20191106 Daily report

The job seems simple – lose weight by eating less food!

Amazingly, that doesn’t work with actual people.  Part of the problem is the word “less”.  Do you know how much you are eating?  How many calories did you have today, yesterday, last week, last month?  How many calories does you body need to gain weight?  Lose weight?  Stay the same?

If you can’t answer those questions, then you can’t eat “less” food.  You can only guess, and measure by how deprived you feel.  Keep a food journal instead, and write in it everything you eat, with a calorie count.  After a while you will know exactly how much you are eating and when you eat it.

Then you can talk about less.

Big Greek Cafe Famous $5 Gyro Wednesday!!!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2T peanut butter (190); 2T jelly (100); toasted bread (150);

  • 440 calories

Lunch – Big Greek Cafe Gyros sandwich (600); 

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 10oz sausage chili (420); chicken (150); noodles (100);

  • 670 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels (50); baklava (200); Fun Size Snickers (80); granola bar (100)

  • 510 calories

Total for the day: 2220 calories (limit 1800)

Now I've done it!

I didn’t do a good job today of focusing on weight control and putting those needs first.  Instead, I was so distracted with my day job that I first delayed breakfast (and was too hungry in consequence) and then lunch.  Now that I think about it, I was pretty late to have dinner, too.  After that kind of treatment, it’s no wonder that my body took over.  After dinner, I found I was still emotionally hungry and craving more food.  I call it food insecurity – after letting myself get too hungry three times in one day, it’s no surprise that I am getting a reaction.  

The temptation is to blame primal drives, or complain that dieting is hard, or Big Sugar or whatever.  But the truth is I did this to myself and I have no-one to blame but myself.  Based on all my past experience and my keeping a food journal, I know what I did to cause this and I have to take the consequences.

When I fail myself like this and then get emotionally hungry (not physically hungry) I don’t try to use force to suppress the urge.  That would make things even worse.  Look at it from the point of view of my body or subconscious.  It suffered all day because I didn’t feed it on time, then when it justifiably complained, I used punishment (denying the urge and trying to not eat).  Would that help?  I don’t think so.  So I had various foods and now I feel too full.  I accept the consequences of how I behaved and I will have to do better tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a new day.  

There has to be a balance in your life.  Frankly, weight control has to be pretty high up in your list of values for it to work consistently.  It takes a high precedence but it’s not difficult.  Just make sure you eat on time and don’t stress your body out.  Maybe I will start setting an alarm – Time to Eat!

Pay attention and you can control your weight.  Don’t ask too much of yourself and don’t punish your body for failure.  It will work out.  Put the blame where it should be.  

-The Doctor

20191105 Daily report

Staying on a diet is really hard.  I never could do it for long.  It was too hard to work against my needs and desires all the time.  That kind of thing takes a lot of willpower.  I have never had that.

So I don’t do that any more.  Instead, I figure out how to get things I really want that can be part of a weight control lifestyle.  An example is swimming.  I picked an exercise I really like.  I like swimming so much, that I happily go twice a week and look forward to it every time.  I like swimming so much that I can use it as a reward.  It’s something to look forward to, and enjoying your lifestyle is a way to keep it going without needing all your willpower.  

A new treat!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2x muffins (90); toast (130); and 2x Muenster cheese (70);

  • 440 calories

Lunch – Aldi pizza half (570); 

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – Fajitas: flour tortilla shell (140); marinated chicken breast (100); peppers and onions in cream sauce (80); muffin (90);

  • 410 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 8x Baklava cookies (260)

  • 380 calories

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

DIET and EXERCISE

The two most dreaded parts of losing weight must be diet and exercise.  Who wants to do those?  If you don’t want to do it, it takes limitless willpower to make yourself – you have to force yourself to do what you’d rather not and eat what you don’t like.

