Hello!

I never thought I'd have one blog, much less two but I'm trying something out. I've been working since the Look Alike was born to lose weight, and I've done relatively well. To date, I've lost 72 lbs, and I'd like to lose another 15-25 more.

But lately I've discovered that I've hit a plateau, and am probably at my set point since I'm at my high school weight. However, I find that I'm hungry much of the time, and other days I force myself to eat when I'm not all that hungry just to hit my intake goal for the day. People talk all the time about trusting your body to give you hunger and satiety signals, but I've always assumed that they couldn't be trusted in this area because they don't have a weight problem like I do. Then I had a light bulb moment. Those people don't have weight problems. Wow.

So I'm giving it a shot. For 365 days, I will eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full, and see where my weight goes. Here are the ground rules and lifestyle points that affect this experiment:

Ground rules:
1. I will commit to eating when and what I want, trying to figure out what I'm truly hungry for BEFORE heading into the kitchen

2. I will weigh in every day on physicsdiet.com, and post weekly what changes I have encountered, with monthly stat checks (weight changes, body fat percentage, and perhaps inches).

3. I will drink at least ten glasses of water a day, up to a full gallon (but rarely more)

4. I will exercise a minimum of 7 hours per week, and more when possible.

5. I will log my calories at the end of the day on sparkpeople.com, just to have a record of how my body asks me to feed it.

Lifestyle points:

1. We eat 99% of our meals at home, and we don't eat junk. That means we don't eat hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, sugars, flavors, high fructose corn syrup, white flour, or refined sugar at home, and very rarely anywhere else.

2. I make most everything from scratch, and by scratch I mean grinding my own wheat into flour for baked goods. We prefer organic where financially possible.

3. We don't eat tons of meat or dairy, and we don't eat pork or shellfish at all. The kids and I drink only water unless we're out when I allow them lemonade (and I still drink water).

4. We choose full-fat options for dairy and don't substitute all quantities of fat, though we do try to use the best possible ingredients. For example, 1/2 to 3/4 of the oil in a baked good is replaced with unsweetened applesauce, cream in a recipe with evaporated milk, etc. We also replace eggs often with ground flax seed and water, just because we don't like too much in the way of animal products.

I'm tired of telling my body "no" when it's hungry. I'm tired of pushing it to eat when I know darn well I'm satiated. I need to learn to trust and honor my God-given natural hunger. My hope is to post recipes that we love, info on trusting hunger and satiety signals, and challenges and triumphs in this area. Come along!