Daily tracking Archives - Page 16 of 34

20191125 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 25, 2019
Post category:Daily report

The daily task is to keep a food journal. It’s one part of the mechanism I use for weight control. #1 regulate food intake and #2 weigh yourself regularly. Keeping a food journal isn’t the only meaning of regulating your food intake, but it is the most consequential. Once you know how much you are eating, you will find out how much food you need to eat to gain weight….lose weight….keep the same weight. That kind of knowledge allows long term weight control. And weight control is the goal, rather than dieting. Weight control is yours forever, while dieting is temporary.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Spanish tortilla (333); 1.5 teaspoons mayonnaise (40); whole wheat wrap (110);

485 calories

Lunch – Steak and cheese hoagie (500);

500 calories

Dinner – 15oz split pea soup with ham (465); toast (130); cream cheese (70);

670 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); yogurt (150); chocolate nuts (130); cookie (110);

470 calories

Total for the day: 2120 calories (limit 1800)

long lasting

My intestinal complaint is really hanging on into the third week. I need to get to bed so I don’t have a lot to say tonight. Just two things:

A lady at work complimented my weight loss and wanted to tell me about her husband, who she said has recently lost 80 pounds after a health scare. Very interestingly, his approach upends all my observations. He gave up eating everything he likes for dinner (on Saturdays he allows himself to indulge a little) and during the week eats lean protein (fish or plain chicken), brown rice and vegetables. For lunch he only eats fruit. She is sure that he does not count calories OR measure what he is eating. This is super dedication and willpower. I have met other people whose eating goals have been transformed by health related concerns and I admire the dedication. Such people are looking at food and eating a different way than they used to. This lady told me that her husband’s rule is now that he considers the impact every bite will have on his health. This is different from my “vanity” project where I am just trying to lead a more fulfilling life and live out higher goals. But congrats to him. (He really lost 80 pounds and didn’t count any calories????)
I was reading about Mister Rogers (Fred McFeely Rogers of Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood fame) and discovered that he controlled his weight very successfully in his adult years. As a child he was overweight, but for most of his adult life he weighed 143 pounds. Late in life he also quit eating meat altogether, and he never smoked or drank alcohol anyway. I wonder what were his eating habits and how he managed to keep his weight so stable for so many years. Maybe he counted calories, but maybe not. He was a man who developed extremely regular and productive habits, so he probably had a system. We may never know what it was, but I will look into it.

Good night!

-The Doctor

20191124 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 24, 2019
Post category:Daily report

Getting your mind right is the first necessary step. When you are a person who is gaining weight, and unhappy about it, the first problem is that you don’t have the mindset needed to control your weight. When I was gaining weight, I was only interested in shallow eating goals and those dominated my eating behavior. Trying to lose weight meant going against my goals and feeling unfulfilled and deprived all the time. Every instant felt like punishment. My ingenuity was devoted to finding ways around the dieting.

If I was a person with tons of willpower, I could force myself to lose some weight, probably. But I’m not. And maybe neither are you. So you have to change your mind, like I did. What kind of mind do you need to control your weight?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps with bacon (300) and a whole wheat wrap (110) and lettuce and tomato and horseradish (20); plus extra bacon (70);

500 calories

Lunch – 15oz split pea soup (465); Italian bread toast (150);

615 calories

Dinner – chicken pot pie (500);

600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80);

80 calories

Total for the day: 1795 calories (limit 1800)

Continuing the balancing act

Once you have your mind right, then you are living a life where controlling your body’s weight is high up on your list of life goals – also known as your moral hierarchy. (You don’t gain this control to become more moral, it just means that you don’t eat anything without considering how it will affect your calorie count for the day. On that front, you are taking on responsibility for your body, which is perfectly moral.) Almost every successful long term and large amount or weight loss that I have read about involves counting calories one way or another. I keep a food journal on a Google spreadsheet. That way I can access it anywhere, and I have committed to writing down what I eat almost as soon as I eat it. So I control how much I eat.

The act of writing down everything you eat means you are serious about monitoring your intake and controlling your weight. But how do you get the motivation to do that? Like I said, it’s all about getting your mind right. If one of the top goals of your existence is to control your weight, the problem simplifies. I changed the reasons I was eating so that feeling full was no longer the goal. My goal now is to be fulfilled, rather than filled. Maximum fulfillment comes from enjoying what you are eating, and anticipating the next meal with excitement. Taking care of yourself would be another way of putting it. You are now trying to meet your own needs for fulfillment through quality, not quantity. Therefore your ingenuity is engaged in finding ways to make your lifestyle work. It’s quite fulfilling.

