Thoughts, Epiphanies, Insights, & Quotables
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My husband loves Cadbury eggs….I think he would eat them specks and all!….
I wish my weight loss would spur my daughter to lose weight….she is extremely overweight and has numerous joint issues….I know she watches what I eat and she has seen how much I have struggled but it just doesn’t register….nagging does no good at all….to watch her as an athlete in her teens and the change now breaks my heart….our son is 6’8” and is very health conscious….he is athletic, ice skates on a hockey team and hikes….3 -
Can you compost chocolate and fondant?
Or is the food compost bin your stomach?
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I agree - separate them when they arrive.
I had a friend recently share his new theory on "best stuff:"
Eat the best stuff in your fridge/pantry first - that way what used to be 2nd best is now best - so you always get to eat the best.
I like that theory.2 -
I always eat the best thing on my plate first. That way, if I’m too full to finish I’ll at least have enjoyed the best bit. If you save the best bit until last it can encourage you to eat past your natural satiation point just so you don’t miss out on the best bit.4
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I eat one thing at a time and nothing touches lol2
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Connie, I’m sure your daughter is very aware of her weight problems. All of us who are overweight are painfully aware but nothing happens until we’re ready. People, including doctors, telling me that I was fat just annoyed me. Having family bring up weight made me feel unloved and worthless. Mercifully hubby was kind and loving no matter what I weighed. It wasn’t until I was mentally ready to commit to changing that I was able to lose most of the weight and keep it off. I’ve got a way to go but I think I’ll be able to at least stay where I am long term.
Wholeheartedly love and support your daughter as she is now. Someday she may surprise you with what she’s learned from you.3 -
I'm not sure why - but I didn't see your post until now, Connie. But I so agree with Yooly. You are setting such a great example for your daughter - even during these crazy past few months when you have been challenged, but didn't throw in the towel. When she is ready, she will remember what you accomplished.
And on a lighter note - you eat one thing at a time - but your favourite first? Or do you save your favourite one thing to last?2 -
I think the food I choose to eat first is different every time…if it was ok I would only eat sweets,pizza and sandwiches!….I guess I usually save my meat for last but I don’t know why….
My daughter and I talk about her weight or going on a diet but I have stopped nagging her…her husband wants her to lose weight but he can be an *kitten* about it….my husband loves me unconditionally but was worried about my health….Amanda’s husband just goes about some things the wrong way and it makes her dig her heels in!2 -
@conniewilkins56 the absolutely best way to help your daughter is to continue to set her a positive example.
My super-slim mom (max weight 120lbs when 9 months pregnant with twin boys) nagged me and my two obese sisters constantly about our weight, and it didn't have any effect other than to make us miserable, destroy our confidence and self-esteem and make us feel self-disgusted, ugly and ashamed. For my eldest sister in particular, who internalised every critical comment, it's impacted her negatively her whole life (she's now 72, morbidly obese, and a self-hater to the core).
Admittedly mom's nagging was of the extreme, cruel variety as she believed in tough love - so she would say we sickened and disgusted her with our ugliness, and that she was ashamed that people knew we were her daughters. She'd say if we hadn't been born at home she'd think she'd been given the wrong babies in hospital, as otherwise it was unfathomable how she - a renowned beauty - could have produced such ugly fat girls. And she'd predict lives of loveless old-maidness for us, as she said no man would ever want us. This was the worst fate she could possibly imagine,
You'd think it would've made us sit up and take notice...it didn't work.
Mom said all this from love - warped love, but love nonetheless. She wanted us to have good, fulfilled, happy lives, and she feared our obesity would ruin our opportunities and make us unattractive and unloveable. Sadly, she hadn't the ability to see that happiness has its source in self-acceptance and self-esteem, and that undermining ours was doing untold (and in my sister's case irreparable) harm. Moreover, if you make someone feel worthless you pin a target on their back for every predator, exploiter and abuser out there...
Your living example of good choices, moderation, striving against obstacles, and respecting/nurturing/exercising your body will be a beacon of hope for your daughter, and will influence her much more than any nagging ever could (however well intended and kindly delivered).7 -
What Bella said!2
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Bella. Have you considered writing a book to support those striving to build their best bodies???? Your posts sometimes take my breath away. Today, you have me crying with the accuracy of this line:
Moreover, if you make someone feel worthless you pin a target on their back for every predator, exploiter and abuser out there...
