Weak Willed but Willing to try again.

Yet another attempt at loosing weight abandoned.  In the intervening few months I have tried both Weight Watchers and calorie counting.  I have successfully lost weight on both and put it back on.  They all work.  Isn’t that just amazing!  Put less into your mouth and loose weight! Rocket science?  Arrg!  I get so hungry and I can’t stop thinking about food.  There is too much temptation about. 

One of the biggest down sides I have found to strict adherence to  the Chew-Chew diet is fitting it in around my kids and husband.  They all like to be fed at regular times, three times a day at least.  It is quite difficult to wait until  “A good and true hunger” has arrived when the food’s hot on the table and likely to go to waste if it’s not eaten now.  If I follow Fletcher suggestion then it may be another six hours before I serve a meal again and the hunger has become unbearable.  I found I couldn’t do that on a daily basis.  Besides, I think it’s so important for the family to eat together. 

What have I taken from Fletcherism?

1. Hunger is good, but too hungry is bad.
2. Small portions are the key to weight loss without counting units.  Chewing each mouthful 32  times works and stopping as soon as the feeling of hunger fades stops you over eating but don’t put too much on your plate or cook too much in the first place.  You can always have a small snack later if you find you’re hungry again.
3. Enjoy life and don’t obsess.

Have I given up on the Chew-Chew Diet?

Simple Answer – No.  But I have to modify it to suit me and my lifestyle.

 

Endless Chomps

My husband must think I have stopped talking to him at the supper table.  It takes so long to finish each mouthful according to Fletcher’s rules that meals have become totally unsociable

 

What Does It Feel Like To Be Properly Hungry?

My answer to this question? I don’t know.  When did I last let myself get properly hungry?  I have been hungry, all the calorie counting and fad diets that I have tried to endure have resulted in bingeing and starving when they have gone wrong, but I have been too busy with the psychological side of berating myself or planning the next meal to take too much notice of the way I physically felt when I was hungry.  My book on Fletcherism suggests missing a meal or two in order to fully understand the symptoms of hunger and therefore the indication that the appetite has begun to be satisfied. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few days by skipping breakfast.

I was surprised how hungry I felt first thing in the morning.  I really sick feeling gripped me, but I found that because I didn’t need to focus on what else I was going to eat that day and I didn’t need to write anything down, that sicky feeling soon passed once I got on with the rest of my life and I quickly forgot about needing food.  I have found that I am not really hungry until about 3pm, when a light meal has sufficed to take the edge of the appetite.  I have usually found I am quite hungry again towards 7pm when I usually sit down with my family and eat supper, but again, by concentrating on enjoying the good food  and how I am feeling physically, I am eating far less than before and not really needing anything else.

In conclusion I have generally found that the initial urge of a slightly sicky feeling that for me indicates hunger usually passes when I distract myself and stop thinking about food, but if it doesn’t then that is when I am properly hungry. 

 

What I Thought the Chew-Chew Diet Was

My copy of Fletcherism What It Is or How I became Young At Sixty  (1913) by Horace Fletcher arrived today.  Like many other people I had believed that Fletcherism which became known as “The Chew-Chew Diet” involved eating what I wanted three times a day and chewing each mouthful thirty-two times. This myth has not been dispelled by the recent series from Channel 4, The Diets That Time Forgot.   Wrong. The principles of the Chew-Chew Diet are about taking responsibility for what you put in your mouth and therefore taking responsibility for your own health.

Fletcherism or The Chew-Chew Diet is not about excessive mastication.

“The very essence of the method of performing the personal responsibility is avoiding excess of anything; excessive or laboured chewing among the rest.  There is little if any harm in keeping food in the mouth as long as possible, and I believe that it is impossible to have too much saliva mixed with it when it is swallowed, because when it is properly tasted and insalivated it is almost impossible to hold it back from the food gate in the back of the mouth.  There is always suction there ready to draw welcome nourishment in when it is ready.”  p52-53

Some of Fletcher’s ideas strike me as a little bizarre, for example his obsession with ‘digestive-ash’ as he calls faeces and his advocating of a very low protein intake.  Whilst many of us in the western world of the 21st century consume far too much protein,  the recommended level being about 15% of our daily calorific intake being made up of protein (for the average woman on 2000 kCals per day this is about 300 kCals or 75g of protein), Fletcher’s suggestion of 5-7g (20-28 kCals) strikes me as dangerously low.

However, Fletcher emphasises that this is of less importance than that food should be enjoyed and should the follower of Fletcherism wish to choose meat to eat, then the taste and flavour of the meat should be enjoyed and savoured, provided that the principles and rules of Fletcherism are followed.

So having read the book, I take what I understand to be the Rules and Principles of Fletcherism and I begin my journey Losing Weight the Chew-Chew Way.