Food...control...the endless loop
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One of my longtime mfpeops swears by Crio Bru which seems to have relatively few calories and by the ritual of making plus time consumed consuming may be worth a shot re yooly snacks
Crio Bru can be had on Amazon but not at my local stores. It does sound interesting!
I seem to need something more solid though. Liquid doesn’t do it for me. Perhaps the tried and true carrots and celery sticks. Might pep them up with a sprinkle of Tajin.2 -
Thus far my 12 hour, mostly overnight, fasts seem to be helpful. It gives the body a rest from constant digestion! I’m finding it easier to manage the time between supper and bedtime. Going to bed 🛏️ earlier helps but I’m still waking in the middle of the night.
Is it hunger or just too much sleep? Because I don’t want to wake hubby, I just lie there in the dark until I fall asleep 😴 again. No meandering to the fridge or pantry. But I am VERY ready for breakfast 🍳 in the morning.2 -
@Yoolypr, is this a deliberate strategy, to have 12-hour overnight fasts?
It's something I do naturally - can't remember the last time I ate anything after 8pm and I usually have breakfast between 8:30 and 9:00 - but it's not a mindful, deliberate weight-loss strategy on my part. Is there evidence to suggest if's beneficial for health?
I'm very rarely tempted to get out of bed in the middle of the night for anything. I lie there with a full bladder and just can't be bothered to move, even if I'm wide awake (which I regularly am, between 1am and 4am). I just listen to an audiobook and ignore the urge to pee! And nothing would ever get me out of bed to eat in the middle of the night - it would feel really weird to be eating in my pajamas! Thank heavens, I guess, because I can do enough damage during waking hours, without hitting the calories during sleeping hours too!2 -
Ha Bella! I hear that as we grow older that pee thing....😝1
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Bella_Figura wrote: »@Yoolypr, is this a deliberate strategy, to have 12-hour overnight fasts?
For me the twelve hour fast is to try to control snacking after supper. I eat supper around 6 pm but rarely get to sleep before 11pm. Sometimes later. I have a difficult time getting to sleep or staying asleep. I usually am up around 5:30am. Six hours of sleep is usually enough.
So there’s this five or more hours between supper and sleep. It’s a loooong five hours. In the past that’s when I ate a stupid amount of snacks. I’m determined to conquer that demon.
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I think I am going to stop counting again for the time being. Not giving up on getting healthier, but I am back in a cycle where I do great for a few days and then just lose all control. So I have decided to take a less strict approach to calories and instead focus on my meals themselves. Take the numbers out for now.
1) Intentional movement at least 4 days a week (a walk, ride the bike, yoga, whatever... it all counts) I know this isn't food based, but it is part of the plan.
2) Eat smaller portions or at least START with smaller portions and if I am still hungry I can get some more.
3) Decrease my added sugar intake, especially with foods that don't help me get other healthy macro/micos in. For example, WAY less soda, gatorade, juice, cookies, candy, and the like... but I am not getting rid of my flavored yogurt or sauces/dressings. The yogurt, while having added sugar, also gets me healthy fats, protein, calcium, and probiotics. Something like teriyaki sauce may have added sugar, but when I stir fry a whole bag of frozen veggies with it I am getting a ton of fiber and micronutrients that I need. Hope that makes sense.
4) Focus more on protein and fiber
I think that is where I am going to start. Maybe I will add to it next month (something like eating out a lot less).2 -
Sounds a solid plan, Athijade. Achieving strict control while you are feeling under the weather is an exercise in frustration. Hope this works for you.
Yooly - the twelve hour fast idea sounds most impressive to my ears. My sleeping hours can bounce around a lot - and I "hang out" with people who eat at weird times. Between them and being tired from staying up too late, I'm tempted to eat in the late evening hours and usually do.
I would love to be like Bella, and my friend Bev, who just wouldn't dream of eating later in the day.1 -
lauriekallis wrote: »I would love to be like Bella, and my friend Bev, who just wouldn't dream of eating later in the day.
In my case it's only because laziness and love of snuggling under the duvet trumps going downstairs to the cold kitchen to eat. Once I'm in my bed only a fire alarm can get me out again!
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Hey @lauriekallis I've thought of a way to turn your late night munchies from a negative to a positive!
I had this epiphany in the early hours when I was wondering WHY I lie there with a full bladder rather than haul myself out of bed to go pee....and I realised that it isn't just laziness, it's a deep dislike of having cold feet!
