For many years, I refused to do what was necessary to become someone capable of losing weight and being in control of my body’s weight. I mean that I refused to change my mind. I was willing to force myself to eat less food, temporarily, but my body wasn’t cooperative with that opinion. However, I wasn’t willing to change anything else about myself. How do you lose weight, and get control over your body’s weight, when (1) your body won’t cooperate and (2) you can’t change anything about yourself? Answer: you don’t. But you sure feel bad about yourself. You have placed yourself where you can’t win. You can call yourself names, and try to motivate yourself, but that won’t do a thing.
Change your mind and your body will follow. The food actually gets better – more satisfying and fulfilling, both in its taste and its significance to you.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 2 x pulled pork wraps with pickles (250)
- 500 calories
Lunch – 2 x grilled bratwurst wraps (300) with flatbread and onions fried in Pam
- 600 calories
Dinner – 2 x BLT wraps (200)
- 400 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80); candy (200)
- 280 calories
Total for the day: 1780 calories (limit 1800)
Wrap-oh-no
It was a day of wraps. My plan was to have vegetable curry for dinner, but that didn’t work out timewise. So instead, I had wrap sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Vegetables….well, today I had the lettuce and tomato on my BLTs, and no vegetable curry for dinner. Tomorrow: no wraps at all, and vegetable curry for sure.
One problem I have noticed is that pulled pork, when cooked really well (North Carolina style), is so rich and flavorful that I get saturated with eating it. I made a 5 pound pork shoulder and it is just way too much. Next time I will freeze most of it! I have also noticed I can get tired of other really rich foods, too. One piece of self knowledge is the realization that I can use those foods as rewards, occasionally, but not as standard meals where I have days worth of leftovers. I just don’t look forward to them once I am fatigued with their richness.
We were talking about changing your thinking. It is so hard to let go of your old thinking. Many people won’t even try. Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying that people would rather die than think. But with some effort, you can decide to change your values. What do you value? What don’t you value? When I was gaining weigh, I didn’t value being thin very highly. That’s not a flippant remark – I did want to be thin, but it was priority #99 out of 100. I was busy with other things! That is, I valued a lot of other things more. Once I decided that weight control should be in the top three of my values, that meant action had to be taken. How could I live that out?
- Count your calories and record what you eat in a food journal.
- Weigh yourself regular. I weigh in weekly.
I plan to do both 1 & 2 from now on.
Everything flows from the decision: I value being thin more than I value doing almost anything else. More than enjoying my friends, more than spending time with my family? More than I valued my old eating goal: eating until I was completely full. Once I valued being thin, I could see being full as the shallow fulfillment that it is, for the person that I am. (If I was starving to death, being full would be a worthwhile goal. But you can see how first-order it is, as a goal.) I moved up a level and now value being hungry. Tomorrow, I will talk more about hunger. Embracing hunger allows you to refine your sensual experience and learn more about yourself. When controlling my weight, the quality of the food experience is greater than my need to eat. There are some things more important than being full. Try fulfillment.
-The Doctor
Your wraps look delicious, but I agree that 3 a day can be too much of a good thing. Too bad you won’t try salmon. I baked a nice piece of Copper River salmon last night (12 minutes at 400 degrees) and saved half for snacking today. No wrap needed. It even called to me from the container in the refrigerator, “Judy, I’m sweet and scrumptious so come get me!” Its siren call drowned out the ice cream in the freezer.