Between 5 Bites and Intuitive Eating

I've easily maintained my weight loss while just trying my best to listen to my body, but I can't get myself motivated enough to go back to 5 Bites. Natural portion control is coming along easily, but I'm just not losing.

This morning I was 189.6. I have 4.6 pound to go by the end of January. Seems doable, if only I could focus.

I'm thinking I'm going to try 5 Bites consistently until I get down to my goal weight for the month. Maybe if I simply focus until I get to X-weight, then give myself a reprieve, I'll be able to tackle this weight loss?

A bit over 4 pounds per month and I'll be down to 150. That would be so worth it, wouldn't it?

4 pounds a month would mean 173 by May. 173 is a size 8 -10 for me! I'd be set for bikini season!

Checking In, Resolutions, and January's Goal

I've been unable to log in the past few weeks between house sitting in the middle of nowhere and rebuilding our new home! I may disappear again, but I thought I'd let everyone know how things are going:

5 Bites: Not going well. I'm firmly in the realm of Intuitive Eating right now. Between holiday eating, a bachelorette party, having no kitchen due to the move and construction, and lots of alcohol, I haven't been able to maintain 5 Bites and my happiness. On the other hand, I've done a great job of listening to my body and limiting my portions to the range between what my body needs for fuel and what I want emotionally.

Weight: 189.4! Whoo! Through intuitive eating and happy portion control, I've broken 190. This is a really big deal, as I don't know the last time I was below 190. Perhaps my high school graduation?

Body Fat: 29.6%, At the beginning of November I was at 31.3%. Almost 2% during the biggest eating months of the year isn't too shabby in my book.

Weight-related Resolution: Get down to 150. It's a lot of weight to lose, and if it doesn't happen, I won't be heartbroken, but I like having a goal to work towards. I'll be very angry with myself if I'm not down to 175 by the end of the year.  I spent most of this year gaining weight as I experimented with different diets and have spent the last few months finally losing all that dieting weight. This year will be different. I'll lose weight the whole year, instead of gaining and playing catch up. I simply need to lose 1.3 pounds per month to get below 175. At that rate I could do 5 Bites one weekend a month and just work hard to maintain with Intuitive Eating the remainder of the time and hit my goal.

Blog-related Resolution: I'd like to get back in to posting a bit more often, both on Ditch the Excuses and on Homesteading in the Dust (my blog about homesteading in Southern Arizona). In addition, I think I'd like to start setting monthly weight loss goals. The November Challenge was great and very motivating, though a little stressful.

January's Goal: I want to be at 185 by the end of January. I lost almost 8 pounds in November, so 4.4 pounds in January should be more than reasonable.

As construction (most of which I'm doing myself) is still underway, I probably won't be checking in again until mid January.

Measurement Monday: November 24th, 2014

This week was  once again mostly about Intuitive Eating, but I certainly managed better than last week.

Abdomen: 42.75 (-.15)
Waist: 33.5 (-.3)
Bust: 43 (0)
Chest: 36.2 (-.6)
Hip: 45.25 (-.25)
Left Arm: 14.1 (-.2)
Left Forearm: 10.75 (0)
Left Calf: 15.75 (-.25)
Left Thigh: 26.7 (-.1)
Right Arm: 14 (.3)
Right Forearm: 10.5 (0)
Right Calf: 15.8 (-.4)
Right Thigh: 26.5 (-.2)
Neck: 14.2 (0)
Current Weight: 191.8 pounds (-1.2)
Inches lost: -2.15
Running total: -3.45, -4.2 pounds

I finally am at the weight I started dieting at! Whoo!

6.8 pounds down, 13.4 to go! Will I reach my goal by the end of November? Nope. At least I've lost almost 7 pounds this month!

Measurement Monday: November 17th, 2014

This week was more a regression to Intuitive Eating than 5 Bites.

