I was skimming through recent threads and realize I only get notifications to the ones I actively follow. I thought this was one of them but I guess not. :)
@Joyce I feel you on the holidays. They're meant to be a joyous, warm, loving, celebratory occasion but for many they can leave you feeling down and sad. I'm sort of a mixed bag with that time of year, although when January comes I find I'm both happy to have a bit more structure and "normalcy" and sad because the holidays are over and this time of year always feels gray and cold.
As I was reading further down the thread I saw what @skwiggs said about carbs+fat=bloat/puffiness. I feel like bloating is always one of my big issues and that might just be due to gluten, which I am really careful about but understand that I live with 3 other people who *do* eat it so maybe there's cross contamination here and there.
I definitely find I am way more satisfied when I eat protein+fat. I still eat carbs throughout the day, but if I don't have butter, cheese, salad dressing, whatever, I'm never really satisfied. The weird thing is that when I eat something like GF pasta or rice (I made a Hello Fresh chicken fried rice the other night for dinner) I find that I'm insatiable. There wasn't a lot of chicken to go around (I feel like they always skimp on the protein 😁) and I went back twice for more before I finally thought I'd had enough. It's one of the reasons why I think I generally don't eat a lot of pasta. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but it always seems to take bucket loads for me to feel full and satisfied.
Just thinking out loud here - why is it so hard sometimes to do things we know will make us feel better? Or for me, anyway. On Christmas Eve, I was hungry and tired. Yet I didn’t want to eat even though I knew I‘d feel tons better with a proper meal. Instead, I had a grande coffee from Starbucks with sugar cookie syrup and milk 😬 And a bag of chips. Hardly sustenance. I eventually ate later that day. But I couldn’t really get into the swing of things and picked at my plate. Even the Christmas cookies were barely touched. I think I just had a very, very hard time on Christmas, and it showed.
This is all really interesting. I am experimenting with adding more protein and seeing if that makes me more satisfied/has any effect. Will report back.
I'm very plant focused and tend toward vegan but I'm with you @skwigg that low-fat vegan just doesn't cut it for me. If I go too many days without some substantial fat I just start to feel hollow and unsatisfied. At that point I need so real cheese, full fat yogurt, eggs or the like. Better if I just incorporate those things all the way along. And I agree that I think we're all different. I think some people do better with a more paleo/meat based diet with less carbs but I wouldn't last long on that way of eating.
I'm 55 @snail, which is nuts! I'm sure that different people feel wonderful with completely different styles of eating, but for me, low-fat vegan is the worst I'd ever felt. Upping the protein and fat (hello, cheese) helped tremendously. More salmon, avocado, peanut butter, eggs. Then, I was satisfied, and my muscles and brain worked again. Whew! I still think it's great to eat a very plant-rich diet, but eating only plants wasn't for me, especially as I age. I'll chalk that up to another thing I learned the hard way.
@skwigg , your thoughts about metabolism, eating and longevity reminded me of a comment I recently saw in an FB group. One woman posted that in order for her to lose weight, she needed to eat 1200 calories per day. And that she is 5‘5” and 126 lbs, 30% body fat. I wanted to reach into the screen and tell her she needs to gain muscle. I mean, no wonder she is miserable. She thinks she is in bad shape, but doesn’t eat enough to feel good, which would probably make her more willing to be physically active, and is another key to feeling fantastic about oneself.
Oh yeah, I feel that fat+carb combo a lot these days too, especially when it comes to animal fat and carbs. A BLT sandwich with real bacon can bloat me up pretty well, which is why I started eating tempeh bacon. It’s not the same, but admittedly, probably better for my heart health, too.
@skwigg OK, that all makes sense. You are in your 50s, right? I am 40, and noticing that a lot of the food I eat on a regular basis is not keeping me full as long? I know I struggle with protein (vegetarian) so maybe that's this issue.
