My super long Friday Post will be my notes form day 3 from my reset & book and it's on preventing hunger
Day3 - notes from the book
The more weight you want to permanently lose more of your life you need to permanently change.
Managing Hunger
Body keeps track of 3 things– time, calories, protein. Like a tripwire, if the alarm for either goes off, it triggers hunger. Once tripped the alarm it tends to leave a person to suffer of portion control or choices later in the day
Time
Eat between 2.5 to 3.5 hours. Eat breakfast within 60 minutes of waking up (I don’t plan to, I get up at 5 am and eat after 8 am) If you don’t feel like eating breakfast it’s likely you eat too much in the evening and this pattern of eating is not likely to lead to successful weight management.
Do you really need to eat 5/6 times a day. No. You can experiment. Do the rest of the 10 days reset every 2.5 to 3.5 hours as data set to compare to any other pattern you like to try after. Do what’s right for you, there is no one way fits all. Use your diary to track hunger, calories and cravings after that to compare and find out what works for you. Frequent meals is usually big ticket change that is very helpful to many
Calories
If you eat too little during the day, you are likely to have too much in night. His approach is based on minim calories per meal, not maximums. 300 to 350 minimum calories per meal/ and 150 calories per snack – minimum. There is no traumatic upper limit as he calls it, if you are hungry eat. He suggests minimum cal should not go bellow 1400 calories. I think somewhere else in the book he mentions minimum of 1600 if you had any traumatic dieting experience (as losing and regaining weight).
Protein
Minimums – 20g per meal and 10 per snack. Miss protein on one meal and snack can often lead to night time hunger/cravings. Cereal only for breakfast often leads for hunger later during the day. If you track your DDD once the 10 days are over you can track your protein intake/impact. His experience is miss protein even on one meal have negative impact to his DDD
Carbs
People on low carb diets are less hungry. The issue tend to be that they aren’t willing to live in extreme low carb level forever. And if you aren’t willing to live this way forever, whatever weight you lose is going to come back. If you love the low carb lifestyle – it does not appear to be dangerous. Medical evidence, low carb is just as healthy and at times healthier than more traditional low fat approaches.
Prevent Hunger
You are likely to eat more and more indulgently if you sit down for a meal very hungry. Both physical and brain hunger are valid. Keep your meals regular, your calories and protein minimums. Eat too little during the day you will pay for it later. Eat your protein every meal. For every 45 minutes of exercise add 150 calories more. If you are hungry, eat more. You are not going to follow a plan who forces you to fight hunger regularly
If you really want to eat 3 times a day, make sure that your calories are equally divided. 25% minimum of each meal should be protein. (as don’t skimp on breakfast so you can eat more in the evening)
Minimums vs Maximums. Having minimums, doesn’t mean you can eat as much as you want as often as you whatever you want without having effect to your weight. It does mean that (according to him) that if you are going to succeed in controlling your calories you can’t be (very) hungry. Ensuring you eat enough per meal and snack is critical aspect of hunger management.
If you are hoping for weight loss what and how much you eat is going to matter. You are going to need to pick and choose when is going to be worth to you to indulge and part of your decision making process will involve your weight loss goals. You always thought that weight loss is will power. His view is that will power is the absence of hunger.
it's a weird combination of quotes, edits as I don't agree entirely with everything so please don't read the book and tell me I am wrong or I read it wrong. This is my read, with my views/experience added and I don't aim to rewrite his book or tell it all. It's what I want to get out of it
End of Day Checklist (If you’ve missed anything, restart Day 3 again tomorrow, and don’t spend even a moment beating yourself up about it— life happens.)
☐ Your home- cooked foods were all weighed and measured (done, maybe some fruit was not measured)
☐ Your food was completely diarized, nonjudgmentally, in real time— good, bad, and ugly, without artificial restrictions (done)
☐ Your meals each contained at least one fifth of your total daily recommended caloric aim and at least 20 grams of protein (done)
☐ Your snacks each contained at least 150 calories and at least 10 grams of protein (done)
☐ You set up reminders to help yourself remember when to eat (I didn't need reminder, I was off and it was easy to do. I ate every 3.5 hours, and find 3.5/4 hours good but for the purpose of this reset I will stick to 3 to 3.5)
☐ You ate an additional 150 calories for every 45 minutes you exercised, either immediately before or after your workout (didn't exercise)
☐ You ate more if you were hungry (done)
☐ You read tomorrow’s daily plan and you’re ready for it
and my personal comments on it
Eating every 3 to 4 hours (even if not hungry as he states), and having sufficient protein on each meal very quick and sure way to reduce my hunger/cravings for me. By lunch time yesterday after 2 meals with good protein portion. There was big difference in my hunger level for the rest of the day compared to the day before. I don't ever crave protein, and this is probably one of the reasons things went the wrong way for me last year. I would eat oats & banana for breakfast. Big bowl of pasta with veggies for lunch. Carbs and veggies and fruit really. And than I wonder why I am hungry all the time! I find following his recommendation really made it easy to eat less so I am happy to get a refresher on it.
He talks about 3 meals 3 snacks, I find 3 meals 1 or max two snacks more than enough tbh. Eating every 2.5 would be too much. His recommendation for protein 3*20+3*10=90g as minimum. I have slightly less meals per day but plan to not go below the protein per day.
The protein suggestion and the eating regularly even in the absence of hunger is one that while in practise works great for me I keep getting... side tracked. I read about someone how they manage to eat whatever they want, eat according to hunger, lose weight and feel great. Wishful thinking kicks in - it sounds so good and so much better. But I learned the hard way there is no one way fit all and there is so much conflicting and confusing advise. If something makes it easier for me to be happy with less calories - I will focus on that.