Abdomen: 42.9 (-.1)
Waist: 33.8 (.3)
Bust: 43 (-.5)
Chest: 36.8 (.2)
Hip: 45.5 (-.4)
Left Arm: 14.3 (.3)
Left Forearm: 10.75 (0)
Left Calf: 16 (.2)
Left Thigh: 26.8 (0)
Right Arm: 13.7 (-.6)
Right Forearm: 10.5 (0)
Right Calf: 16.2 (.4)
Right Thigh: 26.7 (0)
Neck: 14.2 (-.1)
Current Weight: 193.0 pounds (0)
Inches lost: -.3
Running total: -1.3, -3 pounds

No weight lost. Bummer. At least I lost some inches. Next week will be better!

5.6 pounds down, 14.6 to go!

Modified 5 Bites: Day 1

Yesterday I did a modified 5 Bites Diet. I had only 5 bites of food at a time. Unlike the true 5 Bites Diet, I ate whenever I was hungry - per intuitive eating standards. It doesn't sound healthy to only eat 10-12 bites of food in a day. You know what does sound like a good idea? Implementing the 5 bites theory as a way to control portion size.

Yesterday I ate a total of 32 bites of food. That's really weird. Even weirder, I wasn't hungry. The results:

Down 1 inch across my stomach.
Down half an inch around my waist.
Up .3 pounds.

Wow. I might stick with this on days when it's convenient. Am I going to do this when I got out to dinner? Nope! Am I going to do it when I'm sitting at home and have nothing better to do than eat? You bet. I've learned from Intuitive Eating that food is meant to be enjoyed. I'm not going to eat 3 bites of hamburger and one french fry just to lose weight. I'll eat half of both and enjoy every bite. It'll be great.  

Intuitive Eating Frustration and New Research

I want intuitive eating to work. I thought I was making progress, yet the past two weeks (and the ensuing creep in my weight) has got me pretty dismayed. I tried to abide by the  "rules", I tried to be mindful, but unfortunately when I'm not focusing on my eating and my weight every day, I lose control and I start to get the creeping. I really thought I'd made progress!

I read the paper every day. I'm sure this is a rarity for those in my age bracket, but the more I read it, the more thankful I am that I set aside an hour each morning to read the paper. I recently read an eye-opening article about weight loss. Now, it's pretty rare that I read anything "new" from the diet industry. In fact, with the exception of learning about ketogenic diets, I'm not sure if I've read anything new or eye opening in the last 10 years!

What was this revolutionary article? Well, basically it's the realization that those who lose weight quickly are no more likely to regain the weight than someone who loses slowly. In fact, there's some data that points to the fact that rapid weight loss might further encourage maintenance over the slow-and-steady approach. The complete article is available here.

Have you heard of the 5 Bite Diet? Well, it's been touted as everything from a "cure" to obesity to an eating disorder. Basically, the recommendation is to skip breakfast, eat 5 bites of any food you'd like for lunch, and 5 bites of any food you'd like for dinner. If you're really hungry, a bite before lunch and a bite between lunch and dinner are acceptable.

I read this and firmly through it in a pro-anorexia "diet". It was just a way for people with eating disorders to say they're "dieting" not starving themselves.

Having seen a few friends battle eating disorders, I'm pretty quick to dismiss anything that potentially affiliates with that. Those friends started out with good intentions of "losing a few pounds" and then it spiraled. I feel like with a diet that is SO restrictive, it'd be easy to over do it.

Only...how restrictive is it compared to keto? When people found out I was giving up carbs (not just bread, which apparently is normal, but basically all carbs) they lost it. People were so confused and convinced that it wasn't healthy and I was going to make myself sick. Clearly that's not the case.

My mother-in-law-to-be had gastric bypass 10 or 15 years ago. She's lost a ton of weight and has been great about sticking to the restricted servings that are recommended after surgery. She's maintained a huge loss of over 80 pounds and any time her weight fluctuates upward she gets back on the wagon and is extra diligent about serving size.

