20190926 Daily report

My success in losing weight (75 pounds so far) has come largely from promoting weight control to one of my most ardent desires and highest values.  Once weight control was established as the lens through which I viewed all my choices, willpower left center stage as the most critical part of the effort.  Every time I dieted in the past, I forced myself to go against my established habits and patterns and values, using pure strength of will.  Did that work out?  Nooooooot so much.  

Instead, I found a way to transform who I was and how I saw the world.  My transformation was mental, and my body is catching up to the consequences.  The author Terry Pratchett said that inside every fat person is a thin person (and a lot of chocolate).  Now, I am that thin person.  I have consciously tried to adopt the life-view of a person who is in control of their body’s weight.  

Sure, there are still 50+ pounds to go.  I didn’t say it was easy.  But instead of willpower, I use rewards to motivate myself.  I feed myself carefully and reward myself by increasing the pleasure I get from eating.  It might sound backwards but it works well.

Red beans and ricely yours!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Jimmy Dean sausage egg and cheese croissantwich (400) with extra egg (80);

  • 480 calories

Lunch – 2x bratwurst wraps (300); 

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 12 ounces homemade New Orleans red beans and andouille (375); 5oz cooked jasmine rice (160)

  • 535 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Aldi chocolate wafer cookies (125)

  • 205 calories

Total for the day: 1820 calories (limit 1800)

They get it!

There is a man called John.  John is more than a hundred pounds overweight.  We don’t know why it happens, but one day John realizes just how big he is.  It’s intolerable.  He goes to visit the doctor for advice, and gets a bunch of pamphlets instead.  The pamphlets, and the medical advice, are useless.  It’s very disappointing and disheartening.  But John knows that he is the one who has to live with his body, and he knows his choices have resulted in his overweight state.   Somehow, John discerns that he can sacrifice his old self and adopt new values that will help him control his weight.  

John decides to sacrifice some leisure time.  He starts working out every day, but hates it.  Then he discovers that he can make even a larger sacrifice.  By giving up his Sundays, he can prepare his meals for the whole week and portion them out ahead of time.  That way, he can regulate how many calories he is eating during the week.  He sacrifices his trips to restaurants, and gives up casually filling himself with food on the spur of the moment.  It’s all planned and under control now.  

Through his sacrifices, John loses weight.  He loses a lot of weight.  People are impressed.  He meets a young woman who is rather overweight and she is inspired by his achievements.  She joins him.  To keep her interest, he makes further sacrifices.  He gives up the foods he is used to making, and together they find ways to make foods that are exciting and interesting, not only to themselves, but also to a growing audience of internet fans.  They are by now a couple.  Together, they lose all their excess weight and now weight 187 and 136 pounds, respectively.  Isn’t that a nice story?  Click to see their pictures and read the whole thing.  

Important insights from them: 

“It can be hard work. I do it on a Sunday and spend hours doing it. But I don’t cook in the week at all. It’s all done in one go,” John said. “It’s all about making sure your diet is balanced and sustainable. I cook really tasty food, even things that people usually think are unhealthy.

“It’s a diet plan that allows you to eat whatever you want. What I cook are really nice meals. I’d say it’s the best diet in the world,” he said.

Deniz [his partner], who now weighs 136 pounds, added: “The way we eat is amazing. It’s a way of life that I couldn’t live without now.”

One of the Doctor’s key insights is that when you decide to control your weight, you are adopting a new life.  You have to create a lifestyle that is very attractive to you to keep it up (and lose over 100 pounds).  John knows that.  Deniz also gets it – it’s amazing and she wouldn’t go back to her old self, life, and values.  Those guys are a success.  They sacrificed a lot and were responsible for their own transformations.  That’s very inspiring.  

But look how they succeeded against most dietary advice!  Truly, what you have to do is give up what you valued before and launch out into the unknown, and find new values that will serve you better.  It’s no good to keep you old life and try to force yourself to act against your…self.  

