20200818 Daily report

The goal of being on a weight control lifestyle is to be on a weight control lifestyle.  Don’t think that I am doing all this to lose weight.  That is not my goal.  It is a side effect, a beneficial side effect.  My goal is to change my way of thinking, so that I can live the life I want.  I have picked new values, and the first one is: if I don’t do it, nobody will do it for me.  I have to be responsible for my body.  I choose to be in control of its weight.  Mentally, my weight is 205.  Physically, it is more like 225.  My body is catching up to my mind.  I may change my mind again later.  It will do for now.

Roasted dinner! Eaten outside in late summer.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Half bagel (165); hummus (40); milk (80);

  • 285 calories

Lunch – Italian sausage (240); bratwurst (260); 1/2 Lavash wrap (60);

  • 560 calories 

Dinner – chicken breast (150); baked potato pieces (150); Brussels sprouts (30);

  • 330 calories

Snacking – chips (120); 

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1295 calories (limit 1700)

Physical hunger

Part of the changes I made to my thinking included new ideas on eating and hunger.  I decided that the best system was to eat at the regular mealtimes, but make sure I was good and hungry first.  I would do that with portion control and calorie planning.  I would know before I ate, how many calories I would be having.  It made food more enjoyable, really.  Food is best when you are hungry.  Amazingly, that feeling lasts (usually) for just a few bites.  Then it’s diminishing returns.  It gets less and less rewarding as you eat more.  You are no longer so eager for phyiscal satiety. 

I also went walking 3 miles today.  Exercise seems to be good for me.  That wasn’t part of the changes I made to my thinking for weight control.  Even when I was gaining weight, I liked to swim and play outside.  So I don’t think of exercise as being responsible for my body so much as something I like to do.  

No, accepting control meant, at some level, looking at myself and wondering: if I was in charge of my body, did I want it to be so overweight?  And if I didn’t, what would have to change?  The idea that you can negotiate with yourself and reward yourself for thinking the right way was new to me, but that part went well.  I found out how to reward myself for a good job controlling my food intake.  But the important part was figuring out how to see portion control correctly.  If you are using food to feed your emotional rather than physical needs, then withholding food is like punishment.  You hate it!  That’s why so many people have trouble losing weight and then gain it back again later, I am sure.  

It is more correct and useful to say, I will eat when I am physically hungry and I will make sure I am hungry for every meal.  My reward is to satisfy that hunger well.  Then, I can address those emotional needs I have been feeding with physical food!

-The Doctor

20200817 Daily report: now with BLE

…also known as Big Lunch Edition!  Normally I have three meals relatively balanced in calories.  I find that usually keeps me going.  But today, I had a very late breakfast and small.  Then I was really hungry for lunch.  There’s nothing like getting really hungry.  Not so hungry that you are suffering over it, but hungry enough that it is a physical need.  When you are controlling your body’s weight using a portion control strategy, it’s very important to keep in mind why you are eating.  Your own psychology of eating.  It’s easy to fall into a trap where you are eating for reasons other than physical need.  Then, your weight will go up.  Especially if you are not paying attention.  

Weight control doesn't have to mean taste control!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – leftover beef and broccoli stir-fry with rice (200)

  • 200 calories

Lunch – Bratwurst (260); 1/4 Lavash wrap (30); bagel (330); hummus (100);

  • 720 calories 

Dinner – 120g Tortellini (300) Italian sausage (240) Brussels sprouts (25);

  • 565 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1565 calories (limit 1700)

Running-around calories

I’m amazed how sedentary I have been for several weeks.  It feels like I haven’t even driven anywhere.  And I haven’t!  It’s starting to feel more and more like I need to eat less and less to lose any weight.  Well, I can take some time to walk tomorrow.  

