I feel pretty boring and bored these days, like I have nothing interesting to say, and not much interests me. I have all these disorganised thoughts that I would like to blog about, and I can't seem to put everything in my head into complete sentences that make sense. Work and private life are on my mind a lot too, it's not just the weight loss.
I came back from my roadtrip, satisfied that I'd done pretty well eating-wise overall, with a few slipups that are to be expected and forgiven on the spot. The following morning the scale showed 95.9kg, which was half a kilo less than my last weigh-in, so that felt really nice. Today I weighed in at 95.7kg, after a stellar eating day yesterday. This is, in theory, a new low since I started being mindful of my eating and counting calories again. It feels odd to call it that, though. This is still so much higher than my low of 83kg back in October 2008... I don't know how I let myself gain all this weight back, and it makes me really angry and sad to think about it; I wish I could just go back to that weight instantly and pick up where I left... Sadly, it doesn't work that way! Still, it could be worse, I suppose, and I just need to concentrate on the fact that I have control again, and the weight is going down and staying down this time around, no matter how long it takes.
So how come I lost half a kilo during a roadtrip? Well, I think it's safe to say that I didn't, and that my last weigh-in was a bit blown up by all the bloating and water retention. But still, I definitely didn't gain any weight. What did I do?
It's really simple, if I think about it. I stopped eating before I was completely full. I enjoyed every bite of food, but I didn't obsess over it. I didn't have much booze (although I suspect that was because the rest of the people I was with were not big drinkers). Did I mention that I stopped eating before I was completely full? I tried to go for healthy and fiber-rich options for breakfast (cereal and milk, which is what I have every day anyway). I did splurge on the last day and got some fruit salad and a croissant, some toast, and a little raisin thingy with it, so it's not like a was a saint the whole time. I avoided snacking in the car (which was hard, and I did give in a number of times, and had a few pieces of chocolate). I didn't finish my lunch on any occasion. That was easier than I would have thought, because on two occasions I had a huge baked potato with chilli, and I felt reasonably full half-way through it, at which point I simply put the fork down and stopped. On Sunday we had a huge lunch (Sunday roast), and by the time it was time for dinner, I wasn't hungry. So I insisted on not really eating a whole portion. My friends made some pasta, and I had a really small amount, mostly to taste it (it was pasta made by an Italian, after all!), be social and unoffending. It was just as much as I needed to go to sleep feeling comfortable, not hungry, not full. Also, during the trip I tried not to snack in-between meals, especially when the food offered was not fruit. Usually I snack quite a bit in-between lunch and dinner. It just works that way for me. I usually grab a sandwich for lunch and then have two pieces of fruit and a yogurt in-between lunch and dinner. But in the trip, I knew that the meals would be bigger than what I would be having at home, and the snacks were usually not particularly low-fat/healthy. And even though when I had dinner on my own at the airport I ate the chips that came with my sandwich (chips = french fries in this country) and I had a beer, the scale was forgiving the next day.
I weighed myself yesterday, looked at the number on the scale and thought "I guess this is what 'normal' people do, this is how they eat to maintain their weight, this is business as usual for them". For me, it's freaking hard to put the fork down when there's still food on the plate and I'm still not completely full. And it's really hard to resist food offered to me by someone else, even if I'm not hungry. But it's what I need to learn how to do. I need to teach myself to be comfortable when not completely full, and to not eat unless I'm hungry.
Last time around, it made me really nervous to not count calories, and I think that, subconsciously, not counting was an excuse to overeat. This time around, I want to train myself to not rely on a calorie counter. I want to learn how to eat from scratch, paying close attention to what my body is telling me. When my body is hungry, I need to feed it with wholesome food. When it's not hungry anymore, I should stop. I shouldn't let it have to tell me that it's full, because by then it's too late.
I won't stop counting calories or anything, it's a good benchmark for me, and I am not ready yet to go without the counter and the accountability that comes with it. But I will try to use the occasions on which it's hard to count calories as training ground for what will follow this stage of the weight loss process; I will use those occasions to form the habits that I will need to have for the rest of my life.
It will be really hard to make these habits second nature to me, but I am convinced that this is what I have to do in order for the weight to not come back again after some time or some trigger. I feel more mature this time around, and, having gone down this path once before, there are a few things I would like to change in my approach. This is number 1: eat when you're hungry, stop eating before you're full. This is probably the harderst part of losing the weight and keeping it off. But it's oh so worth it!
