Daily report

20190610 Daily report

The purpose of my daily posts is to keep my food journal and remind myself why that is important.  Since January 2019, I have been becoming a new person with a new life, and new values to live by.  This new person values being in control of his body’s weight, and has a plan for doing that.  The mechanics of the plan are: (1) monitor your weight and (2) regulate the intake of food.  These mechanisms failed me in the past due to two main problems: they took a lot of willpower and I didn’t really value being thinner.  A lot of other things were more important than being thin, in my old life.  Thanks to the mental changes I have made, I have lost nearly 60 pounds since January.  Willpower was not really involved!  I found a way around that.

Trying it with numbers today

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Apple fruit bar (110); Bella Vita crackers (230); Beef jerky (90); peanut butter crackers (130)

  • 560 calories

Lunch – catered lunch: chicken adobo, rice, corn salad, guacamole (450)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – breaded chicken (200); rice (100); green beans (25)

  • 325 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Nestle Li’l Drums vanilla cone (110)

  • 190 calories

Total for the day: 1525 calories (limit 1800)

Eating by numbers

In the Futurama TV series, there’s a pair of virtual reality glasses you can wear that lets you see the world through someone else’s eyes.  If you look at today’s food picture, you will see I have labeled each component with the number of calories it contains.  See the world through a calorie counter’s eyes!  It’s just a joke, though, eyeballing your food portions doesn’t work.  You end up cheating even if you don’t want to.  So the calories were all measured using package information, a scale, or volume measure.  

If you visit the weight loss forums at Reddit and similar sites, you will see that CICO reigns supreme.  That’s Calories In Calories Out.  The technique is the undisputed king of losing weight.  However, many people will admit they gain some or all the weight back, once they stop dieting.  That is, they diet, reach their goal, and then stop dieting.  Not only that, but the person doesn’t keep monitoring their food intake and weight.  That’s no way to live.  It makes losing weight and dieting a futile exercise of your willpower. 

I continue to be impressed that there are people out there with that kind of willpower.  The Doctor doesn’t have it.  I got around that problem by redefining how I see the world.  I don’t eat to be full any more.  I have switched my eating goal to quality over quantity of food.  Quality is narrowly defined by me as “things I really like to eat”, and does not include things that other people say are healthy for me.  Is it healthier to be thin, or to be eating health foods?  My answer is, being thin is more desirable. 

I am confident about this system, having consistently lost weight with no feeling of overall deprivation.  I don’t feel like I am starving myself and I am not using willpower to eat Diet Foods that I don’t like.  This has been an intense and enjoyable experience so far.  

Tomorrow I am going to talk about clothes, especially pants.  These are things to think about when you are losing weight at the rate of 10 pounds per month.

-The Doctor

20190609 Daily report

My transformation into a person who was capable of losing weight, and more deeply capable of controlling his body’s weight, included the adoption of two patterns of behavior that I intend to follow as long as I am alive.  (1) Regulate your food intake.  (2) Weigh yourself every week.  To include these commandments or directives in my life, I had to become a new person who valued weight control.  It had to become part of my vision of the good that I am pursuing in my life.  I sacrificed my old self and in the process am becoming a new one.  The old person couldn’t lose weight.  He tried and tried.  This new person that I am becoming sure can lose weight.  In a way, I decided to accept certain limitations of my body which I think apply to almost everyone.  

Meatball, hummus, red cabbage and pickle wraps, 250 calories each

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200); half piece extra bacon (35)

  • 435 calories

Lunch – 2 x meatball and hummus wraps (250)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 3 x pizza slices (100); chips (160); 2 x Jaffa cakes (50); 11 Kirkland chocolate almonds (160)

  • 720 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); pancake pieces (50)

  • 170 calories

Total for the day: 1825 calories (limit 1800)

Changes to the body followed changes to the mind

I have written extensively about the mental changes needed to become a thin person, and stay that way.  Regrettably, I have come to accept that everybody must practice some form of food control and weight control throughout their lives, or they will become more and more overweight.  Everyone you see who is thin, makes an effort to be that way and stay that way.  Speaking to such people, I have noticed they are obsessed with their weight.  Speak to someone who is overweight, and you will find they pay much less attention to their weight and do not have the same priorities in their lives.  

