Recent Posts

Hi HungryGuy,

How are you doing?
Thanks for the feedback, its interesting to know that 'In any case, my hunger did go away'.

I dont have a visual concept for the mantra, as I chant it while doing my chores in the morning, so I am generally occupied with something else while chanting. I do intermittently take my attention to my throat while chanting.

By the way, I dont really watch my calories anymore...my estimate is that I am consuming around 1000 calories per day. Interestingly, I have lost more weight, and am now at 57 kgs (BMI 20.9), and am feeling really good about it. And all this happened without struggling for it.
I have not been steadily at this BMI for more than a few years now, so its really great to see that I am maintaining this, without a struggle. My objective is to lose some more weight.

I tried cheating yesterday with some artificial sweetener.....actually a lot of artificial sweetener. It didn't end well but I didn't go overboard.

Only gained 1/2 pound. Currently at 210.

Back on the horse today. Holiday weekends are always tough.

The beat goes on !!

209.5.

Still rockin and rollin with the ACV. No cravings yesterday.

I dropped another pound to 210.5.

My goal is to get down to 185. The lowest I've been in recent memory is 197.5 while on SLD.

Solid day. Taking the ACV before each meal and snack, I had no cravings until 9:00 P.M. So I gave in a little at night but nothing major. Progress not perfection.

I dropped two pounds so I'm back down to 211.5.

I going to do the same today however, this time if I have a bedtime craving like last night, I'm going to do another ACV dose.

Eye opening day yesterday.

In the afternoon right before lunch I was getting the sugar cravings so I took some ACV which killed the craving. However just after lunch I wa getting an even worse craving.....the mental/emotional kind. I had almost made up my mind to head over to 7-11 and get a bag of crap but instead I took some more ACV and the craving was killed again.

As I stated yesterday, I experimented with dinner by taking the ACV afterwards. Unfortunately the effect was short lived and I eneded up binging somewhat later on in the evening even though I took two doses of the stuff.

Fortunately I had no weight gain. Still holding at 213.5.

Today I'm taking the ACV before every meal (including my two between meal snacks).

Solid day yesterday with a small craving at night. I gained 1 pound while being home for 3 days so I'm not complaining.

It's a 5 day work week so I expect to do some damage (in a good way).

I'm experimenting with  the timing of taking the ACV. Some websites say take it before meals and some say after. Since I ended up with a craving after dinner last night, I'm going to take the ACV immediately after I finish my meal and see if that makes a difference.

Todd,

I weigh myself daily. I'm trying to be discipined all of the time. However, it seems that once I give in to a craving all discipline is thrown out the window for a while.

Speaking of weighing myself, I haven't done so yet this morning because it's going to be up. Yesterday was veeeeeery interesting. After my afternoon snack (low fat string cheese and some peanuts) I got some fairly intense sugar cravings. I took some gymnema and then ate a few small chocolate graham cookies (yes we had some in the house for the kids). They didn't taste good at all yet I still derived pleasure from the act of eating them. After eating about 6 of them I stopped for a few minutes but found myself right back in the kitchen attacking the breakfast cereal which also didn't taste good yet was pleasurable to eat. I had two bowls.

So despite the lack of sweetness my brain was telling me to keep eating. Very strange.

Before dinner I did the apple cider vinegar and I had no sugar cravings which is a very good sign because usually one i give in to a craving, it goes all downhill from there (like last weekend).

There may be hope for me yet.

Edit:No weight gain !!

[Rehabilitation]

so if ur eyes have uneven strength, how exactly does one eye work harder than the other?  Is it because of the mind?

skirrel,

The left and right eyes each start out with slightly different strengths, due to natural genetic or environmental variations.  But over-reliance on one eye over the other can lead to the stronger eye bearing more of the "vision load" than the weaker eye.  With time, this can lead to some atrophy of the focal capability of the weaker eye.

By analogy, people who have strokes often end up with a weak and and a strong hand.  The normal response is to rely mostly on the strong hand, but this often results in atrophy of the strength or dexterity of the weak hand.  On the Rehabilitation page of this blog, I describe a technique called Constraint Induced Movement Therapy, which helps stroke victims recovery by having them place their strong hand in a "mitt", thereby forcing them to use their weak hand.  They must do repetitive exercises with the individual fingers of the impaired hand, until it eventually matches the strength of the stronger hand.  Then the mitt can be removed.

Exactly the same phenomenon is the case with weak and strong eyes.  To strengthen the weak eye, you must stop relying so much on the strong eye.  This can be done by using a patch or a diffuser lens over the stronger eye, or by "handicapping" the stronger eye with an extreme undercorrection, so that you must now being relying on the weak eye if you want to see anything in focus.  But remember, that if the defocus is too extreme, even the weak eye will "give up", just as trying to lift a weight that is beyond your strength will result not in getting stronger, but in your weak arm "giving up".

Make sense?

I lose a little bit and then I get these uncontrolable cravings that continue until I gain it all back.

Sugardude,

It's great that you've found a few tools to quell your cravings - the Gymnenma and apple cider vinegar seem to be effective for you.

I've been pondering your response to Jared's question.  The quote above indicates that there is some kind of "yo-yo" effect going on that ramps up your cravings especially at the point when you have successfully lost some weight, which re-starts the cycle of eating. There is some kind of positive/negative feedback effect going on that enforces this cycle.

One thing I've found useful in breaking cycles -- for example to break weight plateaus -- is to weigh myself daily and chart it.  It soon becomes obvious that there is a natural cycle of up and down.  So you accept the reality of that cycle, and then make a concious decision to shift the average of the cycle down.  So for example, I was oscillating between 157 and 161 for a long time, averaging around 159 lbs.  I realized that I would cut back eating when I would approach 160 or 161 and the weight would head back down, but then I'd ease up, and gradually the weight would drift back up over a few days.

The change I made was to increase my level of fasting and strictness of low carb right at the low point of the cycle. In other words, become more disciplined just at the point that it is hardest!   I was able to move the average weight of the cycle down a little each time, but still allowing fluctuation over a few weeks.  In my latest move, my range is 152 to 156, averaging 154.  So it's 5 pounds down.  I plan to hold in this range for a few more weeks, and then make another move of 3 or 4 pounds.

The new realization for me was accepting the oscillation, but focussing on the mid point of the cycle range, and being comfortable holding in a cycling pattern for a few weeks to let yourself adjust.  And then planning to "make a move" precisely at the low point of the cycle.  I think there is something to this, and I am working on a post on "breaking through plateaus" where I will elaborate more about it.   I was thinking about your situation and wondering if this kind of approach might be useful.

You might start by weighing daily and writing it down to see what the oscillation pattern looks like.  Then decide how and when to make a move.

Todd