Very interesting, Dante...not really surprising. I only read the first article - skimmed the other two. I guess it comes down to balance? Finding just that right point for yourself?
When I do that I actually feel less inclined to snack. It leaves me feeling good and wanting to rest and then "nourish" my body well. The activity that tends to bring on more snacking for me is brain work (intellectual or emotional). That just asks me to eat lots of refined carbs...

Thank you for these links.

Perhaps you need to plan more food on gym days, Yooly?

Last year when I was swimming like I was supposed to be doing ( and will be again in a few weeks ) I burn between 300 and 500 calories from exercise….I ate a protein bar or some yogurt and a banana to keep me from starving and I drank Zero Gatorade or water on swim breaks…I was still burning more calories than I was consuming…

Really - our bodies are fascinating. Exercise is really no where near as cut and dry as CICO.

You may be fairly full from yesterday? A small balanced (protein blah blah) meal whether you need it or not? (Going with theory of not getting too hungry before fueling again?)

How is paw status?

I will bring some old tennis balls so that when they abandon them I don't have to go and retrieve them 😁

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????

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!

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.

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.

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.