Todd you look great and I think what you are doing is very sensible.  It's easy to fall into that "trap" of becoming kind of obsessed with what one is eating.  I think it's much more "paleo" to think less about eating rather than more; after all what hunter gatherer spends much time thinking about what goes in his mouth other than how to catch it? ;) I have been meaning for awhile to post this question, and since weight loss has come up I guess now would be a good time.  I would like to drop about 10 or 15 pounds.  I have been eating paleo for almost 2 years, and I am in pretty good shape and health.  I am 5'5" and weigh 140lbs. which is not overweight but on the high end of healthy weight, and I have some visible body fat that I'd like to shed.  How should I adjust my diet/eating to knock of the last few pounds?  How important is overall calorie intake?  Or is it more important to count carbs?  How do you go about that?  Any ideas would be appreciated!
Todd Moody <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Hello. I haven't posted anything here in months. So I just thought I'd
give a quick update.

Basically, the update is this. Sometime in November I decided to modify
things a bit. I relaxed the paleo restrictions, keeping carbs low,
50g/day or less. And I worked on keeping calories down. Result:
between Thanksgiving and Christmas, while the rest of the world was
gaining weight, I dropped 25 lbs. and have kept it off without undue stress.

The "without undue stress" part has been the key, I believe. As I had
written on other occasions, the paleo-purist approach was getting to me,
mentally, and causing me to have a weird kind of eating disorder, a sort
of "rejectionist" attitude toward food. I musn't eat this; I can't eat
that; this isn't paleo; etc. As a result, I wasn't really enjoying
eating very much, and when I would trip up and go off the diet, I'd
binge for a while, gain weight, and feel crappy about myself. Through
this cycle, my weight was creeping up.

I decided life is too short for this nonsense. So the first thing I did
was to reintroduce beer as an explicit part of my diet. I love beer and
decided to declassify it as a dietary sin. So I count the carbs, enjoy
a beer or two when I feel like it, and that's that. I had been having a
bit of farmer cheese on occasion; I decided to have certain cheeses,
such as farmer and goat cheese, whenever I felt like it. When the
occasion arises and a baked potato looks good, I have it.

What I find is that by treating myself in this way, to certain foods
that I really like, when I really feel like having them, it's easier to
eat less. In fact, two meals a day is just fine. Most of my dietary
choices are still paleo, but I basically decided that the law of
diminishing returns applies here, especially to the psychological aspect
of eating. The amount of stress required to do strict paleo simply
isn't worth it, in my case.

So, my weight seems well controlled. Here's a recent photo:
http://www.sju.edu/~tmoody/graphics/in-office.jpg This seems to be my
"normal" weight at the moment, and it's fine with me. And my general
health has been excellent. This may not be exactly a "paleo support"
posting, so I'll stop now.

Todd Moody
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