Health for life

Hi,

It is late Sunday night and I wanted to share about yesterdays cheat meal and the later body reactions I observed and recorded.

First I want to explain the purpose of the cheat meal on my veggies and protein diet which is, essentially, a low-carb program.  (Im not going to get technical -- because at the moment I cant find the original sources I read on these ideas. Sorry. When I find them, Ill post and share them. For now, this is what I remember about it and what Im basing my program on.)

The best explanation Ive heard, and the reason I wanted to try it, was a description of the progress of a person on a normal low-carb diet which often follows a pattern similar to this:

Week one -- six-pound weight loss (oh happy day -- all is well and Im feeling very successful)
Week two -- three-pound weight loss (still happy)
Week three -- one pound loss, happy to still be losing but wishing it were more
Week four -- half pound loss, happy to still be losing but getting a little frustrated at doing all the right stuff and only losing half a pound
Week five -- no weight loss, but hey, you did not put any on, so that is good (trying to remain optimistic about still doing all the right stuff and seeing no results.)
Week six -- one pound gain -- and you were good all week long -- what gives?
A few weeks of no weight loss and then some weight gain and, man, this is getting harder and harder -- Im doing everything right and not losing any weight -- so whats the use?
Binge

OK, you get the picture and if youve ever dieted you know exactly what Im talking about. The information I read said that the diet itself is the culprit because what is happening is your metabolism is actually slowing down which slows down the weight loss. Your body has perfectly adjusted to what you are feeding it and it has gone into "starvation mode" meaning it is not giving up any more weight, no matter what. What the once-a-week, hour-long, cheat meal does is rev up your metabolism again, so that you dont hit plateaus, but continue to lose pounds each week. The cheat meal actually fools your metabolism and takes you out of "starvation mode" so you can continue to lose weight. At least that is the theory that Im testing.

I have first-hand experience in knowing that carbs are what I call "cumulative." It takes a while to totally remove or deplete them and their effects from my body.  It takes three days for the cravings to stop, because it takes that long for the body to adjust to a lower amount of carb intake. It takes about three days for edema to disappear. It takes six days for the pain levels to reduce. Excess carbs, which produce excess sugar in the blood and excess fat to be stored in the body, which also causes inflammation and pain are still affecting the body for six more days.

All this is evidence that excess carbs are stored in the body. Notice Im talking about "excess" carbs here. The body uses a normal amount of carbs to keep us going, to keep us feeling good (comfort food), and they are necessary for certain processes in the body but excess carbs are ultimately stored as fat in the body. The Diabetic or Pre-Diabetic person has a body that no longer functions quite properly in relation to excess carbs. It has gotten worn out and is in the process of being completely overwhelmed by sugar and trying to deal with it. It is very slowly shutting down and the medical profession calls this "diabetes."

So, for these reasons, I believe the cheat meal, replenishes just enough carbs for our bodies and brains to function properly (stay healthy) without adding too much which causes both inflammation, cravings, edema, and weight gain.

The reason for the one-hour time limit on the once a week cheat meal is that when you first start to eat, even when your mouth starts watering, your body sends out an insulin release to prepare for the onslaught. Insulin is called the "hunger hormone" because it makes you feel hungry. If you eat your meal in under an hour that initial response is the only insulin release your body sends out and you experience a normal amount of hunger.

But, if you eat (or even sample something) at from 65 to 75 minutes later, your body sends out another insulin dose -- and you get hungry again which leads to a great deal of over eating. So if you limit the time period to one hour (60 minutes) you dont get that "hungry again" reaction -- and you keep your blood insulin levels lower -- which keeps your inflammation (and pain) response smaller. (Think about Thanksgiving and how you could not believe you were still eating after the meal. All you had to do was have one cookie and you were off again and eating more of everything. This was the meal after the meal. That occurred as a result of the second insulin release. If you had simply not sampled that cookie past the one-hour time limit, you would not have wanted any more food.)

