Artslim
 
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Lunch in the park.

Sharing food is a perfect way to express feelings of love and pleasure at being in the company of people we love. That is partly why we can be tempted to turn to food for comfort in times of loneliness and boredom. 

This is a long blog post, but it's about a subject that I feel passionately about and I hope it reaches someone who, like me, is also learning to both, make friends with food and to become master of their own weight.

Food is about pleasure, expressions of love and fulfilment. It is one of your best friends, not the enemy :-), join with me and celebrate, 'food glorious food'.

Becoming naturally slim is about loving yourself, this includes eating delicious nutritious food, it isn't about deprivation dieting.  

Love yourself

Kathy  xxx


I ate a lot of food yesterday, so I ran it through the SparkPeople food diary and assessed t against my recommended calorie intake for my size and height and desire for healthy excess fat loss, of between 1,410 and 1,760 calories The Biggest Looser Club would set me as needing 1,800 calories for healthy weight loss. CalorieKing sets me at what is in my opinion a too low calorie requirement for long term eating and that's the sort of deprivation eating that in my opinion creates reactive binge eating.

This ample big day of eating, for me came in at only 1755 calories  lol, that was close
J, That was close to my top allowance of 1,800 calories and it would be easy to trim 500 calories from that day and still not feel deprived. Eating like this example of one of my igger eating days, was enjoyable and satisfying and combined with an active lifestyle, it does allow for healthy gradually excess fat reduction.   Faster  though still healthy weight loss could be achieved by reducing the fat, and skiping the wine, the wholegrain bread roll, halving the oil I used and eliminating using the sauce dressing. 

The only deserts I eat most of the time, is natural fruit. I love foods too much to use up calories rapidly consuming high calorie foods like sweets which I find don't satisfy, they just leave me wanting to eat more.  I suspect they are addictive foods. It's one addiction I try to guard myself against by not even sampling what I term junk food.

No disrespect to people who feel they can eat those foods, out I do not believe for my health and weight’s sake, that I can or should

 I measure the high calorie items like fat, in my diet, as these quickly add up the energy value for the day and as I tend to allow myself to go from days when I eat more, like today, while trying to stay within my top calorie allowance, and then this is made up for by days when I don’t feel like eating as much and I and closer to the lower level of the energy balance that is healthy for me. 
Overall I am able to maintain weight eating well and I can release weight when I focus more intently on ensuring I do not eat when not hungry or just for the enjoyment of eating as I do love food. J Because I eat what I enjoy, when I am hungry, and allow myself whatever I want, I have no need to binge eat.  I try to satisfy my emotional needs in a wide variety of ways, not in self abusive ways like overeating or overspending. 
This is all part of my action plan to be naturally slim and healthy. I am aiming for my 80 cm waist while retaining my full passion for 'food glorious food'.



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Here is an excellent article Never Binge Again By: Michelle Fiordaliso, MSW, CNC from ‘Shrink Me’. 
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Wake up
My favourite, Vittoria ORO Espresso coffee with skim milk iand a couple of glasses of filtered water is my start to the day. Usually one or two cups of coffee, sometimes none and never would I exceed four. I don't have any 'set rules' on this I try to limit my coffee but not feel I need to cut it out.  Coffee is not the best substance for someone with osteoporosis, it depletes a small amount of calcium so it's one more reason why I watch I get adequate calcium through the day as I am reluctant to cut this out alltogether and my dietician, is OK with my having it, in moderation.

Moderation in all things, enjoying those foods and drinks you love, in a balance, and no deprivation dieting, helps me maintain or release weight, as I choose, without ever feeling I need to binge eat or drink.

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A big filling breakfast of 30 gram of home made cereal mix of refined sugar free rolled oats, wheat bran, corn and rice flakes, with a few raisins, walnuts, served with no fat milk and no fat live culture natural unsweetened yogurt and half a banana.  Calorie value, a little over 300 calories.  
This breafast also is ideal to split into two or three smaller meals. 1./ cereal and skim milk. 2/ Banana (I eat half and share the other half with Reg. 3/ Yogurt and a few nuts.
If I am going through a time when I desire to eat frequently, I would eat this as three small meals and I do usually split this size breakfast into breakfast and morning tea, eaten when I am hungry. 

After my lunch of calcium fortified orange juice, nuts and seeds, I was putting some nuts and seeds on a plate to photograph to show what I had eaten, with the intention of giving Reg the juice and putting the nuts and seeds back in the container. Good intentions but I misplaced the container, so I ate the extra nuts and seeds, and turned a just under 300 calorie lunch a 500 calorie one, eaten 'on the go', in a blink of an eye.  That's the sort of behaviour that once made me obese. It wasn't eating junk food or bingeing, it was 'unconscious, unplanned and repetitive grazing and overeating'. 
Not exactly a binge but as I wasn't hungry, it was overeating.  No big deal, nothing to feel guilty about, I give myself permission to enjoy the small tasty snack and I just use my Observations and Corrections tool and observe that it was more nutrition that I needed right now and apply the corrections I need to ensure that this is a once off overeating, not a slide back to bad self abusive overeating habits and I simply wait until I am hungry again before I eat, which may or may not, make dinner a little later today. 
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Light Lunch 100 mils of calcium fortified, freshly squeezed orange juice with almonds and sunflower seeds. Almost 300 calories  and almost as many calories, as in the big filling breakfast above, yet not as filling, or convincing to the brain that you have eaten a meal. Easy to want to overeat on the nuts and seeds and end up having eaten more calories. Easy to pour out another glass of juice, (I have done that before today), because it is delicious, convenient, there in the fridge.
A healthy enough lunch, protien, carbohydrate and fat, plus vitamins and bone density protecting minerals, however if I had eaten a whole orange including all the fibre and some of the white pith would have been more filling,more nutritious, (assuming I added my calcium magnesium requirement as a supplement) and I might not have eaten extra nuts as my desire to chew, to enjoy the sensation of eating would have been satisfied.

