There are multiple food options available to me
from supermarkets and fast foods and restaurants
and bakeries and the cooking I do at home.

I overbuy, and I overcook.
I've not been able to control these behaviors,
....although God Knows I've tried....
and this makes the issue of Food Storage essential for me.

When I was a child, I frequently heard people say that 
their eyes were bigger than their stomach.
Although, of course, I understood what the saying meant...
some of my overweight and obese relatives clearly had very large stomachs
and generally ate as much as their eyes caused them to put on their plates.
plus more.

Well... that saying  hold true for me.
What I buy and what I cook...
is far more than the amount that should go into my stomach.

Since I haven't been able to control my behavior at the initial level,
...I overbuy and I overcook.,
I've had to address it at the next level..
the level between obtaining the food and ingesting the food.
Storage involves delaying that food ingestion.

My success at weight-loss and at maintenance of that weight-loss
requires that I don't eat everything that I buy or cook.
Sometimes I have to throw food away,
but my preference is to store it away for another eating occasion.

Food Storage is a really big issue in my life,
and making that task into a simple and easy Habit
has become essential for me.

I've addressed my food storage methods in several videos
which are located under Tips & Tricks of my RECIPE section.

Dealing with Leftovers - involves storage of leftover solid foods.
More About Dealing with Leftovers - involves storage of leftover liquid type foods.
Storing Cookies - involves storage of leftover small baked items like cookies, and cookie dough.
The video below demonstrates my technique for storing fruit and cream pies.

                      
Here is a picture of the men who were in "Starvation mode
during the famous 1940s Minnesota Starvation Research project of Dr. Ancel Keys.

People online tend to throw around the term "starvation mode" quite a bit. I've done a great deal of research on this issue,and as a result of my study,  I agree with the Experts who say that "starvation mode"...as it is commonly defined...is a Dieting Myth. Starvation mode doesn't happen until one is actually starving.

Bottom line, unless you are genetically like one of those Zucker rats that Gary Taubes talks about in "Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It"if you have more body fat than the picture above, you aren't in "starvation mode".

I very much like this quote from Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, on the Metabolism issue:

"Unless you have a degree in human biology…and in many cases even if you do…you do not understand what ‘metabolism’ means.

Eating Less Calories isn't Dangerous for your Metabolism,

This word gets thrown around the fitness and diet media and is used to scare people into thinking there is a dangerous level of calories that will destroy their metabolism. This of course is a false premise considering your ‘metabolism’ isn’t a thing that can be destroyed or sped up or slowed down (not without drugs).

“Metabolism’ is just the sum of the processes of your body on a cellular/systemic level...that’s it…that’s all it’s ever been…nothing more. So what…who cares. Why do fitness marketers keep talking about it?!  I’ll never know.

And there is virtually nothing you can do to change this. Eating at or below your actual BMR isn’t going to ‘damage’ your metabolism any more than eating above it. And speaking of which, why don’t marketers suggest that there could be ‘metabolic damage’ when people overeat!?…anyone…anyone?

Right, just what I thought, this lie doesn’t lead to lucrative weight loss products.

The following claims are false, and are your best way to know that a person is clueless about biology and physiology and nutrition if they say:

"Eating too few calories is going to ’slow’ your metabolism" (unless they’re referring to people who are starving to death…and are in fact about to die)

"That there are foods that can ‘damage’ your metabolism"

That you can speed up or slow down your metabolism (without drugs…and that this would be a good thing in either direction)

That a slow metabolism is responsible for weight gain

That a fast metabolism is responsible for weight loss

That you have any control whatsoever over your metabolic rate

That your meal timing or exercise timing can affect your metabolic rate

…and any other garbage claim you hear from any fitness marketer with the word “metabolism” in it…

If you see any of the above claims, you can be assured that the person who said them is sorely lacking in their understanding of how the body works.

If you want to lose weight…EAT LESS than you are currently eating. End of story."

 
Successful weight-loss requires establishing new eating Habits.
For successful maintenance of that weight-loss,
one must create a new “normal” which is based on those Habits.

A Habit is a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior.
Specifically here, a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition
that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance; and
an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.

Habit comes from repeated behavior.

Willpower is defined as energetic determination.

Willpower and Habit are related.
because Habits are ESTABLISHED…
i.e. brought into existence via some act of will…
…..one’s choice or determination…
and it initially takes willpower to establish a habit.

                                                                  
Previously I've written two articles about the Body Mass Index (BMI).
Below is a very wise statement about the meaning of the BMI
by a member of one of the forums I frequent.

"Well, here's the thing:
there can be a difference between "heavy" and "unhealthy".
Not everyone who is over the BMI range labeled "normal"
is necessarily an unhealthy, unfit specimen.

This is just a natural result of using population-level averages
to define arbitrary cutoff values: of course any given individual
may have differences from the overall average!

I don't quite think BMI is bad science, in itself:
it's just a number, after all.
It's how it's used that can lead to trouble.

The BMI charts, which are really just fancied-up height/weight tables,
are supposed to offer a first-glance idea of whether you are "likely"
to have a suite of health problems associated with being overweight.

But ideally, if you've got the individual right there in front of you,
you could take a "second" glance and see if the person really does
have the health problems "correlated" with being in a certain range.

One could check out their heart, measure their blood numbers
for things like cholesterol, etc. -- you don't have to "guess",
when you've got a person right there.

(But, alas, medicine as practiced currently does tend towards
the easy, look-it-up-on-a-chart approach,
and all too many doctors never go beyond that.)

And as I say, it's quite possible for someone to be outside
the chart range but not unhealthy in these other ways
(and vice versa: BMI in the normal range
is not an automatic guarantee of health!).

