They do say bad things come in threes!

YOu are right.
Third went in + 2 oranges and an apple. I know, I know, it could have been worse..... But that was so unnecessary. Oranges and apple got eaten because I tried to avoid finishing the whole package with this cookies. Managed at least this. But still unnecessary. Felt stuffed and unhappy because couldn't do, what was planned.

Tomorrow is Christmas dinner. Main course itself is fine: Roasted goose with rice with dried plums and fresh apples as stuffing. That I am going to enjoy without a single regret. Problem are starters. There will be 8 different kinds of starters and from my experience, even if I take just a bite from everything, I am kind of stuffed at the main course. Then I do still eat the main course, and who is going to leave out the dessert at Christmas dinner? Not me. So at the end I wonder why I did to myself. This scenario I would like to avoid this year. So the plan is: try a bite from pickled mushroom salad that I made today as starters, normal main course and normal dessert. It will be way over my caloric daily limit, but I will be completely fine with this and will be feeling good.

Wow 8 starters that is huge. Do they all get served one after another or do they just get laid out on the table? If they are just laid out on the table you could reduce what you eat to just your favourites.
I am a bit jealous I have never had goose before. Is it similar to duck?

Goose is very similar to duck. The meat is more tender, prepared right way. It takes a bunch of tricks to roast it so, that it is good. And you are in Australia. So you have easy access to a bunch of good exotic meats like roo or crock.

Everything is put on the table. The problem is that every dish is really good.
And they are all actually pretty healthy.

The table looks like this before the meal.:



But I managed this year, I think first time in many many many years, at least I can't remember if that was ever the case on Christmas, not to stuff myself to the point that I would hate myself afterwards. I did stay on the plan that I wrote down yesterday and managed to avoid a repetition of the dinner after all guests were gone. Writing down definitely helps. It doesn't guarantee that I follow through with my intentions, but it increases the probability.

It is great that keeping this log has been such a positive experience for you. I also managed to make it through Christmas without stuffing myself silly!

How did you do Lapka?
Do you have pics of the dinner and starters?
I'm really curious to what the 8 starters would be.

1. Salad with roasted curry chicken breasts, grated cheese, walnuts and grapes. The trick here is to decorate it like a grape brunch.

2. Rucola salad with pesto, pomgranate, cashew nuts and cherry tomatoes
3. marinated porcini. I did pick them and canned them myself this autumn.
4. Simple greek salad
5. This one http://www.sweetandsavorybyshinee.co...0%D0%B5%D1%82/. Very typical for Russia.
6. Salad with eggs, rice, sweet corn and cod liver
7. Smoked fish plate
8. Cheese plate



You see part of them on the table. With the black grapes on top is the first one with roasted curry chicken. That was also liked the most.

Plate with red and green in the middle is rucola salad, in the christal bowl with yellow color is this russian salad number 5. Usually the dishes are served on big plates/bowls for the whole table and then everyone takes some from it on the personal plates. It was good. I cooked the the day before complete and on Christmas day.

And writing down helps. It somehow manifest the intention. So I managed to stay how I planned here.

Run today. First time in looong time. I got slow and heavy. My normal time for 5 km is under 30 min. Today was 39 min. Want to get as fast as possible again under 30.

5 km in 36 min.

Have 200 gr of roasted nuts, that are so calling my name now. And I know that I am gonna regret if I finish them off.

So I am going to put a lid on the nuts and put them away. Make me a coffee instead and hope and pray that my brain will forget the nuts, when I finish the coffee.

Debating with myself for two hours "Should I have a second dinner or not?".

I am not really hungry, but I am slightly undersugared. And my body refuses to sleep in such state. It wants to go and hunt or gather some food. On the other side I shouldn't. I mean it is 1 am, I have had a normal dinner, and I mean.... come on, who does it? Eating in the middle of the night is just not cool.

On the positive: I squeezed my time for 5 km under 30 min. Last one today was 29 min 30 sek and the last 3 min I was just walking out. That means I could probably shave off another minute or two, but the fact is that I am happy with 30 min.

Next step is to squeeze 10 km under 1 hour.

Didn't have this second dinner, but also could't sleep until 4 AM. Went for a morning run then, had oats for breakfast at 5 AM and slept after that for two hours.

That is with me really one of the problems with "no late night eating": If my blood sugar is below certain threshold I just can't sleep.

So ditch that idea. It's clearly a bad one for you. Sleep is important even for caloric intake regulation.

If you require some form as axiomatic/rigid guideline for compliance, choose another one, that allows you to eat pre-sleep. eg. "skip breakfast" or some IF-style feeding window that ends with a night-time meal.

For the last 4 months I've been doing IF (roughly 6 hour eating window) with my last meal at around 12-1a (sleeping at 3a) and I've had a very easy time complying with my diet. The body gets used to not eating for the first half of the day.

