Strategies for the holiday dinner.

In our culture it is just ridiculous to be counting calories over the holidays. I have read websites where they give you tips such as stay away from the buffet table, don't take gravy, skip the desert. But when I do that, people start asking me if I have anorexia. I just prefer to eat whatever I want at the holiday dinner. But remember if you do that you are probably eating your entire days calories in one meal. There are two strategies that I recommend, fasting before the holiday dinner or fasting afterwards. The fasting before is probably easiest, fasting afterwards would be more difficult because you would have to eat less calories the following day to account for the extra calories consumed the day before. If you have practiced fasting beforehand you will have experience in making it through a fast before you attempt the pre-holiday dinner fast. The day of the holiday dinner if you wake up and have a really light breakfast and then go all day without eating, you will be able to enjoy the holiday dinner to its full extent without having to worry about the extra calories. The problem with most people is that they have a normal day and then add the extra calories to that day later on at the holiday dinner. You put on part of a pound that way, but if you never work to take it off, it will always be there. That is how the pounds creep up over the years. You could do that and just return to a week of your "weight loss" diet, if you are currently on a "weight maintenance" plan. But you have to be experienced to remember how to switch back and forth from the two plans, "maintenance" vs. "weight loss." Holiday eating doesn't have to be stressful as long as you have a plan.

The typical North American dinner has a lot of calories!

I did some research on the typical North American dinner and too my surprize most websites listed 800 - 1000cals. Wow. My BMR is only 1250 cals, no wonder women my age gain weight slowly over the years. I haven't specifically sat down and calculated the calories that I am eating for my meals but chances are, I am pretty close to 1000 calories, and I eat fairly healthy. I eat mostly fruit, veggies and meat at dinner, and maybe a small amount of starchy carbs. This isn't really a problem, but you have to be careful how many calories you are consuming early in the day. If you eat close to 1000calories before dinner, then you could be struggling with losing weight if your dinners are adding up to 1000 calories. Also another thing to be aware of is that most men can eat more than women because they have a higher BMR. My husband does all the cooking and when he measures out a portion for me, it is usually the same size as his. Sometimes I will load up my own plate instead. In a later blog I will discuss how to deal with the dreaded holiday dinner which goes over 1000 calories for most of us, especially if we have desert.

Love your diet!

Remember the post where I discussed that you should never follow another person's diet and instead you should write your own? Well this is true, and for a diet to work you have to write one that you love. In other words including all the foods you love to eat. For example, if you love cheesies, they should be on your diet! Maybe not everyday, and I also caution, that I would choose the baked ones because you can eat more of them because they have less calories. Remember you are allotted a certain number of calories a day, so you have to measure out the cheesies so you know exactly how many calories you are eating. Now I am sure there are those of you out there that are saying, but I won't just stop at one bowl, I will eat the whole bag. That is part of the challenge of dieting, is learning how to eat-stop-eat. You will get to eat another bowl of cheesies later in the week, so learn to wait for them. If you sit down and "be present" with the bowl you have then you will have a better chance of stopping once you are finished. Remember we are set up to "overeat" in our society. If you are really struggling with putting the bag away, then find a convenience store that sells individual servings and just go to the store and buy the single serving bag when your diet calls for it. That way you can't overeat the whole large bag.
Now for me, I don't have cheesies on my diet because I can't afford too many calories from carbs. On my diet you will see a protein bar, or eat some greek yoghurt with oatmeal instead. But these are things I love to eat. I did have cheesies on my diet at one time, but now I am trying to find ways to get more protein in my diet, so I took them off. I also took dark chocolate off my diet and replaced it with a bowl of frozen fruit with a couple tablespoons of light cream. I found that I could eat a lot more fruit for the same amount of calories and I don't really like chocolate all that much. It is addictive, but you can also have coffee or a latte with a lot less calories and get the same taste. But that doesn't mean you should follow my diet plan. If you prefer chocolate, keep it on your diet. Good luck and remember, you have to love your diet because your maintenance plan is only a small step away from that.

Practise fasting!