A simple experiment.  Find a friend who has stayed thin and ask them some questions.  You will find out that they know exactly how much they weigh from a recent weighing.  They will know how many calories they can eat, or have some other system of measuring their food intake.  Watch them around food and you will see they are very careful, and may use social cues to see how much to eat.

My conclusion is that if you don’t pay attention to your weight and your food intake, you will get more and more overweight throughout your life.  Many people impressively are able to lower their weight through dieting.  The Doctor salutes these people, who have more willpower than he does.  The problem is that people reach their immediate weight goal, then stop dieting and go back to their old habits.  Overweight becomes a problem again in a few months or years.  It is better, then, to invent a new life for yourself and sacrifice the old one.  In the new life, you will accept that your body has this limitation: it will gain weight unless you regulate your intake and monitor your weight all the time.  

It is probably unwise to see that limit as a burden.  Wrap it into your new life.  Having to carefully choose what to eat and who to be, given that limit, opens up possibilities and allows you to set a positive path in your life.  What is the good you are aiming for?  How would being in control of your weight help you achieve it?  That is what I am thinking about too.  

-The Doctor

20190607 Daily report

Paying attention is the most important change you can make, if you want to be in control of your body’s weight.  Sometimes that is easy and sometimes not.  Today the Doctor went to a party where there was party food for dinner, but there was no way to count calories!  So I had to guess.  I did my best by remembering to write everything down in my food journal.  However, my camera phone is currently a brick.  Until I find a substitute, pictures will be a bit limited.  

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1/8 Blueberry pie (400); slice of Spanish tortilla (165)

  • 565 calories

Lunch – 2 x Italian sausage links (250)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – Spicy Asian noodle salad (200); boneless chicken wings (100); cheeseburger slider (200); pizza (100); Nepalese potato salad (50)

  • 650 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160)

  • 160 calories

Total for the day: 1875 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Becoming and staying thin has to be your highest value.

Continuing from yesterday, today I still was not able to pay full attention to getting hungry.  This was due to putting my swim above my diet in terms of priority, but I still didn’t think about my beef jerky snacks.  More on that below.  

Breakfast was as soon as I got up.  I didn’t wait until hunger was pressing and that went well.  I know that eating something so sugary as pie wouldn’t last the morning, hence the slice of Spanish tortilla.    I wasn’t able to eat lunch until 12.30, even though I usually eat around 11.30. The usual result of delaying a meal is that I lose control around 4PM.  Luckily, the party was at 3 and the potluck was pretty lucky.  I was able to find things I really liked and were filling.  I contributed the spicy noodle salad, or else I would have taken less of it.  I knew it would be good. 

After such a nice dinner so early in the day, I was satisfied for the rest of the night.  Unlike yesterday, when part of me really wanted to eat and made that known all evening, today I have stayed satisfied and have had no interest in eating anything else.  No willpower required.  (That’s really something.  When I was gaining weight, eating the equivalent of a second dinner in the evening was my biggest self-identified issue.)  But back to the point: this is all critical self-knowledge.  The important point is that I need to put my diet above other considerations, like swimming.  I like to swim, but it is not essential to my weight loss plan.  Next time, I must put my eating in first priority.  When I am so much in calorie deficit for the day (about 1000 calories per day), I don’t have the margin to put other things first.  It’s a lesson I will have to learn over and over in different ways.  

Tomorrow: weighing day.  I am confident I will weigh less than last time, but less confident it will be an impressive amount of loss.  I ate 700 calories more this week than my optimum.  That’s why weight control has to be first in your mind.  I have promised myself that eating fewer calories will be rewarded!  I can’t break that promise by not eating on time.  That’s unfair and will erode my diet, because important parts of me just won’t cooperate.  My promise to myself is that important, and I will work on keeping it better. 