The last two weeks I have not been able to control my food intake well. I’ve had low grade intestinal trouble. It’s also gotten cold, and my food journal over the last year has several instances of me overeating when I feel cold. I’m not sure what to make of that, but it has been observed. I’ve also been quite tired (probably the illness) and have had unusual demands on my time. This all means it’s been hard to keep my balance (the balance between emotional fulfillment and eating less). And I miss it. I have really gotten to like the focus on weight control and how I am living that out in my life. So I am planning out this week (which includes Thanksgiving) to make sure it is easy to get my balance back.

It will be easy to know when that happens. When my digestive system is cleared out and I am living close to the edge, meal times and tastes are very vivid and immediate. My body feels different. The cost is that when you are living close to your calorie edge like that, you have to pay a lot of attention. It’s easy to neglect yourself and then lose control. Think of it this way: you’re asking a lot from part of yourself. In return, you must make a promise that you will make it worth your while. You must keep the promise or else your will, mind, and body won’t cooperate.

It’s interesting, this idea of living close to the calorie edge. I will think about that some more.

Happy Thanksgiving week!

-The Doctor

20191121 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 21, 2019
Post category:Daily report

A weight control lifestyle is a long term approach to the problem of weight gain. It is useful to think of it in layers. Every meal is counted in a food journal. There is a calorie goal every day. Every week is a weighing, where the effects of the previous week are checked. That means, realistically, that every day is a new day and every week is a new week. A chance to start again, to make things better. Today didn’t go well? Tomorrow can be a perfect day. This week was spoilt? Never mind, you can work on having a good week now.

This is all is part of what makes weight control a success in the long term. You can persue perfection every day and every week.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2T peanut butter (190); 2T strawberry jelly (100); toast (150);

440 calories

Lunch – catered office lunch of chicken kebabs, salads, falafel and pita, with cupcakes (400);

400 calories

Dinner – 1/6 of a Spanih tortilla (333); 1T mayonnaise (100)

433 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); granola bar (100); chips and salsa (150); baguette and cheese (200); chocolate almonds (160);

690 calories

Total for the day: 1963 calories (limit 1800)

Another busy day

No deep thoughts today. I have to run and take care of some things. I am still recovering from my intestinal complaint, but I noticed I feel less cold during the day. Things are looking up! On the other hand, I just ate about 400 calories at 9PM, which is not the way to control your weight.

Spanish tortilla is a family favorite, everyone eats it. It’s 10 eggs, 1/2C olive oil, 1 onion, 1# of potatoes, 1/4tsp pepper and 1.5tsp salt. The onions, potatoes, and oil, with half the salt are cooked on the stovetop (covered) until fully softened, then the whisked eggs, pepper and remaining salt are folded in, briefly set and then put into a 425 degree oven for 9-10 minutes. The whole thing is 2000 calories (thanks, olive oil!). It works for every meal, though I don’t usually make it in the summer (too hot).

Enjoy!

-The Doctor

20191120 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 20, 2019
Post category:Daily report

The realization I made was that being thin doesn’t just happen. There is no mindset, no moral compass, and no secret that will get you there. It takes direction and it takes paying attention and it takes work. Every day, it must be made to work. And why would you think of doing all that? Aren’t people just thin or fat, by nature? Don’t I gain weight because my parents were overweight? Some people just have that fast metabolism, right? They can eat whatever they want. People like us just get fat. The weight just jumps straight onto my belly! It must be true. The alternative is hard to contemplate.

People want to be thin. They go to great lengths to try, so they are motivated. But people need a framework and a proper direction or dieting doesn’t work. The most productive thing you can do is change your mind. Figure out what you get out of eating. What is the goal? Is that goal working for you?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – skipped (00)

0 calories

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

600 calories

Dinner – 1/4 Aldi frozen pizza (225); baguette piece (200); 4oz ham (200); pumpkin coconut curry soup (100);

725 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chocolate almonds (300)

380 calories

Total for the day: 1705 calories (limit 1800)

Quicky

I had a busy night. So I won’t post anything long today, but I will say I’m not sure why I felt like skipping breakfast, I just wasn’t hungry until 11.30. Since I am slowly recovering from my intestinal complaint I won’t argue.