I will admit I haven't yet done a true fast such as fast for 24 hrs. Mine is more like for 5 hours! But that is a big step for me to go without food for 5 hours. I am used to eating every 2-3 hours. It is a habit that I got into following a diet advocated by the fitness industry: eat 6 small meals a day. Have you ever been wilderness camping and been without "real" food for an extended period of time? When you come out of the bush, food tastes SO GOOD! That is what fasting gets you, so hungry that you are hypersensitive to all the tastes and aromas when you finally do sit down to eat. You just have to make sure that you don't overeat after a fast. Fasting just heightens the pleasure of anything you are eating. Even something that you would normally find boring to eat, tastes incredible. One reasons I recommend fasting. You can get more out of your food with out having to rely on the overly sweet or overly fat tastes of food to get the same experience. Just don't try it if you are pregnant or have some other health issues, fasting is only recommended for people who are generally healthy and not pregnant.

The processed food addiction

In the last 5 years I have been gradually cutting processed foods out of my diet. Many processed foods contain a lot of addictive additives. I have noticed over the years that I am loosing my
"taste" for processed foods. In other words I am losing cravings for once loved foods such as cheesies, baked goods, chocolate etc. Now I can't stand milk chocolate where as once I was literally addicted to it. I don't know exactly the mechanisms beyond this change, but I compare it similar to an addiction. For example, giving up smoking is difficult because you are addicted. But once you have been off of cigarettes for awhile, you no longer crave them. In fact if you have one, it sometimes makes you feel nauseous. The odd thing is that I do notice a "pleasure response" when I initially bite into a processed food, but if I keep eating it, my body eventually starts sending signals of rejection to my brain. My experience seems to be aligned with what they say about a lot of processed foods; that they contain the correct sugar, salt, fat ratio to stimulate appetite and activate the pleasure centers in the brain, but for some reason my body seems to recognize that the incoming food is of low quality and soon afterwards rejects it. I have the opposite reaction when eating things such as salads, fruits, and unprocessed meats. Once my appetite is stimulated I want more and more of these things until I am full. Now someone who is addicted to processed foods is going to say they have the opposite experience and once they taste the processed food they want to eat a whole lot of it. This is a personal opinion, but I believe that this response is most likely the body craving more of the food because it is of low quality. For example, if the person starts more unprocessed foods into their diet, then their tastes will shift. Eventually the individual's body will develop more of a taste for unprocessed foods and reject the processed foods. I have cut processed sugar almost completely out of my diet and now I am finding that things with added sugar are almost "too sweet" and I find myself craving more of the natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables. The change is really helping me to maintain my weight.

Mindless eating...breaking the habit.

Most of us do this, and one thing I have learned is that it is a bad habit that needs to be broken. I remember when I was a child, we used to eat in front of the TV. I believe that this is where the whole "mindless" eating habit begins. Whenever we sit down to eat a meal, we should be "fully present" with the experience of eating. Take small bites and savour every aroma, taste and texture associated with your meal. If you don't do this, you will quickly inhale a meal without even realizing you have eaten. Regardless of whether you are on a six meal a day or a three meal a day plan, you have to recognize that you will be doing a lot of eating during your lifetime. If you want to maintain a good weight, you have to recognize the fact that you will be eating several times a week. (3 x 7 = 21 times!). You will sit down 21 times with a meal every week if you are on a 3 meal a day plan. If you really struggle with giving up mindless eating such as eating in front of the TV, computer screen, on the phone, or distracted by conversations with others, then try this strategy: Keep a food journal where you describe what the experience of eating is like with each of your meals. When you make a meal, describe what it is and what the experience of eating it is like. Sounds crazy, but eventually you will train yourself to become "fully present" with every meal you eat.
The next step to breaking the habit of mindless eating, is the habit I have where I eat a lot of "free snacks" during the day. I am on a diet, but yet I have eaten several chips, crackers, nuts, etc. throughout the day which have no calories! This is a serious issue for me because I live in a house with another adult who is a compulsive junk food eater. It is like an ex-alcoholic living in a house with a fully stocked liquor cabinet. How difficult would that be! One strategy I used to use to combat my "free snack" habit was to buy "healthy" forms of the various junk food items in our house. Ie. Dark chocolate, baked cheesies and baked chips. And then I would just allow myself to have a bowl of these items instead of a mindless handful once in awhile throughout the day. But right now I have decided to remove these types of items from my menu temporarily to allow for foods with a higher protein content. However in doing so, I am back to the mindless eating habit of acquiring "free snacks." In a future blog I will attempt to tackle this second element to mindless eating, as I have not yet figured out how to do this successfully.

But I hate going to the gym!

