Hello Everyone,
Welcome to Weight Loss Wednesday post. So, how was your week? Do you have a spring in your step?
If you are one on my lovely new followers, hello. I’d like to take a moment to explain to you what Weight Loss Wednesdays are all about. Back in August 2017 I was persuaded to join Slimming World by my mum (read my post here). I had done really well and achieved my two and a half stone lost certificate in December 2018 (that’s 35lbs for my American followers), however, over Christmas I put on half a stone (7lbs) and decided to start sharing my weight loss journey on this blog to help me keep focused. I attend my local group on Wednesday evenings to get weighed and get inspired, so when I get back home I post how Iâve got on; any tips we talked about and what my loss or gain is for the week, using the Weight Loss Wednesday tag.
So following on from last week’s 0.5lbs loss, I was relieved that my inconsistent eating habits hadn’t caused a huge gain but I know that my weight doesn’t always reflect what I’ve been up to for that week, sometimes it shows on the scales the following week. So coming home from last week’s Image Therapy I knew that I’d have to do better this week to see the losses that I was looking for. I can’t say that I’ve been back on plan 100% but I’ve been cutting down on the high-syn foods when I needed an emotional boost this week. When I stepped on the scales tonight I had a 0.5lbs loss.
Being on Slimming World means that you should never feel hungry, but sometimes we don’t eat to fill a physical need but rather an emotional one. Slimming World have already thought of how they can hep their members with this tricky issue and following on from our discussion in group tonight, I thought I’d share the article from the SW site.
I would love to hear from you if you’re an emotional eater too. What do you do to stop yourself reaching for those high syn foods? If you haven’t got any tips, I hope you find this article as helpful as I did.
When it comes to weight loss, your desire to eat can be a friend, not an enemy. Discover how to satisfy your appetite, conquer your cravings and decode your hunger cues.
Looking forward to and really enjoying food is one of lifeâs great pleasures. And thereâs a reason we talk about having a âhealthy appetiteâ â for many of us, going off food can be the first sign weâre coming down with something, and when we feel peckish again, we know weâre on the mend. When weâre trying to slim, though, we can have mixed feelings about our appetite, and even start to feel as if itâs sabotaging our weight loss plans. Itâs great news, then, to know that having a healthy appetite is a good thing when youâre losing weight. In fact, satisfying it with generous portions of Free Food will help you stay on track, lose weight and keep it off, all while enjoying your meals and never needing to feel hungry.
More than hunger
Itâs easy to think that hunger and appetite are the same thing, but there are some important differences. Hunger is a signal your body sends when it needs more fuel to keep it running effectively. Appetite is your overall desire to eat, and while being physically hungry is one reason you might reach for food, there are lots of other complex processes involved. To begin with, there are various chemicals in your body that influence your appetite, from hormones that encourage you to start and stop eating, to neurotransmitters that send signals inside your brain.
Then there are the physical aspects of eating, such as the taste, the action of chewing, and the stretching of your stomach as it fills with food. All of these play a part in how satisfied you feel after a meal. Even if all these signals are helping you to feel full, itâs possible to ignore them because youâre distracted â perhaps because youâre watching TV while eating, feeling ill or worrying about something.
Our senses â taste, sight, smell and even hearing â can also influence how much, when and what we want to eat. Have you ever suddenly felt your mouth water because you caught a whiff of freshly baked bread, or not felt hungry until you heard the rustle of a bag of crisps? Plus, sometimes what you drink can interfere with these signals. Alcohol, for example, stimulates your appetite, so the more you drink, the more you feel compelled to eat â that night, and the morning after.
Itâs getting emotionalâŚ
On top of all those physical reasons why we might feel hungry, our emotions can affect our appetite, too. The gut is sometimes called the âsecond brainâ, and it actually does send signals straight to our little grey cells. The pathways go both ways, too â which is why our stomachs might start churning when weâre nervous, or feel full of butterflies when weâre excited. And for many of us, the automatic response to any difficult emotion, whether itâs stress, worry, shame, guilt or disappointment, is to eat.