It all comes from paying attention.  The Doctor is a routine-izer.  For a long while, about a year, I developed and stuck to a routine where I was losing up to 2 pounds a week.  Then, I had a long plateau of 6 months where I didn’t lose any weight, and also I didn’t try very hard to lose more.  Suddenly in July, like throwing a switch, I decided to lose weight again.  But amazingly, it came a lot harder than I remembered in 2019.  Doing the same things didn’t result in much weight loss.  I blame this partly on the lack of exercise (swimming) and general lack of running around outside.  Since I was paying attention, I learned pretty quickly from the scale and my calorie count that my old routine wasn’t going to work as well.  Either I would lose up to a pound a week, or I could try something else.  

You can see how frustrating a diet can be.  You think you are doing all the right things that worked before, and suddenly they stop working.  No wonder people get frustrated and quit!  Especially if they are forcing themselves to lose weight.  Much better, don’t you think, to set up your life so that weight loss is a side effect of a life you like to be part of.  

How could you set up your life that way?

-The Doctor

20200816 Daily report with exercise

Today was a good day for food, diet, and eating.  A good day is when you maintain your weight control lifestyle.  I have found two ways to make the lifestyle work so far!  The first is paying it a lot of attention.  It becomes a hobby and the most important thing you do all day.  That works, but the danger is that everything else in your life becomes less important.  The second way is to pick another obsession – like career – but still maintain weight control by staying minimally on top of it.  I can do that because I have developed some good habits in the last year.  Picking foods I like, measuring portions, writing down calories in a food journal, and learning the importance of at least some exercise!

I can't get enough of this!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – leftover pizza (500)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – 2x Italian sausages (240); peach (40)

  • 520 calories 

Dinner – 5oz cooked rice (160); beef and broccoli stir-fry (315)

  • 475 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80);

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1575 calories (limit 1700)

When sedentary is up!

My current lifestyle is heavy on remote work .  That means a lot of sitting in front of the computer and I am the most sedentary I have ever been.  That is not working very well with a steady and disciplined approach to weight control, and I am seeing progress but in small spurts.  It’s still progress.

Walking is now my major exercise.  I walk 3 miles at a time hopefully 3x per week.  I have discovered I like a certain amount of exercise and I miss swimming and all the running around I used to do pre-Corona virus.  But that was then and this is now.  We can find ways to cope!

It’s more important than ever to find out what thin people are doing – I mean, people who have stayed thin over the years.  It does take constant discipline and vigilance.  But if you set up your lifestyle and incentives the right way, it will result in a life you like to be living.  

Let’s talk about that lifestyle and incentives some more this week.

-The Doctor

20200815 Saturday weighing

I weigh myself once a week.  It’s a habit now.  There are times when I am embarrassed to get on the scale – if I had a bad week or couple of days just be fore weighing.  But it is better to see what the effect of a bad week is, then to not know.  And your body may surprise you.  But knowing is better than not knowing.  Ignorance kills, after all.  

Anyway, I have about a year and a half of my body weight written down.  It’s mostly decreased though there have been pauses and backslidings here and there.  This week I hardly budged:

Caption

Last week I weighed 225, a big dip.  But I went down again very slightly this week, so it looks like the weight loss was real.  Since January 2019, I have lost:

Pounds!!
0

What a milestone!

Strange to think every time I walk up the stairs that I used to be carrying an extra 100 pounds up with me.  If my skeleton is discovered millions of years from now I wonder what they will make of mine!  “He was probably a slave who carried heavy boulders to build the Pyramids!”  I suppose I was a slave, to my lack of responsibility.  I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, but I didn’t have the kind of thinking that would get me out of the trap of eating for the wrong reasons.

Mostly what got me out of that old thinking was reading about responsibility.  It was very inspiring and I can’t think why I never caught on to the idea before.  It also helped to think of myself as two people: the articulate will (hi, that’s me writing right now) and the deeper, animal self that might actually be in charge, who knows.  Both parts had to be negotiated with and aligned for me to be successful in this weight control lifestyle.  I’ve talked about that a lot over the last year and a half.

