20190628 Daily report

My daily task remains: write down everything I eat in a food journal, and stay below the self-imposed limit of 1800 calories per day.  Doing it can be a bit tricky.  It takes dedication to keep writing everything down.  You can’t compromise, either.  Controlling your weight either has to become one of the most important parts of your life, or just don’t bother trying.  It’s possible to come up with some other system, but this one is mine, and it is working so far.  

Colorful!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x Italian sausage wraps with sauteed peppers and onions (300)

  • 600 calories

Lunch – BBQ chicken pieces (100); 1/2 Cup potato salad (100); pretzels and cheese (200); Perdue chicken strips (100)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – BBQ chicken pieces (300); ccc (00)

  • 300 calories

Snacking – 2 x Reese’s Peanut Butter cups (80); 5  chocolate almonds (50); tea with half and half (160); blueberries (30)

  • 400 calories

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

How to keep from eating at Danger Time

I was talking with a retired nurse today who is trying to lose 25 pounds.  She swims every day, apparently.  We chatted a little about the struggle to lose weight.  The important question she asked me was, how to keep from eating at night (after dinner)?  This is a subject near to the Doctor’s heart.  This blog is public, and I do want people to read and use my ideas to learn to control their own weight.  So what would you tell this woman?  

On the spot, I told her about the goal of being hungry for meals.  It works for breakfast – if I am really looking forward to breakfast, I am willing to put down my dinner fork.  I bet that would work for other people too.  I also suggested that she should concentrate on preparing and eating what foods she liked best.  Being hungry for food you are really looking forward to – the best combination.  My problems eating at night have practically disappeared.  It only surfaces when I have no plan for breakfast the next day. 

Having thought about this some more, I would ask her to run the following experiment: get what you need to prepare a breakfast that is 100% satisfying to you (within calorie limits).  No diet food!  I use bacon, or steel cut oats, or eggs, or sausages, there are so many great choices.  It should be your favorite!  You should do this two times:

  • First Try: act normally, eat your dinner, deal with your late night cravings as you usually do, then get up in the morning and have your fun breakfast.  Yay!
  • Second Try: when you are having dinner, start thinking and talking about this great breakfast you are looking forward to.  Allow yourself to get excited about it.  Tell yourself that it will taste even better if you are hungry for it.  Take note of any feelings for late night cravings, but concentrate on getting yourself hungry for tomorrow.  When you wake up, prepare and eat your most exciting breakfast, that you have worked and struggled and sacrificed for.  

No contest, right?  The drama, anticipation, and hunger, will make the Second Try food really satisfying and exciting.  You may never go back to your old ways again.   I won’t!

-The Doctor

20190627 Daily report

The Doctor uses rewards to make sure the weight loss program is followed.  Never punish yourself for having a bad diet day.  Overeating happens from time to time.  The mistake is to be mad at yourself.  Don’t get mad.  Eagerly take the opportunity to learn.  What happened that day?  Did you truly plan out your meals well?  Did you eat on time?  Were you eating foods you really enjoy?  I have found that missing any of those things will cause problems.  

Rewards pull you forward.  If you are looking forward to breakfast, you are willing to stop eating dinner, so you can enjoy breakfast properly.  

Breakfast has to be worth getting hungry for

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x pork carnitas on tortilla half with sour cream (200)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Persian kebab wrap from Moby Dick Restaurant (760)

  • 760 calories 

Dinner – hamburger on a half wrap (425)

  • 425 calories

Snacking – sampler of barbecue food: beans, mac and cheese, collard greens, potato salad (300)

  • 300 calories

Total for the day: 1885 calories (limit 1800)

Today's pants

My calorie count was a little over the limit today.  I blame not enjoying lunch very much.  It’s always a risk going out for a meal when I don’t know exactly what I would like at that restaurant.  Anyway, as a result I was a bit out of control at dinner time, ate my burger too quickly, and then helped myself to a little of several dishes from Urban BBQ.   There is some guessing involved in how much I ate.  That is, I guessed.  I should have measured.  That’s why I have to be so careful!  

Lunch was at a restaurant I don’t know well.  One bite of my kebab told me I wasn’t going to enjoy it.  It wasn’t bad, just not great, not rewarding.  Maybe I should have gotten a doggie bag and eaten half the sandwich.  Then, at home, I could have eaten the more enjoyable BBQ food without a worry.  On this weight loss program, I have to be pretty demanding and selfish about food.  

