Category Health & Weight Loss

Dieting on Vacation

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Dieting on Vacation

It’s impossible, right? The jury is out for me on that question, just for the moment. But I’m cautiously optimistic that I’m not doing too much damage. I doubt I’m getting off scot-free but if a diet cannot accommodate such things, what use is it for living an enjoyable life? While I am committed to enjoying my vacation to the fullest, a very interesting thing happened yesterday … I left food on my plate!

I genuinely can not remember the last time that happened. I’ve been eating reasonably well for the past month & a half, could it be that my ability to recognize satiety is returning? Or was it just guilt because I ate half the slab of fish that my dining companion didn’t want to eat!?! Hey, it was all locally caught, & I’m here for that local experience, what can I say!

Regardless, I actually left some food on my plate. While I can still clearly hear my Ma’s adminitions to “clean your plate”, advice I’ve unfortunately followed since childhood, I was just a little smug getting up to leave. 😃

I might try that again sometime. Even if it’s just one bite!

Oops! I Ate This …

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Oops! I Ate This …

I’m on the road & I’m suffering withdrawal. From my bathroom scale! It’s like I need that added feedback loop to guide me. While I’m only logging weight once a month, I like the daily feedback.

But that’s probably just an excuse to eat all the wrong things for a bit! Lunch was that breakfast bowl in the pic. I attacked it with such gusto that I’d eaten half of it before I realized I should have taken a pic. I’ll get it right next time. Maybe!

The challenge with these little excursions into the danger zone is managing the recovery. There’s nothing wrong with stepping out every now & then. So long as I get back to behaving pretty promptly. String a few bad choices together & I might be in trouble.

And I won’t know how much trouble … ’til I get back to my scale.

Wish me luck!

PS … Phone post, excuse any formatting errors!

Why Do I Eat Cheesecake?

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Why Do I Eat Cheesecake?Cheesecakes

Because my daughter makes the best cheesecake. And I mean the best cheesecake. She reduces the sugar content in her recipe, just to appease me. But then she adds white chocolate chips (those little blobs of synthetic whiteness are probably about 90% sugar!) & the base is made from those very famous cookies. You know the ones, the two dark biscuits with that creamy white center. Some folk like to dunk them in milk. I don’t want to say the name in case I trigger a snack-attack for anyone!

Anyhoo, these single-serve (hah!) cheesecakes are to die for. And when my daughter makes ’em … I eat ’em!

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist, I decided, well before the olfactory symphony came wafting from the kitchen, to limit myself to just two. I had been eating really well prior to this latest round of baking. I was at a point where I was losing weight gradually. I was not feeling hungry. I was enjoying a designer binge here & there. The very occasional intermittent fast, mostly just skipping breakfast & lunch, was easy. Everything was puttering along beautifully. And then came the cheesecakes. I didn’t have just two, I had three. What can I say, you can barely pack three into a bowl but they look so nice fighting for space there. Naturally, I poured about half a cup of heavy cream over them. Maybe a little more than that. But it’s only to blunt the insulin response, you know!

That was three days ago. And it’s only today that I’m getting back to feeling as safe & as well as I know I can feel on my new diet. During that time, I had to cram a bunch of safe starch (potatoes!) into my face. Along with cream-covered fruit & nut desserts. Anything to avoid the potential of eating something worse. Needless to say, the scale doesn’t hide the truth from me.

On the bright side, though, I am developing some really good strategies for avoiding falling off the dietary cliff. You know, like the times when you have just one cookie. Followed by the rest of the pack. And then you’re suddenly calling for pizza delivery. And yes, please, I’ll take the two bonus one-liter bottles of pop for a dollar! We need strategies for handling such urges & mine seem to be working well at the moment.

In real life, there will always be those times when we will consciously, deliberately, eat something not quite right for us. And if that’s the case, we need to know how to survive those occasions.

So why did I really eat the cheesecake?

While I really love my daughter’s cheesecake … I love my daughter even more!

 

How Your Skinny Partner Can Help You Lose Weight!

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Spice Up Your Diet

Spice Up Your Diet!

We are, of course, delighted that our skinny spouses & partners are not suffering the weight problems that torment us, aren’t we? However, most of them don’t realise how much they torture us sometimes. I go to great lengths when I’m test driving a new diet. I buy all the right foods. I have all my tools at the ready. I write up a menu plan, a schedule, & who know what else, so that I don’t have to think about anything. I plan the work & work the plan, no deliberation required. I’ll be three days into it, doing really well, when my better, & far-lighter, half will open a new bag of chocolate truffles!

“These are delicious, Paul!”, she’ll say.

“You can probably have just one, can’t you?”, she’ll say. Looking at me, all wide-eyed & innocent, eyebrows raised, waiting for me to capitulate.

It feels like everyone we know wants to conspire against us when we’re trying to lose weight. What on earth is going through their minds? The people at work bring boxes of doughnuts, with exhortations that we simply must have just one. We can’t only have a salad when everyone goes out to the local burger joint for lunch on Friday. And family gatherings are a total nightmare.

“Ah, go on, one slice won’t hurt you!”

My only advice is that when you’re trying out a diet, don’t take advice from anyone that isn’t on the same diet. Neither should we take advice from any skinny people. And we especially shouldn’t take advice from the skinny people that are closest to us!

It’s time to turn the tables on these skinny people in our lives. If they really want to help us, they should do something that we want them to do. And something that will work in favour of what we’re trying to achieve.

I’m going to ask my better half to try suggesting sex next time she is overcome with a desire to help me with my diet! 😀😀😀

The Chicken or the Egg?

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SunriseWhen it come to what to eat, the short answer is both. But leave the skin on the chicken! That, however, isn’t the topic. Stress eating is. Do we eat because we’re stressed or depressed? Or does bad eating cause the stress & depression? That may be as difficult to answer as to whether the chicken or the egg came first.

One thing my wife knows for sure is that I’m a far nicer guy when I’m eating well. Now my own opinion is that I’m a nice guy regardless of my diet! But I have to admit … I do feel better when I’m eating well. I don’t mean that when I’m eating less, just when I’m eating real, whole, good food. The association between depression & diet is one that has long been made. Very often, studies are done on the basis of who’s funding what. Or which dietary program is trying to prove it’s the best. But long before diets were a marketable commodity, people realised that there was a dietary influence on mood.

I’ve been eating better for a month & a half now. Is it just coincidence that I’m getting up early, and far more often, to catch more sunrises? The therapeutic benefits of those early mornings by the water give me a shot of calm that endures for the greater part of most of those days. Feeling less stressed can help with weight loss too. Which of those came first? Did I have to be less stressed & depressed in order to jump out of bed early? Or did I overcome the “stuff” to get down to the water a time or two before the stress reduction cut in?

It’s all a bit circular, isn’t it? But it probably doesn’t really matter. Because the two things I am sure of are these …

I am better for eating better.

And I am better for the water & sunrise therapy.

I can highly recommend both. And if you didn’t make it up early today, here’s a pic of my morning sunrise for you. Don’t fret if you missed it, there’s always tomorrow.

And please … take a little time to enjoy your day.