@snail I work 3pm to 11pm, so dinner is usually at work. I live close enough that sometimes I can come home to eat. If not, dinner is at work. And if work is crazy, dinner is at 9pm. Every day is different. And I’m sure everyone’s schedule is different. The key is to pay attention to what’s effective and sustainable for you, especially as hormones start changing. My approach from 20 years ago would never work now. Even the one from two years ago wasn’t going so well. It helps to not make any assumptions about what you should be doing, and to get curious about what might be easier or work better. Like, I would never have thought that eating candy after breakfast would be beneficial, but it sure is. 🤷♀️ So is the mindset of eating enough and eating for muscle. Cooking dinner at midnight was never going to happen, so I eat dinner at work and bring snacks. If I retired tomorrow, the whole thing would probably spread out more, with breakfast starting at 6 or 7. I would love to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier.
I forgot to talk about deliberate weight loss. A few months ago, I was getting really uncomfortable. Jeans cutting into me, wedding rings unwearable. I didn’t do anything drastic, I put fewer nuts in my smoothie, ate bread less often, started eating half a protein bar instead of the 300cal ones, and stayed a little more mindful of portions in general. Nothing happened quickly, but I started losing about a pound a month. That, plus a visit to a jeweler got my rings back on. No suffering, gasping or backlash at all from a very slightly lower food intake with more protein. I really feel like the frequent timing of protein throughout the day makes it easier for my old-people metabolism to utilize it. A decade ago it didn’t matter. I was all intermittent fasting and no snacking and that worked. I was going 7 hours or so between lunch and dinner. That just doesn’t fly anymore.
@skwigg Interesting! Thanks for all of that. You seem to eat most of the food early, too. That would probably not work for my schedule, unless my hours ever change and I get home earlier than 7:30 ever. Dinner is usually around 8:00...
@snail Diet logic will tell you that as you get older, your metabolism slows down, so you need to eat less food and do more cardio. Diet logic has it ass backwards. If you underfeed yourself, metabolism gets worse, hormones get out of whack, and fatigue sets in. Anytime I veered too far in that direction, I got tired and hungry, my belly poofed out, and my muscle definition vanished. The more I pushed, the worse all of that got.
So, now, as a post-menopausal woman, I know that low-calorie dieting and overexercising is like the grim reaper for your hormones. What makes my hormones (and muscles) happy, is rest, recovery, strength training, good sleep, quality protein, starchy starch, healthy fat, lots of plants, and being in the sweet spot on sugar.
I think I mentioned that when my husband retired and started going walking with me, we were eating candy the whole way. A few weeks ago, I was like, “This is stupid. NO more walking candy!” I quit eating it on morning walks, but found that I was eating more candy overall, like a lot more! LOL So, now I have a caramel and a couple of Tootsie Rolls in the morning when I walk the dog, and then I’m kind of indifferent about it the rest of the day. So, that’s my sugar sweet spot, deliberately having some first thing. Then, if more sugar presents itself later, I can enjoy or pass without ever feeling like I can’t get get enough of the stuff.
Now, eating for muscle and metabolism, that’s been interesting. I’m basically eating protein every 2-3 hours all day long. I’m not eating bodybuilder amounts though. I don’t count grams. I just make sure to eat some. I look and feel better, and definitely perform better, when I do. I have also sadly discovered that any kind of flour/fat combo now causes an insta-pooch of my lower abdomen. So, bagels and cream cheese, pasta and cream sauce, waffles and butter, donuts, all the fun stuff. I still love these foods and still eat them, but they aren’t daily staples the way they might have been in the past. I don’t limit carbs or starch though. I like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, lentils, quinoa, All-Bran, beans, fruit, that kind of thing. For whatever reason, I can eat satisfying amounts of those all day and stay quite lean, but if I butter two pieces of toast, I get puffy, my pants get tight, and my rings won’t come off. So, annoying.
Anyway, so, a day of eating might go like:
9:30 - A bowl of All-Bran with blueberries, blackberries, and gooseberries, and Silk Protein Milk.
Strength train for 10-30 minutes, three days a week
10:30 - Super food smoothie with protein powder, banana, berries, greens, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices
11:00 - Caramels and Tootsie Rolls
12:00 - a couple pieces of mozzarella and a handful of cherry tomatoes
2:00 - A big spinach and greens salad with chicken and cheese, honey mustard dressing, Mary’s Gone Crackers, fruit for dessert
2:30 - Atomic Fireball candy on the way to work
4:30 - Protein bar
6:00 - If I come home for dinner, something like a veggie burger patty with cheese, or an egg with cheese, or leftover chicken. Then, a starch like lentils, potatoes, or sweet corn, then a veggie like broccoli or asparagus, then a fruit like cherries or peaches.
