You can and should eat sugar to lose weight

What the actual?!?! I not only can but should eat sugar if I'm on a diet?? You're wondering, "Erm pardon me but are you nuts?" Well in many ways, yes I am 😁 But not about this particular subject. You did read that correctly. Sugar, even refined sugar, has a place in weight loss. At least it did in mine and I believe it should in yours too. Here's why. 

First, for the purposes of this blog post, when I say sugar, I mean refined sugar, Next some stats, to give my theory cred. I lost 100 lb over a period of about 8 months: no drugs, personal trainer or surgery. 

When I began I was pre-diabetic.  I have kept the majority of weight off for 7 years. And all that time I have eaten sugar almost every day. I factored it into the diet plan that I wrote for myself. Once in awhile I even allowed myself a complete blowout. Even before the weight loss was complete I got my sugar numbers down to normal. And here's how I did that and why I think it's important. 

1) Set attainable goals. Cutting out all sugar is unrealistic. For many reasons,  I am skeptical of any diet plan that tells you to cut out anything, even sugar. It's so readily available and in pretty much all processed food, in a developed country. (Segue, it's interesting that we consider ourselves first worlders, when some of the less developed nations actually have healthier diets than we do). It would be virtually impossible to go the rest of your life without eating sugar. And a good diet builds new habits and doesn't rely on weird temporary restrictions. 

2) Limit don't delete. Obvs, eating too much junk including sugar was part of what got me overweight to start with. Soto lose weight, I dialed way back on the amount I ate. I allowed 100 or so calories a day of my food intake to be from  sugar

3) Occasionally overindulge. Again yes you read that correctly. As I said earlier sometimes you can let yourself eat as much sugar as you want. But only at one meal on one day every couple of weeks. This overindulgence serves several purposes. It prevents you from feeling deprived. Deprivation mode is a form of depression plus resentment that leads to dishonesty. It can sabotage your diet because you end up sneaking and cheating on yourself. And you develop unhealthy self-perception.

4) Change your mind. We've come to think of sugar as a treat. It's not. It's just another food option and certainly not the best one. But it does have two benefits: it releases dopamine which makes you feel good and it perks your brain up. So while we should not use sugar or any food as a reward, we can enjoy the benefits. 

5) Control cravings. Sugar is as addictive as heroin. So if you try to quit cold turkey you will very likely have some serious withdrawal type cravings. If you eat a little bit you can keep those cravings at bay.

6) Take back the controls. The more you get the sugar habit under control the easier it gets and the better you feel physically, mentally and emotionally. You feel powerful and capable. Nobody likes being at the mercy of someone else and certainly not someTHING else. When I was slave to chocolate, I felt foolish,  weak and angry with myself. When I got my sugar addiction under control, I felt like Wonder Woman!

7) Lose your taste for it. This isn't an instruction it's a promise. When I first started dieting my blowouts looked like several pieces of dessert. Toward the end it was only a few bites. My stomach had shrunk and I literally couldn't eat any more. And it didn't taste as good. That's the honest truth. I'm not schmoozing you.  Of all the goodies I used to love, none of them taste quite as good as they once did.

9) Face those fears. I've talked to a lot of people who say they can't lose weight. They're afraid they will not be able to see it through. They fear failure. More on that in tomorrow's blog post. So I can't promise that you will lose weight but I can assure you that you do have the strength too if you want to.

10) Homework: Try this experiment. Choose a favorite piece of dessert. Monitor your reactions and sensations as you eat each bite. The first bite will probably taste great but each successive one will lose something. So if you just enjoy those two or three bites you're getting all the payout of the entire piece with a fraction of the calories. 

So here ends this blog post. I will write further on different kinds of sugar that are best. Love y'all to Pluto (it is a planet!!) and back. 💕

Emotional eating and the brutal truth about obesity, trauma and abuse

This may be my most blunt and controversial post yet. I'm going to debunk the notion that abuse leads to overeating. I recognize that I am on treacherous terrain here. I may come off as harsh or judgmental. I may very well be wrong But I assure you that I write this only to help and heal, not hurt. And I have earned the right to comment about weight loss. I lost 100 pounds and I know every excuse in the book. 

If you watch My 600-lb Life, you know that every episode features patients blaming their obesity on past trauma: death, loss, shame, rape, abuse. They say they turned to food for comfort. Now that I get. But when they say that the need for comfort is the reason they are 600 lb. No. I have been taking apart this theory and just can't get it to fit. Or if it does it is a contrived fit. 

