With all this Halloween around, I have started to feel a bit deprived for candy.  My weight control system does not allow actual deprivation.  Who would keep up a diet and lifestyle that makes you unhappy and deprived?  You will have to use increasing amounts of force and willpower to keep that up, and eventually your resentments will take over.  Goodbye, weight control!  

So I want to avoid that.  What I have done successfully in the past is turn food cravings into a reward.  All kinds of food temptations are allowed in this system, so long as the calorie count stays under control.  Candy is no different!  

As part of the system of rewards, I have regularly celebrated every 10 pounds lost with a special dessert, or meal.  When I got my weight under 300 pounds, I baked a gingerbread cake and ate it  – piece by piece – over a couple of weeks.  During that time, I made cake part of my calorie count, and was able to really enjoy each piece and look forward to eating them.  The technique was easy – I counted up all the calories in the recipe, including icing, and divided by the number of slices.  The math came to 550 calories per slice.  That way, the reward didn’t stop my quest to keep controlling my weight and transform my mind and body.  And it turned out that eating the cake that way was much more enjoyable than if I had just eaten a few really big pieces.  Anticipation makes the sacrifice worthwhile.

There are other ways of controlling your calorie intake and checking your body for weight gain.  Mine has certain strengths: it works, it is enjoyable, there are no food restrictions, it doesn’t cost more money than I was spending before.  Unusual events like holidays are no problem, though I always find travel is difficult while dieting.  Or is it the other way around?  The weight control diet has certain weaknesses: it takes work, it takes planning and organization, it takes careful negotiation with yourself, constant paying attention, and time spent keeping a food journal.  Plus you weigh yourself every week. 

I have met people who handle this differently.  My grandfather at the same thing for every meal.  Every lunch was the same, every dinner was the same, etc. I don’t mean that breakfast, lunch, and dinner were exactly the same!  But he was very, very thin.  I don’t know exactly what my other grandfather’s system was, but he gave the impression of not being sensually interested in food.  Another man I met cooks all his food on the weekend, then eats it for the rest of the week.  He knows exactly how much food he had for the week, though e doesn’t care much how much he has on any particular day.  Many people weigh themselves daily or weekly, but some use other measurements, like the way that clothes fit, or a belt.

The strengths of those systems are all about saving time and attention.  If you know exactly what you are going to eat and how much (however you get there), you are controlling your intake.  You don’t have to pay as much attention as I do!  Just eat the portion.  All the work is already done for you.  I imagine it’s the same for people who eat frozen pre prepared meals from a store.  That wouldn’t appeal to me, but it might work for you.  However, such a person is at risk during unusual events like holidays.  Between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is a lot of extra food around and the usual routine can get disrupted.  It is for this reason that people gain weight around the holidays and try to lose weight in the beginning of the year.  But there’s no denying the simplicity of the system most of the time.  

Regulate your food intake and weigh yourself regularly!

-The Doctor