-The Doctor

20190606 Daily report

A few weeks ago, my problem was facing the scale.  There are two parts to my system of weight control: (1) regulate your food intake and (2) weigh yourself periodically.  I was a bit psyched out over facing the scale, even though I was pretty sure my food regulation was going well.  Now, I find my worry has reversed.  I don’t mind the scale.  Instead, I am having some problems keeping my hunger where I want it.  Ideally, I eat three times a day: 8AM, 11.30AM, and 5:30PM.  I started the day today with something unusual for me – a test of the most famous breakfast sandwich there is.  

This is a well made sandwich with good components

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Sausage Egg McMuffin (480)

  • 480 calories

Lunch – 6 x slices of Aldi frozen pizza (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 2 x bratwurst raps (300)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Nestle Li’l Drums vanilla cone (110)

  • 190 calories

Total for the day: 1870 calories (limit 1800)

Hunger management

It always surprises people when I tell them that McDonald’s uses a whole real egg per McMuffin.  It’s true.  I used to assemble these things one summer in high school.  The eggs were real, and almost everything in the store was good quality material.  It’s a good sandwich.  Compared to the frozen breakfast sandwich from Jimmy Dean, this McMuffin has a larger sausage and more egg, a more tangy cheese, and butter.  The muffin is the weak point.  Compared to the Jimmy Dean croissant, it’s unremarkable.  But at 480 calories, I think swapping in a croissant would make this sandwich remarkably calorie heavy.

For lunch, I was late today.  I didn’t eat until 1.15PM or so, and I was very hungry.  I wolfed most of the pizza slices down.  (I carry beef jerky with me now, but I am having a hard time recognizing that I need to use it.)  Getting too hungry is counter productive, and I was sure my body would be in a food panic.  Sure enough, starting at 4PM all I could think about was dinner.  I don’t know if I was really hungry or just having a reaction to eating lunch so late.  So I ate dinner early.  Now I am having to use some willpower to keep myself focused on tomorrow. 

I want to be hungry for breakfast, there will be blueberry pie!  And, I am not actually hungry now.  But part of me is upset about getting too hungry at lunchtime.  That part wants food security and wants to feel full.  That part thinks we are hungry.  Imagine a little voice saying “We are not full!  Quickly, eat until you are so full you can’t eat any more!  Then you will be satisfied.”  Normally that voice keeps quiet.  But today I had bad hunger management.  That’s rather careless of me.  Part of the tradeoff I have made to be in control of my weight, is to pay a lot of attention to what and when I eat.  There are consequences if I don’t.  

My normal feelings at this point in the evening are satisfaction and happiness that I have eaten well and am ready to do it again tomorrow.  I know I am going to lose weight on top of that.  Now that feeling is spoiled and I am unsatisfied.  Tomorrow, I am going to pay careful attention and make myself feel loved and attended to.  Then the little voice will get drowned out in the sea of satisfaction I usually get to feel.  Behold the price of success!  It is absolutely worth the effort, when done well. 

-The Doctor

20190605 Daily report

It’s important to understand how people stay thin.  You aren’t different from other people.  If you do what the thin people do, you will stay thin, too.  My experience is that people who stay thin are very interested, or somewhat obsessed about it.  That’s not a bad thing.  While I was gaining weight, I was definitely not obsessed with staying thin.  I wasn’t thinking about it at all very much.  Now I could fairly describe myself as very interested or even a bit obsessed about it.  And I am losing weight.  If I stopped being interested, stopped paying attention, I would go back to gaining weight.  That’s true for everybody else, too.  The naturally thin person, who can carelessly eat without gaining weight, is a myth.  