Except for swimming.  I like to do that.  I like riding my bike, but I haven’t done that in a few years.  I am not a “ride 50 miles” kind of bike rider, anyway.  15 miles is plenty for me.  So I guess I could exercise.  (See what I’m getting at?  Don’t start by running marathons or going to aerobics classes, or even swimming, if you dislike them.  Pick one you have always liked.)

DIETING is the same.  It’s a terrible word that people hate.  Why do people hate to diet?  Because you have to force deprivation on yourself. You feel deprived.  Why?  Because you are withholding what you want from yourself.  Something it would be easy to give yourself.  Do that for a while and you will be searching for reasons to break the diet and give up.  So don’t do that.

Aim higher.  What are your reasons for eating?  How does it make you feel?  Feeling full was always my goal before.  It’s not a high goal, though.  When I thought about it, I didn’t feel proud of that goal.  And I could see how fulfilling that goal was resulting in overeating and weight gain.  Eating until full at every meal?  That couldn’t be right.  The amount of comfort and satisfaction you get from that diminishes if it’s your only aim.

What is a higher aim?  I talked about fulfilling your goal, and that is part of the answer.  Change your goals.  Change your mind.  Choose goals that you can be proud of.  Make them goals that are harder to reach than being full.  Then meeting those higher and more challenging goals will be more difficult, but much more satisfying and meaningful to you.  

LAST, I bought baklava today to try.  It’s ok, but baked desserts bought in the store are never, ever as good as you can make yourself.  I may have to make my own baklava in the future, though I never have before.  On the other hand, I do like the tea cookies from Costco.  But after I eat them all (and it’s Costco and that will take some doing) I will be cured for a long while.  I will make my own desserts and enjoy them.  

If fulfillment is your aim, what would fulfill you completely? 

-The Doctor

20191104 Daily report

When I started thinking about losing weight in late 2018, I knew one thing very quickly.  Whatever I was going to do, it had to be long term.  Not only did I have a lot of weight to lose, which would take a long time.  But also, having lost any significant amount of weight, I didn’t want to gain it back afterwards.  That’s why I threw out the word “diet” immediately.  In long-term thinking, dieting is a temporary condition where you eat things you don’t want, and never enough to feel satisfied.  You are going against your own desires and your own goals for eating and happiness, as far as those go together.  

Weight control was the way I came up with.  Mrs. Doctor of Things says Weight Management would be less intimidating for people than weight control.  But I think that it is too bland, and also feels like you are giving up.  You manage things you can’t change, after all.  Control sounds more like you should be in charge, which I think you have to be.

So many kinds of chocolate!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Spanish tortilla (333); 1/2 flatbread wrap (55); mayo (30)

  • 415 calories

Lunch – 7 ounces rice (220); 8oz chicken curry (240);

  • 460 calories 

Dinner – 2x pancakes (65); sandwich bread (130); 2oz ham (90) 1.5 slices swiss cheese (75); pickles mustard and horseradish (20); 

  • 450 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 5x Kirkland tea cookies (210)

  • 290 calories

Total for the day: 1615 calories (limit 1800)

Thinking for the long term

That is how I came up with weight control as a system.  It is accurate and puts the responsibility right on you, where it belongs.  Dieting, though, is a problem for the long term.  Are you going to live on your diet forever?  

Every successful diet is about restricting the amount of food you eat.  Low carbohydrate diets, for example.  In that system, you are actually giving up a lot of calories and you will lose weight that way.  Think about it – no chips, no fries, no rice, pasta, pizza, bagels, toast, cereal, cake, cookies, or sugar.  No pancakes.  Eat all the peanut butter you want, but you have to eat it with a spoon (or a celery stick).  Eat all the hamburger you want, but no bun.  All the cheese you like, without crackers.  And so on. 

There are two ways you are cutting calories in the low carb system.  The first is, you are giving up a lot of foods, which have calories.  The second way is balance, or the lack of it.  You get tired of eating peanut butter by the spoonful.  There are only so many chicken breasts you can eat without potatoes.  You can never have a sandwich, unless you try diet bread, which is not as nice.  Plain meatballs without pasta or bread are tiring.  

