northernmusician's Journal, 28 May 2015

Congrats on the drop :-) 

Nice progress. And good analogy with the credit card. The first Christmas after getting married many years ago we charged Christmas presents. When next Christmas came around and we were still paying for the previous year I vowed never to do that again. 

Glad you found a system that works! I certainly need to re-think my holiday binging as well. Just not worth it! 

good job. The fact that you are seeing the difference makes it all worth while 

Wow! for me it's exactly the other way around> If I skip breakfast I'm guaranteed to binge later. Or taking a LOT of will power NOT to binge. When I do eat a large breakfast I think it helps me to have lots of healthy nutrients in it, including lots of calories, then along with a good heathy lunch, my system gets used to have food being in process and available, being digested all day, and consequently NO cravings for anything in the afternoon or evening. Skipping breakfast puts me into Famine mode. My body metabolism slows down, conserving energy, storing fat for the unknown length of this famine it thinks I'm in. Long fasts every day? all night then half the morning? = famine. Naturally, We all need to find what works for ourselves, for Us. I just hate to see people struggling so much, since I believe extreme dieting and or long marathons of exercising just won't work in the long run. Short intense weight training works better. It needs to be FUN. :) I'd prefer to do things that I enjoy doing, like fun things that take energy to do. Walking, short sprints, playing any games like volleyball, tennis, racquetball, swimming, all for fun not exercise, even golfing, hiking, biking and so on. there are so many things to do that are fun and healthy, where we won't feel like we are grinding away on and on and on. This is what works for me and it's why I'm still lean and fit at 71 years old. Also, the easiest way to burn fat is to build muscles. Not with long marathons, but short weight lifting sessions. quote: And there are studies to show that the more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn after an intense (weight lifting?) workout [1]. When exercise ends, it takes time for everything to get back to normal. Depleted glucose and fat stores need to be refilled. Damaged muscle cells need to be repaired. All of this requires energy. And the more rebuilding that has to be done, the more calories (mainly from fat) are being burned after your workout is over. Or to put it another way, while the metabolic rate of resting muscle isn’t as high as previously thought, the metabolic rate of recovering muscle means that people with more muscle mass are going to burn more calories in the post-exercise period. 1. Smith, J., & McNaughton, L. (1993). The effects of intensity of exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption and energy expenditure in moderately trained men and women. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 67, 420-425  

If I skipped breakfast I would be eating everything in sight later in the day. But if it works for you that go for it! 

Congrats on a job very well done...and the Credit Card "word picture" is a big help...thanks for sharing!!!! :) 

Proud of You Man! :D 

They say for better weight loss that you should have breakfast within an hour of waking up, but they really don't say WHY. Our parents told us to do good in High School and we probably would have...If we understood the WHY we should have done better in school. Unfortunately we really did not understand WHY until we experienced the real world for ourselves. The reason WHY you should eat breakfast is to control the hormone that your body releases called Ghrelin. This Ghrelin hormone that tells your body that your hungry. When we sleep, our body does NOT produce Ghrelin to make sure we are not disturbed (kind of like a defense mechanism). This is to make sure we get the REM sleep we need. By eating within an hour of waking up, your body will produce less Grhelin later in the day. Thus, you will have a better grip on your hunger later in the day. Personally after losing 100 pounds in about 8 months... this has been a tough issue for me because I sleep so well now that I am just not hungry when I wake up. The last thing I want to do is eat when I am not hungry. My dietician told me to just have 1 slice of bread with some peanut butter on it just to suppress your body from making to much Ghrelin later in the morning. But usually I just have one egg early and eat 2 more eggs after I walk or a few hours before lunch. I understand that not everybody is the same and not everyone body produces or reacts to hormones in the same manner. NM, if it is working out for you then keep on with it. But at least everyone who reads this will now understand WHY they say it is important to eat breakfast. 

Way to go on your weight loss! :)  

Thanks, Midnight. Now can you explain why we went to school? I'm afraid I may have been too childish to benefit. I think they put me in with one of the advanced babysitters. 

That's interesting, Midnight. I find that if I eat breakfast (I usually do have cereal) I get hungry again mid morning, but if I skip it sometimes (sometimes when in a rush at weekends or deliberately occasionally to save calories for a big dinner or lunch) I find it much easier to last till lunchtime, this has always perplexed me? But maybe it's cos those days when I skip I'm really busy so I just don't notice it the same!! 

I just eat my breakfast later in the day. I get up around 7 and start with coffee and then I actually eat around 10. I eat my lunch between 1 and 2, then I have a snack around 4 and dinner at 6. If I ate before 9am I think i'd be more hungry but this works for me.