This is week three of the Game On diet, and except for the first couple of days when avoiding my usual post-work gorge session on all the junk in the house was difficult, I've been fine. Five small, healthy meals a day, spaced two to four hours apart. No problems, no hunger (except the good kind where you get hungry just before your next meal).
Today I came back from my morning ride starving. Stomach growling, feeling weak, I could barely keep myself from snacking while I made breakfast. Then I was fine through my second meal of the day around 11:00. Now it's 1:30 and I'm not due to eat for another hour and I'm starving again. What's up with this? I've been eating the same amounts as the last couple of weeks, and my workouts aren't any longer or harder than they have always been, and I can't imagine that my metabolism suddenly kicked up a couple of notches, necessitating more food. But my keyboard is looking mighty tasty right now.
5 comments:
PMS? I don't know... They say the best way to eat is by paying attention to your body signals. If you feel like you are very hungry it is WAY better to address that now with something healthy and small than to wait the extra hour. Your metabolism changes based on a lot of stuff. Maybe you are fighting a mild cold or an odd infection or something and you need a few more calories RIGHT NOW!
Really not PMS. I don't listen to the people who say the best way to eat is by listening to your body signals. That's what tends to make me put on weight (my body craves things like gumdrops and potato chips, or sometimes keyboards!). The problem with this Game On thing is that if I *did* eat right then when I was hungry (all meals are healthy and small, so that's a non-issue), I'd run the risk of finishing up my meals for the day early enough that I'd get really hungry in the evening and not be able to eat anything else until tomorrow morning. I'm trying to space my meals so that they fall roughly three hours apart.
Yeah... I agree with you... I only ever crave crap - Like ice cream and cheetos and cosmos! I think listening to your body is only useful if you can't read your body signals. Like me - I don't feel "hunger" but when I am hungry I get a raging headache. I never connected the two before. Once I figured that out I knew to eat something as soon as I started to get a headache OR - eat in advance of getting the headache. OTOH - when I "diet" I tend to go into squirrel mode - I horde food "just in case" so I have a very hard time getting all of the food in that I am supposed to eat.
Did you read the thing on Yahoo News (I think) that the eat many meals is backfiring? People get the "eat frequently" concept - but not the "make good choices" bit. They eat crap (like those 100 calorie packs of junk) or over eat. I think eating five healthy small meals in a day is really hard.
It hasn't been hard following this plan (which is a lot like Body for Life)--those 100 calorie packs are off the list because most contain sugar or white flour. And most of the "sanctioned" foods are what I eat normally anyway--greek yogurt, fruit, and a few walnuts was my standard breakfast before I started this. Grilled chicken or salmon are always good in the summer. Mostly I'm eating my regular diet, avoiding junk, and watching the portion sizes carefully. The only real change I've had to make is replacing all white flour and rice with whole wheat and brown rice.
The hunger thing seems to have been confined to yesterday. Today I've been fine. Go figure.
One thing I'm discovering from this is that I'm really a rules person. Tell me the rules, and I'll follow them, no problem. If I don't have rules, though, I won't make good choices on my own (unless, as I've done in the past, I impose my own rules). I also don't mind a total lack of variety in my diet. I'll happily eat the same meal over and over and over because it takes less effort than thinking of something healthy and new and because if I know it works for me, I'll stick with it.
Post a Comment