Daily tracking

20190718 Daily report

Welcome to the Doctor’s daily food log and battleground of ideas!  Keeping a food log is very important, if you want to be in control of your body’s weight.  And if your mind is in the wrong place, it is very hard to keep writing down your meals in a journal.  

The wrong place?  If you enter upon a diet with the idea that it’s a temporary change you are making to lose some weight, you will be fighting yourself the whole time.  You will have to use a lot of willpower and that is hard to do over any length of time.  

What is the right place?  Read on.  The whole blog, of course, but every day I touch on it a little.  

Don't forget the Tobasco

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Kirkland granola bar (100); 3 eggs (240); 1 oz cheese (70); toast (120)

  • 530 calories

Lunch – grilled bratwurst (300, 260)

  • 560 calories 

Dinner – 6 ounces cooked spaghetti (300); 5 Kirkland meatballs (230)

  • 530 calories

Snacking – pretzels and hummus (150)

  • 150 calories

Total for the day: 1770 calories (limit 1800)

Another reason to have a food journal

Now that I am recovered from being sick, I find that part of me is pushing hard to lower my daily calorie count. That makes things a bit miserable.  Looking back through my food journal, I noticed that over the months I have had a lot of excursions from perfection while following this weight control system.  Over many successful months, I allowed myself extra calories on the days when I exercised, for example, and yet I still lost weight.  So, there is no need to rush, no need to push calorie restriction to the point of unpleasantness, when you are losing 2-3 pounds per week.  Really, that’s enough.  I can just do what has worked in the past.  Losing weight is hard enough without making it harder.  

In the summer heat, I haven’t used my oven for a couple of weeks, so no bacon.  I did try a few brands of pre cooked bacon, but they were all failures except for Boar’s Head precooked bacon, and that was marginal.  So today, I made eggs on the stovetop.  I have also moved a lot of cooking outdoors to the grill.  My slow cooker is another tool good for summer cooking.  I made pulled pork in it (very good) and I am looking at recipes to make barbecued beef brisket and barbecued beef chuck, and even pulled chicken.  It’s worked well for me to have a stock of premade savory food (like chili or pulled pork or Jambalaya) that I can use in different ways and look forward to eating.  

Remember – get your mind right.  You are embracing a lifestyle that is new, attractive, and self-reinforcing.  You want to keep it up, because you are living well.  Your old life seems dull and shallow by comparison.  That gets around the unfortunate truth that we would rather not change ourselves.  If we don’t change, we will get what’s coming to us.  If we do change, WE move towards the goal we choose.  

-The Doctor

20190717 Daily report

Welcome to another daily post!  The point of these is to keep focused on my eating goal, best expressed by Poor Richard in the 1700s – “Hunger is the best pickle.”  There is so much meaning in that aphorism. When I started my new weight control system, this is what came to my mind.  Hunger is the goal.

The Doctor is not saying you should be hungry all the time.  Nobody wants to live like that.  The point is that you create a lifestyle that is very attractive.  You want to be there, so you don’t have to use willpower to stay.  But it is very useful to embrace hunger as a goal, at the appropriate time.  Be hungry for your meals nad let your meals be worth the wait.

Big Greek Cafe! $5 Gyro Wednesday!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1/3 C Bush’s baked beans (100); grilled bratwurst wrap (300)

  • 400 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 12 ounces homemade sausage chili (480); Snickers ice cream bar (180)

  • 660 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Perdue chicken strips (50)

  • 130 calories

Total for the day: 1790 calories (limit 1800)

Something about Wednesdays

Who else do you know, who is restricting calories (on a diet), who looks forward to Wednesdays?  Thanks to my food journal, I know that since January I have had 15 Wednesday gyros.  And I have lost over 60 pounds during that time.  Should we call it the Gyros diet?  Ha, no.  The point of this diet is that if done properly, you get to look forward to practically every meal you eat.  In fact, its success relies on that being true.

One of the reasons my diets always failed in the past was the amount of force that was required to keep them going.  I had to force myself to eat less (because my goal was to feel full), and I forced myself to eat things I didn’t want.  That burns a lot of willpower.  You are bound to break eventually.  Then you might get into an unhealthy and unproductive set of feelings about your miserable and failed self. 

Diets are made even harder by the fact that there is little to look forward to.  I don’t know how people do it (some do, many fail like me).  Under my current lifestyle change, I have a lot to look forward to, and lose very little.  My willpower is applied to making sure I will enjoy what I’m eating.  That does mean a lot of time spent planning, shopping, cooking, arranging, and keeping a food journal.  

