HUNGRY!!

Boy, every once in awhile I just have a hungry day where I want to eat the kitchen sink! That's today. I think it started because I apparently didn't eat enough breakfast.  I had 2 slices of Ezekiel bread with I can't believe it's not butter, and 2 slices of bacon, and milk and oj. At work, I've had a full sleeve of nuts--Darn! I don't like to eat the whole sleeve--a big helping of gyro meat with an even bigger helping of the white sauce and tomatos (homemade, very healthy), feta cheese and olives. Two protein peanut butter balls, 2 chocolates. I'm going to eat the apple now, even though I know better, because I'm starving!!I also have popcorn, but I don't want that. I want----what is it that I want? A big helping of funeral potatoes!! A couple of pounds of that would do nicely.

Owwww

Darn this knee!!! I want to go walking!!! I didn't do kettlebells yesterday for obvious reasons, but I DID walk to Smiths on a gorgeous fall day instead. It's maybe 1/2 mile each way and I walked VERY slowly, but today I'm thinking that was a mistake.

Anyway----continuing the quest to become healthy by eating food...yesterday I had...

Breakfast: Waffle sandwich (see yesterday), milk and oj
       felt full for the longest time
Snack: homemade chips and guac--eaten shortly before lunch.
Lunch: Butternut squash soup, two chunks of bread from the spaghetti factory, 2 tablespoons of olive tapenade, 4 chocolate almonds.
        Was full in the afternoon, but still wanting to eat. So snacked on yam sticks.
Dinner: KFC---3 crispy chicken tenders, 1 biscuit, corn, choc chip cookie.

    We usually only go to KFC on the 4th of July, but we're trying to make Tuesdays our date night and Dave wanted chicken. I suppose it's possible to eat right at KFC, but who would want to? I did choose corn as the least lethal of the side dishes.
          Felt fairly full.  

Went to hot springs to soak;

Snack: Oatmeal raisin cookie, milk.

Huh. Feels like a lot when I write it down. It didn't seem like that much while I was eating it.

Energy

WOW!!!  I wasn't perfect yesterday---but I did make some good choices and I wasn't exhausted for my night class. I definitely need to write down my food and how I feel and see about some connections. Let's see what I remember about yesterday.

Breakfast--1 slice of Ezekiel bread (good stuff!), with organic peanut butter (which is about the only weird organic thing at home), blueberries with Splenda and milk.

Snack--some nuts, yam sticks

Lunch--one slice of steak pizza with pan crust (I love the pan crust at Papa Murphy's), cabbage salad with blue cheese and olives. 3 or 4 giradeli mini's.

Can't remember if I had any snacks between lunch and dinner.

Dinner, a turkey burger patty with mustard, a big serving of zuchinni fritters (homemade, baked not fried) and plain yogurt to dip them in. Caffeine free diet coke.

Snack at class. Some gummy penguins.

Felt GREAT. Teacher brought pizza to class, but I had just eaten and wasn't really interested, so I skipped it!  I skipped pizza!!

Today, I had an awesome breakfast.  Turns out those Eggo waffles that Dave bought are multi-grain, low sugar,perfectly fine to eat items!! 2 are 140 cal.  I had two waffles, spread one thinly with Nutella, chopped up a banana, to put on that, topped it with the other waffle and sprayed lite whipped cream on top. Had it with milk and oj.  Am not only full, but CONTENT.  So much so that when I limped over to the new bakery (I'm having major knee issues and am a little out of commission just now), I didn't feel like buying anything---even though I've been craving dense chocolate chip cookies. It looks like a great little place and they serve soups and sandwiches too. I'm sure I'll be a frequent customer.

I don't know if I'm losing or gaining weight and I actually don't care much!! I feel good physically (except the knee) and at peace with food. THATS a new feeling. I'm just basking in the feeling.

A gentle voice

Friday was a good day food-wise, but in the evening, I had pizza and salad and cookies. Probably too much of all. The thing that was different however, was my inner voice. That night, a very gentle voice just said something like, "It'll be awhile before you can handle pizza."  That's all. No judgement, no harsh--"SO YOU BETTER QUIT EATING PIZZA!" or anything of the kind. Just a simple statement of fact., and my mind and body responded in a likewise gentle manner. Okay.

I feel really good about that. As I try to satisfy my body's needs by eating real food--the process should be gentle.

I love the idea of my mental responses---"I NEED garlic toast" being as valid an issue as my physical responses. The intuitive idea is that I can control my behavior---I might think I need the garlic toast, but I can choose whether or not to eat it. And that's mostly true. But WHY do I feel as though I need it so much? I love working on THAT problem, and being validated that wanting too much or the wrong foods, is as much worth healing as figuring out a food allergy.

A little less?

Whoa!!!! I didn't finish my lunch and I don't want my after lunch chocolate. What's going on??? I almost can't comprehend not wanting chocolate. But ok!!!!

Last night I had to go to harp so I grabbed a few walnuts and a few (like 6) chocolate chips and ate them on the way. Then I came home and made dinner.

