20200806 Daily Report double quick time!

11PM and where did the time go!  I was so busy today and I didn’t prepare a lot of the food I ate so there was a little guessing involved in counting the calories!  I will have to do calculations later.  I had veal cannelloni for lunch and dinner because they were so good – sheets of pasta stuffed with veal, spinach, and ricotta, and covered with bechamel and cheese.  Yes, I did have one little, little piece of fudge that came with a tremendous price tag!  Did you know that 36g of fudge is about 150 calories?  Now you know.  That’s just over an ounce.  

Canneloni! I should have cut it open first for a better view of the layers.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco pizza half slice (380)

  • 380 calories

Lunch – 2x Canneloni (200); baguette piece (50); 36g peanut butter fudge (150);

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Canneloni (200); 5oz pulled pork (250); broccoli (25);

  • 475 calories

Snacking – None today

  • 0 calories

Total for the day: 1455 calories (limit 1700)

No time today for chitchat

I did walk today – just a mile or so.  Every little bit helps.  I am pretty sure I am going to have a negative experience on Saturday when I weigh in.  Negative is good in this case, I am saying I will weigh less than last week!  I don’t want a positive experience on my scale.

Tomorrow I will calculate how many calories were actually in those Cannelloni.  It will still be a bit of a guess, though.  Keep busy!

-The Doctor

20200805 Daily Report and not much else

When you are trying to lose weight you can lose balance quickly.  A few days ago I was amazed at how busy I was and how little time I had to think about food, and really how little I needed to. Then, on Monday, I accidentally skipped lunch.  That’s unusual.  I can set the clock by my interest in lunch at 11.30.  Anyway, I just ate dinner that day.   Instead of my typical 1500-1700 calories, Monday I had….1030.  I didn’t think much about it then, but ever since Monday I have been feeling extra hungry.  Not all the time, I’m not gnawing on the table or anything.  But near mealtimes I am definitely noticing it now.  And my meals have to be bigger than usual.  Mind over matter only takes me so far.

I had to make myself stop after 2!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 4oz meatloaf (320); Ole wrap (60); mayo (50); 

  • 430 calories

Lunch – bagel (330); salami (140); olives (20);

  • 490 calories 

Dinner – Costco cheese pizza (760); 

  • 760 calories

Snacking – Nada

  • 0 calories

Total for the day: 1680 calories (limit 1700)

I am thinking about it right now!

A third slice, I mean.  I didn’t starve today, but my body is thinking about that missed meal.  The danger is, that part of me will get resentful about that lost meal and start complaining: why are you punishing me?  I don’t mean to.  But there is a temptation for me to see it that way.  Then the discipline will break down and I might have a bad diet day.  

The principle is: every day is a new day.  If you overate yesterday, don’t try to fix yesterday by eating less today.  The other side is, if you under-ate yesterday, don’t overeat today to make up for it either.  That principle is being tested right now.  I may have to spend a little time thinking of a reward for myself – this has been a tough couple of weeks.  For one thing, I have not lost any weight from December 2019-June 2020.  Now I am losing again, and that has to be rewarded.  I started doing more exercise (walking) and that has changed things too.  When I get under 230 pounds (milestone!!!) I will have to be very good to myself.  Oh yes – Olive Garden it is!  

Time for bed.  If you don’t get enough sleep you will never have the time or energy to control your weight and do all your work.  Take care!

-The Doctor

20200804 Daily report, lost day edition

Part of controlling your weight is developing a lifestyle you want to be living.  I have gotten much happier since I started walking (most days) for 3 miles at a time.  I like exercise more than I thought!  At the same time, I have always believed that the food I prepare (and carefully portion) had to be the best and most appealing I could make, or else it wouldn’t be worth waiting for.  But these days I am busy from morning till night and have no time to worry about all that.  I am having food that I like but not always favorites that I have been looking forward to with anticipation.  

OK, dinner tonight was great.  But I didn’t think about what I was going to eat until 6PM.  So I am working on a new idea.  Read on and see.