It’s the same for other diets.  Paleo – you are giving up a lot of oils as well as processed carbohydrates.  Keto – basically low carb.  Bariatric surgery – you are putting a physical limit on your stomach to make yourself feel full faster, so you (in theory) eat fewer calories.  But bariatric surgery comes with a lot of restrictions you have to live with forever.  And so forth.  

There have been some attempts to get around this problem (Diet vs. lifestyle).  Think of The Mediterranean Diet, for example.  But in general, dieting is for losing weight, not for living.  I don’t think many people would be interested in keto, low carb, or atkins….forever.  Weight control, on the other hand, means you can eat anything you want as long as it fits into the calorie goal.  You have to pay attention and plan ahead.  It has a price in time and energy you will spend.  But it is very nice and you can live this way forever – I have been doing it for 10 months now and I have no desire to stop.  This is just how I will live now.

Tying this to yesterday’s thoughts, a long term diet is possible if it is so attractive and worthwhile that it doesn’t require constant force and isn’t a constant drain on your will power.  There is some discipline involved in recording all the foods and calories in a food journal, but the return on the effort is very worthwhile.  Will is involved, but the aim is high – a better and more satisfying life, that gives me a tremendous sense of meaning.  The meaning and purpose in this lifestyle come from the feeling that all the parts of my being – body, mind and soul – are coming together for this.  I have successfully negotiated with myself and gotten the cooperation of all my competing parts and their different wants and needs.  And I lose weight, too.

Who needs to force themself to do that?

-The Doctor

20191103 Daily report

Someone asked me yesterday (Saturday) how I was losing weight.  We had met before, but I weighed 87 more pounds then.  Really, he asked what I was doing differently.  Like other people who ask me about my weight loss, he had a theory: was I cutting carbohydrates out of my diet?  

I have been thinking about what to tell people when they ask me about weight loss.  I decided to tell him about paying attention.  The biggest change I made in my mind was to make weight control one of the top values I live by.  I don’t eat a thing without considering what effect it will have on the day’s calorie count.  So I told him about that.  When it is at the top of your mind, and you see everything through that interpretation, the act of paying attention by, for example, recording all the calories you eat, results in controlling your food intake.  Even if all you are doing is recording your calorie count, you are in fact controlling it just by knowing what it is.

It doesn’t mean you have to give up any food in particular.  

My precious!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – one-skillet chicken breast (210) and 6 oz. rice and peas (140)

  • 350 calories

Lunch – 5 oz. white rice (160); 12oz chicken curry with cauliflower (340)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – pretzels and hummus (200); chicken fajitas with peppers and onions cooked in cream (150) in a flour tortilla (150)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 5x Kirkland tea cookies (210); 2x Reese’s peanut butter cups (160) graham crackers (100)

  • 550calories

Total for the day: 1900 calories (limit 1800)

A rich vein: willpower

I have been searching for what to tell people when they ask me about how I lost weight.  I have tried telling people about keeping a food journal.  That has not been well received.   I have tried telling people about rewarding myself with foods I like, but I think that can sound flippant.  Talking about paying attention seemed to work well as a narrative, though.  

Yesterday, when I was asked, I started out talking about promoting weight control, as something I value, to the top value I live by, and seeing everything I eat through the question: how will this affect weight control?  When you come to it, all diets are about restricting calories, in various ways and disguises.  Talking about what I value led easily to a calorie count.  At that point, he asked if I was using willpower to do this.  So this approach may not be the best after all.

I am now thinking about willpower.  If I start out answering this question by admitting I don’t have the willpower to force myself to eat less, then I can talk about persuading myself to eat less, by adopting a lifestyle I like, and finding the deeper meaning that I have been telling you about on this blog.  Also, I think it is disarming to say your willpower is inadequate.  Many people feel that way about themselves, too.  Hearing you say (having dramatically lost 87 pounds) that willpower wasn’t a big factor will intrigue people.  

