Yesterday I had a bit of a struggle based on the fact that I only had 4 hours sleep (!) - probably something to do with the very strong coffee I had at 4pm, why did I do that?? We were in a really nice coffee and ice cream place and it smelt soooooo good. Suffice to say I won't be doing that again in a hurry. It wasn't the best timing because I'm trying to demonstrate the Stealth Health Key Concepts for weight loss this week, which at the end of the day are about calorie deficit. Let's not pretend this is easy, and when you've had a shitty night's sleep it's even harder.
I blogged yesterday about Calorie Awareness which in summary means spending your calories wisely; far better to eat lots of nutritious foods that are lower in calories and really fill you up (I gave some examples) than spend a third of your daily calorie allowance on a huge cheese scone, although I have done that before :-)) I'm not a big fan of calorie chat, it all feels a bit Weight Watchers circa 1980, but on the other hand if we don't face up to the fact that we need to consume less calories to lose weight then we are kidding ourselves. The trick is to find ways to do it that don't feel like we are dieting.
One of the ways is Volume Control, the sixth Stealth Health Key Concept. If we are trying to cut calories then we can simply just eat a bit less across the board. We may have got used to eating more than we need by force of habit. It is thought that we have an 'appetite thermostat' so our stomachs get used to receiving a certain quantity of food, if we can slowly turn the thermostat down we will feel satisfied with less food.
To apply Volume Control here are some tips:
Is there more food on your plate than you need?
Don’t overload your plate. Put a reasonable amount of food on your plate, eat it slowly and have more if you are still hungry.
Having pasta? Have a clenched fist size portion of pasta with sauce and fill the rest of the plate with salad or veg.
Having pizza? Have 1-2 slices and fill the rest of your plate with salad or veg.
Having roast dinner? Have fewer roast potatoes and more veg. Go easy on the gravy.
Having curry? Have a tea cup-sized portion of curry, the same quantity of brown rice and a load of chopped up cucumber, tomato and plain yogurt.
Having a sandwich? Maybe have an open sandwich to cut the amount of bread, or have a wholegrain wrap or use large romaine lettuce leaves as a wrap for the filling.
Try not to pick.
I am terrible at this, if there is food on the table I will pick at it even though I am not at all hungry. When you are done move everything off the table straight away. In a restaurant ask them to remove half-empty plates and get rid of the bread basket.
So see how you go with Volume Control, it might just be the thing you need to start seeing the weight creep down, I'd like to say drop off but I don't believe in setting unrealistic expectations, a creep is good, well in this context anyway.
Now for something completely different, my friend Sally who subscribes to this blog mentioned that in order to comment on posts you have to be logged in to Wix (which is the hosting site for my blog) and this might be putting people off commenting. I have had a little surf and this is what Wix have to say:
Currently, it is not possible to disable the login requirement so that blog readers can comment without logging in. The Wix Blog was built to promote a community of site members and encourage quality engagement within the blog.
Which is their way of saying it deters trolls! So please do sign-up if you'd like to comment, I do read and respond to every one and it's really useful for me to get feedback so I can keep offering you helpful content. I think once you are signed-in you will stay signed-in so you don't have to keep logging in every 2 minutes. To sign up click here.
So that's how it's looking for today, I had a good night's sleep last night so I am definitely finding it easier to keep the volume under control today.
Sam xx