What do I look forward to now?  I am officially out of pre-prepared food.  The vegetable curry is gone, sausage chili is gone.  The refrigerator is almost bare.  I still have Jambalaya, for a short time.  It’s time to start planning.  I don’t want to disappoint myself.  Isn’t it nice, that my main worry is how to keep being good to myself?  It makes weight loss worthwhile, to feel this way.

-The Doctor

20190716 Daily report

Keeping a food journal is something I have committed to, every day, from now on.  That’s because I am not pursuing weight loss.  My goal is weight control.  To control my weight, I have to know what I weigh and I have to know how to change my weight and how to keep it the same.  That means (1) weigh yourself and (2) keep a journal of what you eat, so you can regulate how many calories you have eaten, every day.  Some days are easier than others.  Today was easy.  

Grilling and glazing pork tenderloins

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 0.75 pounds Chinese glazed pork tenderloin (360); pretzels and cheese (250)

  • 610 calories

Lunch – bratwurst wrap (300); leftover jambalaya in a wrap (300) [hey, does that count as a jambalaya po’ boy?] 

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Costco pepperoni pizza slice (710)

  • 710 calories

Total for the day: 1920 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Fancy meals are the best

Note the absence of any diet foods in my menu today.  A lot of my food regime is just having small amounts of foods I really want to eat.  When it works, I don’t overeat, and the system works against it.  If I focus on getting hungry for the food, and anticipate eating it with eagerness, then it is just wonderful.  The first portion tastes so good, that eating more is actually disappointing.  Second, if I overeat I won’t get properly hungry for my next meal, so it just won’t be worthwhile.  

Who could believe losing weight while eating – in the same day – glazed, grilled pork tenderloin, grilled sausage, pizza, and jambalaya?  That’s just one day.  Imagine a whole week of looking forward to every meal.  When it works, the system is a wonder to experience.  And I have gotten it to work for weeks and months at a time.  It builds on its own success.  I don’t even want to live like I did before.  That gives me confidence that my weight control plan will last.  

Losing weight, even sixty pounds, seems to have amazingly subtle effects on my physical movements.  You’d think it would be quite drastic, but it’s not very:

  1. Walking up the steps doesn’t seem easier (slightly less out of breath)
  2. Swimming doesn’t seem much easier (a few seconds faster per lap, maybe fewer aches and pains or injuries)
  3. Standing up does seem a bit easier (more bouncy)
  4. Lifting heavy things doesn’t seem easier.
  5. The guy in the mirror is still 60 pounds overweight.

On the other hand, going clothes shopping is a bit easier now.  I just bought four shirts at Costco in 2x size, and brought them home knowing they would fit.  They did.  That’s a size available in every store, for shirts.  For pants, my waist is still 46ish, which is a bit larger than most stores carry (Costco tops out around 40 waist, so does TJ max).  Maybe the physical side of things will improve more noticeably when I am losing this next 60 pounds.  There’s one way to find out.  

What else will change, as my body catches up to my mind?  What would change for you?

-The Doctor

20190715 Daily report

Today is the first day of the rest of my weight control life!  OK, that doesn’t work as poetry but it is meant to express how high the values of weight control rank in my new life.  They are now, and they will be from now on, the last things I think about at night and my alarm clock in the morning.  

That’s all a metaphorical way of saying I am going to keep writing a food journal.  That means planning ahead, cooking ahead, and learning about myself.  That last part surprises people, but it is the key to making it all work.  

Jambalaya spicy!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1 cup steel cut oats with sugar free syrup (200); 1 cup lowfat Kefir (140)

  • 340 calories

Lunch – vegetable curry with rice (200); bratwurst wrap (300)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 10 ounces jambalaya with rice (510)

  • 510 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Snickers ice cream bar (180); pretzels and hummus (200)

  • 460 calories

Total for the day:  1810 calories (limit 1800)

Unfinished business

Yesterday I finished my post early and went to the pool.  I came back very late and ate late, so I didn’t have jambalaya yesterday like I planned and posted.  I had leftover chili instead.  But since I waited so long, it wasn’t enough and my body got rebellious – I ended up eating about 500 calories of chocolate and cookies and pretzels and cheese at night.  So my calorie total for yesterday was higher than planned (2400).  It’s all in my food journal.  

