My holy grail of weight loss

“How do you eat so much and stay so skinny?”

LOL! Care to take a look at WHAT I’m eating right now and did you notice what I DIDN’T EAT at the morning tea earlier??

VEGGIES- learn to love em cos the metabolic effect (FIRE!!) and lack of energy density (calories) makes them worth their weight in gold! I thought I ate a reasonable amount before- some salad with lunch and vegies every night for dinner.. little did I know I could do a whole lot better haha.

It’s hard to rack up excess energy (calories) from whole, real, calorie-scarce foods. You can’t ‘accidentally’ overeat. Check this out, 200 calories worth of celery vs 200 calories worth of chocolate bar:

I know what I’d *rather* eat too, but that amount of chocolate wouldn’t touch the sides let alone keep me full for very long! Its got no nutritional value or functional purpose either so would purely be on top of my daily intake, that’s why it’s a ‘purely for taste food’ reserved for my cheat meals J

I’ve been on a meal plan for so long now that I can’t actually imagine eating what I would call a ‘meal’ WITHOUT consuming a huge bowl of the green stuff… seriously, even with my last two cheat meals (4 September and 19 July 09) I ate amongst *other things* a huge salad and/or plate of veggies. With my last choice of lasagna, I purposely stirfried up some zucchini, celery, carrot, tomatoes and red capsicum in order to pump up the size of the meal. Granted, I took advantage of the situation and added tomato sauce and grated cheese to them, I kid you not they tasted just as good as the main course! (I don’t think its all that ‘clever’ when people get their kids to eat veggies simply by hiding them in a pile of cheese!)

I have lost almost 16kg now and have rarely experienced hunger- I eat far too much volume for that! The ‘eat as much as you like’ advice re vegetables is a like a get out jail free card or safety net for me. I simply could not diet if there was any chance of being hungry too often or having to limit (to that degree) my exact food intake.

Do i get sick of them? not really, if you too its kind of too bad, they're non negotiable part of everyone's diet (or should be!) Rather, i get sick of not being able to eat other things, oh and preparing them!! (don't like frozen vege). I actually make an effort to eat even more than im supposed to to ensure that there’s limited chance of getting hungry… am I afraid of this experiencing this feeling? A little. Especially if we are out for the day, away from home etc. I realize I may be replacing one behaviour (overeating crap) with another (stuffing veggies in) but.. as far as the comp prep diet goes, its working well for now. I think post comp when my meal plan gets more flexible I would like to be comfortable with eating til satisfied rather than FULL. I anticipate that I won’t feel as anxious or the need to satisfy head hunger etc as much… that will be nice :)