Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Slow-carb, low-carb, no-carb

All this talk about restricting starchy carbs JUST MAKES ME WANT TO EAT THEM!

© Debora J. McNeer
I'm totally jonesing for a big hunk of homemade bread dripping with butter. And marmalade.

Paleo plans are all over the internets these days. I even got a message from my former son-in-law yesterday suggesting I try the Four Hour Body plan, not paleo but definitely carb-restricting. (He and I have had many conversations about weight-loss struggles over the years, so he was trying to be helpful and supportive.) He has apparently done well with it. I'm not linking, if you're curious you'll find lots of information with a Google search.

One of the common threads in the plans I've been looking at lately is including a cheat day, a day off from whatever the plan is (another one I've checked out is called Game On). The theory is that a free-for-all day keeps your metabolism revved up, tricking your body into thinking you're not really on a diet. Because you just ate a … whatever your particular food porn is.

My daily weight checks this week are increasingly discouraging. Because they're increasing. I'm ready to cut off an arm to lose weight.

Yesterday's luncheon at the Governor's mansion consisted of tuna, chicken or egg salad on a flaky croissant; some kind of warm pasta dish (the pasta was decidedly not whole grain); mayonnaise-y cole slaw; potato salad, and red velvet cake. I ate very little, but I had to eat something. I'd been on the road for two hours and then in meetings for another three.

And, of course, I made up for the crappy food I ate during the day by overeating last night when I got home. I just. couldn't. get. enough. It was one of those nights where I simply wanted to eat and eat and eat.

I hate when that happens.

It's good that there's not much here that's bad to eat. You can't eat what you don't have and I'm certainly not going to drive 12 miles to the nearest market to get the food porn of my choice.

But overeating good stuff isn't good either.

So. Have I parted company with South Beach? No, not really, although my food log certainly looks like I have. I'm beginning to think that having these rules is probably hindering my progress. I do tend to throw up my hands when I can't (because meals are out of my control) follow the plan.

It was just two days ago that I wrote I needed to reboot, reset, renew my resolve. Here I am feeling the same way, with literally nothing to hang my hat on in between. Oh, and today? A funeral and a reception following it with food lovingly prepared and served by members of the departed's church. I suppose I could skip it, but my mother-in-law won't want to leave.

So there you go. Another downer of a post about how hard it is to stick to a plan when life happens. Life has been happening in a big way lately – family issues and illnesses, travel, work. Maybe instead of a reset button I should just lock myself in a tower and have my food delivered.

I hear Jillian has launched a meal-delivery plan …

3 comments:

lyndagrace said...

During my son's illness I dropped 25 lbs, seemingly overnight. I went from wearing a size 12 to a size 4.
I wonder why it is so easy to lose lots of weight when under extreme stress, but the minute things calm down, those lbs start to creep up one by one.
That's what is happening to me now. I make a daily promise, to drink more water, cut out the white, and exercise every day. At the end of the day, I make the same promise for tomorrow. Frustrating.

Perhaps it is time for you to change things up. But not time for you to give up!

gingerzingi said...

Yep, been there done that. As soon as I try to institute a food restriction, I become obsessed.

My success with the paleo eating is probably due to trying the 30-day trial. I forget what they call it exactly, but the idea is that if you can gird your loins and suck it up for a month, you'll find that you actually feel better and no longer crave sugars and empty carbs.

It worked great for me, I felt better in much less than a month, and the next thing I knew MONTHS had gone by and I didn't feel restricted for a moment. But it's still difficult when I have to eat someone else's food, because like your governor's meal, it's all starchy carbs. I don't want to be a jerk to my friends when they've gone to the trouble of preparing food, but too many episodes like that and I feel completely off track.

That's one way blogging helps me, when I read back and see what REALLY happened, I'll find that I've been off plan for all of a day and a half, and not the weeks that it seems inside my head.

Good luck finding your balance - apparently you and I don't get to coast through anything :)

denise said...

I'm with you - the more I shouldn't have something, the more likely I am to become obsessed with it and then over-indulge when I do get my hands on it. Best of luck in getting back on track - or maybe flipping the switch to change onto another track - in the end, it doesn't matter which track you're on as long as you're moving in the right direction towards the desired destination!

This reminds me that I need to pull out the copy of "The Carb Lover's Diet" that I bought...well probably a year or more ago and haven't even cracked open. I don't think I could deal with South Beach - I'm a total carb hound.

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