In praise of EET

The story so far:

1. Once upon a time, I birthed my seventh baby a year and a half before my 20-year high school reunion. Knowing how long it can take to lose baby weight, I started right in on the efforts. Mainly used calorie counting at sparkpeople.com. Benefitted from breastfeeding: was able to eat plenty of food every day and still create a calorie deficit. Succeeded. Weighed my pre-seven-babies weight six months before that reunion. Maintained it for well over a year. (See all posts having to do with my experiences with sparkpeople.com here.)

2. Gained a little weight. Counting calories didn't work quite as well for me when I didn't have those extra breastfeeding calories. Tried a different method, Eat Stop Eat with periodic fasts. The first few fasts were difficult, but once my body was used to going without food for a period, I didn't even feel hunger pangs on fasting days. Could lose up to 4 pounds in a single fast, but once I resumed eating I'd have two-and-a-half or so of those back. Was maintainable because I could eat the foods I loved, in portions. Lost 2 or a little more pounds a week. Got back to pre-seven-babies weight. Maintained it for probably 4-5 months. (See all posts having to do with my experiences with Eat Stop Eat here, and there are a lot since this blog was started to chronicle my progress through it.)

3. Hub got laid off. Stress. Gained a little weight, then more. Tried fasting, but the emotions and stress were too high so my fasts were shorter and my eats were bigger. Didn't really lose.

4. Didn't want to count calories or fast; didn't see any real results when I was counting calories or fasting. Nearly a year had passed, hub's work was steady, stress was much lower. Tried something new: EET, which is all about the timing of meals. I did have limited success, even though I insisted that the program conform to me rather than me conforming to the program. I absolutely insisted that I must be able to eat the same foods that I made for the family for dinner in the evenings. Wanted to be an example for those beautiful seven children. Mr. EET Jon Pearlstone worked with me, trying to tweak the plan, and we did see slow and small progress. I never reached my goal weight because I had to drop out when finances became tight. (See one more post on my prior EET experience here.)

5. Floundered on my own, trying parts and entireties of everything I'd done before. Lost a little, gained. Gained a bit more, lost a little. Worked out faithfully for a bit, took a while off. Ended up, nine months after dropping out of EET, at my highest adult weight ever, exactly equivalent to my full-term pregnant weight.

6. Beloved sister began losing weight. Fast. Taking names and kicking it to the curb. And I thought, I have to do this now, so that I can get small while she gets small. Pride wouldn't let me be the bigger sister. So I started exercising, eating less carbs. Cut out virtually all sugar, thanks to a challenge from a friend who had begun the Paleo diet. (See my prior struggles with sugar here.) Ate very healthy meals, lots of veggies and protein for breakfast and lunch, family meal for dinner, fasting 2 meals 2-3 times per week. I was dropping a pound a week or so. Sister was losing 4-5/week. Lost about 12 pounds of the 30 I wanted to lose. After months of watching sister and Paleo diet friend shed pounds very quickly while I went slow as a snail, I decided: there is something about this eating dinner with my family that isn't working. Something about my carb intake that isn't working. I borrowed my sister's book, The 17-Day Diet.

(Thanks for sticking with me! We're almost to present day!)

7. Began the first 17 days of very low (for me) carb diet. Did I lose weight? Yes. Multiple pounds per week, which felt like a miracle because my loss had been so slow and full of stalls and tiny fractional regains. Also, I was hungry all the time—hungrier by far than when I fasted and ate nothing. (True story.) I lost all energy in the afternoon—after about 2 p.m. I was all wrung out and exhausted and had nothing left to give, and even food didn't recharge me. Cooking dinner for the fam felt like a monumental energy expenditure. In the first 10 days I lost another 6 pounds, though, so the loss made the low energy and the hollowed-out hunger doable. But then I ran out of steam. I had to add in some carbs.

The first two days of eating carbs were like a free-for-all. I was just downing everything I could get my hands on. Of course the number on the scale crept up a couple of pounds, both from actual intake of too many calories and from retained water. I went back to the very low carbs for another 5 or so days. Then I realized several things:

• I was not eating what my family ate for dinner, and the kids were surviving. Most often they didn't even notice what I had on my plate.
• Not eating carbs at night was working, in terms of losing weight.
• Not eating carbs ever was NOT working for me, and would not be sustainable in the long term. Or even really in the short term—it took all my willpower and a few cheat days to get through the first 17-day cycle.
• All my objections to the EET program had been done away with. I could, in fact, eat something different than the fam at night. I could, in fact, eat very low carbs at some meals. If I could eat carbs for lunch and maintain my energy through the day and still lose, I could do EET. Long-term.

