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I enjoy food.
So what? A lot of people enjoy food. Too many people might enjoy food a little bit, or a lot, too much.
I am one of them.
Since restricting my calories, and then going paleo, I’ve learned a lot about my own eating habits.
I eat because I enjoy food.
I eat because I’m bored.
I eat because I’m sad/stressed/angry.
I eat because I’m hungry.
That last one was the rare case. I almost always ate for any reason other than hunger. I certainly wasn’t working out so I wasn’t eating for fuel.
I ate because food was there.
Changing my lifestyle choices in regards to food didn’t cure that. If there is food in the house that is “snack-like” I will eat it. Now, I try to surround myself with only paleo foods, and I’m still losing weight, so what’s the problem?
Well the problem is that it’s not a good habit. I sometimes fluctuate wildly during the week and I can now easily correlate my upwards weight fluctuations with the days that I snack.
But on paleo you can eat as much as you want!
I’ve heard that, and I’ve read it, and it’s a bunch of nonsense.
Some people can eat whatever the heck they want, in whatever quantities they want, and never gain weight. I am not one of those people.
One of my discoveries has been that I have a really screwed up sense of satiety. For one thing, I simply eat too fast. By the time my brain catches up with my stomach, I’m stuffed. Now on paleo food I don’t end up in a food coma - but I also don’t feel awesome after doing that.
I also have trouble telling when I am hungry and I often eat not because I am hungry - but to pre-empt becoming hungry. Not a good habit.
Then there’s eggs - and if there are hard-boiled eggs in this house, I eat them. I’m not convinced this is a problem so long as my calories remain in a solid deficit. I don’t buy into the “cholesterol in eggs is bad” - I feel that eggs are pretty close to the perfect food as far as nutrition and taste go. I’ll leave the research to you, my dear reader, for you to decide if you agree. That’s not why I’m posting.
I was granting myself 2 squares of dark chocolate (88% cocoa) a day, and I was going well with that; but I started eating more chocolate than I was allowed.
I brought olives in (fresh from an olive bar, YUM!) and ate way too many.
Pumpkin seeds: another weakness.
So I have had to come up with strategies to manage my tendency to eat for the wrong reason.
1. Don’t bring in food if I"m not ok with eating it fairly quickly. Seems obvious, right? This means none of my “food weaknesses” come into this house unless I am 100% ok with eating them all in one day.
So if I can find a small bar of chocolate, then I can buy that. If I want an apple - I buy one apple.
This plays in nicely with my goal of not eating processed foods. I bring in fresh vegetables and fresh meat and I eat them before they go off.
2. Intermittent fasting. I’ve been practicing not eating and being happy with not eating. I’ve been reading about leangains.com and a few other sites. I am now attempting to restrict myself to eating between 10am and 6pm except on Fridays and the weekends, when it is noon to 8pm. Occasionally I fast 24 hours - not planned: random.
I’ve found that the more I fast, the more my body and my cravings find this acceptable - and thus, the cravings reduce and I find myself less likely to engage in bored or emotional eating. Being ok with not eating breakfast was the start to my being ok with not eating.
It used to be that if I was at the computer, or watching TV, I was also eating. That is no longer the case, and I consider that a huge step.
3. Paleo. How does paleo help? Well, since I no longer eat sugar or grains, I no longer crave those. I’ve desired pizza from the “lazy” standpoint of food delivery, but I didn’t want to actually eat it, so I cooked. I’ve desired cereal because it’s easy in the morning - but because I no longer eat breakfast, and no longer eat grains or dairy, I’ve not craved that on a hunger level.
Not having those cravings enables me to make better food choices that are more inline with my weight and fitness goals.
This is why I’ll stick with this lifestyle forever - “willpower” and food don’t mix for me, it doesn’t happen. May as well admit it and learn to work with it. So instead, I have fixed it so that I don’t have cravings and thus don’t need willpower.
It’s so simple it’s insane. Take away the foods that are addictive, and eating for the right reasons just happens.
This journey has taught me a lot about myself and my habits, as well as what I was doing to my body and what I was ingesting. I’ve learned how to take care of myself, and why the choices I make work for me.
To me, that knowledge is almost more important than losing weight and gaining fitness.
I really, really like understanding me.
-Lisa, on April 9, 2011 at 7:40 pm