Healthy weight loss - Why I choose to 'eat' not 'starve'

How many of us think we have eaten (or not eaten) our way through a perfect weight loss day, only to find ourselves snaffling down a wedge of chocolate cake mid afternoon, or sneaking a peanut paste sandwich while waiting for tea to cook, or gobbling down a couple of crumpets with honey at the end of the day, (or all three) because we are 'just starving'.

We can work so hard to be diligent with our daily food intake for 99% of the day, but it's incredible how much damage we can do to that healthy eating plan in that other 1%.

Read on for my understanding of why 'starving' ourselves is counterproductive to any kind of healthy and sustainable wieght loss plan.

Certainly in my experience it is much more important to increase the quality of our food intake than it is to decrease the quantity of our food intake.

We've all heard of input verses output…. but this is input verses input

In 'The modified food intake plan - Part 2' we have had a good look at a healthy balanced 'input' plan. That's what 'input' is… our food intake.  We've broken down that 'modified food intake plan' (input)  into six different food groups and allocated portions to each group according to what our body needs in the normal scheme of things.

This is important because when we eat (input), we are really providing fuel for our bodies. As we go about our day our bodies make use of that fuel to keep our bodies functioning… they use that fuel for energy and for repair and maintenance. 

Ideally we are taking in the correct amount of food (input)(fuel) that we need to provide the energy we need and for the repairs and maintenance. If that is the case our bodies should be healthy and our weight stable. 

If we take in more fuel than we need, what isn't used for energy or for repairs and maintenance (or eliminated as waste) is converted to fat and stored around the body in case we need it another time. Too much of this storage will begin to suffocate our body organs with fat.

If we take in less fuel than we need for energy and for repairs and maintenance our body will take from what is stored to keep us going. Essentially our body will feed on itself to keep it functioning. We lose weight.

Now if we go back to our 'modified food intake (input) plan - Part 2' and look at the groups our food is broken down into, we will remember we had 

• anytime food (anytime)
• fruit carbs (3 serves per day)
• protein (6 serves per day)
• sometimes carbs (3 serves per day)
• dairy (3 serves per day)
• fat (minimal)

These groups all have important stuff in them for repairs and maintenance. That is why the modified food intake plan doesn't eliminate any of these groups entirely. But some of them are more about energy. And too much 'energy food' is usually what results in that excess of stored fat.

The 'anytime foods' are heavily about repairs and maintenance, and not so much about energy. 

The 'fruit carbs' are good for energy but also very good for repairs and maintenance

The 'protein' group is mainly repairs and maintenance

The 'sometimes carbs' are more for energy but also contain important repairs and maintenance

The 'dairy' are great for repairs and maintenance and also for energy

The 'fat' group is mostly about energy but also has some essential repairs and maintenance.

So...
If we eat foods (fuel) that are energy foods our body can use that energy.
If we eat foods (fuel) that are repairs and maintenance foods our body can repair and maintain itself.
Many foods carry both providing both energy and repairs and maintenance fuel.

The 'serves' that our 'modified food intake plan' suggests for each of these groups are endeavouring to be a good balance for what our body actually needs (for energy and repairs and maintenance) in the normal course of things - that is, when we are not overly active, but not overly inactive either.

Now if you need to lose a little weight for your health, you add the healthy balanced 'input' plan to an increase in your 'output' and, as with me, weight loss should occur.

What we often overlook is that for healthy sustainable weight loss, after we have increased our 'output', it is actually more important to increase the quality of the input than to reduce the quantity of the input.

Translation: You don't need to starve yourself. You just need to choose wisely what you eat.

As part of the 'modified food intake plan' you can see the group of 'anytime food' that we can't eat too much of. And this 'anytime food' is full of wonderful fuel for the repair and maintenance of our body. If we eat a good variety and quantity of these foods our bodies will be happier and better fueled.

But we also need the other foods in our plan to cover the full range of energy and repairs and maintenance needs. We just need to moderate our intake of these other foods. Hence 'the plan'.

