Focus, Focus, Focus

I'm refocusing and heading to my first support group in 3 years tonight. I've been on track with food for the last week or so, but I need the in person support. One of the success factors for maintaining weight loss is continued support group attendance so color me there. I'm swallowing my pride and taking my "never met goal butt" to get back on track. I'll let you know how it goes. Hugs, Connie

What!? What!? What!? Metabolic hunger? Eat more carbs? I learned so much at my surgeon's support group tonight and some things that address some of Reenie's issues. Metabolic Hunger - According to my surgeon, you should only eat 3 times a day. The hunger that you feel between meals is not real hunger, but metabolic hunger. Metabolic hunger is triggered when your body has boosted its metabolism and burning calories. The body wants you to replace the calories that are being burned, but this is the most efficient calorie burning period. Metabolic hunger occurs a couple of hours after a meal and feels like a deep hunger like no other. Night time between dinner and bedtime is the prime metabolic burn time and the time that metabolic hunger hits the hardest. OK, I ask, how do you tell the difference between real hunger and metabolic hunger. Real hunger happens at least 4 or 5 hours after the last meal. Your pouch will hold food for at least 4 hours unless you drink with a meal. That is unless you eat protein without a complex carb. Hunh? Mixing Protein With Complex Carbs - Protein moves through your system fairly quickly if not combined with a carb. I was shocked that people in support group were talking about eating whole wheat pancakes, pita bread, brown rice... Four years ago, I was told to avoid carbs, eat protein first, a couple of bites of veggies and then carbs only if there was any room left. What they have found is that doing it the old way causes people to get hungry faster. I almost never eat carbs with a meal and am always hungry a couple of hours later. Or is that metabolic hunger? They advise not to eat white carbs because they will cause blood sugar woes, but to make sure that you eat a complex carb every time you eat protein. It fills you up and causes the protein to work through the system slower. Well dang! Things have changed a lot since I had surgery. My surgeon gives every patient a binder with rules and info. The one I got 4 years ago is very out of date so I'm going to call the office and see if I can get another one. Hugs, Connie

WOW. Ok, I have to break this plethora of information down into manageable chunks for my fried brain. 1. Eating 3 meals a day, nothing else...what a concept! This makes really good sense in the context of the metabolic hunger theory. I would LOVE to reign myself in to three moderate meals a day, with nothing inbetween except my fluids. 2. "...and feels like a deep hunger like no other." This is what I've been experiencing for well over a year, maybe closer to the past two years. It leaves me feeling like I'm such a loser, that all I ever want to do is EAT. 3. "Night time between dinner and bedtime is...the time when metabolic hunger hits the hardest." I can honestly say that I eat very moderately and healthily during the day (except for the M&M's which I'm really trying very hard to get a handle on). My typical day of eating is a protein shake on my way to work, and lunch is either a small salad with protein, or today I had leftover stir fry tofu and veggies. This how I am usually able to manage my eating during the day (if I didn't I would have gained a whole lot more weight back by now) - but my "bad" eating comes at precisely this time, between 6-8:30 p.m., I'm grazing to beat the band - english muffin with peanut butter and jelly is a favorite nite "snack". So my question, dearest Connie, is what are we supposed to do when the metabolic hunger hits - other than eat??? 4. Complex carbs - I've been pretty good about this, I decided about a month ago that I was going to Eat Sanely. The only way I know how to stop eating out of control, is to allow myself the freedom and self-support to make good eating choices; and enjoy my food. When I do this - being of "sane" mind and good judgment - I almost always make good, healthy eating choices. I haven't eaten "white" food in a very long time, don't even like it much anymore. So, let's get on with this! Connie, let's map out a daily plan of healthy, sane eating in response to metabolic hunger!!! Let's start together tomorrow - how do we put this in gear??? Thanks so much for this! I don't feel so self-loathing anymore! Love ya HUGE, Maureen