There are also psychological purposes behind the cheat meal -- if you know that every week you will have one real opportunity to "go crazy" on your favorite food for an hour you wont feel so "deprived." Oddly enough that feeling of diet deprivation can lead to resentment and rebellion -- at least in me. Having that one-hour long cheat meal, once every seven days means that I dont have to give up everything I love! I can have my cake and eat it -- as long as it is only once a week. If I am not rebelling against my own diet... if I am not in resentment.... I am more likely to stay on the program the other six days. And that also is why Im trying out the cheat meal approach.

So now. Ive had my first cheat meal and wanted to record the observable reactions of my body and psyche -- just for the record.

What I did was go to a Chinese buffet with my cousin Julianna at about two p.m. and purposefully pig out on all the things that I normally avoid and the first reaction I had to this experience was a feeling of freedom and relief. It was almost exciting to know that I could eat anything on the buffet that I wanted without restrictions. It was like being let loose in a candy store. LOL.

I was actually a little timid as I wandered the aisles with my empty plate. First, I very caully chose one spoonful of fried rice, a couple of small pinches of angel hair rice noodles, and a few of their stir fried potatoes. I also had a little chicken and broccoli. Then I took an almond or "finger-nail" cookie. It was a bit strange to not be in a state of rebellion, but in a state of obedience, while I did this. It was kind of nice, really. As I ate my plate of food I savored the textures and the flavors. They had a new item, chicken pie, which reminded me of chicken pot pie, but it was in small wedges rather than a round bowl shape and I really liked it. Then since the hour was not up... I had a second plate of food.

By the end of the second plate I was beginning to feel absolutely stuffed to the gills. That is when I remembered that I dont really like that kind of "stuffed" feeling. It feels almost bloated and stiff or nearly painful, but not quite. I always feel like the food is somehow expanding in my stomach and making me feel uncomfortable. Then I had ice cream and cookies for dessert.

When I mentioned that I could "feel my heart beating," Julianna did not seem to understand what I was saying. I meant that after gorging on all that high carb food my body was reacting and I could feel the slow, pump, pump, pump of my heart as I secretly wondered if I had gone too far. Since she did not have a point of erence, I just changed the subject.

When I got home, I had to sit in my chair with my feet up and rest. After about twenty minutes the heart pumping disappeared and I felt a little better -- especially after I had burped a really loud one. I laughed and challenged Julianna to beat that one. Her reply was that a lady does not do such things. That gave me pause, so I asked her if she had just told me I was not a lady, and reproved her for talking to her elderly cousin that way. We both had a good laugh!!

At about 7:30 Julianna said she was hungry so I offered to cook one of the steaks I had originally planned for our get together along with a bowl of salad -- but I was way not ready to eat anything, yet.

At a little after 8 p.m. I also got a little hungry so I had a large sausage patty and that was it. I could not face a whole steak, yet, and did not want any salad -- so I just smothered the sausage in spicy brown mustard and ate that.

This morning my blood sugar was 109 but my blood pressure was a little high at 166/83. I ate properly today and had no cravings. That was what I wanted to find out the most. Would that crazy cheat meal put me into craving mode. It did not. Not even a little bit. So far. So good.

I dont want to start applying more restrictions to the cheat meal but I think it would be wiser if I did not go quite so far over board next Saturday. I am wondering if I should cook my own cheat meal next week -- but Im afraid of having left overs in the house. I will decide when the time is nearer if I will once again go out, or if I will make something myself. Oh well. That decision is for another time.

Anyway. I think this might work really well. I had lost five pounds before the cheat meal, and I put on two pounds this morning -- but my ankles were not swollen even a little bit this morning. So I will record my daily weights this week and see what happens.

Hope you are doing well and walking your chosen path with hope in your heart.

Be back soon,

Marcia

It thought the fundamental purpose of teachers was to teach. Yet, when it considers that the hours that a child spends in school is an opportunity to catch problems that may be missed by parents and docs alike, the idea that schools can be a first line of defense in the early detection of mental illness has some merit.

 For your consideration when youre grappling with your local school taxes:

Tim is the son of Paul Gionfriddo, who is a former Connecticut politician and current mental health advocate.  As the parent of a child with schizophrenia, he knows what hes writing about.

