Monthly Goals Report July - Aug

July 20 - August 20, 2017

So here's the short of it:
Weight 278, meaning I lost 4 lbs., and 12 lbs since restarting. We're going with "that's good," in spite of it being only 40% of goal. Other measurements are pretty encouraging: lost an inch around my thigh, and half an inch around my neck, and gained an inch around my bicep. Here's the graphic:

My goals for this month were:

• Lose 10 lbs (nope, lost 4, which would be under goal for a normal month... it's ok... I lost weight...)
• Eat 2000 or less calories a day (adjusted up from 1930) -- did this 25 out of 32 days, and only went seriously over (2650 calories) 1 time
• Walk to work every day -- nailed it, plus walked home a few times and went hiking, etc.
• Track my calories daily / write down every single thing I ate -- nailed it
• Strength train every other day with no more than one 2-day rest period a week -- nailed it, until last week when I fell WAY off the wagon, have only worked out once since last Thu

Soooooooooooo.........

OK, the good: I lost weight. Not only did I lose weight, but I seem to have broken through the 280-boundary that I was feeling stuck at. Just don't sabotage that and I'll be on track to keep losing. When I was first trying to lose and track my weight a couple years ago I was at 245 and feeling like I could never get back down to my goal weight (190) with so far to go. Now, I keep remembering, "OK, I can be smaller. I weighed 245 three years ago. I weighed 195 six years ago. I can get back there." Oddly enough I have one co-worker who keeps reminding me (and she didn't know me back then, which makes it even stranger, but more encouraging in a way) "It didn't all go on in a month, it isn't gonna come off that fast, either."

More good: I am very pleased to see that I have lost an inch off my thigh, and half an inch off my neck, and that I gained a whole inch around my bicep. Even though my belly and waist aren't much smaller (my pants still fit the same) I now see empirically that I am in fact losing body fat, and gaining muscle.

I hate to use an already overused cliche, but overall I am getting the feeling I need to "lean in" to this a little more. I made the broad-strokes changes, and after 3 months of tracking and learning from it, I think I see now where I can put more focus without screwing it up. Calories and fitness, of course.

I need to restrict my daily calories a little tighter without decreasing my food volume. If I feel hungry, I'm going to eat, that's all there is to it. I need to find some places to replace fat and carbs with fiber or protein. I was been causally / anecdotally testing the waters to see if I can get 50% of my calories from plant-based food, and I think I can do it... I might try that for the Aug - Sept month and see what happens.

I also need to work out a little more. I've adapted 100% to walking to work, it never occurs to me to take the car any more. (We'll see what happens the first time I wake up to 2 feet of snow...) And I'm doing ok on strength training, but I think I need to add a little more full-body exercise to my routine, make it a little longer, just do a little more. I'm not sure what. My current fitness routine developed organically, so I'm going to let this next step do the same. Goal for the Aug - Sept month will be to increase my workout time overall to 30 min, and include some new element, maybe HIT or maybe I'll give yoga another whirl (I hated it before, so..... that either means it's totally the right thing, or I was right and yoga is stupid... not sure which.)

I had a couple times this month that I was very discouraged and felt that familiar feeling like I was about to throw in the towel. Particularly when I just kept yo-yo-ing back up above 280, I just wanted to say fuck it and go bury myself in a pile of fried food and eat my way back to the surface with a side of mayo. But, I didn't. I'm not even sure how truthfully, other than every time it happened, that voice in my head would say, "No, this is not the end of the road. You are not going to quit. Giving up now means that other voice is right, and you really are fat and a failure." And somewhere I found the conviction to just move on from setbacks. I realize now that just because I don't make my monthly goal is not a reason to quit -- then I won't make any more goals. I hate failure. But I'm not going to allow it to make me turn back any more. Push through adversity. Be the boss I act like I am.

And remember the wins. I've lost 12 lbs. so far. I've lost an inch off my thigh and and half an inch off my neck and my muscles are getting bigger. My cardio conditioning is coming back really well, and I can tell I am getting stronger. I'm sleeping better and I'm in a better mood. I haven't had what I would classify as a binge in over a month, and my preference for healthy foods is increasing. I had a funny proof of that the other day -- I said, "I want Ranch dressing on my salad today, I'm gonna have it." And then, it tasted gross to me. So, there is positive stuff happening, I just need to keep working at it.