Only then can you bring up the idea of paying attention, values, rewards, and persuasion.  So much of my new lifestyle is finding ways to please myself that aren’t about having a full stomach.  There are a lot of substitutes for that.  Finding the ones you like is self-knowledge you can’t do without.

Should I call it the Persuasion Diet?

-The Doctor

20191102 Saturday weigh-in

Once you have promoted weight control to the top of your moral hierarchy (or very near the top – let’s say the top three), it is hard to look at the world any other way.  I was reading through my food journal and it’s amazing to see how it plays out.  (I also record life events in the journal.)  In my non food life, good things happen, and bad things happen, and through it all, I keep recording what I ate and how many calories, how I felt about it, how often I exercise, calorie content of foods, and of course, how much I weigh.  

I weigh my body every Saturday.  It is so important to me that I am weighing my whole family!  I keep a separate record of that.  I even want the kids to pay attention to their weight and have all the tools they need to control it.  Tool #1 is to record what you ate and how many calories were in it.  Tool #2 is just as important.  You must weigh yourself every week. 

There are perfectly good alternates for these tools, too.  But these are mine.  

Not quite straight, but still a lower number than before.

Since starting my weight control lifestyle, with a new weight control mind, back in January 2019, I have lost:

Pounds!!
0

The pull of candy.....turn it into a reward

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

20191101 Daily report

To lose weight, you have to get your mind right.  Once your mind is right, then your brain is on your side.  Your body will follow.  How is this mind-miracle achieved?

On one level, it’s your brain.  You have to figure some of it out.  But I can show you some good ideas.  First, be willing to admit that everything you think about weight loss might be wrong.  A common way to approach a diet is to try to will yourself thin .  Don’t force yourself to eat and do things you aren’t happy about.  That brings us to punishment and resentment.  Through force and punishment, you can actually come to resent yourself.  It is easy to resent the part of you that is saying “eat less!”  and insisting that you eat things you don’t want, and making you go hungry and unsatisfied.

Instead, think of it as a negotiation between equal partners.  No force is allowed.  Get your mind right first – you want to lose weight and eat less.  How do you do that and still have a satisfying and happy life experience?

Pizza, again!!?!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2x pieces Spanish tortilla (333); Kirkland whole wheat wrap (110); 1tsp Duke’s mayo (30);

  • 470 calories

Lunch – noodles (250); toast (130); hummus (80); Swiss cheese (50);

  • 510 calories 

Dinner – Aldi sausage and pepperoni pizza half (570);

  • 570 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 2x Aldi peanut butter cups (120); 1 bag chips (150);

  • 350 calories

Total for the day: 1900 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Spooky creepy spectacular!

OK, that was one last salute to Halloween.  I have nothing spooky, though if my scale is possessed tomorrow, I will let you know.  

Every week, I spend some time reading articles and blog posts about weight loss to try and understand what ideas are working for people.  Usually I focus on stories about people who have lost 100+ pounds.  First, that includes me (though I haven’t lost that much yet).  Second, those are people who have had to develop a good system and work at it.  Third, these are people who are able to keep their weight under control afterwards.  That means they have built new lives that work for them.  

Today’s article: What Women Who’ve Lost 100 Pounds Eat Every Day

The article profiles five women, very briefly presenting a table of their food choices.  I’m not sure about the premise of the article.  Maybe eating what these women eat wouldn’t work for you, and maybe it would.  There’s no mention of a food diary or a calorie count, just a list of foods and a bit of narrative color.  I have pulled out some interesting pieces from each profile.