-The Doctor

20190925 Daily report

The purpose of posting daily is that something happens every day: I check in to my limit of 1800 calories per day!  It’s not enough for me to say, “I didn’t have much for breakfast so I can have more lunch.”  By keeping track of the calories and the amounts of food I am eating at each meal, I can spread out my eating throughout one day.  My total calories will be under control and each meal will be under control.  If my food intake is under control, so is my body’s weight. 

Eating several times a day is important for me, especially when I am in calorie deficit – eating less than I need to keep my current weight.  For others, like Mark Twain, it might be different.  He wrote a whole essay about preferring a “meal and a half” per day.  As he described it, a roll and coffee for breakfast, and then the evening meal – dinner.  He allowed that his dinner was very large.  My three meals are, well, measured.  

I hope they are measuring this Gyros!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Ham (150) and cheese (70) toast (160); tea with half and half (80); 2 cookies (35 each)

  • 530 calories

Lunch – Big Greek Cafe Famous $4 Gyros Wednesday!!!! (600)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 9 ounces cooked spaghetti (450); 6.5 ounces jambalaya (220)

  • 670 calories

Snacking – tea with milk (50)

  • 50 calories

Total for the day: 1850 calories (limit 1800)

Close to the limit

Today, I found myself very hungry starting at 3.30PM.  I still waited until 5.30PM to eat, and maybe that was a mistake.  Maybe I got too hungry.  I wolfed down my dinner and found myself feeling like I needed more, and needed to feel full, even after a fairly sizable dinner for me (670 calories).  Luckily, I had to leave the house soon after dinner and didn’t get the chance to eat a lot more!  By the time I got back home at 10PM, I no longer had the feeling of wanting to eat.  That could be a lesson for me – the urge to eat and be full can be distracted until reality can re-assert itself (I had eaten enough).  Someday I will see if I can use that new knowledge.  

This week, I had planned to be back on my winning plan – 1800 calories per day (or a few less), and a couple of cheat days where I was allowed extra calories, with an average of 1850-1900 calories per day for the week.  It hasn’t worked out that way!  For this week I have been over 1800 almost every day.  On the good side, my daily average is still 1850 per day.  There haven’t been any cheat days, or they all have been little cheat days.  On the bad side, it feels slightly out of control.  Can’t I stop at 1800?  

Luckily I use a reality measurement device every week.  The scale.  My weekly weighing will tell me if I have really lost anything.  That will help me refine my self knowledge.  Maybe I need to be on 1800 calories per day with a couple of cheat days.  Maybe having 1850 per day is acceptable, with no extra cheat days.  Think of the fun I will have finding out on Saturday.  As I have said many times, I never know when I get on the scale, if I have lost weight that week.  I have been surprised before.  But there has been enough progress over the months that I am hopeful.  If my system of food intake control is followed, I have lost weight – up till now.  

What will you find out this week?

-The Doctor

20190924 Daily report

When you are recording every meal and what you are doing every day, you are paying a lot of attention to yourself and your life (and your body).  Things slow down and you live more intensely than you have before.  This last 9 months has been amazing.  I’ve lost 75 pounds, for one thing.  And I have records of it happening, and pictures of the scale, and every day I have recorded what I ate and how many calories I ate.  I have all those records too, plus pictures of a lot of foods!  

Oven grilling - not as colorful

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Jimmy Dean sausage egg and cheese croissantwich (400) with extra egg (80)

  • 480 calories

Lunch – 2x bratwurst wraps (300);

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 6oz cooked spaghetti (300); 5 Costco meatballs (235 for 5)

  • 535 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Goldfish crackers and cheddar cheese (125); chips (50)

  • 255 calories

Total for the day: 1865 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Re-establishing the routine

I have had a few weeks away from home, traveling, not eating according to my routine, where I can carefully monitor and restrain and reward myself, as needed.  So this week is about getting back my weight control lifestyle.  I’ve tried to do that by planning ahead and revisiting some of my favorite foods.  Thinking about it, I should also go over all my notes from the first part of the year and see what I was eating and what I was doing.  That could keep me on the successful path, because you will stray without thinking about it.  Anyway, my favorite foods are used as a reward for eating less.  They keep my body happy, so far.  