Food triggers and binge eating

So in this post I said, "After two months of monitoring this, ruminating on it, Googling it, and generally letting it settle into my brain I have been forced to accept that simply saying that late night eating is my real problem is not sufficient to addressing it -- I have to actually not eat."

As they say, acknowledging a problem is the first step. Not the step, right? There's more to it. Next is addressing it. So, let's address my binge eating at night.

Let's start with a confession: I can easily consume 3 or 4 times as much food as a regular person.

Here's some binge eating I regularly do:

• When I make a meal, especially pasta, I will eat the equivalent of a whole meal out of the pan as I am preparing it, so that I can also eat a semi-large "meal" and make it look like I am eating normally.
• Sometimes I will make myself two cheese and mayo sandwiches as a "snack" and eat them both in 3 or 4 bites each. (Note that is like a 1000 calories in 3 minutes.)
• Sometimes I eat so fast that food packs down into my throat because my esophagus can't get it into my stomach as fast as I'm swallowing it -- I'll have to stop and guzzle water to flush the food into my stomach so I can keep eating.
• If I am really, really hungry when I eat a meal, I eat so fast that I am already eating a second full helping before I even start to feel like I ate at all.
• I secret-eat. The eating out of the cooking pan as I prepare is secret eating. In general, that is my secret-eat MO: I eat large portions of the food I am preparing for dinner before it ever gets to the plate, and I will follow up with a few bites every time I go into the kitchen during and after the meal, too.
• With some foods like pasta, chips or crackers, I will eat them until they are gone. I will even try to stop and I can't. I'll be shoveling it in and even though I am thinking, "I have to stop," I just can't make the fork stop going into my mouth. (NOTE: with this one, I am having a lot of success changing, I have been able to stop or avoid all together lately.... gotta keep that track.)
• Alcohol. Sometimes I will have a glass of wine after work, before dinner, and it kills my appetite. I sometimes end up drinking all night instead of eating, because the calories from alcohol fool your body into thinking you ate. So then one of two things happens: either, I am just destroyed apocalyptic hung over the next day (which is getting harder and harder on me as I get older) or -- maybe worse -- just before bed, I will tell myself I need to eat something so I'm not crazy hung over tomorrow, and because I'm drunk and have no willpower, I eat some marathon like 2000 calories or total garbage then go immediately pass out. 

There. If you didn't already feel you knew too much about me, there's some really ugly stuff.

So, I've done a lot of reading about binge eating disorder and food addiction. I know that am an emotional eater, and I am starting to be able to recognize the triggers. I eat for stress relief and I eat when I'm bored. 

I have this vivid recollection where I got a subpoena delivered to my door by a cop. That's like every trigger in one package. I fear and distrust police officers. I have a near panic attack when someone knocks on my door without calling first. (I normally will not answer the door if I don't know who it is.) And getting a subpoena played out a whole nightmare scenario. Anyway -- I found myself eating directly out of the refrigerator, actually folding a sandwich in half so I could eat it faster. I don't recall going in the kitchen, or starting to eat. 

"Trigger foods" seem to be a big focus of a lot of the info that is out there about binge eating and food addiction. I find that I have more psychological or emotional triggers than any specific foods that cause me to have a binge. There are certain foods that are my go-to foods, but I think they are very common ones because of their fat-carb-reward loop: pasta, bread, chips (really crackers for me more than chips.) Also, these are foods that are easy to consume large portions of very quickly, and produce the proper dopamine effect that most people experience as "food coma." 

Since I have been approaching my diet, fitness and health goals as a whole lifestyle change, I have been experiencing a lot of success dealing with triggers without binge eating. I find that I have to concentrate really hard sometimes, but I can listen to what my body is telling me versus the urge to gobble down everything I can get in my mouth. When I want to go in the kitchen and "grab a snack," I am able to pay attention and determine if I am actually hungry or not. If I am actually hungry, I'll eat something. If I'm not actually hungry (like when I can feel that my belly is full but I'm still planning a meal in my head,) that is when we're in the danger zone.

So what do we do in the danger zone?

