It’s very important to write everything you eat down in your food journal.  If you leave things out, you can’t control your food intake and count your calories.  Write in your journal right away after you eat something. 

A few times, after I have written up my blog post for the night and published it, I will eat something else or drink something with calories.  I update my food journal to reflect the extra food.  But I am never sure if I should go back and edit the blog post.  To make up for this, I try to write my posts as late in the day as possible.  And since my goal of eating is to be hungry for my next meal, evening eating has largely disappeared from my behavior.  That’s surprising to me, because I had it down as a real problem behavior.  

Part of the answer is that I have found I am just not hungry when I wake up (6.30-7.30AM).  I usually eat between 8.30-9.30AM.  Since I want to be hungry before I eat, it pressures me not to eat too much for dinner, or after that, late at night.  I just won’t be hungry all morning, and that throws off my whole day food-wise.  Three meals are working for me.  9AM, 11.30AM, and 5.30PM.  The spacing isn’t even, is it?  But those mealtimes are a result of trial and error. 

Above, I said my aim is 13,000 calories per week.  Since it takes 3500 calories of deficit to lose a pound, and I usually lose 2-3 pounds, I am probably between 7,000-10,000 calories in deficit every week.  That’s a lot!  It means I am eating only 60% of the calories I need to maintain my weight.  Do you see why I need to constantly reward myself, and understand why I need to work so hard to get my food just right?  I can’t do that by willpower alone.  I need cooperation from all parts of myself. 

So far, treating myself really nicely and carefully considering and preparing food I want to eat, and implementing milestone rewards, are doing the job that willpower alone couldn’t.  It’s amazing how changing your mind can change your abilities.  

-The Doctor