So for my second 17-day cycle, I decided to skip right over the info in the book and try EET again.

And you know what?

MIRACLE.

I have energy now, all day long.

I am not hollowly hungry, ever. One step further, I am satisfied! Because I am eating the foods that I love at lunchtime. I no longer look at food and think, "Looks delicious. Can't ever have it."

If something crosses my path that I shouldn't eat, I can resist it fairly easily. Because I can eat it tomorrow at lunchtime. No deprivation, just timing.

I am literally just three days into this. This isn't my final check-in or anything. But this morning I had my lowest weigh-in since item #2 up there, and that's after having eating literally the most calorie-laden food I cook for lunch yesterday.

Suddenly eating is fun again. And whereas my upcoming anniversary weekend (married 20 years on Monday 11 June! yeah!) was going to be a drag without any of the foods I loved, now I look forward to having a couple of special meals.

Will report back on how it goes.

Counting calories

I've spoken here before about SparkPeople. Counting calories was never manageable for me until I discovered SparkPeople, but now it couldn't be easier.

Here's a truth about me, and maybe about many other people as well: if I eat something sweet or unplanned, I mentally tend to say, "I've screwed up now, I may as well eat anything I want." I feel bad about eating it, and my guilt and feelings of failure push me toward emotional eating as a band-aid for the unplanned eating. It can be vicious.

Here's a truth about calorie counting: when I own up to eating those two lemon cookies (as I did yesterday at lunch, unplanned) and factor them into my calories, it's so much better than my mind made it out to be. An extra 220 calories? This is manageable. It means I have to eat a little less at my following meal, and it means I might go over my daily calories by 100, but it is so much less a catastrophe than my mind tried to convince me it was.

Counting calories and being honest on my food log helped me to avoid going overboard on food yesterday due to guilt. Writing it down, looking at it, and honestly assessing the damage is a great tool. No wonder food journaling has been such an important weight loss tool to so many people for so long!

Would that my electronic life were easily portable!

This weight loss blog has been around since 18 October 2008, but my efforts have been going on a much longer time than that. Over on my LiveJournal (which is my main blog, and not publicly accessible because I protect many of my entries) I've been talking about weight loss for a very long time. Two of my seven babies were born while I have been blogging, so naturally there's some weight loss discussion there. I had a 20-year high school reunion. And I had, just the regular maintenance and mini-battles with the three pounds I kept gaining and losing.

In fact if you read my LJ, you might see how much I fixated on a certain number, how my spirits fell if I didn't lose after a week of being good, how I struggled, how I succeeded. There are three things that really made me lose weight: Eat Stop Eat with the periodic fasting, counting calories at SparkPeople.com, and food combining.

I haven't talked about food combining at all in this blog, because it's a thing of my past. When I had just barely birthed baby #7 and was looking to drop that weight, I was really cautious about how I went about it. I wanted to be sure that I fed him properly and gave him all the nutrition he needed, without giving myself too much nutrition. I'd fallen into that trap before, eating too much and gaining weight in the name of feeding the baby.

So I downloaded an e-book called Breastfeed Your Way Thin which turned out to be one of the best things I'd ever done. It was a sensible plan anyone on any diet (even a vegan, like I was at the time) could follow, because it's all about food combining—eating foods in certain combinations.

That's the flash back. Here's the present day.

I've been half-heartedly counting calories for a few weeks now, and trying a little bit to fast now and then. Neither has been terribly effective because I kind of jump ship and eat without recording or break my fast. But what has been effective, is that I'm in my third week of consistent strength training. It's just a tiny little routine, Mondays and Thursdays I work arms, Tuesdays and Fridays legs/butt, and Wednesdays abs. But the consistency is what's important.

For two full weeks and M-W of this week I struggled with energy levels. I just could hardly make it through half of a decent workout before I was exhausted. Gradually my muscles have been less sore after workouts, but always I lifted or squatted or whatever to the point of shaky and fatigue.

(The good news is, this morning I was finally able to finish the entire arms workout. Here's hoping I get the same thing tomorrow with the legs/butt!)

