The purpose of the daily report is well expressed in the tags to this post: Daily report, Long term dieting, Paying attention, and Stay on a diet. I am no longer the man I was prior to 2019. Now, I see the world in a new way and I live according to a new set of values. One of those new values is to care a lot about how much I weigh.
Terry Pratchett said (paraphrasing) that the essence of magic was to describe the world in a way it couldn’t ignore. Well, I have transformed myself using the power of magic. In these posts, I am describing a new way of living – the way I am living now. I have lost more than 80 pounds by just adopting a new and appealing lifestyle. I plan to lose at least 40 more pounds. That seems possible, considering I am two-thirds of the way along.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – ham (100); Swiss cheese (120); toasted bread (160); horseradish and mustard and pickle sandwich; 8 oven roasted Brussels sprouts (60)
- 440 calories
Lunch – 8oz nacho topping (390); 1oz nacho chips (160); 2 Tbsp sour cream (60)
- 610 calories
Dinner – 11.25 ounces beef stew (475); ccc (00)
- 475 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 5x Kirkland tea cookies (210)
- 330 calories
Total for the day: 1855 calories (limit 1800)
Don't crowd the pan
The total recipe of beef stew, cooked, weighed 7 pounds and contained 4750 calories. So I had a tenth of it for dinner (7 pounds is 112 ounces, so the portion was 11.25 ounces, nearly three-quarters of a pound), which makes 475 calories. It didn’t look like a lot in the bowl, but really it was very filling. Three quarters of a pound is a fair amount of beef stew!
The only problem was browning the beef. I tried doing it outside, since that kind of thing is hard on the kitchen surfaces. It was going well with my electric skillet, until the last batch. I crowded the pan and so the meat didn’t brown well in that batch. Darn! The stew was really good but I had this feeling that it could have been better, with more browning of the meat. Anyway, an extra glass of wine (in me) solved that problem.
I literally had a comment from a reader regarding willpower. To clarify: it’s true, I am not using willpower to eat less food. I have tried and tried that, and all it does is frustrate me, make me resentful, and then feel disappointed when I fail and give up. Instead, I changed my mind. Now, I use my willpower to pay attention to my needs and try to meet them. I spent a good part of the weekend shopping and cooking to prepare for the week. I have homemade beef stew and a baked Mexican nacho casserole, for dinners. For lunches, I have ham, chicken, hummus, meatballs, and low calorie bread wraps ready to go. There is bacon ready to reheat. Actually, that sounds like the perfect breakfast.
I negotiated with myself, built trust, and established a system of rewards. In exchange for the food being satisfying and delivered with care and attention to when I am most hungry, I have found my body and subconscious parts are willing to eat controlled amounts of food. If I slack off, look out! I may have a bad diet day. So willpower is involved, but not in the way people think. For me, living this way, there is no need to use willpower or force, to eat less food. I am as happy as I have ever been, living this way. I feel like all my parts are working together and achieving remarkable results.
Fine, I caused the problem (overweight) myself, by not paying attention, by having short term and shallow goals, by being stubborn and set in my ways. But addressing it so dramatically and successfully so far, is remarkable anyway. It does take discipline. But I don’t have to force myself to eat things I don’t want, and I don’t have to force myself away from the table hungry and resentful. That used to be me.
What parts of your thinking are due for a redo?
-The Doctor