Recently I have been inspired to try an experiment, where I
lower my carbs and
increase my calories from fatty meats to see if this will allow me to maintain weight, reduce body fat and increase muscle without focusing so much on calorie restriction. I feel like my metabolism is slow, and my health is not ideal in certain ways. I think the restriction on food to suppress my weight combined with too high carbs might be behind it. SO I'm trying something new: higher ("unrestricted") cals and lower carbs. I figure the worst that could happen is I gain a little weight and get in a over eating cycle, neither of which are so traumatically bad considering my present weight is below my "range" of 115-120.
This is going somewhere I promise
.
At first everything is okay, but eventually when I attempt to let myself eat "whatever" even of low carb food, it feels so scary and out of control.
Every time I attempt to really really convince myself in my mind that food is not going to "hurt me"... I invariably wind up just wanting to eat everything I see. Once I really make a part of myself believe it is "okay" to eat, I feel like I lose control of myself and I eat too much and feel too full. Right now I am only eating this way with meat (and low carb veggies) so it's not so bad since that is self limiting. But I know the mindset, once I start thinking like this it is only a hop and a skip away from binging.
This feeling of being less in control of what I am eating makes me feel really bad about myself and I feel like I am gaining weight. I am still counting calories (trying to but it is difficult when you eat before you weigh stuff) and my calories are not excessively high... although they are much higher than they are when I am controlling myself by "forbidding food".
1) Is this normal to get like this after restricting calories? I know I have been restricting myself so some kind of (hopefully temporary) over eating response is expected, but I am so terrified of what could happen that it makes me just want to forget this. If I had some kind of assurance that eventually this behavior would stop , I would feel a lot more motivated to suffer out this discomfort of feeling out of control.
2) Do
other maintainers maintain their weight by feeling totally in control of what and how much they eat? Maybe this "thing" I keep trying to get rid of is actually just part of weight loss and I need to accept it. It might very well be possible that I can't be thin without always having a voice there telling me not to eat stuff (even LC food). :/ That would suck, but if I knew it was normal and part of the process I would at least be forced to face reality and either accept it or gain weight... instead of kidding myself and trying to do the impossible (maintain weight without consciously under eating all the time)
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3) Is it possible I'm really NOT losing control, and this IS normal eating? Perhaps the only thing abnormal about my eating is how I feel about it. I do recognize my perceptions could be really screwed up, and the way and amount my body is eating is actually normal (not excessive or obesity inducing). My calorie levels are never higher than 1800, even if we assume I am under counting by a margin of over 10% (I try to overestimate).
Then again, I DO feel very very full right now... sluggish and overfed. That I feel so sluggish and overfed and still kinda want more food is what bothers me the most.
4) Yet on a third invisible hand
maybe my body wants me to over eat, so, I shouldn't try to stop it? It's possible that I feel sluggish and overfed because I have been under eating, so technically to my body this IS over eating... but it's normal and part of the process? I know you have to increase your tolerance for food, maybe that's what's going on here. Does that make sense?
Blah. These questions are so confused I doubt anyone can even understand them ... but I appreciate anyone who tries to help and answer them! Thanks