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Everyday PW30


Stegner

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All is well and I mean for it to stay that way. Since I finished my first and only W30 last fall, I've been derailed by after dinner grazing from time to time and I want to figure out how to stop doing that. There are a long list of reasons this is a good idea and this will be my daily opportunity to talk to myself about that and anything else that arises. So... It's a good idea to stop eating after dinner because my digestion needs to rest overnight - it's good for my mental and physical health. I've read stuff lately about the brain - gut connection and wonder whether my gut has the same need for sleep as my brain.

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4 hours ago, Stegner said:

All is well and I mean for it to stay that way. Since I finished my first and only W30 last fall, I've been derailed by after dinner grazing from time to time and I want to figure out how to stop doing that. There are a long list of reasons this is a good idea and this will be my daily opportunity to talk to myself about that and anything else that arises. So... It's a good idea to stop eating after dinner because my digestion needs to rest overnight - it's good for my mental and physical health. I've read stuff lately about the brain - gut connection and wonder whether my gut has the same need for sleep as my brain.
 

I haven't eaten past 7:30 PM (8:00 PM if my schedule has been disrupted by external events beyond my control) for "a while" now. A year and a half or so. I started this habit because of gastritis and to eliminate my acid reflux and heal my esophagus. I'm sticking with it because it makes me feel good and because it fits so well with my other Whole30 habits or "rules." 

One great side effect of that decision not to eat after a certain hour is that it restored to me the pleasures of evening activities (whether relaxing or working) on their own, without food, and how enjoyable they could be. 

Here are my simple rules (which I'm adding because you mentioned being derailed by after dinner grazing). I started these before my Whole30 last November, and I've stuck with them in the nine months since then. During that time, I've continued to lose weight (a goal of mine, in preparation for a hip replacement) and to have the vitality I need to exercise and to engage in my research and studio activities. And I have continued to have a completely relaxed attitude toward food and eating.

1. No eating after 7:30 (8:00) PM. None. Never.
2. No snacking. Anything I eat (including popcorn or a chocolate brownie or . . . .) is part of my meal.
3. No eating anything unless it's on a plate or in a bowl. Nothing.
4. Chewing my food throughly.

That's pretty much it. My reintroductions took about 6-8 weeks and since then I've been riding my own bike. As part of my intention to eat mindfully, I make sure to check in with my body and with what I really want before making decisions about meals. I learned from my Whole30 that I could trust my hunger and my appetite AND that I could use satiety to know when to stop eating.

For me, it's important to pay attention to my nutrition but also to use a cognitive approach. I had to be my own therapist, and months before my Whole30 I stopped dieting forever with the help of a wonderful book called Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Whole30 helped me build on that and gave me solid nutritional information and its template continues to help me build meals that nourish me both physically and psychologically. 

Everyone's approach is different, but I follow the MeadowLily approach of restoring my body to factory settings. What this means for me is that I can trust my hunger and my food choices, I can eat what I want AND make good nutritional choices, I can view food as both fuel and pleasure, and I am not stressed by cravings or bingeing or feelings of deprivation . . . In other words, I'm back to where I was before decades of chronic dieting derailed me.

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Thanks ArtFossil. I too like MeadowLily's factory settings approach - also her "sneaky snakes" idea. They are lying in the weeds, even now and I am paying a lot more attention to them - when I do battle with them I try to remember to write down what I'm thinking. It's interesting that she refers to them as snakes because these thoughts seem to come from my reptilian brain.  They are not reasonable rational thoughts, and they don't seem to respect rules.  Being well nourished, physically and psychologically, is crucial to beating them back. 

My rule:

1) no eating between meals - dishes in dishwasher, leftovers in refrigerator, done. 

Why do I love my rule? 

1) I have other things I want to do and messing around with food all the time interferes with them.  

2)  I am a better, more creative cook and enjoy my meals far more if I am hungry.

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Last night I went out for dinner with some friends and invited them back to my house to sample my homemade liqueurs - we had a lot of fun but I did recognize it as one of those times I might get that what the hell feeling after everyone left. So I did not get that feeling.  Instead I put everything away, cleaned up the kitchen, brushed my teeth and went upstairs to read and wind down before going to bed.  I woke up this morning feeling just fine and I can think of two big reasons for that:

1) we had really memorable food and great conversation, a lot of it about what we were eating - mindful eating.

2) I was able to recognize the potential for trouble and exactly when that was going to arise.

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My meals have been off kilter for a full 24 hours - due to travel and staying at someone else's house, but I decided to roll with it. I'm fine, and ready to eat template meals the rest of the week.  Not just ready - looking forward to it. 

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Most of us remember a time when we had absolutely no issues with food.  We ate 3 meals aday. During school hours, there was no snacking. We ate our school lunch and no vending machines in my school.  We had gym, classes and activities. After school activites took us right up the dinner bell.  We had homework and friends, running around and all kinds of fun.  

