Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

Eat for nutrition - not for taste.

 

That is my positive food management plan in 6 words.

 

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full

 

Rapid weight loss can ruin your relationship with food and mess with your leptin levels/metabolism.  I knew that two years ago.  Fast paced dieting results in rebound.   What you've lost will find you in less than 1/2 the time it took to lose it.

 

I've read the national study and I know the stats going forward.  I was under no illusions 2 years ago or now.  I have to think through the consequences.   Daily.

 

I cannot over-rationalize or make excuses for my choices.  I have to keep on owning them and taking full responsibility for my decisions.  Blaming others or circumstances is not fair to me or them.   Everyone is together in this thing called life.

 

There is safety in numbers.  Stay with the pack.  The Lone Wolf doesn't do so well out there.  He's a moving target.  

 

Stick with those who share your common beliefs and will encourage you.  It can be easier to tell strangers what's really on your heart.  We walk on eggshells or regret things said in haste to our loved ones. We can't take it back.  

 

Let your feelings show with those you trust.  It might be virtual strangers.  We're not robbing any banks.  We're choosing and setting our wills to make positive food management changes. 

 

This is not hard.  T1 and T2 and heart attacks are hard.  Watching those who lose limbs with T1 and T2 - so very hard.   

 

Eat for nutrition...not for taste.   Tasting used to be a hobby or recreational activity.  Thrill Eating.  

 

I had to find some new hobbies and replacement activities.   I stay in my lane and work my own positive food management plan.  

 

One size does not fit all.  

[MeadowLily]

The leptin/metabolism study was back on the national news.   I knew those results 2 years ago.  

 

Unless you've been there and I don't want anyone to be there, go there or stay there...there are genetics and insulin resistant bodies that will fight you tooth and toenail every step of the way.  

 

Does your body return to the days of childhood.  No.  Adult hormone levels keep changing from childhood.

 

If you do what you've always done you'll get what you've always gotten.  You cannot go back to the days of thrill eating after all of the weight is released.  The insulin resistant body does not have a thrill eating normal setting.

 

Those days are gone.  For good.

 

The body,  as those rapid weight releasers found out, rebounded with weight gain in a fraction of the time it took to release it.   Lower leptin levels and slower metabolisms.   When you keep dieting for years and years, it does not improve.  

 

The message from this study should be don't ever start dieting in youth.  That's the take-away that needs to be hollared from the mountain tops.  Don't start none...won't be none.   Don't start dieting in the high school years when your hormones are all over the place.   

 

Water seeks its own level.  Hormones are trying to balance out.  Don't feed your body baked goods and candy when it needs all of the nutritional help it can muster from child to adult.   Kids don't know that. Their parents may not know that.   

 

The pancreas has a lifespan like everything else.  If you don't guard it and protect it...one day it will no longer accommodate any thrill eating ever again.  It's had enough.  Then you have to face the music.

 

The body will only oblige you so far.   When you reach the point of no return with thrill eating it is a sobering day.   Choices and consequences.

 

That doesn't change.   The biggest takeaway from hearing their testimonies was that they believed after the weight was released their bodies were normal and they could eat what they used to eat. Some haven't done anything differently (watching every bite they eat) but have to work twice as hard to stay on target.

 

Blood tests reveal that their leptin levels have tanked.  Metabolism is down to a crawl.   Dieting does that.  It gets you nowhere good.  

 

If you've always been close to your target, you don't know how your body feels and reels after a large release of weight.   I knew it 2 years ago and I know it now.   

 

You feel like there's internal combustion engine inside....driving you to eat it all back.  The only way to combat that is to keep eating for nutrition.   Give your body whole foods and make that choice and set your will to overcome old brain grooves and hormonal/leptin imbalances.  

 

There is nothing about a thrill eating spree or budgeting the weekends for a full on food benders that will fix this for the long haul.   Those are the recreational food activities that will take you all of the way back to the first part of the journey.