Maureen, Like you, I make it through the day with no problems, but get between me and a snack after 7:00 or 8:00 at night and you risk losing a limb. To make matters worse, I have the worst insomnia so I'm up way later than most folks so that just leaves more time for grazing. Last night was a little easier because I was at support group and didn't eat until late. When the MH hit about 10:00, I knew it wasn't real hunger because I had eaten dinner, complete with a complex carb 2 hours before. KNOWING that I wasn't really hungry and that my body was experiencing a reaction due to an increase in metabolism helped me ride it out. Knowing that I was going to shut down fat burning if I ate something made me not feel so hungry. It all passed in about half an hour. Interestingly enough, when I woke up this morning, I wasn't hungry at all and had to force down breakfast before I went out the door. When I eat late, hunger strikes first thing in the morning. So to answer your question about what to do when MH hits, the answer that I got from Support Group was to not eat. I think the trick is to not feed the Metabolic Hunger. Drink water and ride it out. Easier said than done. Let me know if you come up with a way to do that. I unwittingly started the three meals yesterday and stuck with it just by dumb luck. I'm working on sticking to it today also. I'm going to stop at the store after work and pick up some Quinoa and fix it with chicken broth to go with my protein tonight. I'm with you on this and I'll let you know how I make out tonight. I'm going to try to stay busy and not sit down after work. If I'm busy cleaning the house and putzing around, I'll be less inclined to keep my hands busy with putting food in my mouth. I don't know about you, but when I was first researching surgery and learned about Grehlin and how we gain weight and feel hungry all the time because of that hormone, I finally stopped feeling like a failure. I feel the same way now. I didn't know not to feed the MH and have been slowing down my own metabolism without ever knowing how or why. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't lose anything no matter how little I ate or what I ate and it was because I was feeding this damned hunger. I've got hope that I haven't had in a long time. Much love, Connie

Ok...so, like.....I decided to take your advise. I had weigh****chers whole grain bread (2 slices) one egg and one slice of weigh****chers low fat cheese at about 6:45 am before I went to work. By noon, I was so crazed, I ate my half of turkey sandwich and a pickle so fast, I proceeded to dump it all in the toilet. It had to be at least a year before I dumped like that. I NEED my South Beach high protein bar at 10am. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. Was that metabolic hunger? Your guess is as good as mine..... Joanie

Maybe 5 hours is too long for you. How did you feel after 4 hours?

my god connie you discribed me with the hunger business. I hate the feeling and think i'm going to be ill if i don't eat so i eat but then get hungry another 2 or 3 hours later. i eat mostly protein. the few carbs i obsess about are minor and are obsessing is not making them be the main part of what i eat. which is PROTEIN. Now the complex carb thing i'm not good at i'll have to pick up a book today to figure out whats complex whats not. i'm sure that my pretzels aren't but it could be the ones they have at the health food store are! this is one thing about our board that i find fantastic. we support each other by reading about our everyday woes and then we also support each other with good information. thank you!

Pammie, I always learn so much from everyone here and that's why it's great to be part of this board. I forgot to say that they told us the worst thing we can do is eat when we have metabolic hunger. Metabolic hunger means we are in the process of burning fat and if we eat, we shut down the fat burning process. I've heard that some people crave this metabolic burn feeling, much like an addiction, but I just find it to be uncomfortable and have always tried to get rid of it. I know there are times I've rode it through and been no worse for the wear. I guess it's something you have to train yourself to do. I'm a little frustrated because way back when, I described this hunger to my surgeon's nutritionist and she's the one who told me to start eating more frequently to get rid of it. I'm not blaming her because they probably didn't know about metabolic burn at the time, but I might have gotten to goal if I had toughed it out. As for simple and complex carbs - We were told to stay away from all things white. White flour, sugar, potatoes, rice and even salt. Whole wheat, multi-grains and brown rice are what to look for. My brother told me to eat Quinoa instead of rice because it is very high in protein so I'm going to go find some at the health food store. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa So to sum it up... 3 meals and 3 meals only. The rule for only 3 meals is only partly to avoid grazing. The real value in only eating three meals is to make sure that you achieve metabolic burn between meals. Hugs, Connie