Moonlights' (temporary) Maintenance

[Alpaca]

Morning ML... Very thought provoking and thoughtful posts - thank you! I am tempted get the gluco even more now but with my track record it's safer to refrain at the moment xxx

Hope you have a good day xx

 

[triage999]

I wish I knew how to actually take attractive food photos an iPhone camera in artificial light ain't up to much.

Download Instagram app, it's the way forward for taking naff photos and making them look great!!! Warning though it's addictive!!

Jx

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[triage999]

Technically that article and the science behind it seems to be saying that calorie restriction is a bad idea and strengthening the argument for low carbing (just skimmed the mail argument but have read lots on this study).

When you restrict calories, even if it's not hugely - you create a calorie deficit that makes your body think there isn't enough food around. Your body gradually rewrites itself the more you lose into being more hungry and more obsessed with food - reasoning that when supplies are plentiful again you'll need to build up fat reserves for the next period of famine.

Low carb isn't about calorie restriction. Technically on low carb you should lose even at maintenance level calories because you'll have changed the type of fuel your body burns. So your body doesn't assume it's starving and shouldn't trigger you to overeat in the way it might after giving up a low calorie diet. At 'the very least the effect shouldn't be -as bad- if you lose weight low carbing.

I suspect the problem is most of us did low calorie first.

Still I don't really like the suggestion that dieters are 'doomed' to regain or that we can't help ourselves when it comes to giving in to cravings. It makes it harder and it can feel like the odds are against us but people can and do lose weight and keep it off. We can all do it, it would just be nice if people appreciated what a fight it is instead of saying it's laziness, greediness or just a case of eating less/ moving more.

Being overweight, I feel more and more, is not an issue of how intelligent, how disciplined, how good we are as human beings - though that seems to be how the world judges us. It's a question of luck.

For me, I was a thin child, got my period and have been obese ever since. I found out in my 20s after going through a premature menopause that I had severe hormone imbalances which - as well as ultimately causing me to gave osteoporosis and a raft of other serious health conditions aged 30 - was a primary factor in my weight gain.

But by then I'd been conditioned by miserable years of bullying to believe I was stupid, lazy, worthless, a bad human being, because of my size.

I can't shake that. I can know better than to judge anyone else on the same principles but I can't not judge myself. And I contributed. I learned to comfort eat. I wanted crisps and chocolate because all my other friends were allowed them and the fact I wasn't felt like a punishment when I couldn't understand what I'd done wrong. Eating 'bad food' became a way of telling myself I was okay and a way of punishing myself at the same time.

It's a complex business, this weight thing. I don't believe it's ever quite as simple as 'eat less, move more'.

Also very thought provoking and very much the same world I came from, albeit I've always been on the chunky side!!!

People are so damn cruel, they don't understand the impact a few 'fat' words will have on people for the rest of their lives!

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[ladyfelsham]

Morning Moonlights

Sorry you didn't have a great sleep - but thanks so much for that honest and really thoughtful post - you're absolutely right, people do judge us by some bonkers rule that we're lazy, etc - especially women, in my experience!

I was walking along a Sydney pavement once and a woman cyclist (riding along the footpath when she shouldn't have been), shouted "Get out of the way, fatty!". Great, thanks for that. I bet she forgot about it instantly - but I remember it vividly years later.

 

[moonlights]

Rubbish sleep and when I did get off I got drenched by night sweats. Icky but always happens when nearly TOTM. I do miss not having periods sometimes!

People are strange. I can't imagine shouting an insult at someone in the street - 'oi, big nose!' it would feel ridiculous as well as just being something I'd never even dream of. But when I was a few stone heavier people yelled things at me all. The. Time.

I remember watching a tv show on C4 about a group of obese people taking on a challenge to walk from lands end to John o groats to see if the exercise would help them lose weight (nb. It really doesn't) and the whole way people were leaning out of their cars and screaming abuse at them. Unbelievable. These are the same people who would say that fat people are lazy and make no effort - well why should they when that kind of abuse is the result? Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I think there should be legislation against hate of all varieties - not that people shouldn't abuse fat people, but that people shouldn't abuse people, full stop.

And I'm quite sure the number of us who got called fatty in the street and rushed off to do a miracle diet successfully is minuscule when compared to the number of us who jumped head first into comfort food before trying and failing at several miserable eating plans.

Some guy on a bike yelled 'sh*tface' at me (I think) as he zoomed by while I was walking to hospital last year. I was delighted! First time I'd ever got an insult that didn't focus on my weight!

(And my face is the only part of me I know isn't too bad).

Funny old world.

 

[sammy1]

Love your lists, you always seem to hit the nail on the head. Abusing anybody should be illegal, just as it is if you racially abuse someone. What's on the menu for today?

