What’ I’ve noticed after 2 weeks full on with eggkins

Despite feeling much better over all and having my mood stable (I seem to be handling stress a lot better  – I don’t go into meltdown mode easily), I just don’t feel any energy increase.

I want to be honest here, I had expected some increase in energy but I have about the same low energy as I did before I switched to full on eggkins.  I am sleeping more than 8 hours a night, I go to bed when I am tired (usually about 9 or 9:30) and wake up before the alarm goes off at 6 am, so I am getting enough sleep. But I still feel like I’m dragging my ass all day and don’t have much else at the end of the day.

This is like a double edged sword, feel great overall but don’t have the energy to enjoy feeling better.

Weird conundrum.

Can you accept your body’s set point?

Every since Suzanne Somers titillated us with her thigh master contraption  years ago, and Jane Fonda started doing pelvic thrusts to sexy music we have been fascinated with being skinny. Ok, it’s actually been a lot longer than that but I was going for some visuals here.

Most people I know who diet say they want to be skinny. And not much else motivates them to try the different diets out there that promise to get the weight off in record short time. A little secret; If it took you years to put the weight on, it ain’t coming off in 30 days, not without major surgical intervention and major side-effects (like malnutrition and death).

Low fat, low-calorie, low taste, low nutritional diets are successful at being low success – hence the reason there are so many. People get addicted to the hype and promise of beauty and success that the models used to portray “real” results show you. So you try again and again only to fail again and again – but hey, there’s another diet just around the corner and maybe that one will work if you can just figure out the key to unlocking its success.

Here’s the skinny on skinny:

source: ebaumsworld.com

The last time I saw skinny people like this they were POWs.  This example of skinny is probably not what most of us have in mind when we try to lose weight, but that’s what skinny looks like. To get to look like that takes a lot of time and effort to override your body’s survival instinct to eat. And that is why no one can sustain a diet that is low in nutrition. If you have failed at countless diets, congratulations! You are a successful failure at letting your body eat itself for survival and you get to live a little longer.

So, your set point, let’s get to that. Your set point is a natural range that your body naturally goes to when you don’t starve it or abuse it with countless diets that don’t work. And even overweight people can be starving for nutrients when they eat dead foods (which I am not implying cannot be cooked and must be raw to be living foods), on the contrary. Dead foods do not provide your body with any nutrition and only fills you up emotionally but temporarily as emotions cannot be dealt with by eating. We know that, but we do it anyway, just like diets, we do them even though we know they don’t really work.

If you were to resume eating nutritious foods that fed your mind, your cells and your body and your body settled on a certain number that in your mind didn’t fit with what you think you should weigh, but you were the healthiest you had ever been and you felt great and loved life again, would you accept your set point?  Even if it meant going up a few pounds (if you have been skinny but miserable)?

Everyone has a different set point based on their genetics and genetics can be very hard to change. Tall people are tall and short people are short. Two people can be the same weight but one looks thinner and one looks more curvy. But both are at their optimal set points and both are healthy, happy and feel alive.

Do not be so concerned with a number when you start to eat right, your body may in fact decide that this is too good to be true and hold on to some weight  initially, but  then release the weight once it accepts that the crazy dieting has stopped and it can relax and let go and enjoy the moment. And you will too.

Are there sacrifices to eating better? Sure. Just as there are sacrifices when you don’t eat well. Life is about sacrifices and benefits. Benefits become evident quickly when you start to nourish your body and what you initially saw as a sacrifice doesn’t seem so anymore. It becomes a trade-off, a willing omission of certain behaviours that never did anything good for you in the first place, but now you can see that clearly and the burden of sacrifices eases and dissipates and you’re left wondering what you ever saw in that kind of eating before.

Your set point isn’t a goal to achieve, it’s a place that you get to naturally and you realize you’re there after you’ve been there for a while. It’s that comfortable place in your body that you have always tried to get to by dieting but could never find the key to open the door until you’re there.

 

 

How strong the need for comfort is?

This morning I had what feels like the wind knocked out of me.

Anyone following Budget 2012 saw that there was going to be {{{{{*****HUGE*****}}}}} budget cuts and loss of jobs in the public service.

This morning I had an interview and I was told that until they figure out how the budget will impact them, transfers were on hold.

WHAM! BHAM! Thank YOU MAM! Bend over and take it like a ?? What exactly? A good egg I suppose.