Interestingly, I was able to learn more watching the group eat today.  The thinnest guy ate his meat but left most of the rice on his plate.  Most of the guys who were heavier, cleaned their plates.  (I ate all my kebab, which I didn’t even like.  I am kicking myself now.  It amounted to 760 calories wasted on a sandwich I didn’t enjoy!  My old value of not wasting food, was in force.  My new value is being in control of my weight.  I will try to remember that.)  Generally, the thinner people ate slower and weren’t afraid to leave food on their plates.  The heavier people ate faster and ate everything.  Subtle differences.  

Pants.  Today I wore size 46 pants.  I haven’t done that for a while.  I have said goodbye to size 52, 50, and now 48.  At 263 pounds, I am fitting into size 46.  2XL shirts are fitting well.  Eventually I will say goodbye to them, too.  What will I be wearing at 250 pounds?  I won’t know, at best, until the end of July. 

Anyway, size 46 is a triumph.  Does that count as a reward?  I did buy new pants.

-The Doctor

20190626 Daily report

Losing 120 pounds is a difficult piece of work.  And doing it by forcing yourself to eat less food, for a year, is even more difficult.  I have never managed it in the past. I did try, and all that happened was I got really disappointed in myself – my failure to keep it up, failure to be strong, failure to have willpower, failure to follow through.  That kind of thing makes you doubt yourself.  I want a life that is great and makes me feel great! 

However, I have gotten a lot of success out of persuading, bribing, and rewarding myself to eat less.  I’ve done it over 6 months now and lost over 60 pounds.  That’s pretty great.  I bribe myself by enjoying food I really like.  OK, it’s not quite that simple.  

Big Greek Cafe! Wednesday $5 Gyro!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps with precooked Kirkland bacon (200)

  • 400 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 2 x Italian sausages (220); wrapped in flatbreads (110); with sauteed peppers and onions (30)

  • 580 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160)

  • 160 calories

Total for the day: 1740 calories (limit 1800)

Accept no substitutes

For breakfast, I tried the precooked bacon again, from Costco.  It’s 90 calories for 2 slices, and I used six slices (three per wrap).  That’s 270 calories, and 110 for the flatbread.  I don’t really count the tomato slices and lettuce, but throw a few extra calories on there for horseradish sauce.  It was really disappointing – leathery texture, hardly any flavor.  It might as well have been a turkey sandwich, only tougher.  No, bacon must be the real kind and cooked fresh to be at its best.  Sadly, the pre cooked bacon will go in the trash.  I don’t want to eat it and I don’t want to waste my few allowed calories on it.  

My whole system of weight control depends on persuading or bribing myself to eat less, using really, really good food as the reward.  Today, breakfast was a disaster.  My body and mind were unhappy and at odds with my will – the part of me that likes to think it’s in charge.  Breakfast could have been so much better.  So I went through the morning feeling resentful and disappointed.  That’s no way to persuade anyone.

I made this loss up to myself with a gryo sandwich.  I don’t know how many people look forward to Wednesdays, but I am one of them.  I look forward to my $5 Wednesday gyro at the Big Greek Cafe all week.  So, luckily, I was able to turn my lemon of a breakfast into lemonade.  Having a terrible breakfast set me up to really appreciate having a delicious and fresh gyro for lunch.  I spent the rest of the day very happy with myself and had a great diet day.  

When you are losing weight, find a way to persaude yourself to do it willingly.  Once you have found that way, you can’t make many compromises.  The price I pay for losing weight consistently, is fussiness about the food and an insistence that it be exactly when I want it, and how I like it.  I can live with that.  I have learned a lot about what I do and don’t like.  That self knowledge is gold.  Learn yourself and persuade yourself!

-The Doctor

20190625 Daily report

Rewards make my world go around.  The diet advice is “Don’t Make Food a Reward.”  Fiddlesticks.  I have transformed how I think about food.  With that change, it is actually helpful and constructive to my weight control strategy to use food as a reward.  I can bribe myself to eat less.  And then reward myself with really exciting food for eating less.  