 

A body that latches onto every single sugar sugar, upside down sugar...with insulin resistance in the past history reacts differently from someone that's always been able to maintain their target.  Those who've been through this know what I'm talking about.

 

Think long term success.  Try gentle change for the permanent WIN.  But going back to thrill eating is not reality.   Your body chemistry defines you.   Your successful strategy on Day 31 can be tweaked but it has to remain intact. There is no such thing as the Finish Line.  The weight reality show contestants are finding that out.  All veteran dieters will find it out.   

 

There comes a time when the body/mind connection will no longer oblige starving oneself with over-restriction plus doing a bunch of super intense cardio followed by yet another thrill eating or binge cycle.

The pancreas will reject the Shock and Awe brutal approach which sets up vicious cycles. 

 

The take-away.  Let your  Choices and Consequences weigh in for each and every day and waaaay into the future. Every day in a sobering way,  I make my way without weigh and whey.  

[MeadowLily]

The good teacher will lead the horse to water but the excellent teacher will make the horse thirsty first.

 

I know someone who is embarking on another diet today.  They're going to eat whatever they want for 5 days and fast for 2 days.   I'm not going to say one word.  They're not interested in what I've done. This individual has been dieting for decades now.   The 'ww' didn't fix it so now it's thrill eating and fasting. 

 

In their mind,  eating all of the homemade baked goods and bread - 5 days aweek will somehow change everything for them.  This is imaginary chaos.  They're already planning and setting aside the baked goods - doing the food prep for the full on food benders.  The 5 days will turn into 7 days in short order because after that much sugar,  the pancreas is spent.  They'll need more hair of the dog to take the edge off.

 

No planning required for fasting.  Just bare knuckle it.  

 

There was a time I might've joined them on this adventure because it is fantasyland and OZ.  We could laugh on top of Sugar Mountain High.  Loosey Goosey.  But there's the consequences when you slide back off the goose. 

[MeadowLily]

Chew and Spit is a thing.   

 

https://anorexictoathletic.com/2012/01/31/the-silent-secret-eating-disorder-chew-spit/

 

These kinds of things need counsel.  Ask for help.  Sit down with someone face to face.

 

 

What causes eating disorders?

 

 http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/eating-disorders

 

Eating disorders are not caused by just one factor but by a combination of sociocultural, psychological and biological factors.

Sociocultural and psychological factors:

• Low self-esteem [4]
• Pressures to be thin (i.e., pressure to lose weight from family and friends) [3]
• Use of food as way of coping with negative emotions [3]
• Rigid, “black or white” thinking (e.g., “being fat is bad” and “being thin is good”) [3]
• Over-controlling parents who do not allow expression of emotion [3]
•  

Biological factors:

• Genetic predisposition to eating disorders, depression, and anxiety [3]
• Certain personality styles, for example obsessive-compulsive personality type [2]
• Deficiency or excess of certain brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, especially serotonin [4]

[MeadowLily]

A relative has given up.  She's been dieting for a lifetime and is opting for WLS.  This makes more than 5 in my circle.  It makes me sad.   One didn't survive it, died from the complications.  Some are 10 years out from the surgery and are rebounding, eating it back.  They may not tell you that can happen.

 

I asked her if she's prepared for 10 years out and beyond.  Eating 2 oz of food for a long while and 4 oz later on.  For real,  for good.   If you stretch the boundaries, it comes back.  She says so but this is coming off a binge eating cycle.  

 

It often takes sitting down with someone, face to face and hard work to develop new coping strategies. Shoving emotions down with food and/or not.  All variations on the theme.   Good counsel is good medicine.

 

Surgery can remove the stomach but doesn't fix the head.   I opted for counsel and creating a positive food management plan after Whole 30.   I believed that a Food Reset could lead the way to the Head Reset. 

 

I didn't change the template.  I allowed myself everything on it.  Reasonable restriction but not over-restriction for a Head Reset.  

[MeadowLily]

Eating fruit without guilt is part of my Head Reset and  Positive Food Management Plan.

