It’s time for the weighing of my weight control commitment! Weight control (not dieting) has two parts: (1) weigh yourself and (2) regulate your food intake. For #2, I keep a food journal every day. After I eat anything, I immediately write it down. I didn’t used to be the kind of person who cared to keep up a food journal, but I have remade myself. Now I care a lot. And do it.
Why do I say no dieting? I have a whole speech about the evils of dieting. Dieting for most people means a temporary condition. You change yourself as little as possible, try to lose some weight, then go back to the way you were. That hardly ever works. The way you were included gaining weight! You will gain it all back if not careful. A new you is required. The new you is capable of keeping your weight under control.
The other part of weight control is monitoring your weight. I measure every week on Saturday, before breakfast. I plan to keep up these two behaviors for the rest of my life. Is it willpower? Hardly. Like I said, finding a new me was required. Last week, the new me weighed 276.6 pounds. What about this week?
Hooray, that’s my lowest number yet! I remember a couple of months ago I sometimes lost three pounds per week. That may have slowed down a bit, I will think about it. Anyway, this means since starting my new life, I have lost:
69 pounds to go
Part of my system is to recognize and reward important milestones that I achieve. I am coming up on two important points to recognize. First, half of my 120 pound weight loss goal is 60 pounds. That is creeping up on me, and only 9 pounds away (when I will weigh 265 pounds). It may happen in 4-5 weeks, that is, halfway through June. The second (and sooner) milestone is getting under 170 pounds. I have been recognizing every 10 pounds in round numbers. Usually, I reward myself with food.
That usually surprises people. Isn’t that backsliding, backtracking, undoing all the work? That would be true if I was using willpower to deprive myself of what I wanted. Readers of this blog know that is not the case. I eat every food I want. My goal when eating has changed completely. Being full is now distasteful to me and I avoid it. My goal is to be hungry just in time for every meal, to look forward to delicious food that I really want, and to enjoy it.
Importantly, I have to make sure I balance how much I eat with the imperative to be hungry for my next meal. What I have achieved is to keep experiencing eating as a sensual and pleasurable experience, and make it even more intense by focusing on being hungry just in time to eat. I get more enjoyment out of eating when I am really hungry, than I ever did by eating until I was totally full (that was my old goal when eating). My body and mind love this system and I am working in harmony with the different parts of myself. It’s very rewarding.
There are downsides. If I allow myself to get too hungry, I get into danger of losing control and going into a food insecurity panic. That is, I might binge and feel unhappy and unsatisfied all day, or even for 2 days. I also have trouble with a meal that is unsatisfying. Having sacrificed being full, and after experiencing all the anticipation that goes with getting hungry, part of me gets rebellious if the food isn’t worth waiting for. It’s like a double sacrifice: I gave up the satisfaction of being full AND the feeling of eating delicious food just when I am hungry. The overall effect is that I get finicky about the food and kind of obsessive about mealtime. There may be other downsides. But the upside is very much worth it.
-The Doctor