No way in the world will I stand on cold kitchen floor tiles just to make myself a snack....
So here's what you should do - ditch your socks and slippers and if you MUST get out of bed to eat, force yourself to do it barefoot, and eat standing up at the kitchen counter, preferably on one leg at a time so that you can get in some balance practice too, and thus add 10 years to your lifespan!
I bet those cold Canadian floor tiles will soon have you scurrying back upstairs to your warm bed. And if they don't, at least you'll have burned some calories and worked on your balance and posture!2 -
So the one thing I deeply disliked about Europe and love about Canada... Is the relative indoor warmth acceptability levels in wintertime!
While I suspect change is happening very slowly with increased heating in the winter in Europe and decreased heating due to costs and concerns over climate change in Canada... the default acceptability levels are still substantially different.0 -
I have no solution re the eating when up and tired other than not being up and tired.
I.e. it is a having your cake and eating it too problem. Or per the Greeks having your pie intact and untouched and the dog well fed at the same time! 🤪
Beyond that the only things I've found some success with would be deflection to lower calorie options
And the suboptimal in many respects but it DID work with sufficient calories of headroom' basically leaving the larger proportion of calories for night use. Has dangers especially if pulling large deficits 🤷♂️
I think that strategic maintenance days can help if this is not too frequent.
Over time we do have to successfully effect SOME long term changes to manage to both achieve and retain changes to our weight.
Sleeping, stress, health issues unfortunately they conspire to undermine 🤷♂️1 -
So the one thing I deeply disliked about Europe and love about Canada... Is the relative indoor warmth acceptability levels in wintertime!
While I suspect change is happening very slowly with increased heating in the winter in Europe and decreased heating due to costs and concerns over climate change in Canada... the default acceptability levels are still substantially different.
Really? We only turn on our central heating for 2 hours a day, and our house is arctic at bedtime! By the time we go to bed our sheets and mattress are so cold that they feel almost damp - lovely! There's nothing nicer than getting into an icy bed. But it's also nice to slowly get toasty, and once I'm toasty I hate to get cold feet again. And if the house overall is arctic, the kitchen is by far the coldest room in the house as we never heat it other than by the warmth from cooking, which will have fully dispersed by about 8pm...and by 2am the floor is as cold as if I were standing barefoot on the garden patio...
I don't think we're at all unusual in sitting swaddled in blankets on the sofa to watch TV, or sitting there in a woolly hat, scarf and finger-less gloves while using the laptop etc...I think that's pretty common in the UK (and other European countries too, I think). I think we're much more worried about climate-change in Europe than you guys across the pond.2 -
Errr yes. Exactly I was discussing: abysmal ice caves!
Hotels with hot water bottles and timed heaters in the 90s in England
Turn on the electricity with your card pretty much everywhere from what I am told these days.
One part of it was always relative energy costs. Both in terms of absolute value and in terms of percentage of take home pay.
This is partially driving the change over here too. I am fairly sure I've heard of Laurie discussing lower thermostats in recent memory and I even hear people who are trying to balance their budget contemplating mid 60's thermostats (18) as opposed to 70s (21)!
From what I hear though about a certain south European countries ( @Dante_80 are you still around and thriving?), and while I don't know where the population level balance plays out, I certainly hear from the middle aged+ demographic I may be more affiliated with (presumably as it has become slightly more affluent and less willing to put up with inconvenience with increased age) more of a willingness to use air con/heaters/heat pumps to supplement or fully replace central heating in apartments.
City apartments used to be heated centrally but this has been minimized in most buildings in a bid to lower strata fees. And while the provision has directly benefited my family, the right to opt out and not pay for central heating exacerbates the problem in buildings where multiple apartments have opted out.
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I'm pretty good at the cold avoidance, Bella. My problem is the eating between ??? 6 pm and bedtime. Before bed My house is fairly cool - maybe close to UK standards???? Heated with a gas fireplace in the centre living room. Which keeps that room warm but everywhere else pretty cool. Bedroom is cool for sure - I'm not sure about icy - but about 60f (15c) in the cooler months - give or take a few degrees depending on the wind whistling through the window gaps I love that cool breeze. Airtight homes disturb me!
I am getting better at it though. If I eat adequately through the day I'm okay at night. As long as I don't get started !1 -
Now that our 2 month mild winter is winding down, I have the opposite problem. We use heat pump and AC. Our AC runs continuously from late April to early November. Humidity is a major problem- mold would flourish on the drywall, closets, shoes. Mid summer we struggle to keep temperatures a constant 77F (25C) degrees. Not prime sleeping temperatures but going lower results in huge electric bills.