âBecause we often grow up associating food with comfort and distraction, it can feel like we really do need to eat when weâre upset,â says clinical psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos. âYou might initially feel better because you get a short serotonin spike when you eat. But that wears off quickly, leaving you with uncomfortable feelings, and often a new layer of guilt or frustration with yourself about what youâve eaten.â
So when youâre not hungry yet still craving food, what youâre really craving could be an emotional boost, or a bit of assurance that you can cope, or that you are loved or appreciated. But the human brain likes to do things on autopilot, so, for example, if you get into the habit of reaching for food when youâre stressed, it wonât take long for the brain to make an association and trigger thoughts of food whenever youâre under pressure. âAnd every time you eat because youâre stressed, you reinforce the incorrect belief that you canât cope without it,â says Dr Papadopoulos. âIf you havenât developed any other ways of soothing yourself, you canât think of them when you feel upset or under stress.â
Eat more, lose more
Feeling deprived of food, which can happen when following a restrictive diet plan, may itself create uncomfortable emotions. âHunger can make us feel agitated,â says Dr Papadopoulos. And given that we need food to survive, it makes sense for the brain to send out âred alertâ signals when food seems to have become scarce. Thatâs why simply slashing the portion size of what you normally eat, or cutting out certain foods altogether, doesnât work for many people.
A smarter approach is to work with your appetite, by making food choices that will maintain or even increase the amount of food youâre eating to help you feel full and satisfied, while also cutting back on calories â exactly what youâre doing when youâre Food Optimising. The scientific name for foods that tick the magic boxes of filling and low calorie is âlow energy denseâ; technically, foods with the fewest calories per gram, and those we call Free Food at Slimming World. Plus, some foods are extra filling due to the protein and fibre they contain â youâll find them marked âPâ and âFâ in your Food Optimising book. So thereâs more to weight loss than simply calories in and calories out.
âA lot of people give up on diets because they feel hungry between meals. Our research shows eating low energy-dense foods can help overcome that problem,â says psychologist Dr Nicola Buckland. Take carrots, for instance â you would have to munch your way through a whole bag (around 250g) to consume 100 calories, whereas you can eat 100 calories-worth of chocolate (around four squares) in seconds! Or, compare two lunches: a baked potato with cottage cheese and a large mixed salad; or a plain ham sandwich on white bread. One is likely to leave you feeling full and satisfied, and one thinking: âWhat else can I eat?â Yet both contain roughly the same amount of calories (around 300).
A new study* has found that people who base their weight loss on low energy dense foods feel more satisfied and lose significantly more weight than those who simply count calories. In a lab setting, women whoâd eaten generous meals of low energy-dense foods based on Food Optimising felt less hungry, more full and had less desire to eat at the next meal than when theyâd had smaller portions of higher energy-dense foods. The study also compared women following Slimming Worldâs Food Optimising plan and going to group once a week with women following a calorie counting-based programme. After 14 weeks, the Slimming World group had lost more weight than the calorie-counting group, and also felt more in control of their food choices, enjoyed their food more, and showed greater confidence in their ability to stick to their weight loss plans.
The pleasure principle
Have you ever eaten a meal that you didnât really enjoy, then felt like having something else afterwards to compensate? Thatâs our appetite at work again. Alongside choosing Free Food with properties that help us feel full, our meals need to look, smell and taste good. âBeing physically deprived of food creates hunger, but being emotionally deprived of food also has an effect,â says Dr Jacquie Lavin, Slimming Worldâs head of nutrition and research. âMeal satisfaction comes from a combination of fullness and enjoyment. So even if we have enough calories to keep us going, we will still want more if weâre not eating food we enjoy.â
Making delicious and tempting recipes from low energy-dense foods helps you feel like youâre not missing out, especially when theyâre lightened-up versions of your favourites, using herbs and spices to add flavour without Syns. âIf youâre eating low energy-dense meals that keep you fuller for longer, with healthy snacks and a treat every day from your Syns, youâre less likely to crave unhealthy foods because youâll have satisfied both your physical and your emotional hunger,â Jacquie says.
Getting in tune with your true appetite takes a bit of practice. So, if you notice youâre eating when youâre not hungry, remember itâs just part of your journey to a happy relationship with your appetite, and youâll learn a little more each time about what makes you reach for certain foods. And when you do feel like eating, embrace your appetite â keep Food Optimising and relish every mouthful! Because once youâve got the balance right for you, youâll be on track to reach target and stay there, while enjoying your food more than ever.
*Weight loss will vary due to your individual circumstances and how much weight you have to lose.
Š Copyright Slimming World 2019
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If you Food Optimise without exercise â you WILL lose weight.
Hot cross baked oats
More egg-cellent low Syn options
So, lovely peeps, I have my magic HRT pills and have been taking them each night before I go to sleep since I picked them up. Are they helping with my menopausal symptoms? Read my next Menopause Monday post to find out. đ
Hello Lovely Followers,
In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your experiences; I’m continuing to feel less of a freak after joining the Facebook group for women in the UK going through the menopause and it certainly helps to talk to others in the same boat or to just vent.
Fifty and Fabulous 