No one was cramming food in and thinking about food every spare minute.  Peer pressure had something to do with it but we were tooling along and loving our life.  Then, we had to leave home and go off to college.  Some may have gotten married or others joined the military.  We left our comfort zone for the danger zone without Maw telling us what to eat. That's when everything went to multi-crap.

I drank chocolate milk and ate chocolate covered orange jelly sticks for lunch. Made by Sweets.  I did that for so long that I hang my head and cry when I tell you that. I did alot of other silly things but mostly I lived on corn syrup.  Jujubes, licorice, gummy bears and orange jelly sticks.  I could not get enough.  I really like fruitcake, too.  It's those corn syrup fruits. Everything in my life was nuttier than a fruitcake back then.  I was jacked up on so much sugar.  

Those sneaky snakes are still slithering around. Vipers.  

A dog will look down when they've done wrong but a snake will look you right in the eyes. Remember that. They are not afraid of you.  

We know what to do.  We didn't just fall off the sweet potato truck.  We've been around, you know. ;)

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This brings back a memory - of jujubes and coffee in my dorm room during the weekends.  Don't cry, Meadowlily, we weren't alone in our youthful foolishness and we survived to become wise old wild women.  One thing that really makes me happy is that my daughters eat so much better than I did at their age. They care very much about how they look, but they never go on wacky diets and they wear clothes that show off their muscles.  Viva la revolution!

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I cry for the wasted years.  If we only knew then what we know now.  If you're 20 years old today, you now have the tools on your belt to carry you.  Cumulative damage from years of corn syrup.  But you said "old".  Boom.  Hit the Reset Button.  Control Alt Delete.   I've went back to the future.  I'm younger now than I was then.

Sugars age a person more than anything else in the world.  Removing all sugars, alcohol, coffee and ciggies takes years off your face and out of your cells. 

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Stegner, I timed out.  I don't drink a drop of alcohol and I've never tried one single ciggie in my life. Never wanted to because I know how highly addictive all of it is.  Parents, grandparents, ditto.   But I became addicted to corn syrup. My folks and grandparents don't have one gray hair in their heads. Everyone swears up and down they must dye their hair.  Maw is one of 12 and not a single one of them touches alcohol.  I'm proud of that for all kinds of reasons. The half has not been told.  Mostly because we know where it all ends up.

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Now I'll be singing... I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. 

Must say, I have white hair - it's my freak flag and I'm letting it fly.  My people are white haired and black eyebrowed - they love coffee and they have touched their fair share of alcohol. Personally, my attitude towards alcohol is - I enjoy it, I have never had a problem with it, but I fear it. I recognize its power to turn a good life to shite. I really do. 

Today, I'm planning a quilt - 45 squares of improvised piecing alternated with 45 squares of solid color.  Maybe black. Maybe red.  Maybe purple. Life is fun.     

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Welp, whatever you do, don't call yourself old.  There are people here who look 20 years younger than their actual age.  White hair can be absolutely gorgeous. Striking and heavenly. I mean it.  I know someone who wears it loud and proud.  When I look across a crowded room, there is this heavenly light shining down upon their head.  They glow with beauty and there's something extra special about it.  

This is all me but I don't think we need old people threads here.  What for.  We're all going back to the future and yanking that multi-crap out at the cellular level, pulling every one of them out by the roots.  We are the things we tell ourselves and you are not old.  We don't need to compartmentalize our lives or ages or looks or bodies or anything.  

What's age got to do with it?  Nothin.

WE are in this thing together.  All of us. 

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Stegner,  we can use our imagination for all kinds of things.  If I'm a lonely frog out here tooling along,  I imagine that BS...over there to the left just dropped by for a cuppa tea.  He told me to keep going and keep on believing.  He is the Voice after all.  GR over there at HK hellskitch1-smiley.gif?1292867615 gives me choice words to say when things are off kilter.

I'm in the Olympics now, doing floor routines and swimming like MP.  Oooo, I do all kinds of things to motivate myself.  Some days you have to throw everything UP against the wall and hope something sticks.  Last night, I was playing beach volleyball.  I was super tall and wearing a tiny thong, running around on those lanky legs.  Only I would constantly be pulling at it trying to make it cover my     balance beam smiley

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As part of my "reset" this past year, I also used a technique which has some intriguing research behind it, which is to imagine myself 25 years younger. The Harvard researcher Ellen Langer did an experiment where she took a group of men in their 70's and immersed them in an environment which recreated their world 22 years prior. The results were astonishing:

Quote

"Nothing — no mirrors, no modern-day clothing, no photos except portraits of their much younger selves — spoiled the illusion that they had shaken off 22 years," Grierson wrote.

A week later, both the control group and the experimental group showed improvements in "physical strength, manual dexterity, gait, posture, perception, memory, cognition, taste sensitivity, hearing, and vision," Langer wrote in "Counterclockwise."