We keep the shades drawn and have tile flooring throughout to stay cool. But it’s hard to cool down the house on 💯 + degree days when it’s still 90 degrees at midnight and doesn’t go much below 80 overnight. Our biggest fear in summer is extended power failure!1 -
You need to dig down and burrow
I gather your heat pump is air? Or is soil temperature not that much less anyway? 0 -
Heat pump does heat for cold days and air. Not sure how soil temperature would impact the heat pump? All the equipment is above ground. Duct work is in the attic. No basements here to hide in….0
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Air-to-Air Heat pump, Water-source Heat pump, Geothermal Heat pump.
https://bighomeprojects.com/heat-pump-types-available-for-texans-3-essential-types-explained/
First two to install? $3 to $10K. Geothermal? $10-$40K
Sounds like you have air to air.
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I only have a personal relationship with the thermostat not the equipment! I guess it’s the air thingy.0
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Humph! Re reading this & that endless food loop - that this is going to be something I do forever … the losing, regaining & having to watch this feels like.. well doomful & depressing; especially so that I think my state has come about due to dieting as a young adult with, from what I can / want to remember, a few extra pounds to only lose and being in a body confidence crisis!
Came across another post on the forums where some clever MFP’er had posted a useful flow chart tool entitled “Are you hungry with the purpose to, really, really ask yourself this prior to any misgivings that you can be more emotionally hungry as opposed to having actual hunger.
Really liked it, but has made a bell in my head clang loudly… it details the physiological hunger cues - you know, the feeling of emptiness, getting a bit dizzy, losing some of your focus & concentrarion and that feeling of the rumbling of the tum etc…
And that is the rub of posting this ramble …I think Ihave lost that rumble & asking myself Is this / could this this is hampering some of my efforts?
Can remember when last had it 😳… I seem to eat in set time frames- including the known emotional ones.
Has it disappeared because I am / have been (🤞) this hapless, serial, yo - yo dieter?
This morning for example, I should have had one, as I am dilegently trying to instigate the - alla @Bella - “ This kitchen is closed / reopens at …..principal… I had not eaten for some 13 hours (I too cannot / am stubbonly, not willing, to get out of a warm, toasty pit of a bed in the middle of a cold UK night! )
Is this just me? Do you have a rumble?! Can I get mine back, I wonder? Answers, as they say, on a postcard welcomed 🤣🤣🤣2 -
Nope - either lost my rumble long ago or never had it. I’ve been overweight most of my life though. I firmly believe most of my bad relationship to food is due to lack of emotional control.2
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Hi Yooly,
No rumble too?!
The complex emotional stuff certainly derails me here too & far too often.
I’ve been quite alarmed as have been totally focusing & concentrating on this area this last few weeks - been able to limit some /most damage this week and so am pleased with that - progress? Perhaps.
Some thought put in & Ive been aghast at how swiftly it happens from the event / stressor and my reacting - it’s like a quick bang” & before any thought has passed, my body is at the fridge, with my head in & my arm reaching in - and then there’s been a “ what am I freakin’ doin’ again?” moment that has caught it going any further so far…
Like said in post- this emotional self sabotage - think trying to reduce that has to be one of my main motivator as to why I came back to this community.
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@Creamtea42 you can re-train your rumble! I never had one either - for years and years I ate pre-emptively because I feared the rumble so much, and in the end I feared I'd killed it off forever....but after several weeks of deliberate delaying my meals until I felt genuinely hungry, it came back with a vengeance.
Now I finally know - from genuine personal experience - that hunger comes in waves. Ignore the first wave of hunger (even if you feel slightly nauseous and sweaty) and after half an hour or so of discomfort it goes away again for at least a couple of hours...and the second wave of hunger (in my experience) is no more intense than the first wave. When I realised that hunger has a pattern of behaviour - and that 30 minutes of moderate discomfort wouldn't kill me! - it was a real breakthrough moment for me.
Nowadays I try to listen to my body's cues and only eat when I'm genuinely, truly hungry.2 -
Hmmm complicated and not enough time.
By the time rumbling uncontrollable eating is more likely than not. Have to catch subtle cues (such as thinking about food or candy bars a bit more than normal--usually cross validate with logging to confirm--more often than not, yup, I should be eating something.
But the non hunger related? Crap, I still can't stop munching while on the phone! At least I don't have lunch on top!2 -
No rumble in ????? a very long time. That was dieted away somewhere before my teens.
