Pretty good, MLY...pretty good.

Damn that makes me want some salmon.
I had a gross sloppy joe on wheat bread and mcdonald's today :/

The last couple of days have been pure binge eating, just eating past the point of my stomach hurting. I've been feeling really weird the last few days. I'm feeling kinda sad and lonely now.

I'm feeling better mentally today. I'm really trying to recognize when I'm going downhill mentally and changing my thoughts/feelings.
I've felt nauseated most of the morning but I'm trying to stick to my routine:
Water, stretch, coffee, do something active, quick meditation, study....

This is lunch today. Yum!

Swimming 7/14 and 7/20:

My ankle is better so I kicked it up a notch tonight. I swam at sunset and it was wonderful.
I am still feeling nauseated and a little weak, I think I may be dehydrated. My sweat and pee have been smelling like ammonia for the last week now.

I have been getting up and drinking a big glass of water, stretching~mostly yoga poses, having my coffee, and then a quick meditation everyday. Today I added in a walk to the routine(ankle feeling great!). Changes are happening, yay!

I did some meditation and mind jujitsu to keep myself from spiraling down into an eating/sleeping depression, feeling good and focused now.

This was breakfast today.

I didn't think food pictures would become your specialty, but here we are....


I wish for you to toss out every idea you have about weight loss progression. It's time to start putting the money where your mouth is about being an engineer. Because it's very much a (simple) mechanical system - process the building blocks, tailor parameters, and then watch your machine take flight.

:Thumb:
Once I get these hormones and brain chemicals under control it will be easy peasy. Gotta eat well, move, and practice controlling my thoughts.

I also have this terrible self defense habit of playing dumb. I notice myself doing it a lot with Code3. It started when I was a kid.

I know what the **** to do and how, it's just getting my brain under control.
I'm thinking of doing cold showers everyday to release more feel good chemicals; I used to do this when I was young and it kept me out of depression.

These were snacks from yesterday, I snacked a lot and should have went ahead and made another big meal.

Learning to "binge" properly will set you free.

I'm a mechanical engineer too. It really is just a math problem, and you have the formulas and data already.

You are an engineer. Come up with a system that does not easily fail due to operator error. Make everything fail safe.

Depending on willpower, being in the right mood, brain calming exercises, cold showers, meditation, etc. has never worked to keep a fatty from overeating and never will. There are reasons why no engineer would suggest having workers do yoga at the beginning of their shifts as the solution to the problem of workers getting hands mangled by machinery.

I'm a dumbass ex-psychologist and even I know that.

Weight loss surgery is an attempt at that.

That being said, why are you replying to me with that? Did I say it's easy to get fit? No, I did not. Are you saying MLY should just give up? You say it's hard to lose weight, but people lose weight every day. It's her body, her life, and she's trying to make this work.

Okay. It's called CICO...calories in, calories out. It's a math problem, as I said, and it works.

I agree. That part is pretty simple. Even a liberal arts major can handle the math.

Oh. I wasn't replying to you. We were posting at the same time.

I was saying that she needs to set up her life so that she doesn't have to depend on consistently doing the right thing. Maybe buy 200 cans of green beans since it is inevitable that binges will happen. Since she is an engineer, she can probably come up with something that will not require her to be different than she is.

That's funny timing for sure. I thought you took offense at my answer. I'd never offer such advice unsolicited (and I consider a log here to be an open solicitation for advice and comment), so that would make sense.
Absolutely. Frozen broccoli, green beans, oatmeal, and stuff like that is easy to prepare and is filling.

The rest of my meals today:

Made a big pot of chili soup.

I disagree with this. I have had all the right food stocked in the house, had a game plan for going to the gym, had "fail safes". I have grit and presurverance as well.


It comes down to the mind and having the right chemical mix and controlling your mindset. Having a routine, fail safes, motivation, and grit will all help but nothing is going to happen until the mind is fixed first.

Even people that have the weightloss surgery gain the weight back because they didn't fix their minds or learn anything new.

H&F has given me lots of info, now I'm fixing my mind.

There has to be some separation between your mental health and what you eat. I relate to using food to curb anxiety, so I get that your motor depends on you being in a good mood.

Here is some of my personal playbook. I realized that I have stretches where I eat great, and some not so great. A key to my algorithm is always seeking to minimize the window where I'm eating bad, and lengthen the time segments where I crush.

It's the 20 day stretches of eating perfectly that takes the weight off.

I also discovered a secret. It probably doesn't apply to you that much, you have secrets of your own to discover.

If I take a bite of meat, it surprisingly fills me up to last 2-4 hours without feeling pain in my mind. I use this tool to generate those 20-day stretches ---- it's not the primary feature of my diet, but it's a play I call in game, and it works.

You know how some say if you're not hungry for broccoli, you're not really hungry? It's sounds like a terrible cliche, but I've found thinking that way can at least help one to realize when the hunger is in one's head and not in one's body.

Also, I posted earlier about waiting some specific time after finishing a meal before eating anything again...perhaps four hours. That way, your willpower isn't trying to keep you from eating something you crave forever. Rather, it's just an hour or maybe two (from the time you might want to snack until the four hours is up). My willpower won't always carry me though a month or two, but I can always hold out for an hour.

Purely anecdotal, but this was a game changer for me! I was about 40 pounds overweight at one point and ate a 650 calorie subway footlong for lunch everyday (chicken, no sauces, lowest calorie bread). I thought it was delicious and the best thing ever because I was always so hungry from cutting. Then when I went back to maintenance/eating at a surplus, I thought it was disgusting. These days, everytime I have to cut and I feel like eating something outside of what I'm supposed to, I ask myself "Can I eat that footlong". If the answer is no, I am not hungry.

You didn't have ANY rice or yogurt or bread or other high calorie foods in your house? Not having the wrong foods is the most important part of having the right foods. Even high calorie per unit volume foods that say "healthy" or "probiotics" or "gluten-free" or "lower sugar" or whatever on the label to trick really dumb fat people?

You had tons of low calorie, high volume foods that you barely had to do anything to prep? Stuff that you actually are willing to shove down your throat during a binge?

Also, fail safe means that something cannot fail due to something becoming out of whack. You know that as an engineer. A plan to go to the gym CANNOT be failsafe.

Breakfast:

It's now 26days since I quit smoking. I'm still having cravings after I eat or drink coffee...eeeh.

Tues 7/21 log:
I feel like I ate A LOT of food yesterday.