The more time I spend with her, the more I realize just how strict her servings are. After a 8 big bites, she daintily pushes her plate away proclaiming that she is full. The 5 Bite Diet sounds a lot like post gastric bypass rules. The only difference is that when she's done after just a few bites, she actually feels full, whereas 5 Bite Dieters just have incredible will power.

Does this mean I'm going to incorporate the 5 Bite Diet? Not right now. Not yet at least. I'm thinking instead, I'll try having 5 bites of each "item" that I want to eat. Tonight I'm making chicken parmigiana with a bite of green beans. Tonight I'm going to try to limit myself to five bites of chicken, five bites of spaghetti, five bites of green beans, and five bites of pie (yes, I'm having pie). After the five bites of each, I'm going to clean up dinner, put everything away, and if I'm hungry two hours later, I'll eat five bites more of whatever I desire. I'm hoping this will help me stop over eating. Hopefully I'll learn how much food I really need and start serving myself smaller amounts (and in turn losing more without restricting).

Now, I know I normally link to things, but the website that made the 5 Bite Diet is basically nothing but a giant add. Instead I'm linking to a wikiHow article that is not quite as extreme but follows the same basic premise.

Whoo!

I woke up this morning and weighed 197.4. I got off the scale and measured again: 197.4! Whoo! At the beginning of the month, I was 201.6. 4,2 pounds in 21 days seems like too much. I wanted to be sure that It was body fat, not muscle loss. I whipped out my hand little calipers and found I'm down a percentage! I'm down to 33% body fat! 29% is considered average. I'm within sight of average!

When I graduated high school, I was about 180.

I'm the short one, obviously.

 For me, 180 meant I could wear some bikinis with confidence, and I was about a size 10. This is my first real goal. At my heaviest I was almost 30 pounds away from that goal. Being just over 17 pounds away is so awesome. I feel like I'm only a few weeks away!I know I"m not, but the hope of "only a few weeks" makes me feel so optimistic and motivated. Realistically, I'm not going to be down to 180 until mid-January at the earliest, but it feels like I'm close.

On the other hand, if I continue to lose weight this quickly and the holidays don't lead me too far astray, it could be sooner. Either way, I'll be ready for a bikini next summer!

Hunger is Weird

Eating when I'm hungry sounds easy, and it should be, but it's weird. All the articles and books I've read, they put hunger on a scale.

Typical Hunger Scale

Now, depending on which scale/article/book, they all recommend different numbers at which to eat and stop eating, but most of them, at least what I've seen for weight loss, they recommend eating at around 4, and stopping at around 6. It's way harder than it sounds. As someone who has always eaten around a schedule (usually regulated by breaks in work and school), it's baffling trying to listen to my body. I spend hours hanging around 4, and then it feels like I skip 3 all together and run head first in to 2. I feel like I've spend the last five hours carefully checking in with myself to see how I feel hunger-wise. I've been waiting to hit the magic "Fairly Hungry" stage. Suddenly I'm Ravenous.

I don't even like hotdogs and these look good.

I do okay most of the time with stopping at Full, but I occasionally over do it by a few bites. I'm currently reading "How to Have Your Cupcake and Your Skinny Jeans Too" by Josie Spinardi (I'll be putting up a review once I finish it), and she suggested a great technique to keep from over eating: Leave food on your plate. 1. This visually tells your body you don't need seconds, and 2. we (at least I) tend to over serve ourselves. Planning to leave  food on your plate means you have to check in with yourself as you get to the end of your meal: how many more bites do I need? How many bites are left? I check in at the halfway point and carve out a small portion of left overs. As my "will eat" pile dwindles, I start to consider how much of it I really need. If I'm truly hungry, I can always eat my leftovers, but I'm usually not. It's working really well for me, and my dogs are loving the leftovers.

Science!

Has everyone figured out how much I love research? Intuitive eating places a lot of emphasis on why dieting doesn't work.

