Milk Fat in combination with other ingredients

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is Martin Luther King Jr Day. Yes, I actually had the forethought to plug in a quote to pop up today as a reminder. And oddly, I am reading Uncle Tom's Cabin this month.  Two of my kids have the day off school because of the special day. One does not.


Foreword:
I do not write about food very often. Honestly, I don't think about food very often. I feel very mindful and centered on the topic. It is not a struggle because I know what to do and I do it. Thinking about food too often is an irritant to me. It is like a buzzing fly. I have stopped most of these irritations. I do not watch commercials. I do not let my husband, who seems like he is always eating, follow me around with food or talk about food. (yes, he really did stop and stayed stopped). I do not go to food based events. (I also would not go to an event held in a room of buzzing flies.)

So, if you are someone who enjoys when I write about food, be sure to leave me a comment, with your thoughts on today's topic.




Today's post is on Milk Fat:

I would not have known to think of it as Milk Fat if it were not for Jane.

Jane wrote:
"Let me be perfectly frank: I lost 220 pounds while still occasionally consuming flour, milkfat, sugar, chocolate, etc, etc, etc. I have maintained the weight loss with physical, emotional and spiritual clarity and real peace only by severely limiting first, milkfat, then finally: sugar. During the time I was still having sugar, I did not consume anything made with hfcs or any corn syrup. I only removed sugar from my daily plan in the past year. It was time. The addiction bell has been rung and you know it cannot be un-rung. "

I 100% believe what Jane writes is the truth for most of us. The addictive triggers might vary slightly from person to person.  But what she writes is the truth for long term maintenance for most of us.

In my opinion, in addition to addictive triggers:
The lifelong patterns of when/how/what we eat is also a factor. We have to do a lot of reprogramming.

Our emotional ties to food as a response to pretty much everything/anything/nothing is also a major factor. This is often labeled as 'inner work' in our process.

The chemical responses (like diabetes for example) are also a factor.  I have written, many times, at our highest weight if we limited ourselves to eating only at meal time, and eating one plate full, most of us would have lost weight. Most of us were eating (some part of each day) nonstop. I personally think that changes as we work down the scale. The quantity and the quality has to change from a chemical processing viewpoint. Again, body processing intake as a diabetic, whether or not we have been diagnosed, is a perfect example. I happened to gain that knowledge at the beginning of my process. I knew I had to balance healthy fats, carbs and protein within total calories. There are a variety of articles under "plateau and stall links" on my side bar.

Because I eat at meal time and because I keep my food in categories (dairy, veggies, protein, just a few healthy carbs), there is little wiggle room in what I eat on a daily basis. It is exhausting to me to figure out 'the math' on a regular basis. I stick to whole foods mostly because of nutrition but also so I do not have to figure out the complexities of carbs, protein, healthy fats within total calories. I also do not eat anything I do not know what it is. I eat things where there is only one thing listed under ingredients.  This pretty much eliminates anything except whole foods.

Another way of thinking about this is - I am always mindful of getting in my nutrition on limited calories. Too much of one category means not enough of another category.

Another way of thinking about this is - I am very aware of non-food vs real food. Pretty much anything processed (bread, noodles, etc) is non-food to me. I am very mindful of how/what I feed myself.

Back to milk fat.

I eat soup from our local health food store (this is the one that makes their own soup daily and gave us all the recipes for the youngest. She takes homemade soup to school for lunch every day.) on occasion, for lunch.

Last week, in the midst of THE AFTERS, I stopped for soup one day. It normally does not matter which soup I eat from this store. All the ingredients are whole foods. I eat a 16oz quantity. The carbs included are very low in volume and are whole foods carbs (quinoa, long gran rice, sweet potato, squash for example).

That day, last week, I picked Clam Chowder without a second thought. Yes I should have realized it was a cream based soup and that should have set off alarm bells, but it did not.

As I ate the soup, I thought, this might be the best soup I have ever had.

I got the soup as carry out and ate it while waiting for middle to get out of school (I pick her up, half days, every day).

All the rest of the afternoon I kept trying to think of how my errands might carry me back toward the health food store (it is on the other side of town) for more soup.


This is unusual thinking for me. 

I have written this before - I stay away from party in the mouth type foods. What I eat does not leave me wanting more, More, MORE. I stay away from foods which assault me. I love what I eat. But what I eat does not leave me wanting more. It is a very fine line.

So, as my mind kept going back toward wanting more of that soup, I gave it honest thought.

And I realized if I went back for more soup, there would not be enough soup.

One serving would not be enough, the entire huge kettle at the store would not be enough. There was no such thing as enough of that soup.

And then I realized it was the fact that it was a cream based soup and the problem was 100% milk fat.

I was able to make that connection (quickly) because Jane is very specific in her problems with milk fat.

Her milk fat sensitivity presented itself before her sugar sensitivity.

So I was able to figure it out immediately without any further food fall out.

But the desire for more was a tangible thing for the rest of the day. And part of the next.

It did not help in my week of AFTERS.

But I do not think it was because I was in the midst of AFTERS.

The milk fat content must have been high, because I do not have a sensitivity to low milk fat. I think it was the combination of the high milk fat in unison with other ingredients in the soup. I think if I went back, any day, any year and ate that soup, I would have the same reaction of wanting more, More, MORE. I have no interest in figuring out the combination that gets to me. It is much easier to just avoid creamed soups. Before, last week, I can't remember the last time I ate a creamed soup.

I can think of other combinations, which I will not mention for fear of setting someone's WANTS off, which I can't ingest ever and stay the weight I am. If I did that on a regular basis, it would just plain wear me down over time.

I like living so I do not have to fight with food or with myself, ever. 



clarifications:
I eat nonfat milk on my oatmeal every day (even 1% gags me).

I eat low fat yogurt* every day.

I eat low fat cottage cheese** on occasion.

I also eat tiny bits of  low fat pepper jack on occasion.  It is amazing how far I can spread 1/2 slice of cheese in a dish. And also 2T of low fat shredded mozzarella goes very far in my dishes.

I do not have a more, More, MORE reaction to any of those.

*Yogurt note: I eat 2% Fage Greek Yogurt most of the time (now/lately). I can't eat more than one serving per day. In other words, after one serving I feel very done. It does not leave me wanting more even though it tastes like dessert to me. I always eat it with walnuts so I am assured of getting my walnuts in each day. I can't eat the full fat as it 100% gags me - way too rich.

ADDED LATER: I started eating primarily FAGE (2%) while at Mayo. It was an easy way to get more protein in my day. I continued eating primarily FAGE when I returned home. Over the weekend, FAGE started gagging me. Too rich tasting (2%). I can handle a 1/2 cup, but not a full cup per serving. I have not yet tried low fat plain yogurt (not Greek, just plain/regular, low fat). I will try that to see if I do okay. 

**In fact if I get confused and measure out 1 cup of low fat cottage cheese by mistake (I eat 1 cup of yogurt but only 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, don't ask me why, I do not know other than Kay said so long ago), I can't eat all of the cottage cheese. I am gagging after 1/2 a cup, and I LOVE cottage cheese. I eat it with walnuts and pineapple usually.  Full fat cottage cheese 100% gags me; couldn't even get down a single spoonful.