Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Narrow carb window in weight maintenance


The longer I spend in maintenance, the more narrow and the more aware I am of my carb window. The space between loss, maintenance, and gain is a very narrow window.  I really enjoyed this blog post from Dr. Berkeley about carbs and holiday eating. Read the article here

The good:
  • I eat from a Paleo/Primal template that is lower carb over all. It helps the most.
  • I can drop from 1 in season fruit and one serving of berries to just one serving of berries and loose weight, then sustain the loss. That's pretty awesome. (<80 to loose, 80-100 to maintain, 100+ to gain)
  • I've maintained 2 months out of 10 without tracking my food ( I track my weight and make adjustments, as needed)
  • I realize how important it is to eat whole, very little processed foods. Both for physical and emotional health.
  • I can still eat fruit, not everyone who goes through a major weight transformation can maintain eating fruit. 
  • I live in an area that has pretty tasty seasonal fruit at the farmers market. 
The downside:
  • I still have slippery slope thinking around fruit sometimes (dates, raisins, even Lara bars)
  • I've got to watch my food choices when I'm traveling. Fruit is pretty portable, so I have plan well in advance. 
  • No cooking paelo-fied deserts with dried fruit. (this is probably a good thing)
  • My carb window has changed over the 10 months. What worked in months 1-3 doesn't work in months 7-10 of weight maintenance.
  • It's pretty obvious to me now, why I re-gained the weight the other times at goal weight.
Anyhoo, just recognizing it and keeping my carbs and tools for dealing with weight maintenance is a total win in my book. 

Has anyone else noticed a change over time with carbs & fruits? I tangled with a Lara bar over the weekend ( this is good with coffee as I holiday shop late night- slippery slope and 2 pound gain!) The extra 31 grams of carbs put me over the line. I know better. Onward! Good learning, anyway.


13 comments:

  1. AMEN to all you wrote.

    And you have saved yourself an enormous amount of frustration and backsliding by figuring it out so early.

    I do not think of dried fruit as a serving of fruit, even if it is serving size. The concentration of the carbs in dried fruit makes it a whole other category. Not sure what I would call that category other than trouble. We (husband who has no weight issues and I) have totally stopped all dried fruit. I stopped for the same reasons you did. He stopped because of the eat sugar want salt never ending loop.

    Very good post.

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    1. Thanks Vickie. This may be the most important long term success lesson I've learned this year. I new I would have to tweak my food plan as I went. Sugar spikes are no good for me.

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  2. I assure you that during my 7-8 months of active, steady weight loss I ate a LOT of fruit, and continued to for the first four years of maintenance. Same goes for brown rice and yogurt. However, with the onset of perimenopause or whatever ridiculousness I've been experiencing the past 10-12 months, I find I will have to become increasingly restrictive of these good foods because they do make weight loss impossible, maintenance difficult, and gain easy. My sports nutritionist designed a weight loss diet for me that includes only 1 serving of blueberries/day (no other fruit at all), no dairy (save for whey isolate protein shake; yogurt's gotta go, no cheese allowed), no rice (carbs come from 2 slices of Ezekiel, green vegs and 1 sweet potato/day). It's the unfortunate truth about having metabolic disorder, being a former fatty/carb-addict, female and of a certain age...but if that's what it takes, that's what I have to do.

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    1. Glad I'm not alone. Menopause does explain it , along with the 40 years of on and off overweight / obesity.

      I feel fortunate I addressed it and I accept it. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. It's also what I will need to do.

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  3. great info/advice! i've been allowing myself a LITTLE "candy" -- which is what dried fruits are -- during the holidays, but ONLY after supper, like i occasionally do with dark chocolate. :-) i unfortunately find certain dishes inseparable from yuletide revelry....

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  4. I mostly stay away from dried fruits because the portions are so tiny, but I usually have one or two servings of fresh fruit daily. Right now I'm enjoying the Cuties and also apples with peanut butter. In the summer, I eat a lot of watermelon and some strawberries. I don't eat much bread and rarely have pasta but the vegetables I eat do have plenty of carbs.

    My eating has evolved over the years to a much simpler and much less processed diet. Mostly, I eat foods I really like that don't send me over the edge to eating too much.

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    1. Caron, I think that's key in maintenance- as you've shown with your 9 year stretch. Eating foods that taste good and keep your weight in check. love it.

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  5. I have no idea how much carb I eat in a day, but the only carb I eat are ones found in veggies and fruit. I don't eat potatoes or bananas and have about 2 fruit servings a day. I'll likely keep doing this forever, because I'm a little freaked out to eat processed carbs. Probably not a bad thing:)

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    1. I steer clear of potatoes and bananas too. I never like them and forced myself to when I was on WW. That was not good.

      As your time in maintenance goes, you'll get good feel for how foods effect you. Clarity is awesome.

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  6. I don't really monitor carbs but I am very mindful of the types of carbs I eat. That seems to work for me. I'm so impressed how diligent you are with your weight maintenance - that is such a great example for every single person who reads your blog.

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    1. thanks, Diane. Food quality is so important for long term health, IMO. I promised myself I would crack my personal weight maintenance code this year. So far, success. I'll have to stay on my toes, though.

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  7. I love reading your posts. You spell out what works and share what doesn't and it all helps me so much. I'm having some trouble with this holiday time of year. Sugar is everywhere and my carb window is a lot like yours. If I have one evening of carbo-delights, I'm up a couple of pounds the next day and then struggle to get away from sugars hold on me. And on top of that, folks are "gifting" me with goodies when they know I choose not to partake. Frustrating! And why do I feel like I have to eat it, just because it's there? I hate to waste things, but I think these "gifts" will have to go in the trash!

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  8. Shrink to Fit, I hear you 100%. I feel powerful when I control my food surroundings and ditch the holiday crap.

    Once a WW leader described stuffing a huge costco sheet cake in a garbage disposal and how powerful it was for her. She talked a lot about how we can either wear our clothes or wear holiday food- and we had to pick.

    I don't count points anymore but I do carry that message of a clean environment around with me. It's the gift you give yourself.

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