20190618 Daily report

I have lost 60 pounds by transforming the way I think.  My body is a lagging indicator.

My values are now built around being in control of my weight.  How did I do that?  I had to transform myself and adopt new ways of thinking about myself and about food.   I changed my thinking.  My body is steadily catching up to my new brain and my new way of thinking.  No, I am not saying “think thin”!  That’s just a reminder and a slogan.  I mean, now I am the kind of person who obsesses over calories and what I am going to eat.  When I was my old self, I didn’t worry about those things.  So it was a real transformation.

One of my requirements was that this weight control should be successful.  I have had it with willpower diets.  In a way, I am treating myself like a collection of people with different desires.  These people are willing to cooperate on weight control, if I give them something in return.  What do they want?  Sometimes it is ice cream.  

Taking one for the team

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Grilled pork tenderloin wrap (150); Grilled bratwurst wrap (350)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – Pork carnitas wraps with yogurt (400); baked chicken (200)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – grilled wagyu beef burger 5.3 oz (raw, 4 oz grilled; 350) half wrap shell (55)

  • 400 calories

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

  • 260 calories

Total for the day: 1760 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Exercise and diet

I swim, twice a week, because I like to.  I don’t expect it to lose me any weight.  It’s nice that it also helps keep my muscles strong, and requires practicing coordinated movement.  Notice that on days when I swim, I allow myself an extra 500 calories of food.  The swimming is burning about 600 calories (online calculator).  Sometimes, I am just not hungry for the 500 extra calories and don’t have them.  Sometimes, I am hungry for them and go the extra meal!  That’s a nice system because I feel like there are days when I can have more.  I think I will recommend that part of the rewards people build into their diets, is the occasional “more” day.  It can be something to look forward to….but your mind has to be in the right place.  So much of this is mental.

As for diet, I have written a lot about my dislike of the concept of going on a diet.  The real danger in dieting is that you will force yourself to eat less for a time, while changing absolutely nothing about the way you think.  In a way, such a diet is a long punishment session you inflict on yourself, if you follow me!  Then, at the end, you reach a goal weight, or quit your diet, and go back to your old lifestyle – either right away, or after a short time.  You are the same person who got overweight, you just weigh less for now.  It will come back, and then some more may follow.  

Part of the mental change you should make is to realize that people who stay thin have to work on it a lot.  Weight control takes constant management, and that is just the price you pay.  In exchange, you get to stay thin.  Having your weight under control doesn’t just happen, not for anybody.  To gain this control, it’s important not to feel sorry for yourself or blame others.  It is all you and can be improved only by you, by your mind.  At the end, you will be a stronger and more capable person, in control of their weight.  And you will know the price of that and whether it is worth paying.  Isn’t that a nice outcome?

-The Doctor

20190617 Daily report

Weight loss is a side benefit for me.  The goal is not weight loss.  The goal is weight control.  Weight control is about self knowledge.  Self knowledge means knowing what I have to do to make my life better.  Sound easy?  Try making a list of the things in your life that you could change to make you happier, stronger, and better.  

My goal is to make my life better.  Losing weight is a side benefit.

Test burger

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Pork carnitas wraps (400); banana (100).  The wrap shell was 110 calories, the meat nearly 300, and the rest yogurt.  The carnitas meat was a slow cooker recipe, very nice.

  • 500 calories

Lunch – grilled wagyu beef burger (5.3 oz raw, 4 oz. grilled, 350); half wrap shell (55), cheese (80)

  • 485 calories 

Dinner – baked chicken, 1/4 wrap shell (225); mixed vegetables (40)

  • 265 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 2 x Reese’s peanut butter cups (80); Snickers ice cream bar (180); pizza slice (100)

  • 500 calories

Total for the day: 1750 calories (limit 1800)

The struggle to stay on top of it

The Doctor does not have the willpower to force himself to eat less food.  It feels like punishment.  It is unfulfilling.  You spend every minute on a diet being resentful and unhappy.  That’s no way to live.

Instead, I changed the way I saw the world.  There’s a kind of magic in that.  Now I am describing my new world to you.  Words can change the way people see the world.  Now, I am living in a world where my goal is to ensure I am hungry for every meal, but not between meals.  Now, being full is distasteful to me.  Now, being in control of my weight is more important to me than almost anything else.  