Vegetable curry. Choose your curry powder well!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – bagel (330); 3oz ham (130);

  • 460 calories

Lunch – 5oz meatloaf (400); Ole wrap (60); 1.5tsp mayonnaise (50);

  • 510 calories 

Dinner – 5oz rice (160); 12oz vegetable curry (330)

  • 490 calories

Snacking – Fruit of the Forest pie (no crust, 150); 

  • 150 calories

Total for the day: 1610 calories (limit 1700)

It may not mean anything to you yet

The advice to “keep busy” is sometimes given to people who are on diets.  But keeping busy is not always good competition for eating.  I know one woman who kept busy counting her chewings; she had been taught to chew each bite of food 30 times!  She did not have a weight problem and no wonder.  It would take all day to eat breakfast. But there are other ways to keep busy.  I have been very occupied with work and career matters, and have hardly thought about what I want to eat.  Tomorrow will make two weeks without a gryos from Big Greek Cafe, and I have hardly noticed.

If you can find part of your life and responsibilities to throw yourself into and dedicate yourself to them, you will be amazed how the focus comes off when and what you will eat.  

Short writing tonight – busy days here.  Keep striving!

-The Doctor

20200802 Daily report, cool edition

As much as I have been enjoying the heat resistance that comes with being a bit thinner, it is always nice when the hot summer weather breaks.  Today was that day.

To control your body’s weight, weight control itself has to be one of your top priorities.  You should be a bit obsessed!  Whatever diet experts tell you about not obsessing is a bit wrong, I think.  You aren’t going to lose a lot of weight and keep it off by tinkering around the edges of what you were doing before.  

Gaining weight actually takes effort.  But you don’t think about it.  Let me explain, after dinner.

Didn't wait to take a picture before starting!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Large pancake (120); syrup (60);

  • 180 calories

Lunch – homemade pizza slice (300); 5oz chili (175 ); 1/2 oz tortilla chips (80);

  • 555 calories 

Dinner – 5oz Meatloaf (400); potatoes and carrot (100); brussels sprouts (40);

  • 540 calories

Snacking – Fruit of the Forest pie for dessert (250)

  • 250 calories

Total for the day: 1525 calories (limit 1700)

1700 is still new

Formerly I was limiting myself to 1850 calories per day and losing 2 pounds per week.  Then I suddenly got less exercise (thanks Corona Virus) and I was losing less than a pound per week.  I lowered my calorie intake a bit in response.  Meeting that new stricter limit has not been too difficult so far.  I have been concentrating so hard at work that my eating has gotten very connected to my physical hunger.  That is a good thing.  That is, I am only eating when I am really hungry!

But what did I mean when I was talking about how it takes work to gain weight?  Well, it does.  You have to convince yourself to eat more and that takes some effort.  Physically, eating more than you really, really want to does also take some push.  You have to learn to ignore phyiscal hunger and physical satiety – that feeling of having eaten just enough.  It is there, somewhere.  If you pay attention to the next time you eat you will find you aren’t nearly as hungry after the first few bites.  Sometimes, you don’t really need any more after that.  

Learn to pay attention to hunger.  It can be your best friend in ways you didn’t know.

-The Doctor

20200801 Saturday way in

Today is Saturday and that means it’s weighing time.  When I was gaining weight and not paying attention to controlling my body, I practically never got on the scale.  Partly, I didn’t want to know.  Now, I have promoted weight control to the top of my list of values that I live by.  So I weigh myself weekly.  There are people who weigh themselves every day and I have tried it.  But seeing the number change once a week is much more dramatic.  It’s hard to get excited about losing 0.2-0.3 pounds, and my lifestyle has some excitement built-in.  So I don’t even get on a scale, usually, until Saturday morning and so I never know if I have lost weight until then.  

That's close to the line!

I am at a different location this week so the scale is different.  I am pretty sure 230.0 pounds is accurate because I got on this scale last week too, just to check.  And it had run out of battery.  But once that was fixed, my weight was pretty close to what I get at home.  So I trust this number pretty well.  

