My thoughts for today

First my weight is down 0.6 pounds from yesterday. Yesterday I was up 1.4 pounds from my last weigh in last 12/29/2017. That weight gain was all water weight gain from too much salt while traveling. My weight is and has been swinging about 2-3 pounds for about the last 4 months. This seems to indicate that I am within my body’s happy weight or set point. I continue to eat about 2000 calories a day, some days a little more and some days less. I still eat what I want and enjoy eating along with what I need to eat to fuel my body correctly. I cannot remember the last time that I felt stuffed or hungry. Not feeling hungry or stuffed is the key to weight management, at least for me it is.

I have been thinking back over the last month, and I can say this I was told by God three weeks before we get the contract to sell this house that we would get it, and on which day we would get it. And it happened that way. I was told as I drove to Arkansas on Friday 12/29/2017 that we would see the home we would be buying on January 1, 2018, and we did see the house that afternoon. It was the first of 5 that we were to see that day. We saw it and made up our mines that we wanted it and never saw any other homes. I am a believer in God, and I know God speaks to me, sometimes in my dreams, and other times as I am doing something like walking or driving. I do not listen to music as I walk or drive, I like to listen to my inter voice, and I listen for God to tell me what he has for me to do. I know that this is hard for a lot of people to except, but it is something I have known since I was around 7 or 8 years old. God has guided my life to the point of who I married and what jobs I have had. And to where I have lived and even the friends that I have.

Why are people so negative about Intuitive eating?

I believe we as a whole have been so brainwashed that we cannot except the concept that we do not have to be dieting. We have been so well indoctrinated that we believe that what ever we eat is a diet. I am here to say that dieting as it is understood in the country and in most of the modern world is a means to get us to buy special foods. It is to keep us looking for the next great diet plan, diet book and things to make us buy what ever they decide they want to sell us. It does not have to be that way. We seem to have created a generation of people that do not understand how to eat and enjoy what they are eating. I was raised to eat what ever was available, and that is what I have decided to allow myself to do again in my life. It is so much of a relief to be able to not have to think I am going out and cannot enjoy it due to being on some special diet. Sure we need to make good choices whenever we can, and I do my best to eat a good nutritional diet. We need to stop stressing over eating, we have to stop stressing about what we have to deprive ourselves of in our food choices. Most people I have seen deprive themselves of the very nutrition that they need most. When you do that your body will force you to binge eat.  

So before I go any farther let me say. I was born in late 1947, on a farm. I lived on that farm and ate like a farmer until I went in the Navy at age 21 in late 1968. When I turned 21 I was by all standards a skinny person. I was almost 6 feet and 167 pounds. I had a waist of 28 inches. I went in the Navy that way and 11 weeks later I was up to 215 pounds and a 33 inch waist. I felt fat and I was fat. I managed to stay about that weight and waist size until I left the Navy in the early part of 1977. My weight slowly climbed from that point on. In 1980 I was up to somewhere around 235 and I decided I was going on the Atkin’s Diet and I lost down to 163 pounds, my waist was down to 32 inches, but I was not able to stay on the Atkin’s Diet for obvious  reasons. You just cannot live on that type of diet my body was crying for food for energy so I could keep up with my activity. We have to have carbs for energy, protein for muscles, and we have to have fat for rebuilding our bodies. I started gaining my weight back because I was bingeing on the foods that I had deprived myself of so long, and I gained back more weight that I lost. This was also a time in my life that my wife and I were very busy raising family. We were body working and we had two children to keep up with, so we did what so many did we ate a lot of fast food. I was an active person, keeping up with a teenage son, going bicycle riding, camping and hiking but was over eating and still gained weight. I did not decide to try to lose again seriously until after I lost my first wife in an auto accident when I was about 54 years old. I did not eat well for a while then and I even gained more after my wifed died. I finally got to the point I could not wear my pants and decided I had to lose the weight. I did not want to go back on the Atkin’s diet so I tried the South Beach diet, I did lose some weight but then again the fact I was depriving myself of foods I loved got me to bingeing again. I stopped that diet and gave in to my old eating habits. I I finally really made my mine up to lose weight on my birthday, Thanksgiving 2010. I decided on portion control only, and by the New Year I was down 10 pounds. Yes, I lost weight over the holidays. I just stayed with portion control eating, and by March 2011 I was down a total of about 35 pounds, I started walking. It was slow going at first then I managed to get more and more distance in. July of 2011 I found loseit.com and that led me to Fitbit devices. Using loseit and Fitbit I lost down to just about 200 and just below.  Then February of 2014 I was forced to retire due to company reorganization and my hearing. I was not ready for that. I stayed busy and I kept logging my food but I still gained back about 50 pounds. I believe mostly due to not walking regularly like I was. I kept trying but could not get the weight to drop, In 2016 at one of my doctor’s appointment I asked to be referred to a dietitian. And from that visit I found that my metabolism was messed up from not eating enough. I have been working on my eating and walking again since that appointment. I have now lost down to 188 average, I eat approximately 2000 calories a day. 