Now, my willpower is deployed for a different purpose.  I am using my willpower to think ahead, plan, cook, and make sure I am enjoying eating less food.  Isn’t that counterintuitive?  But it is a lot more fulfilling than eating just so I would have a full stomach.  In a way, I am working to make sure I am happy and fulfilled.  Losing weight is almost something that happens on the side, a byproduct of my new life.  And this is an intense way of living, too.  All the thinking, planning, cooking, experimenting, and writing it all down, has made this a really fully lived year.  And it’s only half way over!  

Time for bed.  Good night!  Dream of how to change how you see the world.  

-The Doctor

20190616 Daily report

My daily food journal helps me keep trck of the food I eat.  What did you have for breakfast today?  Yesterday?  Tuesday?  How many calories did you eat Wednesday?  How about last week?  If you can answer those questions, you have taken the first step to controlling your body’s weight.  Now it comes down to: how do you find the willpower to do that, every day?  I have found that willpower isn’t the issue, if you look at things the right way.  I don’t use my willpower to force myself to eat less.  I use my willpower to make sure I treat myself really, really well.  

I am willing to eat less food, if the food I eat is worth the wait.  That means I have to figure out what I really want and try to make that happen.  I cater to myself, and part of me responds really well to that.

Grill night for the Doctor

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – steel cut oats and Log Cabin syrup (325)

  • 325 calories

Lunch – pork carnitas wrap with sour cream (300); knockwurst wrap (335)

  • 635 calories 

Dinner – grilled pork tenderloin with chimichurri sauce (300); grilled eggplant with yogurt sauce (300)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (40); Snickers ice cream bar (180)

  • 220 calories

Total for the day: 1780 calories (limit 1800)

Recipes and eating by system

The Doctor has been promising to post a few recipes on this site.  The work is almost done, then I will start linking to that content.  Until then I will describe it! 

My dinner tonight was cooked on a gas grill.  The tenderloins were pounded flat and lightly rubbed with brown sugar, salt, pepper, and brushed with olive oil.  The sugar makes the meat brown quickly, and the molasses content is great for flavoring the meat.  Cooking is only 2 minutes per side on a hot, preheated grill (turned down to medium just when the meat is put on the grates).  After cooking, the meat is well seasoned and is still moist, since the grill is so quick.  The Chimichurri sauce is a olive oil and red wine vinaigrette (4 and 3 tablespoons, respectively), with 4 tablespoons each of minced parsley and cilantro, with a half teaspoon of dried oregano and 1/4 tsp salt.  It’s the green sauce in the picture above.  Spooned on top of the hot, flavorful meat, it is totally worth getting hungry for.

The eggplant slices were brushed with oil, salted and peppered, then cooked on the same grill for 4 minutes per side.  The heat was a bit aggressive, I think next time I will turn the grill down to low.  The yogurt sauce had mint, lemon juice, zest, garlic, cumin, and salt.  That was a really strong flavoring, I think it overpowered the eggplant!  I may cut the spices in half next time. 

I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend, a fellow of about 75 I will call Bob.  Bob has stayed thin in his old age, and trim and muscular too.  I see him at the pool often.  How does he do that?  Is he the mythical person who eats what he likes and doesn’t gain weight?  

Ha, no.  Bob told me that he cooks once per week.  He makes three pounds of meat and an enormous salad, and then eats all that during the week.  His wife doesn’t cook for him, he found he had better control if he does that himself.  He said he only gains weight during travel, like on holidays, when he can’t easily regulate how much he is eating.  That is a really interesting system.  Bob has figured out how much he can eat in a week to maintain his weight.  Instead of paying attention every day to how many calories he can eat, he really only has to pay attention once per week, when he portions and cooks the food.  

Is that a bit dull and monotonous, to eat leftovers 6 days out of 7?  Maybe, we didn’t go into specifics.  But boy, is he fit and thin.  Would that system work for me?  Maybe, once I am 75.  Right now, I am enjoying bribing myself with delicious food that changes every day.  One thing is clear: I am putting a lot more work into my daily food choices, cooking, and calorie counting than Bob is.  

I have made sure that I have a lot of my favorite foods ready to go this week.  I have hamburgers grilled, and sausages, carnitas, and chimichurri grilled pork tenderloin leftovers all ready.  And coleslaw.  No grazing on snacks and chips this week!  The food is so filling and satisfying that I am sure to have a great week.  I am really working hard to keep myself happy.  And it is paying off.  It could work for you, too.