  1. TK’s food choices are not that interesting to me, but she mentions that she snacks whenever she needs it.  That is great – don’t try to tough out being hungry.  Part of you will resent going without and feel deprived.  That kind of thing can lead to breaking your diet discipline.  Get some snack packs and learn to recognize when you need one.  I have little packs of beef jerky, 90 calories each.  I’m still not that good about knowing when to open one, though.
  2. SK has an interesting food list.  She learned that her body does well when she avoids dairy and carbohydrates.  She has a fair amount of meat and protein in her diet, and then she rewards herself with measured amounts of chocolate.  That kind of self-knowledge is wonderful.  She has built a diet that she likes and her body likes too.  That kind of thing will make it easier for her to stay thin.
  3. JJH incorporates several ideas into her diet that the Doctor has mentioned before.  She pre-prepares a lot of meals on the weekends and portions them.  She eats a lot of meat and vegetables, and her top breakfast choice is bacon and eggs.  I am getting hungry for that right now, just reading about it.  Reading her bio, she also mentions failing on a lot of previous attempts at dieting.  Like me, she admits she stopped paying any attention to weight control and gained a lot of weight over time.  For her, a supportive social network and strength training were also important.  
  4. For CG, I see a trick I have seen elsewhere – raw vegetables and hummus as the snack.  She also seems to avoid breads and simple carbohydrates.  That’s true for a lot of people, I notice.  When you are restricting your calorie intake, you have to be very aware of what foods will make you feel satisfied and not mind eating controlled amounts.  Looking at her bio, she is also someone who had bariatric surgery, which restricts your stomach size.  That helped her feel full while eating less.  I would be concerned about what happens when the surgery is reversed, because she talks about wanting to feel full.  But for her it seemed to work.
  5. Last, it’s CP.  I am predisposed to this one because she is a fan of flatbread sandwiches for lunch.  I love those!  It’s a great way to have a sandwich without hundreds of calories of bread.  Also, I see a lot of themes I know and love in her bio.  She does a lot of pre planning of her meals – check!  She found some supportive friends – check!  And she makes a thing about not punishing herself, but being kind – which I totally agree with.  Use rewards to keep yourself happy and satisfied.  It works for a lot of things.  

The Doctor is a big proponent of a food journal, counting calories and weighing yourself often.  This article doesn’t mention any of that, but it does say that it’s about what people eat – not how much.  I don’t think there is any magic about what you eat, but it pays to look and see what other successful people are doing.  Maybe you will learn something.   Don’t be too proud to learn!  

-The Doctor

20191031 Daily report

My weight control-focused lifestyle is lived one day at a time.  Almost, one meal at a time.  But really, every day is a new day.  My calorie count is for the day.  My food journal is set up for daily entries.  It is not always easy to live while focused on high quality experience, since I am asking a lot of myself.  There is a lot of effort, planning, and execution of plans.  I am taking it one day at a time, in more ways than one.  One day at a time is something ex-alcoholics or ex-smokers might say in group meetings.  But yes, it is one day at a time.  It is not easy.  But there are compensations.  

Chicken and....basically a risotto.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2x Spanish tortilla (166); whole wheat wrap (110); tsp mayonnaise (30)

  • 470 calories

Lunch – steak and cheese sandwich (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – chicken breast (220); 10 ounces rice casserole and peas (230)

  • 450 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 3 pieces candy (150);

  • 270 calories

Total for the day: 1690 calories (limit 1800)

Halloween!

The Doctor is taking tonight off in honor of the holiday (and because there is a lot to do tonight: costumes, trick or treating, candy sorting, candy eating…).

I will say: I have been spending time in my office recently.  It’s amazing how supportive people are about weight loss, but it’s always people who are thin themselves who comment and give encouragement.  I recognize now that people who are thin work at it constantly with various degrees of success.  So they recognize that you are working at it too.  Maybe they appreciate it.  

But wanting to be thinner is not the same as making the mental changes necessary to bring it about.  Even working at it does not guarantee any success, as I found out over the years.  You have to have a good system that you like and are willing to live out.  That means promoting new values to the top of your hierarchy of rules you live by.  Changing your mind is actually the tricky part.