It’s also interesting that the first 90 pounds of loss all came steadily over about a year.  Then I had a big pause for six months, then I have lost the next 10 pounds in fits and starts.  I read today about a man who weighed 425 pounds.  He lost over 220 (wow!) mostly by changing his reason for eating.  He decided that food was fuel and not for pleasure, and then he lived that out.  He also mentioned that a lot of the weight came off in one long steady effort, then he had a pause and had to work hard to lose the last 30-40 pounds.  Maybe that’s a common theme.  

Don’t get discouraged!  You can go a long way and then find you have a little more ways to go.

…and when you are concentrating on your weight, don’t forget you have a lot of responsibilities to take care of!  Don’t slack off in other important areas, you only live once.

-The Doctor

20200814 Daily report quickly

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Caption

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – xxx (00)

  • 00 calories

Lunch – yyy (00); zzz (00)

  • 00 calories 

Dinner – bbb (00); ccc (00)

  • 00 calories

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

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 000 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Add Your Heading Text Here

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I won’t talk fast, but I don’t have time to say a lot today.  It’s already 10.30 and I do not think staying up late helps people who are trying to control their weight.  There’s some connection between eating and staying awake that I don’t need!  And I had such a nice dinner, too.

I did not eat the whole pizza! Just about a quarter, though.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Bagel (330); salami (140); cheese (70);

  • 540 calories

Lunch – Lasagna (300)

  • 300 calories 

Dinner – Pizza (700); 

  • 700 calories

Snacking – Snickers ice cream bar (180)

  • 180 calories

Total for the day: 1720 calories (limit 1700)

Don't worry about tomorrow until tomorrow

It’s one thing to know that tomorrow is my weigh-in, and it’s another to speculate and worry about it.  The week’s work is done and I have eaten everything I am going to eat until I get on the scale tomorrow morning.  I am just thinking about the week that has gone by.  I have been very busy and I have kept my focus on eating just enough food, most of the time.  That’s good and fulfilling in its own way.  Now, I will go to bed and let my body do its work.  There is a whole new week starting, a week that I can try to make the best of.   

See you next week!  

-The Doctor

20200813 Daily report – slipping or skipping

I didn’t post yesterday!  I am skipping days.  Or maybe I am slipping – no longer able to post due to lack of nourishment!  My calorie total yesterday was 1535, so that’s not a lot.  But considering how sedentary I have been the last few weeks, it may be just right.  

I had a Russian friend once, and she was ferocious.  I told her I was thinking of going on a diet (this in my 20s when I was just a bit overweight).  Two years later, she wrote me an email asking if I could still cast a shadow.  Ouch!  Abraham Lincoln once described an argument that had gotten so thin it was like soup made from the shadow of a pigeon which had starved to death.  It was that kind of a situation. Obviously I could still cast a shadow.  Two shadows, in the years to come.

Caption

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Beef and broccoli with rice (200)

  • 200 calories

Lunch – 2 pieces Spanish tortilla (333); Lavash wrap half (60)

  • 400 calories 

Dinner – Lasagna (500); salad (30)

  • 530 calories

Snacking – Pretzels (200); Cheddar cheese (100); Snickers ice cream bar (180);

  • 480 calories

Total for the day: 1610 calories (limit 1700)

Guesstimating the portions

I didn’t make the lasagna and didn’t measure the serving.  I am guessing 500 calories but don’t know for sure.  It felt like that.  

Normally I like a bit more control in my food portions (OK, I am a bit extreme about it) but my priority recently has been work.  One thing that has had to give is food preparation.  So I am just rolling with it.

It’s been interesting to devote the last year and a half to losing 100 pounds and I want that to go further.  But maybe it’s time to change my focus a bit. I have been blogging for a while now about making a transition from losing weight to maintaining a weight and I will be thinking a lot more about that, even though I still have a way to go.  A weigh to go, haha.  My original goal was to lose 120 pounds, ending at 205.  Probably I will end up going for a lower number even than that.  But for now, 205 is still a good goal – I haven’t gotten there yet.  I am at 225.  