I’m usually not at all hungry after that and don’t eat again until morning. Though, if I get hungry I’ll have something else. My days can vary a lot. We have company, we eat out, I have popcorn for lunch, life happens, but in general my mindset is that I’m frequently consuming protein foods and whole foods, not skipping meals or letting myself get too hungry, and lifting things in order to stay strong and keep my muscle mass.
Hi! It's been awhile. Skwigg, you posted this in Sunshine's journal: "I have thoughts about actively trying to eat more or less, but they're sort of nebulous. I will say that, post-menopause, restricting food intake has the exact opposite of its intended effect. Metabolically, it couldn't go any worse for me. So, the "eat less, lose weight" mindset had to go in the garbage. What works for me is thinking more along the lines of eating to have a healthy metabolism and muscle mass. Those make it possible to stay lean at higher food intakes, which feels productive and doable."
Can you elaborate? What does eating to have a healthy metabolism and muscle mass mean? I am thinking ahead here. I've been on birth control forever, and will have to come off when I reach menopausal age, so I'm wondering about this.
The original video was taken down before I had a chance to watch. It sounds like it was a good one regarding the pitfalls of calorie counting. It must have caused a whole lot of drama. I don’t like it when she takes videos down. Her tagline is “Science & Sass” and sometimes the sass needs to stand. She’s very quick to say, “Sorry, I was too sassy.”
I sometimes watch Abbey Sharp‘s YouTube channel. And this is just me, but sometimes I wish she were more, “I said what I SAID”, rather than backtrack from her previous statements. She made a video explaining why she took down her previous video, which I didn’t watch, but I gather was about calorie counting. And it must’ve ruffled plenty of feathers. If issuing a follow-up gives her peace, that’s great. But I’m of the school of thought that not everyone’s going to be happy with your opinion, and you don’t need to bother with them. Because they’re going to criticize no matter what. And sometimes, we don’t owe anyone explanations, either. It’s just how it is. 🤷🏻♀️
Wow. I had one from that time period, but it stopped working and I switched to Garmin. I don’t think I have it any longer. I found the email receipt but you have to actually send back the unit. I didn’t have any problem with mine although I wonder if it not working had anything to do with the faulty battery. I hadn’t had it that long, although out of warranty of course.
I just wanted to drop this quote here (I put it in my journal too).
"‘it’s generally easier to get people to act their way into a new way of thinking than it is to get people to think their way into a new way of acting’ " - Dylan William
(Dylan William is a British educationalist and Emeritus professor of Educational Assessment at the UCL Institute of Education)
It's something I came across in my Additional Qualifications course that I'm taking. It instantly reminded me of Skwigg and Tabitha Farrar when they talk about doing changing the thinking.
Not a random thought, more of a product recommendation. The Vicks Vaporub shower steamer tablets are amazing. I got these as a Christmas gift, and have already used up a box. It smells glorious in the shower, and helps me to wake up in the morning. I’m SO not a morning person, and need all the tools I can get to perk myself up. I’m going to order a few boxes soon!
I totally relate @skwigg ! I'm starting to understand the stereotype of the eccentric old lady who does and says what she wants and doesn't give a sh!%. I want to be a rebel too. :)
About aging, I have found power and happiness in the idea of being my authentic self. Many of the things I was doing, like 2-hour, $200 salon visits, were ALL about keeping up appearances and fear of what others would think. It wasn't because I enjoyed wasting all that time and money and putting burning chemicals on my head. There is this crazy freedom in not doing that anymore and owning it. I feel like a rebel. LOL
@skwigg you should check out r/instagramreality on Reddit. Social media is toxic af. I wish women would realize it’s okay to not look like you‘re in your 20s. I somehow struggle with this being in my early 40s, especially seeing celebrities hardly aging at all. I just remind myself that the alternative is worse - death.
