I have had a hard couple of weeks. In consequence, the discipline that I showed over the last two years has cracked a bit. For the last couple of weeks, I keep using food for the wrong purposes: to comfort or soothe myself. The correct purpose is to use it to meet my physical needs.
I should be able to soothe and comfort myself in more responsible ways by this point in my life. But now I know: part of me responds to stress by looking for the easy way out, and my easy way out is food.
Daily food intake
Breakfast – Italian Panettone bread (300);
- 300 calories
Lunch – baguette (180); ham (75); cheese (70);
- 325 calories
Dinner – chicken (200); potatoes (100); beans (35);
- 335 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (160); baguette piece (100); candy (140); ham and cheese (350); crackers (100);
- 850 calories
Total for the day: 1805 calories (limit 1700)
Cracked but not broken
The last two or three days haven’t gone so well, diet wise. The great strength of my weight loss approach is that a bad day or a bad week isn’t fatal to the diet. The mindset I have been building is that each day stands on its own and every day is a chance to do things right, to have a perfect day. I have had two or three bad days, but that doesn’t affect tomorrow. Tomorrow can be perfect.
Today I had 1805 calories, which is more than I really should be having. But it ‘s a lot better than Tuesday and Wednesday, when I had more like 3000-3500. I didn’t even keep good track of my food intake for those two days, which is amazing. I have been writing down my food journal for nearly two years now without any significant breaks. But tomorrow can still be a great day. Enough great days and I will have a great week. And so on.
I had no idea how lucky I have been the last two years to be able to keep focused on this goal of weight loss. I have lost more than 100 pounds and can nearly buy clothes meant for normal sized people. Now I have a little setback, but I haven’t lost heart. I do need to pull myself together and find a more constructive way to deal with stress.
Well, all discipline starts somewhere. I will go to bed, and get up on time, and set myself to my daily task: keeping my food journal, planning out my meals and regulating my food intake so that I can have a perfect day. I will think about the last two years and how I managed to achieve this much. That will contain the seeds of going all the way.
-The Doctor