A favorite breakfast. Note the horseradish sauce.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200); extra bacon slice (70)

  • 470 calories

Lunch – “Ninja” Taiwanese style fried chicken (200); Duck Donut (250)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – 2 x bratwurst wraps (300); Partial slice of Spanish tortilla (100); Bread (100)

  • 800 calories

Snacking – pretzels (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1800 calories (limit 1800)

Quickie

I am very interested in eating food as a sensual, pleasurable experience.  That’s why my BLT wraps are so good.  But how does a lover of food stay thin?  Julia Child had an answer.  She was quoted as saying “a little of everything, but no seconds.”  She had a system for regulating her food intake!  There’s also a New England food saying, “if you get up from the table with an appetite, you shall never sit down without one.”  Now I take that with a grain or spoon of salt, since New Englanders of that period were famously against using food as a sensual experience.  But there’s no doubt that it places the focus on being hungry, where it should be.  Julia Child’s advice suggests that you have to enjoy what you have because you don’t get any more.  It’s the same – don’t get full. 

Almost everyone wants to be full when they eat.  But they are usually wrong.  Don’t get full, that’s how you gain weight.  There’s also a sensual reason for not getting full.  If you are ravenously hungry when you sit down, your food will taste better.  You will really be concentrating on it.  And if you make the sacrifice – if you give up a future where you are comfortably full – you must reward yourself.  You can reward yourself with a measured amount of really tasty food that you are looking forward to.  In essence, you will eat your best food at the peak of your ability to enjoy it.  And you are controlling your weight as you do it.  

Isn’t that a wonderful way to live?  It’s working for me.  It could work for you.

-The Doctor

20190604 Daily report

Being in control of your body’s weight is different from being on a diet and losing weight.  Many people have lost weight, using different methods such as keto.  Reading the forums there seems to be little doubt that keto diets, faithfully followed, result in weight loss.  But how do you maintain your new body?  You only know (1) your old life, which makes you gain weight, and (2) the diet, where you can lose weight, using a lot of will power. 

The internet is full of stories of people gaining, losing, and then gaining all their weight back.  That’s a tragedy, considering all the will power they put into losing that weight in the first place.  And it’s very demoralizing.  You have worked and sacrificed to lose that weight.  You lost it.  And then it all comes back.  The weight control idea is more of a plan for what happens after you have lost weight.  There is a lot of paying attention involved, but it addresses the problem of What Now.

Blueberry pie for breakfast. It counts as diet food for me.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Blueberry pie, one-eighth slice (400); baked chicken piece (100)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – 2 x bratwurst on flatbread (300)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 2 x Spanish tortilla slices on flatbreads with mayonnaise and Tobasco (265)

  • 530 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160); raw blueberries (50); 2T hummus (70)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1910 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Swimming day today

I went swimming today.  I like swimming and always have.  Even when I was very overweight, I would make time for doing it.  My point is, I do it because I like it.  Many people have lost weight without going to the gym, or swimming, or increasing their exercise level at all.  There’s no doubt that people who go to the gym regularly are more physically fit.  You could make the case they are carrying their weight differently than a non-exerciser.  And being stronger is better for carrying out your work.  But it doesn’t seem essential for weight loss.  

Exercise can make you hungry, though.  By 4PM, I was already getting hungry.  Tea with half and half held things off, and I ate dinner at 5:30.  However I was hungry again by 8:00 and had some hummus and some blueberries.  That worked. The impatient part of me (a large part of me is impatient) tries to fight against having any more calories.  That voice says, maybe, if I don’t eat extra calories, I will lose weight faster.  I used to listen to that voice a lot.  But now I listen to being hungry.  Withholding food when I am hungry is like a punishment, and who needs that?  Losing weight is hard enough.  Maybe my weight loss won’t be as fast this week.  But losing weight isn’t the point. 

Losing weight is not hte point??!?!  What are you saying, Doctor?