-The Doctor  

 

20190615 Saturday weigh-in

Every week I check to see how good my food journal is and how well it reflects what is really happening.  The best way to check is to weigh myself and see how it matches what the food journal predicts!

This week was not the best week for my diet.  I lost focus, I didn’t reward myself every day, and consequently suffered from the urge to feel full.  My calorie average for this week was around 1950 per day.  On weeks where I have lost 2 pounds or more, I have averaged 1850 or less per day, over the week.  And a lot of the calories I ate this week were highly available, that is, came from processed foods high in carbohydrates.  I’m also not convinced I remembered to write down everything I ate.  So this total might be too low.

On the other hand, the total calorie count was far below what I needed to lose weight.  How did I do this morning on the scale?

Does the new camera make my feet look orange?

Progress!  I didn’t lose two and a half pounds, which is more usual, but I did lose more than one and a half pounds.  Officially, since starting my diet I have lost (in round numbers):

Pounds!!
0

Wooooaaah, I'm half way there

There is an extra 0.8 pound on top of the 265, so it’s not as good as it sounds, but in round numbers 265 puts me at exactly half of the weight I intend to lose.  That’s a total of 120 pounds, starting at 325, down to 205.  It’s taken six months to get this far.  I predict that the remaining 60 pounds will take another six months.  Then will begin the maintenance phase of my new lifestyle.

I am really a new person now.  This was brought home to me when talking with my parents.  They are coming to visit soon.  When I asked what they wanted to eat, they demurred and said they would adapt to what I had.  That’s not the way the Doctor works now!  I will only eat food I really want.  It makes me less adaptable, but it is a trade off I am willing to make, since it makes me so successful at controlling my weight and losing weight.  I have never succeeded at losing weight before, certainly not 60 pounds. 

Anyway, I gave my parents a hard time, and insisted that they should have food they really want while they are visiting.  It was like pulling teeth.  They don’t want to put me to trouble, but truly, I am a new person now.  I am different than the man they knew just a few months ago.  Compared to them, I am now obsessed about my food choices and weight.  Now, I am horrified that they would just make do.  To me, in severe calorie deficit, that wouldn’t work at all.  Why would I bother with eating less, if I didn’t love it?  Why should they?  

Once I have achieved a body weight that I like, I will not stop my weight loss program.  This is my new lifestyle and I like it.  I am paying attention to my own needs and taking care of myself, and I find that enjoyable and emotionally satisfying.  This is an amazing way to lose weight.  What adaptation will I have to make to transfer to a weight-maintenance lifestyle?  What will that be like?

-The Doctor

20190614 Daily report

Every day is a new day to make a payment towards controlling my body’s weight!  How do I pay that?  The price of being in control of your weight is constant attention to regulating and recording what you eat, and weighing yourself every week at least.  People may someday ask me, “Doctor, how do you find the willpower to lose 120 pounds and then keep it off?”  And the answer will be, I don’t play that game.  I don’t have that kind of willpower.  But I have found a way that is much easier.  

Grilling time!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – baguette and salami sandwich (150); baguette and hummus (100); Ruffles chips (150)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Pork loin wraps (200); pretzels (100); ice cream (200)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – grilled knockwurst (310); grilled bratwurst (300)

  • 610 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); crackers (100); cookies (100)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1790 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Using self knowledge

I have a complete record of almost everything I have eaten since January 2019.  Sometimes, that is useful.  Right now, looking at the last week or two, I have not been keeping focused.  My method depends on eating a small amount of food for each meal.  That food has to be pretty exciting, to make up for there being only a little.  But I have had trouble with keeping to my daily calorie total of 1800.  Looking at my menu for the last two weeks, I think I have figured out why.

Many of my recent meals have been a collection of unexciting leftovers or grazing on snacks.  Who would rejoice to eat that?  Since I don’t have the fulfillment and satisfaction of eating the foods I really am looking forward to, I am falling back on my old eating goal. 

I should explain.  When I was developing this weight loss strategy, and was thinking about my eating behavior over the last 20 years, I realized I was eating to feel full.  I convinced myself that being full was the source of satisfaction and fulfillment and was the point of eating.  If I felt sad, or mad, or bad, well, I could feel happy and satisfied if only I was full.  