I am also using exercise to reset my weight control clock.  Today I went swimming, and I went swimming Friday last week too.  Before that, I hadn’t been able to go for at least a week.  I paid for that today!  My routine was harder to do.  On top of that I have never gone out to get a new swimsuit, and my old one is getting pretty hard to cinch up successfully – it’s from nine months ago, you see.  I used to weigh more then.  Anyway, I am planning to do some walking, more than usual.  

Last, I need to figure out sleep.  The last couple of months I have really gone out of control.  I am finding it impossible to get to bed before midnight and impossible to try sleeping before 1AM.  That makes it harder to do anything.  I am feeling like I am losing control over everything as a consequence.  

Good night!  It’s 11.30.

-The Doctor

20190923 Daily report

My food journal is a simple document but it has several levels of meaning.  Each meal is described, sometimes days in advance, sometimes just before I eat.  The calories are entered, ideally a few minutes after they are eaten.  I never count my calories before they are hatched, er, eaten.  The calorie total is kept daily.  I decided many months ago that 1800 calories per day was the right amount.  Sometimes I allow a few extra calories, up to an average of 1850 per day.  

How do I keep on doing it?  Well, I don’t rely on my willpower.  It would only be two weeks before I stopped tracking food, with my weak willpower!  It does take discipline, as my late grandmother would say.  Discipline, I have.  Discipline means I can persuade myself to follow the rules that I negotiate with myself.  That’s right, I have to negotiate with myself.  And I am not more mentally ill than you would think.  

Sausage Jambalaya

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – ham (100) cheese (70) toasted bread (160) sandwich with horseradish, mustard, and pickles

  • 330 calories

Lunch – meatball (275) wrap (110) with red cabbage and pickles and tabbouleh (25) and horseradish and Thousand Island dressing (50)

  • 465 calories 

Dinner –10.5 oz jambalaya (360); 5oz rice (160)

  • 510 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Perdue chicken strips (200); Aldi chocolate coated wafer cookies (120)

  • 400 calories

Total for the day: 1715 calories (limit 1800)

Controlling calories for home cooking

Because I negotiated rules with myself, and didn’t dictate them, I find I can live with them.  What does that mean?  It means that if I told myself to eat less food, I wouldn’t obey.  Or I would try, but only for a short time.  Then I would be disappointed in myself and feel weak.

By negotiating the rules, I managed to get them the right way around.  The rules, instead of orders to the parts of me that are built in deep, are instead obligations on my conscious will.  Basically, they are a set of promises I made to myself.  “If you agree to eat less food, I will do X for you.”  Those promises must be kept.  (I am thinking about writing up those promises as a separate post in the How to Start a Diet series.) 

My body’s weight is now a major interest in my life, and I think in terms of my food rules all the time.  I accept this as the price of controlling my body’s weight.  I make it worthwhile because I make sure to reward myself at every level for following the rules.  It is amazingly satisfying to plan a favorite meal, allow yourself to start getting hungry for it, and then eat it.  That sequence is so satisfying in practice, that you are willing to eat a measured amount of that food.  Because you anticipate it so much and because it tastes so good when you are hungry for it, it becomes easy to put down the fork when the portion is done.

That’s partly because if you pay attention to how you are feeling, you will notice that a second helping just doesn’t taste as good.  It kind of ruins the experience of the first portion.  Then it also ruins the next meal, because instead of being hungry for it, you will feel ambiguous about it.  That feedback is an important part of this system. 

Measuring how much you eat only takes a few simple tools.  A kitchen scale, some measuring cups and spoons.  And of course the package information.  Let’s look at my jambalaya.  The whole sausage had 1020 calories, the tomatoes 200, the oil 150, and the onion 44.  The other vegetables (celery and bell pepper) and spices didn’t add much more.  Let’s call the whole dish 1440 calories and a 1/4 portion 360 calories.  How do I make sure I am really having a 1/4 portion?  I weighed the entire thing on my kitchen scale.  It made 2 pounds and 10 ounces of jambalaya – 42 ounces.  My quarter portion was 10.5 ounces.  