Those are prime rib burgers....mmmmmmmmm!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Pork carnitas on a half tortilla (200); one piece of cold Pizzeria Uno thin crust pizza (170)

  • 370 calories

Lunch – 6 slices of pizza (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Grilled prime rib burger on a half wrap with tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce (405); Grilled Italian sausage link (220)

  • 625 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels (125)

  • 205 calories

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

The magic transformation is hunger, not fullness

At the center of my mental transformation is switching the goal of eating.  Most of us eat to be full.  We associate being full with comfort and satisfaction.  That can be unhealthy and you can get into a place where you are eating and getting full, just for the comfort and satisfaction.  That’s not a good place.  

When your goal is to be full, you can also fall into a trap of overeating at every meal.  If you do that, you will become overweight.  For such a mental state, you can understand why the advice is “Don’t Use Food as a Reward.”  You already are, in the sense that you are eating for emotional reasons to produce good feelings.  

My goal is to be hungry.  Not all the time!  Nobody wants to live like that.  But I want to be hungry when I take my first bite.  And I want to feel satisfied after the meal and between meals.  (If you pay attention, you will agree that the first serving, if at all adequate, is the most satisfying to a hungry person.  Everything you eat after that is just you trying to be full.)  So, focus on your hunger.  Hunger is your friend.  If you are hungry at mealtimes, you are doing it right.  

At this time, I am pretty significantly in calorie deficit every day.  To convince myself to do that, I put all my willpower into making myself happy about the food I am allowing myself.  If has to be fantastic.  Then my mind and body are willing to make the trade and eat less.  That has made my taste more refined, and I am more aware of what I really want.  So, I have improved my life this way – I am dedicated to making myself happy, I have refined my senses, and adopted a higher eating goal.   It’s worked so far.  

Tonight, I was peckish after 10PM.  That’s unusual, and I had a few pretzels and some cherries.  I was swimming today, maybe that had something to do with my attack of the munchies.  One has to be careful how much to eat in this situation – I want to be hungry for breakfast, after all.

-The Doctor

20190624 Daily report

Every day, I keep my food journal and try to regulate my food intake to 1800 calories.  I am trying to align my intake to about 13,000 calories per week.  At that intake level, I will lose between two and three pounds a week.  The loss varies a bit but the trend  has been very steady on average.  

Today I said goodbye to visiting family.  Now it’s time to get back into my routine.  Luckily, I have some leftovers I am really looking forward to eating!

Italian Sunday Gravy - super meaty

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – ham (40); salami (90); and cheese (70); bagel (330) sandwich

  • 530 calories

Lunch – chips and hummus (150); bread (100); chicken and cheese half wrap (125); chocolate chip cookie (100); leftover grilled corn on the cob (120)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Italian Sunday gravy (300); 4 ounces noodles (200)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – pretzels and cheese (200)

  • 200 calories

Total for the day: 1830 calories (limit 1800)

Honesty in the food journal

It’s very important to write everything you eat down in your food journal.  If you leave things out, you can’t control your food intake and count your calories.  Write in your journal right away after you eat something. 

A few times, after I have written up my blog post for the night and published it, I will eat something else or drink something with calories.  I update my food journal to reflect the extra food.  But I am never sure if I should go back and edit the blog post.  To make up for this, I try to write my posts as late in the day as possible.  And since my goal of eating is to be hungry for my next meal, evening eating has largely disappeared from my behavior.  That’s surprising to me, because I had it down as a real problem behavior.  

Part of the answer is that I have found I am just not hungry when I wake up (6.30-7.30AM).  I usually eat between 8.30-9.30AM.  Since I want to be hungry before I eat, it pressures me not to eat too much for dinner, or after that, late at night.  I just won’t be hungry all morning, and that throws off my whole day food-wise.  Three meals are working for me.  9AM, 11.30AM, and 5.30PM.  The spacing isn’t even, is it?  But those mealtimes are a result of trial and error. 

Above, I said my aim is 13,000 calories per week.  Since it takes 3500 calories of deficit to lose a pound, and I usually lose 2-3 pounds, I am probably between 7,000-10,000 calories in deficit every week.  That’s a lot!  It means I am eating only 60% of the calories I need to maintain my weight.  Do you see why I need to constantly reward myself, and understand why I need to work so hard to get my food just right?  I can’t do that by willpower alone.  I need cooperation from all parts of myself. 