I was skimming through recent threads and realize I only get notifications to the ones I actively follow. I thought this was one of them but I guess not. :)
@Joyce I feel you on the holidays. They're meant to be a joyous, warm, loving, celebratory occasion but for many they can leave you feeling down and sad. I'm sort of a mixed bag with that time of year, although when January comes I find I'm both happy to have a bit more structure and "normalcy" and sad because the holidays are over and this time of year always feels gray and cold.
As I was reading further down the thread I saw what @skwiggs said about carbs+fat=bloat/puffiness. I feel like bloating is always one of my big issues and that might just be due to gluten, which I am really careful about but understand that I live with 3 other people who *do* eat it so maybe there's cross contamination here and there.
I definitely find I am way more satisfied when I eat protein+fat. I still eat carbs throughout the day, but if I don't have butter, cheese, salad dressing, whatever, I'm never really satisfied. The weird thing is that when I eat something like GF pasta or rice (I made a Hello Fresh chicken fried rice the other night for dinner) I find that I'm insatiable. There wasn't a lot of chicken to go around (I feel like they always skimp on the protein 😁) and I went back twice for more before I finally thought I'd had enough. It's one of the reasons why I think I generally don't eat a lot of pasta. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but it always seems to take bucket loads for me to feel full and satisfied.
Just thinking out loud here - why is it so hard sometimes to do things we know will make us feel better? Or for me, anyway. On Christmas Eve, I was hungry and tired. Yet I didn’t want to eat even though I knew I‘d feel tons better with a proper meal. Instead, I had a grande coffee from Starbucks with sugar cookie syrup and milk 😬 And a bag of chips. Hardly sustenance. I eventually ate later that day. But I couldn’t really get into the swing of things and picked at my plate. Even the Christmas cookies were barely touched. I think I just had a very, very hard time on Christmas, and it showed.
This is all really interesting. I am experimenting with adding more protein and seeing if that makes me more satisfied/has any effect. Will report back.
I'm very plant focused and tend toward vegan but I'm with you @skwigg that low-fat vegan just doesn't cut it for me. If I go too many days without some substantial fat I just start to feel hollow and unsatisfied. At that point I need so real cheese, full fat yogurt, eggs or the like. Better if I just incorporate those things all the way along. And I agree that I think we're all different. I think some people do better with a more paleo/meat based diet with less carbs but I wouldn't last long on that way of eating.
I'm 55 @snail, which is nuts! I'm sure that different people feel wonderful with completely different styles of eating, but for me, low-fat vegan is the worst I'd ever felt. Upping the protein and fat (hello, cheese) helped tremendously. More salmon, avocado, peanut butter, eggs. Then, I was satisfied, and my muscles and brain worked again. Whew! I still think it's great to eat a very plant-rich diet, but eating only plants wasn't for me, especially as I age. I'll chalk that up to another thing I learned the hard way.
@skwigg , your thoughts about metabolism, eating and longevity reminded me of a comment I recently saw in an FB group. One woman posted that in order for her to lose weight, she needed to eat 1200 calories per day. And that she is 5‘5” and 126 lbs, 30% body fat. I wanted to reach into the screen and tell her she needs to gain muscle. I mean, no wonder she is miserable. She thinks she is in bad shape, but doesn’t eat enough to feel good, which would probably make her more willing to be physically active, and is another key to feeling fantastic about oneself.
Oh yeah, I feel that fat+carb combo a lot these days too, especially when it comes to animal fat and carbs. A BLT sandwich with real bacon can bloat me up pretty well, which is why I started eating tempeh bacon. It’s not the same, but admittedly, probably better for my heart health, too.
@skwigg OK, that all makes sense. You are in your 50s, right? I am 40, and noticing that a lot of the food I eat on a regular basis is not keeping me full as long? I know I struggle with protein (vegetarian) so maybe that's this issue.
