I didn’t skip breakfast because of my extreme virtue.  I wasn’t hungry.  That’s because yesterday, with all the travel and whatnot, I didn’t have the discipline to keep my weight control going.  I just let go and ate whatever I felt like.  Later, I tried writing it all down, but I am not sure the count is accurate.  This follows a bad diet week which I documented last week.  So do I lay down and quit my diet?  Ha, trick question.  I am not on a diet.  I am living a new lifestyle which is fulfilling and attractive.  I want to get back to it.  This means even if I have a bad day, week, or month, there is an incentive to get back to the weight control life.  

But, there are consequences to deal with.  I had a bad week and didn’t lose any weight, last week.  This week is shaping up the same.  Well, so far I have had a bad Sunday this week.  In any case, if you have a bad day or a bad week, you don’t get to go back and have a do-over.  You have to deal with it.  Next Saturday, I won’t have lost any weight.  That will be two weeks in a row.

Some people would call that a plateau.  But thanks to my food journal and insistence of writing down everything I eat, I know that isn’t the case.  Let me explain.  Every day, my target is 1850 calories.  For one week 1850 x 7 = about 13,000 calories.  My body needs about 3000 calories per day to maintain its current weight (WebMD has a calculator).  3,000 x 7 = 21,000.  Therefore on a perfect week I am in deficit about 8,000 calories.  That’s about two pounds a week I could lose (you have to be in deficit about 3500 calories per week to lose one pound).  Hang on!  If I have one bad day with 700 calories extra, I am still in deficit 8000 – 700 or 7300.  Won’t I still lose weight?

My experience says my body will not lose any weight that week.  For reasons that are unclear to me, my body seems to get thrown off by that kind of event (one bad day).  I won’t lose anything that week.  Everything has to be going well for me to lose weight, and for the whole week.  I don’t know why that is, but I have seen it over and over in the last 10 months.  

Anyway, even though I won’t lose anything this week, I will still get back on my weight control lifestyle for the rest of the week.  It’s just that much better, more fulfilling and satisfying, than me living any other way.  Especially the way I lived before, when I was gaining weight and had no control.  That was getting depressing.

Before, I was writing about the values of the overweight and gaining weight person.  I know because I lived them.  I have investigated and discovered the values of thin people, and I have adapted them to my life.  So I know like I know myself, that overweight people like to overeat because there is enjoyment in living a carefree life.  It’s strange to hear overweight people complaining about people who are “naturally” thin.  There’s no such thing.  Every thin person you see works to stay that way, and the thinner they are, the more effort it costs them.  It’s a fundamental difference in how we see the world.  People who are overweight and gaining, live their lives without counting calories, writing food journals, weighing their food, and obsessing over clothes sizes.  So they think thin people don’t either.  

See the trap?  There is a cost to getting thin and keeping thin.  (Barring health issues.)  And who wants to pay it?  The trick I have discovered is that adopting the viewpoint of a thin person can be integrated into a fulfilling life.  It’s not about starvation and deprivation.  Well, it doesn’t have to be.  I’ve lost significant weight without systemic deprivation or hardship.  So could you!  Read on.  

-The Doctor