02/25/19, Monday

Did you see the guy with the velvet ball gown tuxedo? Quite something!

You mean the floor length velvet bathrobe tux? Yeah, looked like something Hugh Hefner would wear! LOL

Nope. I don't think Hugh would wear this one!

More like a Scarlet O'Hara widow's dress. The one I saw was like a bathrobe to the floor but not full. Geez

All I can say is OMG!

I agree on Glenn Close' dress! SIL liked it, but it seemed like too much with the capey part and long sleeves. Helen Mirren looked so much better in a dress that well suited those in the older age group.

It always amazes me how some of the young ladies can even wear the really awful dresses! Especially when they see others in super flattering ones.

Weight down another pound today. Recovery is slow going this time around. I am eating two hard boiled eggs with salt at the moment. I was feeling like I wanted to go on a sugar hunt. Hard boiled eggs really fill me up, so 140 calories for two eggs is well worth it to keep me off the sugar.

I had a weekend of my insides not matching my outside. It is always shocking to me when I am acutely aware at how my outward appearance does not match my inner feelings about my strength and body. But I march on and continue to be delighted in my fitness - even if my body is currently carrying a layer of fluff!

I like this Keto Quickstart book. I really like her approach that KETO is not the only way to lose weight or be healthy. I also like that she understands that Ketosis, keto-adaptive, and fat-adaptive are all different physical states of being. I am not at the point where I am ready to go KETO, but I am doing my very level best to get off the sugar train.

Immediately post VSG I found limiting myself to 20-30 carbs per day difficult. Now I'm afraid that would be even more difficult, but at this point given my addictive nature, it might be good for me at least make an effort to get below 40 or 50 carbs per day. Keto programs seem to aim for 30 or fewer carbs per day.

My brother tries to live a ketogenic lifestyle because of his type 2 diabetes and being SMO. He has lost 40 pounds in the past year by following a basic keto plan. He has not really been watching calories or exercising, just eating keto. I think that's why it's taking him quite a while to lose weight. But, he's happy with his progress and that's what matters.

Shel is right, I do have some angst about trying to eat 3 meals per day and getting enough nutrition in those three meals. I know I can do it in four, but 3 is really pushing it for me given my sleeve. My sleeve is larger than most and it is long. I can just imagine what people who have smaller sleeves have to manage. I remember my surgeon telling me he wanted me to be able to eventually eat somewhat normally. I do wish he had more of a Dr. C philosophy about the smaller the better in the long term. However, I do have a good tool and when I use it to its full advantage, it does work well. I have to remember that no matter what I have to deal with my disordered eating patterns, if I truly want to be in control of my weight.

Isn't this an intriguing truth: Every one of us has the ability to choose a weight, achieve it and maintain it? Chew on that!

I found the Oscars interesting last night in that the awards were all over the place. Neither here nor there, but I am always interested in what the academy's reasoning is when a best director award and best picture award do not match. I remember being baffled that Prince of Tides was nominated for Best Picture, but Streisand was not nominated for best director. Like, did the movie direct itself? LOL.... anyway, just entertaining musings about things that don't really matter.

Does the keto book encourage you to only eat 3 times per day?

This has always been a struggle of mine, especially post vsg. I've always been a snacker, but now I rationalize it as wanting to keep my sleeve smaller. I believe that to a certain extent. And especially if I'm eating healthier foods, then it's hard to eat small portions and get in enough calories on maintenance.

HOWEVER, snacking is definitely where I lose (the battle...not the weight). I never eat as healthily at snacks as meals. Plus, it's a runaway train. I often have multiple snacks. Like I don't even recognize them as snacks, more "after meal hours eating." If I could simply cut out snacking I think I'd be set.

Or would I? Would I stretch out my sleeve? Could I even physically do it?

Snacking is an interesting phenomenon. Many cultures do not snack at all. When I went to elementary school we did not have snack breaks mid morning. Today I don't know a school that DOESN'T have a snack or nutrition break sometime around 10 or 10:30 am. I know that most of my students eat immediately after school when they get home around 3 pm and then have dinner between 6 and 7. Most of my students are in bed by 8 or 8:30. I think this eating schedule transfers over into adulthood for most people even though they no longer need the additional intake as adults. We simply get used to eating every few hours. Also, because we tend to snack on high carbohydrate foods our blood sugars spike and fall with regularity, which also causes us to want to eat to even out our blood sugar ebbs and flows.

You are younger than the students I had when I first started teaching, so I'm guessing you fall into the kids that snacked regularly growing up category. I did not. My snacking began much later in life. Probably in my late teens. However, I still had eating issues very early on. They just didn't include scheduled snacks. LOL!

The Keto book has not yet suggested 3 meals a day, but I have not yet gotten to the meal planning stage of the book. Cecily will be able to better answer that right now. However, she does mention that even in KETO eating to lose fat and weight one needs to create a calorie deficit. Eating KETO alone is not enough to lose weight. It seems she does believe in tracking what is eaten, monitoring both macro nutrients and calories.

I personally know I do not HAVE to eat more than 3 or 4 times per day. I am most comfortable with 4 times per day when I am highly structured. If I am unstructured, I am a quite proficient grazer. The more I know of myself in relation to refined carbs and sugar, the more I am able to admit, accept, and, I hope, someday soon to embrace wholly that I have a pretty significant problem (at an addictive level) with high sugar foodstuffs.

We often associate addiction with such negative connotations that we shy away in shame from the term. However, I think in my case it is well suited to use the word addictive. You'll see what I mean by the following definitions that I believe describe addictive well:

1. causing a strong and harmful need to regularly have or do something

• highly addictive drugs like crack and heroin (or in my case, sugar)

2. very enjoyable in a way that makes you want to do or have something again (Binge eating, or the inability to stop eating something even when you know you should stop, perhaps?)

So, if I look at those definitions of an addictive substance, they fit very well for sugar in my individual case. I know that eating sugar is harmful for me because I have trouble stopping eating it when I start, BUT I continue to eat it with that knowledge. All that to say that I think snacking in our particular American culture and the advent of highly processed and convenient foods have made snacking a sometimes dangerous and harmful past time today for specific groups of people. I am one of those people. You mentioned eating snacks that are not as healthy as your meals are. That gave me pause to consider the role of snacks and how we use them in our culture.

So, yeah, I went off a bit... Hope you don't mind. Your comment struck a cord, and I guess I simply needed to work it out for myself because I am having my own issues with "snacking".
XO!

We had no snacks in grade school. I think milk in kindergarten. And I went to what they called nursery school then where we had fruit. At our pottery, the little kids classes are offered organic lemonade.

Of course, in grade school I used to sneak m and m's in my desk and surreptitiously eat them. Just because we were not supposed to. D