You have found your way to a healthy space (it feels like that) and speaking from your heart/soul/experience brings an honesty and integrity to your words that I seldom find in anything remotely like a "self help" book - yet they are all about helping us to help ourselves.
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Bella, I agree with you completely…..my mother was a beautiful woman but dieted constantly as long as I can remember……my parents were married at 16 and 18…. I was born 3 years later and remained an only child for 16 years…my mom had one sister and my dad was an only child…in middle school I started gaining weight and buying clothes was awful as my mom was smaller than me….when I started high school their solution was getting me diet pills….my mom lived on Tab diet soda, Metracal diet cookies, and tuna…I was on diet pills all thru high school and did keep my weight down….I must have been higher than a kite most of the time…during college I got married the first time and the pounds all came back plus more….a baby and a nasty divorce all added more weight….met my husband and we both loved food and he loved me fat or thin…and now here we are!….I can remember as a pre teen eating until I was miserable and hiding snacks…..in my twenty’s my parents still tried to control my weight….they would bribe me with money,clothes or trips to get me to lose weight….sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t….they paid for me to go to Weight Watchers and diet doctors…..in my 30s I discovered Phen Phen diet pills about the time daughter started swimming….( I lost 122 pounds on Phen Phen pills )…she was 8 and chubby….her coach told her she was too good of a swimmer to be overweight….we worked out a meal plan and that little girl lost 22 pounds in a year….she blossomed into a beautiful athletic confident young woman….somewhere between college, babies, and marriage she gained a LOT of weight…. She has watched me lose and gain weight her entire life….she has seen me struggle with back surgery, knees replaced, etc and her dad has diabetes and RA….I know she knows she needs to lose weight but she just ignores it….sometimes she talks about it but mostly is very defiant and angry about her size…she is intelligent and a great teacher….but I do know she constantly observes me losing weight….I hope she comes to her senses soon….all I can do is be here for her and give her a soft place to fall…I really do not nag anymore but i have also tried to bribe her, etc in the past….my husband tells me to just leave her alone and hopefully she will find her way….I hope it is soon!3
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It seems that as soon as restricted eating is introduced into a child's life, they are set up for weight problems the rest of their life. I know there are other starting points - but dieting/in any way making a child conscious of the fact they must eat less - seems to set up some patterns that never go away. I too was a chubby child (not terrible now that I look back at old photos) and those early diets, when I was in the single digits, just set me up for a lifetime of rollercoaster weight. Seems the mental health people are starting to research this more now and maybe, in time, that will end? Or not? Maybe those of us prone to being overweight were encouraged to diet just because we were overweight and wired to be overweight and that is why we battle for our lifetime?
It is a hard seat to live in that rollercoaster, and freaking impossible to do anything "for certain right" with our children's weight issues other than to love them with all our hearts and make sure they feel our love, not our judgement of excess weight. As someone who battles weight, I have a strong inclination to dislike "fat" - not the people with fat but the "fat" and all that comes with it. Can't help but think that such a strong disdain/dislike might be received in a hurtful way though. But it is hard to overlook something that I despise so much in my self (most of the time).2 -
My mother was far from thin but not severely overweight. However her cultural background saw only one future for girls. Be thin, pretty, and subservient so you can marry a quality man. Her disappointment and disapproval started when I was a chubby 7 year old. My older and younger sisters were pretty, thin and obviously better. Much to her surprise I had a successful career, married a very quality man, and was happy despite the weight. I ended up being her caretaker for many years.
Funny thing. Although I learned to mostly live with/ignore moms disapproval, I could not maintain weight loss until she passed away.5 -
Thank you Laurie - what a kind thing to say!
