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January 14, 2007

Dietary experiment ()

by fluffy at 3:02 PM
After a conversation about metabolism and weight loss and such with some friends, I've decided to try the small-amounts-of-food-equally-spaced thing to see if it helps. So instead of eating full meals I'm making little snacks throughout the day, and sticking to generally healthy things. Carrots, celery, mini bell peppers, small servings of cereal or macaroni and cheese (I have these awesome little glass ramekins which are just the right size for this purpose), and so on.

It's been easy to do over the weekend since of course I've been at home where I have a fridge where I can just store a bunch of foods suitable for this purpose, but at work it'll be a bit more difficult. Also during the workday I tend to get absorbed into something, then suddenly realize I'm really hungry and then go get lunch. None of the nearby food places sell anything that's really small-portionable (except Yummy House Bakery which is a Hong Kong-style pastry shop but last time I ate there I got a terrible MSG headache) and I don't trust people not to take that sort of thing from the refrigerator in the kitchen. Plus, a big part of how this is supposed to work is that I keep the food out of sight except when I'm feeling peckish, and get just enough of a portion to keep me going for a while.

Maybe I should pack up a bunch of sandwich bags full of snack portions of cereal or something and see how that works out.

Comments

#8187 01/14/2007 04:33 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6248975.stm

You should try this diet. (My family's gonna attempt it in a month or two). It sounds good all around.

Vegetables = Yum. Razz
#8188 01/14/2007 05:27 pm
Well, that covers the what to eat, but not the when to eat or how to keep it around.
#8190 01/14/2007 10:27 pm
Rice cakes can be handy. Also Ryvita and fruit: apples store well.

I wouldn't sweat the missing snack-times thing: I think the trick is to make your diet-eating pattern as similar as possible to your normal eating pattern.

The small, frequent meals thing seems to work for a lot of people, but some of its fans seem to think digestion works like a Popeye cartoon, where you gulp down some food and a great surge of energy blasts down to your fists and feet. It actually takes 2-4 hours for your stomach to break down the food, and then about 12-36 hours for your intestines to absorb it (IIRC). Your body really doesn't "run out of energy" because you haven't eaten for 2 hours.
#8191 01/14/2007 10:30 pm
That is true, but I tend to take my meals so far apart that it would easily have an obvious effect on my metabolism, which is what the many-small-meals camp thinks should be undone.

Also, I <3 both Ryvita and rice cakes. The problem is still one of having them readily available without them being, like, visible, though.
#8193 01/15/2007 07:29 pm
I usually bring snacks to work and stick them in a desk drawer. For perishable snacks, I'd put a container in the fridge labelled with my name. Most people won't swipe that kind of thing.
#8194 01/15/2007 07:48 pm
Well today would be a bad day to start on such a diet. I got a sudden just-before-lunch meeting which ended up going all the way through lunch and then some, and then a coworker and I went to Jack in the Box (for the first time in many many years) and found out that even their "small" combo meals are freaking HUGE.

(Their ciabatta chipotle chicken sandwich is actually pretty decent though!)
#8197 01/15/2007 09:38 pm I've decided to just say fuck it.
If I can gain another 20 lbs, I'll qualify for surgery. Yea!
#8200 01/16/2007 10:44 pm
Beer and Salad. 'Nuff said.
#8201 01/16/2007 10:49 pm
I don't like beer.