I'm not for moment suggesting the abuse wasn't real. I am in no way suggesting that issues from childhood should not be addressed. I'm not saying that people don't need comfort or that food can't be comforting. In seeking to anesthetize pain, people often turn to dangerous methods: drugs, violence, self-harm, yes perhaps overeating but more often than not, they undereat either to achieve a better self-image or because food just doesn't sound good.

So why is emotional eating so common? And why do people blame weight problems on emotional issues? There are several reasons. Here's where the brutal part comes in.

People have been finding methods to self-soothe for eons. It's only within the last 50 years or so that food has been used so routinely and commonly.  When I was young few were overweight. When my grandparents were young, virtually no one was. It was partially because food was not so readily available in such large quantities. Especially not the nutrition void food that fills our grocery stores and restaurants.

The thing with food that's different from the other self soothers is that it is not inherently dangerous. For goodness sake it's how we survive. Food tastes good. It feels good to eat. We need to eat. But when we develop a habit of overindulging in the wrong things, we also tend not to want to take responsibility for it. We want it to be someone or something else's fault that we can't leave chocolate alone or that consume enough to feed three people. We also don't want to admit that it's an addiction like alcohol or drugs. The same people who are morbidly obese will often decry alcohol as "sinful" and then ignore their own gluttony. 

And food has changed from sustenance to treat based. Look around at 90% of the shelf filler. The majority has virtually no nutritive value. It can't even really be called food. It is disproportionately calorie dense for the amount of nutrition you get. It is filled with addictive ingredients and chemicals: MSG, saturated fat, additives, HFCS and sugar. 

Obese people didn't get where they are eating salads. "Got to have my Brussels sprouts" said no obese person ever. Whenever you see My 600-lb Life participants eating it's always junk, carbs and sugar in shocking quantities. 

There's no way that I will accept that that is emotional eating. It is addictive eating. What may have started out as self-soothing has now a ballooned into obsessive and compulsive gorging . I know a little about that. I could eat a pound of cheese at a sitting. Not because I have past trauma. I do and plenty of it but that isn't why I overate. Part of it was because of an antidepressant that turned my limit switches off. I will say I only ate to that extent when I was on Paxil. And I was lonely and missing my husband who worked nights. 

But I wasn't eating to fill a void. I was eating because it tasted good (cheese is another food with addictive properties). And I had stretched my stomach so far that I needed to put a lot in it to make it feel full. And because I was in denial about how much weight I was gaining. And because I just didn't want to stop. I didn't care. 

Now that just may have been me but I don't think so. I think this is a common experience among the morbidly obese. They have been telling themselves that their suffering has made them what they are. Some have believed their abusers that they were worthless. Then they let food take over and control them. They have allowed their addiction to trick them into thinking they have no choice or power. Some have used their past trauma as an excuse to manipulate bully and control others.  Some have made up problems to justify their actions. 

The key in weight management is to address past trauma separately from weight issues. Granted healing one may also heal the other. But continually linking them minimizes both. And it also reinforces the wrong idea that one caused the other. And because people need to see that they and only they can take charge of their lives, health, addiction, eating. And that they really are strong enough and worth doing it. 

If you need to lose weight, do it. Do it now. I'll be your cheerleader! Regardless of what happened before, you control the now. People hurt you. Don't let them continue to. The best retribution is to survive and thrive. In spite of or perhaps because of your past pain, you have the power you need to give yourself the love and care you deserve.

💕--mar

Avoiding post-op weight gain, or Help! my frig has me hostage!

Two weeks ago I had shoulder surgery. I've been virtually immobile only now able to move much. My doc warns off ibuprofen because it slows healing. So I did not have that avenue of pain relief. After the first week I tapered off the opioid, cut the Tylenol and have been trying rest only for healing. 

Surprisingly or not, despite the lack of exercise I get quite hungry. I'm thinking it's because you have to feed healing muscles, tendons etc. When my husband burned his foot, the burn clinic advised eating lots of protein to rebuild tissue. His translation was that he required many cupcakes LOL, which we lovingly provided. 

But he has never had to worry about his weight whereas I'm locked in an eternal duel with mine. 😬 So I'm back to that dilemma I was in when I worked from home: 7 steps from a frig AND with the added burden of having to eat more to heal. And this situation isn't changing anytime soon.

