I didn’t post yesterday! What a thing to forget. I had taken pictures, too. If I get a chance I will go back and post it.
Talking of which, this weekend I made pancakes from scratch. They are much better than boxed pancakes and no harder to make. I did notice that putting blueberries inside them doubled the cooking time, though. I count each 3-4″ pancake as 75 calories. I use a Splenda-based syrup so essentially no calories there. The blueberries were rather tart so the pancakes were, too. Anyway, the buttermilk pancakes cooked up tall and fluffy, exactly the kind of thing you can look forward to.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – last 1/10 piece of Texas blueberry cobbler (280)
- 280 calories
Lunch – 12 ounces pork vindaloo (525); pretzels 110
- 645 calories
Dinner – sloppy Joe (500); fries (100);
- 600 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (70); chocolate almonds (200); Reese’s PBCs (160);
- 430 calories
Total for the day: 1955 calories (limit 1850)
Catching up on calories?
I don’t know why but I was very hungry today starting around 3PM, and then again at 5PM. I had breakfast around 10AM because I wasn’t that hungry!
Anyway my calorie total is high today (1955) and yesterday it was low (1745). It evens out, but I didn’t mean for it to work out like that. I was just hungry this afternoon and evening. Since my stomach has been a bit off I wonder if this means it is back in business!
Anyway, back to pancakes. Part of the Doctor’s insight into system of weight control comes from the observation that small rewards are motivating. It’s hard to motivate yourself to accomplish anything with punishments. I think that’s why many people fail when trying to tame vices like overeating, smoking, drinking. Psychologically they are punishing themselves because they see those vices as essential comforts and withholding them as punishments to be resented. It’s hard to do things out of resentment.
You have to do the work, though. Rewards don’t come to you just because you wish for them. If you can’t force yourself to lose weight, you can make it easier and rewarding to lose weight. You can set up your life and your diet so that there are lots of incentives. I reward myself every day by making sure that the food I get to eat is food I want and enjoy. That’s the trade: I eat for physical fulfillment, which is a measured amount of food. In return, I make sure that food is worth eating and worth waiting for. It avoids the trap of forcing myself to eat less food using willpower. Scott Adams talks about changing how you see the world – decide you are going to eat healthy, for example. That way, each meal is a chance to succeed. If your goal is to eat less you will fail every time because you could ALWAYS eat less. Terry Pratchett calls that playing games with words! You use the words to describe the world in a way it’can’t ignore. Change yourself and change the world.
-The Doctor