For the week, my daily calorie average was 2248, usually 1800-1900. In fact, the last two weeks my average daily calorie count was just below 1800 and my weight didn’t budge.  I blamed illness, and it might have been.  Can I blame my recent food bingeing on recovery?  It’s tempting.

But if I have recovered then I can get back to weight control.  I’ve made a start.  Let me explain.  My last five days of calorie counts were:

• 3155 (Monday)
• 1870
• 1955
• 2275
• 2855 (Friday)

…and today, Saturday, I had 1850.  Right on the target.  I do not feel like eating any thing else and I am not feeling deprived, resentful, or have anything like appetite for any more food.  As a matter of fact, I feel tight across the middle, and heavy.  It’s hard to put into words.  But I don’t have the bouncy, energetic feeling I get when I am much closer to an empty stomach.  It will take a few days for me to get that back.  That’s the consequences.  And there is no guarantee that next week’s weight will be an improvement over 235.2.  But the week after that probably will be.  This is a long game with my body as a lagging indicator of my mental state or mindset.  

I was talking to a friend who has stayed thin through her adulthood and she complained that she has gained 10 pounds since everything here shut down for Corona virus craziness.  That is, since late March.  She explained her weight gain by saying that her routine, her lifestyle was disrupted.  Normally during her workday (she has an in-person service job) she skipped lunch or just had a bite on the go.  Now, she finds she had more time and is eating lunch.  

This story is very interesting.  I always listen to what thin people tell me.  She knew her weight had increased and by how much.  So she has been checking!  I went for years without checking my weight.  As part of my observation of thin people, I learned that people who stay thin usually monitor their weight.  She also introduced me to a new concept: thin people maintaining their weight by skipping meals.  I kind of knew that, I know another woman who only eats carrots for lunch (sometimes a hummus serving also) so she can eat ice cream at night and still stay thin.  This also has social benefits because everyone who knows them sees that they hardly eat a thing.  Remember Gone with the Wind, where the main character says in so many words that one should eat like a bird when anyone can see you?  Then go to the kitchen later and eat the rest, haha.

I can add this meal skipping to my other two strategies: calorie counting and total food management.  I count calories and keep a food journal, which takes some effort and fuss but is accurate.  I know other people who just eat the same thing all the time (food management) or some variation, like the man I met who cooks once a week and then eats a 1/7 serving daily for the rest of the week.  Now there is meal skipping, too.  I wonder how else thin people manage their bodyweights?

Keep your eyes open!

-The Doctor