You've got to eat.....

I seem to be back locked in another battle with food again the last couple weeks, struggling to eat enough. It started as a reaction to stress going on in my life, to which I tend to stop eating, but now I am back in a bad loop of being so driven by every pound I lose to want to lose another (I had been able to able for a while to see past the number on the scale but I am definitely back there). I found myself last night actually saying to someone "I am up two pounds today so I am not eating tonight". Which is stupidity I haven't gone through in a while.


But that wasn't what spurred this post. It was a facebook comment I saw today that said "I have lost 35 pounds, I only eat breakfast and lunch and no dinner". It definitely hit the logically side of me which KNOWS that is wrong. Instead of messaging the person directly I decided to blog about it.


The reality is if you are not eating enough you are burning up muscle and water not fat. This past week I lost 6 lbs in 8 days. While it made the number on the scale look AWESOME (down to 245 officially) the trainers first reaction was to (sarcastically) congratulate me on burning up at least 3 lbs of muscle...and he's right. I shouldn't be proud of that amount of loss, it is not healthy.  1-2 lbs a week is the maximum one should lose for long term health and keeping the weight off.


Skipping meals, not eating are not a weight loss plan. Our bodies need fuel, evenly throughout the day. Just as our cars cant only have fuel 2/3 of the time and still work, neither can our bodies. It is about making smart choices throughout the day, not meal skipping and yo -yo dieting.


It is also important to know what your body needs, every one of us is different. My body is incredibly reactive to carbs, so I tend to do high protein/high fat, for someone else that plan would be a disaster. I tend to gain weight if I eat too little, definitely not the norm. Working with a professional such as a nutritionist is well worth the money (and is often covered by insurance if you have a referral) and if you are lucky enough to live where you can get metabolic testing done, like CaloriePoint which tells you the calories your body needs to survive, I strongly encourage it.


It is also incredibly important if you are "dieting" or making a life style change to make sure you are getting the proper suppliments also. I was never a believer in these before joining LTF and losing all this weight, but have since come to realize our food supply comes no where near giving us the nutrition our bodies need, and especially when we are skimping on food. If you have any doubt on the need to suppliment, just watch the documentary "Food Inc".


Finally, the reality of not eating to lose weight is in the end it will backfire. It is a great short term answer, but the end goal of doing it is that you slow down your metabolism, sometimes irreversibly. And that means later when you start eating "normal" you will gain more weight than that food would have caused you before.


Gui is probably sitting somewhere reading this and smiling. The sad part is I do know this stuff, I have been well educated in the last 7 months, I know I need to do better on the food. Hopefully some of the additional help I am going to be getting in the next month or so will help me deal with my fears of eating!