I eat what I wish to eat and I still log my food and my weight. I do not sweat over a few pounds of swing in my weight. I do not try to be exact with my food amounts, for me now it is just keeping track of what I eat not so much with how much. Also I have left Fitbit behind, and I have switched to the Apple Watch and Apple Health. I credit the two of them in getting my weight down below what I was managing using Fitbit. 

For me it is about enjoying my food, and eating what I want to eat, and not depriving myself of the things I love. It is about being active and not really exercising. It is also about not stressing over what is available to eat, or worrying about what someone thinks about my food choices. And it is about learning to know when I need something to eat and knowing when to stop eating. That is getting easier as I except intuitive eating as my norm again after about 50 years of dieting. 

If you accept that you do not have to deprive yourself, and you come to love food again, and love your self again you are over half way there. I am also, finding that you do not have to follow the intuitive eating like the book says. I have created my on working plan. I weigh myself and the purist will not do that. I log my foods, and somewhat count calories the purist would scream over that. But I will say this intuitive eating was come by for people with eating disorders. I do not believe I have an eating disorder other than the love of food. 

Back home

My first weigh in of 2018 and I am up 1.4 pounds, which is no surprise seeing I was traveling and eating on the go most of the time. The higher amount of salt is my issue and not my calories. I was well below the budget loseit gives for the whole trip, and while I was active and did get my activity goals, and my staying goals met I did not get my minutes goal. And it seems that when I drive as I did yesterday I get even a lot more resting calories burned. 

As for as my eating while I was on the road, I did eat the best I could. I love my sisters cranberry cake so I had some of it. My sister still works so we had to eat when she came home in the evening so we ate late. My sister does not get up and eat breakfast so breakfast was cereal for me as I could get it. We were looking for our new home so we ate on the road a lot too, and that does mean a lot more salt. But my wife and I share our meals most of the time, seeing cafe food are such large portions. The key is learning to listen to your body and understand when you are needing to eat, and only eat the amount of food you need to feel comfortable. For me learning I did not have to eat everything on my plate has been the key for controlling my weight. And the fact that I can eat what I feel I need to eat or want to eat has stopped me from over eating. I no long have that feeling that I need to eat it all. 

We did fine our new home and we have a contract for it secured. So now the hard work starts finish packing and moving and unpacking. 

Yes I know

I know a lot of you do not believe that intuitive eating can work. But I say yes it can, if you stop with the word ‘cannot’. Anything is possible if you think positively. If you do not believe in yourself, of course, you will not be able to do it. The key I have found is to be positive that you can do it. Will it be easy no more than likely not. Will you have setbacks, yes you will. What you have to do is except who you are, make up your mind to do it and ‘Just Do It’. Life is what you make of it, it is that plan and simple.

You have to believe in yourself for anything to happen positively. You have to respect your body, your decisions, and you have for more than likely the first time in your life put yourself first. 

To begin doing intuitive eating you have to learn to love food again, you have to start out by allow yourself to eat the foods you love and have said no to for so long. You can no longer deprive yourself of the foods you love and enjoy. You have to respect your body as it is now so that you can really notice the changes that will happen as you relearn to eat without dieting. You may even gain a few pounds in the beginning, I did. You will eat more than you are use to eating, but you will slowly get use to being able to eat when, and what and the amount that you need. Slowly you will begin to eat just what you need to eat, and what you need to eat. And just maybe the way that I have done you will lose a little weight. You will also find that your weight will not fluctuate as much as it use to. You will have so much more energy and will feel so much better. You will not only need to be more active but you will want to be more active. 

Eating will become enjoyable again. You will not be negative, about yourself and giving yourself a hard time about eating. You will learn when you really need food for your body, and you will learn to stop eating before you stuff yourself. And your metabolism will improve. And you will find yourself saying yes to foods you would not allow yourself to eat before, and you will find yourself saying no to food when you do not need it. 

