Chocolate and Beyond

Lose Weight with a 'Late Breakfast, Early Dinner' Diet? Can Intermittent Fasting Work Intuitively?

Call me slow on the uptake, but I've just heard about this thing called 'intermittent fasting', after getting the latest issue Red magazine which has a plan formulated by Amanda Hamilton. And I'm intrigued, because the most palatable version of it - the 16/8 method (16 hours fasting, mostly while you sleep, and 8 hours eating) - seems like the easiest way of dropping pounds I've ever come across. But as with many new weight loss crazes, it sounds too good to be true?!

In its essence, for this plan, you basically finish eating by 7pm at night, or whatever time suits your lifestyle, and then you don't have your breakfast until 11am the next morning, or whichever time leaves 16 hours between when you last ate.

What you're 'supposed' to eat in between varies considerably on who is doing the talking, but it appears a standard, healthy approach (which means vegan, in my opinion!) with three meals and a snack or two could do the trick (read Mama's Weeds account).

What do you mean when you say you're eating 'healthily'?

When you talk about 'healthy eating' do you actually mean you're 'dieting', or at least switching to low-fat eating? It's become a bit of a bug bear of mine that people use the term 'healthy eating' as a euphemism for eating a low-fat diet, when there is so much evidence to show that eating the standard 'low fat diet' isn't healthy at all.

When I say I'm eating 'healthily', I mean that I'm being mindful about including nutritional foods in my diet again, when maybe I've been a bit slack for a while (such as the times I've been travelling and living off pizza!). My healthy foods include things like nuts, seeds and avocados - which are some of the most nutritionally dense foods you can eat, and are ones which dieters tend to avoid.

Also for me, a healthy diet tends to mean eating less white carbs, which don't make me feel great (though I did eat 2 slices of buttered white toast for breakfast this morning!), but I don't start using less fat, and I certainly don't start eating 'diet' foods. Again, there is so much evidence to show these do us more harm than good, and also make us hungrier in the long run because they contain so many substitute ingredients.

Of course, I do include a lot of vegetables and salads when I'm eating 'healthily' - but that's because they are the foundation of a good diet, not because they help me lose weight.

I know I'm no skinny minny, but I do now stay at a stable weight, pretty much whatever the occasion. And I am a lot happier than I used to be, when I was spending what seemed to be every waking moment thinking about how to keep the number on the scales down. For me, the way I now eat 'healthily' actually feels healthy.

 

Slimsticks - yet another 'revolutionary new weight loss aid'

How often have we heard the words revolutionary new weight loss aid'? The phrase has become deaf to my ears, not just because none of the so-called 'aids' ever actually live up to their promise, but because the term is so grossly over-used for the minimal to zero assistance in weight loss that these products offer.

I've received a press release for Slimsticks - you guessed it, another revolutionary new weight loss aid! Apparently, Slimsticks is clinically proven' to reduce food intake by up to 30%, with the claim that two to three sachets of this product a day can help an average woman (who is eating 2000 calories a day) to eat up to 600 calories less.

Anyone who has read Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science (if you haven't, it's a wonderful eye-opener) will know that such clinically proven' claims tend to be very loose indeed. Anyone selling for profit will tend to make results sit in their favour, funnily enough, and studies are usually considerably flawed.

Without testing this 'wonder aid' of course, I can't dispute that it may have some effectiveness (it apparently works as an appetite suppressant). But the fact is, that at £29.99 for a pack of 30 sachets, which individually need to be taken two or three times a day, you're likely to be paying around £30-£60 a month to use them.

And will they teach you how to tackle your emotional issues around food that cause you to overeat in the first place? Will they help you get used to eating normally and intuitively to address long-term weight management rather than a short-term goal? No.

And the chances are that after spending all that money, and having your appetite artificially suppressed (if they work), you'll put the weight back on anyhow.

Coffee with cream and never margarine

If you have been practising intuitive eating for some time, it can occasionally hit you with just how, um, intuitive it has all become!

I haven't bought any kind of low-fat spread for over 2 and a half years now, and though I don't drink coffee an awful lot, whenever I do I have it, I have it with cream. It occurred to me that I no longer question this, whereas I used to feel guilty if I had a spread of butter even in once in a month!

I pile my shopping trolley without ever thinking about fat content. After trying full-fat milk for a while, I reverted back to semi as I hate overly milky-tasting tea, but that was purely about taste and not about fat content and that to me says it all!

I've spent the last 2 and a half years eating what I want (within reason, as I do have health problems with some foods and I need to take care with them), and yet I haven't gained weight - in the LONG-TERM! I could have been dieting those last couple of years and the chances are I'd have been the same, but with the mental torture added to it.

Honestly - please give up the ghost of dieting and take a new approach to your life. It will be worth it in the end.

What has been your most significant intuitive eating learning?

There are so many things that I've learned since I began my journey into intuitive eating that it would be very difficult to identify the most significant, because my whole attempt to ditch the diet has numerous factors that all intertwine with each other.

However, I think the thing that has really struck home with me is learning that I can stop regimenting my diet and food intake, without suddenly losing control over eating altogether. To stop planning what I'll eat for the day, stop counting fat grams, carbohydrates and calories, and end the futile task of balancing one food off against another, does not mean that all of a sudden, I will end up with food taking over completely.

Challenging greed with intuitive eating

One of the main struggles I've had with intuitive eating is grappling with the challenge of satiety verses greed. Not only is there an issue with my past (and sometimes present) unhealthy relationship with food, there is also the fact that sometimes I'm just downright greedy.

No emotions involved. No eating disorder getting in the way. No struggle with binge or starve. Just plain, old, simple greed: "I love the taste of this food, so I'm going to eat more, regardless of the fact that I'm no longer hungry."

It is easy to kid yourself that you are not yet full, and therefore want to eat more, because you actually are just being greedy. But it is hard to accept this less desirable trait in ourselves (and sometimes, for me, easier to blame it on something like 'emotional eating').

Web resources on intuitive eating

Though the frustration that comes from dieting and its failure to be the solution to long-term weight-loss increases, references and resources on the web linked to intuitive eating are still not that great. But, those resources that do exist are valuable (though it is actually we bloggers that seem to dominate in the Google searches!).

Here is my list of those that seem particularly useful:

Diet Survivors Meditations: Fabulous blog site from Linda Moran, author of How to Survive Your Diet, where Linda provides daily meditations to keep you motivated or mindful on your quest to be an intuitive eater.

Intuitive Eating: This is the site of the authors of Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works, a comprehensive site which includes a list of their principles as well as research on the subject.