The Doctor always says: pay attention. Just paying attention makes a big difference. Try measuring and recording everything you eat for a week and keeping a calorie count. Don’t try to restrict your food intake. You have to write it down right after eating, though. Don’t try to reconstruct what you had last week or even yesterday. If you do that, you will find you start noticing patterns in how you eat, when, and the amounts. You will learn about yourself and that is good. You may start to wonder about your calorie count – how much are you eating per day?
And that’s just from paying attention. If you don’t pay attention then you won’t know and you will never notice or ask any of that.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – bagel (330); 1oz salami (110);
- 440 calories
Lunch – 2x bratwurst (260); Ole wrap (50)
- 570 calories
Dinner – 2x chicken, bean, and cheese enchiladas (200); sour cream (60)
- 460 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80);
- 80 calories
Total for the day: 1550 calories (limit 1700)
Keep your mind on today
Tomorrow is a new day. But today is today and it is my job to make the most of today. I choose to prioritize my body’s weight today. Don’t dream about how you will start doing something tomorrow. Dreaming doesn’t get you anywhere. Figure out how to make it happen.
Study people who are thin and who have stayed thin for years as adults. You will find they work at it and pay attention. The thinner they are, the more work they are putting into the job. What are the differences between thin people and those who are not in control of their weight? Why does nobody ever get thinner naturally? Why is it always in one direction? Why does getting thin and staying thin take work????
Imagine a bicycle ride. You notice there are lots of uphill climbs and think: “No problem. On the way home it will all be downhill.” Later, you ride home. If anything, the return is more uphill than the other way!
Yes, it takes work to be thin. Believe it or not, it also takes work to go overweight, especially very overweight. It doesn’t happen naturally for the vast majority of people. To get overweight, you have to learn to keep eating, to use food for treating your stress or loneliness. It takes dedicated eating to become overweight. According to the standard counters online, I have to eat 2800 calories per day to maintain my current weight! A bit less now, because I am more sedentary than before with the Corona virus business.
To eat more than 2800 calories a day, all the time, takes work. Am I saying that being overweight is just as hard? Well, yes. But with a caveat – any work is hard if you don’t want to do it and your work is easy and burden light when you want to do it. When you are gaining weight you are seeing the world a certain way and you have a lifestyle that has gotten comfortable. When you see the world like a thin person does, you can flip that over and it becomes hard to eat and hard to gain weight!
Think about how to see the world a new way and you will be a new person.
-The Doctor