Today I was careful to eat when I was supposed to, at least early in the day.  Since I was up and working at 6AM, lunchtime came early (11 AM).  I had dinner just before 6PM, but that might have been slightly too late.  I felt the need for some pretzels after that, even after dessert!  You would think I would learn, having had this lesson over and over again.  Don’t get too hungry or your body will rebel!

The jambalaya, though, lends itself to calorie counting really well.  

  • 1020 calories for sausage,
  • 210 for crushed tomatoes,
  • 100 for olive oil,
  • 75 for peppers and onions, and
  • 640 for rice  

Cooked, the jambalaya was just under 1400 calories and weighed 41 ounces; I had 1/4 (10 ounces) with 1/4 of the rice (5 oz on the scale), which was another 160 calories and the total I ate was 510 counting rice and jambalaya.  That’s almost a pound of food for 510 calories.  Weighing food is a good way to divide it into countable portions, and you can even store the leftovers in single containers that way.  

Tomorrow is a new day and maybe I can get it right this time.  It will be fun trying!

-The Doctor

20190714 Daily report

Filling in my food journal isn’t an act of willpower.  Like I said yesterday, it all starts with the realization that being thin has a price: constant maintenance.  If you don’t want to pay, then don’t sign up.  Having realized the price, the question is: what do you do about it?  

You make yourself into a person who cares about being thin.  Not just a little.  You have to care more about it than almost anything in the world; you have to create a new moral hierarchy for yourself with “being thin” in the top three.  

Now you are on a relentless quest to find a way to control your weight.  It’s not willpower, it’s a moral imperative that fills your life.  That’s what gets you out of bed in the morning, it’s what fills out your food journal and makes you weigh yourself every week.  It doesn’t take will power.  

Chili nachos!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – grilled pork tenderloin wrap (300); 1/2 Cup baked beans (150)

  • 450 calories

Lunch – 6oz chili (240); 1oz chips (130); and 1T sour cream (30); 1 Cup lowfat Kefir (140)

  • 540 calories 

Dinner – Jambalaya and rice (510); small piece of chocolate cheesecake (125)

  • 635 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1705 calories (limit 1800)

Much better, thanks

I feel a lot better today – back to normal in all ways.  I am happy to be going back to my preferred and superior lifestyle.  Let the weight loss recommence.  

I went grilling yesterday and made two pork tenderloins.  The recipe was similar to Chinese char siu style red glazed pork ribs.  However, I think I may have cooked it a little too enthusiastically, it’s delicious but a bit dry.  Pork tenderloins are fabulous for grilling.  There is very little trimming to do, and you can pound them flat or butterfly them open to make them flat and suitable for the grill.  They are very well priced in the summer and cook quickly (careful not to let them cook too long).  Another great feature is a quarter pound of pork tenderloin has about 120 calories, totaling 480 calories in a pound of meat.  

It’s going to be a very hot week where I live.  That means the grill will get some use, and meals that involve heat in general will not be favorites.  Maybe the Doctor will be having an all ice cream diet for a while!  I wonder what that would do to weight loss.  

-The Doctor

20190712 Daily report

Being an impatient person, I was very sad that my illness has delayed my weight loss program.  My mind has already been changed and the body is a lagging indicator, so I am always a bit impatient with that.  I was even thinking (poor me) that being ill revealed a unique disadvantage to this weight control system.  That is, when I am ill, my appetite changes, my hunger cues are messed up, and I don’t have the energy to maintain the system of anticipation and reward I use to keep eating less.

But what diet goes well when you are are sick?  I didn’t gain any weight, so I am no worse off, except for my impatience.  One way of looking at this is: I took an illlness-induced break from dieting and nothing bad happened.  Now, I have started to get better.  My appetite is returning to normal and I have been hungry when it is time to eat!  

Serious curry and pretend naan

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1 cup Kefir (200); chicken wrap (260)

  • 460 calories

Lunch – 13.5 ounces vegetable curry (350); flatbread (100)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – 6x pizza slices (100)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – ham slices (100); hummus and pickles (200)

  • 300 calories

Total for the day: 1810 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

A very good disguise

Why would someone be excited that they are hungry?  Well, it is my goal now.  I use hunger as a positive.  Being full is now a negative for me.  In my past, I ate to be full, which is a job that never ends.  Result: overweight.  Now I prize hunger, so I am careful not to eat too much.  My goal is to be hungry for the next meal, and the next.  Result: a small portion of food is highly anticipated and rewarding.  It makes the sacrifice worthwhile.  The sacrifice is myself; that is, I give up the mild pleasure of anticipating a full stomach.  What do I get instead?  Try it yourself and see.  Eating a small amount of exactly what you want and have been anticipating, exactly when you are very hungry for it, is a powerful and satisfying experience.  A second serving is disappointing by comparison.  