@snail I work 3pm to 11pm, so dinner is usually at work. I live close enough that sometimes I can come home to eat. If not, dinner is at work. And if work is crazy, dinner is at 9pm. Every day is different. And I’m sure everyone’s schedule is different. The key is to pay attention to what’s effective and sustainable for you, especially as hormones start changing. My approach from 20 years ago would never work now. Even the one from two years ago wasn’t going so well. It helps to not make any assumptions about what you should be doing, and to get curious about what might be easier or work better. Like, I would never have thought that eating candy after breakfast would be beneficial, but it sure is. 🤷♀️ So is the mindset of eating enough and eating for muscle. Cooking dinner at midnight was never going to happen, so I eat dinner at work and bring snacks. If I retired tomorrow, the whole thing would probably spread out more, with breakfast starting at 6 or 7. I would love to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier. I forgot to talk about deliberate weight loss. A few months ago, I was getting really uncomfortable. Jeans cutting into me, wedding rings unwearable. I didn’t do anything drastic, I put fewer nuts in my smoothie, ate bread less often, started eating half a protein bar instead of the 300cal ones, and stayed a little more mindful of portions in general. Nothing happened quickly, but I started losing about a pound a month. That, plus a visit to a jeweler got my rings back on. No suffering, gasping or backlash at all from a very slightly lower food intake with more protein. I really feel like the frequent timing of protein throughout the day makes it easier for my old-people metabolism to utilize it. A decade ago it didn’t matter. I was all intermittent fasting and no snacking and that worked. I was going 7 hours or so between lunch and dinner. That just doesn’t fly anymore.
@skwigg Interesting! Thanks for all of that. You seem to eat most of the food early, too. That would probably not work for my schedule, unless my hours ever change and I get home earlier than 7:30 ever. Dinner is usually around 8:00...
@snail Diet logic will tell you that as you get older, your metabolism slows down, so you need to eat less food and do more cardio. Diet logic has it ass backwards. If you underfeed yourself, metabolism gets worse, hormones get out of whack, and fatigue sets in. Anytime I veered too far in that direction, I got tired and hungry, my belly poofed out, and my muscle definition vanished. The more I pushed, the worse all of that got.
So, now, as a post-menopausal woman, I know that low-calorie dieting and overexercising is like the grim reaper for your hormones. What makes my hormones (and muscles) happy, is rest, recovery, strength training, good sleep, quality protein, starchy starch, healthy fat, lots of plants, and being in the sweet spot on sugar.
I think I mentioned that when my husband retired and started going walking with me, we were eating candy the whole way. A few weeks ago, I was like, “This is stupid. NO more walking candy!” I quit eating it on morning walks, but found that I was eating more candy overall, like a lot more! LOL So, now I have a caramel and a couple of Tootsie Rolls in the morning when I walk the dog, and then I’m kind of indifferent about it the rest of the day. So, that’s my sugar sweet spot, deliberately having some first thing. Then, if more sugar presents itself later, I can enjoy or pass without ever feeling like I can’t get get enough of the stuff.
Now, eating for muscle and metabolism, that’s been interesting. I’m basically eating protein every 2-3 hours all day long. I’m not eating bodybuilder amounts though. I don’t count grams. I just make sure to eat some. I look and feel better, and definitely perform better, when I do. I have also sadly discovered that any kind of flour/fat combo now causes an insta-pooch of my lower abdomen. So, bagels and cream cheese, pasta and cream sauce, waffles and butter, donuts, all the fun stuff. I still love these foods and still eat them, but they aren’t daily staples the way they might have been in the past. I don’t limit carbs or starch though. I like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, lentils, quinoa, All-Bran, beans, fruit, that kind of thing. For whatever reason, I can eat satisfying amounts of those all day and stay quite lean, but if I butter two pieces of toast, I get puffy, my pants get tight, and my rings won’t come off. So, annoying.
Anyway, so, a day of eating might go like:
9:30 - A bowl of All-Bran with blueberries, blackberries, and gooseberries, and Silk Protein Milk.
Strength train for 10-30 minutes, three days a week
10:30 - Super food smoothie with protein powder, banana, berries, greens, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices
11:00 - Caramels and Tootsie Rolls
12:00 - a couple pieces of mozzarella and a handful of cherry tomatoes
2:00 - A big spinach and greens salad with chicken and cheese, honey mustard dressing, Mary’s Gone Crackers, fruit for dessert
2:30 - Atomic Fireball candy on the way to work
4:30 - Protein bar
6:00 - If I come home for dinner, something like a veggie burger patty with cheese, or an egg with cheese, or leftover chicken. Then, a starch like lentils, potatoes, or sweet corn, then a veggie like broccoli or asparagus, then a fruit like cherries or peaches.