I can totally understand, and speak from experience, as to why dieting doesn't work. At one point I was up to about 190 pounds (back in high school) and believed I was a huge cow. I wasn't. I was heavy, but I was wearing a size 14 and relatively healthy - by no means was I a cow. Anyway, I did something about it. I lost about 30 pounds. I got down to a size 8-10 and felt great! (Hence why that's my first big goal, and potential stopping point.) I didn't think I was done losing weight, but I had gotten to a point where I was comfortable again. I relaxed. Then all the weight came back, with an extra 15 pounds.

Remember how well Keto was going? I got down to 193!! I haven't been 193 since this time LAST YEAR. Then something happened...and at the start of IIFYM I was two pounds heavier than I was before I started Keto. I always thought it was me! I thought I was to blame. How could I  do this to myself? Again?! You want to know a secret though: It's not just me, and it's not you either.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but when I hear the word "binge" I think of an eating disorder. The binge/purge cycle that is associated with a true eating disorder of life threatening magnitude. That's not all it means though! My secret trips to Panda Express, ordering the two entreé meal because I knew it was going to be forever until I my resolve would break and I would have it again, that's a binge. No, it wasn't 7,000 calories, but it was a binge in every other sense of the word.

In theory, intuitive eating will help keep this from happening.

Feelings of Freedom

I know this will sound weird, given that I've only decided to ditch traditional diets a few days ago, but I feel so liberated. I'm excited to cook! I peruse recipes online and I'm thrilled thinking about what it will taste like, not calculating what the macros are for a small piece, and trying to plan my day around making it fit into my daily macros. I can pick any recipe I want and not worry about substituting ingredients because it has carbs. It's that feeling of elation, the last hurrah before a diet starts:

 Only I don't have that restrictive diet to look forward to on Monday. It's awesome. I even weighed myself today to see if I had actually lost weight or if it was just a random blip. I'm down 3 pounds since Sunday. It's weird.

For me, it's been about not restricting myself, therefore alleviating cravings, and eating only when I'm hungry. I'm not someone who eats when I'm sad, or when I'm upset. Nope, I eat when I'm bored. Watching Netflix, working on my novel, doing homework - all that mindless eating has really added on the pounds. I knew that was my problem, but I'd convince myself I really was hungry. Maybe I was, but I certainly wasn't hungry enough for all that I was eating. This feels like it will really stick...assuming it works.

Holy Shit!

On my first day of Intuitive Eating I had soda and salty pizza. I would expect some bloating, some water retention, and definitely no weight loss. I woke up this morning and weighed myself as usual and found I was down to 201.3! That's a loss of 1.5 pounds! I would have been thrilled to have weighed the same amount.

We'll see on Monday if my measurements match my weight loss or if I should be concerned.

Intuitive Eating: Day One

I am pleasantly surprised at how well today went! Breakfast was a protein shake. I'm not normally too hungry in the morning and it was nice to not force a heavy protein filled breakfast. Lunch was half of a small fruit tart that my coworker brought me. Dinner - and this truly amazed me - was Dominoes. I love pizza. I love it way too much. Normally I'd sit down and eat at least half of a medium pizza by myself. Plus parmesean bites. Oh, and some cinnamon sticks dipped in icing...and by some I mean half of them.

Tonight I had two pieces of pizza, four parmesean bites and two cinnamon sticks in frosting. Is that more than I needed? Actually, no. I feel pleasantly full, not uncomfortable and bloated like normal.

This is awesome.

Measurement Monday: August 26th, 2014

Due to being sick, I haven't really watched what I was eating. Let's consider this my intuitive eating practice run?