• I start with water. Drink down a nice big glass of water, fast. I get the visceral satisfaction of swallowing a large portion of something. And water filling your belly does satisfy your hunger pangs long enough for your brain to evaluate if you're really hungry or not. It is also a true fact that your brain has a difficult time differentiating between hunger and thirst, so sometimes you really are just thirsty. Luckily, I also love water, it is my #1 favorite beverage, always has been. So I have a lot of success using water to help me get through triggers.
• Exercise. This one is new for me, and I discovered it organically. (Another thing I had to discover empirically for myself, couldn't just take everyone's word for it...) I'll feel a hunger pang when I know I should not be hungry (like I already ate...) and I'll grab my free weights and do a couple reps. Next thing I know, I've forgotten all about eating. 
• Try willpower. As my nutritional health is increasing, I find this one to be a lot easier. Sometimes simply telling myself, "I'm not actually hungry, it's just a trigger," actually works. I'm actually not hungry, because I'm eating enough dietary fiber and vegetables that increase my satisfaction with meals, I am not nutritionally starved so these triggers are more readily identified as merely culprits, not legit hunger.
• Still can't totally stop? Maybe I am actually hungry. Eat something that is not a binge food. Some grapes or other fruit, or a couple spoonfuls of low fat cottage cheese, or one turkey-cheese roll-up. And immediately drink some water and get the f**k out of the kitchen. This one is a last resort. Stopping binge behavior with food is a slippery slope for the obvious reasons.

I'd like to conclude by saying: the best way to overcome eating triggers is SUCCESS. 

Last night I knew I was going to hit my weight loss goal for the week, because I was already there. All I had to do yesterday was not gain anything and I was set to win this morning. -- And I did it. -- One of my biggest triggers is a self-sabotage I've struggled with forever: I get so close to truly making a lasting change in my weight and health and right when I get to the brink, I fail big. And that justifies a binge, or giving up totally, which reinforces the "why do I bother?..." 

So last night, there I was, right on the brink of making my weekly goal. It's just one sleep away, and I'm already there. All I have to do is just maintain. I ate my healthy salad for dinner and some fresh cherries for a snack after. And then.... every time I go in the kitchen, I'm lookin' in the fridge, "I just need a snack." No. I don't. 

And I got through it with willpower -- I just kept my eyes on the prize: I'm at my goal, I'm not gonna fuck that up just so I can shove a meal I don't need down my throat one time. I did compromise with myself, and I ate some cottage cheese about an hour before bed, and that satisfied me. And when I woke up this morning and got on the scale.... and found not only was I at goal, I was 1 lb. below, I was elated. I did it! It seems silly to have felt that proud of myself for such a small thing, but it really was a big thing. I confronted a lifelong self-destructive patterns and won. Not saying the battle is over, but every success makes me feel more and more like I can do it.

You get up, you get back on the horse

OK, so of course I had to go and brag about how I'd gotten my night eating under control. Then last night (including alcohol) I ate 3161 calories after midnight and then went and passed out. Woke up 6 lbs. heavier this morning. 6 pounds.

I know I didn't actually gain 6 real pounds, it's water retention and a couple pounds of food still going through my GI tract, but I can pretty much guarantee tomorrow I'll see the actual net gain from it, which will probably be a pound or even two.

I've had an interesting week. From the combination of tracking my calories / eating and holding to my no night eating rule I observed something amazing: as long as I didn't eat at night, like no later than 7 or 8 pm, I lost weight every day. It almost didn't matter what I ate during the day within reason, as long as I didn't eat too late into the evening, I was consistently dropping .5 to 1 lb. a day.

I also observed that on the days I "did it right" and ate the most of my calories, protein, carbs and fat early in the day, and focused on high fiber and complex carbs later in the day, it was much easier to control the urge to eat at night, and easier to make the right choices if I did eat anything. It made it sink in a little more the actual importance of eating when you're "dieting" -- it's not a "diet" if it doesn't include food. Starving yourself by skipping meals or excessive fasting, coupled with infrequent huge meals (usually two a day, right?) makes your body go into a low-level shock because your hypothalamus starts sending out survival signals to your body, triggering fat-generation mode. It really is really bad, a total "diet" killer. Your body is capable of converting almost any nutrient into fat to store the nutrition. Eating more frequently, and eating most of your protein, carbs and fat early in the day keeps your body fed and lets your metabolism work right.