I am building a new lifestyle that I like and a way I want to live, that I will be living for a long time.  This lifestyle includes weight control.  If losing weight is a little faster one week and a little slower another week, well, I am still in control.  Paying attention still happens, the food journal is still written.  I know when I am eating more and eating less.  But while reaching 205 pounds is a goal, it is not the main goal.  Building my new life and having it be fulfilling, satisfying, and wonderful, is the main goal.  Dieting doesn’t get me to where I want to go.  Weight control is the way forward.  

-The Doctor  

20190603 Daily report

I have committed to two behaviors that will gain me control over my weight.  They will work throughout my lifetime, but I will have to keep doing them.  (1) Monitor your food intake and (2) weight yourself.  These are mechanistic – they work, but you have to have your head right, or else you will not keep doing them.  My flawed past understanding of this fact resulted in previous failed diets.  I wanted to lose weight but not have to change anything about myself.  It’s really the other way around.  Losing weight, especially the 120 pounds I am losing, takes a complete mental revolution.  The body follows the mind.  

Two levels of portion control for the Spanish tortilla

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – leftover 2 x chicken fajitas with creamy peppers and onions (170); pretzels and hummus (150)

  • 490 calories

Lunch – Half slice Costco pizza (380); chicken wrap with hummus, lettuce and tomato (200)

  • 580 calories 

Dinner – Spanish tortilla (500); mayonnaise (100); steamed vegetables (50)

  • 650 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); ddd (00)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1800 calories (limit 1800)

Building anticipation leads to fulfillment

I had never heard of Spanish Tortilla until a few years ago, but now it is one of my favorite meals.  My recipe is slightly different from what they make in Spain, but still fabulous.  It’s a mixture of eggs, potatoes, and onion cooked together in olive oil – no spices apart from salt and pepper, and no other ingredients.  It’s simple to prepare, but does require an oven so I don’t make it much during high summer.  But I made it today.  Because of all the olive oil (a half cup, or 1000 calories), the entire dish is 2000 calories.  I usually cut it into 12 wedges of about 165 calories each.  Mayonnaise is wonderful with it (100 calories for a tablespoon – I don’t eat light mayonnaise).  The recipe will be posted on another page soon.  

I made sure I was very hungry for this meal, since I like it so much.  I didn’t eat until nearly 6PM, which is late for my stomach’s clock.  It was totally worth the wait.  And now I have the leftovers in the refrigerator ready for breakfast the next few days.  It’s great, I get to enjoy it all over again, thanks the same insight – it will be at its best if I am truly hungry and famished when I sit down.  Looking forward to a meal you know you are going to enjoy, and then preparing by getting hungry (I try to avoid snacking or appetizers just for this reason), and then eating it and having it be every bit as good as you were hoping – wonderful.  Fulfilling and comforting.  It’s a nice way to live.

I am starting to think more about what will happen when I get to a weight I want to maintain.  How will I go from 1800 calories daily to 2800, and still maintain the sense of hunger and fulfillment I have now?  It’s a really intense experience to live this way, I feel like time is moving slowly this year since I am paying so much attention.  But I think part of the answer is going to be: liquid.  I have avoided having a glass of milk, or apple cider, or many other drinks, for months.  I just can’t afford them and still feel satisfied with the restricted calories I am eating. 

A hint of the rest of the answer might be found in reading Mark Twain.  He said that his favorite was to eat a meal and a half for day – a roll and coffee for breakfast, then nothing until dinner.  Looking through my weight control lens, this is a great strategy.  He admits his dinner was really big, and he found the food very enjoyable.  I think he was waiting until he was hungry, then matching that hunger to his dinner.  On the other hand, it sounds like he was eating until stuffed, which I am avoiding.  I will keep thinking about it.  I feel like the answer is in there.

-The Doctor

20190602 Daily report

The price of thinness is paying attention.  The thinner you are, the harder you must work to stay that way.  At least, in the abundance we live in now.  Not too long ago, getting enough to eat, at all, was an achievement!  The way I pay this price, while becoming thinner, is to write down everything I eat.  There are many thin people who don’t write this stuff down, but they have other ways of keeping track.  You will find most thin people who stay thin, count calories and know how much they are eating in a day.   Writing stuff down is a lot of effort, by comparison.  But writing it down is how I am doing it.  It works.  