My new (and successful) eating goal is to focus on strategic hunger.  Using hunger, I have transformed my relationship with food and eating.  The goal now is to be actually hungry (famished) just in time for a meal.  To make that work, the food I am eating has to be worth getting hungry for.  If I am just eating snacks and random leftovers, the incentive is gone.  My old food goal – being full – re-asserts itself.  Luckily I am paying such close attention to my food that I can see this kind of thing early and fix it.    So tonight for dinner, I got very hungry and then rewarded myself with Boar’s Head sausages, freshly grilled and delicious, with mustard.  Tomorrow, I will put some effort into figuring out what will excite and motivate me for the next week.  

That’s part of why this diet is so fulfilling.  I am spending a lot of time figuring out how to please myself and reward myself.  It looks like I am responding to that kind of care!  Maybe you would, too.  What would you be willing to do, to be thin and in control of your body’s weight?  

-The Doctor

20190613 Daily report

Every day, I monitor my food intake and regulate it.  Also, I weigh myself every week.  Together, those two operations put me in control of my body’s weight.  Part of monitoring my food intake is writing down everything I eat.  Regulation is a bit trickier.  I don’t have the willpower to force myself to eat less.   But I am willing to be bribed into eating less food.  The bribery takes many forms, including making sure that the food I eat is strongly appealing to me.  

My diet food - corn, roast pork, and baguette with butter

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Jimmy Dean sausage egg croissantwich (410)

  • 410 calories

Lunch – 4 ounces cooked noodles (200); half Italian sub sandwich (300); cookies (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – roast pork loin with apples (200); baguette (250); corn on the cob (150)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chocolate (110)

  • 190 calories

Total for the day: 1800 calories (limit 1800)

Clothes

I was recently reminded that as I lose weight, my clothes won’t fit any more.   Any pants I buy will only fit briefly (a couple of months) at my current weight loss pace.  I hadn’t thought about other clothes, but eventually all my Oxford shirts (button down collar types) will be too loose to wear, especially around the neck, but the body too.  That will all have to be turned over.  And what makes it worse is that I don’t know what my real final weight will be yet.  205?  200? 195?  The BMI scale suggests 144-195 pounds, but that is a big range.  What will my final size be?  What will I wear?  

In a way I don’t like to deal with this issue until I have to, it feels like “jinxing” my progress, counting chickens before they are hatched, etc.  But I have gone ahead and bought a series of pants, waist sizes 46, 44, and 42.  They are all too small for me, but the size 50 pants I am using now are too big, and the size 48 pants I own fit perfectly now.  By the end of this month, I wouldn’t be surprised to see size 46 fitting.  At that point, my shirts will probably start looking too big, too.  My winter coat?  Too big.  I own one suit.  It will fit briefly during the summer (coat is 52 long, size 46 pants)  and then be too big.  

So the charity shops will do well out of me for the rest of this year. Then I will have to construct a new wardrobe.  It’s an opportunity, but I hope I can settle on a permanent weight relatively quickly.  Making that transition will also be difficult.  I won’t be losing weight (on purpose), I will be trying to maintain a weight.  But for now, I will just try to be happy about the way my food lifestyle is working out.  Really, when the lifestyle is working well, I am very happy to be in calorie deficit.  It feels like a worthwhile cause, and brings the different parts of my mind and body together.

-The Doctor

20190612 Daily report

My daily commitment has the two parts made famous by repetition: (1) weigh yourself weekly and (2) regulate your food intake.  The difference between this weight loss scheme and most others is in how you spend your willpower.  You can fight yourself to eat less, but I have found it more productive to use my willpower to focus on my eating goal – getting hungry so as to enjoy the next meal.  

$5 Wednesday Gyro!!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wrap (200); leftover rice (160)

  • 360 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Pretzels and hummus (200); hummus bread (150); chocolate almonds (200)

  • 550 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Jaffa cakes (100); Hershey chocolate bar (220); ice cream (310)

  • 710 calories

Total for the day: 2220 calories (limit 1800)

What to do when diet failure occurrs

Failure is a strong word, but I am using it to mean that I exceeded my calorie allowance by a fair amount (420 calories).  On a regular diet, you might be mad at yourself or feel disgusted with yourself.  There might even be an urge to punish yourself by skipping a meal the next day, or trying to make up for the difference.  Don’t do that.  Take the chance to learn about yourself and find out something about yourself, that you can use later.  The point is to improve your life and you can’t do that without finding out what makes you happy and fulfilled.  Where did that failure occur today?  