I’m usually not at all hungry after that and don’t eat again until morning. Though, if I get hungry I’ll have something else. My days can vary a lot. We have company, we eat out, I have popcorn for lunch, life happens, but in general my mindset is that I’m frequently consuming protein foods and whole foods, not skipping meals or letting myself get too hungry, and lifting things in order to stay strong and keep my muscle mass.
Hi! It's been awhile. Skwigg, you posted this in Sunshine's journal: "I have thoughts about actively trying to eat more or less, but they're sort of nebulous. I will say that, post-menopause, restricting food intake has the exact opposite of its intended effect. Metabolically, it couldn't go any worse for me. So, the "eat less, lose weight" mindset had to go in the garbage. What works for me is thinking more along the lines of eating to have a healthy metabolism and muscle mass. Those make it possible to stay lean at higher food intakes, which feels productive and doable."
Can you elaborate? What does eating to have a healthy metabolism and muscle mass mean? I am thinking ahead here. I've been on birth control forever, and will have to come off when I reach menopausal age, so I'm wondering about this.
The original video was taken down before I had a chance to watch. It sounds like it was a good one regarding the pitfalls of calorie counting. It must have caused a whole lot of drama. I don’t like it when she takes videos down. Her tagline is “Science & Sass” and sometimes the sass needs to stand. She’s very quick to say, “Sorry, I was too sassy.”
I sometimes watch Abbey Sharp‘s YouTube channel. And this is just me, but sometimes I wish she were more, “I said what I SAID”, rather than backtrack from her previous statements. She made a video explaining why she took down her previous video, which I didn’t watch, but I gather was about calorie counting. And it must’ve ruffled plenty of feathers. If issuing a follow-up gives her peace, that’s great. But I’m of the school of thought that not everyone’s going to be happy with your opinion, and you don’t need to bother with them. Because they’re going to criticize no matter what. And sometimes, we don’t owe anyone explanations, either. It’s just how it is. 🤷🏻♀️
Wow. I had one from that time period, but it stopped working and I switched to Garmin. I don’t think I have it any longer. I found the email receipt but you have to actually send back the unit. I didn’t have any problem with mine although I wonder if it not working had anything to do with the faulty battery. I hadn’t had it that long, although out of warranty of course.
Fitbit Ionics are being recalled because the battery can overheat and cause burns.
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/Fitbit-Recalls-Ionic-Smartwatches-Due-to-Burn-Hazard-One-Million-Sold-in-the-U-S
I don't have that one, but yikes! Looks like they're giving full refunds plus 40% off a new device.
I just wanted to drop this quote here (I put it in my journal too).
"‘it’s generally easier to get people to act their way into a new way of thinking than it is to get people to think their way into a new way of acting’ " - Dylan William
(Dylan William is a British educationalist and Emeritus professor of Educational Assessment at the UCL Institute of Education)
It's something I came across in my Additional Qualifications course that I'm taking. It instantly reminded me of Skwigg and Tabitha Farrar when they talk about doing changing the thinking.
Not a random thought, more of a product recommendation. The Vicks Vaporub shower steamer tablets are amazing. I got these as a Christmas gift, and have already used up a box. It smells glorious in the shower, and helps me to wake up in the morning. I’m SO not a morning person, and need all the tools I can get to perk myself up. I’m going to order a few boxes soon!
I totally relate @skwigg ! I'm starting to understand the stereotype of the eccentric old lady who does and says what she wants and doesn't give a sh!%. I want to be a rebel too. :)
About aging, I have found power and happiness in the idea of being my authentic self. Many of the things I was doing, like 2-hour, $200 salon visits, were ALL about keeping up appearances and fear of what others would think. It wasn't because I enjoyed wasting all that time and money and putting burning chemicals on my head. There is this crazy freedom in not doing that anymore and owning it. I feel like a rebel. LOL
I stayed up late to watch my fave hockey team lay an egg. 🥱