So far, treating myself really nicely and carefully considering and preparing food I want to eat, and implementing milestone rewards, are doing the job that willpower alone couldn’t.  It’s amazing how changing your mind can change your abilities.  

-The Doctor

20190623 Daily report

My moral structure had to be changed in order for me to actually lose 120 pounds and then keep it off.  “Being thin” was not in my top 10 moral considerations, or even top 100.  Now, it is in my top three at all times.  It doesn’t make me a better or nicer person, but it does put a shape on the future.  That shape is a thinner me.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x Spanish tortilla slices (166); half bagel with ham and cheese (360)

  • 700 calories

Lunch – 2 x slices of Pizzeria Uno thin crust pizza (170)

  • 340 calories 

Dinner – Reuben sandwich (600); french fries (400)

  • 1000 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 2120 calories (limit 1800)

A brief word

No picture today!  I was too busy.  

I was a little disappointed Saturday because I thought my weight would be down more.  My calorie discipline was very good.  I was suspecting that I had some water weight gain and to check this I weighed myself again this morning – 265.0.  I didn’t eat enough yesterday to gain two pounds!  So that is encouraging, in a way.  Next week I might have gotten over that.

My observation continues to be that there is no such thing as a person who is naturally thin.  So don’t be hard on yourself.  Being thin and maintaining that weight has a price.  That price is constant effort.  Two things I am prepared to do for the rest of my life are: keep regulating my food intake (calorie counting) and keep weighing myself weekly.  I will become thin and stay that way. 

You can develop a system to make staying thin part of your routine, but being thin has to perch at the top of your moral hierarchy if you are going to stay thin.  It is best to come up with a lifestyle that contributes to your being thin and also makes that satisfying and enjoyable.  Otherwise, why put all that effort in?  Losing weight, and staying thin, take a lot of effort and it is constant.  It can’t be something you dislike doing.  Reward yourself for doing it, reward yourself constantly.  That will make it satisfying.  The struggle gives you meaning.  Do that.  It is a system that works and I am telling you how it goes!

-The Doctor

20190622 Saturday weigh-in

Saturday is my weighing day.  It’s reality day.  I have been counting calories all week, writing in my food journal, planning out meals and figuring out how I work and how to keep myself happily losing weight.  Did it all really happen?  Did I really lose weight?  

I believe I need my own willing cooperation to make weight loss and weight maintenance work.  I can’t force myself because I don’t have the kind of willpower that can do that for more than a couple of weeks.  Dieting, approached as a willpower problem, takes a lot of will and makes you feel unhappy.  Treating yourself well, on the other hand, takes only a little willpower and feels really good.  It produces results.  

Headed down

This is good news!  That means that since starting my weight control plan in January 2019, I have lost………

Pounds!!
0

Scale and reflection

I wasn’t happy when I got on the scale this morning. It said 265.8!  That’s what I weighed last week. 

I have been working hard on controlling my food intake this week, after a few uncertain weeks in the recent past.  The harder I work, the more I have to give up.  I am giving up the future where I have eaten more food, for a future where I am thinner.  And it has worked.  Every week (barring illness) I have weighed less than the week before.  It has correlated fairly well with how successful I was during the week, of keeping my calorie count low.  This week, my calorie count was practically a record low.  I mostly ate meat the whole week, and I really had hunger and calories under control.  And then the scale had me losing no weight?!?

I got off the scale.  I was going over in my mind all the things I might have gotten wrong this week.  The scale beeped – an error code was on the display.  Whew!  The higher weight was an error.  I let the display clear, got back on and I was down to 263.8.  It’s not as big a loss as I was hoping for, but still 2 pounds is a great amount to lose in one week.  My hard work was worth it. 

Based on this one week, working harder on restricting the calorie intake didn’t necessarily translate to a bigger loss than average, though.  I have had weeks where I lost three pounds or more.  It might just be circumstances, water weight, etc.  Next week will tell.  But now it is reward time.

My reward for passing halfway will be to make a gingerbread cake!  I have done that before, and I carefully made a half cake last time.  I can do that again.  I previously made a full icing recipe and used half last time, and froze half.  It was really good.  So the new lifestyle is rewarding, taking good care of myself is rewarding, and success is rewarded.  I am floating towards my thin weight on wings made of reward.  This is truly a transformative approach.  I urge everyone to lose weight this way.  