My focus is on hunger.  I spend my willpower making sure I will be hungry in time for meals.  Today, I did the job a little too well.  I didn’t make the most of breakfast, and had leftover rice for some of the meal.  That was probably a mistake.  Next, I waited to have lunch until 12.30 because I didn’t feel ravenously hungry at 11.30, my usual time.  By the time I realized I was really hungry, it was too late and I was over hungry.  I ate my sandwich way too fast and therefore didn’t enjoy most of it.  

Now part of me took over that comes out when I get too hungry.  It wants to feel full and doesn’t care about my wish to be hungry and in control.  So I overate of carbohydrate-rich foods, and then my timing and calories for dinner were off.  I didn’t want to punish myself by withholding dinner, because that would make the panic worse.  I want to have the different parts of myself working together, and I can’t do that if I am punishing parts of myself.  Those parts need to be understood and loved, not punished or hated.  I caused the problem with some bad judgment.  I can’t then get mad at myself for reacting like I know I want to.  I have experienced this problem before.  

Anyway, this is a chance to put my focus back on hunger.  I want to be hungry tomorrow morning, and I will just have to make sure that I eat on time and have food ready that I really want to eat.  Tomorrow is a new day and I can get my balance back.  I am grateful that my body has predictable responses and I can learn from them.  Eventually.  Be patient with yourself.  

-The Doctor

20190611 Daily report

These daily posts are for the purpose of documenting my food intake.  I also talk about other problems I encounter on my project, to gain control of my body’s weight.  Today was a reward day.  Recently I got below 270 pounds, and I promised myself that if I did, I would reward myself with a special meal.  There are people who think it is strange or at least counterproductive to reward myself with food, while dieting.  But since a key part of my diet is to transform the way I think about food and eating, it actually helps me to have rewards.  The reward is something I really like and don’t usually have.  Sometimes I make it, and sometimes I go out.  

Massive Steak Burrito!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x pizza slices (100); apple fruit bar (110)

  • 310 calories

Lunch – Chuy’s steak burrito (1010); rice and beans (160)

  • 1170 calories 

Dinner – leftover burrito

  • (see above)

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels (120)

  • 200 calories

Total for the day: 1680 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Rewards keep you going

Food rewards are a great idea, if you are willing to change yourself and how you think about eating.  For most people, dieting is temporary and they go back to their old habits after a while, sometimes after a successful weight loss.  However, it is easy to gain the weight back since you are living the same way you did before.

My goal for eating is to really enjoy my food.  To do that, I have to be hungry, ravenously hungry.  Food you are really looking forward to eating tastes the best when you are hungry for it.  So you can’t overeat when you are thinking this way.  If you eat too much, you won’t be hungry for your next meal.  Also, I have found that after the first helping of even my favorite foods, I am no longer enjoying it as much.  Then I have a choice: keep eating until I am completely full, or stop eating to preserve my hunger for the next meal.  

My body is willing to eat less food if it is food I really want to eat – if I have something to look forward to.  Part of looking head is food rewards!  When I am looking ahead to a weight milestone, I plan a reward for when I reach it.  Most recently, I was going to reward myself with an enormous Texas steak burrito from Chuy’s restaurant.  (They are a national chain based in Austin.)  It’s not clear from the picture, but that burrito was almost 11 inches long and full of steak.  That was more steak than I have eaten in a long time, and it was really, really good, because I made sure I was really, really hungry.  I am willing to go back there again for another reward in the future. 

In keeping with my desire to not get too full, I ate half the burrito for lunch.  Then I ate the other half for dinner.  That’s right, I got to reward myself AGAIN with the same food.  And it was good again, though not as good as it was at lunch time.  

Rewards pull me forward.  They also make me happy, it is fulfilling a promise to myself.  I get to be happy, eat steak burritos, and lose weight.  This is great!  It could be great for you, too.

-The Doctor

20190610 Daily report

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

Trying it with numbers today

My food intake and calorie count

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

  • 560 calories

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

  • 450 calories 

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

  • 325 calories

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

  • 190 calories

Total for the day: 1525 calories (limit 1800)

Eating by numbers

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

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

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

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

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

-The Doctor

20190609 Daily report

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

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

My food intake and calorie count

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

  • 435 calories

Lunch – 2 x meatball and hummus wraps (250)

  • 500 calories 

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

  • 720 calories

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

  • 170 calories

Total for the day: 1825 calories (limit 1800)

Changes to the body followed changes to the mind

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

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

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

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

-The Doctor

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