May 2025 Starters Thread 6 - We’re all totes protes now ✌️

[FlorenceNightshade]

As requested a protein and fibre filled shiny new thread for us!!

Weighed and I'm at 198! After two weeks of gains or STS, i's a relief. Onederland!

I'm trying to adopt healthier, more long-term eating habits. The algorithm on Facebook keeps showing me videos about no food being bad food (hence my post yesterday!) and really breaking down the restrict->-binge->self-loathing cycle. I noticed I only felt I'd had a 'good' week if I'd gone to bed hungry, or even skipped some meals. So I'm trying to eat when I'm hungry and have 'bad' food as part of life to cut that restrict->pig out cycle off at the knees.

Making changes like this whilst on Mounjaro feels like doing the hard mental work with little physical difficulty, so it's a good time to do it, but it's a LOT. It's a lot of deprogramming and a sense of unease that I - loose cannon, unpredictable rockstar that I am (ha) - might go rogue and eat Big Macs all week. I don't trust myself to 'behave' but it shouldn't be about good or bad behaviour. This shit is ENTRENCHED.

Mounjaro has definitely made me realise how prone I am to black and white thinking about food. I trained in nutrition, too, so have all the 'facts' (by the way most studies used in nutrition do not tend to hold up well under scrutiny and can be summed up under 'correlation does not equal causation') so what we 'know' is absolute rubbish most of the time. We need fat. We need fibre. We need protein. We need carbs. What we definitely know is basically as simple as that!

I second @DidILeaveTheGasOn eat the snickers if that's what you want, @tostaky You've been poorly for a long time and your body is probably in desperate need of some simple sugars, some complex carbs (peanuts), and protein all in one delicious chocolatey hit. Get snack size or minis if you don't want a full size, but it isn't going to derail your efforts (unless you eat loads of them). And try to think as much about nutrition as you do weightloss. Those 'healthy' versions sound amazing - dates are full of fibre, vitamins and minerals, peanut butter has healthy fats, comolex carbs and protein, dark chocolate is packed full of antioxidants. GLP1s should be a tool to help us adjust to nutritional eating we can stick with for the rest of our lives, not be just about calorie counting and obsessing over protein.

Rant over!!

Thanks for all the kind comments about my missing babies. Solidarity with all those whose furbabies have disappeared, too xxx

And I am so jealous proud of you @DidILeaveTheGasOn for making it to onederland! Still feels a million miles away for me!

Morning.
Two lbs off for me this week. I’m 6lbs away from onederland too. Always chasing @DidILeaveTheGasOn!😛

@Gingercar@DidILeaveTheGasOnwell done on your losses!

@notgonnafailthanks a lot - you are absolutely right. To be fair to myself i havent eaten many biscuits/chocolate and treats since May so a few squares of “healthy” snickers dupes is totally ok. As @DidILeaveTheGasOnsaid, so much of our thinking and behaviour around food is deeply entrenched it is hard to change it. I did have two squares but it is super sweet so i couldnt have more. Went to yoga and forgot all about it! Thats the beauty of MJ. I really need to work on my relationship with food and my body before i get off it.
off to my blood test now to check all is allright. Then im working on my dissertation.. deadline for the data analysis section is next Tuesday 😭😫🤬😱

@tostaky it is so easy to get caught up in calories and macros, and forget that food is actually fuel and that we need the things in food to keep us healthy! I think that is the best thing that this journey is helping me to learn, that a little bit of something I fancy isn't just sugar/fat/calories and therefore bad and to be avoided at all costs and that I am a terrible person if I let myself indulge etc, but that it is vitamins, minerals and fibre too. It's okay to crave sweet stuff - our brain probably wants a quick boost, but that we can fulfil that with a really small amount of something, it doesn't have to be a whole bar or tub of icecream!

@notgonnafail yes, that's a revelation for me too - when I'm tempted by something nice, I can have a small piece, or a normal portion, not the whole lot, swiftly followed by self-loathing!

Haha...when you drag your very reluctant arse to the gym and then you're confronted with this!! 😂

Congrats on all the losses you bunch of lovely losers!! So chuffed for you all.

Totally hear you on all the entrenched negative messaging about food. You're all absolutely right. The 90s all did us dirty.

I've been intermittent fasting for a couple of years now (on and off) and in many ways it's helped but comes with a shed load of guilt if you don't stick to it. Then read in the need last week that it can actually be very damaging to heart health! I've since given myself permission to have a small sensible snack of an evening...shock horror I feel a bit better, happier and lost more weight.