I now try to plan nutritious and satisfying meals ahead of time so I do not repeat what does not work well for me.   My breakfast formula, has always worked and would be hard for me to improve on, I just vary the fruit and usually the cereal is plain, no name,  rolled oats.

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Dinner and Wine 600 calorie (the Hollandaise sause and the oils the highest calorie value items), a better slimming option would be to have added lemon for the garrnish on the fish and even skip the wine if I wanted to eat more food.
Dinner is 125 gram of fresh ocean trout, seared in a teaspoon full of ‘good oil’, in a hot non stick pan. Served with a salad of iceberg lettuce,  sun ripened full of flavour tomatoes, celery, parsley, snow peas, beetroot and cooked portabella highly flavoursome, mushroom. A dessertspoon of Hollandaise sauce is served on the side, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing on the salad and ground black pepper.

This made two meals. I ate most of the meal at 6pm and put a little aside to eat around 9pm or 10 pm if I was hungry then as I usually work through until 12 midnight.

By splitting breakfast into 3 small meals, eating lunch and then splitting dinner into a dinner and a supper, I am eating six delicious meals a day today and feeling very satisfied and still have a calorie allowance which I will usually use as 1 cup of skim milk through the day in espresso coffee in the morning and in tea in the afternoon, then I might have another cup of skim milk in the evening, as milk, rarely but occasionally as a cocoa and sometimes as a couple of cups of tea.

Snacks
This nuts and seeds I ate without thinking today, add an extra 200 calories to my energy intake today.
An extra 1 cup of skim milk today used in drinks, 2 espresso coffees in the morning and the rest in tea or as a small milk drink near bed time

Exercise and activity
I walked around Lake Dorothy and the full estate today, did some heavy digging gardening and I'll do some active, housework tonight so I will have had my quota of exercise and tomorrow is my day to do weight training at gym.
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Lake Dorothy, is on the estate where our warm weather, Northern Victoria, home and caravan is located.  Indigo our poodle, loves the large expanse of grassland and walking tracks on our property and it is a 30 minute brisque walk to the letter box, lol, :-), the joy of country living.  I love it here.

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A satisfying under 100 calorie snack or supper, I often have is hot non stick pan sizzled in one teaspoon of olive oil, mushrooms or I microwave asparagus for 2 minutes then melt one thin slice of very low fat cheese on this. Both snacks contain protein, fat and carbohydrate and are hot, filling, delicious and don't push the calorie levels for the day up very high.  Just watch the fat content in the cheese and measure the oil, the vegetables are low calorie.

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Supper.
Around 10pm a lot of work arrived in my email in box that needed to be attended to straight away, and so I made myself a healthy supper of almost 400 calories, most of those calories were in the multi grain, soy and linseed bread roll and the teaspoon of olive oil I cooked the mushrooms in.  The mushrooms, carrot and tomato were a negligible energy value.   I worked though until 2.30 am again so I needed this meal and I was able to sleep through until 10 am so I’ve caught up on sleep and feel great today, skipped breakfast and ate lunch when I was hungry at 1pm.  So my day after my big four meal day, looks like being the compensatory, fewer calorie day, that is usually the day when i need to take my calcium, magnesium zinc, and vitamin d supplement in the evening because if I skip my breakfast it is still easy to get my minimum calorie requirement but it is hard to get sufficient of those nutrients in my remaining meals.


I do not often take the time to do a food diary and check the amount of calories I am eating, but I always ‘roughly’, keep a running tally in my head of my basic nutrients for the day.  Health is of no one importance to me. I can’t achieve any of my other goals if I do not set being in the best health I can achieve, as my number one goal. 

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The basic nutrition balance of this day's food intake.
In this graph, proteins are green carbohydrates are grey and fat is orange


I eat a slightly higher proportion of protein in my diet than that recommended by Spark People, but it is recommended that seniors do have a higher protein requirement that younger more athletic people so I don’t consider ,my protein intake excessive. I am usually close to the recommended good fats intake and I do include a lot of healthy carbohydrates in my diet but slightly less than that recommended to allow for m slightly higher protein intake.

I aim for 1,500 mg of Calcium a day and I supliment if I do not meet this with my food choices.
 

Please don't fear or deprive yourself of food.

Less than three years ago I was morbidly obese, size 22 to 24. Today I am a size 12 to 14, even fit into a few size 10's.  I just controlled the portion sizes I ate, cut out the small amount of junk food I occasionally ate and said, 'just his once doesn't matter' and realized that for some people, including me, that all those, ‘just this once’, times, do matter. I also became a more active person.
I am also learning to take care of my emotional needs in ways that do not necessarily involve food.  It will always be a work in progress, never finished, like the garden, getting easier to work and even I, like that garden look heaps better for the work I've put in over the last two and 2/3 years.
  

I write this healthy life and slimming blog, not to preach at you, but to keep me motivated, informed and conscious of my actions and if I can help one person overcome an eating disorder and being stuck in a sedentary lifestyle, like i once had, then that will be the only icing on the cake J I'll ever need. :-). 

Lots of love,

Kathy xxx
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For expert nutrition advice look no further than an
Accredited Practising Dietician.

For expert information to help you eat healthier and feel better, you can find an Accredited Practicing Dietician )APD) at www.daa.asn.au, or call toll free on 1900 812 942

 


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