I'm still plugging away at a number of technical topics, so I wanted to share a bit more of my experience with food and weight loss.
There's a rule that I didn't mention last time, and it's possibly the most important of all of them: when you're hungry, eat something. I discovered that in order to keep losing weight over a long period, I couldn't starve myself. I had to eat whenever I felt like my body needed food and I had to eat until I wasn't hungry. Sometimes that's meant eating four or five small meals in a day.
Eating when you're hungry is a little scary when you've had problems with your weight. It's easier to have rigid rules for what and when you eat. There is, and probably always will be, a little voice that's scared of putting it all back on again. That's a reasonable concern, after all! To deal with this voice, you simply have to listen carefully to your body's signals of what it needs and trust that countless ages of evolution have - in fact - provided you with the tools you need.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
That makes a lot of sense. I've been using "5-Factor Fitness" (by Harley Pasternack) to lose weight. He recommends 5 small meals a day (low fat, lean protein, high fiber, good carbs (low GI), water to drink) as a way to keep digestion revved up.
It has worked well for me, anyway. The hardest part is the long term commitment -- after a few years, it's easy to slip a little and let that become the norm. That's what's happening to me now.
(I like his first book (mentioned above) better than his second, '5-Factor Diet'.)
Good luck!
Somethings I've found helpful when eating to satisfy the hunger without overeating:
* Eat slowly
* Have eating be the sole activity (don't eat while reading or programming)
Eating slowly has taken a lot of reprogramming. Some tricks I learned include putting as little on your fork/spoon as you can, take a break between spoonfuls. If you find yourself eating quickly, push the food away for a bit as a "timeout".
An excellent book: "In Defense of Food", by Michael Pollan. It's more about eating healthy, rather than losing weight. His premise: "eat food. not too much. mostly plants."
Post a Comment