-The Doctor

20190621 Daily report

Sometimes it is easy to keep the two commandments.  Sometimes it is harder.

  1. Thou shalt regulate thy food intake
  2. Thou shalt monitor thy weight

Today was a little harder to keep #1.  When you are at a social gathering it can be difficult and indiscreet to try to weigh things, or ask about calories.  Tonight I had to resort to eyeballing my food and saying “yup, that’s probably X calories”.  Lunch time was easier.  I was doing the cooking and I knew exactly what I was serving.

Burgers in the mist

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x carnitas wraps with sour cream on flour tortilla (220)

  • 440 calories

Lunch – Prime rib burger (390); Kaiser roll (210); grilled corn on the cob with butter (150)

  • 750 calories 

Dinner – spanikopita (200); kielbasa (100); pizza (100); bread and hummus, bread and tapenade (100)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1770 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

A rare indulgence, and extra swimming

Today I went swimming for exercise.  Later, I swam again for recreation.  For several hours, with small children.  I am well exercised today.  On top of that, due to circumstances I ate my lunch rather late – 1.30 instead of 11.30.  It was a good lunch, though – 100% grilled.  

I tried brining the corn on the cob.  I put the corn in a gallon of water with a half cup each of salt and sugar, for about 40 minutes before grilling on a fairly hot grill.  It’s pretty easy – just keep turning the corn every 2 minutes, and keep the lid closed otherwise.  Every couple of turns you take the ear on the right and transfer it to the far left.  Then turn them all again.  It took about 10 or 12 minutes, but it was very well grilled by the end.  (I think a half cup of sugar was a bit high, though.)  The corn had a lovely roasted flavor you don’t get from boiled corn on the cob.  

The burger also came out very nice – 3 minutes per side on a medium grill.  It was made from prime rib but labeled 20% fat, and the manufacturer helpfully included the calories per patty. 

The rare indulgence was actually the bun (toasted on the grill).  I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a hamburger on a bun.  (I can tell you exactly when I last had a hamburger on a  flatbread wrap, though.)  When you are deficit calorie counting, bread is one of the things that I have sacrificed.  Low calorie flatbread wraps are my staple for sandwiches of all kinds.  That meal was worth waiting for.  

Beautiful weather today, recreational swimming, a fabulous grilled lunch, and a family dinner party.   Keeping my focus on calorie counting (at dinner) was tricky but possible.  I am sure I didn’t overeat, but I will find out tomorrow when I weigh myself.  This has been a good week for my new life, though.  My tally for calories for the week is one of my lowest ever.  And I was never deprived!   I 100% recommend the approach of using self knowledge to find a food lifestyle you really like.  

-The Doctor

20190620 Daily report

Today was a long day.  But I have committed to my two weight control habits and will complete them, no matter the hour! 

  1. Regulate your food intake
  2. Weigh yourself regularly

My plan is to do these two things for as long as I want to be in control of my weight.  That’s pretty much as long as I live.  There are many different ways to do the first.  My system is calorie counting, with a lot of self knowledge along the way.  To keep doing this, I had to find a way that didn’t suck away willpower.  I don’t have enough to force myself to lose 120 pounds!  Let alone last my whole life.  No, I had to transform my thinking.

Pizza dreaming

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x Pork carnitas wraps with yogurt (200); Grilled pork loin, plain (100)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – 6 x pizza slices (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 5 ounces spaghetti, cooked (250); meatballs (230)

  • 480 calories

Snacking – Snickers ice cream bar (180)

  • 180 calories

Total for the day: 1760 calories (limit 1800)

Another perspective

Yesterday’s post included describing the weight loss system of Keto Kelly (and Scott Adams).  I wrote a comment to her post, asking a few questions:

The Doctor’s comment:

Congratulations on losing 100 pounds! It is really impressive that you were able to do that by changing how you thought about food and eating. 

The post says you had a successful three month break with no weight gain. Were you following the keto rules then? When you are at a weight you like, will you stay on keto afterwards? What about calorie counting, will you keep that up? 

I am half way to my own goal. Thanks for your answers!

Kelly nicely replied with her own comment answering my questions:

Thank you!! And congrats on your losses!