The nature of my current employment, Shipt shopping, is pretty physically challenging. With 16 weeks of 5 lb lifting restriction and another 8 at 25 lbs, I won't be back behind the cart anytime soon, if ever. This job is very probably what injured my shoulder in the first place. 

So what to do to avoid weight gain for 5 months? A part of me would like to complicate it. Or at least, find reasons to justify overeating. Because that's always been my habit. But that was also the problem. And really, I don't want to go back there. I know, because my common sense tells me so, avoiding post-op weight gain is no different than any other kind. The rules are the same. 

Because I need extra nourishment, I might let up on my 1,300 calorie a day weight loss diet. I might...(static buzz) "Attention folks (voice booms over loud speaker), we interrupt this fantasy for a reality check. This blog author wasn't and hasn't been on that strict diet for awhile. She has been cheating for months now. Just saying..."

Well thank you, conscience, for that fact finding info. What are you,  Snopes in my head (arschloch!) But I guess he is right. I did promise transparency in this blog and have never been anything but. So yeah, I've been off the wagon awhile.

Blame our stupid life-leeching, soul-sucking 2nd&3rd shift schedule (yep, both). Husband works 5pm to 5am often later, every weekend. I work around his schedule so that we can actually see each other and have some semblance of a relationship. 

Blame Covid and quarantine and stress and loneliness and boredom and long term traumatic stress disorder and sleep apnea and laziness. Yeah, probs that most of all. Or just don't blame and look ahead.

So moving forward in this weird new normal. Healing is going to require a higher calorie intake. That's not giving myself permission to overeat or indulge. That doesn't mean 1,800 calories of cheesecake and KFC. I'm still going to have to keep the fridge stocked with good stuff and not junk (well maybe a little junk so I don't go scrounging for cookie crumbs in the couch at 2am). I will say that's been a good habit... To keep more good than bad available.  I've maintained that despite the wagon plummet.

I'm going to eat when I'm

hungry but it's going to be protein, veg/fruit and good carb heavy. I did it before, losing 100 lbs. So this should be a piece of cake...erm chicken breast 😁 more from my weight journey later. Feel free to shoot me questions or comments. (Please!! I've got a lot of hours ahead in need of filling!)

As always, 💕💕 you lots --mar 

I lost weight when I jumped off the excuse train

When I tell people that I have lost 100 lbs I get a lot of different responses. Most are very positive but a few have an echo of resentment. I have heard comments such as: "well it was easier for you because you (insert reason why it's supposedly easier for me). I can't lose weight because (insert excuse why it is supposedly harder for them)."

Now this doesn't bother me personally. I have lost the weight and no amount of negativity one can take that success away. I don't even honestly care if someone does think I somehow just got lucky. I know the amount of work that went into it. I had and have just as many, maybe more, obstacles to contend with as anyone. 

What concerns me, and I'm going to be blunt here, is the delusional rationalizing that that one CANNOT lose weight because of circumstances in his life. Some conditions may make it more challenging. My sleep apnea and back issues didn't help. Some issues may (MAY) make it harder to see results. I'm not even convinced of that. But nothing prevents someone from eating less and healthier. 

People have struggled with the same health issues through history, plus more  than we have now. Virtually none of them had weight problems. Look at the old pictures. If anything, they were underweight, regardless of country or culture. So why then are so many of us, with the same problems, overweight or obese? Because the health conditions have little or nothing to do with weight gain. That is caused by overeating, eating junk, too much screen time and too little activity. 

And excuse-making. That is huge. I have penned volumes on my own ride on the excuse train. And there's more to come. Another pair of roadblocks is blaming others and  looking everywhere but in our own backyards for change. Those are definitely going to require further blog posts. 

But I will leave you this thought for today. Cuz that's all we have...now, this moment. If you are struggling with shedding pounds, you may be on the excuse train. If so, get off at the next station. Or better yet, jump! Every time you start to think of why you can't, shouldn't have to, don't really need to lose weight, stop. Each time you start rehearsing the litany of reasons why you have weight problems, why you are your helpless and why it's actually someone else's fault, slam on those brakes. That's a side track you don't want to go down. Believe me: been there. 

What I had to do was to revise my attitude and rewrite the script with proactive things I can do, right now, to effect healthy change in my life. Try it... It'll revolutionize your life! 

