Okay, steffanie3!
After almost a month of marinating, which was actually testing my thoughts on this, including daily journaling to analyze the body's response, I've come to an interesting awareness. Now keep in mind, this is a perspective for maintaining rather than losing, but actually with holiday indulgences it ended up including a bit of both, so that helped writing this further, I think.
Anyways, you know how there are those "S Helper" meals, for example?
Well, I've kind of made up "Extra Helpers" for all 3 diets (I think of FP, E and S as 3 carb/fat collision protectors - - ways of eating that get rotated, comingled, mixed up to shake things up with the body so it stays alert and happy about the variety of it all, etc). Anways, there's a "but first", an important caveat:
I do pretty much agree with Pearl saying (I think Pearl) "We’d like people to think more in terms of what sort of food is being eaten than in numbers". I say "pretty much agree", because it is a point of view, solid and sensible, but I have to factor that in with healing my stomach receptors for satiety signals to work optimally once again. They used to not work at all. At all. Good news: Healthy eating over time is healing this, but to help the process I must keep portions in check, and I sometimes need to include quantifying. I don't mind this at all because the receptors are coming back after a long long sleep, but to keep eating fully enjoyable I try to count less and less and hope one day not at all. However, sometimes I need to count. More on the need to count in a bit. Until then, like everyone, it's getting to know what works and what doesn't work for the uniqueness of my body, and learning this the count helps. Goal: The day I really know what superbly satisfied feels like in terms of a healthy level of stomach fullness that is actually entirely felt. Here is an interesting article about damaged receptors, impacts of this re the high percentage of those regaining weight once lost, etc.:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130916103352.htmExample of "need to count":
Our happy chicken eggs are waiting to be eaten, and I have a growing dish of yolks in the fridge. Doing the math:
.6 oz have 4.5 g of fat .6 carbs and a happy 2.7 g's of protein for the golden smidge of sunshine. No big deal to weigh. I use the scale for lots of cooking/baking anyways because of faster clean-up and such anyways. Do I add it to my egg white scramble with sauteed greens and kimchi (done on a well-seasoned cast iron pan needs no fat)? Yes I do. Do I call it FP? No, I call it "Extra Helper FP". Does it cause problems for my body? Journaling says "no". Journal notes: My teeny holiday indulgence gain from the once-a-year-foods that crop up in December more than in any other month also sliding away - - no stalls.
Same thing when I opt for 1 oz of frozen overripe mashed banana (gah! high GI alert!) to lightly sweeten a smoothie or a bit of volumized oatmeal when I've run out of the stevia-ish stuff. I like gentle sweetness anyways, so 1 oz often is all it needs, and when it's not E the banana is a no-no for THM, but it works just fine for my body. It's an "Extra Help" because I still stay within the numbers. So the crossing category thing seems okay with what I've tried thus far. When I'm doing this, I do try to employ a few other things listed below but I haven't done them every time and still no problems. The extra things I try to keep in mind:
- with planning in my head what I'll eat for the day (based on leftovers mostly or freezer stock of happy single portion Go-2's), I try to eat a very low GI meal before the "Extra Helper" one. So in addition to at least a 3 hour metabolizing/do-not-eat break, the low GI carries over a bit to that next eating - - hoorah!
Let me know if you need a link on this data.
- I make sure to get adequate protein with the "Extra Helper" eating. This is important in general, but extra important if I'm doing the EH addition
- If I have an "Extra Helper" item, I only do one for that meal, no others, no "Helpers"
- I watch out for "stacking" - - making sure my counts on the FP snack/dessert doesn't send me over the limit when added to that "Extra Helper" meal I just had or plan to have
There's probably more on "Extra Helper", but this is what comes to mind and the doorbell is ringing, so that's it for now!
TTYL!