Tonight’s Dinner: Curried shrimp with riced cauliflower.
So far I have dropped over ten lbs, and I feel a lot better. It’s taken some tweaking, but I’m now in a comfortable place regarding food choices and scheduling.
For me, the biggest problem was that initially we had me set up for three meals a day, and that just does not work for me. I don’t eat like that, I never have, and I never will. If I wake up and have breakfast, no matter what it is, I just want to go back to sleep. All I want in the morning is drinks. I am rarely, if ever, hungry until at noon earliest (assuming I get up around 7-9). Basically, the most I can do a day is two meals- something in the early afternoon, then a dinner, then a little grazing before bed.
The whole three meals a day thing is just shit made up to accommodate religion, anyway. It has nothing to do with your actual body. My dietary needs will not be trammelled by religious practices.
Medium Cool – Best Mystery Genres!
Old School
Glad to hear you are settling into the routine. Good luck the rest of the way!
SiubhanDuinne
I had no idea that there was a religious reason for our “three squares a day” tradition, and would love to know more about the connection. If anything, I guess I assumed it was a relic of our agrarian past.
That said, like you, I generally don’t feel hungry until I’ve been awake for several hours. A cup of coffee in the morning, a substantial meal mid-afternoon, and one lightish snack in the evening is my pattern when I’m entirely on my own; unfortunately, it doesn’t fit with other people’s schedules or the expectations of society and the corporate world, so it’s only since retirement that I’ve been able to follow the dictates of my own body much.
ETA: Your curried shrimp looks fantastic, and I’m glad you’re losing the weight you wanted to.
rikyrah
Do what is best for you, Cole👏🏾
Good luck on this journey.
Alison Rose
Totally fine if three meals a day doesn’t work for you, but for some of us, eating on a regulated schedule with shorter intervals is actually necessary for our bodies. There are people like me, for example, in AN recovery who need to eat on a schedule because my body does not experience hunger and fullness cues anymore, so eating intuitively does not work. There’s also diabetics, people with hypoglycemia maybe, and probably others. So it’s probably true that some of the origin is in old religious or agrarian traditions, but that doesn’t negate the need some of us do have.
Also I don’t know why but when you said all you want in the morning is drinks, I pictured you with a sippy cup.
The Moar You Know
9am and 3pm. It’s not the best for me, I’d do better grazing, but it’s how I’m wired.
different-church-lady
10 lbs in two weeks is fuckin’ awesome.
Ohio Mom
I wouldn’t have thought any food would look good on a chartreuse plate but I stand corrected.
Count me in as another in the not-hungry-when-I-wake-up camp. A cup of coffee and a nibble of a carb, something like a biscotti or plain frozen waffle and I’m ready to go.
On another note, earlier today Ohio Dad sprung these two related pieces of trivia on me: Noam Chomsky’s father was THE historian of the Hebrew language and its grammar, and the name Noam means “pleasant.”
kindness
10 lbs is a great start. Document it all. Isn’t that what the kids do these days?
Gvg
I used to be barely want breakfast but my body changed over the years. The last few years I have had to learn to eat a larger breakfast, otherwise I am hungry a couple hours later and snacking constantly which leads me to gain weight. 40 years of being one way and then discovering gradually that my own body sneakily had changed its feelings has been an adjustment and I don’t know that I have it right yet.
i dunno what you mean about religion and 3 meals. I always wanted 3. Most people seemed to but not everyone. Didn’t seem to cause any comment from anyone even the religious people. Farmers defiantly work up an appetite.
frosty
When I started cutting carbs I was surprised that riced cauliflower wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Spaghetti squash is nothing like spaghetti though. Ugh.
Re: documenting. When I started my doc asked me what my daily carb intake was – I didn’t know. I’ve been using My Fitness Pal for a few years now for both food and weight. It does the job for me.
Fraud Guy
I hear you; I snack, so if I eat three meals, I will balloon. Morning works best with a piece of two of fruit only.
