Digesting thoughts on food (related to health)
I posted my stats earlier today, and I like to think that by any measure, it can be considered progress. A huge portion of what drove the weight loss was merely stopping drinking. All those empty calories and simple carbs plays havoc on my body composition. But something else happened as well, and it was kind of strange, although ultimately beneficial. I've done a fair amount of research on food and nutrition, as well as the physiological responses based on the person and the diet. One of the things that I've come across was intermittent fasting (IF for short). This wasn't anything that would be easy for me. Even at my previous thinnest, I was very much a garbage disposal, that only disposed of delicious things. I rarely mindlessly ate or snacked, but if something was delicious, I could easily eat so much of it that I puked (I normally avoided this, but my homemade cubanos...oh man). I was all about flavor. Combining them, trying new things, separating them out, figuring out what did what.
About a month ago, I started craving a cheeseburger. I blame prospector for that one, but with all of the places within a mile of my house, none of them really got me excited enough to go there. Finally, I found a pretty damn good burger place, and went off menu to ensure that I got exactly what I wanted based on what they offered. This was not a cheap burger (going off menu rarely is for me), and when I got it, it looked and smelled great. The first thought I had as I took the first bite was "Finally, I have a burger. Yum" followed quickly by "I can totally make a better one at home, and it would probably be cheaper". I realized that while my craving was merely psychological (as opposed to a nutritional defiency or something), my craving was for an excellent burger. I looked at those cravings, and came to the conclusion that pure excellence was my goal, which means that I can totally survive, and survive more comfortably than many people I see, on merely very good food.
Now here is the part that shifted for me a few weeks ago. I realized that I hadn't really given myself permission to make food that was 'just' really good. Anytime I cooked, it had to be absolutely amazing. Like the kind of amazing that causes wars when food is scarce (since I'm tooting my own horn a bit, it would probably cause wars if people merely thought food was scarce). Even my failed attempt at a Whole30 earlier this year resulted in Smoked Vindaloo Pork, which I wouldn't consider a quick and easy meal (even though it kind of is). A single comment from JS caused me to create an entire Baja inspired meal, surrounding a freaking appetizer. Don't get me wrong, I love doing all of this stuff, but like foods that are delicious and too rich to eat all the time, I never didn't do something like that epic craziness.
Even though it started with that most Unmustachian tendencies of restauranting, it evolved into a relatively fundamental shift in the way that I viewed food. I can quickly and easily make food that can be considered very good, and my expectations were so much higher usually. However, my expectations for excellence hit very rarely. I can only remember about 2 times in the past year (including the cheeseburger incident of 2016) where I had a craving like that. I gave myself permission to enjoy the very good meals I made, but it wasn't to that level of so damn good that I wanted to gorge myself. Now don't worry, I still make excellent meals every other week at least, but by enjoying these very good meals, I was able to look beyond the flavor (in addition to...I'm not a monster), and really feel exactly what the effects were on my body. As I ate this very good food, I was able to start paying attention to how it 'sat' in my stomach, how it made me feel 10, 30, 60 minutes after I ate it. How it effected my sleep and how it effected my hunger.
As is obvious from the pictures I posted (especially at the beginning of this year), I'm in no danger of starving to death. I've got some fuel saved up. And as my body shifted to wanting to use that fuel, I realized that I didn't get hungry nearly as often as I felt obligated to eat. So I didn't eat when I didn't feel hungry. I didn't get lethargic, I didn't get sick, I didn't slow down. I just didn't feel the need to eat just for the sake of eating. I didn't eat because it was 'lunch time', I didn't eat because I 'might' need the energy. And mapping it out, I was naturally doing IF, but without trying. Also, my body was happily chugging away while gnawing on my excess fuel stores.
This has been interesting for me. I never gave much thought to my relationship with food in the intimate context of day-to-day consumption. It was always in the context of the global ecosystem, sustainability, and the like. It's kind of cool. I know people here have mentioned they are having interesting relationships and shifts when it comes to food, but I wanted to write this out to open the door to some additional thinking. I'm still a bit iffy on having a discussion on nutrition in this thread (see the first post for reasons why), but I hope this post helps. I tried to keep this as closely related to Strength & Fitness as I could, and I'm going to quote this post and delve into more ethereal concepts in my journal.