So do I. When I went to the gym it was usually boring for me. Not social and I really didn't like working out by myself. Now I only go about 3x a week. And it is mostly just to use the pool and to do some strength training, but most of the time I work out at home. Most of my exercise is doing things that I like to do. For example, skiing, biking outdoors and running outdoors. Plus I also took up skating. If you are not an exerciser, then I recommend walking outdoors. Find a nice place to go for a walk, or even if you can't find a nice place, walk to a store and back and when you get there, buy yourself a small treat. As long as your treat fits into your diet. One of my favourite treats is a small latte. Has about 120cals in it, and it is worth a walk to go and get it! This mock "forging for food" strategy is something our ancestors would have done, and the reason they were not fat. Make sure the walk is long enough that it burns more calories than the treat itself. Unless it fits on your diet anyways. Exercise in my opinion should always be enjoyable, never stressful. It should also be something that you enjoy doing.

There are only two modes: "weight gain" and "weight loss"

To understand how to lose weight or maintain weight, we have to understand that there are only two modes we can be in with respect to eating behaviours. Everyone has a BMR which tells you how many calories you body needs in order to just exist. If you exercise you add calories to your BMR. The numbers you come up with are at best an estimate. For example, it isn't really possible to know exactly how many calories you burn a day just being you. You have to estimate, and then if you try to eat that amount, you will probably either be just under that number or just over that number. If you eat over that number then your body will store the extra energy either as glycogen or body fat, for future use when you eat just under the amount of calories your body needs. When you eat just over the amount you are in the "weight gain" mode and when you eat just less you are in the "weight loss" mode. If you are always eating just a bit over or just a bit under, or fluctuating on a daily basis between these two modes, you most likely will maintain your weight. Unless you are trying to obtain muscle mass, which will change things slightly. But for the average person, this will be the result. Staying permanently in the "weight gain" mode will cause you to slowly gain weight over time. Or being in the "weight gain" mode more often than the "weight loss" mode will have the same result, only the weight gain over time might be slower. Right now, I am doing the reverse of this, meaning that I am staying in the "weight loss" mode more often than the "weight gain" mode. What I am noticing is a very slight weight loss over time. I have been told that this strategy may not work, if I plan on losing weight, but in my case I am trying to actually find on the perfect weight maintenance diet. I am hoping that I will stumble upon it accidently by following this approach. Since my goals is to still lose a couple of pounds, it will probably be the discussion of a future post.

It is not possible to maintain your weight after being on a diet!

Welcome to planet mother-@#@%er! It took me a long time to really get this through my head. When you go on a diet, you are eating a small amount of calories, most likely so small that you can't possibly go through life living on that amount of daily calories. Look at any diet, and ask yourself an honest question, could you eat that way forever? I don't think anyone could answer an honest "yes," to that question. Well why is this? It is because it our culture, there is just too much "tasty" high calorie food to eat. A diet is a deprivation of all that tasty food that we are exposed to on a daily basis. After all, how do you think we put on those extra pounds?! Can you really go to a holiday party and have a couple slices of turkey (with no gravy,) some beans and carrots, a small scoop of plain mashed potatoes and nothing else to eat all night? And go back to my post where I talk about how I try to eat only 1250 calories a day which is my BMR. I reach 1250 calories before dinner, eating what is considered a "normal" amount of food. Remember in my earlier post about the difference between the lifestyles of prehistoric man and modern man? Man was meant to live a "gorge-fast-gorge-fast" lifestyle, and it was influenced by the food abundance followed by food scarcity cycle. Modern man never experiences the food scarcity phase of the cycle so we are always in some form of the gorge phase. For this reason we are always over-eating. Unless we make an effort to create an artificial food scarcity phase, by restricting caloric intake ourselves. This is difficult to do though because it goes against our natural instinct. We receive messages from our brain that tells us to gorge when food is readily available. Prehistoric man only stopped eating when they had no choice, food not being around to be eaten.
I did some research into this theory by seeing if there were any studies that showed that people were able to keep weight off after being on a diet. One study did make this claim, but after reading the article more closely it showed that even people that did a fairly good job of keeping the weight off there was still a small weight gain on average over the years. Other alarming stats such as the average weight of North American women over the years. Women seem to be gaining weight at a steady state until they reach their 50s. (chart)
What does this all mean? Basically it just means if you want to maintain your weight you will need a new strategy, just returning to "normal" eating behaviors is not going to help you. Unless you don't mind a slow steady weight gain over the years. Which brings us back to my point, that becoming a yo-yo dieter is one way you can experience thinness, as you age.

