The price of thinness is paying attention. The thinner you are, the harder you must work to stay that way. At least, in the abundance we live in now. Not too long ago, getting enough to eat, at all, was an achievement! The way I pay this price, while becoming thinner, is to write down everything I eat. There are many thin people who don’t write this stuff down, but they have other ways of keeping track. You will find most thin people who stay thin, count calories and know how much they are eating in a day. Writing stuff down is a lot of effort, by comparison. But writing it down is how I am doing it. It works.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200)
- 400 calories
Lunch – 2 x Bratwurst wraps (300)
- 600 calories
Dinner – Saturday Evening Supper (600)
- 600 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80)
- 80 calories
Total for the day: 1680 calories (limit 1800)
Becoming a person in control of their weight
Part of the transformation I underwent was to add “being in control of my weight” to my list of values I live by. Before January, 2019 that was very low on my list. I also put “being thin” on my list of values, but note that being in control is on top. Before my transformation, I wouldn’t sacrifice much to be thinner. It wasn’t important to me. When I decided it should be important, I felt like I had no way to get there. I had tried forcing myself to eat less, and lose weight. But I couldn’t keep it up. Now I can.
Getting my mind right, and getting the different parts of me lined up and willing to undertake this effort, was the most important transformation I have ever made. It was certainly the most conscious. Once I had my mind right, my body followed. It is still following. That is the way msot of us will work. The mind leads, the body follows.
After winning the mental battle, I came up with mechanisms to help me. One is a method of portion control, using food I am very happy to eat. On this weight loss program, I will not touch diet foods, or low fat foods, and so forth. I will only eat foods I really want to eat. Look at the meal pictured above. It looks like some delicious food generously and spontaneously served onto a plate – some of this, some of that, the whole called Saturday Evening Supper. But appearances can be deceiving. There is an orderliness to that plate.
The first hint of measurement is the sausage – clearly a single link, of mild Italian flavor. It was 250 calories, in fact, based on the package label. The pile of cheese? One ounce of goat cheese, 70 calories. The heap of noodles? 4 ounces (cooked), 200 calories. The peppers and onions were cooked in olive oil and mixed with green peas. There is one cup of this vegetable mix, which I estimate has about 80 calories. The total, 600 calories, was my dinner. I made sure I was hungry for it, so to maximize my enjoyment. I ate 1680 calories today, and enjoyed dinner a lot. Every meal today was worth waiting for AND getting hungry for. I get to eat this, and I will lose weight too. It’s a lovely system. It nourishes me in several ways, and the different parts of my mind and body are working together – no willpower is required to lose weight. In fact, eating like this is a source of satisfaction and happiness.
I will post the recipe for this dinner soon. Enjoy your diet! And if you don’t, maybe you should.
-The Doctor