I had an object lesson this week in how well it can work, and how ugly it can be when you fall off the wagon. 6 pounds worth of a lesson. I was horrified when I got on the scale this morning.

I have stayed on track with my fitness goals though. Interestingly even on the days I went a little retrograde in terms of my nutritional plan, I still got my cardio and weight training done. I have done one or the other every day, and both every day about 2 out of 3, not bad. My pecs and my deltoid and tricep are the ones that hurt. I have a pretty decent bicep, always have, although it has been way better before. And you really have to tighten up your tricep or you can't really see the bicep definition, and the tricep is where you get the grandma wing. I'm starting to see and feel a positive difference in my upper body, both in strength and in muscle shape, and it's very encouraging. It makes me actually like the burn. "That pain you feel today is the strength you will feel tomorrow."

Anyway, it's been a mixed bag this past week or thereabouts. Overall, I had a great week, stayed on my nutritional goals, got my fitness goals in every day, but then I really crashed & burned yesterday. It was not even a backslide, it was a total reversion. I didn't eat all day, then at about 4 pm, I ordered way too much food out after work, then starved myself again for almost 8 hours and ended up eating directly out of the refrigerator at 12:30.

I choose to take it as a lesson. I try to focus on the successes, and there were plenty, particularly in getting to the top of the curve on understanding and internalizing it all. Every failure I've experienced so far has served to reinforce why I need to do this. For some reason, I've been able to see why each failure has happened and what the consequences were, and channel my disappointment into motivation to do it right. It's working, but every time I have a bad day I really have to work through it with myself and keep reminding myself it's just a setback, not the end of the plan. You get up, you get back on the horse.

Bread is bread, even tortillas

Tortillas are a better dietary choice than whole grain bread, right?

I think it is a terrible dietary urban legend that tortillas are better for you, particularly spinach tortillas. Wraps are trendy, that's all. The truth is, bread is bread pretty much, and both flour and spinach tortillas are actually made of processed wheat flour (i.e.: they are white bread in disguise) and corn tortillas are pretty much out too as all corn is suspect at the moment because of GMOs.

FYI: you can get certified Non-GMO corn tortillas and other Mexican food from Que Pasa and from Kettle Chips.

Do a side by side comparison of the nutritional information for any two whole grain breads, including whole wheat tortillas, and you will find that they are virtually identical both in calories and nutritional values. The differences are minimal and favor both alternately, so it is really only a matter of your personal nutritional priorities. I'll use an example:

Whole Wheat Bread vs. Whole Wheat Tortilla

2 Slices Bread, 1 Large Tortilla

Note: the nutritional info for the wheat bread in the picture is for 1 slice, so I am doubling it for the example because I am comparing the amount of bread in a sandwich vs. a wrap, which would have 2 slices of bread.

Let's just make a list of pros for each:

Calories: Tortilla wins, but only by 14 calories, negligible. 

Fat: Bread, by 1 gram overall, plus has no saturated fat.

Sodium: tie, only a 4 mg difference, although technically Bread wins.

Potassium: big win for Bread with 102 mg vs. 0 for the tortilla.

Carbs: Tortilla wins with 4 grams less. Again, kinda negligible.

Dietary Fiber: Tortilla wins with 1 g more.

Sugar: tie, with 2 g each.

Protein: Bread wins, with a 2 g advantage.

TOTAL: 5 / 5, tie.

So really, bread is bread. We all know not to eat white bread, so as long as you stick to whole wheat or whole grain products, it's all the same stuff. 

What about spinach tortillas or other veggie tortillas?

Nope, sorry, those trendy spinach tortillas that restaurants love because they look so nice on the plate are more than double the calories, carbs, sodium and saturated fat as two slices of white bread. Most "vegetable" tortillas (spinach, pepper, basil, paprika, etc.) only contain the ground vegetable powder for taste and coloration, which spikes their sodium content, too. Sadly, they aren't better for you, it's just a marketing scheme. They are actually worse for you than white bread or a white flour tortilla.

But aren't corn tortillas the way to go?

Yes, but not since 2012. Right now -- no -- unless you take the steps to get Non-GMO corn products, which is possible.