Hungry Joe
@Ohio Mom: My Hebrew is rusty (and was never that good anyway), but I remember “pleasant” as being “nah-EEM.”
mrmoshpotato
@frosty:
Haha! True!
JoyceH
@mrmoshpotato: Have you tried shiritaki noodles? They’re much more noodly. I wouldn’t have them with a marinara sauce, I don’t think, because you’d really notice it’s not a carb pasta in an Italian dish. But with various Asian type mixtures, they’re rather lovely.
BTW, I kind of hate hearing guys talk about dieting. Ten pounds in a couple weeks? Grrr. I’m proud of my fifty pound weight loss but it’s taken me fifteen months and I still have a ways to go.
Delk
I read that as : it’s taken some twerking.
Jackie
I’m a mid morning sandwich or loaded green salad person, then salad plate-sized protein, mixed grain rice and veggie – usually broccoli around 3 pm. If hungry later it’s usually cheese sticks dipped into Adam’s peanut butter or a couple of oatmeal, raisin, pecan cookies. And black coffee all day.
It’s funny how we all eat so differently. Metabolisms rule.
Kent
I’m a 2 meal a day person too.
What is this 3 meals a day connection to religion? I grew up in a hugely religious family and never heard that one before
I would have assumed it was more to do with work cycles and industrialization and the fact that most people worked in serious physical labor before modern times.
Breakfast before you go to work
Lunch break at work
Dinner when you come home from work
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
I have, since my bout with BPPV 4-6 weeks ago, lost 7 lbs. I’m 5’10” and weigh 166. Part of this is just eating less as I age and part is that my sense of smell is completely gone, as it has been for 6-7 yrs. So food is something I take in to keep the stomach growling down to a minimum. I imagine many do not know that your sense of taste is actually quite basic, sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. For example I knew my sense of smell was gone when I was cooking garlic shrimp one day and standing over the pan – nothing.
CaseyL
Excellent progress, and good news on the settling-in part. Soon you’ll be so svelte that Thurston, Steve and Maxwell will wonder who the hell you are, and what did you do with Dad?
NotMax
Began eating only one meal daily in 1964 and still at it.
That is, when I remember. Often skip eating entirely one or even two days a week. Refer to it as the vampire diet because I don’t consume anything other than coffee, iced tea and/or water during daylight. Might, to mix it up, include a small glass of fruit juice on occasion.
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
Everyone is different in weight loss, likely because there are so many variations in food, and humanity and actual body chemistry. Sure the basic chemistry is there but the nuances of each of us as far as eating history, actual individual body chemistry, age, physical effort all make a difference.
MisterForkbeard
I’ve done a similar thing in the past, Cole. But I’d recommend riced palm hearts if you can make them fit your diet – they’re significantly closer to rice for me in terms of texture, and I love the taste.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@NotMax:
Does a bucket of chicken with four sides really count as one meal?
Another Scott
@Kent: My great aunt said that the way it worked on the farm was:
Breakfast, Dinner, Supper.
The big meal was around noon.
I think that distinction is pretty much gone now, and dinner and supper are kinda equivalent.
Cheers,
Scott.
Maxim
That shrimp looks delicious. Glad the new plan is helping.
JustRuss
That’s called intermittent fasting, I started doing it last year, lost 30 pounds. You, or at least I, really don’t need breakfast.
BeautifulPlumage
Wow, good to see the colorful plate and the added garnish. You have the visual part down! Congrats on the changes.
NotMax
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Heh. You funny man.
Probably three or so nights a week the meal consists of a single sandwich of Costco sliced roast beef (or sliced pastrami purchased there) with a couple of slices of cheese on homemade bread. No sides, no nuthin’ else.
Standard size sammich, not talking Carnegie Deli here. One of those who don’t at all mind eating the same thing multiple days running. When I prepare stuff in the 3 quart Instant Pot it can last me the better part of a week. If for any reason feeling peckish post-midnight, spreading hummus on a slice of bread and folding that in half will do me.