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We must all have a rumble as is part of digestive process; peristalis hasn’t stopped - or I’d burst! …biology - the release of the hunger hormones, the digestive juices released in stomach, but Yooley, Laurie - we must be deaf to it ?
hoping it’ll return, like it has with you Bella….
So the no rumblers - do you time eat?
Bella - you show such fortitude - I know, as Pav has hinted at - when have too large gaps & get that nauseous & dizzy feeling, I eat & have a tendency to eat too fast & then overeat before I know it.
Stuff to work on!
Going to stop snacking - again - do 3 meals a day & experiment with timing!
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I’m usually very good with meals and eat on a regular schedule most days. My problem is snacking grab and go in between or after. Again, most days are okay but if I’m anxious, worried, tired,stressed…. All bets are off. I’ll just pick up handfuls of stuff without experiencing any hunger. And nothing seems to fill the void. Just pure craziness!3
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@Creamtea42 I confess to being a bit too self-disciplined at times....
I have almost entirely stopped snacking in between meals, because in my case that was where most of the damage was done. I found myself skimping on my meal calories in order to give me more calories for snacking, and as a consequence the overall quality of my diet declined, and I found I was hungrier than ever because of the greater amount of empty calories I was consuming.
So I gave myself a pep talk and decided to cut out snacking completely.
When it comes to weight management, I'm better with an all-or-nothing approach. It's when I try to moderate that things go awry. So if I tell myself NO EATING BETWEEN MEALS that's something I can do without too much stress and effort....but if I gave myself permission to snack if you're really hungry/snack if it's a special occasion/snack if your next meal might be delayed/snack because it's the weekend/snack because that cake looks sooooo good/snack because it's a healthy treat/snack because there's a Y in the day of the week.....well, then I'd go completely to pot and before I knew where I was I'd be back to skimping on my proper food to fuel that snack habit...
Five days a week I have 3 meals per day, and two days a week I have a large brunch and then a light dinner (still experimenting to see if a 2-meal day is a good strategy for me or not). If I'm hungry between meals I drink a glass of water or have a cuppa and keep myself busy until the hunger goes away again. By the time the meal is ready I'm properly hungry and I enjoy and appreciate my food so much more than I did when I was simply 'topping up' an already half-full stomach.
I roughly eat by the clock, though if I'm busy I can push back meals by an hour or two without noticing any appreciable difference in my hunger.
On a 3 meal day, my schedule looks something like this:
6am: get up and have a mug of tea then take Norman out for a long walk
9am: breakfast (usually porridge) with another mug of tea
1pm-ish: Lunch (usually a bowl of homemade veggie and bean soup)
6pm-ish: Dinner (usually my biggest meal of the day - always a protein-rich meal).
Once dinner is over that's all my eating done until breakfast the next day. No late night snacking, EVER!
On a 2 meal day, my schedule looks something like this:
6am: get up and have a mug of tea then take Norman out for a long walk
11:30am-ish: brunch (which will be about 60% of my total daily calorie allowance and protein-rich)
6pm-ish: Dinner (usually light, maybe soup or a jacket potato with tuna salad.
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Hi again Bella! Cheers for your insight….
I’ve tried the 2 meals a day, but did not succeed with that trial & noted would trigger some binge tendancies.
The valuable lesson for me there was that I also could not feel the stop button to recognise that I was satiated & so enough / stop.
Now I’m consciously having to question each meal at mo; is getting a tad too obsessional here …I have to ask all of the physical & emotional aspects of every morsel - the Hungry, Thirsty? Bored? Upset?
And this can make it the situation worse. Some days, every hour on the hour, I could just eat & eat - it can make no sense whatsoever.
Currently, have time & space to think & do … and Diabetic Nurse Specialist is around the corner & I so want to see if I can get my HbA1c down further!
I think my nutrition is good now. Like you, I try to follow a Med style, but lower carb, with plenty of veggies, protein rich & have full fat.
I’ve started tapering down the steroids now and in approx 6 weeks, will be free of them.
Day 1 of trying to eliminate the snacks - succumbed already & had 15g cashews!
Crazy.
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You all are inspirational. I've given myself allowance to get through this moving stuff around thing...which should be done this week. And then will give weight loss another go. NO SNACKS. That would serve me well. Good to just break the psychological addiction! When I'm busy I can go the day without eating. When I'm not. Not so much
Where did you'all say you bought that self-discipline stuff I hear so much about?????2
