Food...control...the endless loop
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yikes it does sound a little bit precarious have you considered a pet friendly Uber or similar subsidized perhaps with the help of the owner of Reese????0
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Reese's person is off on tour - planned and booked and agreed to before my paw mishap. The driving is okay...the dog park is a bit spooky late at night - but I must go then because my girl is a bit of a witchypoo and doesn't get along with "strange" dogs. The after 10 crowd at this little park are all owners of problem pups...everyone takes turns. If there is someone already in the park, you wait. All very civilized
But it is at the edge the industrial part of the city and it's VERY dark in them parts. And usually there is no one else around. 1 -
Heavens Laurie! Bad knee, witchy dog, late at night, an unlit sketchy park? Sounds like a big NO! How about early morning-after sunrise? Less traffic in case you have to brake hard. Fewer sketchy people because they tend to sleep later.
As I often told my son - nothing good is going on in the streets after dark. Did he listen to me? NOT!1 -
Kids! And we are all someone's kids
Why I go then is because that is when all the regular people stay away. In the morning the spot is hopping. I can't let the witchypoo run. It is absurd. Usually I go late at night with Reese's person. This works well for me - I have a witchy dog who can't play well with others - works well for him, a late night person who gets bored/lonely at night It took a few months for witchypoo to trust Reese (who is a great big sweetheart) - but she loves him now so they can run around together and have fun. So long as he doesn't try to take her frisbee He doesn't. EVERYTHING is hers until she says it isn't. He is no fool
I didn't go last night. Drizzly rain was added to the mix and it was just too much for my poor brain to deal with.2 -
Just had a zoom meeting with my "disordered eating" counsellor. I so love this woman. She has recently retired out of a successful, lifetime family doctor career into the realm of disordered eating - which she has been involved in for decades also. But she comes to this place now with a wealth of big picture health knowledge and tremendous wisdom and a remarkable ability to learn rather than simply believe.
Most of the time she is very very very very very reluctant to agree to anything remotely near a "D" "I" "E" "T" but she is also wise enough to understand where I am in life. Extra weight = injuries = depression = poor health. So today she granted acceptance to my "Regularized Eating Pattern (with a modest calorie deficit)"
I'm so happy to have her in my corner. She is always in the back of my mind - coaching me. Sometimes that back of the mind woman doesn't properly represent the real woman - but that gets corrected when we next speak. Together today we have agreed that I will always need to adhere to a Regularized Eating Pattern Everyone here knows about that. But now, in my mind, I am adding a lifetime "with a modest calorie deficit."
I hope my REPWAMCD becomes one that I will live with forever and I don't start questioning what I know is true for me: eating at a calorie deficit in a regularized eating pattern is ultimately the healthiest way for me to eat. Once I get into that land of "no deficit" any common sense or knowledge I have gained is completely overrun by tyrannical brain hamsters that can't imagine wasting those extra calories on extra nourishment and instead go for the "treats" which trigger binges which trigger more binges. And that is the way it is. Every freaking time. And I'm probably too old to acclimatize to anything different - it will take me at least twenty years of behaviour modification training and by then it won't matter. That being the case, adding 500 calories of food to my days - but replacing all the healthy nutritious food I consume when I'm eating at a deficit with junk - is never going to help me heal faster or bring me more energy or make me feel healthier. And, I'm incapable of behaving differently.
Give me some extra rope and I'll hang myself.
Everytime.
It is time for me to accept that as my reality. It is not going to change. Learning to live with that "character flaw" and to respect it enough to include it in all of my "planning" will lead to far more success than thinking I am going to/am able to change it.
I cannot see any danger in this new approach. If living with a daily Calorie Deficit remains my "default" I have no doubt that there will be sufficient occasions/celebrations worthy of "over deficit" days to keep me from ever becoming too thin (or too rich ) I imagine I might get to feel too restricted by the REPWAMCD - if so, I will try very hard to remind myself that I need such restrictions because I'm a wild, passionate women who cannot control my desires. That should work for a while. I'm at the age where that sounds like a fantastically "youthful," description, and the positivity that comes with that will, I hope, help me stay in the restraints.
At this very moment, the idea of staying on a "diet" for the rest of my life feels very secure. I sigh in relief at the thought.1 -
Well diet is what we eat. So you're always eating your diet! 🤪
I just finished a post about logging acting as inhibition.
I don't think any of us *here* can eat without any inhibitions and not be obese.
Choosing inhibitions we can live with long term... and being willing to adjust them with changing circumstances...
Dems de hamster management tricks!0 -
Totally agree with your counselor and PAV. I wasn’t successful at any long term weight control until I accepted that I will have to monitor my eating for the rest of my life. Not a temporary diet but a revamp of how I viewed eating.
As long as the majority of days are within my caloric needs (not wants!) I’ll be okay. There will be slip ups, vacations, parties and holidays but I must go back to mindfulness.
I try to eliminate some guesswork by having the same boring but healthy breakfast every day. Every day will have a big salad with balsamic vinegar or low cal dressing. The pantry and fridge are stacked with “my” foods so I can make substitutions. For example today hubby wanted pasta with sauce and chicken. I subbed zoodles for the pasta, had the tomato sauce and weighed the chicken.
It works out most days. Some days I would like to eat more or leave the table hungry. But I’m happier than when I was busting out of 3x pants.2 -
Where is your "logging acting as inhibition" post, PAV?
