Eane, on 04 November 2011 - 06:07 PM, said:
I feel like I'm going back into my old pattern. At first it was minor, an extra hour between meals here, two hours more between meals there. This is what got me overweight in the first place. Only eating once, maybe twice, a day (but HUGE portions...haven't done that, but the hours going by I have)
When I first started JC, I felt like I was starving. Now, if I don't actively MAKE myself eat, I'll go 5-7 hours between meals and it annoys the dickens out of me. I KNOW I have to eat 2-3 hours, sometimes 4, but why am I suddenly not feeling hungry anymore? Like right now, since I know I need to eat, I opted for my little fruit cup of NATURAL apple sauce to an actual JC dinner and I'm like 'wtf, body??'
I'm hoping it's mostly because I'm feeling a little blue today and the minor depression (which makes me LOSE my appetite) is what is causing it. A lot of the time, when I do go that extra hour between meals, I'm starving.
*sigh*
My semi-depression hormone thingie is SO annoying. It's physically HARD to make myself eat when I lose my appetite. Heck, I had to force myself just to eat this stupid fruit cup.
Ah, you're in a vicious cycle. I know, I do this to myself too often especially when I get busy on a project.
Here's the problem. When you don't keep feeding your body, your metabolism slows down and tries to hold onto every calorie it can.
Think of it this way. If you were running your car and it was very low on gas - in fact, running on fumes - other parts of your car that are run by the engine would start to not work - like your A/C - because your engine needs the fuel and it's going to conserve it anyway it can.
Your body is the same thing. When you're not constantly feeding it (or fueling it, if you will), then it starts to shut down all "non-essential" functions (which might also account for your depression thingy).
But when you do feed it every 2-3 hours, your metabolism is happy and works the most efficiently and will even let you know when it needs more fuel/food by the hunger pangs.
On the other hand, when you overeat at that one meal (missing meals and then over-eating is VERY common with overweight people - I was one of them) because you're throwing your metabolism into total chaos. It can't process all of those calories at once so it pushes them off into - you guessed it - fat!
On the other hand, if you took those same calories and spread it out over the course of a day, your metabolism would be able to have the time to properly process the food and the calories and would burn them off rather than storing them.
Have you ever noticed that everyone wants to take a nap after a big meal, like Thanksgiving? That's because their metabolism is just overloaded and starts to break down and the only defense it has is to send a message to your brain to sleep so that you stop feeding it for a while. (I probably have the exact science wrong but the you get the basic principle).
If you FORCE yourself to eat on a regular basis - think of it as if you have to take medication every couple of hours or you're going to get sick/stay sick - then your body will adjust, it will process the food better, it will send out little reminders (hunger pangs) that it needs to be fed and you will start to lose weight.
I know, I'm rambling but I'm also too tired to edit this. LOL
What I'm saying is, I don't care if you're not hungry - whether or not you realize it, your body is - so feed it! You, your brain, your metabolism, and your depression will be happy you did.
Phyllis
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