Enjoy your night!

-The Doctor

20191119 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 19, 2019
Post category:Daily report

Staying with your weight control lifestyle in the long term is not always possible. I read often about people who adopt extreme-sounding lifestyles. People are clearly very motivated to try and control their weight, based on what they are willing to try. One man said that he had good results on a low carb lifestyle and was planning to stay on it long term. I tried that, living on 30 grams of carbs per day. That’s the equivalent of an English muffin. And a low carb diet isn’t magic. You can eat enough low carb foods to maintain overweight or even gain weight. I lost 30 pounds on a low carb diet. But it didn’t work for me in the long term. Why?

It wasn’t very satisfying, for one thing. That means you get tired of it. It starts to take more effort to stay on. After a while, it’s not worth the effort. But for losing up to 30 pounds short term, and not having to change anything else about yourself, a low carb diet is hard to beat. How many people are willing to do it forever?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps with 3 slices bacon (210); 3/4 whole wheat wrap (80); lettuce, tomato and horseradish (25);

315 calories

Lunch – 6 Kirkland meatballs (250); 2T hummus (80); whole wheat wrap (110); red cabbage, pickles, and horseradish (20);

460 calories

Dinner – 2 chicken enchiladas (450); sour cream (60);

510 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); pretzels (260); ham (100); chocolate almonds (100);

580 calories

Total for the day: 1865 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Discovery and Recovery

I am slowly recovering from a low grade stomach flu. That’s my explanation for the last two weeks! I lost my appetite for my usual foods, and started eating a lot of simple carbohydrates – out of control. I also felt cold (it has been cold outside, but inside??) and needed more sleep than usual. It took me a while to figure out that I must be sick, since there weren’t many obvious symptoms. My first clue is that my weight went up two weeks ago – very unusual. An issue of fluid retention shows up in my food journal almost every time I get sick. (I also had some stomach issues but nothing that seemed serious at the time.)

I’ve said this before, but how many people’s “plateaus” in their weight loss might be due to intestinal issues? Looking through my records I have been sick 6 times since January, and several times it lasted 2 weeks or more. During those times I didn’t lose weight, but quickly started losing again once the illness was over.

Last week I didn’t even try to do more than keep a vague track of my calorie count. My eating behavior was too erratic and the result to unsatisfying for me to keep it up. The lethargy of feeling ill probably didn’t help. Since Monday, I have been able to recover my lifestyle somewhat. My appetite still isn’t back to normal but I’m not eating 3000+ calories a day, either. I was doing that late last week, though it’s only an estimate. It might have been higher!

I’m very lucky that I have been able to spend the whole last year devoted to my weight control lifestyle and working out a system for doing it. The major weight loss portion is still going on and will be for months, yet. My initial goal was 215 pounds, and my last pre-sick weight was 237 pounds. That’s only 22 away from that goal (losing 120 pounds). We’ll see what happens when I get there. I might decide to lose more. Anyway, I don’t have any bad feelings about this pause in my weight loss. I am grateful that it has worked so well, so far. I have a way to keep going, and a history to build on.

-The Doctor

20191118 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 18, 2019
Post category:Daily report

One of the underpinnings of the weight control system as I practice it, is that it’s attractive in multiple ways. I want to live that way, for all the rewards it gives me. Controlling my body’s weight is merely one of the attractions. I have talked before about the amount of fulfillment and satisfaction I get from working hard to meet my own needs and desires. And I am meeting them in a way that is very practical and also very high quality. This lifestyle is the best I have ever lived. It makes my old choices seem cheap; as they were focused on quantity and immediate fulfillment.

Now I think about quality. How could I raise everything about my practical life – like eating – to a higher quality? One answer is to change the goal of eating and focus on the quality of the experience.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Jimmy Dean sausage, egg, and cheese croissantwich (400)

400 calories

Lunch – Steak and cheese sandwich (500);

500 calories

Dinner – 10 ounces Hopping John (270); 5oz cooked rice (160)

430 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels (100); Perdue chicken strips (90); Hershey’s bar (220);

490 calories

Total for the day: 1820 calories (limit 1800)

I'm back, baby

I haven’t posted for a few days, because I haven’t been in control and haven’t had a lot of energy to spare. Some kind of intestinal bug got me. That has some strong effects on my lifestyle.

