Defeated By Poor Eating Habits

Trying to live a healthier lifestyle can be very difficult

Are you struggling just as I am to overcome your bad eating habits? Does the idea of watching what you eat really leave you feeling defeated? Boy do I hear you.

Since putting it out there that I am attempting to live a healthier lifestyle I feel like I have done the complete opposite. Struggling to make the right choices these last weeks have demonstrated to me that I am highly addicted to the unhealthy choices I continue to make. I know the key to overcoming the health issues that I am facing is to adapt to and live a much healthier lifestyle.

Since the first 2 weeks of deciding to record videos documenting the ways I have learned to eat healthier. Applying the knowledge of a short course over 5 years ago in nutrition, a vast read knowledge of how to choose macro eating over calorie reductions and starvation techniques, as well as the support many online resources I still end up resorting to the old unhealthy ways of eating. I find myself stuffing my face with things like pastries, cookies, chips and popcorn. The trips to A&W for the Beyond Meat burger and the cheating on no meat to eat charcuterie boards and parma on baguettes in Madeira, Portugal.

Charcuterie Board -

Madeira, Portugal

I am a stress eater. Food is my go to comfort for all things in life except heartache. I refuse to be in a perpetual state of heartbreak just to lose weight and be healthy. Anytime I get stressed or feel good about life, which apparently is quite often because look where I am, I end up right back up close to 300lbs. Th trouble is this time I am also in the worst shape of my life. With past and present health issues most certainly caused by my die and health, you might think after several roller coaster rides around this weight loss thing I would get it by now. Except I don’t. If I did I would not be here, not writing this, hoping to somehow let it sink in.

Instead, yet again I feel the early sounds of defeat drumming in my head. I feel so close again to just accepting the defeat and accepting whatever outcomes accompany my change back to the past. The trouble is... I don’t want to. I want a healthy active stress free leaner life! So let’s turn it around. Every day can be a new beginning and a step forward. Even if you experience two steps backwards at times, there are moments to move forward.

When we returned back from Madeira, Portugal I noted that I had actually lost weight while traveling. Despite eating from a couple of junk food meccas and indulging in the meat products I was actually down 7lbs from my weigh in before leaving. After seeing this I took stock of what and how I ate during that time to see what the cause could have been to effect the loss despite bad habits creeping in. First, I was not fasting. Food was consumed between 10 am and 8pm. No window there. It was however limited to 3 meals a day, no snacking in between, no additional food outside breakfast lunch and dinner. Additionally, the food portions are not as huge. In north American culture, it appears as though the more you are given, the more you will eat. Portions were nearly perfect every time we ate.

Every morning I would start my day with the hotel free breakfast choices. this was eggs on toast with a small mango arugula salad. (I always left the mango to the side.

Hotel Breakfast

Eggs on toast with Arugula and Mango

We were also walking more. Daily average steps increased substantially during the time we were there when we were out exploring. Walking around the Funchal streets and down to the marina daily provided enough exercise to burn off some of the calories. In fact average steps per day increased over the previous month according to my apple health step counter.

How to translate travel eating into home eating?

Not going to lie, since being back I have been eating non-stop. Certain to gain back the weight I lost while traveling, my goal this week is to find the things that helped and optimize them into new habits.

The biggest difference noticed was that there was no snacking. No food in between meals meant calories were reduced. Even if it looked like I went over from the types of foods that were ate, at the end of the day, strictly eating 3 meals in an 10 hour period proved more effective than almost constant eating.
Conclusion: Fasting does not work if you are constantly grazing. Limiting meals to 3 times a day can actually help. That will be my challenge this week. Trying not to graze.