Since starting to control my weight in January, 2019 I have lost:

Pounds!!
0

Double milestones on the horizon

I don’t like to brag about what I will do in the future because it may never happen.  But I always plan ahead for success.  I always reward myself for achieving milestones, because I want to persuade all the parts of my being that living this way is better.  Let me explain: I have forcing myself to eat less food and that doesn’t work for very long.  It takes continual application of force.  And if I did manage to lose weight that way, I would pretty quickly gain it back again.  I would be the same person, after all, and you can’t force yourself forever.  

However you can discipline yourself.  You, the conscious willing part, can take on doing all the work, and create a new person who will be living the life you want.  The new life has to be attractive and it can’t use force.  But you can make sure that you are eating for the right reasons; that you can make the trade of quantity of food for quality; you can plan ahead and cook ahead so that the foods you want to eat are always there when you need them and in the right portions; and you can learn to see hunger as a positive force that enhances your joy in life.  This is a hopeful lifestyle.

The milestones I use are decades.  When I move from the 230s to the 220s, that is a milestone and I will prepare a favorite meal or food as a reward.  Food as a reward??!?!  All the diet experts say don’t do that!  And I say that I have done it and lost 95 pounds.  Questions?

The other milestone is 100 pounds lost.  My original goal when I started was to lose 125 pounds and see how that looked.  So 100 pounds is not the end.  When I weigh 200 pounds (!) I will see if there is more that should be lost.  But I will be pretty happy about weighing only 200 pounds for a while.  That will be a big, big milestone.

But the weight control will continue.  It’s no good losing weight to put it back on again.  But I won’t stop being the Doctor – weight maintenance is a lifetime job.

-The Doctor

20200731 Daily report Goodbye July

…and goodbye to another food week.  My food week ends Friday night and a new one dawns with Saturday morning.  It just worked out that way.  I weigh myself every Saturday morning and that makes it a good place to either end or start the week.  Weighing yourself is essential.  I have been too embarrassed to get on the scale after a bad day before.  But sometimes I wonder why.  It’s important to know how much weight you could gain after a bad day.  The more you know about your body, the better for you.  The weight control lifestyle is a knowledge-based one.

Homemade pizza this time

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – baked beans (100) 2x Hawaiian rolls (80); salami (140) Muenster cheese (70);

  • 470 calories

Lunch – 9oz chili (315); 1oz chips (150);

  • 465 calories 

Dinner – pizza (600); ding dong (160);

  • 760 calories

Snacking – chips and guacamole (150); 

  • 150 calories

Total for the day: 1845 calories (limit 1700)

The dark side

I am fond of saying that every day is a new day.  That means if I have a bad day and overeat, I can’t then eat less tomorrow to balance it out.  I treat today like a new day and stick to the calorie limit for that day.  Unfortunately that has a dark side.  On days when I significantly undereat, I can’t carry that forward to the new day and eat more.  It doesn’t seem to work, in any case.  This week I have been trying to restrict my calorie intake and that’s been going well since I am keeping my mind on work all day.  But there have been a few really lean days in there.  My calorie average for this week is just about 1600 calories per day.   That is a new low for me.  

I also started doing some daily exercise.  Yesterday and today I took long walks and earlier in the week I took some short ones.  I plan to continue the long walks for now.  Maybe that will help me with my problem!  I have been having a slowdown in my rate of weight loss from last year, when I was losing up to 2 pounds per week.  But with the pool closed this summer my exercise has slowed down just like my weight loss.  Maybe there is more of a connection that I liked to admit.  Anyway, I have a good feeling about tomorrow’s weighing.  It’s been a good week, with the calorie reduction and the walking.

The first principle of weight control is to make sure it’s a lifestyle you want to be in.  Promote weight control up your list of values until it is right at the top and push everything else down.  What would you give up for being thinner?  I had to give up my old self and his set of values.  They didn’t suit me any more.  I had to create a new set of values both to become thinner, and also so that my old body wouldn’t come back later.  I’m not going through all this again.

