Hunger . . . or not

Hunger . . . or not 

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 

I'm on week 5 of stage 2 of the SP diet. One of the things I'm supposed to do this week is write down why I'm eating, every time I eat. One of the reasons is supposed to be hunger, every time. That sounds really lame, but I'm dutifully writing something in the notes section of the nutrition tracker. 

Today's entry for dinner was, "OMG it's 7 PM and I need to eat 796 calories, 55g carbs, 20g fat, and 54g protein. Maybe I should be hungry?" 

That kind of explains how I lost weight in 2009 and 2010. I wasn't tracking food at all, but I was making an effort to eat only when hungry, to avoid eating for boredom or stress, and to exercise (mostly lifting weights) enough to stay fit. 

Exercise helps with food consumption a couple of ways. It burns calories, and it also suppresses appetite. Probably some of those days in 2009 and 2010 I was eating below what SP says is my minimum calorie requirement. Certainly other days in 2009 and 2010 I was eating well above what SP says is my maximum allowed calories. Let's not think about the macronutrient distribution of those calories. I probably wasn't getting enough protein unless I was also getting far too many total calories.

The second lesson I draw from this is, I can't trust how I feel about how much food I'm eating. Early on with SP, the diet felt doable but restrictive. I had to work to stay in the middle of the range. Then I set a weight loss goal, and the range shifted downward. It was trickier. 

But over time, I figured out how to deal with things. Get the soda out of the house. Buy low fat cottage cheese and chicken breasts so I can get enough protein without blowing fat and total calories. Learn to eat salad, even if it means finding a salad dressing that I like. 

Trimming the total calories did odd things to the calculations. Some days, I'd come in needing a few more grams of fat. That got rid of the bagels in the house, as cream cheese has fat. Later, it was toast and butter. Still later, I realized that it made more sense to eat almonds to make up deficient fat. It takes time, but I do get there. 

Today was day 2 of week negative 1 of my 5K running program. (Negative 1 because I need two remedial weeks to get ready for the real program.) I came home from work planning to do the run 1 minute, walk 1 minute routine 12 times then walk home from wherever I ended up.  Thought about eating something, maybe some whole wheat toast, before running. Then I thought again. Yesterday I lifted weights after work and before dinner; today I can walk/run after work and before dinner. It turned out not to be a problem. 

Then there's that appetite suppression from exercise. All of a sudden, it was 7 PM. I wasn't hungry but need to get the daily requirements in. Got the job done, and I'll be fine. 

But I do need to watch things. While it is more likely that failure to track food would result in overeating than undereating, I can't discount the possibility of undereating if I don't track. In fact, that would explain some rather poor performances in the gym in 2009 and 2010, which contributed to gym burnout. 

I'm probably not going to keep writing down the reasons I eat after this week, but it was a worthwhile exercise. It showed me a side of mindless eating I hadn't thought of, mindless non-eating. 

That's one more reason why I will need to track what I eat for the rest of my life. But that's okay. With tools like SP provides, tracking what I eat forever is nowhere near as dismal as it sounded six and a half weeks ago.