Skinny Water

As I continue to watch the BBC series "Supersize Vs. Superskinny" on Youtube, I keep finding bits of inspiration and ideas that I think might help me to reshape my thinking about the subject of food, eating, fasting, and losing weight.

Clearly I have beliefs about how and what I eat that seem to work against me rather than for me. It all still boils down to "if you want to lose weight, you have to eat less"  but eating "more" is a hard habit to break.

One of the things that I have noticed about the two polar opposites between the supersized and the superskinny is that neither one is sane about food. The one seems to be focused on continually eating and the other is focused on continually not eating. One gets by on as much as they can humanly consume and the other gets by on as little.

They both seem to indulge in what they like. There are as many of the skinnies eating junk food and chocolate bars as there are fatties. It is just that the skinnies eat one chocolate bar and call that a meal, whereas the fatties, eat a whole bag of chocolates as dessert after a large meal.

It really is all about portions. Imagine eating chocolate for breakfast every single day of your life and being skinny. Some of them do that. The problem is that for the rest of the day they don't eat regular meals. Some of these adults eat child sized portions when they do eat, and then drink energy drinks or whatever they are hooked on, even cola, instead of meals for the rest of the day. One busy young man drank four glasses of orange juice for his evening meal, every day. It seems that about every three days or so the skinnies might eat what could be called a meal and often it is the same exact meal every time they eat. They are not hooked on variety or the tastes or textures of food, except that some of them are super picky and there are a lot of things they won't eat because they are unappealing to them in some way.

It seems like an odd phenomenon to this supersizer. Clearly both of these groups of people operate within a set of beliefs that they have somehow created for themselves.

Another thing I've noticed as I have been fasting is about water. I've learned to drink water when I get the feeling of hunger while I'm fasting. I have no qualms about drinking water often to quench my desire for food. And it helps.

As I put these things together in my head I've come up with the idea of how our hunter gatherer ancestors may have related to their environment in ways that I had not considered before.

We need air all the time and under normal conditions we have no worries about that. It is always there and we don't think about it. It was the same for our ancestors.

I always thought that the next two things that are needed for survival were food and water, but I am beginning to think I may have that backwards. I think it should be water and food. I think it is clear that we can go for weeks on end without food, if we have to and we remain alive, although this is surely not desirable or easy. Thinking about people lost in a desert in the movies they seem to only be able to go without water for about 3 or 4 days before collapsing.

Our ancestors often settled down wherever there was fresh clean water available so the air and water were free. It was the food that we had to work for. Whether it was hunting or gathering you had to go out and find the food. That is why the "invention" of agriculture allowed civilizations to settle down and grow up. If you have to hunt for the food every day you don't expect to get three big meals a day. I think "three square meals" may be a modern invention and that how we are meant to eat is small portions for a few days and then a big portion -- you know, the day they caught a water buffalo and had a feast!!

So when considered in that fashion, it makes sense to think that drinking water is higher on the priority list which is: 1 air, 2 water, 3 food. (I'm not concerned with shelter or anything else for this discussion.) It seems it may have been much easier to go to the near by stream and get a bucket of water than to traipse around looking for berries and bunnies whenever you got that "I want something feeling."

Using both my experience from fasting, and what I've observed in the "skinnies," drinking water during an intermittent fast is not only essential to health, it makes perfect sense that it is a natural "substitute" for food. I call it "substitute" based on my life long belief that that feeling meant I was hungry. I've mentioned before that I still cannot tell the difference between hunger and thirst. We respond to those feelings based on our beliefs.

I think the thing that seems hardest for me to do is to reduce my portion size. I have always been what I thought of as "a big eater." This was brought home to me tonight when Dr Jessen said to one of the very slender women who wanted desperately to put weight on, that she needed to stop eating child-sized portions and start eating lady-sized portions. I had never heard it called that before, but I knew immediately that I needed to stop eating big and start eating like a lady. LOL I just heard that tonight.

That is why fasting appeals to me. It lets me still eat "big" every other day or so.

I have actually been working on portions but I still seem to want to dabble in big more often than I'm beginning to believe I should. I have reduced my plate size but I most often eat out of a bowl. I have always preferred and deep bowl to a shallow one for a couple of reasons. The first one being it holds more. The second being it is easier to control the food in the bowl if it has high sides. I always eat my scrambled eggs in a bowl with a spoon. It just makes better sense to me.

I thought it was funny when a friend looked down her nose at my offer of a bowl and spoon when I fed her scrambled eggs at my house. She insisted on a plate and fork and I could tell by her demeaner that she thought I was really stupid. I actually thought she was just stuck in her ways! It is so much easier to scoop them with a spoon and get every last bit, than to try to stab something with a fork that always gets away or falls off or breaks apart. I don't really care what others think about this, I still prefer the spoon for floppy food. It just makes more sense to me.

Anyway I've been resisting the shallow bowl idea because I just don't like them. I have been picturing the contents of the deep bowl as prettier if it sits in the bottom of the bowl and only fills it about half way. That has been helping.

Now if I can only get enough sense to stop binging. So far I'm doing better with that in the last few days. My weight has been going down in small increments every day so I am pleased with that and hope I'm back to where I was by the time I go to the doctor on the 15th, although I'm not sure that is possible. I guess I'll see.
 
Be back soon,

Marcia