So the week ahead........... decisions, decisions...........
warning I am going to talk about food now.......
food that is forbidden while on the lower CWP. I wanted to make it clear from the outset of the post in case you don't want to read about it.
Next Saturday one of my very dear friends is having her 40th birthday party. It is a vintage tea party which I have been helping her organise since last year. The menu will be exclusively carbs...... lots and lots of sugary carbs :nono:sandwiches, scones, cream and multiple kinds of cake. Now I know it is my presence she wants, but I know she will be quite upset if I don't join in with any eating. I am feeling so well on plan at the moment; full of energy, my skin looks fab, I don't have bloating or stomach cramps etc and it is only in the last couple of weeks my body seems to have fully engaged with what I am doing and started showing the epic losses on the scales that you hope for when you do CWP.
I am so conflicted . Part of me wants to abstain from joining in with the food and part of me wants to join in :devilangel: While on my CD journey in 2007 I did have one planned weekend off for a family wedding and successfully went back on plan afterwards but I was much further along in my journey than I am this time around.
Plus, I have been doing a lot of thinking, reflecting and reading about being overweight, overeating and how my maintenance strategy is going to look this time around. I have always known that I am fairly intolerant to wheat and legumes and avoided these like the plague while maintaining the last time - If I eat them I suffer with awful stomach cramps, bloating and gain weight eating portions that would not cause gains for most other people if they matched what I was eating. Off the back of my reflections and reading I think I might actually be really sensitive to refined sugar, gluten and possibly, maybe all grains
When I don't have these things I am fine and I don't crave them (in your face reeses pieces!), don't get me wrong they are tempting. But if I abstain completely and put them out of sight I get over the temptation pretty quickly. Some people's perception of maintenance seems to be that you can eat whatever you want in moderation, and I'm sure for some people this may be true. Not for me though. When I think back to when I was maintaining I avoided wheat products like the devil and was quite strict with my overall sweet treats and carbs too, my husband even reminded him that I once told him that I can't eat like other people do and not get fat again. That I believed I would always have to guard myself against the addictive nature of certain foods and the best way to do this was by avoiding them in the first place. Just to explain a bit more, I can't have just 1 biscuit (I eat the whole packet), I can't have 1 slice of the fresh bread (I eat the whole thing), I can't have one piece or bar of chocolate as I never feel sated. I have the intention of having just one of these things but once I've started I cave completely and feel like a rabid animal and want to scratch my own skin off if I can't keep shovelling whatever I've started eating into my mouth
This has always bemused me as how can someone like me, who abstained from conventional food for 6 months previously to lose weight, not have the willpower to just have one biscuit and leave the rest in the packet
IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!!!!!
I found a great blog the other day called 'Refuse to Regain' by Barbara Berkeley. There is an article there about the addictive nature of certain foods which really rang true for me. She suggests that, biologically/genetically, some of us are more sensitive to starchy carbohydrates (grains, rice, potatoes, sugar etc) than others and because of this some people can eat them occasionally with no problem while others of us can't. She lists the following questions to ask yourself:
Does your hunger tail off dramatically when you eliminate Starchy Foods and resume powerfully when you reintroduce even small amounts?
Do you repeatedly find yourself eating more and more Starchy Foods after you’ve reintroduced them, despite all intentions of limiting your intake?
Do you feel a strong need to eat these foods after you’ve stopped them?
Have you noticed that eating those supposedly healthy whole grains makes you hungry?
Do you feel a sense of freedom when you “get off” these foods and a sense of disappointment when you give in to them again?
- See more at: The Addictive Power of Food - Refuse To Regain
^^^^^ THIS IS TOTALLY ME!!!! ^^^^^^
I have the best intentions, but the moment I give in and have 'just one' it all goes Pete Tong :sigh: Right now, being totally off these sorts of foods I don't want or crave them - my husband and our eldest daughter sat beside me on the sofa the other day having fish and chips and then snacked on chocolate and jelly sweets and I was quite happy sipping my water.
Realistically, I know that when I get back to my goal weight range this time that in order to maintain I need to severely limit &/or abstain from these kinds of foods day to day. When I first came to this conclusion the other day I felt pretty bummed out. Then I remembered that back when I was maintaining before it was not actually that bad - I fell off the maintenance wagon following some really traumatic events in my life and turned to food and didn't care about my maintenance strategies anymore. Thinking about how I have felt for the last 4 years while being off the my maintenance plan and the word that comes to mind is MISERY. I know I have actually been depressed which is, of course, going to have been a major factor in my misery. However, since I have got my depression under control it has still felt like I have been under a cloud and I came to the realisation just before I started CWP again that the food I have been eating over the last 4 years makes me feel physically and emotionally drained. CWP cuts out all these kinds of starchy foods on the lower plans and since I've been on plan I have felt so good - poo poo to you misery!
I think moving forward past goal and onto maintenance I am going to have to cut out wheat again and closely monitor sweet treats and carbs again.
Wow - this was meant to be a quick 'what should I do' post
I know what cakes/ bread etc do to me, but I love them and don't want to upset my friend... argghhhhhhhhhh!
Since Friday I have been eating a small serving of whatever I can manage at the time, three times a day in between my antibiotics, which has most often been full fat greek yoghurt, toast and oven chips 
