I am in a weight control lifestyle for the long haul. The rest of my life, anyway. I can do that because I’ve made the lifestyle attractive. I want to live this way because I enjoy it more than how I used to be. Not just because I am thinner, but because my quality of life, my enjoyment, and sense of fulfillment, are all increased. Notice, it is not being thinner that makes me enjoy things more. The lifestyle is the attraction. Will I be counting calories and keeping a food journal for the rest of my life? Maybe. It takes effort and it takes a lot of attention to keep yourself balanced that way.
Several old men I know, who were thin and stayed thin throughout their lives, had a different approach. They didn’t keep food journals. They just ate the same thing every week and knew exactly how much of that they could have in a week. They didn’t get a lot of variety, but they stayed thin. It didn’t hold up when their routines were disrupted, like during the holidays. Then your normal food gets disrupted and there are lots of fun new things to eat. A calorie counter has the advantage there.
Right now, I like the freedom to eat whatever I want. I just count the calories.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 6 ounces cookied rice (200); 8oz New Orleans red beans and andouille sausage (250);
- 250 calories
Lunch – Costco half slice pizza (375); 12 ounces homemade lentil soup (230);
- 605 calories
Dinner – 12 ounces sausage chili (500)
- 500 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 5 Kirkland tea cookies (210)
- 290 calories
Total for the day: 1845 calories (limit 1800)
Think it through
Remember, the lifestyle is the goal, and not a target weight. Let’s think that through. If I was obsessed with hitting a certain weight number, that could be a problem. For most of us who are overweight and gaining weight, the hardest thing to change is your mind. Dieting without changing your mind means you are doing it wrong. Your old life is just waiting to re-emerge and then your old weight will come back as soon as you let it. You need to be a new person who sees the world in a new way. Your old self is sacrificed to the new one. That is very liberating. But consider what you need to change.
When I was gaining weight, I didn’t pay any attention to the amount of food I was eating. Food tasted good, and more food tasted good even longer. Being full was very satisfying, or so it seemed. I just let the good food roll on in until I was full. But you don’t stay full for long. And if satisfaction comes from things tasting good and your stomach being full, well, the result would be weight gain, if you are in a position to indulge that.
Dieting was 100% against everything I enjoyed, when I thought that way. Eating less food meant less enjoyment, and not getting full meant never being satisfied. I was resentful and unsatisfied, even as I tried to force myself to eat less. Giving up the sources of pleasure and satisfaction in your life is no way to get your body to cooperate. So I was making the wrong sacrifice. And I was asking the sacrifice from the wrong part of myself.
I sacrificed my old values and my old way of thinking. I gave up being full as a source of fulfillment (ha) and I gave up eating more food as a source of pleasure. I replaced them with dramatizing my food, an old technique. Basically, you appreciate your food more, and it tastes better, when you let yourself get a little hungry. So you make sure you build up the meal and make it more dramatic. Plan out the food you really want to eat, let yourself get hungry for it, anticipate it, prepare the food well, and then enjoy a measured portion of it. That sequence is actually hugely satisfying. More food actually ruins the drama, because you’re not hungry any more. There’s no anticipation.
You can see how the rest goes. The anticipation becomes something you look forward to. You come to value it more than you value having a full stomach. At that point, you would rather be hungry than full, just so you can have the pleasure of satisfying your hunger. And now you are thinking like someone new. That new person is capable of controlling their body’s weight, because they are increasing their enjoyment of life while eating controlled amounts. They are no longer fighting themselves and hating it, resenting it.
Could you change your mind?
-The Doctor