My observation is that damaged mothers in turn produce damaged daughters - somehow our generation has to be the one that breaks the cycle and teaches girls that they're wonderful, amazing and awesome exactly as they are, and that they owe it to themselves to achieve their full potential and follow their dreams without self-imposed or culturally-imposed limitation or constraint.3 -
My mother came by her damage honestly. She was the eldest of nine desperately poor in a village in Silesia. Then the war came and displacement, immigration, widowed at 43. I have forgiven and accepted that she did the best she could. We were just miles apart. But the weight disapproval cut deeply in childhood and well beyond.1
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Observations above are incredibly interesting and salient though I don't think that they extend only to girls. Admittedly, intense pre-occupation with weight specifically seems to have been relatively more prevalent among females in the recent media and advertising fueled past. Laurie's observation about starting a cycle of weight loss at an early age is, I think, incredibly relevant! And the non obese younger pictures of me I look at, at times I believed myself to be obese and a lost cause, are something that resonates when I see people posting about (relatively small) weight loss attempts at younger ages.
One thing I would bring forth is that parental attitude and examples of success or failure in managing weight AND HOW THE PARENT REACTS to the success or failure is also a component of what is being watched.
Part of my reluctance to even try and manage my weight in adulthood stemmed from watching my dad's many long term unsuccessful attempts (and more importantly FRUSTRATION and UNHAPINESS with *having to try and do this*) with managing his own weight. Which led me to internalize even more the: "why try since I know I will fail". Which, of course, was reinforced by my many classic and clumsy weight loss attempts which all boiled down to: exercise as much as I can while eating the least amount I can till it all blows up and I fail, again, and regain, again.
Unfortunately as @Yoolypr and @Bella_Figura both indicate, it takes a long time before many of us will become able to distance (or insulate ourselves) enough from (family, work, life) environments that include salient negatives amongst the many positives they may contribute to our lives.2 -
My mother came by her damage honestly. She was the eldest of nine desperately poor in a village in Silesia. Then the war came and displacement, immigration, widowed at 43. I have forgiven and accepted that she did the best she could. We were just miles apart. But the weight disapproval cut deeply in childhood and well beyond.
I think most parents want to be good parents….they don’t set out to destroy their offspring….my maternal grandfather was an abusive alcoholic who put “ the fear of God in his girls with switches and verbal abuse”… and yet my mom and her sister loved him…..he had been raised by an abusive step father with 6 other siblings….I walked a wide step around my grampa knowing what my mom had grown up with….and then my dads family had doted on him as a child and adult….his parents were soft spoken and well read….ha!….my parents were a match made in Heaven and adored each other….it was not a surprise that I was left to entertain myself with my imagination and food….my paternal grandparents spoiled and indulged me and my mom was so overwhelmed trying to be an adult that she gave me whatever I wanted to keep me occupied….surprisingly I turned out to be pretty ok….I always told my two kids that they probably grew up in one of the most normal families of anyone they knew!….we all grew up in dysfunctional families!….compared to my husbands childhood, my life was a picnic!3 -
And I’m sure our children will tell horror stories about us too. For the most part we try to do our best with the tools we were given. I surely hope I’ve done better and tried harder as a parent.3
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Me, too!3
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Child-free here, but Norman says I haven't damaged him too badly!
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Me, too!
(I'm so glad to be part of this group ) 4 -
Pfff, Skypup says I suck! 🤷🏻♂️🙀1
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All doting fur baby parents.3
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You guys can disagree but she slaps me around for not paying enough attention! Yes. Paw on my jaw! (or the car console!!!!!
) 2 -
She's just doin her best to keep you in line!3
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Daylight Saving time tomorrow. I hate fidgeting with the clock twice per year. I feel off schedule for at least a week. My mealtimes are crazy. While it may be helpful to farmers, it doesn’t help us urban dwellers in the least. And the last thing needed in the heat of Texas is an extra hour of daylight. 🌞2
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So our @AnnPT77 replied to a question about yo-yo dieting probably intended for the dietician. It is a pretty good review of how I too understand things to work... and it might resonate with many of us...
I would tend to stress manageable deficit, sustainability of effort, do things you feel that you will be able to do long term as opposed to separating life as "on" and "off" diet... but... well... here is what she wrote:Well . . . not exactly. This will be a long essay (sorry), or maybe rant. There's a TL;DR at the end.
There's some evidence, as I read the research, that repeated extreme yo-yo dieting is bad for health (maybe worse than staying slightly overweight, even).