Anyway, energy has been a huge struggle for me. I'm tired because I'm getting up a lot earlier to exercise, and I'm exhausted and fatigued after strength training.

And this morning, I remembered an entry I'd made years ago when I was faithfully following Breastfeed Your Way Thin and combining my foods. This is from January 24, 2006—almost exactly four years ago today. Hmm, interesting.

From Breastfeed Your Way Thin by Shannon Crawford, regarding food combining:

"One thing I do know from direct experience is that many of us have a tendency to rely on food for emotional support: we eat to feel better. Before I came upon food combining, this was a recurring theme for me. I would feel bad, eat junk food to distraction, then feel bad about that and repeat the cycle. But when I started my program, within a few days my moods had improved significantly. I really couldn't believe how much happier I felt.

"Many people who have adopted food combining have stated that they feel much happier with life, they experience less stress, and feel better overall. I am not clear as to why we experience this, but it might have something to do with the increased energy we feel. Or perhaps with better nutrition and health our hormones are better regulated, resulting in improved, more stable moods. Regardless, the direct result of this is very clear; when we feel better, we turn less to food and more to life."

I had noticed over the last, say, half a week or perhaps more, that I was having a startling lack of food cravings and temptations. All I've been wanting is my healthy food, and I haven't been foraging through the treat cupboard for leftover Christmas candy or anything. I haven't heard the doughnuts calling me from inside the convenience store when I go to gas up the car. And then I thought, "Not only am I not having cravings, my mood is incredibly stable." And then I thought, "Hmm, and my energy level is good, too."

And then I reread this part in the book yesterday. Can I blame it all on food combining? I don't know, but I do feel remarkably peaceful and content, even though I'm eating slightly smaller portions and making an effort to avoid treats.

In fact, that was more positive things than I remembered, I was just thinking about the energy levels. It knocks out cravings too?

So I was thinking about this this morning, and decided to go for it. I'll brush up on my food combining this morning—it's been years, after all—and I'll see if I can get that boost in energy, mood, and the ability to withstand cravings that I need right now. Just had a huge glass of fruit smoothie for breakfast. I can eat a couple of pieces of toast between breakfast and lunch. Crossing my fingers.

I'm lovin' it.

I know it makes for a boring blog, to say, "I'm still in the same place. I don't care if I lose a pound." But it feels great. And it's huge, really huge—for me to be larger than what I've always considered "ideal" and to be contented here...it's very freeing. And very healthy, I think.

Last week I spent an hour or so on the SparkPeople website reading blog entry after blog entry. These were written by fitness professionals who compared their post-pregnancy bellies to "rising bread dough" (boy, do I identify with that one!) and who, despite being a very good weight for their height, have cellulite that makes them not wear swimsuits in public. Entry after entry convinced me (again) that the current view of the female body is so unhealthy. We look at the stars on the magazine covers fully knowing that they are photoshopped, they have personal chefs, they have personal trainers, and they can literally devote their lives to having those bodies (which still need to be touched up when photographed) and while our brains say, "Not real!" our emotions say, "I want to look like that!" We set up a mental ideal that is impossible to achieve, but think that if we just exercise enough or cut out enough food we'll get there.

And then when we see the stars in their natural form—in swimsuits on vacation or whatever—and see that they really do have lumps, cellulite, and imperfections, the magazines mock them and rip them to shreds. This can only cement our notion that perfection is somehow (a) achievable by all, and (b) keep-up-able 100% of the time, can't it? We expect the stars to do it, we should be able to do it too.

(Here's a link to get you started, if you want to immerse yourself in these wonderful posts: http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=i_profess_that_i_love_to_confess)

Do we even remember what a real body looks like? There are websites full of pictures. If you've searched out and seen the real tummies and real thighs, tell the truth: were you grossed out by the dimples? Or did you feel camaraderie? Did you think, "Maybe I'm more okay this way than I thought I was?"

So what's new since I took a flying leap off the wagon?

1. I'm not weighing myself at all. I have long known what a mind job that weight on the scale is. If I've been working hard all week and it hasn't budged, I get depressed and start inhaling the doughnuts while saying, "Evidently eating less doesn't help! No matter how hard I try nothing makes a difference!" If I've lost weight that's encouragement in itself; if I haven't lost, it just bums me out and makes me overindulge. I may weigh once a month now, or something. But daily and weekly weighing is right out. I just don't need to drag myself into that game.
   
