I don’t count calories. I don’t watch my macros. I don’t weigh my food before I eat it. I just eat enough to feel full. Well, that is, I do now. I knew I was supposed to do that, and when Sherry and I started our first Whol30, it was one of the hardest things to get used to. I always thought I was overeating when in actuality, I was just eating what my body wanted. A year later, I found myself no longer losing weight despite my eating smaller meals. I thought that as I got smaller, my meals should get smaller, too, and that I was just doing what I was supposed to do to keep losing weight. Except I forgot one thing: my body knows how much food it needs better than I think it does.
Let me explain: I was sticking to 2 eggs and 2 slices of bacon for breakfast. I enjoy it, it tastes good, and it keeps me full until around 10 am. Then, I would start to get hungry. I eat lunch at 11 am and I would start feeling hungry again around 4 pm. Because I typically try to eat dinner with Sherry, that means no food until around 6-7 pm. That’s a long stretch to go without food, and all while being hungry!
The worst part is that my weight loss stopped around two months ago. I’ve been hovering at a low for months now despite my physical activity. Then it dawned on me as I was giving advice to someone who is adopting Paleo themselves: eat until you’re full. Of course, that doesn’t mean go hog wild, but eating slowly, your body will reach a point at which it tells you that its full, and then you should just stop eating. I was not doing this.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been eating more food. It felt weird at the beginning, to eat more food to lose weight, but it turned out I was right. I wasn’t eating enough. Now, I’m back to losing weight; two solid weeks of weight loss are now behind me. Of course, now that I weigh less, the number of pounds I lose is less, but as a percentage, it’s still about right: about 1% a week. I’ll take it!
Eat until you’re full. Don’t leave a meal hungry. If you are, you’re not doing it right, and you are setting yourself up for failure. If you stick to the good foods (meat, vegetables, some fruit), you will lose weight even after you eat until you are full. And notice I don’t say stuffed; just full. It requires some discipline (especially if you have overeating issues like I did) but it’s doable.
I say dedication and motivation are important in a successful journey to lose weight, but this morning, I realized that there’s another ingredient that I have employed and ignored. It’s because it’s something I use for every goal I have, whether it’s to buy a new gadget or acquire a new skill. It’s perseverance.
Sometimes, regardless of how well you eat, you get a craving or you feel your stomach grumble. Some of us can ignore it but some of us cannot. For those who can’t (or for those times when it really gets too much to ignore), here are some tricks to help you get past the cravings.
Paleo Marine 