There are ways that yo-yo dieting can lower one's calorie needs, but it depends on the dieting methods somewhat, and it can be reversible.
Think of it this way: Generally, our bodies get good at what we train them to do. If we're athletically active, like if we run every day, we'll get better at running, right? Bodies be like that.
Over human history, famines were common. The people who lived through them, had kids, were our ancestors. They were the people whose bodies were good at living through famines (unlike the people who died faster under starvation stress). So, we're kind of designed to live through famines, via natural selection.
If we - us regular modern people - go through repeated famines, we're training our bodies to maximize those "live through famine" traits.
Our bodies don't know the difference between repeated famines, and repeated extreme weight-loss diets.
I'll describe a bad pattern that many women in my demographic have done for decades. (I'm old, 66. Times have changed. This may not be what you did, but bear with me. I have a point. Eventually.)
It was common to get/feel fat, then go on a diet. The diet would often involve extreme and unusual tactics: Eating different foods, going for the lowest possible calories we could tolerate. (We felt tough and cool, showing that willpower. It was fun to talk about with friends, sharing "diet tips".)
A common pattern for women was lots of salads and veggies, very low fats, little/no meats, minimized carbs, all low calorie . (We felt delicate and feminine, virtuous even, eating like little birds. That was fun to talk about, too - a bonding experience.)
On the exercise front, plenty of cardio was the norm, back then: Extreme, intense. Aerobics, fat burning zone, all that kind of stuff. No strength training, because we didn't want to "get bulky" or "look like a man". (This was also kind of fun, showing that willpower to do this intense stuff, brag about our workout routines. They were exercise programs designed just for women, so cool.)
Eventually, that would break down, because we couldn't keep it up. Too hard, not compatible with a balanced, happy life.
We "went back to normal". "Normal" tended to be no workouts (or super minimal, still cardio), eating All The Things, but probably mostly carby/fatty things, often still not that much protein: The pizza, the pasta dish, maybe still the salad but with the bits of crispy chicken and the ranch dressing. (I don't know why that's so common, among women my age, low-balling protein foods, but it is.) On the side, soda pop, dessert, wine, beer, sweet mixed drinks, sweet coffee drinks. Snack on the candy, chips. Have the cheesy or deep-fried appetizer.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. What's the effect?
Even without every one of those detailed extremes, each weight loss tends to lose some muscle mass, alongside fat loss (from losing really fast at low calories, not getting good overall nutrition, especially protein, doing no strength exercise to remind our body we need those muscles).
Every regain tends to be mostly fat, no regain of muscle (from still sub-par overall nutrition, too many calories, no activity to encourage our body to use surplus calories building muscle instead of adding fat). Statistically, most people regain to a new high weight, higher than before. It's mostly fat.
Muscle, pound per pound, does burn a few more calories at rest than fat, but the number is small (like around 6 calories per pound daily for muscle, 2 for fat, approximately, so around 4 calories difference per pound per day, just sitting around). That's a small lowering of our calorie needs.
More importantly, that loss of muscle, and the habits the yo-yos create, can have a bigger impact.
The extreme exercise during weight loss teaches us that exercise is unpleasant, even miserable (it needn't be, but it seems like that), plus maybe time-consuming and hard to fit into our life without disrupting our happy routine.
During "go back to normal", we sit around more, get more out of shape, develop a whole range of subtle habits of not moving very much: Not just formal exercise, but maybe things like less window shopping, more TV watching; less active play with the kids, more sitting in the shade with our e-reader.
Those habits lead us to let even more muscle and fitness slip away. The less fit we are, the less fun and the more difficult activity becomes, so we probably do less of it . . . subtly, gradually, unnoticed. Even fidgeting burns up to a couple of hundred calories per day, according to research on fidgety vs. non-fidgety people who are otherwise similar. Who notices how much they fidget? (I don't.)
There are some other subtle things, too: Maybe our body temperature drops a fraction of a degree, because our body's planning for another famine. Feel cold? Maybe our hair grows a little slower, gets a little thinner. (Expected with age, maybe? Or maybe not). Maybe our fingernails grow slower, too, aren't as strong. Those (in this paragraph alone) and other tiny things, technically, might be considered "metabolic damage". They aren't necessarily permanent, either, but they can be a bit stubborn to reverse. Fortunately, they tend to be calorically pretty small.