Because I was hungry for dinner, because I wanted Jambalaya and knew it would be a good meal, that portion was enough.  And now there are leftovers! That’s another meal to look forward to.

How do you reward yourself?  What obligations are you willing to put on your conscious will?

-The Doctor

20190922 Daily report

These reports detail my daily attempt to live a new lifestyle: one that enables me to control my body’s weight.  On the downside, it takes a lot of time and attention to be successful.  On the good side, it’s hard to imagine going back to what I was doing before.  This new life means I pay attention to myself and carefully make sure I am fulfilled while eating a controlled amount of food – it works on many levels. 

Thick cut bacon on these BLT wraps

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 6x pizza slices (90)

  • 540 calories

Lunch – pretzels (150) 4x pizza slices (90) cookie (40)

  • 550 calories 

Dinner – macaroni and cheese (440)

  • 440 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Perdue chicken strips (200)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1820 calories (limit 1800)

Back home

It’s been quite a month.  I’ve just gotten home from another weekend of travel, but I am due to be home for a few weeks now.  Hopefully I can get my lifestyle and body back in shape and losing weight again soon.  I have to really pay attention to make that work!  As I said a few weeks ago, since I weigh less now, my body will need fewer calories and weight loss will come harder.    I will have to be very strict and, in consequence, very careful to make sure my body doesn’t feel deprived.  Or else, as one of my brothers says, you end up in front of the refrigerator in your underwear at 2AM, eating.  

It’s the first day of fall.  For the first time in many years, I am not planning to have any apple cider.  It’s just too many calories for my diet of 1800 per day (120 calories per 8oz cup!).  I used to drink several glasses a day in the fall, and I learned to associate that with the cooler weather and turning leaves.  I saw the leaves starting to turn on the long drive through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland.  Oh well, there are compensations.  Really, I am not allowed to have any calories unregulated these days, and apple cider is no exception.  I knew going into this lifestyle that I would have to sacrifice some things, like drinking all the cider I felt like.  I can, of course, have a measured amount.  I will think about it.  I was able to fit in 400 calories worth of cookies just a few days ago!  I haven’t done that since.  

Personal growth is difficult.  Many of us would just rather not change anything and continue to live our lives.  But then changes are forced on you and it’s a shock.  I think I am learning to gently change over time.  At least in some ways.  

To bed!  I have important living and paying attention to do tomorrow, and a lack of sleep will not help.

-The Doctor

20190920 Daily report

How things have changed.  For many years, I didn’t give any thought to how much I was eating, or why.  I didn’t put it into words, but my reason for eating was to be full.  I ate until I was full at every meal, with lots of enthusiasm.  In consequence, I got to be 120 pounds overweight, maybe more.  It took a long time – more than 20 years, to get so overweight.

Now I pay attention to what I am eating, how much, and when; and think about the consequences for the next meal, the next day, and the next week.  A daily food journal has been my obsession for the last nine months.  And it’s helped.  I have gotten so that my reason for eating has changed.  Now, I embrace hunger, since food tastes best when you are hungry for it. 

The Doctor's breakfast sandwich

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – ham (90), cheese (100), toast (160) sandwich with pickle and mustard

  • 350 calories

Lunch – 2x BLT wraps (200); [4 slices of bacon x 70 calories, 1 bread wrap x 110 calories, tomato and horseradish sauce]

  • 400 calories 

Dinner – 6x Aldi pizza slices (100); [half a pizza!]

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (110); cookies at teatime (160); cookies after dinner (180)

  • 450 calories

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

The art of eating cookies on a diet

It really has a lot to do with paying attention.  I bought some hazelnut doppelino cookies from Aldi and wanted to have them today.  I had cookies twice; once around 11AM and once at 6PM.  Since I knew I could have 4 cookies for 160 calories, I stuck to that.  Later, I had three hazelnut cookies and a different chocolate cookie – 180 calories for that total.  