Do it and your body will follow.  That part will take time.

-The Doctor

20191030 Daily report

Every day, my job is to live in the world as if I was in control of my weight, and as if that was a good thing.  I want that life to be both very practical and of high quality, because that’s the kind of life I find worth living.  On the practical level, I maintain weight control by planning meals and counting calories, and recording what I eat in a food journal.  Also, I weigh myself every Saturday, with few exceptions.  

On the quality of life side, it is important to most of us to be living a life one can be proud of.  That is part of the meaning of quality.  If your standards are low, quality can mean anything.  For years, the idea of quality that I lived was to eat whatever I felt like, and not pay any attention to how much.  Now I do things differently.  Quality now means successfully negotiating with myself, to engage as many layers and parts of my being as possible towards my goal.  The feeling that so many parts of my life and of myself are coming together and working together gives me a strong sense of meaning.  It is very fulfilling to make progress and achieve goals while living in harmony with all your contradictory parts.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Jimmy Dean sausage, egg, and cheese croissantwich, oven-toasted (400)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Roasted chicken breast (220); with 10 ounces of rice and peas cooked in wine, broth, and spices (230)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – 12 ounces chicken curry (335); 5 ounces cooked white jasmine rice (160)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1470 calories (limit 1800)

Self regulating - the pendulum swings again

Yesterday, when I wrote my food journal in the blog post, it was accurate.  However, that didn’t last.  I had another 500 calories last night, late.  When I have that kind of feeling, like I need to eat, I don’t try to fight it anymore.  I recognize that I haven’t met my own needs somehow.  There are two problems that follow on from this initial failure.

First, there is the temptation to make up for the calorie overage the next day.  I have learned (through this happening before)  that you have to let it go.  Accept that you failed, at least in part, to keep up your end of the bargain.  The bargain is, my subconscious being will be happy eating controlled amounts of food, so long as it doesn’t feel deprived.  That means the food has to be very appealing, it has to be planned well, and I have to take care that I eat at the right times, before I get too hungry and deprived.  Remember I am in deficit as much as 1000 calories per day.  To be that far under what your body needs to keep its weight, a lot of care and attention is required to make the food you do eat seem like enough.  It HAS to be on time, and it HAS to be meeting the need for food that is worth the wait and the effort.  I ate fewer calories today, but that’s because I honestly didn’t want them.  This is because of the second problem.  

The second problem with overeating is that it throws off your digestion, your metabolism, your appetite, for the whole next day.  Sure enough, that was my day today.  I just felt terrible, and while I got hungry and ate food, it just didn’t feel satisfying and I didn’t feel properly hungry.  I was carrying around the imbalance from last night.  Thank goodness, the pendulum will swing back to normal soon.  

Anyway, I have learned that if I try to hurry the pendulum along by skipping a meal, it just makes the problem worse.  I make myself feel deprived again, and that could lead to even more overeating later.  The balance I am trying to maintain would be thrown off even further.  Then the next day’s recovery would be even harder.  That kind of cycle can get really bad.  So my advice is just wait it out.  If you don’t feel better tomorrow, then you will the next day.  Just give your body time to reset.

Today I made a chicken curry for dinner.  You can see the ingredients laid out above, ready for cooking, and then the finished portion plated below that.  I will put the recipe in the Recipes tab at the top of the blog, as soon as I can get around to it.  The point is, when you add up everything in the dish, it comes to 2000 calories.  When I finished cooking, I weighed the entirety in a bowl on the scale: 4 pounds, 11 ounces.  That’s near enough 75 ounces.  One-sixth of that would be 12.5 ounces and 2000/6 portions is 333 calories.  So the whole thing, divided in six portions of 12 ounces each, with 5 ounces of cooked rice per portion (160 calories) is just about 500 calories per portion.  And in my experience,  1.5 cups of raw rice makes 30 ounces of cooked rice.  That’s six portions, five ounces each.  There are six meals, delicious and ready to go.  And curry and rice are easy to reheat.  