   
2. I'm keeping a paper food diary of what I eat. Not counting calories, not trying to meet any minimums or maximums, just tracking. Tracking has always worked for me. It helps me, somehow, to control my intake. If I don't want to write down that third cookie, I don't eat it. Tracking keeps me honest.
   
   
3. I'm eating less, genuinely. I guess I had turned into a mass of emotions and needs and I was trying to tame everything by eating it. Letting go of weight expectations, letting go of the emotion of what's on the scale, has enabled me to let go of trying to comfort myself with this or punish myself with skipping that. I don't have to overfeed, I don't have to overcompensate. I'm a lot closer to that zen relationship with food—that it is merely fuel for my engine, it is not best friend or social companion or crutch or comforter.
   
   
4. I'm eating less sugar. It goes hand in hand with #3, but it's still notable.

Those are all really positive changes. I'm so at peace with my body. Grateful to it, even, for being so healthy. My body has never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to. How great is that?

----------------
Now playing: Paramore - Misery Business
via FoxyTunes

All sorts of detours

I've been all over the map lately with diet. I tried my own slim fast diet, in which I was going to eat fresh fruits/vegs for two meals (approx 250 calories/meal), and then a "sensible dinner". That lasted about a week.

Then I was going to eat exactly 1200 calories per day. That lasted probably two days. I upped it to 1500 calories per day. That one, though easier, didn't even get off the ground; I was too busy eating everything in sight. I haven't done a serious fast in a mighty long time, longer than two months. My periodic fasts just became mind games, in which my mind tried to convince me to eat after only one missed meal, or two missed meals. My mind always won. As I was consuming an entire day of calories in that make-up meal, I kept mentally chanting, "Food isn't bad! It's not wrong to eat!"

My problem is that I want to lose weight fast. Don't we all? I was 140 pounds once. I want to weigh 130, but I want to be starting from 140, not from where I am. So I'll "hurry up" and lose the first ten, and then keep going. Or something stupid like that.

I clicked a SparkPeople.com link over on Facebook, which took me to a blog post entitled My Top 10 Weight Loss Mistakes: What are Yours? She mentioned wanting to lose the weight too fast, and it was like a lightbulb went off for me. While it's true I want to be 140 today, or tomorrow, or next week, I can't do it that way. I have to do it sensibly. The time will pass anyway; I just have to make the most of the passing time.

So I began exercising again. I'd dropped cardio (which I love) in favor of weight training (which I believe has many more benefits, but I don't enjoy it nearly so well). So when I dropped weight training because of schedule difficulties, I wasn't doing anything at all. Now I'm doing both again.

And after my failed attempts at self-slim-fast, I began researching diets again. The diets that will work for me are somewhat limited with my mostly-vegan lifestyle, but I checked out a number of them anyway. Most were gimmicks or required supplements or wanted me to eat more times a day than I can, etc.

And then I paused. I'd just finished running and was stretching, and I had a moment of quiet to just ponder me.

And I realized, the only two diets that have ever worked for me are counting calories at SparkPeople.com, and Eat Stop Eat with the periodic fasting. Both are about eating fewer calories, because I'm obviously consuming more calories than I need. There is no way to out-exercise a bad diet, when it is so easy to consume calories and so hard to burn them off. I can eat 1000 calories in 20 minutes. I can burn about 60 calories in the same amount of time if I'm running uphill (which, needless to say, I don't).

Reality checks are good, right?

I've decided to count calories again, with the fun twist of calorie-cycling. This is where my calories average out to 1500/day over a week, but individual days vary. Yesterday I got 1700 calories, which seemed like a full out indulgence day. I ate literally everything I wanted to and barely got all those calories in. (Mind you, I didn't go to P.F. Chang's. That would have made it a bit easier.) Today I get 1300 and I have to be a little more careful. But eating everything yesterday makes it easier to leave out the really fun stuff today, and I know I get another 1700 day this week.

But when I stepped on the scale Monday morning I got a bad case of sticker shock. I weighed the second most I've ever weighed in my life non-pregnant. 157 pounds. I swear, just two weeks ago I was 149? Which is still way too much, but 157?!?!

So I began my Monday with an unexpected Eat Stop Eat fast. I exercised, I drank, and I didn't eat. And wonder of wonders, I made it through beautifully. No mind games.