But I like to go to mcDonalds and have hamburger, fries and a coke!

To be thin, you don't necessarily have to cut these things out. A meal at McDonalds is a calorie dense meal, no doubt about it. But if you have written yourself a diet, that includes a trip to McDonalds then a bit of strategy is required to fit it in. So let's say you love to go to McDonalds and get a big mac, large coke and fries. If the total number of calories for that meal is 1200, and you have written yourself a diet that allows for 1500cals a day, then eat a 200cal breakfast, a 100cal snack, and then do it. Go to McDonalds for your dinner. I might also take a multi-vitamin that day, just to make sure you get all your micronutrients. But that strategy will work, and still allow you to lose weight. So your daily menu would look something like this:

Breakfast:

1 cup cereal (no sugar)
1 cup milk
(200cals)

Lunch:

1 apple.
coffee with milk.
(100cals)

Dinner:

Big mac
medium fries
large coke
(1200 cals)

It will feel a bit like fasting until dinner, but that isn't a bad thing. I will discuss fasting in a future blog. But fasting always makes things taste even better! Enjoy!

Never follow another person's diet!

You have probably heard that diets don't work, or don't follow a diet if you want to lose weight. Well, that is only partially true. Diets are designed to help someone lose weight, and are based on an overall reduction in calories. Usually below BMR (Basal metabolic rate), or the number of calories your body needs to survive. In theory, in order to lose a pound of body fat a week you need to consume at last 500cals less than you burn a day for 7 days. (1 pound of body fat = 3500cals). Now here is the problem, one or the reasons "diets don't work."

For me, I am a 41 year old woman, and have a BMR of approximately 1250 cals. Subtracting 500cals from that I get 750 cals. I need to eat no more than 750 cals to lose a pound of body fat a week. Ok, so for breakfast I will have a coffee with milk instead of cream and 1 teaspoon of sugar (approx 50 cals). Plus 1 bagel and cream cheese (300 cals) and for lunch I will have a sandwich turkey sandwich with no mayo or cheese and a half a cup of fruit juice (300 cals). Oops, that leaves only 50 cals for dinner....see the problem? I am eating too many calories early in the day, leaving nothing for dinner or snacks. So the solution is to go to a dietician, who puts me on a diet. Here is what it looks like.

Breakfast.

Grapefruit and black coffee
1/2 cup cottage cheese.
(120cals)

Snack:

apple.
(50cals)

Lunch:

2 cups of lettuce.
3/4 cup of raw veggies.
Lemon juice
1 can tuna
(200cals)

Snack:

4-5 celery sticks plain.
4-5 carrot sticks plain.
(30cal)

Dinner:

Cod fillet 150grams)
1 small potato
1 cup of veggies
(300 cals)

There it is, a diet that you can follow that will allow you to lose a pound a week for how every many weeks you need to follow it, in order to all the weight you want. Yeah right! I don't think I could follow that for even two weeks without cheating! I think I would have more luck on the bagel/cream cheese and turkey sandwich diet, at least I like eating those things! And even for the poor sap who manages to stay on the diet until all the extra weight is gone. His maintenance diet would be adding an extra 500 calories to that. That would be an extra snack or a beefier lunch/breakfast. Certainly no room for beer, lattes, burger and fries, can of coke, dark chocolate bar, chips, cheesies, nachos....the list goes on.

That is what I struggle with, if I am going to go on a diet, I have to be able to maintain that diet for at least six months. That diet above I would not be able to maintain for long enough to lose weight. One of my strategies for weight loss that I have come up with is writing my own diets. For example, I will write a weekly menu, and include all the things I like to eat, but keeping within my weight loss goals. I shoot more for losing a part of a pound a week, maybe 1/2 or 1/4. So for example, I know I need to eat 250 calories less than my BMR in order to lose approximately 1/2 pound a week. So for me that means 1000cals a day. Now I have an issue right there, I have tried a 1000cal day, it isn't possible for me. So I added exercise into the equation as well. Exercise allows you to add more food to your daily diet. I exercise 2hrs a day and I estimate that I will burn an extra 800 cals, so I get a daily total of 1800cals a day. That is a diet I can manage. That way if I want to have a small latte, I can (no added sugar though). Or if I want a couple of squares of dark chocolate I can have those, but they are counted in the diet. Also my breakfast is something I like to eat, oatmeal with mixed in greek yoghurt and 1 egg. You can use other people's diets, for suggestions on how to structure your own, but diets are specialized. For example I used the diet's of two body builders to structure my diet because I needed to add more protein. The end result was a diet that I could do because it is specialized for me, my likes and dislikes. Again, if it is something you can't follow for six months, it isn't going to work. Your weight loss diet, should like only slightly different than your maintenance diet.

