Everyday Systems

The foods you are eating seem to be pretty light. I'm not surprised you are getting hungry between meals. Soup is mostly water; the vegetables in the soup are mostly water; the nectarine is mostly water; and you had a bottle of water, too. Vegetables and rice are mostly water. The only filling things you ate were the Triscuits with hummus and the pork. No wonder you're getting hungry between meals and experiencing the effects of plummeting blood sugar.

What I have found in the past (before my return to vegan eating) is that if I have 1/2 plate of fruit/veg/salad, 1/4 plate of starch, and 1/4 plate of protein, that I was not tempted to snack. It didn't have to be exact, but it served as a handy rule of thumb for organizing my meals.

Just my two cents. Hope it helps a little!

I agree with Jan, I think you should try to make your meals a little heartier. I also try to eat a meals that are high in fiber. It is good for your blood sugar and satiety.

I also agree that you may find that the plan works better if you eat more at meals.

If you get desperately hungry, planned low calorie snacks of fruit and/or cottage cheese can help, but increasing your meal size looks like a good first step in creating an eating regime with which you can live comfortably.

Congratulations on getting through the first month. It's great that you have already done the hardest bit.

Part of the problem might be too little protein in that meal you described. Protein is the part that "sticks to your ribs" and helps tide you over from mealtime to mealtime.

I have that same issue if I don't include fiber and protein in each meal. I like beans (black beans, pintos, kidney beans, black-eyed peas) for that reason -- they have lots of fiber and protein, and they really help me stay the course by feeling quite full for a long time.

I also find that some fat with each meal increases a feeling of satisfaction and fullness.

A good heap of buttered black-eyed peas will do it for me every time!

Ooooooooooooooooo...buttered black-eyed peas....yum!!!!

(Agree with the protein and fat.)

ClickBeetle wrote:buttered black-eyed peas

Mmmmmm, sounds yummy. What is it, I've never heard of it? Recipe, please?

Cook black-eye peas and dot with butter. I like a little garlic and onion on mine, too. And biscuits, and collard greens...sounds like New Year's Day dinner around here!

Jammin' Jan wrote:Cook black-eye peas and dot with butter. I like a little garlic and onion on mine, too. And biscuits, and collard greens

Thank you. It sounds lovely, I'll give it a try sometime. I had to look up biscuits (in England, biscuits are what you would call cookies) and collard greens.

Oh, sorry about that! I didn't notice your location. Biscuits are bread, and if you can't find collard greens, try cooked spinach. It's a tradition in the southern states here to have black-eye peas for luck and greens for money on New Year's Day.

Usually it's served hot, but I found a great recipe on www.fatfree.com so I am going to adapt it and serve it cold, as a salad. Here's the recipe:

1 can (15 oz) black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
1 (10 oz) box chopped spinach, thawed

6 Tbs. white vinegar
2 Tbs. water
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Combine the salad ingredients together in a bowl. Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad and toss. Chill to let the flavors blend. Toss before serving.

With cornbread and fruit this is going to make a great dinner!

Thanks, Jan. I will give it a try.

I was perfectly happy to look things up - "two countries divided by a common language", and it could be useful to be bilingual! Black-eyed peas are black-eyed beans over here.

newb_E,

Here's some advice on how to deal with between meal hunger:

1) keep resisting it and it will diminish. Habit is powerful. It's working against you now because it expects snacks, but as you continue to resist you will start to change its expectations. Really.

2) you don't have to limit yourself to water. Drink milk. Drink fruit juice even. Caloric drinks aren't optimal, but they'll address any real hunger you're feeling and they're better for your HABIT than solid food. Habit is the most important thing you need to focus on.

If you just can't pull it off even with #1 and #2, consider adding a fourth official meal. It probably won't lose you a bunch of weight in a hurry, but it's better than permasnacking, and maybe in time you can graduate to 3.

Reinhard

Recipe for black-eyed peas: Rinse fresh black-eyed peas. Place in roomy pot and cover well with water. Add a scant teaspoon of salt for every cup of peas. Cook, uncovered, 40 minutes or until tender (stirring every so often, and adding water if needed). Drain water from peas. Butter, salt, and eat!

Around here (the American South) "peas" means black-eyed or other cowpeas; "English peas" refers to green peas (petits pois).

And also I meant to say, I just returned from two weeks in England and I believe you have perfected the concept of Sweet Baked Things. Good heavens. *SWOON*

ClickBeetle wrote:And also I meant to say, I just returned from two weeks in England and I believe you have perfected the concept of Sweet Baked Things. Good heavens. *SWOON*

The French make us look like rank amateurs.

I hate to say this, but we've all been posting to a thread started by a really nasty spambot. It reposts previous bulletin board material and then sticks a link to some "free games" site at the end. Looks like a normal post because it is a normal post -- auto plagiarised, and with a little spammy twist. The only reason I noticed was that it posted a few too many of these.

I've deleted the spambot posts. But this is going to be really tedious to deal with... I amazed at how far ahead of the good guys the spammers are. None of the defensive phpbb mods I've applied has been sufficient to keep more spammers than real users from registering every day. I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and significantly alter the code to deal with this. If I make it different enough from the standard phpbb install, hopefully the spambots will get confused. Unfortunately that means I'll have to worry about integrating my changes with every new release of phpbb -- not a fun prospect.

Here is the original post (2 years old) that the spambot reposted, in case anyone is interested:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=2563

Reinhard

Those nasty spambots!
Sorry Rein!
But look what a bunch of nice people are on this board being all considerate of a Spambots diet needs!
LOL
Peace,
Debstar x

If bots eat nothing but Spam, they must be very out of shape. Maybe they gravitate here for a reason. That sounded funnier in my head.

Since the bot reposted something which then prompted new discussion and the sharing of some tasty looking recipes, most likely without prompting any further revenue for its parent, I say one up to the board. So there.