 

[triage999]

I saw in the paper this week they are actually looking into creating a law against it and for it to be made a hate crime....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...-someone-fatty-could-become-a-hate-crime.html

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[moonlights]

Further adventures in gluc:

Yesterdays cheese bread is perhaps even better today, firm and springy. It's deffo too cheesy with yesterdays recipe, but as a sandwich with 1 cherry tomato and a little spring onion it's ideal and really hits the spot.

Am wondering if it would taste eggy without the cheese - will eventually test and see, but I bet what would be lovely is the original recipe made up without cheese but with spring onion, soy sauce and fried would make lovely Korean pancakes.

Oh and the other little thing on the plate? That's a couple of spoonfuls of the pudding I couldn't eat last night, experimentally fried. Yes, I basically fried sweetened milk and it's lovely, like a tiny sweet pancake/dumpling hybrid.

 

[moonlights]

Honestly that telegraph article made me laugh. To paraphrase

'under a new law people could be prosecuted for weight related verbal abuse...

...yet studies have shown that obese people underestimate how overweight they really are'.

Yes, because the best way for me to tell how fat I am is by counting how many times strangers tell me I'm disgusting.

And then

'[somebody or other said] doctors should still be allowed to tell patients if they're overweight or obese'.

Are we comparing doctors to abusive strangers now? I pay tax for doctors to tell me what I can do for my health - I don't invite the options of abusive strangers.

Verbal abuse also is not the same as telling people they've gained a little lately.

And then there's a random paragraph on how being overweight causes health complications. Yes but how is that related to the issue at hand? Is telling a black person they're more at risk of lupus considered racial abuse? Bizarre thing to include.

I've had people be aggressive, abusive and threatening over my weight - you know that racist tram lady? I've seen behavior like that over weight (not mine) and it should be prosecutable. Not that I think there should be lots of court cases over it, I just think that it should be frowned on by society instead of treated as a joke.

Sorry, bit militant on the issue.

 

[coffeelover]

People can be so horrible. It's amazing how they can abuse someone for being overweight, and not see how ugly they're personality is????

Cheese bread looks great.

 

[Alpaca]

OMG that photo looks fab! Loving the little hybrid! Lol

Your post is so brilliantly written and argued ML... Well done on articulating so rationally xx

 

[moonlights]

I just get terribly irritated by journalists clearly pandering to the people who'll want to use the idea of it being criminal to abuse people as 'PC gone mad' by combining several completely unrelated stories.

Doctors not being allowed to use the clinical term 'obese': silly

Strangers not being allowed to be abusive because at some point in your life you may have eaten more cake than they have: seems reasonable to me.

Don't be cruel to people. It doesn't seem like such a hard tenet to grasp.

 

[slaj]

Great posts ML, I think you could write an article and get it published.
Photos are fantastic,

 

[Kat1e]

Hi ML, all busy on your diary! Interesting to see your new recipes with g powder

 

[TIGGERTOES]

Your cheese bread looks really good ML. Nothing I bake seems to have that smooth finish. It's all rather rough and bitty. Any tips welcome. Your bread is on my menu for next week. With cheese

Glucomanan sounds like a great product. I look forward to seeing your next experiments.

Have a good night.

 

[moonlights]

I literally just followed the recipe I posted and dolloped uneven spoonfuls on a baking tray - the underside is smooth because it was on the tray but the tops are like hillside landscapes. For a totally flat, smooth finish you could put a piece of baking parchment over the top and weight it down lightly, but to be honest the mix was very sticky and a pain to work with so I just dolloped it on. Mine didn't rise as much as I've seen others but I think that's because I used too much cheese. If I do it again with cheese I'll only use 50g grated parmesan.

My only tip with gluc is to add veeeery slowly and whisk like a demon as it is very prone to lumping up.

Today:

30g Edam

Spoonful butterscotch gluc pudding, fried

1/2 cheese bread from yesterday:

1 piece as a mini sandwich with
1 cherry tomato
1 small spring onion

1 piece fried in butter topped with
1 fried egg
(really seriously delicious)

150g celeriac
Pork belly

Alpro

Mfp: 22g carbs Inc meds (low but yesterday was high)

Percentages looking good for a change, too!

 

[Scrumbles]

Gotta say, there is some seriously wonderful food in this diary of yours, moonlights. You use stuff I've never heard of as well, like the gluco powder. When I get a bit bolder with my food choices again, I'm definitely going to try it - I miss using cornflour to thicken things and this sounds like it could be a good substitute.

Great percentages, too - nice when they turn out like that, isn't it?

 

[moonlights]

Ugh PMS go away. I get it so badly lately and gosh if this month hasn't come with all the cravings in the world. Am blaming it for my giant appetite, too, but at least I'm keeping it legal.

 

[coffeelover]

Great your keeping it legal ML x

 

[ladyfelsham]

My only tip with gluc is to add veeeery slowly and whisk like a demon as it is very prone to lumping up

I have visions of kitchens all over England whisking like mad, with lumps of glue all over the ceiling Oh no, wait, that's my place....