-The Doctor

20200730 Daily report – rain time

Now comes the rain!  Things have been dramatically hot for weeks and now it breaks.  Hopefully the hottest part of summer is over.  It’s done wonders for my appetite though.  I am currently working through the idea that I should only eat when I am physically hungry.  Part of weight control is to reconnect that link to physical hunger.  Many people who are gaining weight have learned to link the good feeling that comes from eating to emotional needs.  That is no good.  Find an appropriate outlet for your emotional needs.  Find the right outlet for your physical needs too.  

Well, I did have 10 ounces of chili for dinner.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 plums (30); mac and cheese (200);

  • 260 calories

Lunch – bratwurst (260); half Ole wrap (30); baked beans (130);

  • 420 calories 

Dinner – 10oz chili (350); 3oz guacamole (135); 1.2oz chips (170)

  • 655 calories

Snacking – none yet (0);

  • 0 calories

Total for the day: 1335 calories (limit 1700)

Walkies

I walked three miles today, more or less, quite hilly too.  It was a humid day, quite overcast, but I enjoyed it.  It was nice to see what people have been doing with their houses.  There’s so much remodeling going on right now!  

I have been trying to walk more now that I don’t have access to a pool.  Yes, I haven’t had access to the pool since March and haven’t done much about it.  But it’s not too late.  I feel like there is something to the idea that even a little exercise is better than none, so I will walk a little every day.  Maybe it will take me out of my weight loss rut – one pound per week!  That’s not good enough considering the effort I put into controlling my body’s weight.  This also means that after I reach a weight I like, I should keep walking or swimming, if I can.  This Corona virus stuff is getting annoying.  

The first six months of 2020 have been quite a pause in my weight loss, and in blogging.  I’m not sure what suddenly changed for me about a month ago, but I started maintaining my calorie count better and lost some more weight – slowly.  But now I feel enthusiastic about being The Doctor again.  I can’t even blame the pause all on Corona since I stopped losing weight in December and just….paused.    Corona became a thing in March.  

So much of controlling your weight, and staying in charge of your life, happens inside your head.  Don’t neglect it.

-The Doctor

20200729 Daily report with walking

The walking continues!  I worked all day and then had a walk after dinner.  My calorie count continues low, and when I got on the scale this morning (not my usual time, I was just checking something) my weight was a new low.  My guess is that some exercise is better than none.  And this was pretty light exercise.  But it is getting cooler outside and summer food keeps getting better!

Tomato caprese with basil

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – bagel (330); 3oz ham (130)

  • 430 calories

Lunch – small chicken piece (30); bratwurst (260); 1/2 Ole wrap (30);

  • 320 calories 

Dinner – tomato caprese with mozzarella cheese (140); tomato (60); 5oz rice (160); stir-fry vegetables (100); 3.1oz ham (140);

  • 600 calories

Snacking – Nothing yet, likely ice cream and chocolate syrup for 240.

  • 00 calories

Total for the day: 1380 calories, probably 240 more or 1620 total. (limit 1700)

100% of it is 99% mental.

I forget the source of that quote, but I think I know what it means.  I’ve been concentrating on my work projects so hard that eating and fulfillment through food has taken a back seat.  I haven’t cooked anything in days!  My recent meals have all been with family.  It’s been nice to get together, we have all been isolated because of the Corona Virus rules.  But anyway, since my brain has been busy I haven’t had the time to worry about what I am eating, or even if I am hungry.  Be careful there – you have to take care of yourself or you will lose control fast.  

But there is a valuable lesson here: your reason for eating should be as closely connected to your physical needs as possible.  If your reasons for eating include feeling good, or at least better, then you should be very suspicious.  That way lies weight gain.  You will never run out of emotional problems that can be indulged with food.  Solving your problem is harder and challenging but very rewarding.  I will be very, very happy when I start achieving more weight milestones and achievements.  I am looking forward to Saturday’s weighing with enthusiasm  for the first time in a while.  

