This week: +2.8 pounds
Total loss: -21.8 pounds
Happy Father’s Day. Hi Dad!
Are you ready for the first round to be over? I am. No, I’m not talking about the World Cup (although I could be; New Zeland ties Italy, and it’s an “upset”?) It’s my beloved Pounds Off Playoff. Too many plans that just can’t work, at least not for me, and they’re slowing down my weight loss. I’m looking forward to September, when there’s a workable plan every week.
A few things I learned this week:
- Eating plans need to address quantity and quality. Ok, so I’m a “3” (hungry) and it’s time to eat. So I eat processed foods which are designed to mask your feeling of fullness (“Bet you can’t eat just one”). The “Hunger Scale” would have worked better if I’d have stuck to whole foods. Processed foods, which are in many ways “pre-digested”, don’t register satiety.
- In the real world, sometimes you have to eat before you’re hungry. With my job and family commitments, I couldn’t just eat at 9:30, 1:30, and 5:30, if that’s when I felt hungry. The Hunger Scale is helpful in stopping before you’re stuffed, but it’s not always realistic about what time you can eat.
- I have trouble eating responsibly when I’m tired. I knew this before, but this week it just became so obvious. One night, I slept eight hours, felt great, and was in total control. Other times, I was short on sleep and sore from exercise, and my eating had little connection with my actual hunger. Ideally, I need consistent sleep, but in the real world, if I’m short on sleep, I need a structured eating plan that doesn’t rely on my eating “intuition.”
Still, the “Hunger Scale” is a good tool. It gave my wife and I language to discuss eating. I have no doubt this technique could be a helpful part of a larger eating strategy. But as a person who has eaten past full for years, I’m going to need a more structured plan than this. Tomorrow, I’ll be back with an introduction to the new plan: no eating while reading or watching TV.
3 comments:
Alan, thanks for your comments recently. As for my Dad's weight loss, I actually asked him to write about it today, but I believe that he just slipped into a weird voodoo where he chose to no longer eat ice cream at night. That led to some inital loss. Then, he started going to smaller portions. Hopefully, he'll fill me in more soon.
As for you, I encourage you to move on with your Pounds Off Playoff and not wait until September. The format is fun, but if you are already learning what works, etc., then run toward it.
No ice cream at night...that's not voodoo, it's communist!
Clyde and Mike, you guys are funny with the ice cream comments. Mike ran the NYC marathon last fall, so I guess he's earned the right to defend ice cream!!! Not so much for the rest of us.
One of my nutrition problems over the years has been abandoning plans, so I'm going to stick with this one. Thanks for the advice, though. And I do have a NSV to share later this week, probably Friday.
Thanks for your support guys!
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