Known as the Satuday Evening Supper. Yes, I know it's actually Sunday.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – 2 x Bratwurst wraps (300)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Saturday Evening Supper (600)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1680 calories (limit 1800)

Becoming a person in control of their weight

Part of the transformation I underwent was to add “being in control of my weight” to my list of values I live by.  Before January, 2019 that was very low on my list.  I also put “being thin” on my list of values, but note that being in control is on top.  Before my transformation, I wouldn’t sacrifice much to be thinner.  It wasn’t important to me.  When I decided it should be important, I felt like I had no way to get there.  I had tried forcing myself to eat less, and lose weight.  But I couldn’t keep it up.  Now I can.  

Getting my mind right, and getting the different parts of me lined up and willing to undertake this effort, was the most important transformation I have ever made.  It was certainly the most conscious.  Once I had my mind right, my body followed.  It is still following.  That is the way msot of us will work.  The mind leads, the body follows.  

After winning the mental battle, I came up with mechanisms to help me.  One is a method of portion control, using food I am very happy to eat.  On this weight loss program, I will not touch diet foods, or low fat foods, and so forth.  I will only eat foods I really want to eat.  Look at the meal pictured above.  It looks like some delicious  food generously and spontaneously served onto a plate – some of this, some of that, the whole called Saturday Evening Supper.  But appearances can be deceiving.  There is an orderliness to that plate.

The first hint of measurement is the sausage – clearly a single link, of mild Italian flavor.  It was 250 calories, in fact, based on the package label.  The pile of cheese?  One ounce of goat cheese, 70 calories.  The heap of noodles?  4 ounces (cooked), 200 calories.  The peppers and onions were cooked in olive oil and mixed with green peas.  There is one cup of this vegetable mix, which I estimate has about 80 calories.  The total, 600 calories, was my dinner.  I made sure I was hungry for it, so to maximize my enjoyment.  I ate 1680 calories today, and enjoyed dinner a lot.  Every meal today was worth waiting for AND getting hungry for.  I get to eat this, and I will lose weight too.  It’s a lovely system.  It nourishes me in several ways, and the different parts of my mind and body are working together – no willpower is required to lose weight.  In fact, eating like this is a source of satisfaction and happiness.  

I will post the recipe for this dinner soon.  Enjoy your diet!  And if you don’t, maybe you should.  

-The Doctor

20190531 Daily report

Welcome!  Every day, I keep a log of everything I eat.  This task is a trade-off.  I want to control my weight and become thin and stay that way.  The price is paying attention.  If I keep track of what I eat, I will gain knowledge about how I gain and lose weight.  I can use that knowledge to keep in control of my weight.  Thin people (those who stay thin) all do this in different ways.

Before January of this year, I weighed 325 pounds and the number was not getting any smaller by itself.  So, I remade myself into a person who cared a lot about being thin and staying thin.  Part of the system I developed was to reward myself for losing weight.  What kind of rewards?  This kind!  

Blueberry reward pie! It's for tomorrow.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco pizza half slice (350)

  • 350 calories

Lunch – Chicken fajita wrap with peppers and onions in cream sauce (170); 2 x fritatta wraps with Parmesan and bacon (650)

  • 820 calories 

Dinner – 3 slices of Red Baron pizza (190)

  • 570 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Nestle Li’l Drums vanilla cone (110)

  • 190 calories

Total for the day: 1930 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Reach and Reward

I have a few achievements coming up.  Tomorrow, I expect I will be under 270 pounds.  In a short time, I expect to be under 265 pounds, which means I will be half way through my weight loss phase.  It’s been an intense half year!  I have never paid so much attention to what I am eating and how I feel about it.  You may be thinking that rewarding myself using food is a bad idea.  I have read on weight loss forums that it is unhealthy to see food as a reward.  But to me, that makes as much sense as horse elbows.  I have already changed my whole relationship to food and eating.  Under my new food regime, food is a reward all the time.  Every meal is something to look forward to.  The reward of the next meal is what keeps me from over eating! 

