This long term project has many levels. It’s a lifelong commitment; I will keep this up for as long as I live (or as long as I want to be thin). It’s also a daily commitment lived one day at a time. If there is a bad day, well, tomorrow is a new day. Same if there is a good day. It all adds up. A week is also an important level. Every week I weight myself. Because the calculation for losing a pound of weight means being 3500 calories in deficit per week, I count each week separately. If this was a bad week, well, it’s just one week. Next week can be better. Each meal itself is an important event, three times per day. Every meal goes into my food journal as I finish it. Sometimes I put the meal into my journal as I am eating it!
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – skipped (not hungry)
- 0 calories
Lunch – skipped (not hungry)
- 0 calories
Dinner – chicken and rice skillet dinner (700); chocolate (300)
- 1000 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80)
- 80 calories
Total for the day: 1080 calories (limit 1800)
How to recover from a bad week
As every day is a new day, diet wise, so every week is a new week. Yesterday I ate dinner very late (10PM) and then seemed to lose control. I had 1000 calories after dinner, at least. Maybe more. I had ice cream, hummus, chicken, candy, and peanut butter. I wasn’t even really hungry, but part of me wanted to be full. I didn’t enjoy it much, since I knew it wasn’t going to make me feel good. And when I woke up this morning I felt awful – full and bloated, not even a little hungry.
My usual rule when I have a bad day is to take a deep breath and treat the new day as a blank slate. The bad day is in the past and should stay there. I try to concentrate on the future. But now I have had a couple of bad days this week. It has officially become a Bad Week. That’s pretty unusual for me, since my new lifestyle is attractive and pleasant, yet challenging and interesting.
But there is no need to despair. Several bad days might tempt you to drop your diet – it can be demoralizing and you might feel like you are falling behind. But each week is a new week, just like every day is a new day. The new lifestyle is worth coming back to. I prefer living by my weight control rules, it has been very nice in a lot of ways.
So the two principles of Daily and Weekly restarts can help. Tomorrow is a new day. Today was kind of a new day. At least I did not overeat, though I felt terrible all day and skipped a couple of meals due to lack of appetite. I didn’t skip them to make up for yesterday! An I didn’t make up for yesterday mathematically anyway. This week is shot, but since I have enjoyed living under my weight control system there is incentive to make it work better tomorrow. Then, on Saturday, begins the new week. It’s a new week full of new days where I can get things to go right. I have learned a lot about myself and I have confidence in my weight control system. It has worked well so far and will work some more.
I’ve read a bit about a fear of failure and a fear of success. I hope I’m not getting all complicated about this. This is a straightforward deal: weight control. Success is measured in meals, days, weeks, and lifetimes. It’s a long term success with lots of opportunities for short term success.
-The Doctor