Satisfying our bodies 'need' for food

You see, if our body is not getting enough 'repairs and maintenance' fuel or 'energy' fuel to meet its needs it tells us it is hungry for more.

The problem is when we respond to that 'please eat more' we don't necessarily eat more of the food with the good things that the body is needing.  And if we are not satisfying the bodies needs we all know how insistent our bodies can be when they ask for food. 

If you eat a good variety and quantity of 'repairs and maintenance' foods from the 'anytime food' group, and the correct quantity of foods from the other groups, you have a good chance of covering most of your bodies repairs and maintenance needs.

If you are eating your 'sustained energy' foods from 'sometimes carbs' and 'fruit' groups you should be supplying your body with sufficient sustained energy foods to be healthy. And if that is so it's not unhealthy for your body to supplement its energy needs by drawing on your reserves of fat. 

(This of course, is only a healthy option if you have sufficient reserves of fat to sustain your energy output. If you don't have these fat reserves, you need to adjust your input according to your energy needs. But I am assuming you are reading this blog because you have sufficient fat reserves and want to decrease them.)

When those good healthy energy foods, in appropriate portions, aren't enough to satisfy our bodies (when we want it to burn into those reserves of fat) and our body is still telling us to eat…. this is when the 'anytime foods' really come in to their own.

photo 1 - I could have had this
for lunch today….

I've often noticed along my healthy eating journey that choosing an appropriate snack from within the 'modified food intake plan' even if its just from the 'anytime foods' will often satisfy a food craving even if the craving was for something wildly inappropriate.

Even more importantly, if my larger meals are bulked out by plenty of 'anytime foods', and if I have my regular healthy mid morning, mid afternoon, and supper snacks, I am far less likely to have my body come back to me begging for more food.

For example…. for lunch today (mid blog) I could have had the first photo….  a few leafy greens, one cherry tomato halved, a few slices of cucumber and five chunks of feta. I call this 'starving' oneself.

photo 2 - But instead I had this…..
Much more likely to successfully
sustain me through to my
mid afternoon snack

Instead I added probably four times the leafy greens, a pile more cucumber, three more cherry tomatoes, two inches of chopped carrot, three olives, 6 ish capers,  a couple of bits of avocado and a slice of ham shredded. Plus a bit of salt and pepper - see the second photo.

Not one extra gram of countable carbohydrate is on that plate according to our 'modified food intake plan'…. there are still only 5 chunks of fetta and they have no carbs to speak of anyway.

And there we have the second photo. Now that is what I call a feed! And if I felt like it I could have added a slice of bread, or followed up with a banana and still been well inside the allowance for lunch.

So can you see why I believe its more important to INCREASE the QUALITY of our inputs rather than DECREASE the QUANTITY of our inputs.

The 'decreased input' approach is more than likely to result in binge eating in the short term, and almost certainly (at best) a return to the original eating pattern in the long term.

Not that I'm suggesting you won't ever feel hungry or be tempted to eat what isn't in 'the plan'… I did have my challenges settling in to the new regime. But once I got started on my own 'anytime food revolution' it didn't take me long to adjust.

I am convinced that this approach (increasing quality rather than decreasing quantity) was what brought me success in my efforts to move towards a healthier body and a healthier lifestyle. I never could have sustained a 'diet' that required me to minimise my intake … certainly not in the long term.

And bear in mind, the energy I got from the 'sometimes carbs' and the 'fruit' allowances in my eating plan has been more than enough to sustain my 45 minutes of strenuous exercise a day especially with all that stored fat to draw on.

So at risk of being boringly repetitious, let me say again to lose some of those unhealthy fat reserves in a healthy and sustainable way its more important that we increase the quality of our inputs than decrease the quantity of our inputs and, of course, we need to get the right balance between our 'inputs' and our 'outputs'.

If you can get these two concepts right you'll be well and truly on your way.