This post will just be me rambling, because I need to get my thoughts out somewhere, so here's me apologizing in advance.
After many years of tweaking my diet and trying many strategies, I've come to the realization that the focus on restriction is what caused my binges. It sounds so stupidly obvious, when put into words, but there it is..... I managed to maintain a low weight for 1,5 years through sheer willpower, but it was by depriving myself. I would do intermittent fasting, drink water, count calories, and do a lot of stuff that works and makes sense. But it required a constant controlled effort, that felt like a mental chore to maintain. In the end, it became so stressful to think about food from the moment I woke up, to the moment I went to bed, that I just couldn't do it anymore. So my weight bounced back, after 1.5 years of concentrated effort. It took a year to bounce back, but I'm now at the weight I was when I started to lose weight back in 2017. That means that I'm back to square one, with 30+ kgs to lose once again...
The way I routinely would eat during those 1.5 years, led to a few binges. I would do everything I could to limit myself most days, and stay below my alotted calories. That meant, that on days I deemed "Cheat days" I would go absolutely nuts. A whole container of ben & jerry's, three big macs, a galleon of coke, an entire case of beer, I would binge on everything I had restricted. Eating became more and more of an obsession, and I would almost disappear into an eating frenzy when I succumbed.
When I finally gave up that deprivation / binging lifestyle, I decided that there was just no way I could start losing weight again, before I figured out how to do it in a physically and mentally healthy way. I think I finally figured out how.
The key for me now, is to make a concentrated effort to eat more healthy foods. It sounds like a stupid banality, but it's actually all it is. More subtly explained, it's a change in attitude. During those 1.5 years, I would focus on all the things I shouldn't eat, and as a result I would think about it day-in and day-out, waiting for the days that I could finally indulge.
This time, I will focus on what I SHOULD eat. I will ignore calories, and instead use an empirical approach. My focus will be on eating as much healthy food as possible. I will be having a bit of icecream later, so I 've eaten half a cucumber, some blueberries, a large portion of leafy greens and tomatoes, and small portion of italian inspired veggie meatball dish with whole-grain spaghetti.
Instead of thinking "Oh, I really shouldn't eat this apple, because then I won't have room in my calorie budget for tonight", I will instead trust that eating that apple anyway will just mean that I have less room in my stomach for indulging in the evening. I've realized that I've made a really stupid assumption for a very long time regarding calories.
The assumption is: Eating a snickers is bad, right? It definitely is. Lots of calories, very little nutritional value, not a lot of volume for those calories, and it's a highly addictive snack. So having already consumed all those calories from that snickers, wouldn't it be worse to eat the calories of a banana, and to snack on carrots too? It would just add 140 calories to the count.
The truth is that, although the volume of that banana and carrot doesn't negate those calories, it lowers the peak of sugar released into the blood stream from that snack. it also fills the body with fiber, and makes it so you don't suddently eat two snickers instead of one (Which would often happen, when my binges were triggered).
I've been focusing so much on eating less of one kind of food, that I've completely neglected the fact that eating more of the other is the key. If I fill my stomach with kale, I won't have room for that huge dessert. If I have a huge pile of carrots, auburgine, cucumbers, and celery that I have to chew through - I won't be able to eat a whole pizza. If I want some coke, then let's make sure I also drink a whole lot of water. Easy.
I've also realized that one of the greatest dangers in all of this, is letting perfect be the enemy of the good. I would limit the amount of fruit I ate in a day to 2, as those were the official nutritional recommendation. But if I had eaten those 3 or 4 pieces of fruit I craved - then guess what - I probably wouldn't have ravaged the cupboard's chocolate when the kids were put to bed.
I'm currently down 4 kgs in around 10 days by following this strategy. I expect the trend to slow, and I will probably have to make some adjustments along the way. But I'm actually hopeful I have a more long-term solution to my weight-problem this time around. 10 days, and no binges.
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