When you are getting yourself invested in weight control, you have to set things up to avoid feelings of deprivation. There is no surer way to fall off a diet – weigh control or otherwise – than to make it punishing and painful to do it. You have to create a world you want to live in, and then you can watch in amazement at how happily you want to go live there.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – Half Costco pepperoni pizza slice (355);
- 355 calories
Lunch – Big Greek Cafe Famous $5 Gyro Wednesdays (600);
- 600 calories
Dinner – 9oz chili (390); bagel (330)
- 720 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 80g ice cream (200)
- 280 calories
Total for the day: 1955 calories (limit 1850)
I like this world better
Yesterday, I let myself feel deprived. I tried to make up for extra calories I ate the night before. That didn’t work. It never works. Every day is a new day, and part of the meaning of that is you don’t make up for yesterday’s problems today. Today has its own problems. Just try to make today work. Yesterday is gone. You can learn from it but you can’t cheat your way out of it. You ate too much yesterday? Well, don’t try to make up for that by eating less today. Eat what you are supposed to. Maybe weight loss will take a little longer, but falling off your diet and getting resentful about it won’t work at all, ever.
Today, I tried to return to normal, but I was still feeling deprived so I let myself go over the top – 1955 calories total. Normally I try to stay under 1850. Well, tomorrow is another chance to have a perfect day, and I want to concentrate on that world. Letting yesterday go is a hard lesson to learn. You can still learn from it though.
Feeling deprived can come for a number of reasons. It can be emotional. It can be illness. You might slack off and not take care of yourself well – normal human laziness. It can be a combination, or totally unknown! If it happens a lot you should try to figure it out, and prevent it from interrupting your weight control lifestyle.
But in the best world I can create, I am motivated to eat by physical hunger that comes at pretty regular and predictable intervals. I anticipate satisfying that hunger with a measured amount of the food I am most hungry for, and make sure that it is ready when I am most ready for it – when I am getting pretty hungry! The food tastes wonderful when I am hungry and when I am anticipating it. It’s a satisfying experience to eat what you want when you are just ready, and you might have three wonderful meals like that in a day. In this world, you will control your weight and be pretty happy about it. Eating like this is a richer and higher experience.
Create a world you would like to live in and you will try hard to get there.
-The Doctor