Thursday 27 August 2009

Eating Sugar Makes Me Feel Sick

I've spent two days indulging in "treats" from the US. It adds up to a lot more sugar than my body is used to. I have not weighed myself, but I'm sure Monday's weigh-in will be a bad one.

What has eating all of that sugar done? The effects of all that sugar on my body are not good. I feel bloated, crampy, a bit sick to my stomach, really tired and sluggish, and the irony is that all that sugar just makes me crave more of the same!

I haven't felt this awful in a really long time!

The worst part is that I am also forcing myself not to exercise. I am CRAVING exercise.

Why am I living in an unhealthy manner, you ask? Basically, I put my body into starvation mode by being overly strict with my eating in the past seven weeks and over-exercising. (I spent all of last week consuming less than 1,000 calories daily and exercising 3 to 4 hours a day.) This is also unhealthy, and my goal is to be healthy, not just to lose more weight.

So this week, I am eating a lot of food (although the rest of the week, the food I will be eating will be healthy food, even if I eat a lot of it), and I am laying off of the exercise (except for an hour or so of walking).

Next week, I will be eating healthy, but not limiting the amount of food I eat. (With Slimming World, you can eat as much as you want of the good stuff.) And I will add in a bit of exercise, but not the crazy amount of exercise I have been doing.

I expect a gain on the scales this week. I'm terrified it is going to be some huge amount, but whatever it is, I'll deal with it. And hopefully, the following week or the week after, I will be able to see my weight start moving down again without my having to over-do anything.

I'm having to retrain my thinking. Putting my body into starvation mode where it fights to hang on to every ounce of food I consume, and then increasing my efforts continuously, is not a healthy way for me to lose weight. It's counterintuitive to eat more and exercise less in order to lose weight, but, in my situation, it really is the right thing to do.

Eating the junk food these past couple of days was just an experiment of mine though, and I can honestly say that it is not something I want to repeat. Bleh!

9 comments:

  1. I've been so curious as to exactly what goodies your girls brought you back from 'the homeland'. What am I taking for granted here in the US? :)
    I like Slimming Worlds idea of eating what you want of the good stuff. I enjoyed your posts/article references on the eggs & dairy. Now I just need to put that to use with my WW program.

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  2. THAT IS TOTALLY WHAT MOTIVATED ME TO CLEAN UP MY WAY OF EATING (Yes I got a little excited and yelled at you :))

    the sugar made me moody. feel like crap. made me SNAP at my then boyfriend and now husband.

    FAR BETTER motivator for change (that an the lethargy) than wanting to fit into a piece of clothing for me.

    good good plan on the clean food and as much as you want.

    perfect place to start.

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  3. It's really important to eat enough while you are trying to lose weight. It's no wonder you felt the need to overeat with that few calories and that much exercise. Your body was like, "Feed me more!"

    I'm glad that you are working on pulling your food intake back up to a healthy level, and one where you can still lose.

    I lost 150 pounds 12 years ago, and staying healthy, and doing something I could live with was super important.

    Take care of yourself!

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  4. It is amazing to me how we all seem to learn this lesson at some point during our weight loss journey. Once we train our bodies to enjoy the good foods, the body really doesn't want the bad ones any more.

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  5. It's amazing how we lose the desire for unhealthy food. And how bad they make us feel when we do indulge!

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  6. Aagghh! Sugar makes me feel the same way. Sluggish, very tired, moody, headaches. Even just getting off track on my healthy eating.

    My dad has been visiting for 10 days and most of them have been eating out in the city and I feel like CRAP. As much as I love my dad, it will be a relief when he goes home and I can get back to regular healthy eating and exercise!

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  7. I know, it's so irritatingly clear, isn't it? Eat refined muffiny/sugary/cookie-like things= still feel hungry= keep eating= feel gross. And yet I need to keep relearning this fact.

    Are you clearing the decks for next week? There are certain things (licorice and Nutty Bars come to mind) that I can't keep within reach. I've been known to ask my husband to hide them :)

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  8. Sugar almost always makes me feel sick. i get lightheaded and sick to my stomach, it's awful. if i limit it a lot i feel so much better and crave it less. this morning i had a cinnimon bun, sigh.

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  9. sorry, but I still have my sweet tooth and once I eat something sweet in makes me feel happy...but I am very good at just a little...

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