allegorydiet.com/blog

Weight: 176
Inches: -3.75″ since 3/27

Earlier today, I added a page to this site entitled “Current Stats”. (There’s a link to it, above.) I’ll be using that page to update my weight stats on a weekly basis (on Fridays), along with body measurements. This will provide an easily accessible way to see my overall progress as it compares to where I was when I started this journey. (To see the weekly changes, check the Friday posts, or any post with the tag “weight”.)

As of today, I’ve lost a total of 19 pounds and 18 inches. How cool is that! I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing and see how long this continues to work for me. This is something I can do with very little effort, and so it’s something I feel that I will be able to sustain indefinitely. Of course, only time will determine if this is really true.

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that my appetite has definitely changed. I get hungry less often, and during this past week or so, I’ve actually worked straight through some of my planned meals or snacks. This is something I’m going to have to be careful about, because allowing myself to get too hungry can set me up to make poor choices. I’ve learned that it’s important to be prepared for this possibility by making sure I’ve got convenient, easy-to-grab good foods close at hand.

Take yesterday, for instance. For breakfast, I’d chosen a Blueberry Pomegranate Bar, which is one of the meal choices in the Silhouette Solution program. These products are carefully calibrated and meant to be eaten every two hours. As it turned out, food didn’t cross my mind again for close to four hours. Once it did, though, I began to get very hungry, very quickly.

Often, under such conditions, I’d remedy the situation by making a poor choice at the snack machine, or else I’d eat too much of whatever was available. Luckily, this time I was prepared. Before I’d left for work yesterday morning, I had placed 1/4 cup of walnuts into a small plastic container, then chose a kiwi from the fruit bowl, and brought both with me to work. As soon as I began to realize that I was quickly becoming ravenous, I calmly removed the lid from the small container, popped a couple of walnuts into my mouth, then took a knife to the kiwi. By the time I finished both, the jittery “starving” feeling had begun to ease a bit.

The act of chewing the walnuts slowed down the ingestion process, which is a good thing in these cases because it takes time for the hunger pangs to quiet down. “I’m still starving,” I thought, after I’d finished up the last of the snack. Then I realized, “No, I’m not. I just ate something. I’m not starving. Give it time to register.”

Generally, it takes about 20 minutes for the body to know that the food crisis is over. Instead of looking around to see what else I could jam in my mouth, I calmly went back to work and waited for the “satiated” signal to arrive. When I wasn’t looking, it did.

A similar thing happened earlier in the week, and I handled it in a similar manner. That time, the snack didn’t quite get me to where I needed to be. I needed just a little something more, so I made a cup of tea, to which I added some half-and-half and a packet of Splenda. The making of the tea took a few minutes, which brought me that much closer to the moment when my body would get the “no longer hungry” message, and the drinking of the tea took me the rest of the way.

Sometimes, a cup of tea or coffee will help me to get past a particularly difficult few minutes. Other times, this doesn’t work, though, and I can usually tell before preparing the beverage that it won’t be enough. That’s when I reach for a Silhouette Stik or QuikStick. If you don’t already know what these two products are, let me explain.

Here’s an excerpt from the Silhouette Stik web page (http://tinyurl.com/GetSilhouetteStik):

Silhouette Stik contains a proprietary blend of safe, natural, herbal appetite suppressants that are designed to enhance the hunger-eliminating power of your Silhouette Solution™ foods, and help get you over the rough spots during your weight loss program.

Use them when you start your Silhouette Solution eating program to help your body adjust to the metabolic changes of rapid weight loss.

Use them to boost your resolve before going out to restaurants, parties, weddings, and other social gatherings where you may be tempted to over-indulge.

And use them again when you transition from rapid weight loss to a more normal weight maintenance eating plan to help ensure long term success.

QuikStiks are similar. The QuikStik web page states:

Modern nutraceutical science has identified many naturally occurring plant-based substances that can profoundly support human health and metabolism. The challenge for Ideal Health was to create a delivery method for these powerful botanicals that was physically appealing, good tasting, convenient and fun. The result? Ideal Health’s QuikStik™ brand Botanical Supplement Mixes…

* Convenient. Carry a few in pocket or purse for use anytime!

* Delicious. Just mix with pure water for a great tasting “pick-me-up” or “calm-me-down” beverage whenever you feel the need.

* Effective. Formulated with natural bionutrients known to affect human health and metabolism without unwanted side effects.

Three great flavors. Three scientific formulas.