I love you guys! And despite being the least interested in hockey of anyone I know, I nevertheless use Red Green's closing quote: keep yer stick on the ice and remember I'm pulling for ya ❤️ --mar

Portion control may be the most important tool in weight loss

I've written a lot about the importance of portion control in weight loss. But I could write volumes more. Here are 5 crucial issues to remember about food intake. 

1) Big portions make big people. If I overeat, and don't burn it off I'm going to gain weight. Very few people use enough energy to balance extra intake with body size. You might be surprised to learn how few calories are actually burned by exercise. That's why exercise alone does not lose weight.

2) Majority metabolism rules. Sure there are some people like my husband who eat whatever they want and don't gain weight. Some have a higher metabolism or actually burn a lot more calories than they realize. Some would like to gain weight but can't.  But for the majority more food in means more weight on. 

3) It's about habits. I'm not talking the occasional overeating. I'm talking habitually eating enough to feed two to three people. I'm talking cooking far too much and having too many leftovers around. I have been laid up with shoulder surgery and been blessed with meals from friends. I appreciate them all but esp those that bring two brownies for dessert not a whole pan. Stuck on the couch, the extra goodies call out to me to eat them. And I don't need the extra 15 lbs when I'm already having trouble moving 😳

4) Stomach stretching is real. Remember the old saying about stretching your stomach if you overeat? It's true. If I continually accustom my stomach to larger portions it will expand to accommodate. And I will feel hungry even though I have eaten a reasonable amount. 

5) Get back to the good old days. In 1950, a McDonald's meal was one small single hamburger, small fries and a 7 oz Coke. In 2021, those portion sizes have tripled to quintupled. And don't even get me started on the buffets. If there's one positive take away from the Covid-19 pandemic, it's that we can get ourselves out of a habit of eating those monstrous restaurant portions and back to smaller healthier intake. But it has to start at home. Here's how.

6) I said five tips this is a bonus lol. Read labels, count calories and do the math. Food manufacturers put RDA (recommended daily allowances) on their labels. Take advantage of the research and use the data to plan meals and portions of reasonable sizes. Track how many calories you are eating. (11 x your goal weight daily is a good target). Be sure to get all the nutrients. This is how I lost 100 lbs. 

Love y'all! Be well --mar

Deconstructing Cravings: Understanding why you crave things and healthy hunger vs destructive addiction

Some of the biggest roadblocks to weight loss are food cravings. Today, we're going to take apart those cravings to find out what they are, what why we have them and what we should do about them. 

What is a craving? It's basically an intense hunger for a certain food. It can become obsessive and overwhelming. Some cravings can feel like drug addiction, in intensity. This is true especially of refined or processed sugar which acts very much like heroin on the brain. It releases the same pleasure sensations, like dopamine, as certain drugs do. So cravings are bad, right? Well, yes and no. 

Why do we crave things? Not all cravings are created equal. And they are not triggered by the same the same factors. It depends upon the person, situation, duration and the specific craving. There is a difference between craving and addiction. If the person chronically craves a certain thing like chocolate, cannot get enough of it and still longs for it even after consuming a large amount, this a food addiction. If the craving is acute (temporary) it may actually indicate that you are low on and in need of the desired food. 

Is my craving good or bad? Follow these steps to check

--First, decide if it's acute or chronic. If you randomly want pizza today, that's acute. But if you think about sweets all day long, that's chronic. If you had a donut (or three) for breakfast, cookies with lunch, candy for a snack and a piece of cake for dessert and later before bed, that is a sugar addiction. You probably still want more and have developed a tolerance for it, so that you never hit satisfaction. Even half that much, on a daily basis, will lead to insulin resistance (pre-diabetes) as your body cannot process it all. 

--Next, think about what you are craving. Are you really hungry for pasta? It could mean several things. Pasta is typically what we think of as a comfort food. It's warm, nourishing, often homemade and probably in some form, a food we remember from childhood. Are you feeling your age and missing your youth? Are you in need of a hot home-cooked meal? Are you hungering for lasagna or missing your mom? Not that any of those are bad or that eating lasagna won't make your feel better. It's just that you may be missing a bigger picture or using to fill other gaps. 

Decide what you are really craving. Are you lonely? Sometimes food is the friend we long for. Are you tired? Do you really need a nap, or a break or a vacation?  Are you depressed? Eating sugar, for example, can make you feel a little better. For awhile. Then the the spike drops and you may feel even worse than before. Or you feel guilty because you over-indulged and ate the entire package of cookies instead of enjoying just a few. 

