katikaa As promised. The series of My weight loss journey continues. I received a few questions on what do I eat now then? Well right now I am eating chips and chocolate, but that is definitely not an every day thing.
Started thinking what do I actually eat and realized that I have made significant changes to my diet that is true.
Portion size
Like I already mentioned in My weight loss journey(s), part II portion size has changed significantly. I did not think how much I ate. I most likely ate too much all the time thinking back. Now I am consciously thinking how much I eat throughout the day as I have learned better to count calories in my head.
I started taking clearly smaller amounts on my plate and yet I have not been ever “hungry”. I think there is a bit of that buffet phenomenon that when you can take as much as you want you tend to take “For the money’s worth”. I completely changed that way of thinking into eating as much as you need, not as much as you can.
Extra liquid calories
So juices, smoothies, alcohol, soft drinks I changed to water and coffee. I cannot give up coffee you, must have some vices. I consciously again made the choice thinking that they are just unnecessary calories and not worth putting in my mouth.
And yes I put milk in my coffee! like I said, you must have some vices… (trust me that is not the only vice I have!!)
One meal a day should be salad
I made a clear choice to have either lunch or dinner as salad or more “light meal”. Nowadays I tend to eat only one warm meal a day if I have a day off exercise for example as I simply am no longer that hungry. The good part about losing weight is that your body uses less energy and needs less food to maintain the status quo so it becomes cheaper too!
So yes thinking back I eat a lot less now and no I am not hungry. It’s just that my body needs less to be where it is now.
More protein
I do prefer salad nowadays for meals, but to fill out the void of protein I ate A LOT of eggs when I was loosing weight. Salad and two scrambled eggs was my dinner quite often (eggs scrambled as they are). Then the other option was omelette with salad and A LOT of quark. Maybe so much of those both that nowadays I eat hardly any eggs but I do eat quark.
Keep it simple
Why over complicate things? It was easier to eat plain, unprocessed food as it was easier to log into the app. It kind of stuck. It tasted better and I did not feel so bloated eating less processed food so try to keep to that even when eating out.
Bulk up days…
Yes! I had them at least twice a month. I ate what I wanted candies, chocolate and all. I have noticed that when you exercise a lot your body has hard time keeping up with the calories lost in exercise by food (healthy!!!) so eating a bit more than the restricted calories was not a bad thing on the contrary it boosted my weight loss. Then again this might be just how my body works and more related to the amount of exercise and diet being not in balance.
Anyway I still have “eat yummy stuff” days, but if I am not exercising it does backfire I have noticed. Like Christmas time. It takes a week or so of very strict regime and diet again to be back to “normal”, which is nowadays 68 kilos.
Feeling of hunger passes
I noticed that when I started eating better carbs and more protein the feeling of hunger always passes or is not that bad. You know how after having a lot of “bad carbs” you could just eat a moose as you are almost trembling because you are so hungry.
For me that was truly a revelation that hey it passes… The feeling of “I could eat anything” does not appear at all and too quick drops of sugar levels stay at bay. That kind of balance suits me so much better, so again I would rather avoid bad carbs because I don’t like the trembling hungry feeling of sugar levels dropping.
Recap
I used to eat just for fun. Now I am eating because it is something I need to do to fuel my body. I used to indulge on different tastes. Now after eating more unprocessed food I can taste better what I am eating and I am not drowning the original taste of the food anymore. This makes everything taste so much better when you can taste all the smallest flavors.
So I think in all my perception towards food and eating has changed. I eat because I must give my body something keep me going, not because it tastes good. I must have energy to do the things I want like trail running in the forest or singing from the bottom of my heart, but I do not need food for the taste of it. I’ts an compulsory thing we need to do, taste has lost a bit of it’s meaning. I also try to choose as wisely as I can what I put into my mouth depending on the situation and the place (not always easy I know!).
This is my body and hopefully I can still “live with it” for another 30+ years so why on earth would I treat it bad?
It’s a balance all the time the older you get though I know 🙂 That I have noticed that the older you get the more important it is to pay attention to what you put in your mouth.
More about me getting older and the joys of it in my Getting old(er) series.
