A bite of Peanut butter

Yep, Ive been taking about 1/2 Tablespoon peanut butter with each of my  meals, and it really makes a difference, about  3 bites peanut butter per day--- 1 1/2 Tablespoons. Not much, but it makes a difference!  Im not as hungry between meals, I feel more satisfied!!

Did you know that peanut butter is proven in studies to help people lose and maintain weight? Its because it quells cravings, and helps the body to feel satisfied and full for a longer period of time than normal. People actually eat less calories  without even trying when they ingest peanut butter. But all you need is just a bit, don't overdo it!

Check out these documents here that explain more about Peanut butter and wieght loss
http://www.peanut-institute.org/resources/downloads/fft_v8i3.pdf

http://www.peanut-institute.org/resources/downloads/fft_v7i1.pdf





Quote from http://scientificteaching.wisc.edu/old%20website/products/PeanutFiles/library/peanuts/peanutbutterdiet.htm

But the best news was yet to come, especially for all those health-conscious peanut butter lovers whose biggest question was "If I eat more peanut butter, won't I pack on pounds?" The amazing answer turned out to be "Not necessarily!"
In fact, research conducted over the past few years suggests that going back to peanut butter may actually take off unwanted pounds more easily than following a standard low-fat eating plan. In one revealing experiment, almost three times as many peanut butter dieters as low-fat dieters managed to maintain their weight loss over an 18-month period.


The principle of weight Maintenance is very important in this journey of losing weight and keeping it off in the long term!



Peanut butter increases the hormone PYY which produces feelings of satiety and fullness.  There is a reduced desire to eat for 12 hours after eating peanuts or peanut butter! 

This wonderful side effect of eating a small bit of peanut butter helps people stay on their eating plan for the long term!

Quote from http://www.peanutvan.com.au/losing-weight-with-peanuts.php


The Secret of Successful Dieting

According to research at Harvard Medical School and Brigham Women's Hospital in Boston, almost three times as many people were able to follow a higher-fat diet that included peanuts and peanut butter during an 18-month weight loss study.

101 overweight men and women were assigned to either a low fat diet or a higher monounsaturated fat "Mediterranean Style" diet. The study found that participants on the latter diet lost more weight and were able to stay with the program. These findings are consistent with a study at Purdue University, which showed that snacks of peanuts and peanut butter produced more eating satisfaction and feelings of fullness than other high-carbohydrate snacks such as rice cakes. Study participants who were fed peanut snacks didn't feel the need to add additional kilojules to their daily diets to attack hunger.




UPDATE: I now do 1 bite of Peanut butter = about 1 Tablespoon or so.  


So include 1  bite of peanut butter or more  at each meal, and see if you don't notice a difference!

Shift your bites

Did you know that shifting your bites helps you stay on plan during times like the holidays--Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years?

These holidays are harder for people to stay on track. Make yourself a goal amount of bites to eat for that special day you are celebrating.

For example, if you are normally on 30 bites a day, allow  yourself 60 bites. This is 100 times better to Set Yourself Up for Success!! By this I mean, make a goal amount of bites you can stick to, and that you will feel like gives you some wiggle room to enjoy a bit more food than you normally eat.

The other option that might happen is if you try to limit yourself to 30 bites on Thanksgiving or Christmas, it could be an invitation to just throw up your hands and binge!

 But by giving yourself more bites, you are still setting a limit, and, more chance than not, probably eating less food than you normally would have before you started counting your bites

I know this is true for me! An Unlimited Binge is completely different than allowing yourself a place to stop. When you get to your bite limit on that once in a blue moon holiday, you are done!


Be picky on what days you allow yourself more bites. Save it for extra special occasions!  Don't do it too often, or you will not be successful in losing/maintaining weight.

I have found that by allowing more bites on special occasions, it helps me to stay on track  better with meeting my weight loss goals!

So much better to meet the goal you set for yourself over those special days, then it is to  set a goal amount of bites that is too stringent, and end up binging!

Always, Always, Always Set yourself Up for Success!!!

Hapifork

There is another way to count bites out there called a hapifork. It is more expensive but its an option for counting bites!  You can set it to "train" your bites to be further and further apart and it has graphs and stats for how many "forkfuls" and how many seconds between bites, for the day, week, month, year years! I think the stastics would be handy, if you are very very gradually cutting back on bites and very gradually eating slower.