Tx. Going to try that. No idea, why I myself didn't think about this solution, because it makes totally sense.

Your idea seems to work fine. I have zero problems to be undersugared at day time. It actually makes me more energetic. So I skip the breakfast, have a snack somewhen in a day and my first and basically only normal meal is after I come home in the evening, and then a snack before sleep. It sounds very counter the teaching "5 small meals distributed over the day. Never skip breakfast. Last meal three hours before sleep". But it works pretty good for me. I am still a little confused, why I didn't have myself this idea.

Anyway tx.

On the running front, I finally squeezed my time for 10 km under 1 hour. Me losing few kg in a last month certainly contributed to that. I feel every kg with running. Running is even more sensitive indicator than my clothing. I try to weigh myself as seldom as possible, because no matter what is the number, it will just make me unhappy.

Generally pretty good. Surprised at how seldom I actually have the impulse to eat something, I shouldn't. When I started this log, I thought I would have a lot more regrettable moments.

Gogogogo! *Kickinmyself*

Need/want to go swimming. Know that it is good for me and I will feel good afterwards. But the inertia keeps me in front of my PC.

GO! NOW!

JOJOJO.

Did it. Writing down such kicks publicly often helps, when I am on the verge of doing something or not. It won't help, if I already decided to dig some roots in front of my laptop. But if I am kind of almost going and need just a little push, this writing down somehow is like a little step that I can use to overstep the threshold of inertia.

Overstep the threshold of inertia. Nice.

That is my issue as well. If i start eating cake or chocolate, then i'm going to eat until i feel nauseous. I can easily inhale 2500 calories of sweets in one setting. Then i'm going to regret it in the morning. I learned this long ago, fortunately, so now i rarely have sweets. I wish i could be like the regular people who have 1 or 2 and then stop, but i guess i'm not built that way. Otoh, i'm lucky in that i can have a drink or two of scotch and not want more. I guess we all have our pros and cons in life.

I am not a fan of calorie counting. Not a fan, because for me it is pretty much hopeless to try to achieve any compliance in this. It is just to much hustle. But from time to time it is interesting to check my intake or to find out how much calories has a certain food. My last interesting discovery was that potatoes have only 70 ckal / 100 g.

I usually do cook. I like cooking. But this week there was just really zero time for that. So here is what I ate yesterday, it is pretty standard day for me:
0.5 l of full fat milk =350 ckal
4 wheat bisquits = 400 ckal
4 apples = 300 ckal
1 orange = 70 ckal
2 wallnuts = 60 ckal

1180 ckal. It is definitely below my maintenance,but not to much, since I haven't worked out yesterday. So that is OK. And such days are a proof of the fact that the caloric intake regulation is a lot more complicated, than just a function of blood sugar.

Travelling. Sitting in hotel. And the vending machine is calling my name.

It would be totally dumb to respond to this call, because I am going to regret it already in the process. This would be so wasted calories, wasted both in terms of nutrition and in terms of satisfaction. But I need something to occupy myself right now........

Python! I am going to do a chapter of python tutorial and related exercises and see if the vending machine gets tired to call me meanwhile.

This is something I struggle with as well. Once I start, it's hard to stop. But I don't think you should feel bad after eating something unhealthy. As long as you can control it, just don't worry about it and enjoy life man. Good luck in your journey

Avoided the vending machine. But it was a little bit crazy. I actually went to it. I have no idea why. That is something I would like to understand: I was not hungry, I was not craving some crap from it, I was not upset, so food to regulate emotions can be ruled out..... ? What made me go to it?

But then I looked at the prices. They are about 10 times as high as in the supermarket. It is clearly laughable in absolute numbers. I mean 2 euro is nothing. But this "10 times as high" made me stop. I mean it would be epitome of dumb: to eat something I neither need no want to eat, something that is actually bad for me, and on top to overpay 10 times for that.

Expensive hotel prices saved you from yourself!

It is pretty tough to have no regrets about food, whilst travelling. There are a lot of tricks how the shops try to make me buy food, I neither want no need.

One example:
There is a clean toilet facility on basically every train station in Germany. It is really clean and nice and well kept-up. It all is running by the same company. However the usage of it cost 1 Euro. Now when I am writing it out, it seems laughable. But compared with nothing or 10 cents, like in many public facilities, it is expensive. On top they have a trick. For this 1 euro, you get a 50 cents coupon, that you can use at McDo or some other food shops in the station. However you have to spend minimum of 2,50 to use this coupon. I have done this too often, spending additional sum between 3 and 5 Euros for some crappy food, that I neither needed no wanted. I do realize that it is a trick. I do realize that I actually do not save 50 cents, but instead spend ~ 4 euros. I do realize that it is on top not good for me. But I still do it to often.

Hopefully writing it out here will prevent this from happening next time.

Writing helps. At least two times in this journey didn't buy stuff from bakery, because have thought that I will have to make a post about my bun regrets here.