BeautifulPlumage
@Another Scott: my Dad was the only sibling to move out of the ND county where the rest of his (and most of my Mom’s) family lived. They moved us to PNW, with visits back to the homestead every 3 years or so. One visit my aunt invited us for dinner and Mom forgot that meant noon. Aunt was not happy when we showed up at supper time.
Steeplejack
I have found that I do better with breakfast, one that’s more than coffee and a nosh. I need protein, usually an egg or two or some cheese toast, something like that. Then I’m usually set for most of the day, especially during the do-nothing pandemic days. I’ll graze a bit and/or have something light in the evening.
I will have coffee and a nosh in the morning if I’m going out for lunch. Basically I’m “one full meal and grazing” at this point. Maybe two meals if my social calendar gets jammed up. 😹
ian
I did some google-fu. Most of the websites I have found seem to think this (3 meals a day) was a European practice in the 1500-1700s. Europeans brought this to North America and it became the habit here as well. It does not seem to stem from a religious connection. The rules of Saint Benedict, the Christian rules that underlay most monastic orders, specifically permit 2 meals a day.
Here are some links
Rule_of_Saint_Benedict
medical daily
metabolic research center
Jackie
@BeautifulPlumage:
LOL! I can relate! My in-laws lived in MN and we’re in WA. Nobody here calls lunch *dinner* and I only knew them to call dinner *supper.*
Apparently lunch is a foreign word in the upper Midwest.
NotMax
@ian
There’s monks’ tables, and then there’s monks’ tables.
NotMax
@Jackie
Ladies Who Lunch.
;)
ian
@NotMax: those monks in that reading were some well fed fellows. Not quite what Benedict had in mind, I imagine.
Grover Gardner
Good for you!
Steeplejack
Possibly of interest. Will repost in the morning.
FastEdD
In 34 years as a teacher, I never could drink coffee in the morning, because it makes you pee. Normally that’s a good thing, but you can’t just tell the kids, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” You’d come back to find nothing but smoking rubble where your classroom used to be. Sometimes it was impossible to use the restroom between 7 am and 1pm or so. I’d take caffeine pills if I had to. I learned too to eat protein in the morning or my stomach would be unhappy by 1. It takes two things to be an effective teacher: patience and good bladder control!
NotMax
@ian
CouchPew potatoes.:)
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Oh what a sweetie! Thank you for spreading the word.
KrackenJack
@MisterForkbeard: We have some TJ Riced Palm Hearts in the cabinet. Got it after we liked the pasta version. Haven’t used it yet. but now it on the counter. We’re fond of their salad kits, too. They store well and you get to choose how much if any of the carbs you want to include.
I had to wring out the Costco frozen riced cauliflower after defrosting it. Way too much water to be able to cook it like fried rice.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m the same way, two meals a day. I’ve never been able to eat in the morning as I’m not hungry then. Some juice or coffee and I’m on my way. I’m glad to hear that you are settling in to something that you can make work for you!
Ten pounds is a fine start!
Cathie from Canada
Off-topic, but I love your plate — looks like Fiestaware.
We inherited a set of Fiesta from my in-laws, and one of the plates is that colour too
Congrats on the weight loss, by the way!
lowtechcyclist
@Ruckus:
I think you mentioned this several days ago, and I was thinking about this the other night while eating ice cream. Since it’s frozen, any smell is negligible, yet the taste seems to be more interesting than those five basic tastes. Not sure how that works.
Frankensteinbeck
4-5 meals a day, but half the size of other people’s meals. I’m hypoglycemic, and if I don’t eat every 3 hours I ache and get irritable. Supposedly it is a healthy way to do things
EDIT – @lowtechcyclist:
At a guess, A) plenty of volatile chemicals as the surface melts, and B) you’re putting it in your mouth so enough traces are getting into your sinuses regardless.