 

 

 

 

I haven't decided whether to get a hapifork or not. Its 99 dollars or so, and the 99 cents app I have does a lot of the same things! I just wish the app had more long term stats, longer than 90 days!

 

Bites update

Ive almost been bite counting for 6 weeks now!

So here is my stats thus far:


Started October 14, 2013                            218.2 lbs

1 week    October 21st, 2013    208.4 lbs    78 bites per day average 9.8 lb loss
2 week    October 28,   2013     205.4 lbs   71 bites per day average  3 lb loss
3 wks November    4,  2013      200 lbs      60 bites per day average  5.4 lb loss
4 wks November    11, 2013      194.4 lbs  40 bites per day average  5.6 lb loss
5 wks November    18, 2013      192.2 lbs   36 bites per day average 2.2 lb loss


So that's my stastics! As you can see, the loss has slowed down significantly, but close to 30 lbs in 6 weeks!!!!!!!!!

Your stomach Shrinks!

Yep, when you count bites and gradually cut down, your stomach shrinks.  Its a proven fact.  Ive noticed many times when losing weight, I tend to get full on only a few bites compared to when I would binge and have a never ending hole to fill!

Quote http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22real.html?_r=0


In one study, for example, scientists recruited a small group of obese men and women and split them into two groups: one that ate freely, and another that was put on a highly restricted diet that included small meals totaling less than 1,000 calories a day. The scientists used latex balloons to measure stomach capacity at the start of the study, and then four weeks later.
Among the dieters, gastric capacity was reduced 27 percent to 36 percent, on average, depending on how it was measured. There was no significant change in the control group

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8561056?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=1


And as your stomach shrinks, your eating hormone levels also change: leptin, ghrelin, ect, and this makes us want less food, and be satisfied with less.  Dr. Alwin Lewis talks about something similar to this called the Hungerstat.

Read all about the Hungerstat here in this article, it explains it...

http://ezinearticles.com/?Explaining-the-Hungerstat---Read-This-Before-Considering-a-Gastric-Bypass&id=4730702

In a sense, you can get your stomach "stapled" without gastric bypass. Just stay strict to eating a small amount of food/bites for  14 days+ and you will have yourself a new little pouch that will feel full on just a few bites--much less than you used to take!

In the same way, your stomach gradually stretches out again, if you take back to overeating. It even happens to people who have gastric bypass!

Who wants a small stomach? Me!!

What do I use to count bites with?

Ive tried it and it doesn't work very good--counting bites in my head--that is!! I get confused. Was I on bite number 4 or 5? Maybe it was 6! LOL!! It gets confusing fast to try to count bites in your head!

If you are only counting a few at a time (such as 3-5) it may work to count in your head, but much past that and it doesn't seem to work very well.

There are several ways to keep track of how many bites you  have taken.

 When I first started bite counting a few years ago, I started out with a simple Golf counter  like this from amazon. Its really cheap...only 1.85 on amazon right now.

Its actually what Dr. Black from the Family Circle article recommends. (see first post in this blog)

So if you want to go the simple, cheap route, this works well! Just press the plunger every time you take a bite. I usually reset it at each meal and kept track of how many bites I ate for each meal and the whole day on paper or something.


The second way you can keep track of bites is even cheaper, but I think it would be more hassle! It is using a pencil pen and paper.  You simply make a mark each time you take a bite

I learned about it from a video on vimeo, from the one of the founders of 80 bites, and a women who lost ALOT of weight counting her bites. You can find the link here to watch the video, its also a great testimonial how good counting bites works

http://vimeo.com/17651939

This women lost 220 lbs counting her bites! Talk about a testimonial!


The 3rd way you can do it is a free tally counter app on your phone


The 4th and 5th way to count bites is 2 different apps for iphone/ android

I use Eat Slower Pro app, and its what I highly recommend. I can count my bites, eat slowly, and see how many bites Ive ate at this meal, and for the total day at a glance. It only cost 99 cents, so for you iphone users out there, I think it is so worth it!  I have mine set to 1 minute between bites and that helps me eat slow too, which is very important in the process of feeling  satisfied with less food, and less bites.

And it also shows you your average bites for the last 90 days which so encouraging as you can see your count gradually go down!