One of the most important discoveries I have made in the course of losing ~85 pounds, is that if your lifestyle is attractive, you will pursue it hard. You won’t need willpower to stay on a diet or maintain your system, at least not in the negative sense of forcing yourself to diet. However, if that lifestyle suddenly loses its attraction, it removes all the motivation. When I got sick, my usual foods lost their attraction and I found myself grazing in uncontrolled ways, at every kind of simple carbohydrate-based food I own.

I’m willing to call that an aberration. I had a strong desire to eat lots of calories, and lots of simple carb calories at that. There’s no way to pursue a lifestyle based on those goals, not if you want to control your weight, anyway. And it was not particularly enjoyable. My body has gotten used to the cycle of (positive) hunger and satisfaction, and feeding my higher needs and goals with controlled quantities of high quality meals. Instead, I was eating out of some kind of instinctual need (or some kind of chemical imbalance, frightening thought).

But the feeling did not last. Sunday and today, I didn’t want to eat a lot of food anymore. However, my normal appetite hasn’t really returned. I think I am getting better, but I am not all the way there, yet. Once I am back to normal, I will start working my system again. I’ve had this happen several times this last year due to illness. Each time, I agonize a bit over whether I will be able to re-establish my successful weight control lifestyle. And every time, I have happily put it back together again. It does take discipline, but not force.

Find a way to make what you want attractive. That works.

-The Doctor

20191114 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 14, 2019
Post category:Daily report

The weight control lifestyle is all about finding a way to control your weight, that is worth living as a lifestyle. If it’s not worth living, then you are forcing yourself to lose weight. That doesn’t work in the long term. Can you force yourself to do anything for your whole life? You won’t have any willpower left for anything else!

Being thin doesn’t make you a better person, or even a good person. You can be a shallow person and keep thin. It’s best to concentrate on a worthy lifestyle that you can be proud of. Controlling your weight can be a side benefit of that. Isn’t that a good ideal?

My food intake and calorie count

Total for the day: 2700 calories

The waiting game

I finally figured out why I was cold, oddly hungry, sleepy, and having intestinal issues. I’ve picked up some bad germ! I’ve never been so relieved to be sick before. That means that yesterday, when I said it was strange to feel full, it was really just a strange intestinal feeling, apart from being full. I should have guessed that I was getting sick on Saturday, when my weight was up 2 pounds. That’s very unusual.

According to my food journal, this kind of thing has lasted as much as a week, or more. There’s not much I can do about it. I will keep track of what I am eating but not try to control it, until I don’t have to use force. It’s also in my notes that when this happens, my appetite for simple carbohydrates like bread, chocolate, rice, and noodles, is very high. Meat and protein are oddly unsatisfying.

With any luck I can get to bed early and have a good night’s sleep. That’s another thing – I have had trouble getting out of bed all week. Why didn’t I notice this sooner???

-The Doctor

20191113 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 13, 2019
Post category:Daily report

At the most practical level, a weight control lifestyle is lived one meal at a time. However, it is convenient to set a daily calorie limit rather than limit that by the meal. And the standard for losing a pound of weight from your body is to be in deficit 3500 calories per week. I am also a proponent of weighing yourself once per week. So the individual meal, day, and week are all important. One way to keep all of that straight is with a food journal. Mine is a spreadsheet, with columns for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. I also have a comment column where I keep track of exercise and illness and related matters, and finally a weight column where I enter my weekly body weight every Saturday. It takes work, but I know exactly how many calories I am eating and I have learned a lot about myself and what my body and subconscious mind need to cooperate! But there is always more to learn.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Perdue chicken strips (100)

100 calories

Lunch – Daycvare annual thanksgiving meal: turkey, ham, mac and cheese, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans. Estimate: 500 calories

500 calories

Dinner – chili and bread (350); ham (100); cookies (150); chocolate almonds (160); ice cream (210); Costco pepperoni pizza half slice (355);

1200 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160); ddd (00)

80 calories

Total for the day: 1960 calories (limit 1800)

Primal urge

My theory right now is that the cold weather we are having in early November is pressing some kind of behavior button in my subconscious. I am just feeling a need to eat at odd times, and I am eating large amounts! I am not in control of my eating, though I am making a food effort to keep records of everything I do eat. I hope this freakout ends soon, I don’t know what to make of it. It is strange to feel full now, after months and months of living close to the deficit. I used to live like this all the time, and now it feels strange.

