This pattern is fairly consistent forever. Look at the really long view:
So right now, my challenge is whether I want to strive for the pattern: bring my weight back to where I want it by restricted, planned eating, followed by relaxing the rules, then bringing the rules back before it goes too far. What I have been experimenting with instead is trying to eat mindfully and healthfully all the time, but without any rigid rules. Evidence so far indicates this is not a good strategy for keeping my weight in bounds. I'm still not willing to give up the attempt yet.
I continue to try on different strategies for how to act, versus falling into rules about good and bad food. I do still try to make choices about food based on broad general guidelines, summed up by Michael Pollan ("eat food, mostly plants, not too much"), but without demonizing any specific foods or whole categories of food. I try to eat mindfully, slowing down and thinking and feeling how the food feels to me. I try to prepare my food myself. On another note, I'm also upping my activity levels. I'm a long way from finding a set of actions or attitudes that stabilizes my weight at a place I'd like it to be.
I really struggled in this post to avoid any value-laden language, about eating or my weight. No words about where my weight "should" be, nor about what is eating "right". So hard. I refer to where I "want" my weight, acknowledging it's a number or target I've picked myself. It is derived from how I looked and how I felt when I was there, not from any external table or chart. Food choices I try to make based on how they make me feel, short and long term, informed by extensive reading on how our bodies handle different foodstuffs, but not by some categorizing everything as "healthy" or "bad".