I came back from my roadtrip, satisfied that I'd done pretty well eating-wise overall, with a few slipups that are to be expected and forgiven on the spot. The following morning the scale showed 95.9kg, which was half a kilo less than my last weigh-in, so that felt really nice. Today I weighed in at 95.7kg, after a stellar eating day yesterday. This is, in theory, a new low since I started being mindful of my eating and counting calories again. It feels odd to call it that, though. This is still so much higher than my low of 83kg back in October 2008... I don't know how I let myself gain all this weight back, and it makes me really angry and sad to think about it; I wish I could just go back to that weight instantly and pick up where I left... Sadly, it doesn't work that way! Still, it could be worse, I suppose, and I just need to concentrate on the fact that I have control again, and the weight is going down and staying down this time around, no matter how long it takes.
So how come I lost half a kilo during a roadtrip? Well, I think it's safe to say that I didn't, and that my last weigh-in was a bit blown up by all the bloating and water retention. But still, I definitely didn't gain any weight. What did I do?
It's really simple, if I think about it. I stopped eating before I was completely full. I enjoyed every bite of food, but I didn't obsess over it. I didn't have much booze (although I suspect that was because the rest of the people I was with were not big drinkers). Did I mention that I stopped eating before I was completely full? I tried to go for healthy and fiber-rich options for breakfast (cereal and milk, which is what I have every day anyway). I did splurge on the last day and got some fruit salad and a croissant, some toast, and a little raisin thingy with it, so it's not like a was a saint the whole time. I avoided snacking in the car (which was hard, and I did give in a number of times, and had a few pieces of chocolate). I didn't finish my lunch on any occasion. That was easier than I would have thought, because on two occasions I had a huge baked potato with chilli, and I felt reasonably full half-way through it, at which point I simply put the fork down and stopped. On Sunday we had a huge lunch (Sunday roast), and by the time it was time for dinner, I wasn't hungry. So I insisted on not really eating a whole portion. My friends made some pasta, and I had a really small amount, mostly to taste it (it was pasta made by an Italian, after all!), be social and unoffending. It was just as much as I needed to go to sleep feeling comfortable, not hungry, not full. Also, during the trip I tried not to snack in-between meals, especially when the food offered was not fruit. Usually I snack quite a bit in-between lunch and dinner. It just works that way for me. I usually grab a sandwich for lunch and then have two pieces of fruit and a yogurt in-between lunch and dinner. But in the trip, I knew that the meals would be bigger than what I would be having at home, and the snacks were usually not particularly low-fat/healthy. And even though when I had dinner on my own at the airport I ate the chips that came with my sandwich (chips = french fries in this country) and I had a beer, the scale was forgiving the next day.
I weighed myself yesterday, looked at the number on the scale and thought "I guess this is what 'normal' people do, this is how they eat to maintain their weight, this is business as usual for them". For me, it's freaking hard to put the fork down when there's still food on the plate and I'm still not completely full. And it's really hard to resist food offered to me by someone else, even if I'm not hungry. But it's what I need to learn how to do. I need to teach myself to be comfortable when not completely full, and to not eat unless I'm hungry.
Last time around, it made me really nervous to not count calories, and I think that, subconsciously, not counting was an excuse to overeat. This time around, I want to train myself to not rely on a calorie counter. I want to learn how to eat from scratch, paying close attention to what my body is telling me. When my body is hungry, I need to feed it with wholesome food. When it's not hungry anymore, I should stop. I shouldn't let it have to tell me that it's full, because by then it's too late.
I won't stop counting calories or anything, it's a good benchmark for me, and I am not ready yet to go without the counter and the accountability that comes with it. But I will try to use the occasions on which it's hard to count calories as training ground for what will follow this stage of the weight loss process; I will use those occasions to form the habits that I will need to have for the rest of my life.
It will be really hard to make these habits second nature to me, but I am convinced that this is what I have to do in order for the weight to not come back again after some time or some trigger. I feel more mature this time around, and, having gone down this path once before, there are a few things I would like to change in my approach. This is number 1: eat when you're hungry, stop eating before you're full. This is probably the harderst part of losing the weight and keeping it off. But it's oh so worth it!
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