So I can’t help but feel that my shell is cracking ever so slightly and I am in need of some TLC (totally luscious crap) . I decide to go for a walk to clear the egg whites in the noggin and as I walk along I see a store and I immediately think (chocolate and lots of it! or cake! or anything high in sugar and will get me buzzing forgetting – screw the resolve I need some comfort!)

So I shush that little brat about to throw a tantrum (in my mind of course) and cross the street all the while talking myself off that sugar ledge. I got back to my office, made myself a tea and then ate some of my No Egg Cup For You Layered Broccoli Casserole and then I felt much better…

So, isn’t it interesting the brains need for comfort and what it grabs on to for soothing?

Quotable quote

Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.

That begs the question: Are you happy being imperfect?

Why not?

When will you be?

How about now?

Why not?

Could you?

Why not?

 

 

Ever grocery shop while hungry?

Not a good idea.

I went to the supermarket right after work and as I am walking through the aisles I’m wondering why all the junk was looking tasty. Then I realized that I hadn’t fortified myself first by being freshly full. So I spent the time talking to myself (in my head) and explaining why I was feeling the attraction and trying to remember the foods I had actually gone there to get.

Ever try to recall a list from memory when you’re talking to yourself and trying not to think of eating crap?

Ever notice that your appetite is like a tired 5 year old threatening a tantrum is she doesn’t get the chocolate covered pretzels with sprinkles and caramel dipping sauce?

I really had to stop myself from ripping into the carton of almond milk and guzzling it down.

The save was that I had crab egg cups and prosciutto wrapped asparagus in my lunch bag in the car so I had some before I drove off home.

Why didn’t I think of this before I went into the store?

Is it a craving or a habit?

I like most people get what I call evening cravings.

Shortly after supper (usually) I get a flash of needing something sweet. Is that a craving or a habit? Growing up we used to have pudding au chomeur aka welfare pudding (literal translation) aka poor man’s pudding (flour, sugar, butter/lard and water mixed together to make this intensely sweet cake like dessert). Sometimes there was more dessert than there was dinner.

If I ignore the craving, it gets stronger.

I can’t rationalize it away, I’ve tried.

That is usually what derails me because  I go searching for something sweet to quiet that insane urge but I’ll eat anything other than what I am craving until I cave and eat what I am craving, thus eating way more unhealthy calories than if I had had the sweet to begin with. But because I don’t usually keep dessert in the house I would end up eating buttered toast with sugar (white or brown), or syrup or whatever sweet I could make up.

Since I started eggkins and joined the leaving unhealthy behind challenge, I find that these habits of needing something sweet have been dealt with easily by taking a tsp of coconut oil which has totally quashed my cravings for sweets.

So, am I conditioned to want sweets (habituated to eat sweets) or am I really craving sweets? Is there anything in sweets that my body would need to be healthier?

I’m thinking that if a craving for sweets is quelled by a tsp of coconut oil then I would say that my body doesn’t need sugar for anything other than to trap me in an old routine that is a straight way to failure.

 

What have I noticed since I started?

Aside from blogging, I also keep a written diary (sort of) of my experiences in weight loss and dieting. I keep this by my bed and I write something down nearly every night.  These entries are usually last minute thoughts or notes for a future blog entry.

This little notebook dates back a few years as I have jotted down ideas, thoughts and what-not of all kinds of things I have done to try and get control of my weight. When I have previously posted about the many ways I have tried to lose weight, I didn’t include these methods.

So, let’s share some ways we have tried to lose weight shall we?

The first entry is dated September  3rd 2010. I began the HED diet. The high everything diet. In theory you raise your body temperature to jump start fat burning and increase metabolism. And to make sure this worked, I started using visualization with Jon Gabriel. How this works: upon waking you take your temperature and chart it everyday, and you eat a lot of everything. This calms the body’s reaction to dieting and you start to burn body fat. I charted my temperature for 30 days, took bodily measurements weekly. I gained in the bust, lost in the waist, lost in the hips and gained in the thighs (about one inch up and one inch down in corresponding places).

Fast forward a year (to the day), I started following the Vega plan. This is a vegan raw food replacement, shakes and meal replacement bars. I even met the creator of the Vega raw food line, Brendan Brazier.  How this works: you have two shakes a day, and a light meal once a day. I lasted until November 28/11. Didn’t lose anything, except my self respect…

Then in January of this year I bought a vibrating platform. I did 10 minutes a day (all the literature warns about going over the 10 minutes a day) for three months. Nothing happened. (I cannot do typical exercise as I dislocated my hip two summers ago and I have some issues with applying pressure to that hip). So “dieting” for me is pretty much how I will lose weight until the excess weight is off and I can start being more active and not further injure my hip.