My breakfast sandwich is also becoming a favorite.  What makes it breakfast?  Well, I eat it for breakfast.  That’s about it.  Someday I might try putting an egg on it, but I don’t think it would improve it.  But it’s great because it’s ready quickly, and in the morning I have an issue where my stomach doesn’t wake up quickly, but when it does, it wants food Now!  The bread is long slices of Italian bread optimized for panini sandwiches.  I just use one piece per sandwich, though.  The other reason this is a favorite (besides the great flavor and textures in the different layers) is that the whole thing is 350 calories, and it is very filling.  

And today, I made bacon.  I haven’t done that in a while!  Thick sliced bacon, oven fried at 400F, makes a tremendously good BLT.  I either use Kirkland’s or Wright’s thick cut bacon, but I have heard good things about Oscar Meyer’s thick sliced, and Smithyfield’s.  It takes a lot of tomato and lettuce and whole wheat wrap to balance out all the bacon, and then it gets zinged up with horseradish sauce.  It’s such a treat for me, that I don’t mind eating a measured amount.  After all, I am hungry for this BLT meal, anticipate it, prepare it, and eat 400 calories of it.  Then, I know I will be hungry for pizza later!  It was a feeling of nonstop taking care of myself today, with the cookies and all.  That makes eating less food possible for me. 

I did swim today – for the first time in a week!  The first day back swimming after a break is always ok.  But I have observed that the next time I go swimming (Tuesday) it will be harder – my muscles will be complaining and I will have a harder time breathing.  

And last, by eating 1800 calories today, I’ve made sure my weighing tomorrow will be more accurate, or at least more encouraging.  Not that I expect to have lost anything this week!   I will be pretty happy if I weigh the same as I did two weeks ago.  Now the real work can begin.  A new week!  And I know I will enjoy it.  That’s how the system is set up.

-The Doctor

20190919 Daily report

Controlling my body’s weight is the goal.  Right now, I am losing weight, because I am spending a lot of time and effort to control and record how much I eat.  However, I don’t actually know what weight I am trying to achieve.  I assumed when I started doing this that I would want to weigh 205 pounds.  Why?  Well, that’s a number from the US Army acceptance criteria for new recruits of my height.  They can’t weight more than that, and be accepted as new recruits.  Notice even the Army doesn’t say what the correct weight should be.  For someone my height (74 inches) you can’t weight more than 205 (the number varies with age) or less than 148 pounds.  That’s a range of over 50 pounds!  Where do I fit in there?  

I am not overwhelmed by the amount of egg

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Jimmy Dean egg sausage and cheese croissantwich (400)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – canned ravioli (200); 2x baked breaded panko chicken breast pieces (200)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Canned ravioli (260); ham (150) and cheese (70) sandwich on bread (200) with mustard and pickles and horseradish mayo (10); Perdue chicken pieces (100)

  • 790 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels and cheese (300); chocolate almonds (200)

  • 580 calories

Total for the day: 2370 calories (limit 1800) 

Needs

First, notice that I had nearly 600 calories more today than I should have.  I didn’t exercise, either.  It was a strange day for my appetite, too.  I had breakfast and lunch on time, but was hungry by 2.30 and had a snack, then had dinner before 4.30.  After dinner I was still very interested in eating so I had even more food.  

Normally, I allow this kind of thing twice a week.  Sometimes I call it a cheat day but usually I justify it by saying I am hungry because I exercised.  Not today, I didn’t!  I don’t know why I got so hungry, or at least was so interested in eating more.  I feel very full now, and that doesn’t feel good.  I have really gotten away from the feeling that the goal of eating is to be full!  

Amazingly, this still fits into my diet regime.  I normally have those cheat days, and I am still close to my average calorie count for the week.  As I said before for me this week is about getting back into my weight control lifestyle, and I don’t expect to have lost any weight this week, after all the travel.  I have already made some mistakes – not recording everything I ate, underestimating calories in what I did eat, and eating after dinner.  For example, I had some grapes this week.  Somehow that didn’t make it into my journal.  And I had some chicken pieces, recorded yesterday, but looking at the package now it seems clear I ate more than I thought.  Well, this is all getting back into my rhythm.  I won’t make those mistakes again.  