Scamp Dog
@Cathie from Canada: My grandparents had Fiestaware, and when I found out it was still around 15 years ago, I bought a full set for my new condo. I still love it!
RedDirtGirl
I gave up sugar about 2 1/2 months ago and that has helped me lose weight because sweets are my kryptonite. Easier to avoid altogether than to try to have one cookie, or one scoop of ice cream.
Kristine
@frosty: I use My Fitness Pal too. For me, it’s great for keeping track of sodium and protein—I always need less of the former and more of the latter.
Narya
I have that plate color too—I “pair” it with a bright turquoise one when there are two of us for dinner.
Princess
I don’t think three meals a day has anything to do with religion. Most people in agrarian Europe are two meals. I think it’s a product of industrialization and capitalism — people on the clock working out of their homes.
Citizen Alan
@KrackenJack: I consider “cauliflower rice” to be a cruel joke.
Raoul Paste
Finally— a news story that makes you smile and be glad
Princess
@lowtechcyclist: a good portion of what we think of as taste happens in our nose. Those of us who lost our sense of taste from Covid — it was because of problems with the olfactory nerve, not our tongues. Try eating something while plugging your nose and you’ll see.
evodevo
@Another Scott: Yep…farm meals: biscuits and coffee at 4 or 5 am – go out and feed livestock/milk cow(s); come back in at 6 am for breakfast – bacon/ham and eggs; go back out and work 6 hrs till 12 – dinner – fried ham, fried potatoes, well-cooked canned green beans in bacon fat; go back out and work till 6 or 7; supper of country-fried steak (round steak was cheap in the Thirties, according to my mother), potatoes, corn, biscuits, dessert; go back out and work till dark during summer/fall. Then drop dead at 55 from heart attack (like a neighbor of ours)…and in KY a lot of farmers were slim build, like the one in Grant Wood’s American Gothic…
Dorothy A. Winsor
I like frequent small meals. Four a day works well for me.
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
I’ll try that the next time I eat ice cream and see if it makes a difference. Maybe I’m smelling more than I realize when I eat ice cream; it just doesn’t seem like I’m smelling anything at all from it. But I certainly don’t feel like I’ve lost my sense of taste when I eat ice cream.
WereBear
I can say from experience, dealing with chronic illness with Mr WereBear and then me! (fate has such irony) food is like 80% of health.
We can’t leave it up to corporations.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Really. Amazing.
I don’t know what the connection to religion is. Monks don’t eat at all, do they?
Kyle Rayner
@lowtechcyclist: Tasting food has more to do with exhaling than inhaling. As opposed to smelling food before it’s in your mouth. By then, the ice cream or whatever else has been warmed up by your body and masticated to boot, which agitates and releases extra particles. It’s also known by ice cream makers that senses are inhibited by cold, so they compensate for that as much as possible with extra sugar and flavor, and salt has become very popular in many flavors. That’s why melted ice cream can taste almost sickly sweet.
Just like plugging your nose can surprise you with all the flavors it shuts off, intentionally exhaling while eating can give you a better appreciation for what is in your mouth. Also, you’ll see that connoisseurs will often smell food/drink (example: wine or bourbon) with their mouths open, to allow more free flow of air in their nostrils.
Procopius
I don’t know where the idea of three meals a day came from. When I was a kid and visited my grandparents’ farm in Iowa, they ate five meals a day, or three meals and two “teas.” Here in Thailand, Buddhist monks normally eat only one meal a day — nothing after noon, and maybe some light snacking before the main meal around 11:00. My best friend in college only ate two meals a day. I have read that what we eat at the three meals comes from French ideas about fermentation from the 17th Century.
cain
@JoyceH: my wife and any women friends I have also hate it when guys talk about dieting because it seems to come off so easily for them. I can imagine that would be off putting and super annoying.
