Breaking the habit of nibbling and snacking to prevent weight gain

Prior to my vacation trip I had gained three pounds when I increased my calories to slowly transition to maintenance. That was incredibly frustrating because I was eating ~1800 calories and burning on average ~2200 daily so I shouldn't have gained anything. But I was. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. It just didn't make any sense.

Now that I've lost everything I had gained on vacation while doing pretty much the same thing as when I gained those three pounds pre-vacation, I still don't know what caused that initial gain. My calorie intake is generally about the same (at least what I've counted). I exercise just as much, except that I've switched to biking over running because I like it better. I have added body-weight exercises in the last week or so because I want to tone up.

Maybe those slight changes have been the key to losing/maintaining weight? I really don't know.

The one major difference I did notice, though, was that I was snacking on things a lot beforehand. Maybe that increased my calorie intake by 100-200 calories and thus led to weight-gain? I'm not convinced because even if it did, the gain shouldn't have been so drastic (3 pounds in 10 days), which makes me think my scale was off, I had water weight, or my hormones were messing with the numbers.

Regardless of the reasons behind the gain, I decided I needed to break my snacking and nibbling habit because it will eventually lead to legitimate, long-term weight gain. To do that, I've been making it a point to eat only when sitting down. This not only slows down my eating so I'm not wolfing everything down, but it also prevents me from "trying" my meal excessively during its preparation.

Now, when I go into the kitchen to prepare a meal, I no longer "try" my food multiple times. Usually all the trials are completely unnecessary for the quality of the food and I end up full before the meal is even fully prepared. Making this change to only eat while sitting down has prevented me from tasting my food excessively and has left room in my stomach to enjoy the meal I just spent 30 minutes making.

Additionally, a big part of feeling full is mental for me. If I feel like my meal is a diet food or if I'm simply scavenging for food, I will feel hungry regardless of how many calories (good or bad) I consume. I need to have a meal in order to feel satiated, and part of the thing that makes something a meal in my mind is the need to sit down to eat it.

Since it's become clear to me that my body is very efficient at running itself (stupid slow metabolism) and I'm not willing nor will I have the time to exercise excessively to burn lots of calories, I need to learn to be happy with a lower daily calorie intake. Feeling happy is synonymous with not feeling deprived/hungry. So this new habit of sitting down for a meal instead of eating in a hurry or while standing up will definitely help with that.

Overall, I'm trying to transition from calorie restriction to developing good lifelong habits. Since I made sure to make my weight-loss sustainable by learning to eat better and all that, I've picked up a bunch of good habits along the way. But there are still a few more I need to incorporate to make my weight-loss more permanent and make maintenance a bit easier. Sitting down to eat is one step towards that very lofty goal.

Combating hunger

I've been very hungry all the time in recent weeks, and I can't figure out why. I've tried switching up my breakfast and it's somewhat worked. I'm no longer hungry within an hour of eating in the morning. But beyond that, I still find myself very hungry between meals.

I make sure to get enough calories (pushing ~1700 on average right now...no bueno), fiber, and protein.

I think the reason my calorie count is so high is because I eat out of boredom. I was famished for a while in the mid-afternoon. I ate some berries, which are very high in fiber, to no avail. When The Roommie came home and we went to the store to pick up something, I suddenly forgot about the hunger. I even felt full. Perhaps being surrounded by food when I'm at home is the problem and not necessarily what I ingest.

The new strategy to combat that will be to walk around the block (or something equally time-consuming) to get my mind off of food. If I'm still hungry when I get back then I'll eat something but other than that, I'll try to stay busy to avoid eating out of boredom.

My kryptonite

This holiday season has taught me that beer is not the only thing that I simply can't have in moderate quantities. You can add chocolate, blue cheese, deli meat, and any sort of baked good to that list.

I've been pretty good about controlling my drinking for the past two weeks in that I haven't had much beer or wine but have instead saved it for "special occasions". There have only been three of those, such as when family friends came over for dinner, our family Christmas Eve dinner, and another dinner party right before New Year's. I imbibed A LOT during those times, but didn't have even a sip of alcohol on the remaining days.

However, I ate a lot of chocolate, blue cheese, deli meat, and any sort of baked good. For example, I ate a whole circle round thing of blue cheese between yesterday and today. I just couldn't control myself. It was soooooooo good.