It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?  I used to weigh 325 pounds and have weighed around 300 for maybe 10 years.  Now I weight a good bit less.  I am a different person now and that person won’t gain back the weight.  I am aware that the old me is still in there somewhere and he has had a lot of practice being in charge.  I will always have to make sure my new life is attractive and that I will have to do some work.

What have you learned?

-The Doctor

20200811 Daily report and darkwalk

My wisdom will be extra pithy today.  I don’t have a lot of time!  I haven’t been walking in several days, but I took a darkwalk tonight – started just before dusk and it was full dark by the time I got back from the three miles.  Exercise seems important and worth sacrificing for.  Good food, likewise.

Colorful Spanish tortilla

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Bagel (330); salami (100); 80g ham (130);

  • 560 calories

Lunch – chicken enchilada (300); watermelon (25);

  • 325 calories 

Dinner – Spanish tortilla (500); mayonnaise (50); watermelon (25);

  • 575 calories

Snacking – pretzels (100);

  • 100 calories

Total for the day: 1560 calories (limit 1700)

...and I fell fast asleep

It’s good to work hard, then you are tired afterwards. And hungry.  Physical labor is better for hunger than mental labor, that’s well known.  While keeping busy keeps your mind on non food things, another essential is getting enough sleep.  People don’t always think about that.  Without enough sleep your ability to keep your mind on the job and stay away from the kitchen will be severely compromised.  

Tomorrow I have another busy day.  That means sleep, bed for me!  Sleep well, everyone.  Dream of a life you want to live, where your weight is under control.  But it’s not just weight, is it?  It’s being in control of your life.

-The Doctor

20200810 Daily report: inside edition

By “inside edition” I don’t mean inside my belly!  I mean I was sitting inside all day working.  For all of that, on a day where I got a lot of activity, I had plenty to eat.  

Enchilada time!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Bratwurst (260); 1/4 Lavash wrap (30)

  • 290 calories

Lunch – Sandwich with salami (140); cheese (70); and bun (170); chicken soup (30) with 2oz noodles (100);

  • 510 calories 

Dinner – 2x chicken enchiladas (300); sour cream (60)

  • 360 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); blueberries (50); crustless fruit pie (150); coffee cake (150);

  • 430 calories

Total for the day: 1890 calories (limit 1700)

Catchup/Ketchup

It had to happen, right?  I have been very calorie restricted for weeks and I was starting to feel it.  So I had a day with nearly 1900 calories!  Last year that would have been a routine day.  Now my past is catching up with me.  

I don’t see this as a setback.  1890 is not extravagant and I won’t gain weight that way.  But it does feel unusual, being full. 

Counting calories has worked for me.  But now I know my body needs exercise too, or weight loss will be slow.  I didn’t get to walk today, but I will tomorrow.  

Weight control is a long term game.  Today someone was talking about the TV show Biggest Loser, where people lose all kinds of weight.  It’s no surprise to me that many of them gain it back, though.  The weight control is outsourced to coaches and aides who tell the person what to do and how much of what to eat, and have them exercise.  When the coaches go home, the person who gained all that weight is still there, unchanged.  The relationship with food and the reson for eating are unexamined and still the same as before.  That person will almost certainly gain the weight back, and feel bad about it too.

Don’t be in that position.  Change your mind and learn to think like a thin person.  It’s possible to do that and still enjoy your life.  It does take some thinking, and some changing, though.

Change your mind first.

-The Doctor

20200808 Saturday weighing less

Every Saturday, I weigh myself in the morning, before breakfast.  It is important to know how much you weigh.  The lifestyle I am building is an information-based way of life.  I count calories and keep a food journal and weigh myself.  Even if you had a bad diet week, or a bad day Friday, you should still get on the scale because you need to know the effects of a bad week or a bad day.  It’s taken me a while to figure that out.  I have been too embarrassed or too ashamed to get on the scale before.  But it’s just between you and the scale.  Not everyone is putting the results up on the internet!  Talking of which, I did weigh myself.  How did that go?

Red toe from walking so much! Good number though.

I forget, how much weight have I lost since I started living the weight control lifestyle in January 2019?  Oh yes, it was…

Pounds!!
0

Hooray!

