204.5 lbs. 5.5 lbs lost.
Very good week for weight loss. I know some of that is water from the lesser amount of salt in my diet (I still salt to taste at the table). Potatoes are great, yay! Coincidentally that is typically the amount of weight I'd lose on a first week of low-carb eating. Except I'd have all kinds of trouble functioning.
I found out about Dr.McDougall's ideas on eating yesterday, and his guidelines for weight loss are definitely on the low food-reward side of things. He advocates a vegan, no-fat starch-based diet. Example meal would be potatoes or rice with steamed vegetables and cooked beans. He recommends having whole starch at every meal and eating a large quantity of plant matter. He also specifically recommends monotony in one's menus. This reminds me of Stephan Guyenet's usual diet (if you add fats and animal products of course.)
The rabidly anti-fat stance of the McDougall plan extends to forbidding nuts, avocados and olives on the weight-loss plan. If one is able to stay on plan I think it's probably very effective if a bit unecessarily strict. It is definitely a good intro to low-reward eating, at least as a detox-from-reward temporary mesure.
My daily menus are still based on potatoes. I will experiment eating beans this week to replace whatever lean protein I would eat. The added fiber may be helpful (not that I'm having trouble in this matter, mostly a case of testing out what makes me feel full the longest).
Current foods: potatoes, brocoli, cauliflower, carrots, kidney beans, eggs, tuna, onions, spinach, brussels sprouts, olive oil, salt/pepper/vinegar. Everything is boiled, steamed, lightly fried or raw. Calories: 900-1100.
Showing posts with label Guyenet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guyenet. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Day 3
Starting to question the benefit of daily posts, especially if I'm eating the same same thing (so far) daily! I probably should reduce post frequency from now on if I have nothing to add. At least I can say that the scale showed a loss this morning and that I still do not feel especially hungry.
Another inspiration besides the writings of Seth Roberts and Stephan Guyenet is documentaries about modern hunter-gatherers such as these.
Commonly hunter gatherers eat plain, unseasoned foods, usually unmixed (one kind at a time), some raw and some cooked. One of the documentaries above show a tribe working hard at gathering some kind of wood pulp, going to a nearby creek to wash and knead out the pulp for quite some time then finally eat the resulting mush by small handfuls, a bit like sticky rice. The westerner that followed the tribe tasted it and deemed it almost inedible and dry like chalk. Next thing that was eaten was some fat shrimp-sized larvae, uncooked.
Talk about low-reward when seen from a modern eye! Evidently, this is survival eating but still, I find wonderful the way humans have always found things to eat in unlikely places and still thrived for millions of years now.
Food is the same as yesterday + 1 glass of wine.
Another inspiration besides the writings of Seth Roberts and Stephan Guyenet is documentaries about modern hunter-gatherers such as these.
Commonly hunter gatherers eat plain, unseasoned foods, usually unmixed (one kind at a time), some raw and some cooked. One of the documentaries above show a tribe working hard at gathering some kind of wood pulp, going to a nearby creek to wash and knead out the pulp for quite some time then finally eat the resulting mush by small handfuls, a bit like sticky rice. The westerner that followed the tribe tasted it and deemed it almost inedible and dry like chalk. Next thing that was eaten was some fat shrimp-sized larvae, uncooked.
Talk about low-reward when seen from a modern eye! Evidently, this is survival eating but still, I find wonderful the way humans have always found things to eat in unlikely places and still thrived for millions of years now.
Food is the same as yesterday + 1 glass of wine.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Day 2
I will only post current weight on Mondays. Daily fluctuations are mostly due to water levels in the body and menstrual cycle shenanigans. As it happens I'm nearing my period so I'm not taking seriously daily numbers right now.
I expected to feel hunger pangs this morning but it didn't happen. The black coffee I drink may be helping in that matter. I had a few late night cravings yesterday but they were more from "mouth-hunger" than from actual hunger. I was able to avoid eating the 9 pm popcorn made by my boyfriend; considering I last ate at 6 pm this was pretty good.
Currently reading Seth Roberts on what makes food fattening. A very interesting read, rounding up studies made about the flavor/calories association and body fat set-point. The diet I'm currently doing is based on most of the ideas in that article.