As a result, I'm pretty sure I gained a bunch of weight during these past two weeks, and most of it is not due to alcohol. I weighed myself last night (big mistake) and was up nearly 10 pounds. TEN POUNDS!!! Most of that is alcohol water weight and also the food I'd consumed that day, but only a few of those came off between last night and this morning. I can feel my gut being bigger and I'm up a belt hole, so I'm pretty sure some of that weight gain is here to stay.

The good news is that I know the recipe for losing weight and I'm also really good at keeping my kryptonite foods away on a day-to-day basis. It's these vacation weeks that do me in! At home, I can have a piece of chocolate one day, some cake another day, and a couple of slices of prosciutto later in the week. But at my parents' house or elsewhere on vacation, I consume them all in one sitting. It's pretty bad, like all sense of self-control is gone and I revert back to my fat self desires.

The even better news is that I'm headed home this evening and can start having willpower once again. I've even developed some sort of training plan that involves lots of running because it's too cold to bike and I can feel my muscles atrophying. Soon enough, I'll be back on track to get skinny by the summer.

Moderation, the key to my success thus far

This post is a follow-up to the note at the end of my last post. It became too long so I'm graduating it to its own thingamabobber. Pardon the length. I got a bit carried away.

Having been on some sort of weight-loss journey for the past ten years or so, or at least having thought about losing weight and feeling bad about not succeeding for that long, I've often been asked what changed to make this time so successful. After-all, I've lost nearly 40 pounds in six months without hating my life (for the most part). Something must've happened.

But, I honestly can't think of one trigger that led to this. Like many times beforehand, I made an effort to lose weight in the hopes that it would actually work this time. I made myself count calories, which I've done every other time I "started losing weight". I promised myself I'd ride my bike a few times a week, which is my exercise du jour. And I committed to completing the Couch to 10k program, like I've done at the start of nearly every rugby season for the past four years. The only difference this time around was that a month after committing to lose weight yet again, I was still sticking with my plan and wanting to continue. That's pretty much the only thing that changed.

Even though in previous attempts, I would see the scale change favorably, I would often quit after about three weeks of the new plan. Apparently that's the time it takes to develop new habits and I just couldn't make it past that threshold. I enjoyed seeing the numbers drop but the process for making it happen was so frustrating and hard that it didn't seem worth it to continue. So I "took a break" which really meant I quit and by the time I recommitted to losing weight again, I had lost all the fitness I had previously gained and had to start over again.

After so many cycles of this, I decided to try something different, which isn't different in and of itself because I resolved to change something about my plan each time I restarted it. But realizing that I can't change everything all at once (or even more than one thing) otherwise I get stressed out/become overwhelmed, prompted me to re-evaluate my approach to losing weight and resolve to make no more than one sudden change in my life.

Instead, I incorporated one thing at a time and only when I was ready for it. For example, I began with counting my calories. That's it. There were no limits on what I could and couldn't eat. I just had to write it all down. That eventually led to eating less junk because I saw how many calories I was wasting on crap and still feeling hungry.

I didn't eliminate sweets entirely because I need sugar and other carbohydrates to function, but I definitely limited myself to a couple of chocolate squares instead of the entire chocolate bar, for example. I would only eat chips, etc, while I was still craving them so if mid-snack I wasn't getting the "high" that caused me to reach for them, I would stop eating. The same went for ice cream and snacky foods.

Most impressively, I significantly cut down on my beer drinking, but this is a very recent development. To give you a time frame, I started calorie counting in November; it is now nearly June. So it took me the better part of six months of this journey to get to the point where I can say "No" to beer. Like I said, I only do things I'm ready for.

Anywhos, I still drink beer and I still love it. But after I put an "Alcohol" category in my food tracker and realized how many potential pounds I was drinking away, I realized it just wasn't worth it, which led to cutting out the afternoon beer. I'm still pretty heavy so it takes a lot of beer to get me drunk, meaning that a beer with dinner doesn't do much for me besides put me 200 calories in the hole. So now I either have a beer-drinking night where I go all out and have as much as I want guilt-free, or I abstain entirely. There is no middle ground...yet at least. Hopefully some day I'll get to the point where I get tipsy off 1-2 beers and then this will all change, but for now this way is working.

The same thinking went into my approach to exercise. I half-heartedly began Couch to 10k when I re-began counting calories in November but I didn't stick with it long. And that was entirely fine. I ran when I felt like I needed to but it wasn't something I felt guilty about skipping. After-all, it wasn't the thing I was focused on changing at the time. It wasn't until mid-January (~2 months into this) that I made myself go running, rain or snow or shine.