I need to tell my brain/belly doctor about the hamsters! I have yet to do that. 2 -
That last post I wrote a long time ago - but somehow didn't hit "Post Reply"
I have no doubt about having to monitor what I eat forever - haven't ever had any real doubt about that. The counselor is on board with that too. What I'm changing is that my "forever" default will be a calorie deficit. She isn't (wasn't) keen on any kind of deficit - because it can trigger "disordered eating." I knew I had to lose weight and that would require a calorie deficit - but I did kinda think in time I would switch to "maintenance" mode - and my aim would be to eat to match my TDEE. That I'm giving up on.2 -
Yup - permanent deficit eating here. Because it’s hard to determine my TDEE as it’s different everyday or changes over time. And sometimes it’s not possible to get accurate calorie counts - like in combination foods or eating out. I aim for a deficit number every day and know by the scale if that’s working.
The margin between deficit and maintenance is very small for me. Very easy to go over with an extra tablespoon of something or a quick few sample bites which add up over time. Like my three pounds of Christmas cookie weight! It took weeks to move that faux pas along.
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I so appreciate all you wonderful role models here. Thank YOUS.
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Food and the link to mental health is ROUGH. Like, I feel better mentally when I eat better. I know this. My brain is less foggy, I have more energy, and I seem to be able to handle stress better. BUT, fighting urges and my brain wanting to just say "*kitten* it, lets eat" can be so hard. Restriction is hard.2
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restriction is hard - freedom too!1
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While I’m basically maintaining, I do need to move some pounds along. I reviewed my daily logs to see if I could make some changes. It became glaringly apparent that while my actual meals were okay ✅ my snacks were way more than one full meal.
So am I snacking because I’m still hungry an hour or two after eating? Or just doing crazy 😜 grab and go senseless eating? Am I even really hungry between meals or just bored/tired/anxious?
I’m going to try upping my meal calories to see if that will carry me over to the next meal. It’s that or finding filling low cal munchies.2 -
I find that snacking just became habitual. Not really snacking for any reason other than that is what I did when I walked into the kitchen. Since I work at home, that is pretty often.
I'm trying to break the habit completely - not even any basically freebie grape tomatoes. Because when they went up to a zillion dollars a quart I didn't buy them and I started snacking on other things instead.3 -
Have you noticed the sky-rocketing price with a smaller container combo for the tom's??0
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Stopped buying them for a while - but this week they are down to $2.49 at my local store 3
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eeek.... wrong thread! Thankfully I spotted it before time was up!0
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You tease!!!!!1
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Maybe I’m not a big three meals a day person anymore? Lately it’s been easier to have something every few hours to take the edge off. My weight is stubbornly the same (almost exactly!) for the last ten days.
Since hubby wants to dine together at regular meals, I’m considering eating minimally and planning intermittent small feeding between. Got to think this out so it doesn’t become a crappy food snackathon.3 -
At times I go multiple smaller snacks and no meals. But at some point of time I cave and the big meal happens. Not sure how it correlates to my weight changes1
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I used to do many smaller meals....that feels problematic for me now - it is just too hard to start eating once I start. Amazing how our bodies change!1
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I go back and forth Laurie. I truly don't know whether there is a weight correlation. I don't have data.
I do know that when I first started losing weight using MFP I did change my eating over time to eat a small amount sufficient to move me forward a few hours without blowing the budget rinse lather repeat till all the calories are gone except for the chunk I am saving for yogurt etc at end of day. But that has always been interspersed with a single large meal and a number of smaller "snacks" throughout the day with (in my case) no real preset times for any of it.
I am not even 100% sure which way is "easier" or I prefer. I guess it depends on what else is happening in life?1 -
Makes sense to me, PAV, that maybe there is no absolute/rational/best way to sort our food.
My earlier post was supposed to read "it is just too hard to STOP eating once I start" - but I'm guessing you could figure that out.1 -
I've managed not to go overboard since returning from the land of The Boy last week. But no big deficit took place. I'm thinking now that perhaps I'll just try to get into maintenance now rather than aiming for a real deficit between now and surgery next week. Accomplishing that will be victory enough and maintaining a deficit takes more brain power than I seem to have at the moment so there is no point beating a comatose horse. 2
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Hey guys, I am back after a loooong hiatus, I think 3 years of being here daily was a bit OTT for me and becoming border-line compulsive.
I could have copy/pasted the original post from this thread as myself. I did so well up until about a year before COVID hit us (weird that's what we use as way to measure time these days huh!?) anyway I had been relatively active up til about a year ago but even that has dropped off
Now I am buying a house and have all the stress that goes with that, old very bad eating habits have started to slip back in to place - think buying a large swiss roll as a snack
. A few years back I had aimed to be "Fit by 40" as part of my mid-term goals. Here I am with 85 days to go, so I guess I had better get cracking! 5 -
The Irish gal! 🌞 Hello👋3
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Welcome back, Tinkerbellang!
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Some better choices this week though still a little bingey, but much better and I got a bit more active and way more fruit & veg.
Any big plans for the weekend folks?
I have a busy one - I am heading to a candlelight rock orchestra gig tomorrow night, off to one of the forest parks in West Cork, tackling my final exam /assignment for my Statistics module of my degree and we have a bank holiday this Monday, so I am going to have a self-care day - some yoga, plant-based food and some reading.
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