It has been 24 months since finishing active weight loss drive and switching to the maintenance mode. Readers of The Time Machine Diet know how it was formulated – food, meal timing, exercise and all that. Naturally, a lot has changed since then. I described most of the changes as they came. It’s time to put them all in a single post for your convenience – and mine, since I will be able to refer to a single post instead of tracking down scattered bits and pieces. So here it goes.
mindset
Resistance Training in Maintenance Mode
In the last part of The Time Machine Diet I described, among other things, my exercise routine that included HIIT cardio workout and resistance training regimen. Over the last couple months, I changed my resistance training routine, and this post is an update to that part of the Maintenance Mode.
Cheat Days – Yay or Nay
Cheat days – one of those topics that pop up constantly and cause flare-ups almost every single time. As much as all nutrition-related topics tend to cause strangely disproportional emotional outbursts, some matters stand out even more, and this is one of them.
Every time someone asks for a guidance or offers an opinion, you are likely to see one of these:
How to Lose Sweet Tooth
Getting off a sugar train is one of the most difficult things for many of us. There are good reasons for that – drug-like nature of the sugar impact, and gradual loss of sensitivity to the sweet taste, leading to ever-increasing dose . There is no lack of advice how to diminish cravings for the sweets, with various strategies, replacements etc. In this post, I would like to focus on the logic underpinning all these approaches and tricks; understanding of the mechanism will help you pick those that work for you or construct your own approach.
Zealotry in Nutrition
Reading Robb Wolf’s recently published brilliant book Wired to Eat, I was immediately struck by the remark he made at the beginning. It touched on the theme that bothered me for a while. Here is a quote, and see if it sounds true to you as well:
Perhaps even more frustrating, however, was the tendency for folks who actually followed the Paleo diet to turn the general concepts into quasi-religious doctrine. Folks newly converted to Paleo tended to be quite dogmatic in the insistence that this was “the one true way” to eat. Often, these devotees had reversed serious health problems with this way of eating, so their enthusiasm was understandable, but not many people enjoy the company of or the message from someone who comes across as a holier-than-thou diet zealot.
Mindful Eating Introduction
The concept of “listening to your body” is commonly mentioned and seems intuitive. In reality, though, it can introduce a lot of confusion if taken literally. Really, when our body says “Gimme more sugar!” – should we listen to it and obey? When we strive to eat till satiety, don’t we set ourselves up for a failure since we usually feel full noticeably later than we actually get out fill? Finally, when our body reaches for another handful of peanuts or pretzels in a bout of mindless munching in front of TV, should we listen to it?
Relaxation Technique for Good Rest
Would you like to learn a relaxation technique from a Special Forces officer? A guy who uses this method to get a good night’s sleep before an operation, to get some rest during a break in tense situations, or to calm down after a stressful time must know a thing or two about effective methods for relaxation. I have been lucky enough to learn from such an instructor and have been using his method for many years. If you’ve tried the traditional advice of imagining yourself at a beach or a lake while breathing deeply and still find it difficult to escape rushing thoughts or to calm down restless muscles, try this technique and see if it works better for you.