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Old Mon, Feb-20-17, 14:15
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CMCM CMCM is offline
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Posts: 4,264
 
Plan: Keto / Atkins VLC
Stats: 173/148.6/135 Female 5'6"
BF:23.9
Progress: 64%
Location: N. Calif. Sierra Nevadas
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One good thing is to know yourself, know your body, know your triggers. I'm an emotional eater, but what helps with with that end of things is to eat in a way that I get strongly into ketosis. I do that by eating more or less according to Atkins '72 the first book, because while that version is more restrictive than later versions, it's a great way to plunge back into serious low carb eating (especially after a "relapse" when you've been loading up on carbs). After a period of time (sometimes for me, that would be several weeks) I ease up slightly and move into DANDR. The advantage of Atkins 72 and getting into ketosis is that your cravings for junk pretty much disappear very fast (3 days max for me), and that makes it so I don't emotionally crave the junk. I just don't want sugar at that point, I don't think about it. My appetite is also greatly reduced, and overall, thoughts of food (and goodies) aren't always dancing around in my head.

I don't think I will ever be able to work my way up the Atkins food "ladder" because one thing I have learned about myself is that at my age, I simply **cannot** eat many carbs or I will start to gain weight and cravings will come roaring back too strongly to resist. This is just a fact of my life and my body, and I finally accept it and always try to make peace with it. I can't eat like I ate in my 20s and 30s and 40s any more, when I could eat a lot of stuff and a lot of carbs and not gain too much or too fast. I have to be very mindful of what I choose to eat if I want to lose weight and stay slim. This is a choice I have to make, but it helps to accept it and not fight it.

Most of the time, what works for me is to eat what most people might consider a rather limited and boring diet. I keep it simple, limited and relatively boring because I always know what to eat and what works for me. Eggs and bacon for breakfast, every day. Sometimes no breakfast. I'm a person who likes no more than 2 meals a day, so I've found I don't really like to eat lunch any more because I'm just not hungry at lunch. Or I might skip breakfast and eat breakfast at lunch time. Second meal is an early dinner (4:30-5 pm). Meat and salad or veggie. Lots of water to drink, also green teas that have lemon or some such in them so they taste great without sugar (I hate plain green tea). Sometimes as a treat a small cappuccino made with cream. Occasional SF jello with a bit of whipped cream on top as a treat. This kind of eating usually keeps carbs at 5-10g per day, and I've also observed that I lose weight best at this particular level. I don't ever have to worry about overeating when I eat this way, so calories are never a worry, I don't think about calories.

Over years of experimentation, with both failure and success at weight loss, I finally realized that focusing on a huge variety of fancy recipes to mimic my "old" eating patterns was actually a huge problem. It just kept me in the wrong place mentally, and food was too big a thing in my life, I had to think about it all the time. I had trouble keeping carbs under 20g doing that, too. I don't want to be food obsessed, whether it's the bad stuff or whether it's Atkins. Simplify, simplify. Keep it simple, that works best for me and helps me live a saner life.
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