouse how da heck do you determine the nutritional profile after conversion to yogurt?2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »bmeadows380 wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Fasting a cat is a quick ride to hepatic lipidosis. Withholding food is only done for 24 hours in severe cases of vomiting. So for Muz it will just be nutritional support and keeping him eating and hydrated. Even keeping fat low is now thought to be unnecessary for cats.
I had read that as well, though my mother doubts what I say (but she pretty much doubts anything I tell her - she rolls her eyes and I can hear her thinking "there goes Bridget know-it-all again.......but my mother is really bad for believing all the old wives tales and doesn't like it when I point out to her where they are wrong......)
Anyway, I've got 6 cats and with my work schedule being what it is and the variety of eating styles they all have, I usually fill a few bowls up of a morning and let them graze as they will, which works for 5 of the 6. I've got 1, however, who is obese and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've tried low carb cat food and they absolutely will not eat it - I've got some of the pickiest eaters in the world! My mother said leave it out and they'll eat it or starve, but when I heard its not good to let a cat go more than a day without eating, I realized this wouldn't work - because they literally flat out refused to eat it at all. I tried the slowly introducing it thing by mixing it in with their old food, but they'd just pick out the old food and leave the low carb stuff behind, and they were still doing this after trying the low carb stuff for over a month. I got tired of wasting $30 bags of cat food, so I gave up and went back to their old stuff (though I have to buy the 3.5 lb bags because if a bag of food has been open for more than 24 hours, then they don't want to eat it, either........and they'd love to live on nothing but wet food - well all but 1 which won't touch the stuff - but I can't afford that!)
I've asked previous vets what to do about her with no suggestions at all. I can't find a vet that really knows cats well - all the vets in this area seem to focus on dogs! I'm still looking down here for a new vet; hopefully they'll be able to give me some answers.Nony_Mouse wrote: »I have not tried skyr, investigated it a little yesterday when @PAV8888 mentioned it elsewhere, to see if you can make it at home (yes, not difficult, but time consuming so I'll stick with making Greek yoghurt. Who has time to stand stirring a pot of milk for an hour??). Have now investigated if you can buy it here, apparently only flavoured (which also nixes making my own, unless I want to go really old school and leave the milk out to collect bacteria). Someone will bring out a plain one eventually.
Here in the States, I've come across Siggi's skyr that I really like, though it can be hard to find sometimes. My local Kroger's grocery store only carries blueberry and vanilla. The Krogers in the next biggest town did have the strawberry and acai mix, but the last time I was in there, it was on a closeout, so I don't know if they plan to continue carrying it. I loved skyr because its relatively low in sugar and calories but has terrific protein content - the same amount of calories as a glass of low fat milk, I can get 15-16g protein!
I've seen a plain version sold here in some stores and I've seen instructions online for how to use the plain as a starter to make my own, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.
A healthy cat is probably okay longer without food than a sick cat, and actually I think your chubby one would be at greatest risk of hepatic lipidosis from memory.
It's really hard when you have multiple cats who want to graze and one of them is a chub. My Toby needs to lose the weight he's gained since getting neutered and becoming a house cat. I was hoping he'd slim down again once he was out of the laundry and more active, but nope. I'll need to go to more structured feeding with them once I have Mario's food recipe, so I'll be able to better control Toby's calories then. I'm only leaving his dry down in case Mario decides to eat some, though haven't seen him touch it in the last couple of weeks (freshness thing with him atm I think). I'll try to think of some ideas for you, but while they're grazing it's nigh on impossible to slim one down. Can s/he be separated while you're at work, with only measured food available? Will s/he engage in interactive play? Getting them moving more will help.
My yoghurt, bought or homemade, is 16g of protein per 200g. Nutritional content is almost exactly the same, mine is slightly lower cal than the bought, has a gram or two more carbs, but that may actually just be because I can't account for change in carb content of the milk with bacteria eating the sugars, only what is in the whey that I strain off. And stupid easy to make if you have a yoghurt maker (or an oven you can set really low). If you can get a high protein, low/non fat milk you'll end up with a nutritional profile much the same as Fage.
Oh lord, yes. I had two happy grazers for years, but one of them was slowly drifting up in weight until the vet said it was time to do something. I switched to wet food and fixed meal times, which is a PITA but so it goes. But at least I've only got the two! A friend of mine swears by MeowSpace for his three cats with individual diets, but they're not cheap.0 -
@anubis609 thank you for starting me on a search for xanathan gum!
@amusedmonkey sorry you're having a hard time!
@Nony_Mouse how da heck do you determine the nutritional profile after conversion to yogurt?
Anytime! Guar gum, xanthan gum, agar, or even unflavored gelatin all act as thickeners. If you're a textural eater, it changes things up so be aware that it has the potential to feel like mud or paste lol.0 -
@anubis609 thank you for starting me on a search for xanathan gum!
@amusedmonkey sorry you're having a hard time!
@Nony_Mouse how da heck do you determine the nutritional profile after conversion to yogurt?
@PAV8888 calculate calories etc of one litre of milk, calculate calories etc of 250ml of raw whey (actually in the MFP database! - this is how much I drain off), subtract whey values from milk values. That's as good as you can do at home, but will be a bit out because the bacteria eat a lot of the lactose (which is why it converts to yoghurt). What I get doing that is very close to the nutritional profile of my store bought yoghurt, in which the only difference in ingredients is a bit of cream I think.1
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