Anyway, I have made a reward blueberry pie, using mostly my mother’s recipe.  How much does my reward cost?

  • crust 120 calories x 16 servings per package = 1920 calories
  • blueberries 6 cups = 510 calories 
  • sugar 1 cup = 773 calories

The total is 3203 calories.  Let’s call it 3200.  1/8 pie is 400 calories.  1/12 pie is 266 calories.  If I have 1/8 of the pie (after I get weighed tomorrow!), that is a perfectly reasonable breakfast of 400 calories.  I am going to grill tomorrow, so I have to stop with one piece so I can enjoy my freshly grilled lunch.  My reward fits into my weight loss regime and is still a reward I get to eat.  It will encourage me to get to the next milestone.  What will that reward be?  My rewards have all been food up till now.  I am thinking a restaurant may be involved this time.  

Rewards pull you forward, especially if you have transformed your eating goal.   Lead with your mind and your body will follow.  I am the proof.

-The Doctor

20190530 Daily report

Summer is coming!  Soon it will get too hot for me to use my oven much.  So it’s time to break out the Doctor’s summer menu!  That means….outdoor grilling, stovetop cooking, toaster oven, and stir frying outdoors.  And the slow cooker.  A vegetable may appear on the menu from time to time, if I can stand the excitement.  Bacon may go on vacation for a while.  Exhibit A, pictured below, is chicken fajitas with peppers and onions cooked in cream sauce.  I’ll explain the calorie strategy below.  

Chicken fajitas for dinner!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – catered – potatoes and eggs (300)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – catered food – burrito bowl with beans, rice, chicken, and beef (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – chicken fajitas with peppers and onions in cream sauce, with sour cream (500)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Kentucky Legend ham slices (200); Nestle Lil Drums chocolate ice cream cone (120)

  • 400 calories

Total for the day: 1700 calories (limit 1800)

Last day of catered food

Yesterday and today I was at a technical workshop and had catered food as part of the package.  It was very tasty catering.  But it was hard to have a strategy besides “don’t have seconds” because I couldn’t really measure or weigh anything.  The only other trick was “don’t have more than the thin people are having”.  

For dinner today, I made one of my favorite summer dishes, chicken fajitas with peppers and onions cooked in cream sauce.  I’ll include the recipe on a separate page later.  This is a fantastic dish and very quick to make.  Besides being really tasty, it can be very low calorie.  The peppers are seared under the broiler.  (The broiler is only on for a few minutes so it doesn’t heat the whole kitchen.)  The broiled peppers are then skinned and reheated in a skillet with seared onions, garlic, and spices, then half-and-half and lime juice are added and cooked until well thickened.  Separately, you can cook chicken breast strips in a fajita marinade, but today I took a shortcut and used Perdue precooked chicken strips with fajita flavoring already added.  

This dish lends itself well to calorie counting.  The entire package of chicken was 360 calories.  One pound of poblano peppers and onions together, with cooking oil, are about 200 calories, and the half-and-half is 160 calories.  The flour tortillas are 140 calories each (!), so I broke them in half and had three little burritos like the one pictured above.  This recipe makes a fair amount and I had this much of it:

  • 1.5 flour tortillas = 210 calories
  • 6 ounces Perdue precooked chicken strips = 150 calories
  • A third of the peppers and onions in cream sauce = 120 calories
  • A bit of crumbled Feta cheese on top = 20 calories.

If I had three whole flour tortillas, I would have added 210 calories to the total.  But all three meals I had today were great, and because of that my body is happy with eating less than 1800 calories. 

And since I am focused on making sure I am hungry for breakfast, I want to avoid eating any more tonight.  

-The Doctor

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