Why do we gain weight in the first place?

There are a lot of theories on the internet as to why we gain weight. First to understand the why, we have to have basic knowledge of the how. Humans were designed to store extra energy as body fat, in times when food was available. This had an adaptive advantage, because prehistoric humans were often faced with periods of famine. This is not the case of modern humans, unless they are victims of war or natural disaster. In fact, even in many of the countries of Africa, obesity is becoming a serious problem. What many "experts" have discovered, is that the combination of plentiful sources of food, and a "more sedentary" lifestyle, humans are becoming on average more obese than ever before in history. Is this a problem? Not unless you are concerned about your health, ability to function on a physical level, and your physical appearance. But if you are, then you need to understand that "readily available" food sources can have just as many disadvantages and they do advantages. For example, it is great that we can buy such calorie dense cheap foods so easily, however these same foods can also cause obesity if consumed to the point of where calories "in" is greater than calories "out." These high calorie foods that are often cheap and easily available also lack the appropriate ratios of nutrients and fiber, things that are important to having a fully functional digestive system. Mass consumption of these highly processed foods seem to be causing all types of digestive issues for North Americans, resulting in more trips to doctors and purchasing of medications. Not to mention, send people in droves to other professionals such as naturists and health food stores looking for alternative medicines to solve their ailments.
After a lot internet research into this topic, I found one basic set of facts. Modern humans seem to be victims of the modern food industry. The food industry, which is a billion dollar industry has conducted extensive research into figuring out how to keep modern humans eating. And this all this eating is making a lot of money. There is plenty out their on the internet to explain it. From everything to adding addictive substances to using marketing to stimulate hunger, even when one is not hungry. Everything from selling an atmosphere to make you feel good about eating, to stacking food with chemicals and added fat/sugar that triggers our "binge" mechanisms to prep us for the times of famine, which in modern society will never come. It seems almost like a set of dirty tricks, getting humans to acquire body fat has become a goal of the North American food industry! In fact I have found nothing to refute the fact that weight gain is inevitable in the modern world. Even people who have managed to lose a lot of weight, eventually will return to the "weight gain" mode, even if it is so subtle that it creeps back slowly over 10-15yrs. So what do we do if we don't want to gain weight to the point of where we are identified as being overweight? It seems there are only a few choices in the modern world. Here they are:

1. Become a yo-yo dieter, where every 5-10 years, you go on an extreme diet and lose a lot of weight, and then try to maintain it for as long as you can before you have to diet again.

2. Watch what you eat and weigh just a bit less than the average person in your age group and no one will notice when you start putting on the extra lbs (ie. because most people are fatter than you anyways)

3. Become an athlete or develop a very active lifestyle. Your weight gain will be slower over time, and others in your age group will always have more body fat than you.

4. Fight hard against the inevitable weight gain of modern society and education yourself on all aspects of the food industry, fitness industry, cultural food traditions and wise up to what is going on.

Just because our world is telling us to "eat," that doesn't mean we have to. Remember that people profit from us over-eating and putting on body fat. But one thing we have to realize is that if you choose #4 above, then it won't be an easy battle. I have actually experimented with numbers 1-3 and the easiest of the three choices above is #3. Followed by #2 and then #1. Right now I have decided to move on to #4, because I want take on the challenge. My experience with #4 will become the fuel for this blog, I hope you enjoy reading it.

Welcome!

Why I started this blog?! I have always been fascinated with the diet and weight loss industry, ever since I was a teenager and became conscious of the fact that I was gaining a significant amount of weight, steadily over the years. I probably found myself on my first diet when I was in grade 11. This not being the case of many of the other teenage girls my age. Ever since that I have been on several diets, fitness routines and other strategies designed to either lose and/or maintain weight. I learned a lot over the last 28 years, and I thought I would write a blog to share some of the knowledge I have learned based on experience, but also through hours of internet research. Feel free to leave any comments, and thanks for reading my blog.