Still figuring out the pattern

[darkemeralds]

After feeling terribly, dully hungry for a couple of days, and getting some great tips about higher-satiety foods, I went home last night and ate a potato. Very, very satisfying and filling.

This satiety thing is new to me. Before, when I just kept eating whatever I was eating till I felt full, satiety took care of itself. Of course, I was gaining at least ten pounds a year, too.

But now satiety is a valuable piece of information. I took it into account in making both my breakfast (eight-grain hot cereal) and my lunch (featuring brown rice) today, and I noticed a real improvement in my level of comfort.

Because our weather has turned suddenly springlike, I was motivated to go out and ride Eleanor O at lunchtime. I set out to get some tea, but found myself passing Hanna Andersson, which was fortuitous, because my oldest niece is on the verge of becoming a mother, and there's a shower tomorrow, and there I was! Baby-clothes land! This is honestly the first time in my whole life that I've ever bought baby clothes.

(They're cute, baby clothes are. I got this and this.)

Livestrong has a nice tool called Loops where you can enter your run, ride or walk route on Google Maps, and it will measure the calorie burn based on your current weight, your speed, and all the elevation gains in your route. When I got back to the office I logged my lunchtime ride, and lo and behold it burned up pretty much a whole meal's worth of cals.

And what's more, instead of making me feel ravenous, it made me feel less hungry. I'm going to start giving myself goal points for lunchtime rides. What a great way to multi-task: get out of the office, exercise, get some fresh air, do some shopping, control my appetite, burn extra calories, listen to podfic, have a better afternoon, and discover cool stores that I've never been in--it's awesome!

Comments

[nwhepcat]

Something I just heard on a weight loss hypnosis cd: a study was done with people trying to lose weight, varying the amount eaten in the morning vs. the evening. The people who ate "dinner" foods for breakfast and a bowl of cereal for dinner lost more than those who ate small meals at breakfast and big ones in the evening.

I'm doing the scattershot approach to weight loss: hypnosis (just started), vegan recipes with higher satiety foods, cinnamon. If something works I won't know which! :)

[executrix]

Unfortunately, there are practical factors that make a complex situation even more complex! I know that one symptom of middle age is a disinclination to face solid food when you first get up (although eating a small dinner counters that!), and having to get to the office at Stupid O'Clock makes it hard to eat a substantial breakfast.

But if you DO have the time and inclination, the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book recommends a hearty breakfast of pancakes and beans, precisely *because* beans are rich in protein and fiber but take a long time to digest, so they stoke you up for the day. And I know you're saying, "No pancakes! GF here!" but yeast-raised buckwheat pancakes (you make the batter the night before and keep it in the fridge) are actually really good, and since they're basically just buckwheat flour, yeast, and water, they're pretty low-calorie.

An important weight-loss strategy is "stuff that takes a long time to eat"--i.e., eating an orange that you have to peel and section takes longer than eating a sliced orange, which takes longer than drinking orange juice--but you're so busy Jetsons food pills look attractive. And, alas, multi-course meals (miso soup! huge green salad topped with grilled marinated steak and eggplant! rice cakes! fruit!) mean more dishes to wash.

[nwhepcat]

Since you're going at this in a life hack sort of way, I thought I'd share the one I started over a week ago. After reading a piece in BoingBoing and then the item it linked to, I stopped using soap except on my hands, cooter and its nearby neighbor. Everything else just gets a good wash with water only. My face is less greasy and my skin feels awesome, while my hands are cracked all to shit. Oh, and my pits don't smell at all. There are other people who've posted about doing the same with hair washing, but they report a 2 week period where the hair looks and feels awful, which I know I can't abide.

Weird but true.