Eat yourself skinny!

I wanted to write about erotica today, or Mummy porn. But I won't. I'm not ready to put myself out there that much yet. But watch this space because I've been doing a lot of thinking about this.

Instead, I thought I'd share a little more about my weight-loss journey. I empathize strongly with people who are overweight. I know how you feel. I know how you think. 

I know the battle that goes on in your head all the time.

I'm still on the battle field, and I've come to accept that I will be fighting this my whole life. I just like food too much. I'm obsessed with food and recipes even. When I'm eating a meal, I'm already thinking about what I'll be making for the next one! But, I don't like being overweight. Not only do I not like how I look when I'm overweight, but especially, I don't like how I feel. 

Never give up food you like to lose weight. Because you will lose the battle.

So, I've found a strategy that enables me to win so much more easily. I am loosing weight and I'm eating delicious food. I'm eating butter. I'm eating cheese. I'm having cream and ice cream. And cake. And I'm still eating some carbs. The secret is:

I don't mix fats and carbs and I always give my body protein!

I only ever give my body one fuel to burn. Either fats, or carbs.

And I don't eat sugar! That is the one big no no. And yes, it's hard to give up sugar. Your body will go into withdrawal. You will probably get bad headaches. After all, "sugar is more addictive than cocaine"! But after a few days you will feel better, the headaches will disappear, you'll have more energy, you'll have less cravings and you'll be more in touch with your hunger and satiety feelings.

Anyway, back to not mixing fats and carbs to lose weight. A dear friend lent me her Trim Healthy Mama book. I read it. It made sense. I applied it. I lost weight. I'm still losing weight. If I "cheat" too often, my weight loss stalls, or it goes up a bit, but as soon as I'm back on track, off fall the kilos.

I don't like to think of THM as a diet. It's more of a low GI eating plan with three main rules:

1) No sugar

2) Don't mix carbs and fats

3) Have protein at every meal

It's not hard to adapt to it. You just have to tweak some recipes a little. When my family have pasta, I have steamed cabbage or cauliflower. When they have fries, I have pumpkin or kumara (aka sweet potato) wedges. When I make cottage pie, I make a delicious cheesy cauliflower mash instead of potato mash. The kids and hubby didn't even notice it wasn't potato mash until I told them! When they have regular bread, I have my amazingly good low carb bread (my hubby even said it tasted as good as bread bought in Swiss bakeries - that's saying something!). 

My biggest mountain to climb was baking. I love baking. And I love eating my baking. How do you do that without white flour and without sugar? Well, I've found some great baking recipes on the All Day I Dream About Food blog. And I've played around with sugar substitutes:

• xylitol: very low GI, very little calories, tastes like sugar, but very high in fiber so tends to give me tummy issues.
• stevia: very low GI, no calories, but I can only bear the taste of high quality stevia, and only in my yoghurt.
• erythritol: very low GI, no calories, tastes like sugar. This is what I use in all my baking.

That's it really! I'm eating such delicious food and I'm losing weight. Once I've reached my weight goal, I'll be able to mix carbs and fats a little more to stabilize.

The most important thing for me is that I'm still having fun in the kitchen and I'm still enjoying everything I eat. 

Let me know if you have any questions or would like some more details or links.

Kia kaha! Be strong!

PS. Oh by the way, this food plan is really good for diabetics as it's low sugar and low GI. Many people have had amazing health results on this plan.