I hated nearly every one of the initial runs because it was so hard to keep a 11:00 min/mile pace for 2 minutes straight. But no matter how much it sucked, I still did it because that was the new change I had decided on and I needed to stick with it. Early into this I made a deal with myself that I could bitch and moan all I wanted about running only if I actually went. The Roommie, who sometimes accompanied me on these runs, suggested I should try being positive because that might actually help with wanting to go, but the negativity was therapeutic. It was a way to let go of my frustrations not only with my lack of fitness but also with letting myself get to this level of obesity. That was my way of looking forward to the torture that is running.

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that I finally tried moderation and it worked. Once I broke down my bad behaviors into manageable steps, I was able to get used to them one at a time and actually make some progress. This is not to say it has all been easy because I've struggled a lot along the way, most notably getting super impatient recently with the rate of my loss. But I'm still losing and not relapsing, and that's all that matters to me right now.

This post is already way too long, but I need to give credit where credit is due. The following things have had the greatest impact on my success thus far. They created the perfect storm that allowed me to see results without wanting to quit due to feeling overwhelmed and deprived.

1. MyFitness Pal:
It is soooooooooooo much better than all the other food tracking programs that preceded it. Not only is their food database really big but the phone app allows you to scan the barcode of whatever you're eating into your food diary. I've calorie counted many times before but have always quit because I would get obsessed with entering all the nutritional info for every product I consumed that wasn't in the database. Now I just scan it with my phone and it pops right up.

Also, because it's the most popular calorie tracker on the web, there are random things like bulk cereals from my grocery store that I normally would've had to enter myself. I can also copy my meals from different days very easily and find recipes I've entered. MFP makes calorie counting so painless that it's actually not a chore anymore.

2. Refereeing rugby:
I don't think I would've committed to running nearly as much as I currently am if it wasn't for my sudden interest in reffing. I finally found the time to do this (I had just finished going back to school full-time with a part-time job on the side last year) and I was convinced that I wasn't getting assignments because of my lack of fitness. Also, it's fairly obvious if the ref isn't in the right spot during a game as compared to being one of 30 players on the pitch. I mean, I'm wearing bright yellow and I'm kind of in charge.

So I started Couch to 10k for the 7th or 8th time, and stuck with it even though I hit some very low points around Week 3 and 4. I have continued running solely because I don't want to go have to go through that mental torture again. I ended up stopping at Week 5 because in a game I don't run longer than that distance (~3-4 miles) and substituted hill runs instead. But when I'm away from my bike I do 3' jog/1' walk intervals as a way to keep up my endurance. So I still go back to it sometimes.

3. Invisalign:
Yes, dental care is on my "Acknowledgements" page. In addition to the bingo arms, the other thing that I truly hated about myself was my crooked teeth. I never had braces growing up so I figured it was okay to splurge on these in my late-20s. While I've only had them on since February and I was successful in losing weight before then (I started around Thanksgiving), Invisalign has definitely kept me from snacking on things as much as I normally would, and thus has been instrumental in my getting thinner.

Brushing and flossing my teeth after putting anything in my mouth is annoying so I tend to save my junky snacks for mealtimes, which makes me choose them wisely, savor them once I do eat them, and helps with developing self-control. I hope I can keep this up when the "jaws", as I affectionately call them, come off for good in October. That might be the biggest struggle.

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While I still have a long ways to go before I reach my goal weight (nearly 50 pounds, which is incredibly overwhelming for me), as long as I continue doing what I'm doing I should get there eventually. I may have to tweak some things--such as leading a less sedentary lifestyle--but overall I think I have developed pretty good habits that should get me through the rest of my weight-loss and hopefully lead to successful maintenance.

If this all stops working, though, I'll be sure to analyze it in great detail here, and I will surely kick myself in the butt for declaring a victory before I even made it halfway.

A long ways to go

As everyone always does, I told myself that not only does the diet start at the New Year but also on Monday. So today was supposed to be my start date of healthy living and weight-loss. I failed miserably.

There were some good points such as not eating airport food after I landed and was starving. Instead, I waited to get home, which took about 2 hours, and made the packaged salmon I'd brought back from Trader Joe's in California.

But then I went to broomball and, as always, there was a ginormous package of gummy bears being offered to everyone. We like to think it's what makes us good. So far, it's worked wonders for our record.

