Topic: Transformation/Progress/Physique Photos

[Plastique]

It's true, several smaller meals would probably make me feel full sooner, and result in less eating overall. Unfortunately, I can't get in the habit of eating frequently. I don't want to squirrel food away at work, and I don't like keeping food at home, because I have abysmal willpower, and I'll get peckish around 11pm and start snacking.

Fuck it, man, whatever works for you. That's what it's about. The perfect diet is useless unless you can stick to it.

Breakfast, I just can't be bothered with....sleep is too valuable.

Haha, amen.

[Karyn]

If I keep food at home that snack-able, I make it fruits or baby carrots.  Most everything else I have requires serious preparations.  It's kept me from snacking nearly daily.  I have a habit of going to the fridge, looking inside, seeing nothing to eat that doesn't require being cut into pieces and stir-fried or thawed out, and going back to the computer with munchies.  I also do the one giant meal on Sunday to eat slowly through the week that only requires reheating.  Nothing like eating soup twice a day to keep you from snacking on it the rest of the time.

[Plastique]

Yeah, no kidding about crashing the metabolism after years of starvation. I wasted away to nothing on adderall a few years ago. Muscles atrophied due to little or no calories and no physical activity, BMI was next to nothing. When it became obvious I had to get off adderall and a few other things I was being prescribed, I decided it was also time to quit smoking for good too. And BAM! Gained 40lbs in a couple of months, and kept packing it on. I substituted the smokes with candy. I went cold turkey. A raging sweet tooth overcame me as my sense of taste returned. I figured it was an acceptable trade off in the long term.

Now I'm stuck between 200 to 220 on my 6'1" frame, I look somewhat like Plastique's before shot. The sweet tooth is gone, and all the junk has been out of my diet for some time, but as of now I can't possibly consume fewer calories in a day and I can't possibly work out any harder either. I'm just stuck here, and have been for two or so years. I understand that it's gonna take a long long time to undo the damage, but I also now understand how discouraging it is. The medications I've been on this year don't help either.

I've never been able to do meals regularly, especially breakfast. My worst habit is midnight snacking, which is probably why I'm not into breakfast. In the day I tend to eat a bit of fruit with yogurt or a handful of nuts with yogurt or a fruit/protein smoothie whenever I feel a tinge of hunger, sometimes 6 times a day when I go without meals, but more often less. For days when I do do meals, I count the calories as best as I can and eat very small portions. I typically do vegan/tofu thai style stir fries over brown rice, or grilled fish over a tiny amount of brown rice with a ton of spinach, and then fruit/protein smoothies between meals, and I always count the calories of the milk and cream in my coffee and tea.

But it's the damn midnight snaking that does me in. I try and try to keep that under control, but I end up not being able to sleep. So all the work in the day goes out the window, it is like the midnight sandwich is my only cure for insomnia. So, in the day, I come in at an average of 1800.I probably manage to pack in an additional 1000 cals (probably, some nights) before 1AM.

So last night I tried something I used to do for insomnia; worked out. Midnight bike ride on a moderately difficult loop around town, pushing myself much harder than I normally would. That worked. I got in and got to sleep without a single thought of a snack.

I also gave up drinking many many years ago, and never got into soda beyond diet coke, so I've got that going for me.

I'll take a "before" shot today and clock my weight and measurements, and keep it under lock and key. If I make any impressive progress...

Ah shit, that sucks, dude. Metabolism's hard to repair. But doable.

As for the midnight snacking, it's probably because your caloric intake is so low during the day—you're just not eating enough, especially if you're still exercising hard. Do that for long enough and the body induces cravings that are very, very difficult to ignore.

[WC]

I really wonder if depakote tanked my metabolism last November. The most common drug effects with that are lethargy and exhaustion, and it does turn one into an eating machine, but it seems to have affected me beyond that. I really don't know if drugs can have that kind of effect on metabolism, beyond eating more and moving less (or eating less and twitching more in the case of adderal). I'm getting really frustrated, I've been off of the depekote since Feb., but my weight and BMI are stubbornly stuck. Oh, I must be getting old.

Just took a shameful mirror shot, and put my weight and measurements in the metadata, password encrypted the file and uploaded it to super secret server. Maybe this will help me keep on track. Putting sexy naughty pictures of Daniel Craig on my fridge had previously helped (my house guests' reactions are always priceless). Colbert had this guy on a few weeks ago, can't remember his name, a physician public health guy, who brought out a 5lbs replica of human fat. That visual now goes through my head when I start getting the urge for midnight casadias.