Here’s to success!  Don’t fall into a rut.  

-The Doctor.

20200728 Daily report – dining outside

OK, I have ruined my experiment!  This week I was going to try eating fewer calories to see if it made up for the lack of exercise.  Well, I had a walk yesterday and two today, so combined with me eating fewer calories it’s muddied the waters a lot.  However my weight goes this weekend, there will be a lot of guessing involved.  Well, the direction won’t be much of a surprise.  My calorie count is far down for some reason, and I am going to walk every day.  

And the weather has changed.  Now it is pleasant to sit outside and have dinner.

It is worth getting hungry because you enjoy dinner so much aftewards.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 4.5oz ham (200) 1.5 hot dog buns (120)

  • 380 calories

Lunch – bratwurst (280); 1/4 wrap (35)

  • 315 calories 

Dinner – chicken (100); mac and cheese (330); baked beans (80); tomato (25);

  • 535 calories

Snacking – 110g ice cream (220); chocolate syrup (20)

  • 240 calories

Total for the day: 1470 calories (limit 1700)

Eating less food

Scott Adams had a joke about losing weight by eating less food.  While that does describe most of the ugly reality, you can’t force yourself to eat less food unless you have incredible willpower and can sustain that over a long time.  Even then, it’s using force which is can make you feel quite unhappy.  Yesterday and today I had a total of less than 1500 calories per day which is very light for me and I haven’t felt at all deprived.  I wasn’t even trying, because my mind was all focused on work (crunch time there).  

Anyway, I wasn’t forcing myself to eat less food.  I was letting my brain be busy with other things and trusting my stomach to let me know when it was time to eat.  That’s tricky; I have found regular mealtimes are best in the long run.  If you let yourself get too hungry there might be a price to pay later – I have found myself feeling unhappy and resentful in that situation and then watch out: I have had that part of myself take over and eat too much.  You don’t want that.

But even then, it’s just one bad day or one bad week.  You can still have a lot of days and weeks when things go right.  That’s what I mean when I say every day is a new day.  Don’t bring yesterday’s baggage with you into today.  Let it go.

I don’t have incredible willpower.  But I have developed ways around that.  I don’t eat less food!  No, no.  I just try to enjoy life more.  I just enjoy food more when I am hungry for it.  That’s just logical, right?  I can’t get hungry for my next meal if I am still full from the last one.  And after the first portion, food doesn’t taste as nice.  Try it!  Amazingly you can control your weight that way.

-The Doctor

20200727 Daily report sans picture

Yes, it’s a day without pictures.  My camera didn’t break, I just had other things on my mind.  Interestingly, there have been some good comments from reader CPhil about exercise and diet.  I like to read about that because it introduces me to things I don’t know about the relationship between weight loss and exercise.  

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – sausage (250); potatoes (80);

  • 330 calories

Lunch – Italian sweet sausage link (250); 1/4 wrap (35); pretzels (120);

  • 405 calories 

Dinner – 7oz ham (300); baked beans (130); tomato (25); Brussels sprouts, roasted (25);

  • 480 calories

Snacking – 97g ice cream (200);

  • 200 calories

Total for the day: 1415 calories (limit 1750)

Diet and exercise

It’s an old and familiar pairing.  Looking at my own body, there has been a real fall-off in weight loss since I gave up swimming.  Based on reader advice, lowering my calorie intake may not help much.  Plus, my body misses a bit of exercise.  I liked swimming because it works so many systems at once: arms, legs, back, neck, and breathing discipline too.  But some walking won’t hurt anything and it is starting to get cooler outside, finally.  Morning walking, then.  I can probably do that every day.  I’ve been looking for a bike, too.  

Taking care of your body is a long term business.  Once you are doing it, you realize you should be doing it and should have been doing it before!  

Stay with it!

-The Doctor

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