Sunday, August 25, 2019

I think it is easier to eat whole, nutritious foods in some other countries. In Mexico, vegetables made up a large part of food in people's homes and when we ate out. In Ireland, no growth hormones are allowed in livestock, and beef and dairy cows our grass fed for over half the year. (In the winter, some are grain fed). There's no trying to source grass Fed beef or dairy, ALL of it is grassfed. And delicious. I would buy little cartons of milk for a snack, it was soooo good. And the egg yolks were so yellow. If you eat these types of foods, I feel like your satiety signals work better, and you have a sense of being satisfied. But with highly processed food, I don't feel full, I can eat and eat. Some whole foods do take preparation, chopping, roasting etc. But I have to remind myself that when I am hungry, I can grab a pear or a peach or grapes etc if I'm really pressed for time. It doesn't take any longer to peel off the sticker and wa**** than it takes to open a bag of chips. What does take longer is keeping fresh food in the house. Seems like I'm at the store all the time. And as you pointed out Devon, time is a currency many of us lack.

Ps I love the scone. After Ireland, I've decided that there will be occasional scones with clotted cream in my life from time to time. With tea. And jam.

Peps you are so right. If you read the book "Your Money or Your Life" you learn that work is far more than an 8 hour day. There is commute time, time getting appropriate clothing and maintaining those clothes, endless errands relating to work and on and on. The book adds up the true earnings you have taking into account all this other stuff. American lifestyle is pretty toxic. Teachers totally need the summers - not long enough.

Has anyone written a book on how to live and eat like a French person? Hey Ann, you are going to France. Think about it. I so remember the small but beautifully presented portions, how every meal was a big deal around the dining room table and dining room was the largest room in the house. Lun*****luded wine - even for policemen on duty. We drove around in the car eating pastries while on the run. Not cool.

Great looking brecky Peps. Thanks for sharing recipe. Diane s

Excellent rant, Devon!

This is (mostly) why I simply couldn't find the bandwidth to care for myself most of my life -- because I was doing nothing but working like a banshee. In the industry I worked in for the last 30 years of my working life everyone else worked like crazy, too. One year during in the early 1990s I kept track of the number of hours I was at the office each week and learned that nearly 40 weeks that year I was AT THE OFFICE 100 hours or more. That meant I was doing an all-nighter every single week, sometimes two, and a few weeks I did three all-nighters in a row (no sleep for 72 hours). When I was "chilling," I was working ONLY 60-70 hours/week at the office. A normal week was 80 hours. And then there were all those other non-work work obligations that you and DianeS mentioned -- clothes, car, etc.

And I didn't even have kids to take care of! Sheesh!

Then from 2003-2016 DH and I cared for my mom (who had Alzheimer's) for the last 12.5 years of her life (8.5 years here at home with us and 4 years at nursing home). And this was going on while I was still working like a banshee and traveling on business 2-3 times a month! Those were very tough years -- and those were the years my weight got completely out of control.

My ability to improve my self care got so much better when it was just DH and me here at home.

My Five Year Surgiversary was last week, and this was the first year I have really struggled with maintenance. And I have NOT liked that about Year Five. Also, so much about my life has been forever changed by DH's death last year, so that's affected everything. All this is to say that I'm thinking hard now about my Year Six challenges and plans. Those challenges and plans involve a LOT more than managing my weight, but they all will affect it.

Big subject!

I'm with you on all of this except the dinner eating time. I am MUCH happier when I can eat dinner at 5 or 5:30 (something that you really can't do if you're working full time). But if I can eat my main meal at that time, I have no compulsion to snack after holding me until bedtime. But make me wait 7 or 8 hours between lunch and dinner and I will raid the cupboards between 4 and 6. Last night, I dug into bags of pistachios and tortilla chips (forgot about the chips when I posted this morning) because I was ravenous. Something I wouldn't have "had to" do if I could have had dinner at 5 instead. And when I'm that hungry, veggies or fruit aren't what I gravitate toward as a snack. So that one might be a "what works for one, might not work for another" thing.

I get that completely. If I am sleeping and eating naturally, my meal times are not traditional. I usually awaken between 7:30 and 8:30. I tend to eat breakfast around 10-11:00, lunch around 2:00, a post or pre workout something, and then dinner around 8 or 9. My natural bedtime is sometime between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am, sometimes as late as 1:00 am.

When I am working my meal times are much more regulated and earlier, so I HAVE TO PLAN AN AFTERNOON MEAL or I would be in the same boat as you. But like you mentioned, different strokes for different folks, I am compelled to snack after dinner no matter what time I eat dinner. I have discovered that if I eat dinner later in the evening, I have less time to snack and seem to be more satisfied with a single snack.