The 5th way that I know of is the 80 bites app, which I have on my phone, but I  don't use this one

80 bites has an android and an iphone app so that is an option for the android users!

The world is waking up to bite counting

Slowly but surely bite counting as a way to lose weight and control wieght  is becoming more known. I found a study that just came out in November 2013 studying people counting bites.

 Quote from

http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672%2813%2901425-1/abstract

Abstract 

The obesity epidemic has triggered a need for novel methods for measuring eating activity in free-living settings. Here, we introduce a bite-count method that has the potential to be used in long-term investigations of eating activity. The purpose of our observational study was to describe the relationship between bite count and energy intake and determine whether there are sex and body mass index group differences in kilocalories per bite in free-living human beings. From October 2011 to February 2012, 77 participants used a wrist-worn device for 2 weeks to measure bite count during 2,975 eating activities. An automated self-administered 24-hour recall was completed daily to provide kilocalorie estimates for each eating activity. Pearson's correlation indicated a moderate, positive correlation between bite count and kilocalories (r=0.44; P<0.001) across all 2,975 eating activities. The average per-individual correlation was 0.53. A 2 (sex)×3 (body mass index group: normal, overweight, obese) analysis of variance indicated that men consumed 6 kcal more per bite than women on average. However, there were no body mass index group differences in kilocalories per bite. This was the longest study of a body-worn sensor for monitoring eating activity of free-living human beings to date, which highlights the strong potential for this method to be used in future, long-term investigations.


Here is another study which is really really awesome

 Quote from http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2012/UR_CONTENT_420354.html

In the study, when people with low self-control were given a counter to monitor the number of times they swallowed, they satiated at rates similar to people with high self-control.

Attention to unhealthy food intake can lead to faster satiation

Of all the dieting aids a person could imagine, a baseball pitch counter might be the least likely.

But using a counting device to monitor the intake of unhealthy food can actually help people become satiated on that food more quickly, according to new research by the University of Minnesota’s Joe Redden.

Redden is an assistant professor of marketing in the Carlson School of Management and an expert on the topic of satiation. In the business sense, satiation occurs when “as we repeatedly consume something, we tend to like it less,” Redden says.

Satiation can pose a challenge for marketers in that people don’t enjoy their favorite things—be they products or television shows—indefinitely. But it also serves a very useful purpose when it comes to eating; that is, when a person is satiated, it’s a mechanism to stop eating.

Not all about willpower

Redden’s research gets at the intersection of self-control, desire, and attention. Conventional wisdom says that self-control is largely rooted in willpower, he says, but this research suggests that declining desire plays a key role.  

In the study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, volunteers were grouped into two categories: those who tested as having high self-control and those with low self-control. The researchers then had them use a counter (similar to those used by baseball coaches to monitor their pitchers) to keep track of how many times they swallowed, with an eye toward unhealthy food.

“When we asked people to do that, for high self-control people it didn’t make much difference, because they’re already doing a good job of that themselves; they have their own internal pitch counter,” Redden says. But for people with low self-control, “when you give them this counter … they now satiated like the high self-control people.”

He says the difference is in the “regulation of attention,” and it’s not just about sheer willpower. And paying more attention to what a person is eating is really not that hard to do.

As for healthy foods, pay no attention

Here’s another reason to be jealous of your friends who eat the healthiest. When it comes to eating the really good stuff—the carrots and leafy greens and broccoli—they tend to satiate less quickly.

“It’s kind of a double whammy,” Redden says. “They get tired of the bad stuff faster and they stay interested in the healthy stuff longer.

“The reason is that they’re switching their attention based on the food, whereas with low self-control people, they kind of pay the same attention no matter what it is.”

Here’s where it gets tricky, especially for people with lower self-control. When using the counters, they also tended to satiate more quickly when eating healthy food, which is not the desired outcome.

As Redden says, “You don’t want to pay attention to the healthy stuff. You want to eat carrots while you watch TV; that’s a good thing.”

The bottom line: It’s when you’re eating the decadent cheesecake that you need to be much more attentive.

“This attention to how much you’re having, it’s [like] a button,” says Redden. “When that button gets pushed, you satiate faster.”




