I weighed in at 118.2, best range is 113-116.
What's working:
1.Daily weighing, no matter what, keeping my weight in okay weight maintenance. I'm 2.2 + pounds away from my BEST range. I'll take it, really. I feel pretty good.The upside of daily scale weighing is that I don't BS myself and regain huge amounts of weight in weight maintenance, relapse with food sobriety.
The down side of daily weighing is seeing the scale go up.
I'm food sober, but totally okay with the higher weights. Just coming off a second, very mild cold.
I'm always 1-2 pounds higher during cold virus'. Aint' no big deal. I record my weight and go about my day, week, half month. I'll go back to my cruising weight in a week or two.
I'll always accept good enough weight maintenance over Best weight maintenance any day. I get what I get, I do not throw a fit.
2. Keeping steady with glucose, ketones, and hemoglobin and hematocrit (H&H) in my best ranges.
My glucose goes this low some days when I fast. I think I'm at a 19+ hour fast for these values.
I've been donating a lot as a paid donor so I'm happy to see normal for me H&H. I'll get deferred as a donor for 6-8 weeks soon. It's nice to get paid, and yes, I pay taxes right out of my pay check. Ugh, whatever.....
Ketones mine run 0.5 to 1.5 typically.
3. Added blueberries and more protein back into my rotation, with great results. I'm still Keto because I fast, but LCHF for weight maintenance. Best of both worlds, if you ask me.
I measure out 0.5 to 1.0 ounces of blueberries
Nom-Nom Paleo's -'Ollie's Crackling Chicken', oh so goooooood!!!
Link to the recipe https://nomnompaleo.com/post/74180911762/cracklin-chicken
Beef brisket, salad bar, coffee at Lazy Acres in Encintias, CA (like Whole Foods)
4. Managing stress
My stress levels going to get worse, not better, this year. Sigh....
I was driving around thinking about the following:
I read about somebody "listening to their body and feeding it what it wanted" and I laughed. Ooooooh this is so not right for me. Neither is "Having a relationship with food" BS 100% for me.
Robb Wolf is right, there is something way deeper going on when talking about a "relationship" with an object- in this case food. Some past issue. Although my coffee might push me over into relationship status I can see changing your food template, changing your boundaries around food, switching from points counting to Paleo to LCHF, to Keto, and back again, but food was not and is not something for me to "have a relationship with".
Food to me is just to optimize energy and my own genetics and environment. I don't get to choose, my body will give me feedback, then I optimize with the food template of the 6 months to 1 year. I must use my body weight, biomarkers, sleep length, pain levels, mood to plan and choose.
6 years food sober and during high stress, I want to sit down with a bag of jelly beans, progress to skinny cow ice cream, then get out the points counter for exactly 1 point of M&M's embedded in the side of the icecream. Repeat.
Sigh... good thing I have a set food template. Fasting 18:6 these days, from 6am to 12 noon-ish. Not eating at night is a win-win for me.
Fizzy water at night, with Natural Calm powder, for stress relief. Fits into my 18:6 fasts just fine
What didn't work in the past
1. Not weighing in frequently enough. Not plotting my weight on a graph
2. Not measuring my glucose to notice that I was pre-diabetic right before I lost weight
3. Not customizing my food template for my okay and best weights
4. Eating tons of sugar, grains, and other foods, trying to get food high to deal with stress.
Off to walk before it rains. Safe travels my So. Cal Friends.
I'm so glad you posted! I always learn from you and wanted to hear how things are going. And to comment as well! Are you still doing three meals in your eating window? I think you changed it up. I recall you eating in a 17/7 window. I recently started eating two meals in 18/6. I do switch it up a bit on the weekends for variety. I stopped all snacking! It is freeing! I eat only at my meals now. And I make sure to eat enough. And I stopped chewing gum.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I have lost patience for the moderators out there (the ones who need to lose weight that is), but I am so over listening to people tell me why moderation is right. It's like people get excited for cake at work (it happened earlier this week). While my health continues to be a big challenge (and it really stresses me quite a bit because of the uncertainty of everything), I have decided to do everything I possibly can to stave off weight gain. It is possible to get through stressful events without food.