According to the book, that was a very smart thing to do. We've all heard that it takes 25 min or so for your body to start feeling full.  Well, Dr. Oz suggests eating a small amount of some healthy fat like nuts about 25 min or so before a meal. Then when you eat you're not nearly as hungry and can eat for pleasure. He claims this will make you eat less. I'm not 100% sold on that. My problem IS that I eat for pleasure--and if I eat for pleasure rather than hunger there is literally no brake, because I'm ignoring physical cues.

However, having said that---it seems to work! I made a delicious creamy ravioli last night, but I didn't overeat. I even "forgot" to have the roll.

Today, for breakfast I had the one banana plus 2 egg pancakes, and a glass of milk. Our sugar-free syrup is actually pretty good! No HFCS--unlike the fully loaded Mrs. Butterworth. I gave the Mrs. Butterworth to a friend at work.

Spent the morning talking to the bankers at Chase--so it was little stressful. Came to work at nearly 11, and soon began munching on peanuts. I ate nearly the whole bag (280 cal). But when lunchtime came shortly after, I didn't even eat 1/2 of the ravioli and I only ate 1/2 of a roll. Suddenly, I just realized that I was full! I munched on a few yam sticks and packed my lunch away. And here I am!  Not wanting chocolate---but thinking I might eat the plum I brought in a little while. If I feel like it later, I might finish the ravioli, and that's ok.

No low fat for skinny people

I'm really liking this book!!! Whether the principles are true, or I'm just being brainwashed doesn't matter---there are changes for the better coming.

Of course first, I had to detour to the Pizza buffet. Dave wanted to go to support a fundraiser. I don't know if it was the book, or that I'm coming down with something, or that this buffet simply isn't as good as Cici's, but I found it VERY unsatisfying. I had a salad drowned in blue cheese dressing. Why do I think that's ok behavior? Especially when the dressing is mediocre? Then I had carbs, carbs and more carbs. And I didn't like it!! WEIRD!!! At one point I actually went back to the buffet and felt as if there wasn't any food there. Because in a way, there wasn't.

I'm also challenging my "auto amounts"--my phrase. I've been practicing eating smaller portions with the idea that I can have more in an hour if I want it. So far, I've been just as satisfied (at least physically) with one roll as with two.

Today, I asked my kettlebell class (full of skinny people) if they ate low-fat foods. 100% NO!!! They eat less of the real thing--and they can, because the real thing is more filling AND doesn't trigger more hunger signals. More than one told me that if I wanted sugar to go ahead and eat sugar---at least your body knows how to deal with that.

This is going to be a change. I just had Dave buy some lite Eggo Waffles and some toaster strudels, before I read the book. I figure as I eat through the stuff at home, I will slowly replace it with better things.  Again, I don't know if this is real or I'm just being psyched out---but I bought two boxes of lite crumble bars. I had one after lunch and I really do think it's making me hungrier!

Also to try----eating off of a red plate. Someone in my class said that red signals stop, and that people ate 25 to 30 % less when they ate off of a red plate.

Hey, whatever it takes.

Leptin Resistant

I have a name!!!  I've been wanting to read You on a Diet, by Dr. OZ for ages. Maybe it was even a divine prompting. I'm not sure, but I think it's really going to help. I knew the book tracked exactly what happens in your body when you eat something. I thought that was important--because I have real trouble believing that "just" one cookie or whatever really makes a difference because I don't see the bad results immediately.

But it DOES make a difference---anytime you eat anything, your body has to deal with it. Insulin and a host of other chemicals are produced, and if the food isn't good for you, it really does hurt your body.

One big culprit is High Frutose Corn Syrup. In the 1960's people ate ZERO of this stuff. Now each person averages 60 pounds a year!!! This is a real problem, because your body does not recognize HFCS as food, so it doesn't turn off hunger signals in response. A BIG place HFCS is found is in fat free foods and salad dressings.

Anyway, I knew about Leptin (the chemical that makes you feel full) and Grehlin (the chemical that makes you feel hungry). But I didn't know that the problem with so many foods---white flour, HFCS, junk food, trans fats etc was not just that they were empty calories, but that they made you even hungrier by eating them. THIS makes me want to make some changes. It also reminds me of the one time I was super successful without trying---when I was pregnant. My hormones went wild and I suddenly lost all desire for flour, sugar and salt--I dropped a TON of weight (scared the doctors, but I was fine).

Sometimes people who are super obese have a real genetic Leptin deficiency. But most of us have leptin levels that are just fine, but we're Leptin-resistant. That's me. Being leptin-resistant means that my brain sends the "I'm full" message just fine, but my body/mind doesn't like that message---I want more pizza, so I deliberately override the message and ask for more cookies. I think everybody overrides that message sometimes, but I do it habitually. PLUS, I'm always eating stuff that makes me even hungrier.

In the end--all this amounts to is the same old advice as always---lots of fruits and veggies, easy on the refined stuff. But knowing that certain foods are in a way anti-foods, I think will help. After all, I pretty much gave up fast foods when I realized that I giant meal at Arby's didn't even fill me up. NOT ACCEPTABLE.