        Quote from
         http://www.discovergoodnutrition.com/2011/10/the-bite-counter-a-new-tool-for-weight-loss/

Something else the bite counter doesn’t do is track calories – yet.  But the scientists say they are working on a formula – similar to those used on exercise equipment – to provide an estimate for how many calories you’re eating.  And while they recognize that foods vary in terms of their ‘calories per bite’, the researchers have found that in a typical meal, bites average between 20 and 25 calories.  But that assumes that people are eating pretty much the same foods day in and day out

Quote from
          http://www.parl.clemson.edu/~ahoover/bite-counter/
   
        Bites as a measure
Isn't a bite of carrots different from a bite of candy? Of course. But nobody gains or loses weight in a single bite, or even a single meal. A common guideline is to lose a pound of weight per week. Our hypothesis is that bite count could serve as a surrogate for calorie count over a period of time. By automating the counting process, and enabling it anywhere, any time, the bite counter can empower individuals to better monitor intake. As with calories, it is possible to count bites for a single meal; but with either measure reduction goals are best evaluated over at least a day. Bite goals, like calorie goals, should be custom set to the individual. This would be based not only upon the size, gender, age, and activity level of the person, but also based upon the foods typically eaten. For example, a vegetarian may have a higher bite count per day than someone who regularly eats more energy-dense foods. In addition, people tend to eat the same foods week to week. Therefore, setting bite reduction goals over a period of time has the same effect as setting calorie reduction goals.



quote from http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/12/05/Counting-bites-may-help-to-lose-weight/UPI-43931354685534/

Volunteers were grouped into two categories: those who tested as having high self-control and those with low self-control.
The researchers had the study subjects use a counter -- similar to those used by baseball coaches to monitor their pitchers -- to keep track of how many times they swallowed.
"For people with high self-control people it didn't make much difference, because they're already doing a good job of that themselves; they have their own internal pitch counter," Redden said in a statement. But for people with low self-control, "when you give them this counter ... they now satiated like the high self-control people."
The findings were published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

My thoughts...

People tend to eat the same foods week to week!!!! And they are saying that Bite Reduction goals Over a Period of Time has the same effect as calorie reduction. AND ITS MUCH MUCH EASIER!!!

Adjusting your bite count

My moving average has dropped to about 3 lbs a week loss according to happy scale. I don't want to lose any less than 3 lbs a week. Here are quotes from the article in my first post on this blog....



The bite diet is intended to achieve moderate changes of two to five pounds a week, but, more important to set a lifelong pattern of eating that will maintain these changes.



No Matter what you eat, if your chart shows no weight loss, you simply have to take fewer bites.



-- Continue to keep your tally sheet with weight, date, and bites per day, reducing or adjusting your bite count till you have the right number to lose weight at the rate you want.



Adjusting my bite count....So obviously my weight has slowed quite a bite. I figured that might happen, and it is simply time to lower that bite count per day again. My body has lost 26 lbs now, and it doesn't need as many calories as it did!

Back when I have lost weight successfully in the past with Intuitive Eating, I often counted bites, and when I was losing good, my bite count was as low as around 20 or so. So I know that this is normal for my body to only want a tiny amount of food while losing steadily.



So here are my stats for around 30 bites a day for last week (60 bites allowed on Sunday)


November 11, 2013 194.4 lbs
November 18, 2013 192.2 lbs

So only a 2.2 lb loss. Which is still good, but drastically getting slower! so I  have went down to 20 bites a day this week.

One month counting bites

Today marks my first month counting bites.

Starting weight                           218.2
Today November 14, 2013        193.4   

That is 24.8 lb lost

I started out with 80 bites, then 70, then 60, then 50, then my weight loss slowed so I dropped to 30 bites a day, and that is what I am doing now.



I am not expecting to lose 25 lbs next month!

Habit is king, habits stacked up equals success!

30 bites a day

Ive been doing around 30 bites a day now for almost 5 days.  One day I did 35 bites.


In the last week I have lost


November 4th  200 lbs
November 11th 194.4 lbs


5.6 lbs lost


I like that rate of weight loss. Im sure I will have to go below 30 bites to continue going that fast, but for now that's what is working.

Question:
How big are your bites?

My bites are on average normal sized. Not piled high  normally and not just a teaspoon either. I would say a rounded Tablespoon on average. 

When I first started I would stuff my mouth sometimes and count that as a bite, but now I know I wont lose weight if I do that! So more normal sized bites it is!