Abdomen: 44.75 (-1.05)
Waist: 34.25 (-1.25)
Bust: 44.25 (.25)
Chest: 37 (-1)
Hip: 46.5 (0)
Left Arm: 14.37 (0)
Left Forearm: 10.75 (-.05)
Left Calf: 16.25 (0)
Left Thigh: 27.5 (-.25)
Right Arm: 15 (.5)
Right Forearm: 10.75 (-.05)
Right Calf: 16 (-.25)
Right Thigh: 28 (-.25)
Neck: 14..37 (0)
Current Weight: 202.8 pounds (-1)
Inches lost: -3.4
Running total: -.47 inches, +6.8 pounds

Those inches are a pleasant surprise! I'm really excited to see this. It gives me hope that intuitive eating could work.

Intuitive Eating?

This past week I have been so sick. I don't know what happened. I woke up Wednesday morning feeling terrible and have been waiting for death to take me since. I even called in sick three days last week. It's a rare occasion that I call out of work.

I've realized that IIFYM  isn't going to work right now. I'm too stressed with school, work, and fixing up the house. It's just not happening right now and I think it will only get worse as we get closer to the holidays. I'm going to try intuitive eating with a focus on protein.

The main argument against intuitive eating is that intuitive eating is the reason why most people are fat. That's true, to a point. I know the big reason I eat is boredom. In the past, boredom eating meant candy, baked goods, and sweets. I still eat when I'm bored, and I'm working on that, but now when I'm bored I eat jerky and sunflower seeds. I don't want candy. I don't crave sweets and carb filled baked goods. I crave real food. I can't tell you how badly I want a (Monterrey-jack) cheese  burger on a homemade honey-wheat bun with a thick slice of spicy red onions, brown mustard, and spinach. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I found a great article on intuitive eating on Huffington Post.

I think it took Paleo (i.e. eat some fucking vegetables and stop with the processed junk) and keto (i.e. step away from the bread, fatty) to teach my body what I want and need. IIFYM also brought to light how protein deprived I've been (and probably why that burger sounds so good!). What's the plan now?

GYM:

Monday: racquetball with Dad! This is something I'm actually really looking forward to. I'll go. I want to go. It's going to be great and it gives me a chance to spend time with him.

Tuesday: Best case scenario, I'll hit the gym on Tuesday between work and school. I get off at 4 and class isn't until 6. That gives me enough time to hit lower body. Upper body is too time-consuming once you figure half an hour to drive to the gym and change, then half an hour to drive to school.

Thursday: Racquetball with John! This might be a pipe dream, but it'd be great if he did some cardio. Hopefully we'll do some legs before hand. He doesn't want to lift lower body because he already has a hard time finding jeans that will fit over his muscled thighs.

Friday: Upper body! John will definitely want to join me on Fridays. He's self-conscious of his slim arms. Plus Friday evenings are pretty dead at the gym, especially in the weight room.

FOOD:
I really want to start cooking more. It's starting to cool off now (my kitchen is only 85 degrees instead of 95!) and we've been eating out too much as it is. I'm hoping Thursday-Sunday I'll be cooking dinner at home. I want Sundays to be the day that I make something big that we can either take to lunch or reheat for dinner Monday-Wednesday. The focus of every meal will be protein. No more grilled cheese sandwiches. I also want to start making my own bread again.

FASTFOOD:
No more fast food by myself. No quick dinners grabbed on the way home. I'll eat when I get home.

BLOG:
What do these lofty goals mean for this blog? Good news: You'll be getting more recipes! More cooking means more recipes, and I might as well share them. Hopefully with less stress I'll post fewer whiny "counting macros is hard" posts.


How does intuitive eating factor in to all this? Well, my goal with cooking and eating at home is that I'll be eating more nutrient dense foods. Even home made bread is better than store bread. No corn syrup, no preservatives to extended shelf life, no chemicals and dyes to make it look fresher. I will not eat when I'm bored. I will eat when I'm hungry. I will make myself one serving and put everything away. If I'm truly hungry, I can get it all out and make another serving. I can tell when I'm boredom eating because I don't want to put in any effort. My quesodillas are cheese only, no meat, no onions, no salsa. Just cheese and a tortilla thrown in the microwave. It's not even that good when it's microwaved. Cooked in a pan is way better.