I have to admit I thought I would first get below 330 pounds and then a week or two later get to this level.  This is amazing and a bit weird.  Losing 5 pounds in one week?  That can’t be real or healthy, right?

Ordinarily I would just say no, it’s not real.  But I have data from my food journal and I have been walking a bit more, about three miles a day most days.  According to my food journal this week I averaged 1444 calories per day.  That’s pretty low. Under normal conditions I aim for 1850 per day and expect to lose 1-2 pounds, so in deficit between 3500-7000 calories.  But this week I was in deficit a bit more.  About 400 calories per day more!  2800 calories more is just about a pound.  Maybe the walking made a difference?  I won’t know until next week.

Interestingly weighing myself with clothes on put me up about 1.5 pounds.  That’s good to know, too.  

And from an online calculator I see that walking doesn’t burn that many calories. Maybe 110 per mile, so if I walked 10 miles we can estimate a further 1100 calories were burned.  That’s just not enough to lose 5 pounds.  So there is something unusual going on with my body.  That’s ok, I will find oud out next week when I get on the scale again.  That’s the beauty of the system – there is always more data.

As a reward, the Olive Garden is out, due to Corona Virus.  What kind of reward should I have?  Today’s dinner is a top candidate.  I had home-grilled steak, potato, and salad.  Nearly 900 calories just for dinner!  I haven’t done that in forever.

Have a good week!  

-The Doctor

20200807 Daily report

Yesterday, someone asked me what my system I was using to control my weight.  Well, I am not using any famous (yet) system, like low carb, keto, paleo, South Beach, Atkins, low fat, or seefood.  (Seefood, you know: you see food, and then you eat it.)  What others?  Weight watchers and Jenny Craig are popular too.  Those are probably closest to my system in because they involve calorie counting and portion control.  But for me the essential part isn’t the mechanism, it’s getting your mind right.  If you get your mind right, then your body follows.

Mark Twain had a system that he liked to call starvation.  In his day people complained they had no appetite and he advised starving yourself until you were good and hungry for dinner.  I’ve used that one a lot on my weight control system.  

Good and hungry for nachos and chips!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Last of the veal cannelloni (200)

  • 200 calories

Lunch – 7oz pulled pork (340); Ole wrap (60);

  • 400 calories 

Dinner – 10oz nachos (450); 1.5oz chips (200); sour cream (60);

  • 710 calories

Snacking – Snickers ice cream bar (180); 

  • 180 calories

Total for the day: 1490 calories (limit 1700)

It's been a lean week

By keeping my mind on work and away from food – which has taken a lot of concentration – I have not felt hungry enough to eat as much as usual.  That’s part of getting your mind right.  But it starts with something else.

It starts with figuring out what is your reason for eating.  Are you eating in order to feel different emotionally?  Boredom, tiredness, frustration – those are not the right reasons to eat.  It’s hard to be honest about that.  If you are overweight, first look to your reason for eating.  Maybe you are avoiding problems in your life.  Maybe you are using food for comfort.  That’s a terrible trap.  Then every time you try to eat less, it’s like you are withholding comfort and happiness from yourself….but not in a healthy way.  By eating food.   

You must learn to reconnect to simple physical reasons for eating.  You should be eating because you are hungry and that hunger is starting to dominate your thoughts and keep you from doing your work.  As Twain wrote, there’s nothing wrong with regularity in your meals as long as your appetite is calling the shots.  OK, maybe he said it using different words.  Look up his short story “At the Appetite-Cure.”

Another part of getting your mind right early on is to relearn the truth: that hunger is a good thing you can use to your benefit.  I never enjoy a meal so much as when I am very hungry for it.  Twain said your stomach should call with a shout!  So you can get to a place where you are not punishing yourself by withholding food, but rewarding yourself for getting properly hungry.  Then you can learn to be careful about not eating too much, so you are hungry for the next meal.  See how that works?

Let’s see if it worked for me, tomorrow.

-The Doctor

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