Be Your Own Beautiful: Advice Number 2

I love when I receive little gems of knowledge to take with me and apply to my own life.  I have been on that dreaded "diet" cycle for many years, I guess since I had my first son (15 years ago) and there has not been one prescribed diet that has worked, not ONE!! I've counted calories, I've kept food journals, I've eaten six small meals a day and had a maximum calorie intake, I've decreased my portion sizes and watch the portions that I eat, I've done the shakes, the supplements and still I've not gotten the results I have wanted.  There was a time 6 years ago where I had finally lost a lot of weight I was at the size I had wanted to be (my ideal) but I didn't get there by dieting.  I had gotten there by eating when I wanted to, and moving a lot, so when I was sitting at a Muffin Talk event in the park, and they suggested that one only eats when they are hungry and they stop when they are full.

Now this makes sense to me, and I'm not discounting those other "diet" plans, but they didn't work for me, and eating only when I was hungry and listening to my body tell me when I was full so that I would stop eating clicked in my brain.  When I was eating those 6 meals a day trying to get in x number of calories I would feel gross after some of the meals and it was so hard to eat some of the other snacks because I was full, but I'd push ahead and eat them but I would feel gross afterwards. So was eating that way really effective for me?  I don't think so and I think that's why I wasn't able to maintain that style of eating.  I think portion control and eating when you are hungry are two cornerstone rules to follow.

Here's my problem with calorie focused diets.  To lose weight the science basically says that the calorie input must be less than the calorie output. Plain and simple math and science. If the amount of calories you eat are greater than the calories you burn through activity then you will gain weight, if its reversed you will lose weight. Makes sense right? So if you are on a caloric intake diet of let's say 2000 calories a day, but you don't work out that day and you basically sat at a desk all day and maybe burned 1000 calories (these numbers are not accurate as to what one would do in a day, I'm just picking easy to subtract numbers) then what happens to the other 1000 calories?? Well  your body stores it, and it can turn to fat or whatever it is that happens in the body to excess calories.  And on the flip side, what does your body do with a deficit of calories, because you only eat 2000 calories a day but you had a hard work out and a run today so you burned more than 2000 calories, well this is a good thing, it burns fat!! Which is what you want, but if you only do this two or three days a week, you aren't burning your extra fat you started with you are burning the extra calories you ingest during the week. so you aren't getting anywhere.  If you are working out religiously every day or more days a week then you are not a calorie diet is probably effective, it wasn't for me and this words are just my opinions.

So now I eat when I am hungry. Somedays I hardly eat anything (right now that I am breastfeeding I will eat without being hungry but I won't eat huge meals, it's about portion control and I can always eat more later) these are especially true on hot days and days when I am not doing much more than cooking small meals for the boys and crafts.  Days when I am running at the park or walking lots or even doing my workouts I will eat more.  It makes sense.

So now that is my new game plan, Eat when I am hungry and listen to my body's cue for when I am full. Simple, I can incorporate my smoothies and protein shakes, I can eat high protein, low carb meals, and do my indulgent days as they come up.  It's been three weeks since Theo was born and I'm down 5 pounds and I am completely happy with that, it's getting so that my maternity clothes aren't fitting better than my regular clothes, yeah to progress, no matter how slow!!