Back to the issue of my final weight.  I don’t know what it will be, because I have never tried being thin and staying thin before.  Once my weight is under control and below 205, I plan to stop and see if I like how I look and feel.  I may stay there for several weeks or months!  After that, I may decide that weighing 190 or 180 pounds suits me better.  Assuming I follow through with that I will have lost 135 or 145 pounds from my highest weight – amazing.  At that point things may get expensive – I will have to buy new clothes forth, and I will have to spend the time needed to keep my body’s weight under control and my lifestyle healthy.  The two are linked, and the better I like my lifestyle, the easier it will be to willingly follow it.  

Don’t see it as a burden, but as a price you are willing to pay.  

-The Doctor

20190918 Daily report

My decision to enshrine weight control as one of my top values changed my life.  I live out my new life style every day, and I am proud to say that controlling my body’s weight is a top priority and is my favorite hobby, if you look at the amount of time I spend on it.  Best of all, my system is self-reinforcing, because it relies on figuring out what I want, and then giving it to myself.  

What I want is a gyro sandwich! See the dill pieces? Fabulous.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco cheese pizza half slice (380)

  • 380 calories

Lunch – Big Greek Cafe Famous $5 Gyro Wednesday!!! (600);

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 8.5 ounces meatloaf (480); 3/4 flatbread (80)

  • 560 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160); Perdue chicken strips (100)

  • 260 calories

Total for the day: 1800 calories (limit 1800)

The difference

I am doing some thinking about how my body is doing out in the world, now that I am a bit thinner.  I spent the last three days at a technical conference downtown.  That means a lot of sitting in chairs in a large ballroom, listening to intermittently interesting things.  But basically a lot of sitting in chairs, usually closely spaced.  Also, I traveled to this conference and back every day, on subway trains, which also involves a lot of sitting in cramped seats, usually next to someone.  

Thinner is noticeably better.  It takes longer to get tired of sitting in the chairs.  You can also fit in the confined spaces a bit better.  Also, if you see yourself in the mirror or in the subway glass, you notice you look better.  I’ve never really put into words why being thin is good (or reasonably thin).  Obviously it is good, or I wouldn’t be trying to do it.  As a goal, getting thinner is a failure, but as a state of being it has a lot of good built into it.  (My goal is weight control maintained as a lifestyle.)  I will think some more about this. 

What makes it difficult is that so many of us who have gotten overweight try to use these good things as motivators to get thinner.  Other people also try to use the good of being thinner to try and motivate you.  That doesn’t work, as I have explained in my very first posts on how to start losing weight.  Everyone who is overweight is motivated to get thin.  Motivation isn’t the answer and if anyone asks me, “Doctor, what made you decide to lose weight?” my answer will be, “I decided to lose weight many years ago, but what changed was was my mind.  My body is the lagging indicator.”  Really, I figured out a way I could use to lose weight successfully and I have been living that out ever since. 

What changed?  Not my motivations.  I changed the way I thought about food and eating.  And I was only able to do that after realizing that being thin was achievable if I was willing to do a lot of work and keep it up forever.  In short, I figured out that thin people who stay thin are pretty obsessed about it.  I sacrificed my old self and became a new person, obsessed with my new hobby.  And it has worked so far. 

Don’t try to motivate yourself.  Has that ever worked?  Instead, see the world differently.  “Think thin” just means you have decided to put in a lot of work.  Take pride in that.  

-The Doctor

20190917 Daily report

My job in these daily entries is to live out my commitment to weight control.  When I started doing this, I decided the real goal wasn’t to lose weight or to reach a certain goal weight.  That would just be the beginning.  The real goal was to be in control of my body’s weight.  My body will be changing all the time, so meeting it will be a life long challenge.  Once I have lost all the excess weight (75 pounds so far) my goal will stay the same: keep whatever weight I choose.  