When I started my weight control plan in January, I did notice in the first few months that if I got particularly chilled or cold, I would have a bad diet day. But I didn’t pay much attention to addressing that problem as it was getting warmer all the time. So I have no real plan now and have to figure this out in the next week. I am sure that my next weighing on Saturday won’t be good, just because my food journal says I am not in control. Normally this kind of thing means I am being stubborn and punishing towards myself, resulting in a bad day or days, and I write the week off and try to do better next time. But what do I do when faced with an internal insurrection like this?

I could try staying warm – lots of socks and sweaters.

I could try a change in meal scheduling, eating meals earlier or combining meals into a mega lunch or a large breakfast and dinner while skipping lunch. My behavior during the cold weather is definitely towards eating a large amount in one sitting. Today, I had lunch at noon, a healthy lunch of 500 calories, and then found myself eating an enormous meal of 1200 calories at 3PM.

Luckily the really cold weather ends tonight and tomorrow and next week it is more seasonal. That may make the problem easier for now. I will continue to think about it.

Pay attention to your needs and use self knowledge to figure out the best way to keep your aim high.

-The Doctor

20191112 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 12, 2019
Post category:Daily report

Day by day, the job is the same: regulate your food intake and weigh yourself regularly. Those two elements are required for a weight control lifestyle. If you know what and how much you are eating, you can control intake. If you weigh your body regularly, you have data showing how your body changes over time in response to changes in your intake.

We are not simply machines that we can program to do what we are told. I can’t even get myself to do what I want! So you have to look deeper into yourself to find a way to keep up regulating your food intake and weighing yourself all the time. I have been doing it since January 1, 2019 and I have 315 entries in my daily food journal since that time. I have never been able to do that before, in my life. So what changed?

I decided to aim high. I don’t have the willpower to make myself do things I don’t want for more than a few weeks. But I can do things I want to do – that hardly takes any willpower. So I had to make weight control into a lifestyle that was worth living. But how to find that kind of meaning?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco pepperoni pizza half slice (355)

355 calories

Lunch – 6x Costco meatballs (280); whole wheat flatbread (110); hummus (100), red cabbage kraut and horseradish (10)

500 calories

Dinner – 8oz homemade sausage chili (340); toasted bread (130)

470 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 2oz ham and 2 pieces swiss cheese (200); 11 chocolate almonds (160); baklava (100);

540 calories

Total for the day: 1865 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

McNuggets featurette!

Continuing from above, part of the problem I found in myself was my goals were shallow and limiting. They fueled weight gain. In short, my goal was to feel full and that is what made me feel comfortable and secure. To find more meaning in my life, I decided that my goal should be replaced. The goal now has several facets, but on one level my goal when eating is weight control. My goal is also maximum enjoyment. That means I build up anticipation for foods I strongly want to eat, and eat measured amounts when I am physically hungry for them (but not too hungry). My goal when eating is also to not ruin the next meal. Every meal has to be rewarding. So I can’t eat too much at any one meal. I find if I’m not slightly hungry for the next meal, food is not as satisfying.

Honestly, food tastes best when you have an appetite for it – when you are truly and physically slightly hungry. If you let yourself get too hungry, which is a different story, you won’t enjoy food either. You also won’t be in control of yourself after that. Part of your subconscious takes over, and it wants to eat and eat.

Another facet of my eating goals is to reward myself constantly. Every meal has to be planned, anticipated, savored, and worthwhile. Else why go to all the trouble? I find my body is willing to trade unlimited calories (and the resulting weight gain) for food experience. That is, just the foods I want, delivered right at the moment when I would appreciate them most. That is very satisfying.

From the Instapundit I found another weight loss story that was very interesting. This lady found a lifestyle that worked for her, though I think the reporter got it a bit wrong. The first line is the problem. This is the reporter’s summary:

Dieting doesn’t mean giving up your favorite food (but it does mean having a lot less of it).

Isn’t that backwards? Leaving aside my problems with the concept of dieting, weight control is all about identifying your favorite foods and using them to reward yourself. It’s definitely not giving up your favorite foods. Who would want to live for a long time while giving up your favorite foods, or even regarding them as a problem? But that is the reporter’s mindset. The subject of the article has it figured out!

