Everyday Systems

Hello,

I've been at this for several weeks now and I've been doing pretty well at cutting out sugar and seconds. I recently reached the point where I didn't even feel like having sugar on my S-days, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I'm having trouble with meals and snacking though:

I wake up most days feeling queasy and solid food does not agree with me first thing in the morning. So, I have a 250ml liquid breakfast drink so I can at least get the day started without feeling light-headed. This serves its purpose but I don't know if it's a snack or a meal because it only has 177 calories and I still get lightheaded if I don't follow it up with something within a couple of hours.

Sometimes I treat it as a 9am "snack" and then proceed to have 3 meals starting from 11am, though this puts my meals completely out of sync with my kid's meals. I make myself a drink to at least sit at the table together, but it's not really the same.

Sometime I treat it as a meal and then snack on milk until it's time for my kid to have lunch, and eat lunch and dinner with him. This limits what I'm able to do in the morning, but I get to have social meals with my son. Sometimes when I do this I get really hungry around 11pm (not as late as it sounds, I sleep from 2-9), and I don't know whether to interpret that as "177 calories is not a full meal and you should eat something" or if I am just unnecessarily hungry and need to push through it. I'm a bit inconsistent about which path I take.

I'm pretty sure that none of what I just described is very good, but I'm not really sure how best to sort this out, or if I should just treat breakfast differently to other meals?

Does anyone have any advice?

May I get clear what your waking hours are?

9am-2am

I think it would be worth it to find a way to make your meals sync with son's meals. Eating with others is a major foundation of slim cultures, which No S tries to mimic.

It's interesting that you feel queasy at the thought of food, but lightheaded if you don't eat.

Though breakfast is often CORRELATED to lower weight, there are cultures that eat VERY lightly or don't eat right away in the morning. In Nepal, the peasants I saw rose very early and had tea, but worked for several hours before they had a light breakfast. The French usually have just coffee with milk (the only time of the day they put milk in the coffee) and just little pieces of toast or a small croissant plus a smear of jam and butter. Or just a small plain yogurt and a little fruit.

There have been others here who have had lightheadedness in the beginning, but found that it went away after a few days or weeks, if they just put up with it. Apparently, their bodies adjusted and started getting more easily into the glucose stores instead of asking for new food. If you are overweight or even if you aren't, you've got glucose stored, and that has to get used before you'll ever get to any fat.

What time does your son eat lunch and dinner?

Come to think of it, the light-headedness might have more to do with medications I'm on that are very fussy and generally don't play nicely on an empty stomach. But I can't predict when I'm going to feel able to eat so I just have to take them with liquids and hope for the best. =\

My son eats at 1:30 and 6:30.

If I were you, I'd just try to eat enough in the morning to then wait for lunch with your son. By the time you eat breakfast, it's only about 4 hours, and most humans should be able to go 4 hours without food after even a small meal.

Given that there has been found to be quite good benefits to a 12-hour overnight "fast," I'd recommend you consider a "nightcap" of a beverage with a dairy or nut milk around 9 pm for awhile. Later you may experiment and discover you don't need it. Remember, your body has stores. You just have to discover the conditions that get it to draw them out, in which case, the urges will likely weaken.

You actually sound like you are right on track! Keep working on the adjustments.