The Ultimate 21st Century Diet 25 bites by Jay Bysinger review

I got  this in the mail today.  It is similar to all the other bite plans out there, but he recomends 25 bites Breakfast, Lunch and Supper. He also counts  some high calorie food as 2 bites per bite. So that seems a bit confusing to me. Anyway, it still is confirmation that counting bites works for other people. It  is legitamite, unlike some other poeple think!

Counting bites is also very free-ing for those of us, who need some kind of a marker or limit for portion control, and yet its not time-consuming like point counting and calorie counting is.

Also, Ive did intuitive eating before and I would argue with myself ALOT whether I was "truly" hungry? Or whether I was "truly" full?  With the bite plan, there is a clear place to stop. When the alotted bites are up, your done..... Thats it.   to go over your bites means you have to make the choice to deal with whatever consequences comes with eating over your bite limit.

And with hunger, I was always focusing on it, looking for it,ect ALL DAY LONG. Now hunger comes naturally alot, I dont have to obssess!

Its so easy, Im actually thinking LESS about food and eating than I was when I was doing the wait unitl your hungry, then eat until your full method before. Sure, it worked, but it took alot more mental arguing with myself and stuff.

I also set meals for myself eating only 3 times per day, that also takes alot of arguing whether or when I should eat. If its not meal time, I dont need to eat!

The bite diet by Rob Moon

I just got this book last night and read through it. .

 He recommends 4 bites 6x a day, he says this is how he lost weight when he got a gastric sleeve.

 He says if he would just have done this diet, instead of getting the surgery, he would have never had to have the surgery in the first place.


Just more testimonial that counting bites and eating very very small portions is better than surgery.

If you can reset your hungerstat,  by eating small portions your stomach shrinks and those cravings for eating  huge amounts of food start to disappear!

More info on bite counting

More information about Bite counting today.  A good place to start is 80 bites per day. Do that for a week or two and see what it does for you, then start taking 5-10 bites away at a time, as needed to continue losing weight at the pace you want to.

For example, here is how my bite journey has gone so far

I started at 80 bites per day. (sundays are always 80 bites or less  allowed for me) I wasnt perfect  but for the most part have stayed on my bite number everyday

80 bites starting weight 218.2   

70 bites week 2             208.4

60 bites week 3             205.4

50 bites week 4             200

Here are some good information sources about counting bites to lose weight


1.  Why Weight Around?   by Alwin Lewis

http://www.amazon.com/Weight-Around-Changing-Loss-Strategy/dp/0615148077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383678005&sr=8-1&keywords=why+weight+around

Dr Lewis recommends 10 bites per day, and some would consider this extreme, although it does produce fast weight loss, he says if you cant do 10 bites per day you can try some other bite number.  For example 10 bites 3x a day and so on



2. The Bite Diet  by Rob Moon

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bite-Diet-Small-Portions-ebook/dp/B00ARV8SO2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383678175&sr=8-1&keywords=bite+diet+rob+moon



3. The Ultimate 21st Century Diet:  25 bites  by Jay Bysinger

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606042327/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1








4. 80 bites system and app

http://80bites.com/          http://80bites.com/app 



5. Eat slower app and Eat slower pro app

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eat-slower/id417232926?mt=8

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eat-slower-pro!/id470583771?mt=8


I really like the Eat slower pro app, it keeps track of total bites for
day, and bites per day over 90 day period, showing a graph, you can see your bites gradually go down.  No, I have nothing to do with the sale of any apps or books on this page, just providing info for anyone who wants more information for the bite counting system.

Eating slower (one minute per bite or so) really helps you be satisfied with less bite and corolates well with the bite system. I can inhale 18 bites in 5 minutes OR I can use the app and eat 18 bites in about 18 minutes, feeling much more satisfied with my small portion!

6. G-bites  diet plan   A lady lost alot of weight and helps others lose weight counting their bites.

The first link is her story, the second link her plan

http://gbites.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/G-Bites_Memior_2_Revised.5171052.pdf

http://gbites.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/gbites_menu_2.10184227.pdf

7. A man who ate about 8-10 bites per meal or so after gastric bypass surgery. This is his blog post where he talks about portion control and bites per meal

http://eightbites.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-than-eight-bites_27.html 

Count bites, Not Calories!!!!!