”I could eat a 20-piece chicken McNugget box and large fries by myself,” she explained to the news outlet. It was basically gluttony, just eating and eating…Food was my coping mechanism, so whenever I got upset about something I would just eat.”

This is what many have called emotional eating. When I talk about being physically hungry, it is very different from eating for the goal of comfort and fullness. Anyway, this lady has figured out a lot about herself. The article doesn’t go into these details, but it is clear that she counts calories now. She lost 100 pounds and plans to lose even a bit more. The news hook is that she still eats at McDonalds, which is so amazing to the reporter. Or at least, the reporter thinks that’s what people will find amusing. It’s terrible to think that for most people, controlling your weight is all about deprivation and suffering. Is the subject of the article suffering while she is losing weight?

“I still find pleasure in my food, it’s my main thing.”

I have a good feeling about her long term success. All the best to her!

-The Doctor

20191111 Daily report

Post author:The Doctor
Post published:November 11, 2019
Post category:Daily report

In its essentials, a weight control lifestyle is about living in such a way that every food decision you make is interpreted through a single viewpoint: how will eating this affect my weight? It does take dedication to do this. That is the price of weight control – vigilance, attention, and time are required to make the weight control lifestyle attractive and interesting enough to be worth living.

It is not all price. Nobody would want to live that way. That’s where ordinary diets fail. To lose 120 pounds, like I am trying to do, a willpower-based diet of forcing yourself to eat less would never work. If by a miracle of character you pulled it off, how would you live afterwards? You might gain it all back the moment you stopped paying attention. In a way, the old you, who was gaining weight, takes back over. That’s why you need a new life and why it has to be a new you that is living it. This is for life, or the long term, anyway.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1C steel cut oats prepared in milk (250); scant 1tsp brown sugar (20);

270 calories

Lunch – Costco pepperoni pizza (710);

710 calories

Dinner – 13.5 oz vegetable curry (350); 5oz cooked rice (160);

510 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels, hummus and cheese (250)

330 calories

Total for the day: 1820 calories (limit 1800)

An attractive lifestyle is a draw

If you are on an attractive lifestyle, you will constantly trying to get it to work, and to stay on it. It doesn’t directly take willpower to do that, because it is what you want. Part of the attraction for me is that each meal is maximally rewarding, in my ideal life. I make the food myself (mostly). I have a good idea of what foods I would find rewarding. Another part of the reward is the anticipation. There is an emotional buildup when you plan for a meal, buy and cook the food, and prepare yourself to eat – that is, work up an appetite. It’s very fulfilling and rewarding to eat a food you really want, prepared to perfection, and just when you are getting hungry for it. This sequence allows you to control you intake, too, because you have to be careful not to eat too much. That reduces the enjoyment of the meal, and prevents you from getting properly hungry to enjoy the next meal.

Other people have different ways of controlling their food intake. They might eat the same thing all the time, or prepare all their food on the weekends, portion it then and eat it later. But the way I am describing is very fulfilling. Some people don’t need that. There are some thin people who don’t have a strong interest in food and don’t care what they eat, so long as they stay thin. But what I value right now is maximum enjoyment. I can get enthusiastic about that.

And isn’t that the true secret of finding a fulfilling lifestyle? Some people are fulfilled by keeping fit, or at least thin. Others are fulfilled by enjoying food. I have found that you can have both fulfillment/food enjoyment and weight control, but that weight control has to be first in your mind and in your life. It’s not possible to do it the other way around.

Where do you find your enthusiasm? If you are significantly overweight (50+ pounds) and gaining weight, you are probably not as enthused by getting thin as you might hope. It’s time to ask yourself: what do you get out of eating? I was getting pleasure and comfort from eating, which turned out to be shallow and non worthwhile goals once I thought about them in those terms. But I get very enthusiastic and excited about preparing food and eating foods I find enjoyable. My goal of eating changed. The goal before was being full and enjoying eating (quantity). Now I pursue maximum (quality) enjoyment and fulfillment, which is better and more responsible. It allows me to control my weight, too.

What is your goal of eating? A thin person’s goal is to stay thin. I appreciate that goal, but I don’t find it very meaningful by itself.

-The Doctor