What a week!  And still only half done.  Don’t worry about today – it’s gone.  Plan how you can make tomorrow a good day. 

-The Doctor

20191029 Daily report

This weight control lifestyle, which I urge you to try, is worth living all by itself.  Even during those weeks where I didn’t lose any weight, it was still rewarding, satisfying, fulfilling.  And the cost?  Keeping a food journal.  Counting calories.  Weighing yourself weekly.  Changing your mind so you see the world like a thin person.  And a certain amount of planning and cooking meals.  Each meal has to be a reward, you see, so that you will be happy eating a measured portion.  It’s a negotiation you should have with yourself.

Periodically, reward yourself for good progress.  Every 10 pounds I lose, I get a special meal.  Does that sound wrong?  Some diet advice says you shouldn’t use food as a reward.  I bet 85 pounds that that advice is wrong.

A measured portion, but delicious and worth waiting for.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – toasted peanut butter (200) and jelly (100) bread (140)

  • 440 calories

Lunch – half an Aldi pizza (570)

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – 6 ounces cooked spaghetti (300); 5x Kirkland meatballs (230)

  • 530 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); potato chips (100); chocolate almonds (100);

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1820 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Your surprising body

My body never ceases to amaze me.  Last week I was sure I wouldn’t lose any weight.  Part of the reason is I thought I was getting sick; that always messes up my weight.  For one thing, my exercise speed was slow and my breathing was a mess that week.  Many people will tell you that exercise is an essential part of losing weight and getting healthy.  I kind of disagree.  The weight loss forums (try Reddit) are full of people who are losing weight, in some cases 80 or 100 pounds, like me, but very few of them exercise at all.  Most people don’t exercise.  I do it because I like some kinds of exercise.  

My recreation of choice is swimming.  I have been doing it for years, but now it is an important part of my routine, twice a week.  A person who was interested in dieting and exercise for health reasons would probably have more exercise in their routine.  I just want to be in control of my weight!  Exercise doesn’t have to be part of weight control, especially if you have to force yourself to go.  As you know, I don’t like to use willpower just to live my daily life.  But I don’t have to use much of willpower to go swimming, because I look forward to it.  

Anyway, last week my lap times were way off – instead of 70 seconds per lap I was taking 80 seconds, and huffing and puffing all the way.  Today, my lap times were back to normal and my breathing was much easier.  What was going on?  It’s a mystery.  Let’s credit my new swimsuit.  That’s right, for the first time since losing 85+ pounds I have bought a new swimsuit. 

It makes sense if you think about it.  Men are known to gain weight first around the middle and stomach.  First on, last off.  So the last 35 pounds I am trying to lose will come disproportionately from there.  My weight is currently 238 pounds, and my waist size is 44.  When I weighed 325 pounds, my waist size was 52″.  When I weigh 205 pounds, I am guessing my waist size will be noticeably smaller.  Anyway, it was time for a new suit.  When I go to Florida this Christmas, I wonder if I will have to buy another one? 

It was weird looking at the new suit and putting it on.  I am not used to smaller clothes, so part of my brain was insisting it wouldn’t fit.  And it wasn’t a perfect fit.  Swimsuits, on my body, tend to be much looser in the water than when you put them on dry.  So there is much retying when I am swimming laps, because they tend to want to fall off.  Out of the water, even when I loosened the drawstrings, they felt a bit tight.  Still, I am looking forward to them becoming a little too big, as I get smaller.  How long will it take?  

Guard your willpower!  You may need it.

