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.

 

 

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

Pass the (low carb) cake

Let me preface this by saying I am not anti cake or advising anyone to become anti cake (and what does sugar and cake have to do with an egg blog anyway?).

What I want to say is that I can’t have my cake and eat it too.

All of the low carb sites and blogs I go to always feature some version of the delicious cakes and desserts of my previous food choices but in low carb versions. They promise to be as good as, or healthier then, or any number of ways that their dessert is truly low carb, they got it.

I have, many times in fact, derailed my well intentioned weight reducing low carb lifestyle by allowing myself one of these so called low carb desserts. However, my mind quickly jumps to “let’s eat the real thing and not waste anymore time on this pretend stuff” and off I go like a crack addict chasing the high (well I think that’s what crack addicts do). I start to wander the cake aisle at the supermarket. At first I hold onto my dedication to not eat processed desserts, then I let myself enjoy the smell of those sweet, chocolatey, fluffy mounds of sugar and flour, and before I know it, I am scarfing down a package of oreos  and wondering how I got this far off the track, while my brain sizzles in a sugar fueled coma like buzz.

I have had an almost abusive relationship with cakes (specifically) since I was a very young girl. Cake was a rare item in our house (it was expensive) and it was used to quantify my mother’s love of me. The bigger the piece, the more she loved the recipient of the slice (or so I believed as a young child). The roses on the corners were the indicator of favourtism. I could never understand why there couldn’t be four roses, one for each corner, that way everyone could get a rose.  Anyway, I digress (a little). If there was cake left, it disappeared as I would sneak into the kitchen (as did my sisters) and selfishly gobble up my mothers love (oops did I say that out loud?  I meant gobble up more of my share of the cake), until I was sick to my stomach, then I really felt the love. And guilt. And sin of gluttony (thank you catholic teachings).

Once I became an adult and made my own way, cakes became a part of my life. Very rarely was cake not in the house. I would not allow my child to not have cake. I would cut pieces and he would chose the size he wanted, and he always chose a regular piece and never seemed to think that the cake piece was indicative of my love for him. Isn’t that interesting?

Battling cake has been the bane of my adult life and my struggle with health. Even “pretend” desserts are a hook for me and I need to stay away from them. Cutting out sugar is something that I have tried and tried for years to do, and it seems to be a battle that might never be won permanently. But I keep trying.

I know how bad sugar is for me. But it tastes. so. good.

I know that sugar is not love, or that a bigger piece of cake doesn’t equal the amount of love I or anyone else has for me.

Feeding myself sugar is actually a type of self abuse that I recognize, but like addictions rooted in infancy and love and safety and acceptance and rejection, it is a tough “egg” to crack.

I’ll not be including “pretend” desserts here in case there is someone else out there who has the same struggle with cake that I do. Those types of desserts may be “pretend” and quell some peoples need for replacement food, but their effect on me, my physical health, and my mental are real and detrimental.

So for me, I pass (on) the cake and say no thanks before I venture into “pretend” territory and rue the day I ventured that way.

Doing the Atkins egg style!

We all know of the Atkins diet where you eat tons of meat, butter, cream and full fat everything (and very few veggies and absolutely no fruit).

I did the Atkins a few years ago and lost weight. I was a glutton on this free for all diet that allowed me to eat steak, eggs, cheeses, bacon – as long as it didn’t have sugar and there was no fruit it was on my plate. I did really well for several weeks (16 in fact) until I could no longer stand eating nothing but meat. Plus, my body and breath smelled bad (no matter what I did to mask the odor of ketosis).

Atkins is an extreme weight-loss program that is not meant to sustain a person for life. It is a fast weight-loss program at which point you enter into a maintenance phase that allows the dieter to start including other foods.

Like most people looking for a quick fix weight-loss, I didn’t research the diet and only did the part that it is famous for; eat all meat, all fat, all the time. But unaware that there is a maintenance phase, I got sick of it as I got thinner until I couldn’t do it anymore.

Over the next few years as the weight crept back on, I actually researched the Atkins (this time) and found that I (along with millions of others) had done it the unhealthy way. I knew it was too good to be true!

Then about 2 years ago, I decided that I was going to do the Atkins again but found I could no longer think of meat without gagging. The idea of how the food gets from the farm to the store had  made it almost impossible to eat meat anymore. I forced myself to eat it and I had easier days than others but I was not able to sustain eating meat in order to shed the weight.

I researched plant proteins, but they are high in fillers and sugars and are not the most balanced foods. And they are expensive!

Meanwhile, I had started to eat one or two eggs a week (if not less) because of the beleif that egg yolks would kill me. I like eggs and would indulge once in a while but I would feel guilty eating them.

*I should say here that in the first 7 weeks of doing the Adkins I had a follow up blood cholesterol test done and mine had not shot up like my doctor had warned me about. He was actually quite surprised. It had stayed the same. Eating cholesterol doesn’t give you cholesterol.

Knowing that Atkins (any low card high protein diet actually) done right would help me to lose weight without feeling deprived, I thought about it a lot. It was like I was trying to psych myself up to begin eating meat again. But, when I would go to the store and look at the fresh meat, my stomach would turn over and I just couldn’t think of it .

Then it hit me the other day; “Couldn’t eggs be substituted for meat?”

I googled “Can a person loose weight eating eggs” and I found a blogger who did a 30 day egg-fest and lost 24 pounds. His blog is called Living La Vida Low Carb. I loved it and found him on YouTube and watched his videos. Interesting stuff.

I did a lot of research on eggs and their nutritional facts and the misleading beliefs about eggs and decided to eat more of them – with the yolks! As well as eating fish.

And this time, I am allowing vegetables like brussel sprouts, spinach, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, cauliflower, peas, broccoli.

I sweeten my coffee and tea with unpasteurized honey and I use cream. I cook in butter and alternate with coconut oil.

I am also transitioning my previous eating style to eggs (for meat substitute) so that it is not such a huge shock to go from eating one way to suddenly eat another way.

For example, before I decided to eat more eggs, I had been trying to eat healthier; plain yogurt with frozen fruit, sprinkled with raw nuts and sweetened with unpasteurized honey. Vegetables for lunch and soups or pastas for dinner (didn’t shed one pound…).

Since I don’t want to throw away any foods that can’t be dropped off at a food bank, I am eating those items without replenishing them as they run out and eating more of the eggs and cheese dishes.

I started eating eggs once a day, now I eat at least two egg meals and some days I eat three. There are hundreds of recipes for eggs so getting bored is not a worry for me.

I have found one recipe that I really like and will be posting the recipe, along with the others here.

The way to be successful with this weight reduction lifestyle, is to cut out (over time) breads, pastas, rice, and all other refined/processed foods (especially if they are white foods) – especially white refined sugar (research has found that refined sugar is quite toxic in the human body). I use unpasteurized honey as a sweetener, I’ve also used raw honey but it is difficult to find. Honey is different than sugar and I’ll post something about that as well. Also, still allowing myself some sweetness in the form of honey, my body will not crave sugar and I will be able to maintain balance rather than binge. The weight-loss will be slightly slower but it will be more natural.

So, here you have it. I am transitioning to eating more eggs as my animal protein substitute and cutting out all other foods that help my body hold on to fat.

I feel full and not deprived. My taste buds feel satiated and I don’t get hungry soon after eating, which then helps in not eating frequently or eating a “filler” until my next meal (you know what I’m talking about).