To control my body’s weight, I decided I needed two things: (1) regulate my food intake (by keeping a food journal) and (2) weigh myself regularly.  I also realized I couldn’t force myself to do these things.  I don’t have that kind of willpower.  So I had to transform myself into a different person with different life goals.  But that doesn’t mean I have to suffer while losing weight.  I can eat regulated amounts of whatever I choose.  

Vegetable curry with coconut milk and spices.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Lantz cheese crackers (200); Kirkland granola bar (100)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – boxed lunch sandwich (250); chips (200)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – 13.5 ounces vegetable curry (350); 5oz cooked jasmine rice (160)

  • 510 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (100); oatmeal raisin cookie (100); Snickers ice cream bar (180); Hershey’s chocolate bar (220)

  • 600 calories

Total for the day: 1860 calories (limit 1800)

Forwards! Backwards! Forwards again!

Mentally, I am prepared to have my second week in a row with no progress on my weight loss program.  For complicated reasons and travel, last week was a wash calories wise.  I didn’t even weigh myself last Saturday.  I even missed three days of my food journal and had to reconstruct them afterwards, with guessing.  I wasn’t in a position to measure!  

I returned to the normal weight control style eating habit on Sunday, after four days of not measuring or properly recording my food intake.  On average, I am guessing for those days I ate about 2200 calories per day.  Based on past experience, it will take at least a week to get that bulk out of my system.  I even felt full all the time, which was strange and unusual, as for most of the last 9 months I haven’t eaten enough to feel full. 

It doesn’t seem like a lot…..400 extra calories per day for four days.  I don’t expect to have lost any weight though, even though I was technically in calorie deficit most of the time.  I have found for consistent weight loss, I have to be in deficit for the whole week.  For the same reason, if I have extra calories on Friday, my weighing on Saturday gets thrown off.  But I am thinking it will take this whole week just to get back to my previous recorded low of 249.2 pounds.  

I am pleased with my progress.  The next 45 or so pounds may be harder to lose, though.  Other people have done it, so I can too.  You can find out with me.  

My other issue is sleep.  I haven’t been prioritizing getting enough rest.  That also saps my ability to control my food intake, write this blog, and live well, generally.  So I will take my own advice and get ready for bed.  I have a lot of work tomorrow.  

How will you make your life better?  What is your ambition?

-The Doctor

20190911 Daily report

The days go on, but my commitment stays the same.  I will live a weight control lifestyle and keep it at the top of my moral hierarchy.  Strangely, it is enjoyable and very satisfying, because of the way all the layers of my mind are lining up and enriching my experience.  I have lived very well since January, when I started paying attention to this.  Before, I didn’t think twice about how much I was eating, and only ate for the immediate pleasures of eating and being full.  Living the way I have worked out over the last nine months has gotten me a lot of self knowledge, which I have used to maximize the sensual pleasures of eating.  Now, I match it with deliberate hunger (in small doses at the right time).  When I am hungry for lunch, I want to be rewarding myself for going to the trouble.  

Wednesday Gyro!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1/4 Quiche (500)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – Big Greek Cafe Famous $5 Gyro Wednesday (600); 

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 8 ounces meatloaf (400); whole wheat wrap (100); potatotes (50)

  • 550 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Snickers ice cream bar (180)

  • 260 calories

Total for the day: 1920 calories (limit 1800)

Aftermath and hiatus

I really enjoyed my reward lunch yesterday.  At the same time, I definitely noticed I was not used to being so full.  All yesterday and last night I was not hungry.  I wasn’t hungry even this morning until after 9AM.  Even then, my appetite wasn’t normal.  Since I don’t know how many calories I had yesterday, it is tempting to say I just ate more than I thought.  That is always a possibility.  But that meal was meant to be a reward, and it was, in the sense that I let go and enjoyed it.  Today was supposed to be back on the weight control program, but it didn’t feel quite like it – and I was a bit over the count.  

For the next several days I will be traveling and it will be difficult to post.  At worst, I will be back at it Sunday.  Until then, take care of your appetite.

-The Doctor

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