Something that leapt off the page: "A food is fattening (raises the set point) to the extent its flavor is associated with calories. The strongest flavor-calorie associations will occur, learning research implies, when four things are true: (a) the flavor is strong and complex flavor; (b) the food is digested quickly; (c) the food is eaten repeatedly; and (d) the flavor is exactly the same from one instance to the next. These four traits combine in a multiplicative way in the sense that if one is entirely absent, the food will not raise the set point at all".
If those 4 things aren't exactly what is wrong with industrialized foods (including fast foods and prepared supermarket meals and snacks) I don't know what is. But it also raises interesting questions regarding home cooking and food choices. Does a highly spiced potato curry that gets eaten repeatedly over time and made using a precise recipe every time also raise set-point, even if homemade? If one switches the potato to lentils and improvises more in the way of spices one would get a different result? Interesting stuff.
Food is the same as yesterday. I was eager to eat dinner at 6 pm (after lunch at noon) but didn't suffer from invasive hunger.
I expected to feel hunger pangs this morning but it didn't happen. The black coffee I drink may be helping in that matter. I had a few late night cravings yesterday but they were more from "mouth-hunger" than from actual hunger. I was able to avoid eating the 9 pm popcorn made by my boyfriend; considering I last ate at 6 pm this was pretty good.
Currently reading Seth Roberts on what makes food fattening. A very interesting read, rounding up studies made about the flavor/calories association and body fat set-point. The diet I'm currently doing is based on most of the ideas in that article.
Something that leapt off the page: "A food is fattening (raises the set point) to the extent its flavor is associated with calories. The strongest flavor-calorie associations will occur, learning research implies, when four things are true: (a) the flavor is strong and complex flavor; (b) the food is digested quickly; (c) the food is eaten repeatedly; and (d) the flavor is exactly the same from one instance to the next. These four traits combine in a multiplicative way in the sense that if one is entirely absent, the food will not raise the set point at all".
If those 4 things aren't exactly what is wrong with industrialized foods (including fast foods and prepared supermarket meals and snacks) I don't know what is. But it also raises interesting questions regarding home cooking and food choices. Does a highly spiced potato curry that gets eaten repeatedly over time and made using a precise recipe every time also raise set-point, even if homemade? If one switches the potato to lentils and improvises more in the way of spices one would get a different result? Interesting stuff.
Food is the same as yesterday. I was eager to eat dinner at 6 pm (after lunch at noon) but didn't suffer from invasive hunger.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
On how I got to 210 pounds
In 2008 I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Before that I led a pretty debauched lifestyle revolving around drinking beer and eating crap. I went from around 145 to 192 lbs (documented on the last day of pregnancy). Once the baby was out I weighed 170 lbs. Little did I know that almost 4 years later I would weigh 40 pounds more.
After the birth I decided to breastfeed my girl (a decision made half for the supposed health benefits, half for the 'saving money on formula' part). This proved to be rather involving as I breastfed on demand, sometimes more than 10 times a day. My boyfriend had to sleep on the couch the most part of the first 6 months of baby's life.
I went down to 163 lbs using a low-carb plan before everything blew apart. I had developped a serious cooking hobby while pregnant and it was too interesting to keep exploring the world's cuisines. The baby took almost all our time and it was easy to get a cheap thrill from eating delcious new foods every day. The low-carb thing didn't work for me as I felt slow and tired all day on it. Thus I quickly ballooned up.
After the birth I decided to breastfeed my girl (a decision made half for the supposed health benefits, half for the 'saving money on formula' part). This proved to be rather involving as I breastfed on demand, sometimes more than 10 times a day. My boyfriend had to sleep on the couch the most part of the first 6 months of baby's life.
I went down to 163 lbs using a low-carb plan before everything blew apart. I had developped a serious cooking hobby while pregnant and it was too interesting to keep exploring the world's cuisines. The baby took almost all our time and it was easy to get a cheap thrill from eating delcious new foods every day. The low-carb thing didn't work for me as I felt slow and tired all day on it. Thus I quickly ballooned up.
A drunken resolution
As I sit here a bit drunk it dawned on me that Xmas was only 21 days away. My project is to lose 10 pounds by that date.
I will be using Stephan Guyenet's ideas on food reward for that. I will be eating mostly canned tuna, frozen veggies, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and olive oil. Sometimes tuna will be replaced by whatever lean protein will be available that day. I will keep coffee in the picture since I drink it black. Frequent reports will appear on this blog.
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