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| May 2011 to Dec 2016, long term weight maintenance |
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| May 2011 to Dec 2016, long term weight maintenance |
Starting weight 187.4 lbs
Goal Range 115-125 lbs
Current Weight 119.2 lbs
Keeping off 68.2 lbs
Time in maintenance 4 years, 10 months
Age 50
Menopause 3 years
Height 5'1"
BMI 22.5
BMI ave this month 22.5
BMI ave last month 22.6
Ave glucose (fasting & 2hr post this month = 72 mg/dL)
Ave glucose (fasting & 2 hr post last month = 82 mg/dL)
Auto-Immune Hashimotos 1997
Food Addict in Recovery: 5th year
Holiday Seasons that I've been food sober =6 years
High Risk, but never diagnosed Type 2 diabetes
Walking 11,000-12,000 steps per day
Weight lifting 1-2 days per week,
Sprints on the rowing machine 1 days per week
The plateau I'm on: It's pretty fabulous.
I've got to love the great plateau of the 119's. I'm not overly happy or sad, but I must say pleased and loving it on arriving at 2 weeks of solid 119 maintenance. This weight seems to be my best weight, along with 116's. Either place is best fit for my clothes, body, bone structure, exercise and just plain steady long term weight maintenance.
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| Long term weight maintenance, Nov 2016 |
I woke up in tears several mornings because I thought I had gone back into the food addiction. Oh, me!!! Thankful to have told my medical team and my support people not to give me any crackers or juice or cookies post-op. I know myself. I had to tell them "If I ask or beg or cry, say NO". More on that later in another post.
Oooooooh Yeah!!!! I hit my plateau around mid-Nov 2016. I expect to stay here for a long time, probably months, if not years. Time will tell if I drop down to 116's or not. Either way, I can't go wrong.
I'm only 5'1", small bone frame. I can say that
What's working now
1. I feel better in my body in the 119's (22. 5 BMI) than at higher weights.
2. My clothes fit better. Almost all size 6's fit very well. This means I can shop off the rack or at Costco for certain clothes without trying things on and come out pretty happy.
3. I can eat a little more or a little less or whatever I need without stressing much about it. As long as I'm choosing from my food sober template.
4. Backing down 2-3,000 steps/ day may have helped me drop the weight. Not sure, but I think I need to take it down to 10,000-12,000 steps if I need to switch plateaus and go lower.
Weight maintenance and stable plateau's mean I can walk 20,000 or more if I want for big hiking or photo days. Or 13,000-15,000 during the summer months, or 10,000-12,000 steps during the winter months.
5. Paleo, LCHF, winter months mean Keto for me, some occasional foods that are season are seasonal might be the following: I'm using the ends of oranges, key limes for dressings and as flavor enhancements in my food. In So. Cal, citrus are in season in some places. I can tolerate a tablespoon of pomegranate seeds on a salad for my family dinner, if one is around. One tablespoon, one meal. Berries are out because they are not in season in my area. Also, bell peppers are a no go until I can get cheaper, in season produce. Here's my Instagram account for current food stuff (link)
6. Restricted feeding window - AKA daily fasting. I eat 6am to 1 or 2pm most days. Exceptions for holiday meals or traffic patterns. I only drink water or a little bit of Natural Calm supplement after about 1pm most days.
So easy, and wow!! I'm 5 pounds down since July 4th, 2016. Same food template. Could be a little less total intake over time to account for the loss, or better sleep. I may never know. 6am to 1pm or so. Yep, all the yeses. I'll likely continue this style of eating for many years.
I'll do a separate food post about satiety and hormone signaling soon. Because if you are prone to extra or messed up metabolic genetics, you MUST, MUST, MUST go the extra step of getting trigger foods the heck out of your food template if you want long term maintenance. Really. it's not our faults, but getting proper food satiety signals is key, I've decided...
What didn't work in the past
1. Picking maintenance weights that were too high. I'm super short and small boned. The 130's and higher feels, well, pretty terrible.
2. I would stay in too big or too small clothes for a long time. Too long.
3. Moderate eating of all foods, without being honest about my trigger foods. Anything to get a food high and stay firmly in food addiction. Sigh. No, intuitive eating is not going to work if you have genetics that yield extra ghrelin. Wish someone would have talked about this.
4. Chronic cardio and half marathon training. LORDY!! Add fueling with Clif Bars in there and it was a recipe for plantar fasciitis and a huge inner-tube of visceral fat around my middle. Anything but fat burning- it was a recipe for type 2 diabetes and heart/stroke problems. Thank goodness I stopped that stuff. Ughhhhhh and ouch!!!
5. Weight Watcher's point counting and moderation bullying: The worst idea ever. Kept me binge eating and in Food Addiction for over a decade. Terrible idea to eat foods that make you sick. Yikes. WW needs to vet people at the door- get to an abstaining group, really. But hey, they like to sell those frozen meals and 2 points bars. Whatevs. Thankfully, there are online abstaining groups a plenty now.
6. I ate from 5am until I got so freaking sick at about 10pm. Skinny Cow ice-creams with 1 point of M&M's embedded in the sides. No wonder I was morbidly obese.
Onward to all and here's to the power of the plateau. :) Hope you are all making food choices that fit your goals this Dec 2016.
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| Year 4 of long term weight maintenance 2016 |
More, MOR graphs!!!! Santa brought me a sweet iPad Mini 4, so my graphs look pretty optimal. LOL. ;) Love, it. Very easy for me to see the plateau and to evaluate what is and what is not working.
Onward. Always.
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I LOVE everything about this post, Karen. Congratulations on getting back to 119. You are one of the few maintainers I want to emulate. You have been through it all--menopause, health challenges, and you're short like me! I learn from these posts. I have found that too much cardio no longer works for me, and I am smitten with heavy weight training. As you know, I dropped all grains, and now I'm working on sugar and dairy (I don't eat a lot) in 2017. I had my surgery for my thumb on Thursday, and I refused to weigh myself until today. I didn't eat at all on Thursday until after surgery (I had twilight anesthesia, too) and did have the crackers they gave me, but that didnt cause me problems. However I ate a little more on Thursday than I would have liked. I'm back to my template and I stated away from all other grains. And my weight is where it was before surgery. I need to bookmark these posts to remember in the future how to handles challenges because you are a role model.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to someone recently who had gained some weight from trying moderation. Another person shared that did not work for her and that she finds more freedom now that she limits food groups. I thought that was a statement you could make! Freedom does come from limiting food groups! It does not (for me at least) come from moderating all kinds of junk!
I can't wait to read tiur future posts!
Thanks for your kind comments. Glad you got back on the scale post procedure. I was so afraid that the twilight sleep would cause me to be loopy and my binge brain would use it as an opportunity to get a food high. Ughhhh!!! But you know what, my medial team took it all seriously. I'll bet I'm not the only one who speaks up.
DeleteSomething tells me we will have more Paleo, Primal, LCHF, Keto weight maintainers very soon, based on the total numbers of folks using real food and liking their results. Once you get off the SAD, going back is a choice.
Yes, yes, yes... so much more freedom when your brain is not hijacked with the SAD foods. Funny that eating real foods is revolutionary. LOL. Onward and thanks for stopping by the blog.