So how do you do this? First you have to say yes I can. Second you have to say yes to the foods you love, and third you have to start listening to your body and learn when to eat, what you really need and want to eat, and when you have eaten enough. 

If you want to know more please think about reading. 

“The Diet Fix”

“Intuitive Eating”

You can find them by googling them or by going to Amazon books and searching for them.

No, I did not write them and found them the way I just said. I had been researching and trying to find a way to lose the last of the weight ‘I thought I needed to” when I find the ‘The Diet Fix” and it changed my ideal of what was my needed goal weight, then I was so tired of diets that I researched and found ‘Intuitive Eating’. The two books have changed my thoughts on food, and my believes in what we should weigh. Also, my dietitian finally admitted to me that she is a believer in ‘Intuitive Eating’.

I am doing it you can too if you really want it. 

Just my thoughts

We have been away from home since last Friday morning, and I have been eating differently than I would at home, but I have been staying within my loseit budget even without really thinking about it. I have been enjoy new foods, eating our, my sisters wonderful cranberry cake, and even fast foods. I am also sticking with my normal snacks of nuts, trail mix, and my dark chocolate ginger. I have even had a diet coke. What am I getting at? I am making do with what I have available, when it comes to traveling and visiting with friends and family. The key is portion control and respecting my hungry and my need to fuel my body. Sure I am still logging what I eat, but I am not really that concerned with the size of my portions as my body and stomach is controlling that. I eat to never feel hungry or full. By paying attention to my body and stomach as to how full I am, I am not over eating. I am not feeling the need to eat anything that I see. I am eating to just feel my bodies needs. This is new to me with this very cold weather too, I normally eat a lot more when it is cold. In the past it seems that when it was cold my body always wanted something to eat. I am not feeling that need now. 

Intuitive eating is not about following rules and requirements of a diet, it is about eating to fuel your body, and at the same time to enjoy food and also yourself. Intuitive eating is about respecting yourself, and excepting who you are. Intuitive eating is about listening to your body and understanding its needs for fuel and nutrition. Intuitive eating is also not about a goal of weighing a certain number on a scale, it is about eating to the level that your body needs and allowing you body to reach that happy weight sweet spot called a set point. Intuitive eating is about saying NO! To diets, and the food police that are in your head and from your friends, family and any other person that thinks they know better than you and your own body. 

Damn I just realized it has taken me 7 years to figure this out. That just goes to show how deeply brainwashed we are to believe we have to diet. This is all due to the need for our food, diet, fitness, medical and government trying to make us think they know better than we do. And it has paid off for them in billions and billions of dollars. 

Now I am not saying you should eat just junk food or fast food, no you have to fuel your body, and that means meeting the nutritional needs of your body at the same time as you eat the foods you love, and never deprive yourself of the foods you love. The 80/20 rule still applies here. You need to eat good nutritional foods 80% of the time. You also need to be active. It is better to be active just doing normal things most of the time and doing other things like taking a long walk daily when possible. 

Yesterday was a good day but COLD!

We found the home we would really like. It is all on one level and they yard is flat, which is hard to find in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. It is 1900 sq ft and really looks great, the yard is a no maintenance yard. The only issue is there is no real place of my wife’s quilting machine which she has decided it is time to give it up anyway.

Eating wise I believe everything is going good. But walking has been on the weak side. It really is cold and we have been doing what we can to find a new home and secure it. I have managed to close my move, and standing rings but not my exercise ring. My calorie count is below budget as of loseit budget and even with my reduced move goals and not getting my exercise rings closed, I am managing below my health budget too. 

If possible we will try to go home tomorrow instead of Thursday. Temperature wise it is about 10 degrees colder here than down home. But it really does not feel that bad here, compared to home. I believe it has to do with the humidity. 

It is cold outside

Woke up this morning to a  -1 one wind chill, real temperature was 10 degrees. On the good side the sun is shining. We have more houses to look at today, and still cannot get in to see some of the ones we would like to. Linda is feeling some better. The key is just bundle up with as many layers of clothes as we can. The issue for both of us is that our real winter clothes are in storage. 

This is a new year and like last year I am starting a new plan on loseit. I found this last year I do better if I am only looking at what is happen for the year I am in. Also this year will see me working even harder to make intuitive eating work for me. Yesterday I ate some of my sister’s cranberry cake, she makes it like our grandmother did. It is really good and not all that sweet tasting. Other than eating the cake I had a good day eating. 

This morning I am somewhat sore from walking yesterday. I found new muscles that I had not been working walking the flat sidewalks in Texas. I am not complaining this is what I really want and need to build myself up.