Bottom line: With a bunch of yo-yos, we tend to burn slightly fewer calories through body composition (less muscle, more fat). We may burn slightly fewer calories from stuff in that "metabolic slowdown" paragraph. We also tend to burn fewer calories - maybe lots fewer - through reduced movement in daily life (plus reduced exercise capability or intensity).
That makes each next round of weight loss a little harder.
The good news: Pretty much all of that is reversible, and we can lose weight without all of that stuff so much kicking us, on the next round.
We can get good overall nutrition (including enough protein, but not just that), add some doable strength exercise, work on cardiovascular fitness gradually via fun (or at minimum tolerable) activities that are manageably challenging to our current fitness level (not miserable or punitive), be intentional about getting more movement into our daily life . . . those can happen when we're losing weight, or when we're not. Beneficial in either case: They gradually improve fitness, and increase routine calorie burn.
When we're losing weight, we lose at a sensibly gradual pace, figuring out how to eat nutritiously and eat enough that our body doesn't immediately slip into "OMG! Famine!" territory. While losing, we can take some breaks at maintenance calories for a couple of weeks, to practice maintenance, but also to let various hunger/appetite hormones recover, so the body can relax its "famine alarms".
During that manageable calorie deficit, we can keep going with the fun, manageably progressive strength and cardiovascular exercise (in ways that fit into our life while keeping enough time and energy for other things important to us - good life balance - so it's sustainable).
Overall, we can experiment, figure out, groove in long-term eating and activity patterns that work for us to stay at a healthy weight, instead of repeating the "extreme loss"/"go back to normal" nonsense. These patterns can become routine habits that happen more-or-less on autopilot, when life gets complicated, because they don't take massive attention or willpower to sustain.
Apologies for the long essay. If you want a more science-explanation, the first few posts in this thread are excellent:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1
TL;DR: Repeat yo-yo dieting can make each subsequent bout of weight loss more difficult, but for pretty non-dramatic, common sense reasons. The effects are usually reversible, with better plans. Someone who's yo-yo dieted can lose weight, and even reach a point where their calorie needs increase, while having a reasonably happy life during the weight loss, and beyond. That happens with a sensibly moderate plan of good nutrition, modestly reduced calories (for quite a long time), intentional and manageable changes in activity (including but not exclusively exercise).
Best wishes for future success!3 -
Thank you for sharing this great post, PAV. I have followed Ann for awhile - and have always been impressed by her food choices (she is also a vegetarian).2
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I took a trip down memory lane this morning, when I was thinking about 'intuitive eating' and why I struggle with it. Because, after all, people have eaten intuitively for millenia - try to explain a calorie to our great-grandmothers and they wouldn't have a clue what we were talking about. And ask them to weigh their food, and keep a log of everything they eat and drink - they'd think we were totally batty.
So if intuitive eating was natural for my great-grandmother...grandmother...mother...why is it so hard for me? Am I just 'broken' or defective in some way? I doubt it. Actually, it's much more likely that its the shift in our society that has made intuitive eating such a difficult proposition.
I'm 56, and I was born and raised in Birmingham, the second biggest city in the UK. A big metropolis. All our local shops opened at 9am and closed at 5pm. On Wednesdays and Saturdays they closed at noon. On Sundays only the newsagent was open, until 11am. Apart from a chippy, we had no fast food outlets at all. They hadn't been conceived of yet. The chippy (which just sold chips, battered fish and meat pies) only opened for 2 hours in the evening, from Tuesday to Saturday. I was a teenager before the first McD's opened in the city centre. To this day I've never tasted KFC or Burgerking. I was at university before I had my first chinese and indian takeaways or pizza. Pubs were open for 2 hours at lunchtime and four hours in the evenings. Drinking at home was unheard of, as was the concept of 'going out for dinner'. I was 22 before I set foot in a restaurant (for my graduation celebration).