Just break open a QuikStik™, mix with a bottle or glass of pure water, and you’ve got a delicious, mood enhancing drink to help you through any part of your day. Choose from three delicious flavors, each with its own special blend of botanicals.

* WindUp™ in the morning gets you going with the nutrients your body really needs, infusing your brain with the essence of clarity.

* ReWind™ in the afternoon brings you back from droopiness by replenishing depleted nutrients and infusing your body with the spirit of renewal.

* UnWind™ in the evening infuses you with naturally relaxing bionutrients, to help you unwind without taxing your liver.

Of course, it’s best to avoid getting so hungry that you lose control of your ability to follow through with your eating and weight loss plan. It happens, though, and when it does, these remedies can bring you back to a safe place. I’m thrilled to have found this system. IT WORKS!

Here’s something I recently rediscovered. I say “rediscovered”, but in actuality, I’d never really forgotten it, and in fact have been using the concept to some degree for years.

Maybe a better way to put this is to say that I understand it more fully now. The concept is so simple that some of you might say, “Well, duh!” when you read it, yet it’s so profound that it can mean the difference between failure and success in weight loss and weight maintenance.

I’m a carboholic. If I eat carbs, especially on an empty stomach, I tend to want to eat more and more of them. I’m sure a lot of you can relate. I don’t keep cookies, chips or ice cream in the house these days, because just a taste can send me off the deep end of the carb diving board.

Still, in our society, it’s close to impossible to eliminate carbs completely from our diet. Besides, who’d want to? Carbs taste great! Anyway, fruits and veggies are full of carbs, and it would be unhealthy to completely eliminate them from our food choices.

Of course, some carbs are worse than others when it comes to cravings. It’s not likely that eating a stalk of celery will make me crave more celery (although it might make me more likely to choose celery if a crunchy veggie is what I’m looking for — more on this in the weeks to come). When it comes to cravings, it matters a great deal which foods we choose to eat. Still, even eating a banana (which is good for me, making it a way better choice than, say, a cookie) can definitely cause me to want another banana sooner than I would if I hadn’t eaten it.

Barring the unrealistic choice of eliminating carbs completely, I’ve been looking for a way to avoid those cravings that inevitably accompany the faster carb choices that I make. This week, I may have found the solution to this dilemma. Best of all, as I said, the method is so simple that just about anyone can do it!

I was going to hold off mentioning this until I’d had a chance to test the theory for at least a few weeks, but it’s so powerful, and is working so well, that I can’t wait that long to tell you about it. So, without further ado, here it is.

Recently, I came to the realization that if I don’t allow my system to experience carb spikes, the cravings don’t happen. (More on carb spiking in a future post.) Not only that, but I’m finding it easier to lose weight.

Here’s how it works. If I’m going to have carbs — any carbs, even slow carbs like veggies, but especially fast carbs like bread — I ALWAYS combine them with a significant* amount of protein, and ALWAYS take a bite of the protein first. As I said, I’ve known about combining carbs with protein for some time now, but there’s a bit more to the story.

First of all, I’m still making good carb choices. I still don’t keep cookies, chips or ice cream in the house. I DO eat bananas, though, and grapes, too, and even bread. This is a given, seeing that my main focus here is to lose weight.

*The ratio of carb to protein matters. There needs to be enough protein to slow the carb hit to your system, enough that it doesn’t create an insulin spike, and yet not so much that it creates an insulin spike from the sheer AMOUNT of food you’re taking in at one time. (If you don’t know what I mean by an insulin spike, hang in there. I’ll explain it, too, in a future post.) You will need to work this ratio out for yourself, depending on your food choices and the effects they have on your cravings.

That’s basically it, at least for now. I’ve only been doing this for a matter of days (Friday will make a week), but the scale is once again going in the direction I want it to, and that’s huge! BEST OF ALL, I’VE EXPERIENCED NO CRAVINGS ALL WEEK! Not only that, but it wasn’t a big letdown when a friend of mine declined my invitation to stop at the new frozen custard stand after dinner last night. (Normally, when something like that happens, I can’t get the item — in this case, the frozen custard — off my mind until I finally go get some on my own.)

As I said, it’s a simple concept, but it’s working for me. Maybe it will work for you, too. Give it a try and let me know what happens, OK? I would love to have some fellow experimenters on this trip.

I’m off to a little town in Massachusetts called Turners Falls for a one-day photo seminar. I’ve never been there before, and hope to come back with some new images. It feels good to have the energy for this kind of thing again. Maybe I’ll post an image or two when I return. Peace.