My hobby is now weight control. I take an active interest, and think about it in my daily life, and read about it. It wasn’t always like this. I had to recreate myself if I wanted to control my body’s weight, since my old self was so hopeless at it. It was starting to get depressing. You start to lose confidence in yourself, when you have dieted and failed enough times.
Now my trajectory is towards weight control. It is very important to me and I am confident I am succeeding. That is very non-depressing. Fulfilling, in fact. And it builds on itself. The way I have planned this out, weight control is better than dieting. Weight control is for your whole life, dieting is temporary. I am living a weight control lifestyle, which means I do two things: (1) regulate my food intake and (2) weigh myself regularly. To regulate my food intake, I bribe myself with delicious food, but in measured amounts. And I keep a food journal.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 2x bratwurst (260); half a whole wheat wrap (55), onions and mustard (a few calories surely)
- 600 calories
Lunch – office lunch – 2x small Mediterranean chicken kebabs (70); roasted broccoli (20); rice (50); cake (200);
- 410 calories
Dinner – 2x Tyson’s panko breaded chicken breast pieces (200); half whole wheat wrap (55); some baked nacho topping (300);
- 755 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80);
- 80 calories
Total for the day: 1845 calories (limit 1800)
Mr. Pants
I have made the jump to size 44 pants. I have been wearing size 46 since July. I say “wearing”, but size 46 pants were pretty snug and and a bit uncomfortable when I first started wearing them. I was able to wear these size 44 pants all day, though I should point out that they are Haggar pants with an expandable waistband. Even so, you know when you are straining against the expandable joint, and I hardly was at all. Being in between sizes is my reality for the next while. I actually bought three pairs of Haggar work pants at the start of the summer: size 46, 44, and 42. They were having a sale – three pairs for $100. The 46s have started to fold excess fabric around the waist when I use a belt, so I am smaller than they were designed for, but I am still slightly too big for 44s.
It’s taken a lot longer than I calculated when I first bought all these pants. Based on my rate of weight loss then, about 8-10 pounds per month, I thought I would be going down a pants size per month. In that world, I would already be in size 42 pants and they would be a pretty relaxed fit. It turns out that losing weight and waist size are not in a linear relationship, at least for men. I have been in size 46 from July to October – that’s a span of 20 pounds! At this rate I won’t break size 40 (into size 38s) until I weigh about 180 pounds! I’m not even planning to get that low in weight. Maybe 190. Maybe 200. It all depends on how my body looks and feels at that weight.
The important part is, I can choose, because I am pursuing weight control. I’ll be able to pick what I want my weight to be. I think there will be a lot of work involved finding a way to keep a stable weight and still be happy. Losing weight is a system I have worked out, to some degree. It’s all self knowledge and I am happy to learn and grateful that I can do it.
But I am getting ahead of myself. My lowest weight so far has been 243 pounds. There are still months to go before I lose all that. And my observation is that the thinner you want to be, the harder it is to get there and stay there. I’ve effectively lost the last two weeks due to bad diet days and travel effects. I will be very happy when I get below 240 pounds. What should my reward be?
What would yours be?
-The Doctor