Hi all,
I'm afraid my questions are too bizarre for the noob thread and out of place there, so I've decided to exercise my right to have a personal thread in H&F and start collecting such questions and musings here instead.
As this is my post #8888, an extra-happy number for Asians (whose foods I'm going to incorporate into the diet), I'll start with positive news about myself here and write the bad news in later posts.
My dietary paradigm change
A single visit to a nutritionist 8 weeks ago has prompted me to reassess my attitude to food, namely, to understand that:
1. The intake of carbs should be controlled as thoroughly as the one of fats.
2. The brain doesn't consume nearly as much energy as the muscles so the cognitive ability doesn't decline when cutting carbs (moreover, it's important to prevent obesity that results in impairment in executive functioning - see the background section of
this ongoing study paper).
3. Glycemic indices (the smaller the better) matter a lot for appetite control.
4. When thinking about eating anything, it's useful to imagine the future effects of consuming it.
5. Food should never be a reward. Rather, the prospect of a good physical shape is a reward.
As a result, I've lost the
desire to consume the worst of my former staple foods (bread, wheat pasta, potatoes, sweets, butter, excessive sunflower oil).
So far, as a vegetarian, I don't have enough fantasy to replace them with anything but legumes (mostly green lentils and raw green beans, which are being alternated with chickpeas right now) while also eating buckwheat like before, and I've been killing my hunger between the main meals with low-calorie stuff like low-fat cottage cheese and Napa cabbage. This lack of fantasy is making me too anorexic now
(but I have enough time to do something about it before I become underweight
).
Is this going to be a log?
No, it isn't - I'm extremely introverted and should be using some tailor-made methods like the ones at fitrovert.com, and I find that public
humiliation exposure of results leads to self-sabotage. I'm here just to read and write general ideas that could improve my nutrition or cardio.
I'm trying MFP out but it's boring and I'd need to create new database entries the info from the actual food packs for a good precision anyway because the pre-existing DB entries are mostly for cooked food and in imperial units and I'm more comfortable counting the dry weight of food in metric units.
I counted calories roughly in my head during the first 7 weeks of rational nutrition, and according to the body scale, this imprecision didn't lead to massive overeating anyway (the worst days were those when I did grocery shopping and thus had a full fridge at my disposal, and even then I ate just at maintenance).
Do I even lift?
No, I last did it 8 years ago. I'm experiencing too much stress already because of online poker, so I'm not going to exacerbate the stress by doing anaerobic exercise. I generally walk quite fast, so this is my preferred kind of cardio so far, as long as I get out of the house, which alas happens rather seldom.
[ ] weirdness yet
but
TBC when I'm in the mood (comments on the above are welcome too, though)