A Bump on My Yellow Road
I stopped losing weight. My Yellow Road plan stopped working. If you recall I draw a line on the weight/time plane which I call my target weight. If I’m more than one pound above my target weight, then I’m in the red zone and must restrict my evening food to apples. The hour at which the evening starts depends on how many pounds I’m above my target weight.
And now, back to my bump.
First I stopped following the plan exactly. I realized that I didn’t need to restrict myself to eating only apples in the evening when I am in the red zone. I can use salad or anything light.
One day I found myself in the red zone weighing two pounds over my target weight. I was invited to dinner that evening. I decided to accept the invitation and skip the plan for one day. At the party the food was so good I couldn’t resist it. The next day I was four pounds over my target weight.
My Yellow Road plan requires me in this situation to eat only apples from 2:00pm onward, but I knew that applying this restriction after 6:00pm worked for me. I decided not to torture myself and started to restrict my food only from 6:00pm. The weight didn’t go down. Even though I went to bed very hungry for two weeks, it didn’t work.
After these two weeks, I started to feel hungry all the time and even began dreaming about food. As a result, my food intake increased. Now I am seven pounds over my target weight. I’ve reached a plateau. For the last two months I’ve been stuck at 220 pounds.
There is some good news: I now have a partner on this journey. After I started my program, I received an email from Natalia Grinberg from Germany. She offered to join forces. We send each other weekly updates on our progress and cheer each other along. Natalia’s path wasn’t smooth from the start, so she tried to supplement her diet with Almased, which is very popular in Europe. Because Natalia likes it, I looked into it. While I am afraid of pills and chemical ingredients, Almased seems to be okay. It contains soy, yogurt, honey, and vitamins. I bought one can. It is expensive and tastes awful. I’ll experiment with cinnamon or pepper and see if that helps. Will Almased help me get over the Bump?
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Violetta:
Hi, I found your blog recently and like it a lot.
Do not give up please! You are such a wonderful person, you deserve to be healthy and happy with your body. I am also struggling with a bit of extra weight, and I know how hard it is.
15 January 2014, 3:27 amCount Iblis:
Read this:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-blog/sitting-disease/bgp-20056238
and try the following. From the moment you wake up until the time you go to sleep you should not sit. This means using higher desks, dining tables etc. This alone will raise your metabolic rate by something like 5% to 10%. You should, of course, also do regular exercise, but simply selling all your chairs and couches on ebay will lead to a significant reduction of your weight.
27 January 2014, 5:01 pmRobert:
I was 300 lb for over 10 years, had become partially immobilized due to knee and back pain, and was considering gastric bypass after becoming prediabetic. i never ate fast food and rarely ate red meat. i ate organic, high quality food….but a lot of it, and all day long in small bits. all while sitting at the computer 16 hours a day.
as part of the research for the bypass procedure, i found 2 protocols that had demonstrated long term success…the DPP protocol (https://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/preventionprogram/) and a japan study proposing a very simple VBC (veggie before carb) protocol (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21669583).
combined (modest exercise and large increase of veggies) i was able to lose 120 lb and am stable +/- 5 lb
sleep quality was also important, and i made significant work and life choices to increase sleep time and quality (i am an engineer who still spends 10+ hours at the computer, and would often consume 6-8 cups of coffee a day; now i work in 1 hour “sprints” followed by light activity, and 2 cups coffee before noon only)
in the end the gastric bypass was no longer necessary, and so far the weight has stayed off (despite some remaining knee pain that still restricts activity at times, but it is much much much better).
dont give up – i had many failures over the years dieting, and even spent years blaming genetics and such, but by doing the research and looking for sustatinable habit forming changes, i was able to get back into a healthy baseline.
if you have to do radical things then it isnt sustainable. depriving yourself of food you love, or furniture, while a temporary fix, wont be sustainable. all diets work short term. no “diet” works long term. only lifestyle changes that are *enjoyable* will stick. i didnt “give up” sweets or carbs, i simply no longer want them as often. i dont have to force myself to get exercise, i want to exercise (and get moody if i cannot due to weather, etc) i dont blame my genetics, i use knowledge of biochemistry and systems to balance the equations and use my genetics to work optimally.
in summary: try to slowly increase activity (i went from essentially wheelchair bound to running a mile….but it built slowly over 12 months in slow steady increments), increase consumption of raw, pickled, and lightly cooked green veggies before you eat your favorite carbs (or protein); and get quality sleep. but most importantly, convince yourself that this is a lifelong positive change with no other goal than optimizing the system and balancing the equations….if you try to punsih or deprive or restrict, or in any way perceive changes as net negative, they will not become habits that are sustainable.
sorry for the ramble!
28 January 2014, 11:16 amonlyvixx:
Hello Tanya,
5 February 2014, 11:35 amFrom reading your posts, it seems that you have a very emotional relationship with food (or hunger). I don’t think you will be successful on any diet that restricts food intake and makes you hungry. Instead you should try to figure out how to substitute (whenever you can) dense carbs for less dense alternatives – sweets with flower for cookies made with almond or other nut flour, substitute bread, pasta, and stanches for beans, legumes, avocados, broccoli and cauliflower, beets, and squash. And of course you should not limit meat, eggs, or fish in your diet.
dodik:
Try this for sweetener: https://www.pipingrock.com/sweeteners-flavors/better-stevia-original-liquid-extract-39490?prd=D0000J&CAWELAID=1934925190&catargetid=600007550000003328&cadevice=c&cagpspn=pla&gclid=CK3x5K2Pw7wCFelxOgodZW0A3g
10 February 2014, 9:19 pmDJK:
Are you sure that apples are a good choice? The calorie count is low, but the glycemic index is high; so they are still significantly fattening, when eaten on their own. Perhaps consider oranges and celery.
28 February 2014, 5:35 pm