Neenish Tarts and Other Matters
G’Day every body
8-2 much,
My work involves lots of interviews, often at people’s homes in the evening. It’s too early to eat before I go, and it has always been my habit to eat when I get back home.
While I was on the program I would stretch the gap between breakfast and lunch out a bit longer, eat my usual apple and crispbread about mid way between the two meals, and have a late lunch.
I would take two of the crispbread and the bottle of water with me so that if, for example, I had a 7pm appointment, I could eat the crispbread and have a drink at about 6.30 – 6.45pm. Sometimes I took four crispbread, which meant I could eat the second pair on the way home – provided that the necessary 2 & half hours between crispbreads had effluxed.
Then, when I got home, I would have one of the quick savoury cheese grills or a tuna salad or (if I was cunning) the casserole which I had prepared and put in the oven before going out.
Do not miss having the three meals in each day. I made sure that I ate all the food every day. Last thing at night I eat an orange no matter what time it is – by the time I potter about, clean my teeth, read for a bit etc, I’m sure my body can cope with a bit of food in the stomach.
The reason for the ‘not after 9pm’ rule is simply that HGH works most effectively when blood sugar is low, and blood sugar is lowest two hours after a meal. Ergo, don’t eat later than 9pm, be in bed by about 11pm, actually asleep and in the right brain wave pattern for the midnight – 2am HGH release.
In a perfect world that’s what we would all do – wear blue uniforms and ‘Lights Out’ by 11pm! But it isn’t and we don’t – for example, I was still up and faxing documents at 4am this morning, the alarm went off at 7.30am and the new day started.
Remember, this program is Clever with a Capital “C”. Yep, “C” for “Clever Cohen”!!!
Any of the ‘rules’ are there just to maximise the effectiveness of the program for us!
We obviously have to work with what we’ve got, but there are ways of doing what we can when we can.
There is a lot of difference between having a steak and salad when we’re out to eating bags of Smarties and Nutella off the spoon, and pretending it doesn’t matter.
I think Jewls is right about smelling the food. I noticed a really heightened sense of smell – I could smell food very keenly, especially the family meals (my husband does all the shopping and all the cooking). I would go over to them and sit at the table during the meal, really enjoying the fragrance of their food, asking them about it, watching them eat and actually having the time to talk to them instead of being occupied eating my own dinner. I would have a glass of soda water and always participate in the social activity of the meal.
One afternoon there was a bag of Neenish tarts on the kitchen bench. I was really fidgety, couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but I could smell the tarts. I went over, smelled them deeply, then wrapped them up tightly and put them in the pantry. After that I was calm again. No drama.
When I first started on the program I was often asked ‘are you allowed this, are you allowed that?’ my reply: ‘I am allowed anything, but right now I choose to not eat that – yet!’
Remember, at the bottom of the Shopping List are the words ‘IF IT’S NOT ON THE LIST YOU CAN’T HAVE IT –YET’.
‘Yet’ is such a powerful word. Yes, of course you can have whatever you like, but not yet. Wait a bit, not long (yes, OK, Lizzie – 65 weeks is a bit longer than ‘not long’), but at the end of this there is the land of milk and honey - if you can still remember what milk and honey tastes like and if you still want it when you get there!
As Heavenlylamb commented, sometimes a lick is enough. Giving yourself permission, finding some real and direct sensory way – small, taste – of satisfying your curiosity without having to put the darn stuff on your ribs / hips / stomach will do the trick.
This week I have noticed how my gait has changed. Well, I noticed this about two thirds of the way down, but have been thinking about the hip joints this week.
When I was obese, obviously my legs walked a certain line (bit like John Wayne at the OK Corral, perhaps?), which must have put pressure on the ball-and-socket hip joints. Now, my legs walk much closer together – in fact, my knees knock sometimes – and the hip joints are revolving the way they were designed to.
Think about your gait. If you could see your pelvis, are your legs working with your hip joints or forcing them to function in a very splayed and distorted action?
So next time some unthinking person leaves the Neenish tarts on the bench, or you are running late and very tempted to skip a meal, remember what we are doing this for.
We are doing this to reach an ‘ideal’ weight. Not just a weight from a chart, but our own, true, ‘ideal’ weight. A weight at which our bodies will function in an optimal way. Alert, happy, slim, with healthy knees and hips and a skeleton which can carry the rest of us comfortably and easily without a care in the world.
This program will give us every chance to achieve that optimal state. OK, slim people do get sick, do get dodgy knees, do need hip replacements, but nowhere near as often or as drastically as obese people do.
As lessfatty’s ticker says – well, used to say when he had the dancing pig – ‘Nothing Feels As Good As Being Thin Feels’. Believe me, my deviations were basically licking up a spoonful of sherry in the early days and feeling as guilty as a thief about it, and three dinners which really weren’t world standard meals but I ate them to be sociable. Other than that, I weighed to the gram even if that meant putting half a slice of cucumber back in the fridge!
I am not doing this twice. I wanted the job done, done well, done quickly, and that’s it. I have never – and I do mean, never – felt so completely well, so comfortable in my skin, and just so darn pleased with myself as I do now.
Hang in there fellow Cohenites. Believe me, Nothing Feels As Good As Being Thin Feels!
Keep going!
Chelsea
PS Thanks Jewls for the nod on installing the ticker! Even though I completed on 24th June it is still such a buzz. 30% of my body weight gone! Twelve years to stack on, 20 weeks to gently melt away. I shall wear my skinny jeans with stiletto heels on Saturday - I have never worn such racy clothes before but gee! it's fun to wear them now!!