And according to Langer's account, most of those improvements were much more significant in the group told to live as if it were actually 1959; a full 63% of them had better intelligence test scores at the end of the experiment than they did at the beginning, compared to 44% in the control group. Four independent volunteers, who knew nothing about the study, looked at before and after photos of the men in the experimental group and perceived those in the "after" photos as an average of two years younger than those in the "before."

http://www.businessinsider.com/ellen-langers-reversing-aging-experiment-2015-4

Thinking in this way has helped me prepare physically and psychologically for the next major life and career change in my life.

I'm almost 69 and while I've had years where I was stronger or leaner,  I've never had more vitality or been more enthralled by my work.

I never call myself "old."

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But being a wise old wild woman is something I've always aspired to!  

Interesting experiment, ArtFossil - but the thought of living in the world I lived in 22 years ago horrifies me. I never in my life felt so burdened - by actual babies and full grown men (husband and bosses) who acted like great big babies. I think the fact that this experiment was done on men is key to the outcome. I loved my babes, but I lived for others at that time and I couldn't be happier about regaining the freedom to explore what I want, what I like, what flips my switch. 

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Maw and Grandmaw would give you the look for saying 'wise old woman'.  Neither one call themselves or anyone old. Doctors flirt with my mother and fall all over her.  Gives Paw a big pinch but it's all good because Maw has no idea of the wake she's leaving behind her.  It's always been that way.  She clicks and clacks on her computer, shopping for clothes and makeup. My folks enjoy getting presents and gifts every single day from amazon.  Every day. Paw has all of his wits and memory and he looks in the mirror and says WOW,  the Kid is lookin' good TODAY!  No old talk at our house.  It's a mindset and a belief system. 

 

 

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50 minutes ago, Stegner said:

But being a wise old wild woman is something I've always aspired to!  

Interesting experiment, ArtFossil - but the thought of living in the world I lived in 22 years ago horrifies me. I never in my life felt so burdened - by actual babies and full grown men (husband and bosses) who acted like great big babies. I think the fact that this experiment was done on men is key to the outcome. I loved my babes, but I lived for others at that time and I couldn't be happier about regaining the freedom to explore what I want, what I like, what flips my switch. 

I too am a fan of wisdom and experience, Stegner. The point is NOT putting yourself into that world 22 years ago but rather perceiving yourself with the vitality and capability one had 22 years ago, but with all the wisdom and experience. It's an example of how changing your mindset has actual, physical, measurable benefits.

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Most of us aren't fond of being interrogated about our food or jeans size. We cut  labels out of our clothes.  Someday, I'm going back to work. That's going to be tough because even though I've missed alot of work,  I can't say I've been missing it..  Being out of the workforce for even a couple of years is a touch and go thing.  But I've made this time a priority without regrets.  I won't like being asked about my age when I go back.  They want 22 and 122.  I know.

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Thanks for listening. :D Why O Why is everything different for men. They can show up at work looking like something the cat dragged in and nadda prob.  Income has alot to do with it.  Income for men and age for women.  It's patently unfair. Office politics sux. 

I've got to run to a shoe sale.  It's BOGO today. The power of a good haircut and good pair of shoes will get you everywhere.  A man once told me that at the office. 

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Meadowlily, I just listened to a podcast, This American Life, with a segment about a 66 year old male lifeguard who sued for age discrimination when he lost his job due to his refusal to take his swimming test in a speedo - very funny and inspirational.  ArtFossil, this also pertains to the topic of retaining youthful vitality through mindset. This guy loved the adrenaline rush of being a lifeguard and rescuing people - he loved it so much that his body stayed fit enough to do the work. 

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Ooooo,  good for him.  Now then,  I'm not 66 or 56 or 46.  I don't know how old everyone thinks I am but I will take it as a compliment if you think I'm more mature than my 'ears' and nuttier than a fruitcake all at the same time.  I've always been someone who hangs with the folkaronies over those my own age. My heroes have always been those who know how to take a hard knock and are still standing.  I lurve the underdogs in life.  My siblings are just like me. We gravitate towards the underdogs and those that have been kicked to the curb. 

Grandpaw was like that, too.  He said you'll never know when you meet an angel unaware. I've met a few.  I know it. 

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One time, I was crying so hard at a stoplight.  A man pulled up and rolled down the window.  He looked over at me and said things are not that bad, are they?   I said,  Yes, they really are.  He told me to wipe my tears because things will get better.    I sobbed and sobbed harder.   I looked back over and he wasn't there anymore.   

No need to guess my age.;)  Paw is much older than Maw but you would never know it. The Kid is still lookin' good. 

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This was in reference to your comment that you did not look forward to being asked about your age when you returned to work - and they want 22 and 122. It's pretty hard to judge a person's age by their writing or by their looks for that matter. In any case, it doesn't matter.  

Making chicken Pozole this afternoon and planning to substitute beans for hominy. It's too hot for soup, I guess, but tomatillos, jalapeños and onions are overflowing the garden.  One of the first things I returned to my diet was beans - corn and its relatives (hominy) are best avoided.  

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I dealt with almost a full crate of peaches today, freezing most of them and making a batch of peach salsa.  Of course that makes me think of tortilla chips, but I'm getting more and more accustomed to eating things like that as a relish. 

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