Weight and coffee advice, please read!!!!

[Goldencoffee]

Seen a lot of weight threads recently, jumping on the bandwagon a bit sorry.

when I was a teen, I was a competitive dancer. My teacher was very supportive and not at all the stereotypical weight obsessed dance teacher, but in that environment of competitive dancing there’s always that unspoken rule that skinnier is better. I was always praised for having long skinny legs and how it made the steps I was dancing look better. There’s a huge emphasis on looks and when you’re wearing shorts at training or dresses with extremely short skirts for competitions, you’re always conscious and paranoid about your legs and because everyone can always see them you end up comparing and wanting to be skinnier.

I love dancing and could talk for hours about how much I’ve learned from it, but the pressure on looks can be toxic and it’s hard to shake it off. I never had an eating disorder and I was always naturally thin, but I went through a short phase of worrying about calorie intake and skipping meals and drinking coffee so I would have energy but could stay skinny (parents had no idea) .

anyway, I’m now an adult and obviously don’t dance anymore, and overall I have a healthy relationship with food and my weight, but sometimes I feel that pang of ‘im not skinny enough’ and I have to actively remind myself that I am absolutely fine. I guess that’s the lasting affect of dancing where nothing is ever perfect enough and everyone could be better/faster/skinner. I also fall into the habit of skipping meals eg breakfast and lunch sometimes and drinking coffee- not because I want to lose weight, but more because I’m too busy and don’t really make time for food and coffee is just easier and I like the energy I get from it. Obviously this isn’t a healthy habit but I picked up as a dancer and it’s hard to break. Does anyone have any experience on how to break this habit? Should I go cold turkey altogether with the coffee and make myself eat instead? Or is it ok because I’m only doing it sometimes and I’m a healthy weight?

any advice would be really helpful! x

Coffee breath is awful
Plus it's not good for you.

Intermittent fasting is doing something like 4:3 or 5:2, or a complete fast for a day or two a week. Eating all your food in 10 or 8 hours is time-restricted eating, nothing to do with fasting, although some people combine it with 5:2, say.

Well actually...
That is incorrect. Coffee in smaller amount is actually good for us

I think skipping meals is fine as long as you get your calories in a day and doesnt cause overeating later in the day.
Try switching a couple cups to decaf and/or making milk based so you get calcium

If you have a healthy relationship with food and you are only doing it now and then, I don’t see it as being an issue, but if it is worrying you, and it is something you really want to address, I would just get in some ‘easy’ things grab and eat when you are busy, so that grabbing something healthy to eat takes no more time than it would to make a coffee.

I’d say it depends on the coffee. If it’s just a weak instant, for example, it’s not much of a problem. Substitute some of the cups you have later in the day with decaf as by then you’ll have already had enough caffeine, you’ll probably sleep better too!

Nice coffee, and nothing else, is a normal breakfast for me (and most of the people I work with!). Like anything it's a habit. I do each lunch though, and never eat snacks during the day. Harder to do when I'm working from the office, as we have a supply of very nice treats always near.

Rosehugger, your body is still fasting either way, that's where the word breakfast comes from

Thanks for all the advice it’s really helpful!

It’s reassuring to know other people sometimes substitute coffee for breakfast and lunch, I was genuinely unsure if it was a bad habit or normal.

I think I’ll always be weight conscious because of dancing- it’s the first thing I think about when I try on clothes and it’s always there in the back of my mind (always wondering if I look fat or if I’ve gained weight) but I think that’s what most people are like now anyway because of stuff like social media so I’m not any different. I eat normally and am not trying to lose weight but I’ll probably always have to actively remind myself that my weight is fine the way it is.

yeah I definitely need to cut down the coffee! Sometimes I drink it as a meal substitute and other times I just drink it just because I want to. I tried decaf but I didn’t get any energy from it whereas I found that normal coffee gave me energy and calories without going to the effort of making food and eating. I do obviously eat too and I’m not underweight, but I either skip meals or I eat a ridiculous amount and feel shit about it for the rest of the day. No self control!

how many coffees a day is realistically too much? I’m going to start bringing it down 1 cup at a time until I’m drinking a normal amount haha

There are important differences, @Harridance

"People who practice time-restricted eating typically eat during an 8- to 12-hour daytime window and fast during the remaining 12 to 16 hours. Unlike intermittent fasting, which involves caloric restriction, time-restricted eating permits a person to eat as much as they want during the eating window."

www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/time-restricted-eating

I'd say cut down to four cups a day at first, OP and see how you feel. I can't have more than two cups in the morning as otherwise I don't sleep.

Rosehugger - I don't see them as 'important' differences, but kind of similar things that both involve fasting

The number of calories is an important difference for people trying to lose weight. If they TRE and it doesn't work they might also want to try IF.