 

Fruit has value for me and I've been working  very hard to move out of black and white thinking about food...^^^link up above.  Fruit has phytochemicals and nutrients.  Fruit is a plant.

 

There are flavonoids, polyphenols and anti-inflammatory elements in berries  and I can eat them with no noticeable uptick in blood sugar. There are elements in dark berries that can help the eyes, vessels and the heart.  Berries have anthocyanins that won't harm the liver or pancreas.

 

I will eat fruit and avoid binge eating.  Binge eaters left to their own devices cannot eat bites of commercial sugar foods and not stir everything back up immediately.

 

Berries do not do that to me but I don't eat them alone or snack inbetween meals with fruit for blood sugar purposes. 

 

Whole foods are so worth it.  Yeast cells love sugar.   So I won't kick fruit to the curb in favor of commercial desserts and candy.    My body and pancreas knows they are not equal.  My head knows that avoiding all fruit after a Whole 30 is more dieting and restriction.

 

I avoided fruit for years and years.  You can't eat fruit on diets and zero carbing it.  Fruit is 'bad' while dieting.  But I've moved out of placing moral judgments on whole foods and plants. 

[MeadowLily]

http://www.obesitycoverage.com/uncomplicating-gastric-sleeve-complications/

 

Anyone.  Try the Whole 30 before you do that.  ^^^

[MeadowLily]

 

A tribe connected to an idea.  Shared interests and a way to communicate.  

 

Surviving is succeeding.  The Lone Wolf is a moving target in the game of survival.  There is safety in numbers.  

[MeadowLily]

So I made one last attempt.  Are you sure you want to follow through with the surgery.  I'm crying about it.  Two years ago, I didn't have hope either.  I might feel differently about it if I didn't know what I know now.   There's a way without weigh and whey.  Drinking liquid smoothies and removing stomachs. 

[Hutlifr]

Your writing inspires me.... Taking long long walks thinking about my future without my beloved darling. Nature is food for my soul, and hiking the hills wears me out. I so wish you could be next to me. It would be fun... Lots of fun.

[MeadowLily]

We are where we are because we do more to stay there than change the conditions of our existence.

 

The change we allow determines the reality we get. 

[MeadowLily]

Good taste never goes out of style. 

[MeadowLily]

Food cannot control you unless you give it the remote.

[MeadowLily]

Shawshanking it.  Bend the bars of your cage. 

 

Take your power back before thrill eating takes all of your power away.

[MeadowLily]

You can't get away from yourself by shoving your emotions down with food. 

[MeadowLily]

Start thinking that nothing can be denied you. 

 

You are not under the remote control of holidays, celebrations, birthdays, the office potluck or group dinner. 

 

No one can control you unless you give them your remote.   

[MeadowLily]

Take your mind and body back.

 

You are your own GPS system.  Actually listen to your own intuition and Run Forest Run when something doesn't feel right.

 

Nothing comes unannounced.  There is always a sign if you learn to listen and read it. 

[MeadowLily]

Flipping the switch from LR to LS.    Do not snack at all inbetween meals. 

 

An enormous appetite for carbs, especially at night...that's LR.  Good dietary fats heals the LR gut.

Reintroducing refined carbs in liberal amounts sends the gut back into LR.  

 

Fat Adapted LS.  Refined carb cravings are gone.  The body is in recovery and on the pathway to healing.

[MeadowLily]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=0

 

Leptin Resistance to Leptin Sensitive.  LR to LS. 

[MeadowLily]

http://suethsayings.blogspot.com/2011/01/dying-from-elective-surgery.html

 

This is what brought me to Whole 30.   First hand experience of relatives who've struggled, opted for it and a young mother who died from the complications in her early 30's.  

 

Every day,  I think of them. 

 

I know the stats of long term success.  I have firsthand knowledge of LR to LS.  The body will fight back and anyone who's been there knows it's true.   The body has an automatic pilot groove that is so strong and it wants you to come back.   Rebound.

