From skwigg's journal:
It's funny, because when I think about how I'm eating, I realize that I've discarded even the flexible template I used to follow. Now it's more of a freewheeling intuitive/satisfaction thing. There's a lot of variety. Like if I think about my lunches this week: Wednesday I had popcorn and M&Ms for lunch. Thursday was cabbage & sausage casserole with crusty bread and an ice cream cone. Yesterday I had a green smoothie and a cheeseburger on sourdough. Today I'm having pita pizza. Tomorrow, maybe eggs and jam on an english muffin. Monday will be BBQ chicken wings.
Even breakfast and dinner have gone crazy. I'm trying all of these new recipes for dinner (farro and tomatoes, lentil soup, cabbage casserole, stir fry). For breakfast, I often eat some kind of cereal/yogurt combo, but I also eat eggs, or waffles, or english muffins, or peanut butter toast, or an omelet, or a protein shake.
I have no idea the calorie or macro content of any of these meals. If I eat satisfying meals when physically hungry, my results are good, so I've quit trying to break it down into a formula to be followed.
My abs/weight/body comp are the same as always. I've been easily maintaining for 5-6 years. I look just like the last photo in my journal from December, which looks like the ones from last summer, which look like the ones from 4 years ago. :-) What has changed the most is my mindset. The big insights:
1) Happiness, performance, and quality of life are more important than obsessing about staying at my absolute leanest at all times.
2) Abs are like the weather. They change. They may be a little softer during a week of PMS and bread, and a little sharper a day later when I'm more enthusiastic about plants and protein. It's all good.
3) Nobody cares. LOL This was a biggie. I used to put so much pressure and imaginary judgment on myself for absolutely no reason.
It really has been a process. I don't think the learning and adjusting ever ends. Dieting gives us the idea of before/after, like you're just going to read something, make a change, and it will be solved. Yeah, not so much! It definitely takes time and practice for any change to become solid.