Food for thought

 Let me preface this by saying I am not a nutritionist, and I have no nutritional training (yet) so this is just my personal beliefs and the way I feel about food.

I am a food addict, I love the taste, the smell, the feel of eating and the sense of satisfaction as it goes down the throat.  I'm also a feeder and as soon as I know someone is coming over to visit I think about what food & drink I can offer them, what have I got time to cook and how welcome/cared for it will make them feel, I'd be horrified if someone went home saying they were still hungry and what a poor host we were. I eat when I'm happy, I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm bored and I eat when there's any reason to.  There's very little I don't like, although I'll admit to being a prima donna about it being cooked to the standard I expect, whether that's a few quid at a greasy spoon or a lot of money at a fine dining restaurant.

I've never really been skinny, as a child I was "chunky", never massively overweight but never one of the beanpoles.  I hated sport of any kind other than swimming, huge boobs aged 12 didn't help and neither did my upbringing.  Mum has always had a weight problem and her mum, my nan, was a large part of that.  

Food as a reward, food as a soother, food rationing, fat shaming and a typical British post war diet heavily reliant on cheap filling foods like potatoes, bread and stodgy puddings.  Nan used to work at her brother in laws (then nephew) bakery doing the nice things like filling the donuts with jam or icing the buns.  I'm sure she did a bit more but that's what she was always doing at 8am when I stopped in to say hello on my way to school, I always came away with a ginormous bun ring or slabs of lardy cake, not just a single portion either this would feed a large family.  Go visit her at home and she'd have the biscuit or cake tin out, there was always bread and butter (or her dripping pot) if you were peckish.  There was always a pudding at the end of a meal at her house, not so much at home after mum had great success at Weight Watchers but Nan loved an apple tart or crumble and she taught me how to cook them.  Mum fell off the wagon with weight watchers and we were back to our old diets, although a few things stuck with her, dry frying, no more suppers and less puddings but her loss went back on and a bit more as it always does.  

By the time I was 20 and met Ade I was already on the mouse wheel that is yoyo dieting.  I tried it all over 20 years, weight watchers, slimming world, injections and pills from private drs, cabbage diet, Atkins, Rosemary Connelly, the F Plan diet and many many more.  Some lasted not much more than a few days, some a few weeks,  Slimming World worked for me twice, the last time just before my 40th when I hit rock bottom after getting stuck in a wet suit and had an honest discussion with Ade.  I went from 16 stone 3lbs down to 9st 10lbs in a year.  I was doing well keeping it off but long story short I got told by a head dr not to worry about my weight as it was never coming back.  Not really something you ought to say to a food addict who has to keep a control of the what, how much and how often.  You would never tell a heroin addict that just one hit  wont hurt them and personally I think that professionals need to consider that food addiction can be similar, but in some ways it's worse as you have to chose to eat the right things not just three times a day every day but every time you go grocery shopping.  It's so bloody easy to buy a large block of cheese (if that's your downfall) thinking you'll just have a reasonable portion (think matchbox size,  not swan vesta or cooks matches, safety matches ie 50.5 x 37.5 x 12.5mm or 2 inch by one & a half by a half.)  then use half to make a "healthy" cauliflower cheese and munch on the rest a couple of slices every time you go to the fridge.  

Anyway I digress and gradually half of what I lost came back on and I wasn't too bothered.  A bit of me hated how I looked but being skinny didn't taste as good as a large plate of my own spag bol and a hefty amount of garlic bread, or mince over mash, or toast with butter, or roast beef and plenty of roasters.  Then the thyroid problem kicked in and my weight went up even higher than before.  To this day I don't know how bad it got as I wouldn't look at the scales, my mate had to tell me if I'd lost or gained weight.  I comforted myself that it couldn't be more than my 16s 3 heaviest as I was back to wearing the same size 22 that I'd binned 10 years ago.  Turns out that was a falsehood, the sizes are totally different now and I was at least 3 stone heavier.

With hubby having a cholesterol problem our Dr recommended he avoid beige carbs and I'd already noticed a few foods seemed to trigger my cravings and general hunger so I decided we were both going to go no beige carbs and to avoid Ultra Processed Foods wherever possible.  And I also realised we had to adopt this as our way of eating for the rest of our lives or we would be where we were then, fat (although hubby is more chubby with large beer belly than my extremely morbidly obese) and suffering from it.

We now eat primarily meat, fish, small amount of dairy with lots of fresh fruit, veg, nuts, healthy oils and plenty of whole grains & pulses.  He still likes his beer and rum, I try to not drink alcohol very often but that's a calorie issue as I like sweet alcohol, fruit gins, syrupy cocktails.  Turns out Ade has had a bit of a wheat or gluten issue his whole life which is now not a problem unless he's had a sneaky sub or too many pasties while at work.  As I post more I will add some meal ideas that don't rely on potato, rice, pasta or flour.  How we eat isn't necessarily the easiest but it can be done and talking to a few diabetic friends maybe the fact how we eat tends to be low GI (Glycemic Index which doesnt make blood sugar levels spike)  we tend not to have the inbetween meals sudden hunger pangs.

Life is a bit unfair, when I've checked my calorie count I'm usually averaging about 1200 calories a day and I'm often doing about 15 or more exercise classes a week yet I still rarely lose any weight.  Ade eats twice as much at home, plus crap I'm not supposed to know about, he drinks and does next to no exercise but is still smaller than me.  Oh well it is what it is, no thyroid, menopause and years of yoyo dieting have well and truly buggered up my metabolism.  Top tip, if you're female and reading this deal with your diet before the menopause it makes it a lot bloody easier.  I'm hoping that as I learn about nutrition and exercise on the personal trainer course it's going to help me fine tune what I'm doing and help my metabolic rate.  As it is I adopt pretty much a scatter gun approach to my exercise, if there's a class on I like and I can make it I go do it.  Thursday evenings are sometimes fun, Spin, LBT or Boxfit, then Aquafit followed by pilates, all on the bounce, rush from one room to the next barely catching more than a few breaths as I sign in and say hello to friends.  I do hope in some ways that I'm not educated out of too much as I really do love all the classes I do.

Going back to our diet I do feel slightly vindicated about how we eat as more information is coming to light about ultra processed foods.  Dr Chris van Tulleken has made some fascinating research on the subject, he's well worth watching on Iplayer or Youtube.  Have a look if you can find it about how the food industry use science to produce chemical highs in the brain as a way of getting us to buy more of their products, makes me wonder if in 20 years the food industry is going to be as hated as the tobacco industry is now.

Anyways I'm going to sign off and head for my 2nd class of the day, I'll post more about the food we eat and when I learn about the nutrition side I'll post that.  But as my food for thought today, if you were told as a child to not leave food on your plate do you struggle to stop eating when full now?