Six Meals a Day? How weak is that?
January 24th, 2007Since I last talked to you, I have not lost weight, I have gained. Why? I have done nothing that I had planned on doing. It is hard for me to structure my eating when the rest of my life is so unstructured. I know how important losing this weight is to my health, but it is increasingly difficult. I am now closing in on 216 pounds..
Marital problems and stress at work is killing me. I respond by not eating extended periods of time, then binge eating when my sugar levels drop too low. I guess I need emotional counseling in order to deal with stress in a more constructive manner. The problem is, the more stressed I am, the less desire I have to do what is right for my body. I know I have to eat 6 small meals a day, but who has the time to do that? Working makes that close to impossible. Eating every 2 to 3 hours is hard when you have a boss breathing down your neck.
I feel like a prisoner. Doomed to have to take food with me where ever I go, just so that my blood sugar does not bottom out. But I have no choice. I have to take care of myself so that my mind and body can be prepared for the stress that life is going to bring. I see this pattern in me. Always thinking that I am somehow weak for having to eat at certain times. I know it sounds stupid, but I see thin people go 6 hours without eating sometimes and they don’t binge out, why can’t I do it? Look at all the fat I stored up! What if I was in some third world country wherein I did not have the luxury of eating every 2 to 3 hours? I would be SOL. I feel weak. But I need to stop comparing myself to everybody else and just think about what I need in my life right now. I have no choice.
Donna
Technorati Tags: binge eating, insulin resistance, PCOS, diet, weight
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BlinkList- del.icio.us- Digg it- feedmelinks- Furl- ma.gnolia- RawSugar- Shadows- Simpy- Spurl- Wink- Yahoo MyWebDiet Change and the Boiled Frog Technique
November 10th, 2006Last time I talked about my anti-conformist mindset. Somehow it helped me through a lot of the emotional traps I was in and It opened me up to finding a better way to tackle my weight problem…
One way I started to tackle my weight problem is to look into why I revert to my old habits. I know that old habits die hard and the same goes for bad diets. It is hard to go from eating vanilla sundaes to eating pure organic wheat grass. Hey, I am not picking on those who do it. In fact, I admire them. I am just not one of those people, unfortunately. I realize that if I try to change my diet all of a sudden, my diet will not work. My body fights back with a vengeance. It has to be a gradual change. I have to implement the boiled frog technique on my diet. You know… the boiled frog thingy? If you turn up the heat little by little, the frog will let you boil him alive. Well, that is what I want to do, boil the friggin fat alive!
One thing I did accomplish four years ago is cut out sugary soft drinks and replace them with Diet Rite with Splenda. Now, I have cut out soft drinks almost entirely and have drunken mostly green tea, water and flavored water. It did help me to lose weight and gain my periods back. I used to be 247 pounds now I am down to 205. I don’t know why I failed to understand the gradual change concept that I had unknowingly already done with regards to drinks. Here is how I plan to expand it to the food I eat.
- I’ll restrict my bad carb eating at night and no more than I usually do. I know it is wrong to eat bad carbs at night or anything at night for that matter. But change has to come slowly. I am finding out that I can resist eating refined carbs during the day a whole lot better than I do at night.
- The next step would be to eat earlier in the day and not late at night. No later than 4 hours before bed
- Next I would eliminate the refined carbohydrates at dinner time and replace them with more vegetable and grains
- Next I would eliminate grains at night and stick with vegetables for my carbs
The above may not work for you as it hopefully will for me. I do know that gradual change is best as I have done it before with eliminating soft drinks. I suggest you find the easiest thing to change and change that first. You wouldn’t try to run a marathon when you have not been in the gym for months would you? So why do it with your diet? This is probably why diets fail. There was too much change too fast. Change should come gradually. Let’s call this the Boiled Frog Diet Program
Donna
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BlinkList- del.icio.us- Digg it- feedmelinks- Furl- ma.gnolia- RawSugar- Shadows- Simpy- Spurl- Wink- Yahoo MyWebAnti-Conformists and Diets
November 3rd, 2006I was doing my daily stuffing of the face and I had a revelation. I was looking over my bad habits and I saw a pattern. The more people said I should do something that I thought was superficial, the less I wanted to do it. Going on a diet, makes me feel like I have given in to peer pressure.
I know that being healthy is important from your work life to your family life, but there is still an emotional block. Why? I don’t want people looking at me after my weight loss and saying “Whew, she finally realized how ugly she looked and did something about it. Thank God!” You know how people talk these days. This emotional block is not something I was aware of until I did some inner soul searching. In the past, it seemed that my family would down talk and degrade me, but proclaim, “Oh, I just care about your health.” In fact, the way the talked to me said the opposite… They just didn’t want a fat relative. “Fat relatives are to be looked down on and told how ugly they are. If no one tells them, how else would they know?” This is how they talked to me and it lives with me to this day. I just didn’t know it. So now I rebel quietly. Eating whatever I want and sticking my middle finger up to the superficial bastards of the world. The ones whose only goal in life is to look good and make others feel bad for the slightest little flaw. They say things like Ohh she’s beautiful, but she needs to lose a little bit or weight. These days it seems that America is more obsessed with weight than a drug addict with crack. Every time I lose a few pounds that’s all they talk about. “Ohh you lost weight, now you look like a real human being.” Well they don’t say the last part, but by the way the harp on it, it seems fitting.
I admit I am angry. Angry that others feel that I should be looked down upon because of my size. I know this is not good. It is not good that I continue to hurt myself due to others. I thought I was stronger. It is easier said than done to put it out of my mind. To look beyond superficial people and learn to live with it. How do I get past others. Right now I don’t go see my Family, because I they talk about is looks, hair and weight. Just ridiculous.
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BlinkList- del.icio.us- Digg it- feedmelinks- Furl- ma.gnolia- RawSugar- Shadows- Simpy- Spurl- Wink- Yahoo MyWebI’m Back -Still in Love with Carbs
October 23rd, 2006How do I fight it? How do I win. I’m in love with carbs. I am depressed and don’t like how my life is going. I am gaining weight day after day. Can’t go to my family, because they don’t care or understand. I wish I can wave a magic wand and make myself hate carbs and hate eating. I understand now that this is both an emotional and a physical issue. The emotional side of me is not separate from my physical side. Eating bad carbs upsets my hormones which upsets my ability to deal with stress which makes me go for quick fixes like donuts and ice cream. So how come I know what is wrong, yet do it anyway? Well, I tend to put it off till tommorow. Oh, I’ll start to eat right tommorow, I say. I don’t have time to eat right today or I have so much to do that I need to put that frozen pizza in the oven instead of preparing a real meal. I think skipping meals and snacks does not help my cause either. I get so entrenched in working and worrying about working that I forget to eat. I forget to eat then boom! I am starving for carbs. Insulin resistant people like me need to eat every 2 to 3 hours. I have to eat three small meals and snacks in between. I feel like I am weak, because I have to do that. I say to myself, “Sally doesn’t have to eat every 2 to 3 hours in order to control her hunger, why do I?”. I know the answer. I know the answer is because I have metabolic syndrome. I don’t process carbohydrates well. I need to eat a little at a time so that my blood sugar does not crash after 3 hours. That way I don’t crave carbs so bad after my blood sugar drops too hard. Which keeps my insulin levels in check, which keeps my hunger levels in check. It does not make it any easier though. I hate that I have to live a structured life in such a chaotic world. Why can’t I roll with the punches just like everyone else? Why? It feels so restraining. Like I am in grade school or something. What if something bad happens. What if I can’t get to my food in two to three hours on a regular basis. Shouldn’t I learn to control myself? What is wrong with me??
Donna