 

Some days you feel like you're in a nosedive and the rivets are popping loose from your plane.  The body is doing all it can to see to it that you eat it all back.  The greater the release the stronger the pull.   I felt it a year ago and it's still there.   

 

It's a mean one.  Sneaky Snake.  Loosey Goosey.   Ooo, go ahead and slide back off the goose into piles of pasta.  Fall back into bowls of cornbread, panbread, bread bread, other people's bread, stale bread you're supposed to feed to the ducks but ate them myself and meals of croutons. 

 

There will be many days in the future that you will have to pull yourself from the brink.  Days of rough recovery.   Falling into much bread was my old life but climbing out is transcendent. 

[MeadowLily]

You have to have a plan to deal with the mind warp.   

 

Don't ever get on the scale.  It's now two years and I don't get on the scale.  This is not just a saying and something you go ahead and do secretly.   

 

We all know exactly where we are at with our clothes.   That's enough.

 

Planning meals and food prep is a strategy that can help you get back in the groove.  When you feel yourself starting to slide off the goose...you will have to remind yourself where you've come from and why you started in the first place.

 

Remember how it felt to get dressed and walk out your front door for an hour at some speed above completely still.   It was an accomplishment and there is no need to put the word "just" in front of it.

 

Don't make any comparisons with others you know and/or love.  You will have to set much needed boundaries if you've always flown by the seat of your pants. 

 

No one can control you unless you give them the remote. 

 

Your experiences and observations will be your own.  We all have unique body chemistries or eating quirks, likes, dislikes and tastes.  

 

No one knows your body and stomach like you do.   No one can feel your feelings for you.   Shoving our emotions down with food is trying to get some relief from faux foe cravings.  

 

Death from lack of Cheetos seems highly unlikely,  so YAY YOU!

 

I hope that the veggies are still your best friends.  They will give you the relief you're looking for from cravings.   Honor your hunger.   

 

On the first part of the journey, I made sure I had those 9 cups of vege every day.   All fresh salad greens were a bonus.   The template trifecta = protein, vege and good dietary fats. 

 

My strategy was to say outloud,  Template, Template, Template....any time emotional cravings had a grip on me.   I would make a large salad of fresh greens with berries used as a condiment and nuts for a decoration thrown over the top.  I used my homemade balsamic reductions for a dressing.  

 

I honored by hunger.   I would eat the cooked vege, protein and fats first.   If I was still hungry, I would have my strategy salad.   

 

Thrill eaters are after that full feeling.   It's not the quality they're after but quantity.  Replacing refined carb everything with fresh salad greens gave me that full feeling I was looking for.   

 

It stopped the thrill eating cycle.   I still use it today for a WIN.   So much of this stuff is mental. Work within your own specific quirks and limitations.   

 

Think about your choices.  Approach them.  Work through them.  Process them.  Continue on. 

[MeadowLily]

Every single time I eat I am reminded of my decision to alter my insides to help me manage my eating because I decided I was trustworthy as a caretaker. 

 

Every single time I eat.

Every single day.

[MeadowLily]

Dropping it like it was hot.   Dropping 80-100 in the shortest amount of time possible is mostly muscle mass that's being dropped.  If you've researched those who have done that...the leptin levels completely tank. With leptin levels tanked out after years of constant dieting, even if it's the same 10-20 for years on end, those leptin levels will find you out.

 

You cannot keep dieting for years on end.   The appetite reckoning is coming just around the corner.  For real.  Body chemistry driving you to eat it all back with the leptin levels at the lowest in your life.

 

More rapid fire dieting to defeat rebound with leptin/metabolism empty tank mode will get you nowhere good.  The same college 10-20 or  lifetime 80-100.   The days of dropping it like it was hot are over.

 

Hormones cry.  With the muscle mass gone from dropping it like it was hot,  the body appears almost the same as it was before the 80-100 were dropped.   The skin does not rebound with each passing dieting cycle.  

 

The longer you've been dieting over the years,  rebound happens in half the time.  If you want your leptin sensitivity to be healed you're going to have to go about this at a snail's pace.  

