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.

More Tweaking

I'm liking IIFYM a lot. You know why? Convenience food. I won't lie. I love fast food. Panda Express, Tacobell, Chinese buffets, greasy Mexican fast food, I love all of it. What I don't love is how IIFYM has caused my face to break out.

The left was on keto (the black shit on my face is roofing cement), the right is from this morning. I'm pink in both pictures, but I feel like I'm much more red on the right, and the breakouts that I have on the right are big and scabby, whereas on the left they were relatively small and not very noticeable (and didn't become inflamed).

Rather than go back to keto, I'm going to tip my macros slowly in that direction to figure out the issue. It isn't all a matter of sugar either (which was my first thought). I ate sugar (though sugar alcohols), I ate fast food (though keto approved fast food), and I ate gluten (in low carb wraps), so who knows? Instead of160g of carbs, 47g of fat and 130g of protein I'm changing it to 102g of carbs, 120-140g of protein (goal is 140g, but I know that's tough) and 72g of fat. I'm hoping this will help my skin, without sacrificing my gym and weight loss progress.

IIFYM vs. Calorie Counting

I calorie counted for years. I'm a professional calorie counter, honestly. I've done so off and on for about a third of my life, so trust me when I say I'm well practiced. The thing I loved about calorie counting was that macros didn't matter. This meant that if I wanted to, I could eat a package of chocolate fudge pop tarts for every meal and in theory lose weight.

A package of pop tarts is only 400 calories. If I ate pop tarts for every meal I'd still have an extra 200-400 calories at the end of the day! I could have an entire cup of chocolate ice cream to end my day of pop tarts. I wasn't always so bad about my food choices, but I certainly wasn't looking to hit nutrition guidelines. I just was watching calories. This was good and bad. On the one hand, I'd lose weight eventually. On the other hand, my skin broke out and I felt like shit all the time. On top of that, eating wasn't about being healthy and getting thinner, it was about sneaking in as much crap food as I could, and losing weight simply due to deficit.

IIFYM is great, because there's that emphasis on health.

The only down side is that it requires so much tracking of so many things (fat, carbs, protein and fiber, vs. just calories), that some times I felt a bit obsessive.

Still, I'll take the hints of obsession over eating crap simply because it fits into my calories for the day. It's hard to eat crap all day know how much protein you'll have to eat at dinner to make up for pop tarts for breakfast and lunch. Besides, I'm really enjoying my progression back to eating real food. Paleo was difficult to have a life with, keto was better but still a challenge. This is very attainable, and after being so restrictive the last 6 months, I'm having no issues staying within reason on my carbs (which some IIFYM-ers have a hard time with).

Why I Miss Keto

Seriously, I was never hungry on keto. I can't stop eating now. I'm not going over on my calories, but I'm ridiculously hungry compared to before. I hate it.

Protein. Ugh.

I've read online, over and over again, it's not that hard to get 155g of protein in. Yet at the same time, 4oz of chicken (a bit less than I normally eat is only 36g. A big scoop of my protein powder is only 30g. I am not hungry enough to eat 5 times a day! How are people doing this?!

I'm not even over indulging in other macros! I'm consistently under in calories and carbs and fat is usually about spot on. I'm debating if it's better to eat protein when I'm not hungry, or just stay under on calories and protein for the day.

While we're on the subject of protein, I can finally see why people rag on vegetarians and their protein sources. If I as a carnivore cannot get enough protein in, how do vegetarians do it?! This is a genuine question here, if I have any vegetarian readers. I like beans and chickpeas (which I think are also beans?) which I know are good, but I'm not going to just sit down and eat a bowl of either. I did see a recipe for roasted chickpeas that I'll have to try though.

Then there's some sources of protein that are great, but I won't eat. For instance, I don't like nuts other than peanuts. I don't intentionally eat/drink soy because it can interact with my birth control (oh God, no babies!), and while Quinoa is great, I read an article about how the first world countries are robbing developing nations of their native food source and causing starvation and I just feel guilty.

Tracking Macros

Part of why I loved keto was because after you learned what was "okay" or "not okay" to eat, you don't need to track. I hate tracking what I eat. Sure, I'd periodically spot track for a day to be sure I was on target, but there wasn't the day in/day out tracking. Ugh. IIFYM is the opposite of that. It's not that I "don't have the time" it's just that I don't like to. It's tedious and feels a bit obsessive. You know what I do like about it though? It means that I can have potatoes.

Review of Day One of IIFYM

Wow, so it's really hard getting in 155g of protein. I eat meat, don't get me wrong, but I'm on a budget. There's only so much meat that I can cram in before I feel guilty. I ended up eating 2 cans of tuna and 2 eggs (tuna patties!) for dinner in order to get  enough protein in (and get some nasty burns along the way). That's a ton of food for one meal for me. Anyway, I can tell that my keto way of eating has really affected how I cook.

Carbs: Short 84g
Fat: Over by 28g
Protein: Spot on
Fiber: 33g short!
Calories: 126 short

I never thought it'd be difficult to get in enough carbs. It's so difficult to change on a dime. Given that I was full anyway, I elected to stop eating despite being short on carbs and way under on fiber. Hopefully I will do better today and not have to cram it in.

Goodbye to Keto

While I love what keto does for my skin, my energy, my blood sugar, and my hunger (plus the food is awesome!), I've decided keto is not for me. This past week, I was extremely well behaved. Didn't cheat once, kept my carbs low, went to the gym three times, the whole nine yards. I have nothing to show for it. On top of that, I was reviewing my old gym journal (pre-abdominal tear), and I was upping my weight on 2-3 exercises every session. Do you know how many times I've upped the weight on an exercise this last month? Twice. I have been to the gym 10 times, and have upped two exercise 5 pounds. I used to up my squat by ten pounds almost once a week.  I feel like I'm not getting nearly enough protein, but when I eat all the fat I have no appetite.

For those of you that love keto and are having success, I am envious and wish you all the best. I'll still be posting keto friendly recipes because my new diet (post to come!) will only allow 175g of carbs, and I'm saving those for veggies and home made bread.