Anywhos, I ate a whole bunch of them and at one point was shoving them into my mouth by the handful. I don't even like gummy bears. Most of them are rather flavorless, and there's so much sugar in them. I'd rather eat chocolate any day. But I ate them nonetheless.

And then I came home and made myself a large glass of warm milk and some pretzels. They weren't all that satisfying so I only ate about four of them, which is also an accomplishment so I guess I shouldn't be too down on myself.

Long story short, even though I'm committed to eating better and moving more, I'm not nearly anywhere I need to be mindset-wise. Last summer when I had the most success with regards to pounds lost, there would be a voice in my head that would always ask, "What's more important: the momentary happiness from eating this thing, or being thinner and happier like you've always wanted?" And usually it would work. I didn't necessarily deprive myself of everything, but instead I really thought about how badly I wanted whatever I was about to eat. Usually the voice worked in convincing me to put down the bag of chips (another thing I'm not crazy about but eat because it's there or I think I'm craving it). But other times I caved and let myself have some ice cream or a milk shake. Even so, those portions were usually smaller than if I hadn't had that voice of reason questioning my decisions.

I need to get back to that state of mind and then I will be golden. It'll just be a matter of time before this weight comes off if I lead the lifestyle I would like myself to have. I already crave exercise, and even though getting out of the house is especially hard this time of year, by nightfall I'm wishing that I'd done something during the day to move around a bit because I feel restless.

So the next step is to fix the head and I will be all set.

Partial success

Today was alright with respect to food and better than alright when it comes to tri training. It was insanely windy (60 mph wind gusts, no joke) all day so I didn't get the planned run and bike in. It was hard enough walking around in that, so I didn't even attempt to be discouraged by attempting a run. So instead, I dragged myself to the pool to do 1575 yards. Ay ay ay. That's long. The swim I ended up doing was even longer: 1650 yards (completely by accident). That's probably the longest I've ever swam at one time. Yay PR! (Personal Record, for those that don't know.)

Halfway through the workout I was already mentally checked out and overwhelmed, not wanting to swim anymore. But the urgency of the tri has really scared me to the point where I'll actually push myself harder than I normally would. And that never happens. So I kept trying to beat each interval by at least two seconds, and for the most part, it worked. I was super sore and my arms were exhausted at the end, but I'm so glad I did it. Like a 3FC poster once said, "You'll never regret a workout. You'll only regret the workouts you didn't do."

I got confused with the timing on my watch, so I ended up doing an extra lap, and then because my kickboard was on the other side of the pool, had to do another length to get it. So I got an extra 75 yards in. It doesn't hurt to do more, I guess.

My food choices were ok today. I didn't really eat breakfast, but eventually made tortellini when I couldn't handle the stomach growling anymore. I finished off the Potstickers last night, so there was nothing else to eat at home that was easy to make. So I headed over to Qdoba to grab a burrito. And for once I went with the Naked Burrito, which is a normal burrito without the tortilla. It cuts out about 300 calories and tastes EXACTLY the same...you just have to eat it with a fork. As always, I couldn't finish the whole thing so I put it in the fridge for tomorrow. Not bad, calorie-wise, but I really have to get back into the groove of cooking. Or maybe I should make lots of stuff and freeze it so it feels like it's a purchased frozen dinner when it really isn't. As always, there's room for improvement.

So far so good, right? Well, after sitting on the couch watching TV for hours, I got bored and decided to eat more. There was some ice cream and mango juice, both of which I don't entirely regret because I was well within my calorie budget and kind of craving them. But, even after I felt completely full, I made myself two slices of toasted bread with butter. WTF. I didn't need or want those. I could barely fit them into my stomach. And they're not all that flavorful in the first place. What was I thinking? Had I made a grilled cheese, then at least I could've enjoyed the taste more. But these guys were mostly tasteless.

Anywhos, I'm not going to beat myself up too much because I'm still at only 1700 or so calories for the day (SparkPeople is going through its updates so I can't look it up right now) so it's not that big of a deal. But I've learned my lesson. Two in fact: 1) Don't eat stuff you're not actually craving (buttered and toasted bread = no, ice cream and mango juice = yes), and 2) Occupy yourself enough so that you're not eating out of boredom.

Epic fail

Super Bowl Sunday is never a good day to begin losing weight and eating well, so it's no surprise that I epically failed in eating well today. I drank a lot of beer, ate a lot of food, and did absolutely no exercise. So yeah, epic fail.