We kids were given 5p for sweets on a Saturday morning. It bought quite a haul of goodies, but wasn't quite enough to buy fancy chocolate bars like Mars Bar, Snicker Bar, KitKat or Twix (they all cost 9p). They were twice-a-year Christmas and birthday treats. Once our we'd eaten our Saturday sweets we got no more until the following Saturday.
As soon as they were weaned, infants were hydrated with milky tea, water, milk or watery squash. In 1974 fizzy pop hit the scene, and the Corona man came to the house every Friday at 3pm and delivered a glass litre bottle of fizzy pop, and collected last week's empty bottle. The one litre lasted our family of 7 for the whole week (only we 4 kids under 16 were allowed to drink it). This was the only way you could buy fizzy pop until the late 1970s.
When I was 10 a 'huge' newfangled supermarket opened in our suburb. It had 6 modest aisles. We'd go there on a Saturday morning and do the weekly shop. That included one pack of plain biscuits, which the 7 of us shared. Every few evenings, just before bedtime once we'd come in from playing and had a strip wash, the biscuit barrel was taken down from a high shelf and we were each solemnly given one biscuit. Even dad only got one. It was a treat.
Breakfast was porridge 365 days a year, made with water and salt. Then sprinkled generously with sugar and a glug of whole milk. We took a bagged lunch to school. It was invariable. One slice of white packet bread made into two small squares of sandwich. And an apple and an orange. Monday it was fish paste; Tuesday cheddar and tomato ketchup; Wednesday ham and cucumber; Thursday corned beef and tomato ketchup; Friday marmite. This was supposed to sustain us from when we left the house at 7am until we got home. We were always hungry at school. Dinner was dished up as soon as we got home from school at about 5.30pm.
Mom cooked a proper dinner and a proper pudding every night. Portions were modest. Seconds were never an option. You were expected to clear your plate and not whine about it, even if it was liver or tripe (yuk).
We played outside with all the other neighbourhood kids from dinner time until it got too dark to see. We weren't allowed to stay indoors under mom's feet even in lightning storms. In the holidays we were out by 8am...we'd be allowed home for a sandwich at about 1pm then sent out again until dinner time, then out again until it was properly dark. It would've been considered weird to raise your kids any differently.
Food was simple, but calorific. Even on quite small rations I was still overweight. Mom fried everything in lard or dripping. Bread was always white, packaged and served thickly buttered. Cheese was invariably cheddar and thickly sliced. Tea was sugary with plenty of whole milk. Dinner was stodgy, designed to fill us up cheaply. Heavy on the potatoes and yorkshire pud, light on the meat, which was expensive.
Mom survived predominantly on sugary tea and cigarettes. We kids got the lion's share of what was going, dad got the rest, mom went without. Not because she was dieting (she was always skinny) but because the food didn't stretch too far and there were lots of mouths to feed. She chose cigarettes over food. She worked hard - always on the go from dawn until bedtime. Running a household with few labour-saving devices, holding down three cleaning jobs. Dad's job was hard too - he was a lorry driver and he'd leave the house at 3.30 am to load up with his deliveries and not get home until late evening. Six days a week. Those long hours weren't uncommon.
I'm guessing that most folks over 50 had similar childhoods, whether in the UK, USA or Canada. It was normal.
But nowadays, we're living in a 24/7 smorgasbord. Even in my small deeply rural village there's a grocery store that's open from 7am until 11pm 364 days a year. There are probably 20+ take-out chinese/indian/thai/pizza/kebab etc places within a 10 mile radius that would deliver to my home 7 days a week. There are half a dozen huge supermarkets in every small town, stuffed with food from all corners of the globe. A dizzying array of choice and abundance. Food is widely available, plentiful, and the non-nutritious stuff is appallingly cheap. Everything is super-sized.
At home and work, our lives have become sedentary and non-laborious.
Life is better now in lots of ways than it was 40-50+ years ago, but all the above shows how much more difficult it is now than it was back in the day to eat intuitively and exercise restraint and moderation. If indulgent fare isn't there, you're not tempted to have it. If it's there - constantly - it's so much harder to maintain constant self-discipline. I'm not advocating a return to 1960/70s austerity, but I do see the benefit in trying to detach from all that abundance...4