I stayed on the keto diet during that 3-month period. When I reach my goal weight, I plan on sticking to keto (with some popcorn here and there ;)) and a fasting regimen yet to be determined. Probably one meal a day except on weekends. And I plan to do the fasting regimen in place of calorie counting. It’s less effort to watch the clock, and keto helps me feel satiety signals easier.

What a nice answer.  And very useful.  Kelly says elsewhere on her blog that she plans to lose another 30 pounds, having lost about 100 already.  When she has reached her goal, or whatever her final weight will be, she plans to keep on the keto method.  This includes a fasting regimen.  Notice that she does not plan to monitor calories!  I would worry about that, but she has three months of experience using keto and not counting calories.  She says she didn’t gain or lose weight, so she has found a calorie balance.  

So long as she keeps weighing herself, it will probably work.  Go Kelly!  

Never argue with success.  Clearly there are several paths to this goal.

-The Doctor

20190619 Daily report

The mechanism I am using to control my body’s weight has two parts.  (1) Regulate your food intake and (2) weigh yourself regularly.  The first, I accomplish through counting calories and writing everything I eat in a food journal I keep online.  The second I keep by weighing myself every Saturday.  

I call this “the mechanism” because it wouldn’t work if I hadn’t changed my thinking first.  Having become a new person capable of successfully losing weight, I use this mechanism to do it.  I am sure it wouldn’t have worked on me before I changed.  I changed my mind.  My body came along for the ride.  

Red, white....where can I get a blue sausage?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x Pork loin wraps (200); Twix ice cream bar (160)

  • 560 calories

Lunch – Boar’s head bratwurst (300); Boar’s head knockwurst (310)

  • 610 calories 

Dinner – 2 x pork tenderloin wraps (300); baked chicken breast tender (200); coleslaw (45)

  • 540 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1790 calories (limit 1800)

More success stories

Today I found the webpage of a dieter who claimed to get her weight loss model from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.  the Dilbert cartoonist.  I’ve read his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.  There is some weight loss advice in there; Adams says you have to….wait for it….change how you think to lose weight!  He was talking in the context of a systems approach, which he favors over a goal-based approach.  He points out that the goal of losing weight is demoralizing.  Everything you eat goes against the goal!  (I mean, when your only goal is to lose weight, everything you eat is a betrayal of that goal.  Strange but logically true.)

The systems approach says you pick a different method.  Adopt a system – for example, your system might be to eat a healthy diet.  That way every time you eat, you can reinforce the system.  Every meal adds to your success.  Even if you have a lapse and eat too much, you can still keep the system going at the next meal.  

Anyway, this weight loss success calls herself Keto Kelly.  She says she has lost 100 pounds using the ketogenic diet method paired with the systems approach.  One of the Doctor’s observations is that nothing succeeds like success!  I have written before about the keto diet and its potential pitfalls in my How to Start a Diet 120 Pounds Overweight series.  But there is no denying that it is a method many people have used to successfully lose large amounts of weight.  Let’s look at her ideas.

  1. Create a new lifestyle she could live with.  Great idea!
  2. Forced her husband to diet with her.  Er, good for them both!  More seriously, she created social pressure to keep herself on her diet.  It also helped her husband lose 75 pounds.  So she helped others, too.
  3. Jump into her new life.  This sounds like she was able to reinvent herself as a new person capable of new things.  Also good!  She began her new lifestyle with fasting.  Again, who argues with success?
  4. Discovered that she liked her new lifestyle.  She liked it better than her old one, where she gained weight.  That is terrific!  
  5. She says, I have never been this well fed in my life.  That is like something I say all the time.  It means she is really treating herself like someone she is responsible for helping.  She treats herself well, and is therefore able to lose weight.  Compare this to my advice to never punish yourself while trying to lose weight.  
  6. She took a break.  In the middle of her diet, she stopped counting calories for three months.  She didn’t gain or lose any weight during that time, but still observed the keto rules.  It gave her a feeling of rest, like it was a lifestyle she could maintain.  Good thinking!  

I have commented on her post asking some follow up questions.  Maybe she will answer.  I am very interested in this idea of the transition from weight loss to weight maintenance.  

But first, comes the weight loss!  60 pounds to go. My food journal is complete for today.

-The Doctor

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