Your old thinking is what got you into this mess, isn’t it? The life you are living and the way you are thinking are the reason your body is heavier than you would really like it to be. In my case, eventually, 120 pounds heavier than I really wanted it to be. But I never did much about it. I got a bit fatalistic about it. Clearly, it was not a priority for me at that time.
Eventually I realized that my thinking had to change. I could pick what I valued in life and accomplish what I wanted. But in that process I would have to sacrifice my old self, my old life. And what values would I pick? What could I value that would transform me into a man who controlled his body’s weight?
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 11oz nacho topping (500); Ole wraps (100); sour cream (50);
- 650 calories
Lunch – apple pie (350); sausage wrap (230);
- 580 calories
Dinner – 9oz Hoppin John (230); 5oz rice (160); Brussels sprouts (25);
- 415 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80);
- 80 calories
Total for the day: 1725 calories (limit 1700)
What to value, what to discard
From my past dieting failures I knew I shouldn’t value a goal weight. That’s just a personal discovery, there are people who do value being a certain numerical weight (I still weigh the same as I weighed in high school!) and that works for them. I needed something that would take advantage of my particular self: my habits, my inclinations, my motivations.
I decided I had been taking the easy way out in my life. Eating had become the answer to everything that wasn’t going the way I wanted. It was time to make things happen. I decided to value control over my body’s weight. That’s a bit different than valuing some particular number. If I have control, I could gain or lose, whichever I wanted. That control could be exerted in other parts of my life, too. But for now, I would make weight control a top value and live that out every day. Once I valued weight control, I found myself able to develop and live out the behaviors and tools I needed to make that happen.
When I was living my old life, eating less food was hard because I learned to associate eating with comfort and soothing feelings. Eating less was like a punishment! So my attempts to diet failed: it was straight use of willpower to deny myself love and comfort. Who would want that?
Change your thinking. Identify what you are thinking thta has gotten you into trouble. In my case, it was the reason for eating that had become incorrect and needed to be changed. Why are you eating?
-The Doctor