Are you allowed to have...?
That is something I still get all the time, even though, to me, I am not dieting. I am just living this new lifestyle. It has become just the way I live, not something I have to really think about or follow or restrict anything. But when I am with friends and there is cake, someone will always ask, "Are you allowed to have cake?" or whatever the treat is that everyone else is eating.
For some reason, this always gets my back up. I have to make an effort not to scream, "I CAN HAVE WHATEVER I WANT, JUST LIKE YOU!" I know they mean well, and there is no ill will behind the question, but it bugs me. It makes me feel like an outsider.
What is really going on though is that they don't understand any way of losing weight that doesn't include feeling deprived. They don't understand that I can eat any food I feel like eating and enjoy with NO GUILT whatsoever.
When anyone eats a big bad meal of say burgers, fries, dessert etc...they would have some guilt. Guilt because they know it is a high calorie meal whether they are dieting or not. If they are dieting, the guilt is more intense, of course. Yesterday I ate my big treat meal, a big bacon cheese burger with mayo, onion rings and half fries, half caesar salad. It was delicious. I even had a small mini dessert of brownie and chocolate ice cream. I felt ZERO guilt. I just enjoyed.
I am not saying that intermittent fasting is a licence to eat this everyday, but once in a blue moon go and have that meal you always wish for. Enjoy it, savour it, and walk away without any guilt at all. It will taste all the better for it.
After my big meal last night, I got on the scale this morning. I was down two pounds!
Yes, I am allowed to have that.
Love this post. Actually, I love your entire blog. I have about 75 lbs. to lose and have been seriously considering intermittent fasting and Fast-Five in particular.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I'm worried about is not eating after work. I get home around 7p and go to bed between 10 and 11p. This leaves me with a 3-4 hour window that I usually fill with eating.
I guess I'll have to figure that out if I'm going to give IF a try.
You could try to switch your eating window to an evening time so that you can eat your main meal in the time that you usually are snacking.
ReplyDeleteBrad Pilon (www.bradpilon.com) also suggests that if you find it difficult to control overeating when you are not fasting to break your fast later. Then the time you have to eat is smaller and the chances of over eating are reduced.
If you did Fast-5 or Eat, Stop, Eat and broke your fast at 8pm for example, then you would only have two to three hours open to eat before bed. Hopefully your dinner meal would fill you up enough to avoid snacking too much.
It is worth a shot anyway.
I think I will try eating from 11-4 this week and see how I do. Not eating at night will probably be difficult at first, but it should be easier than limiting myself at work.
ReplyDeletePlus, I won't have to hear any "starving yourself isn't good" comments from my co-workers.
Also may add an Eat Stop Eat-type fast once a week for that extra kick.
That sounds like a great plan. That is what I do, I fast the 19 hours everyday that is a part of the Fast 5 plan and then once a week I do a longer fast of about 36-48 hours. I find it helps to keep the plateau at bay.
ReplyDeleteI used to always eat lots in the evening as well but I have found that the most difficult time for me now is around 2 hours before my eating window opens. The evenings I rarely think of food now as I find that my main meal and snack around 4pm keeps me quite full until late evening.
Keep me posted on your progress! Good Luck!
Will do and thanks! Hopefully I can continue to keep up with things on my Twitter.
ReplyDelete