--Determine whether you are craving, addicted or hungry. I know that sounds like a no-brainer. Of course I'm hungry, you're thinking, duh. But it's not always that simple. If you are actually lonely, tired or depressed, you're not craving food but something to meet those needs. If you have a food addiction, you are not really hungry. You have a chemical imbalance.  

So what should I do? If you're hungry, you need of nourishment and the "craving" is your body saying what it needs. In the example of pasta, it's comforting partly because it's also the perfect meal. I know, you Keto folk eschew carbs. But the fact remains that it does contain all the food groups, with a few additions. Chicken broccoli alfredo for example hits all the nutritional needs: starch for quick energy, protein for sustained energy, vegetables for vitamins and minerals. Just go easy on the butter and cheese. And since it's so common a craving, the body must know it needs those ingredients. 

If you have a chronic craving you can't satisfy, you have an addiction. These cravings are almost always for processed, chemically enhanced foods with refined sugar and even fake sugar, HFCS, MSG, color or flavor additives, transfat or hydrogenated fat. Like drugs, these chemicals pirate your brain, so it mistakes them as necessary. They manufacture a need for themselves, causing you to overdose yet not get enough. Your body can't handle these chemicals which have now become toxins, and they start taking out your endocrine system, liver, kidneys, circulation, digestion, nerves. Your body tries to protect the organs by storing fat and insulating them with it. Your brain says go, while your body says NO. 

The way to break this addiction cycle is to detox and retrain your brain with a 12 step type program. More on that later. The left image is me at 100+ pounds overweight and right is after weight loss. You can see in the left, how inflamed my face is with stored fat. 

Spectre at the feast, or out, out damn scale!

Hi everyone! Back with another episode of the weight loss blog, summer 2020. I've been working on weight maintenance for 6 years, since I lost 100 pounds in 2014. And to quote (misquote) ZZ Top, "I've been up. I've down. Dallas, Texas, Hollywood. Lord, I'm just looking to avoid some tush." (Get it? Pun! Pause for laughs. What, not funny? Hey, don't judge. You try writing the comedy lines a weight loss blog!) Anyhoo, my point being that I've thought and done this diet thing from all angles. I've gained some back and lost it and gained... You get it. 

And lemme just say that what gets really old is having to constantly think weight wherever I go. No matter what I eat, when or where, there's this nagging voice in my head telling me not to overindulge. Oh sure, I can throw caution to the wind. I can eat whatever I want. Sort of. But I know it will come hunt me down sooner or later. The inescapable truth is that I can either watch what I eat for the rest of my life or run the risk of putting all those pounds back on again. 

Yes, the spectre at the feast is annoying. Sometimes I wish she'd just shut up and leave me alone. But then she reminds me that she has my best interests at heart. She knows how hard I worked to get to a healthy weight. And she doesn't want me to backslide just for a bit of indulgence that I really didn't enjoy that much anyway. 

Cuz yeah, truth is, it's not worth it. The candy, cookies, chips, etc really don't taste as good as I think they're going to (except seafoam and marzipan, lol those always meet expectations!) But most everything else lets me down. That's not just head talk. Try it sometime for yourself. Visualize some treat or other that you love. Anticipate it. Notice how after the first bite or do, it's not as satisfying as you thought it would be? That's what I call saturation theory (more on that later). 

So while I would sometimes like to pull a Lady Macbeth and wash that scale right out of my life, I realize that having just the right amount of guilt over eating the wrong things and fear of getting back into old habits is not a bad thing.  They are reality checks, intended to help me stay strong. So I've decided to make friends with the spectre at the feast and be grateful for her. 

Not to say that I will always make perfect food choices. Sometimes, honestly, I don't always know what those are. Sometimes my body feels better after a handful of M&Ms. Like it knows what it needs. It's as if it was designed intelligently by a Higher Power who knows what He's doing (ya think?) But I'm glad to have that still, small voice encouraging me to make mindful choices. I feel very confident and powerful when I see that I control food and it doesn't control me. All part of the Divine Plan, I'm thinking. I wish the very best for all of you, my dear friends. Thank you for reading these little markings of mine. Drop me a line to say hello <3 (PS we are smiling under out masks. And I don't know what my husband is looking at, lol)