So now I'm doing a combination, I guess, of the only two methods (which are branches of the same thing) which have ever worked for me.

I'm happy. I've already seen a 4-pound drop on the scale, and it's just two days later. With a few higher-calorie days per week, it feels very doable. SparkPeople is my old friend.

It won't be tomorrow, but I'll see 140 again. And hopefully after that, I'll keep going to 130.

Brand New

I don't know what that magical switch is that gets flipped, the one that gives me the strength mentally to say, "No REALLY, I'm going to do this." I've tried to flip the switch manually before; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But last week I noticed my clothes were getting a little tight. I weighed myself and found I was 150 again. And the switch flipped.

This is my new beginning. I know, both from experience and from research that I have twelve weeks to see what changes I can bring about. Twelve weeks, maybe a few more, before the fire dies out and I slide into maintenance mode.

I've had a great week! Tracking calories was a big success for me. I started the week at 150.something (didn't pay attention to the .something, I was having sticker shock over the 150) and this morning I was 147.0. I haven't done a fast all week. I've been so weak, so indulgent, for so many weeks now that I figured portion reduction and cutting out sugar were enough to work on for one week.

Also that thing they say? About not changing too many behaviors at once? Yes, I've borne it out: I was able to cut out sugar and track my calories and revamp my eating, but I was not able to also work in faithful workouts. Baby steps, right?

At sparkpeople.com I've set up a "streak" regarding sugar. If I can not eat sugary treats six days out of seven, I'll call that a wild success. If I can do that week after week, I'll call it an addiction broken! I've made it through week one. I've been sugar-free for six days. Tonight is a dinner in SLC for my daughter's head of school, and I suspect I'll have a bite of dessert. And I won't have to feel guilty about it, because I've already met my goal. :)

I've also realized that having my official weigh-in on Saturday morning, and knowing I have another entire week before the next Saturday morning, gives me a mental excuse to splurge all weekend with bigger portions and treats here and there. And I don't want to splurge all weekend; I want to maximize my efforts since 12 weeks is a pretty tight window. So I've moved my official weigh-in, the weight that gets recorded here, to Monday mornings. I just decided two days ago to do this, and it strikes me as a mighty fine idea. Looking forward to Monday!

“It's a fallacy that all it takes is willpower to reshape your body. If you can't learn to speak French in a month, it doesn't mean you're weak-willed; it means you've set an impossible goal. Weight loss does take effort, but as with any project, it also takes a plan. You can set yourself up for success.”

That's what I'm trying to do. Tally ho!

----------------
Now playing: Elefant - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
via FoxyTunes

Had to cut back portions...

...in order to tone down my appetite. I was just starving all the time, but a few days of tracking calories/intake at sparkpeople.com (and trying to cut back) has brought it back within manageable levels. It's 12:30. I'm not intentionally fasting today, I just thought I'd go without eating until I got hungry. I'm still not hungry.

Also: 4.5 days without sugar, and surviving. :)

True confessions.

1. I ate sugar again. Drat. One little bit gave way to one bigger bit, until I was eating sugar every day. Not in the quantities I had been before, so that's good. Sugar wasn't the only thing that was important to me. But I had to start over again cutting it out. I'm on day three. It isn't as difficult this time.
   
   
2. I'm finding it almost impossible right now to fast. I don't know why; lack of willpower? I just get horrifically starving, and then I think, "But food isn't bad!" and I eat and then I make up all the calories I'd so far skipped that day, breakfast or breakfast plus lunch. Oh yeah, I can totally eat an entire day's calories in one sitting. :(
   
   
3. So I'm actively back at sparkpeople.com for the moment, tracking my caloric intake. It is easier for me, right now, to limit my portions than to fast. And I figured since I was just eating like crazy, I had to do something.
   
   
4. I'm also trying to be more faithful with exercise, especially strength training. Spring weather is here and is supposed to stay all week long (SQUEE) and what I really want to do is get out and jog and walk. Though I'm definitely not in the cardiovascular shape I was in last spring when I had been doing cardio faithfully. My shift of focus to strength training, and then my total laziness in not doing it, has made me a little bit winded in places where I used to not be. Sigh. I really enjoy cardio so much more than strength training. Really. But I need the strength training more.

----------------
Now playing: Adam Lambert - Mad World (American Idol Studio Version)
via FoxyTunes