And like you food sustains me--but I don't live for it like I used to, which is a hard concept for so many to understand.
Thanks for sharing!
HI Ali, yes, still eating 3 meals - breakfast at 6am, "lunch" at 7:30 am, and then "dinner" somewhere between 10:30 to noon. I'm finding that my hunger hormones get set to "eat" once I start eating, then I can get some decent stop signals (not every day though) after the third meal. I still track, so if my signals are mis-firing, then I can go the digital route- MFP and Fitbit. I probably go data driven about 75%+ of my days.
DeleteGreat changes on the meal timing and gum chewing. Good stuff. Dang, eating constantly. I don't think it will be too many more years until insulinemia is studied more and the word gets out that eating constantly is suboptimal for most. Glad you are dealing with stress vs eat. :)
PS Thanks for the link to the chicken recipe! It's going in my food rotation!
ReplyDeleteYeah!!! So easy.. and tasty. I don't really need dressing on the salad because of the chicken skin providing enough fat. I'm trying to make easy recipes that my teen can prep herself and that she likes before she heads off to college later this year. The crackling chicken heats up well for crispening in cast iron, so cooking it on weekends then heating it up for her in the PM is a nice time saver.
DeleteSoooooo good.
I watch Mom on CBS. I love the humor. Show is actually about recovering addicts. And addiction transfer. But is definitely a comedy.
ReplyDeleteThis past week’s show - one of the (recovering alcohol and drugs) characters had gained a ton of weight and went to a rehab place for a while. When she got back to her thin/regular weight, someone from the clinic was trying to convince her that she could do 1/2 a cookie. One of her AA buddies was telling her “we are not a 1/2 cookie kind of crowd.” The 1/2 a cookie lead to booze. After years of sobriety.
All of those stuck in the 250-300 lb range who are convinced they have to do everything in moderation, cannot deprive themselves of anything, came to mind. Because I just never know what to think of that.
Catch the episode of you can - Mom/Charlotte bronte and a backhoe.
Vickie, thank you so much!!! I have on demand on my iPad, so I'm off to check out that episode. I'm glad that the topic comes up, even as a comedy, because transfer addiction should be talked about more----- yes!!! "We are not a half of a cookie kind of crowd". Rich!!!! And so true.
DeleteSome of the addiction specialists like Vera Tarman, MD, who has inpatient both food and alcohol addiction treatment in Toronto get it. And talk about it. I always think of Peter Jennings who was tobacco free for many years, started smoking after 9/11, then got lung cancer and died.
I'm so aware of slipping out of being food sober. Even after almost 7 years, I can totally see it happening. I had heard a woman talking on a podcast (forget which one now) who talked about women drinking wine, even socially, but very, very regularly, and that it was having an addiction type effect , yet the women seemed functional. This woman stopped drinking and improved her food template and is now much better off.
I can see how the two are related. Bring yourself into a tough place via life to over eating or over drinking and it's going to start a nasty cycle. So many women are so hooked into either food or drink, I've learned not to comment too, too much unless they recognize it AND want to change. If they ask, then I'll offer. Otherwise, I'm suggesting taking away their "buzz". And they get pretty angry. That's how I know they are addicted. Sigh...
Thanks for the episode heads up. Will watch during cleaning today.
If I listened to my body I would live on beer and chocolate chip cookies, and die of scurvy! LOL
ReplyDeleteLOL. Neca. TRUTH!!! I was walking on the beach, looking for sea glass and thinking, well, if I were still moderating all foods, I'd be eating jelly bellies until I got a migraine. Some of the small quartz stones were jelly belly smooth and the same size.
DeleteThose walks are like meditation for me. I thought of your comment. LOL. Take care. :)