So yeah, I'd think that one shouldn't panic about being a bit
outside the range that The Chart says you should be in,
if you're otherwise fit and healthy.

At the same time, if you've got a BMI in the 30s,
you probably don't really need The Chart to tell you
that you may have a problem with your weight."

                                         
No one wants to be in the "Obese" category,
because that label goes past a little bit "Overweight",
and defines one as actually too "Fat".

The numbers I previously posted in  "Normal, Overweight, or Obese"
are standard BMI (Body Mass Index) numbers.
BMI categories are:

• Underweight = <18.5
• Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
• Overweight = 25–29.9
• Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

Many athletic people who are carrying a lot of muscle under their fat strongly
protest that their muscles make them an exception,
and therefore they don't fall into the standard BMI categories.

However the following quote from Bodybuilding expert, John Barban, is very on Point about this issue. 
 
QUOTE:        

BMI chart – What is all the Fuss About?

I was reading a blog about the BMI (Body Mass Index) chart the other day and noticed that many people were saying that it’s not accurate and is an outdated measurement and needs to be replaced/revised.

So I started to think about why anyone would say this. The BMI chart was created over 100 years ago as a way of charting body ‘fatness’ or ‘thinness’. With the influence of Ancel Keys (visionary scientist way ahead of his time) BMI became a prominent tool in the 1970′s for assessing population health risks.

There is a criticism that the BMI doesn’t account for different ‘frame’ sizes of people (endomorphs and ectomorphs) or athletes who have built up their muscles to a much larger degree than the regular population. Both of these criticism’s seem to be weak as true ecotmorphic or endomorphic people are very rare…in other words, for MOST of the population the BMI works just fine, and that was the point in the first place.

The athlete argument doesn’t hold much water either, as they represent a very small percentage of the population and many of them at all levels use steroids and other drugs that artificially elevate their lean body mass. In other words, the BMI was never meant to be applied to people taking steroids and GH.

So what about ‘natural’ athletes and bodybuilders who don’t use drugs but just build lots of muscles? Surely they wouldn’t be in the ‘normal’ BMI range…right? Wrong!

A few days ago I posted pictures of myself after a 5 day fast (I weighed 176 lbs in those pics…granted this was mostly a water reduction)…as of the moment I am writing this my bodyweight fluctuates between 180-183lbs. In both cases I am still within the normal BMI range. And this is where the argument about athletes being in the ‘overweight’ BMI range because of increased muscle mass falls apart for me.

In these pictures -> DO I LOOK SKINNY? I’m well within the normal BMI range…and I don’t think I look too small or lacking in muscle development. In fact I’ve spent the past 15 years trying to build as much muscle as I can…and I STILL fall within the ‘normal’ BMI range. If anyone was a candidate for being ‘overweight’ due to muscle mass I thought surely I would be it…but nope I’m still ‘normal’.

So the argument that athletes can build enough muscle to somehow push them out of the normal BMI range seems a bit wonky to me (unless of course they are using steroids or were true endormorphs to begin with…which is an exceedingly small portion of the population). Look at those pictures of me again, do I really look like I could possibly get bigger? Do I look like I NEED to be bigger? AND do I look unhealthy at the size I am?

The problem people have with the BMI is not the chart itself, but what the chart MEANS to them. The chart is meant to show ‘fatness’ and categorize it as normal or abnormal on both the high and low end. The key word here is ‘normal’.

What SHOULD be normal for a human body and what has BECOME normal in modern western societies are two different things.

The BMI chart shows what SHOULD be normal, not what is currently considered normal.

If most of the population is overweight (according to the BMI chart) the error in logic could be that the population is right and the BMI chart is wrong.

I think many people have a sharp emotional reaction to things like the BMI chart because it categorizes you in a way that feels discriminatory and prejudicial. Of course there is no emotion behind the BMI chart, it’s just a mathematical equation…but there is some thought and research into it, it’s not just a random idea, so you know there is some validity to the category you’ve been placed in according to the chart. And this is why it bothers people. If there is some good reason why you are categorized as ‘overweight’ then you’re faced with the following dilemma about your belief in the normalcy of your current body size:

Either the chart is wrong, or YOU are wrong.
It’s much easier to dismiss the chart as being inaccurate and not useful for your specific body shape and size or whatever excuse you like, than it is to accept the fact that perhaps you’re in fact simply overweight.
The final point on this topic is the view from being in the normal category vs the overweight or obese categories.

I used to be much heavier than I am now and I used all the same excuses explaining away the BMI as antiquated and outdated and didn’t account for the mountains of muscle I had built over the years. In reality, I was just fat.

Once I went through my cut down and got rid of all the excess weight I ended up right where the BMI chart predicted me to be at the high end of the normal range…which makes perfect sense as I’ve built as much muscle as I can without drugs.

If I’m currently in the normal category, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to build muscle, and all of my measurable health markers are in very good shape, and I’m happy with the look and shape of my body, and I have a golden Adonis Index ratio…then how is it possible for me or anyone with roughly my frame (which is average) to actually be in the overweight category without simply having more fat mass on their body and subsequently looking worse than I do right now?

In other words, if some people suggest the BMI cutoff for ‘overweight’ is too low, then what does that make me in these pictures? Underweight?

Or is it that people who don’t like the category the chart puts them in immediately react by dismissing the chart as being wrong instead of heeding the guidance it provides to lose some weight. This of course is cognitive dissonance at its finest.

For anyone who is in the ‘normal’ range the BMI chart seems to make perfect sense, or at least it does to me.

by John Barban, Bodybuilder,  (www.johnbarban.com)
who currently has a business association with Brad Pilon, the author of Eat Stop Eat.

 Here are the pictures which are referenced in the quote above.