Staying on a weight control system takes a lot of paying attention. It becomes routine, so it’s doable, but you have to keep your focus on on it all the time. Today, I paid attention to my system. Today is my favorite lunch day: $5 Famous Gyro Wednesday at the Big Greek Cafe. When you keep your mind right, so your focus is on your highest eating goals, you can use food as a reward. To use food as a reward, you have to allow yourself to become physically hungry. Satisfying that hunger with your favorite food is actually exhilarating. The woman at the cash register in the cafe asked me twice why I was so happy.
The truth is, I was happy because my mind was in the right place and I had paid attention to my needs and carefully built up to the moment of reward. I was in calorie deficit but it was worthwhile.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – bratwurst (260) and 1/4 whole wheat wrap (25)
- 285 calories
Lunch – Big Greek Cafe Famous $5 Gyro (600)
- 600 calories
Dinner – 1/4 Spanish tortilla (525); mayonnaise (75); ham (100);
- 700 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 2x Reese’s peanut butter cups (160)
- 280 calories
Total for the day: 1865 calories (limit 1800)
Start with your goal
In December, I didn’t try hard to stay with the weight control lifestyle, and it showed – I have gained (at least weighing) almost nine pounds since my lowest weight of 237.4. I tried several times in January to start again, but couldn’t get it going. I found myself eating between and after meals. The hunger I was feeling wasn’t physical, because my eating goals had regressed to an unproductive place.
About a week ago I decided to change my mind, to enshrine weight control back at the top of my moral hierarchy. It’s been very fruitful so far, to focus on why I am eating. When the goal is “full belly” then you gain weight. When the goal is “be hungry for the next meal” then you have reasons to stop eating. Then you are not focused on depriving yourself, but rewarding yourself for your work and achieving your goals.
Reward is the best way. Losing weight is then incidental; you are just setting up a system of happiness and reward. That is the only way I have ever found to successfully lose weight.
There is that trade off – you have to pay attention a lot. And I believe that the thinner you want to be, the more attention you have to put in. But that’s for another time.
Set yourself up for reward and you can achieve weight control.
-The Doctor