BUT, we did go to the grocery store and bought lots of veggies to munch on instead of chips, so I think we did pretty well there. Now we have a ton of leftovers of celery, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and radishes, so all should be good. If only I'd stayed away from the brownies at the very end...

Weirdness and water

I weighed myself this morning and I'm down to 217.5. Woohoo! I guess that kind of makes sense since I've been having an insane amount of calorie deficits daily this week, but to jump from 219.0 to 217.5 in a day is odd. I woke up feeling very dehydrated, so maybe that's what's behind the sudden weight-loss. Speaking of, I have no idea how/why I'm so dehydrated in the mornings. I've been drinking TONS of water so it makes no sense. Maybe it's so dry that I have to drink even more. I couldn't stand the taste of water (or lack thereof) yesterday, so instead I had Tang. I know, it's cheating, but I just couldn't have any more...

Other that that, I checked out last year's times for the tri and there are people who were very slow on the bike, taking over 2 hours to finish, so that makes me feel better about my 10 mph pace on this week's bikes. Granted, what we had here was relatively flat compared to Rage, but it's also 12 weeks out so there is definitely room for improvement. I have yet to go for a run, though, and that's becoming very problematic. It's the easiest workout to do out of the three, but I ABSOLUTELY HATE running. So instead of going for a jog, I spent all day watching the playoffs and eating chocolate cake batter. Mmmm...yummy. I just can't resist the stuff. I've had such bad chocolate cravings lately. So my weight should jump right back up to "normal" by tomorrow :)

Slacking off again

I've been feeling really down lately and haven't been doing any exercise. I didn't sleep much last night (went to bed at 6 am and had to get up at 9) so when I got home from class I passed out and woke up at 8ish. Oy. The vicious cycle of being nocturnal continues...

I went to physical therapy for my shoulder this morning. I'd overslept my last appointment so I REALLY had to get up and not miss this one. I was very spoiled with my PT guy in Connecticut so I didn't really think anyone could compare to his knowledge and competency. But the lady I met today was pretty good. She went over my MRI results with me, something my douchebag doctor hadn't bothered to do (another reason I don't trust that he has my best interests in mind) so it was nice to finally figure out why my shoulder's been throbbing. I'm really glad I insisted on the MRI in the first place because it definitely gave me a much better idea of what is going on in there.

The exercises she suggested were really simple but exhausting at the same time. I hate that PT people know exactly what muscles, tendons, and ligaments to isolate. I've never been so sore after using a 2 lb dumbbell. BUT I now have the stretchy rubber band thingies that I can use to strengthen up my ankles. She also doesn't need to see me more than once a week, which is great since it'll come out much cheaper this way. All in all, a very productive session. Now I just have to get my butt to the gym to do these things.

Italian was boring boring, mostly because I was so tired that I couldn't focus. We got our tests back and I'd missed the super easy parts I already knew. So now I have to get my butt into gear to make sure I keep an A in the class. And by that I mean that I actually have to study instead of just going out drinking the night before.

And then I slept. Maggie suggested we start the C25K thing today, but that obviously didn't happen. I HATE running, so I have no idea how I'm going to get started on this program and actually stick with it. I mean, it's only 20 minutes of torture, which is so insignificant in the long scheme of things, but I just can't get the motivation to get started. Oy...I just need to get over myself.

Also, after reading 3FC threads about post-weight loss bellies, I'm super worried. I don't want a saggy belly after busting my butt losing 80 pounds. WTF. I'd rather be a little fat and not have pregnancy sag. The results all depend on the a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be one of the people with ugly bellies. My goal for this weightloss is to be able to wear a bikini, but that doesn't seem likely with what people are predicting. Maybe it's just the extreme cases that posted on that thread and most people don't have a problem with it, but I'm really worried. I don't want that! But first, I have to get down to that size to see if it'll actually affect me. Maybe my youth (right...for once I'm saying I'm still young) will help, but I've been obese for a while and I'm not sure my skin is all that elastic. I mean, my face looks a lot more damaged than most people my age. But then again, I've never exposed my stomach to the sun, so there may be hope. I don't expect to lose this weight fast, so I think that may also be to my advantage. Ok, enough of that.

Now I'm going back to watching Gossip Girl and then some melatonin for sleep.

P.S. I was semi-good today with eating well (mostly cuz I was asleep all day), but I just had a Snickers out of boredom. I need to get out of the house more and be busy so I don't snack all the time!