RA
@Jackie: For my farm families in MN, “lunch” is what you eat between breakfast and dinner and again between dinner and supper and one more time before you retire for the night. It worked great for working long hours on the farm but when you retired and moved to town, the weight mysteriously piled on.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: I understand from my Russian Lit course in college, while we were discussing War and Peace, that pre-WW-I, the aristocracy would have some ridiculous number of courses with the main meals. 15? It was insane. After WWI, then number came down a lot, and came down some more after WWII.
I don’t recall mention of the number of meals a day, but the ones they had could have been monstrously filling so they probably didn’t need that many!
tl;dr – The meals mentioned in W&P weren’t an exaggeration!
Cheers,
Scott.
NutmegAgain
Speaking of aging and gaining weight. I’m going to cross what seems like some kind of Rubicon in this conversation: I’ve been using Ozempic (semaglutide) for the last ~6 months. It’s a wonder drug, yes, yes it is. Don’t believe the bullshit you read in the the press with all the scary woo. I took Metformin for about 6 months prior, as well. My piles ‘o pounds came on from years and years of antidepressants, menopause, trauma, spinal issues (diminished ability to do normal exercising)–anyway, like that. I’ve lost ~65 lbs over a year and it’s a bloody miracle. I was never a junk food eater; I have (had) a sweet tooth, but never a fast food eater etc. Just not my thing. But here’s the truly wondrous thing about semaglutide: it doesn’t only change how much food you want (and can comfortably eat)–it dramatically changes what you want to eat. (It also alters your sense of satiety, so hungry less.) I look at sweets or cheesy lasagna or other goodies and just think well, whatever. I can choose to eat a little, or not. Regarding side effects, IF I actually eat too much of anything rich, I will have some variety of stomach upset, either that day or the next. And yes, there was a curve for me of adapting to the medication–I was pretty queasy at the beginning, but my body has adjusted
eta: the drug is covered by my insurance. I know that is an issue for people. I’ve had no problems ordering it at the local drugstore chain.
JustRuss
@RedDirtGirl: I gave up sugar, except for special occasions, last year, and my taste buds have become much more sensitive. You really don’t need much. A friend made me a strawberry lassi recently , “with very little sugar”, and it pretty much hit my sweetness limit, any more would have ruined it.
JaneE
Agreed about the 3 meals thing. I want breakfast 2-3 hours after I wake up, no matter what time that is. Left to my own devices breakfast is usually between 10-11, because on the days I get up early I have a morning water aerobics class and do not want to have eaten. The next meal will be about 5 hours later, so maybe a normal dinner hour, and after that I try to not eat unless I am actually really hungry. Maybe once or twice a year my husband will tell me he has already eaten by the time I get around to breakfast, but most of the time he follows my schedule by default. He may get a snack about 3 hours after dinner, usually some cheese.
Lost weight, gained back close to 40 lbs, still holding at 85-90 below my top weight which I had held onto for several years. Gaining part of the weight back was deliberate. At 30 that weight would have looked good, but at 65 I looked gaunt, and too much like my mother just before she died. Gained more than intended, but took close to 20 of that back right now. If I lose a pound a month right now I will be happy.
StringOnAStick
@NutmegAgain: I ‘m glad to hear of your success. I heard today on NPR (yes, I know) that this drug shows serious promise helping with addiction like alcohol and even shopping addiction. My understanding is it triggers production of the stomach hormone that tells you are full, so that may have been the initial stomach upset. That it helps with addictive behaviours that aren’t about eating is intriguing.
Cole’s diet is no doubt basically about cutting carbs. I gave up canning fruit years ago because of all the added sugar; I freeze fruit now and use it without adding sugar, mostly just straight up. The carbs in bread, rice and pasta are more than most sedentary people need so they get converted into body fat. More veggies, nothing made with grain flours and no added sugar will drop pounds like magic, but Cole’s first few weeks are mostly loss of all the retained water from the systemic inflammation caused by a high carb diet. Soon he’ll be on a steady 1-3 lbs per week of actual fat loss.