When Mr. Gionfriddo was starting out as a legislator, he was only just becoming aware of Tims difficulties in school. What followed was heartbreaking tale of inflexible school officials arranging for the wrong evaluations, wrong diagnoses, inadequate care and wasted attempts to help a deeply troubled child. Teachers were unable to cope, the parents were often blamed and Tim got shuffled around an unresponsive school system.  Despite "good" insurance, coverage fell short and many services involved onerous co-pays and limitations. And once he reached adulthood, an unwillingness to accept services moved Tim to the margins of society, leading to repeated hospitalizations and incarcerations. He now lives in squalor somewhere in San Francisco.

Tims story is not unique. According to Mr. Gionfriddo, a well meaning policy that moved hundreds of thousands of mentally ill out of decaying inpatient psychiatric hospitals in the 1980s was followed by

1) schools being unable to handle children with mental illness,

2) underfunding of community agencies, and

3) the siloing of the resources that did exist, resulting in little collaboration among physicians, law enforcement, community services or the mental health community.

Among Mr. Gionfriddos recommendations?  In addition to better screening by pediatricians during the well child visit, insurance orm and better housing options, state legislators should support the following:
 
1. The U.S. public school system should be prepared to offer mental health services in addition to basic education;

2. Every teacher should receive training in recognizing mental illness and how to handle it;

4. Once mental illness is  discovered, meaningful support should be included in a childs individualized education planning.

Image from Wikipedia

Hi,

It has been a week since I last fasted and I am preparing for another one to begin today at 5 p.m. I have been really excited about the results of that one 24-hour fast. My weight has been trending downward each day to a total lost for the week of 1.5 pounds. Not earth shattering, but, after what had been happening in the weeks leading up to it, I consider the fast a total freaking success. What a pleasure it was to wake up to a smaller number on all but one morning. I was not really expecting that!

The one major noticeable result is still the edema which did not begin to resume until about three days later. When it did come back it also remained much smaller, too. It has only been in the last two days that it appears to have begun to swell to almost (not quite) my pre-fast condition, again. I am hoping that starting at a slightly less swollen state will make my post-second-fast ankle size even smaller.

Looking at my food journal I see that I ended the first fast with a large bowl of curried chicken to which I added one nine-ounce package of angel hair Konjac shirataki noodles. I still remember the experience. I had a real feeling of true pleasure when I simply held the warm bowl of noodles in my hand and sniffed the scent of the curry and chicken. That was at about 5 p.m. At 8 p.m. I put half of a pound of hamburger in the convection oven, then ate it with spicy brown mustard. At about 8:30 I got hungry again and had 3 scrambled eggs. The next morning I had lost 1/4 of a pound!!

For the next three days I noticed I was satisfied with smaller meals and enjoyed the actual feeling of my tummy telling me, "I cant eat another bite" after having eaten much smaller amounts than usual. That was a nice change from the usual lusting for food. It was an actual eye-opener for me. I saw that my body can act in a normal way around food when the addiction is turned off. It seems that the fast turned the addiction off for a space of time.

During the week I wanted to stick to the snack/meal/snack program but was mentally a little lax since I had done the 24-hour fast and knew that the "Eat Stop Eat" program does not include extremely rigid diet rules during the rest of the time but strongly suggests being "sensible" -- and we all know what that means.

I have noticed that my snack size is now creeping to a little larger than a true snack size, but it is still smaller than a meal. To keep myself on track without getting fanatic I began to measure with the bowls I serve my snacks and meals in. The snack bowl is about a cup smaller than the meal bowl, and I use the two sizes to gauge how much food I am eating at a sitting because on about day four my "familiar" eating habits wanted to surge back, again.

Yesterday I even had an additional snack in the evening but made it purely raw vegetables. I cut up a bowl of raw broccoli, added a few grape tomatoes and put dressing and seasonings on it. Afterwards, I still felt hungry so I had an avocado after which I ate a teaspoon of coconut oil. The high oil content of the avocado and the CO seemed to quench the desire for more food.

My final observation yesterday was to realize that I am, after all, doing more of small meal/medium sized meal/small meal. So the meal is not as large as before, but the snacks are not as small. Over all I lost weight. I am happy with that so feel as though I am moving along successfully. I can see the goal ahead of me.

Be back soon,

Marcia