I realised the other day that my smart watch has a calorie tracker. Now, I am highly aware that they aren't accurate, but they do give a rough idea of how many calories we burn going about our days. It blew my mind to see how much I burn through in 24hours and got me really seeing just how disordered my relationship with food is, despite all my knowledge and training.

As you say @SussexLass87 the 90's did us dirty, in that we now just think of food just as calories, things we should be suppressing as low as we can without keeling over, rather than something our bodies need to be healthy and well

I've been listening to the Fat Science podcast, and they stress over and over how important it is to fuel our bodies properly so that they will feel safe enough to let the weight go and stop storing more to protect us against the next famine (which is essentially what we face with all those diets we've all been on!)

So, I'm working on upping the frequency of my meals to reassure my body food will always come and in the amount it wants, trying to forget calories and to focus on what nutrients are in the food instead of fat/sugar/calories. I feel so much happier, though am a bit bloated from all the fibre at the moment! Hoping that will settle down once my body gets more used to it all!

Love this - I'm going to look up the podcast. Sounds really interesting!

I absolutely believe that counting calories can be a bad thing (same for syns and points) because you end up focusing on the number rather than what you’re eating- often eating crappy low calorie foods so that we can eat or drink something “bad”. I try to just cut out processed foods and particularly sugars, and eat wholesome things. The balanced plate method.
Before I started I’d just crossed over into the prediabetes category and was eligible to do the NHS course. It’s actually been pretty interesting (and it’s good that they weigh you each time). They also lean towards the balanced plate.

Slimpod is all about eating healthily without counting or measuring. It's a bit woo, but worth a try, I reckon, ready for when I come off MJ.

Just to interrupt the rather grown up conversation in here briefly to ask:

Please can somebody nice and tall and brave come to my house and go into the cellar/coal store and get my big tubs of clothes that might actually fit me now? You have to climb down some steps to get in there so you need to be able to fully commit to:

a) darkness
b) dankness
c) so many spiders, so many, oh my god
d) maybe ghosts?

I got the boxes in there by: 1) opening the door, 2) throwing the boxes and squeaking in terror whilst frantically wiping cobwebs off my face and 3) running back into the house shuddering.

Anyone?

If I were closer... @DidILeaveTheGasOn Have no issues with dark, dank and spiders! Living in rural France means there are a lot of places in our house with all 3 (including spiders with weird fungal infestations that go white!!)

😮ewwww!

@DidILeaveTheGasOn you need to take the vacuum and have the long metal hose out in front of you to suck up any nasties as you approach to clear your way. And maybe a torch. Good luck.

I LOVE that @lifetheuniverseandeverything42, makes me feel like I need a full Ghostbusters costume!

@DidILeaveTheGasOn is it not what children are for? A treasure hunt for mummy ?

i will give the Fat podcast and the slimpod thing a go… thanks all

@tostaky if you sign up for Slimpod let me know, I have a code...

Does anyone else struggle with a delay between eating and feeling full? I don't feel full when I eat, but then I think I overeat and feel too full later on.
I've just had my lunch and I'm still really hungry, but don't know if I should eat more or not.

Yeah, I had to learn to give time for the food to land, but if you're still proper hungry at the end of the meal, are you eating enough? I feel peckish at the end of meals and within ten minutes I'm full.
Although when I started on 5mg I was full after like... nothing. I don't have that anymore.

@DidILeaveTheGasOn if I feel full at the end of the meal, I'll feel overfull 30-60 minutes later. I just can't work out how hungry I should be at the end of the meal in order to feel pleasantly full an hour later.

That's a bugger, yeah I get what you mean. I think aim to be peckish at the end and then see?
I feel mentally hungry a lot, like now I feel like I need something but I'm full from lunch. Little gremlin in my head wants something crunchy.

@DidILeaveTheGasOn yeah I think you're right. I just need to remember, even if I think I'm feckin starving, just stop eating for a bit - just have fruit later if I still need something.
When I'm mentally hungry, I try to drink some water or herbal tea. It's usually enough.

I have to preface this by saying that yesterday was my 52nd wedding anniversary (I was a child bride 😂). That's my excuse. 52 is a long time.

We booked a special offer night in a poshish hotel, including dinner and breakfast. They upgraded us to a suite, which was lovely.

Dinner was super and although I didn't eat everything on my plate I did a pretty good job of trying. Obviously I didn't need any breakfast but ...... i ate a lot.

I walked miles yesterday and today but please could you send light thoughts for tomorrow's weigh in?