It's really too bad about corn right now. Within the top results from a Google search for, "are tortilla's better than bread," you will be continually reminded that corn flour does in fact count as a whole grain. Corn tortillas are much lower calorie, low fat, no cholesterol, low carb, and have a little bit of fiber and protein. Unfortunately, as I said above, basically all corn products since 2012 are suspect, even farm stand corn because Monsanto also sold GMO sweet corn seed to local producers on a global scale, particularly in the Ukraine. Note, many American corn producers are finding that GMO seeds often fail, so hopefully between the GMO labeling push in the US and natural crop failures, GMO vegetables will go away. Soon. Until then, I'm avoiding as much corn product as possible. 

Day 6 and 7

Day 6. All of that, all good.

Day 7........

I want a f***ing omelette SO bad it's almost funny. Last day of the vegan fast....

UG. Being vegan is hard.

Like..... I had no problem staying on the diet, but I did feel deprived. Like, poor vegans. They're missing out. On cheese. And eggs. And Yogurt. Those are my 3.

Weighed in this AM at 228.8, so... what? I "gained" less than half a pound. Overall it means I dropped 5 lbs. in 7 days. No surprise, as I've been shitting like 8 times a day. Thank you fiber. However -- EXACTLY the point of the 7-day vegan fast.

Um, and being vegan is HARD. I'd think of or see some food that is "vegetarian" (ova-lacto) and be like, "Um, I want that. Mmmmm." And then, "Oh, f**k. It's not vegan." And then it was instantly off-limits, but I still was all, Damn. Thank God I'm not actually vegan.

OK, so the real, true, vegan report:

2 actual non-vegan slips: I ate some sherbet. Probably a cup. Ish. And at work I have put a splash of milk in my coffee a couple times a day, like a tablespoon or less. Not too bad.

Hm.

So. The real challenge is coming up. Re-incorporating dairy into my diet without going over on my fat intake........

Hormones and weight loss - eat more to lose more?

I've been reading about hormones and how they effect weight loss. Two hormones in particular are critical to eating, or over-eating: Ghrelin, and Leptin.

Ghrelin is a hormone produced by your stomach lining that triggers hunger, tells you to eat.
Leptin is a hormone produced by fat cells that signals satiety, or tells you to stop eating.

Here is an excellent article that covers these hormones and their role in weight loss in plain language.

Ghrelin is a very critical hormone, with receptors throughout your body, and is related not only to eating impulse, but also to learning and cognitive adaptation and helps to regulate neurons in your hippocampus. It is also an important factor in the production and regulation of the human growth hormone.

Leptin, from the Greek, Leptos, which means "thin," is an important horomone which not only tells us we are full after a meal, but helps to support your circulatory system, lungs, and bone health. Obese people often have developed a resistance to Leptin, which is believed to be induced by high-fructose interaction (a.k.a.: eating a lot of sugar,) meaning that people who are already overweight really, hormonally have a dampened / suppressed "fullness signal."

So how do these hormones effect weight loss? Other than by the obvious, turning on and off our eating urge?

Well, put simply, "dieting" really doesn't work, not in the traditional sense. Over-restricting your caloric intake unbalances Ghrelin and Leptin in your body and causes your body to go into fat storage mode. The goal is to keep your Ghrelin (eat) low and your Leptin (stop eating) high, but to do that you have to eat. This seems counter-intuitive, again. All weight loss plans involve calorie restriction.

In order to keep your hormonal balance, you need to reduce caloric intake but increase the volume and the frequency of meals. Again, sounds counter-intuitive, right? Eat more? Well, yes. Eat whole foods that are low-fat and high fiber. Fiber is a critical nutrient in feeling satisfied after a meal. Dietary fiber has so many health benefits it is worth a whole blog entry of it's own. Dietary fiber naturally reduces cholesterol, and delays the absorption of glucose  (sugar) which keeps your blood sugar more stable, thus allowing Leptin to work better and tell your body to stop eating. The real, metabolic reason fiber makes you feel fuller is because you are fuller -- dietary fiber has no calories, but it increases food volume. There you have it: reduce caloric intake but increase the volume and the frequency of meals.

Here is a list of high-fiber foods from the Mayo Clinic.

So, that's the big secret. Eat more and you can lose weight better, you just need to follow a couple simple rules. Higher food volume, lower caloric value.