A Few Musings On The Plan

On January 18 I posted the following guidelines of how I wanted to eat --

What I need to formulate are a list of rules for myself.  "How I Eat".  

So, a first draft:

1.  It needs to be obvious enough that I don't have too many "can I eat this?" questions.  
2.  I shouldn't have to track macros or do any other detailed calculations. 
3.  Eat protein liberally, fat generously and carbohydrate sparingly.
4.  Avoid vegetable and seed oils like the plague and minimize other consumption of unsaturated fats / lineolic acid.
5.  Eat when hungry but it's okay to be hungry.
6.  Don't sweat the small stuff

Now, 2 1/2 weeks later, I'd like to post some thoughts.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how things are going.  Over the course of those 17 days I have lost about ten pounds, despite a couple stumbles and without feeling deprived at all.

Looking at the individual rules:

1.  I haven't really had any questions.  A couple times I have eaten things, e.g. Chick Fil A, which don't fit the rules (eff you peanut oil).  But for the most part it's been pretty question-free.

2.  I haven't tracked any macros or done any calculations.

3.  Only partial success here -- I've been pretty good at getting my protein and fat but I've perhaps been over liberal with the carbs.  I'm not going to freak out about it as long as the scale continues to tick down, but I could probably cut them by about half.

4.  Pretty happy with the oil avoidance.  I've used a bit of olive oil here and there, no more than a couple tablespoons total.  I mentioned CFA.  Other than that cooking and eating at home has allowed a drastic reduction in "vegetable" oil consumption -- I'm sure it's hidden in some products I've consumed but I sure haven't voluntarily added any to anything I've cooked.  I have had a bunch of avocadoes so I haven't exactly eliminated the unsaturated fats.

5.  Excellent job with this one.  I haven't been hungry for breakfast during the week, so I don't eat it.  No unnecessary calories consumed.  And with the liberal consumption of fat I've been sated.  Honestly, I'm rarely very hungry.  This is helping with portion control too, e.g. eating half as much pizza at a sitting. 

6.  Not much sweating going on.  I do wonder some about the conflicting advice that's out there and as mentioned above I dock myself some points for eating too many carbs, but I'm not going nuts.  Again, while things are progressing nicely I'm not going to be too concerned.

I'm still super, super fat.  I suspect that no matter what I eat as long as it's in moderation I'd lose weight right now.  The degree of difficulty will ramp up once I've lost all the easy weight and I have to figure out how to eat to continue to lose.  But that's a problem for way down the line.