Fast forward to Mar 3rd 2012 and this entry;

“Doing *10 minutes M-F, have not noticed any further changes. No weight loss, no flexibility other than earlier reported. No improved movement. No improved energy. Quite disappointed to say the least. Have researched doing an egg diet (I hate the word diet – but there is no other term for it), eating eggs for all three meals (instead of meat), have begun to incorporate more eggs as I eat up existing foods. The egg council of Canada has a site with dozens of recipes for egg dishes. So far so good. This is like the Atkins diet, but with eggs. I will eat seafood but not much other animal meat, cheese and some veggies (spinach, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, olives (including tapenade), broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower and brussel sprouts), and honey for tea and coffee, butter, coconut oil and cream…”

From March 3rd to March 10th I continued to eat more eggs and decrease foods I had that were flour based, starchy and refined. As I ate up the less desirable foods, I added in more of the healthier foods I wanted to eat, eggs, cheese, veggies and such.

I then created the blog eggkinsdiet on wordpress and launched my ideas to the world on March 10th.

And quite naturally, on March 18th, I packed up what remained of the starchy and refined foods and went full on with eggkins.

So, what have I learned? That when I plan to go on a “diet”, despite my best effort and intentions the diet fails. For example, before doing a diet where I know I will have to deny myself certain foods, I go out the day before and gorge on that food because I will never ever have it again. All I can think about is that food and I crave it and I want it and I eventually cave.

But this time, I hadn’t set an actual date. The day that I switched to eating better happened spontaneously and without any effort. There was no last minute pig out. There was simply a feeling that told me today is the day and I changed. This reminds me of the many times (probably 20-30 times) that I tried to quit smoking, until the last day I smoked, September 27th 1991. I had set a future date on the calendar and every day I looked at the calendar, I saw that date circled and I looked forward to it. On that date, I had my last cigarette, had my laser therapy and never looked back.

So what is different this time around, what feels different this time as opposed to every other time I have “dieted” is that it isn’t a diet. Yes, there are some foods that I am not currently eating, not because I am denying myself, but because I do not want them right now.  Will I ever have them again? I don’t know, the same way that I don’t know 100% if I will ever smoke again. I do know that right now, I don’t want to smoke or eat food that will only derail me. And as with every day that I didn’t smoke has added up to nearly 21 years smoke free, everyday that I don’t derail myself will eventually add up to more reasons to continue than against any reason to revert back.

And the biggest side effect that I have noticed so far? How stable my mood has been, virtually no cravings and positive mental energy.

My goal is to become chronically healthy.

so eat ! and stop dieting!

* refers to the use of the vibrating platform

Inspired by Goss Coaching

“I’m not on a diet. What I am doing is choosing to eat for optimal wellness most of the time.” – Goss Coaching

Last Wednesday I spent some time with my adult son. We were walking after dropping off my car to have my tires changed back to summer tires and since we were going to have a couple of hours wait, we were looking for a place to go sit and have something to pass the time.  As we walked, we saw a pub with an outdoor patio and a Dairy Queen. I turned to him and said “Can’t go there because I can’t have beer because it’s made of grains, can’t have wine because of the sugar content. Can’t go to Dairy Queen either”.

He says to me “Feeling deprived on that gluten thing again?” And I honestly did not. Which is strange. He has seen me start many diets and end many diets.

I turned to him and said “No diet, I have decided to reduce or eliminate some foods so that I can eat more of the healthier ones that will nourish my body and there is no feeling of deprivation.” And every word I said rang true. I wasn’t “trying” to convince myself or him that my “diet” was honky-dory and that I was really just craving an excuse to eat food that I know would set me back and derail me.  Because I am not on a diet. What I am doing is choosing to eat for optimal wellness.

We walked further up the street and ended up at a Tim Horton’s where I had coffee with cream and a splenda (they didn’t have honey) and he had a donut. I don’t even remember thinking I wished I could have had a donut too. Or a beer. Or a glass of wine. Or a hot fudge peanut buster parfait. lol

And today, there are no regrets that I didn’t “indulge”. And no lingering guilt that I did (had I indulged).