Life puts hurdles in front of you: ice cream, home baked cookies, gift packages of divine seasonal sugary treats from well-meaning friends. Even if you work from home the seasonal threats are abundant.
This past Holiday season was the roughest in recent memory. I ate everything in sight. I binged on bagels every day for nearly a week. The cookies, cakes, and pies found their way into my mouth. The sheer quantity of food was my downfall. I put on the pounds and topped the scale at 202 pounds. Time to get back to my normal routine. I’m getting back to my usual habit of eating only when hungry. Avoid sweets. Shrink portions.
Journal entry 10 Years Ago
I was searching my journal on a different topic and found something I wrote 10 years ago. Back then despite eating healthy foods I continued to struggle with my weight. It was the Holiday season. I binged. Then I binged some more. Thankfully I’ve learned a lot since then like how diets really work. Source: Dr. Anthony Pearson.
In my last post Trouble in Paradise (it’s Weight Gain Season) I posted this picture of our dessert board on Turkey Day. It’s how I gained three pounds in three days. The cheese and crackers didn’t help. Nor did #10 twice.
Update and Threat Assessment
The three pounds gained were lost but it took two weeks.
I removed the beer from the house which was purchased for entertaining company.
Yes, I drank the beer.
M&M’s spelled correctly is TROUBLE.
Two pieces of pumpkin pie are in the freezer. This is OK because pumpkin is a vegetable (botanically a fruit so still OK).
Ice cream, normally not in the house but it is and calls my name every night.
COOKIES.
The Boss came back from a cookie exchange with the neighbors with several dozen dangerous tiny bites.
“Competition puts hurdles in front of you that you have to clear.”
OKC Thunder coach Mark Daigneault
Life puts hurdles in front of you that you have to clear. Like Thanksgiving. TGTIO (Thank God Thanksgiving is Over). We were out of town for only three days. I gained three pounds. I’m not good at math but I think this equates to one pound per day. YIKES. There’s 35 days until the first day of the New Year. At this pace I’ll weigh 208 pounds…
But I am not alone. This chart is attributed to the New England Journal of Medicine but I could never find the original source article.
As the years pass I get better at understanding why I put the pounds on. This was our dessert board on Turkey Day.
I can’t get Tex-Mex in Oklahoma. So when in Texas I need Tex-Mex. At one of my favorite Tex-Mex stops I discovered a new favorite, the #10.
The numbers above are calories, fat calories, and fat in grams. 2950 mg of sodium too (the original chart has more nutrition information).
We ate Tex-Mex Wednesday and Friday, the perfect bookends to Thanksgiving.
I had #10 twice.
Take Home Lesson
Salt, sugar, fat and excess calories. Taking and/or keeping the weight off is simple when you reduce intake of these four items.
Restaurant meals will kill you. Literally.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with every now and then so long as it’s every now and then.
My skinny jeans fit fine. I’ll get back to my usual routine and diet and the three pounds should come off and I’m good until the next hurdle. Until then I’ll wear my black t-shirts because dark colors make you look thinner.
In an editorial in Obesity, Corkey discusses the many different theories explaining why obesity continues to increase despite best efforts at controlling weight gain in this environment, including increased availability and marketing of high-calorie and high-glycemic-index foods and drinks, larger food portions, leisure time physical activities being replaced with sedentary activities such as watching television and use of electronic devices, inadequate sleep, and the use of medications that increase weight.
According to Corkey, all of these purported explanations assume an environmental cause that is detrimental to the organism involved, (humans).
Boston University School of Medicine. “Finding the solution to obesity: Culinary medicine, emerging evidence-based field, ID’d as early intervention.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221102115527.htm (accessed November 3, 2022)
Diseases related to obesity correlate with both the extent and duration of obesity. This suggests that diseases related to obesity will also increase more rapidly owing to the younger onset and more severe forms of the disease.
Barbara E. Corkey, Caroline M. Apovian. “En attendant Godot”: Waiting for the answer to obesity and longevity. Obesity, 2022; 30 (11): 2105 DOI: 10.1002/oby.23462
I have a growing sense of urgency to finish writing my future best seller.
I just have to figure out how to describe what I know in language simple enough for everyone to understand.
“Some of the best evidence for the role of exercise in maintaining weight loss comes from the National Weight Control Registry, an online group of over ten thousand men and women who have lost at least thirty pounds and kept it off for at least a year. These folks defy the cynical view that meaningful, sustainable weight loss is impossible. The average Registry member has lost over sixty pounds and kept it off for more than four years. They are truly exceptional…Nearly all of them (98 percent) report changing their diet to lose weight, which makes sense given how diet can affect the reward and satiety systems in our brain and impact how much we eat.”
A 2022 study review from Japanese researchers linked “muscle-strengthening activities” to a 15% lower risk of dying. Resistance exercise was also linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (17%), cancer (12%), and diabetes (17%)…
For longevity, strength training seems to be especially effective for older adults, says Tufts University professor Roger Fielding, PhD, who’s been studying the role of exercise in the aging process since the early 1990s…
The maximum longevity benefit comes from one or two resistance exercise sessions a week totaling 30 to 60 minutes.
I got motivated. I changed my morning coffee routine to include a few minutes of resistance work. My habit of going to the Y for resistance work ended shortly after Covid hit our shores. Since then I’ve accumulated some free weights and a couple of resistance bands. I used to have a smaller band that snapped during an exercise session and no it didn’t hurt (much). Recently I bought some ankle weights for my soon to be copyrighted Old Man Chair Leg Lift routine. Now I can replicate all of the exercises I used to do at the gym. With the convenience of working from home and not having to get out to the Y hopefully I can maintain this new routine and turn it into a habit.
Of course I converted “one or two resistance exercise sessions a week totaling 30 to 60 minutes” to 12 minutes a day, five days a week.
Boom.
Remember it’s not just about diet and BMI. But since you asked…
Still 200 pounds less than my max.
It’s a three day weekend. Maybe I’ll work on my Future Best Seller.
Here is another post in my world famous Beans for Breakfast AND Electronic Sticky Note series. Honestly, I’m just surfing the Internet looking for bean recipes to make when the temperature outside will be 106 degrees F and I don’t want HOT beans. Note for new visitors to this blog:
I do eat beans for breakfast on occasion and
An electronic sticky note is a Memo to Self with links to websites for recipes to try as I expand my bean recipe repertoire.
The primary reason for weight regain is biology. The brain defends against weight loss because of an old biological play book. If our ancestors lost weight, it was not to look good for a wedding or because of bathing suit season. Back then, weight loss was either because of illness or an interrupted food supply. Simply put, defending against weight loss was defending against death.
This is another post in my world famous Beans for Breakfast series.
I post links like this to remind readers no one can possibly teach you everything. There is a ton of information on the internet to research and read to improve your food and nutrition knowledge. But you have to take the time and be motivated to find solid, good information. Avoiding fad diets would be a good thing too.
The study, published online in JAMA Internal Medicine by Dylan A. Lowe, PhD, also of UCSF, involved 116 participants who were randomized to a 12-week regimen of either three structured meals per day or time-restricted eating, with instructions to eat only between 12:00 pm and 8:00 pm and to completely abstain from eating at other times.
garyskitchen.net 