-The Doctor

20191028 Daily report

I used to think that thin people had lots of willpower.  Then, I read that thin people generally set up their food and eating so that willpower isn’t really involved.  It sounded a bit unlikely – who eats the same thing every day just to stay thin?  But it turned out that is a thing some thin people do.  Who picks dinner based on what day of the week it is?  Why, some thin people do it that way.  Who goes to a restaurant, orders a meal, eats a few bites, and then leaves all the rest on their plate and goes home???  Actually, I have seen thin people do that.  Being provident isn’t necessarily something they value.  Eating a variety of foods – not something they necessarily value.  Being thin is what they value.  You an be quite shallow, and thin.  Willpower and virtue are not necessary.

It takes sacrifice and it takes work, to get thin and stay thin.  I don’t sacrifice variety, but I spend a lot of effort and time to maximize my food enjoyment.  See what I value?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – toasted ham and cheese sandwich: toast (150); 2 ounces ham (90); 1.5 pieces Swiss cheese (80), pickles, mustard, and horseradish sauce (10);

  • 330 calories

Lunch – Roasted pork loin wraps, with roasted apples and cucumber salad: pork loin (250); whole wheat wrap (110); cucumber salad (40);

  • 400 calories 

Dinner – 1/4 Spanish tortilla (530); mayonnaise (100)

  • 630 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); Kirkland tea cookies (210); chicken strips (200);

  • 530 calories

Total for the day: 1890 calories (limit 1800)

Whoops!

Darn it, when I was eating, I forgot that really good mayonnaise like Duke’s is 100 calories per tablespoon.  That threw off my calculations for the day a little.  What makes mayonnaise good?  Besides the taste, it’s because the listed ingredients in Duke’s are oil and eggs, then water and vinegar.  A bad mayonnaise has water as the first ingredient.  And a list that goes: oil, water, eggs… is only slightly better.  (Remember that ingredients are always listed in order of % weight in the final product.)  Mayonnaise is the best condiment with Spanish tortilla, which I had for dinner (and makes a great breakfast and lunch for the rest of the week).  

Spanish tortilla comes from the word for tortoise.  I used to think tortillas referred to those shells made from wheat or corn flour, but it turns out that any round food from a Spanish speaking country can be called tortilla, or torta, or various other forms of the word for tortoise.  In this case, Spanish tortilla is a large, round omelette with just a few ingredients: 10 eggs, 1 pound of potatoes, 1/2 cup of olive oil, a small onion, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. That’s it.  Then again, the recipe does use a lot of olive oil.  Those of you good at math may be saying “hey, that’s almost 1000 calories in olive oil!”, and they would be right. 

Basically, every water molecule in the onions and potatoes is replaced with olive oil by frying for 10 minutes (medium heat, covered).  The beaten eggs, salt and pepper are then added to the oil, potatoes, and onions and stirred in for a moment, which makes the the dish very rich and savory.  It’s finished in a 450 degree oven for 9-10 minutes.  The whole thing is about 2120 calories and I have 1/4 for dinner.  It’s also amazingly easy to prepare, very savory and delicious, and can be served hot or room temperature, as appetizer or main course.  And breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  I can’t say enough about it!  You can even make wrap sandwiches out of it with mayonnaise and Tabasco.  

I have a lot of enthusiasm for my favorite dishes and the things I cook.  Recognizing that, I have used that excitement for weight control.  The anticipation, preparation, and cooking, all dramatize the fact that I am rewarding myself with something worthwhile.  Each meal can be a reward, and in my system, almost has to be.  Making do, eating leftovers you don’t like, travel food….part of me gets resentful and switches to satisfaction through quantity.  That part seems to really be in charge, if it’s not kept happy. 

Make a bargain with yourself.  Diet by eating what you want, but count the calories.  Make sure what you are eating thrills and satisfies you.  The different parts of your being will notice that they are loved, and then you can have the most wonderful feeling of all – all of your different wants and desires working together.

Aim for that.  What could be better?  

-The Doctor

End of content

The End

Newer Posts
Older Posts