 

Faster is Disaster.

 

Set yourself up for a victory.  If you're obsessed with the scale - get it out of the house.  But if are secretly/openly keeping it and weighing....here's a tip for you.  

 

Don't keep any digital scales around.  They're never accurate.  If you have to weigh at the doctor's office, step on backwards and plug your ears.  If you have an industrial/doctor scale at home with the counterweights...assign a sensible reasonable goal.  Duct tape the counterweight at that place.  Don't ever touch it again.  

 

When you slide off the goose, must run and check,  you can only see that you're not on the level.   Next.

Keep going.   Water seeks its own level.  A year or more down the road,  you'll know when your body is close to the level.  

 

Most importantly, you'll be level-headed.  The scale no longer rules you, destroys you or marshes all of your mellows. 

[MeadowLily]

Decide you are worthy as a caretaker.   

 

If your friends and family are worn out,  keep encouraging yourself.  Know how to read the signs along the way.  If their eyes glaze over when they see you coming,  don't say a single word.   They've reached the saturation point.  Everyone has their own struggles and stressors. 

 

Friends and family are not left in suspense with what's for lunch or dinner.  Coworkers probably don't give two hoots about it.  They only look when we make a big production out of everything.  No rude tudes allowed in the office.  Bosses are not interested in the KAT phase.

 

Don't post/log your food while you're on the boss's clock.  They're paying you for a job well done.  I would've been fired for posting for hours while on the job.  Give them your very best efforts. The boss knows/sees your habits and character. 

 

I'm working for free.   I can afford it. 

 

Watershed moment.  Seeking help and wise counsel outside of your circle can make all of the difference in the world. 

[MeadowLily]

Not believing a Reintroduction Phase is really necessary and just keep on going until the weight is released. That's dieting.  

 

When the dieting is finished, some may be think they can magically return to what brought us here in the first place.  Not so.  

 

A compliant Whole 30 and immediately return to the highly engineered to be craved foods.   That's doable but  has consequences.    If you are a binge eater,  you can eat it all back in 2 weeks and then immediately start over,  another Whole 30 and more secret dieting again.

 

Some may go through many cycles of Whole 30 and secret dieting before you don't want to be on that gerbil wheel any longer.  That's alright, too.  

 

You can save yourself some cycles if you'll plan a thoughtful Reintro Phase.   It will buy you some time to really thing about your future choices.

 

There are some who've W30'd for a year or more without a reintro.  Some succeeded but some rebounded back with every single pound.  They were secretly dieting.

 

I believe you should do the Reintro as it is written.  After 30 days...don't dilly dally.  Get it done.  You only need 30 compliant days to conduct your proper reintro.   You can plan your food freedom after that phase.

 

Not doing one, first time out of the chute,  you may feel it's  not ever necessary to do a Reintro with repeat W30's. With each passing day and month, the ground gets colder.   

 

The Search and Rescue team can be dispatched, put a plane in the air and trackers on the ground but if you don't come back...it's a SAD, sad day.

 

Most know what their trigger foods are if you are a binge eater.  You won't know why you're so wildly attracted to grains if you don't do the Reintro.   Seeing is believing.   Test yourself.

 

I've been around,  you know.  I can spot secret dieters 18 miles away.  I can sniff and root them out like they're tasty truffles.   I know most of the tricks and treats, spooky snacks and how budgeting the weekends for snacks/treats turns into a full on food benders. 

 

I know all about the variations of dieting themes, chew and spit, thrill eating then fasting, using tiny forks/plates/bowls to make it look like it's a lorra lorra when it's not/eating one meal aday in the middle of the day.  There are many tricks of the dieting trade. 

 

Counting, measuring, weighing, logging, tracking and nothing changing after years of doing that.   Progress pics that only last for a fleeting moment in time.  A dream within a dream and a time within a time.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

 

Decide you are worthy as a caretaker.   

 

You're going to have to continue taking care of yourself when the 30 compliant days are over. For real. Always and Forever.