Hopefully this next week will find me completely better and back in my new lifestyle.  As you have been reading, it is an intense and rewarding experience to lose weight, and to live, this way.  Maybe being sick for a couple of weeks and taking a break, was a blessing in disguise.  A very, very good disguise.

-The Doctor

20190711 Daily report

When you are eating, what’s the goal?  For most of us who are overweight and gaining weight, the goal is to feel pleasantly and comfortably full.  Sometimes, there are other goals, like finishing everything on your plate.  Sometimes, the goal is to prevent waste, so you eat everything left from the kids’ plates, which they have hardly touched.  Sometimes, the goal is even to keep experiencing the pleasant taste of the food, or dessert.  Can you see where I am going with this?  All of those goals lead to overeating.  Overeating becomes weight gain, a few hundred calories at a time.  Every extra 3500 calories you eat is believed to result in 1 pound of weight gain.    

Measuring your food intake and knowing exactly what you are eating is part of getting lifelong control over your body’s weight.  

Savory!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1 Cup Kefir (200)

  • 200 calories

Lunch – two Johnsonville bratwurst (260); quarter bread wrap each (25)

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – 12 ounces homemade sausage chili (480); 1 oz tortilla chips (130); 1.3 Tablespoon sour cream (40)

  • 650 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160)

  • 160 calories

Total for the day: 1580 calories (limit 1800)

Focus on hunger

What is the goal of eating for people who are thin and stay thin?  We already know that people who stay thin work hard to stay thin.  If you know any thin people, you know it is their obsession.  The person who stays thin without trying is a myth, and a harmful one.  Even if someone tells you that, it’s not true.  It’s probably a form of modesty, as the thin person is avoiding bragging about all the hard work they are putting into their appearance.  Modesty, and maybe avoiding some shame, at people thinking they are shallow (interested only in appearance).  

I don’t know.  When thin people eat, what is the goal?  Maybe it’s to avoid feeling full.  Maybe the goal is to eat just enough to stay thin (but how can they tell?).  My guess is that people who stay thin have a way to measure their bodies.  One thing I have noticed is that as you get thinner, the clothes cut for your body fit more tightly to you.  It’s possible to get a lot of feedback from that feeling.  Even if a thin person is not obsessively weighing themself every day, they can tell based on whether their tightest clothes still fit them.  (Do their shirts still button?  The pants?  Is the belt fitting loosely or tight?) 

My eating goal is simple.  My goal is to focus on hunger.  (I have had a rough couple of weeks where I have been ill with a low grade intestinal problem.  It has played hell with my diet and weight and how I feel and get hungry.  My appetite has been strange, my hunger cues are mixed up…..maybe this is just excuses, but I feel like I am not in a normal condition.  The last couple of days, there are hints I am getting back to normal.  Maybe it’s the active cultures in the yogurt drink I have been having.  Maybe it’s just time healing all wounds.  But I was actually hungry for lunch today, for the first time in days.  It felt good.)

Focusing on hunger means that ideally, I am always thinking about the next meal.  When I am eating lunch, I am thinking about being properly hungry for dinner.  Hunger is great because when you eat food you really like, when you are very hungry for it, it is very, very satisfying.  You want to experience that again.  It helps with portion control too.  If you start hungry, and your portion is just enough, you will notice you are not enjoying a second portion nearly as much.  Then you aren’t hungry for dinner and the meal is not as satisfying.  I really want to get back to that lifestyle, it feels really good!  Let’s hope I get all better soon.  You all stay well, too.

-The Doctor

20190710 Daily report

Welcome to the daily report!  This is the place where I record my food log and work out how to control my body’s weight using the power of the mind.  This is because the power of my will was not up to the job.  

Chili by the ounce

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – pulled pork (100); nectarine (60); blueberries (40); Kefir (200)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Thai Penang curry with pork over rice (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 13 ounces homemade sausage chili (500);

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); beef jerky (90)

  • 170 calories

Total for the day: 1570 calories (limit 1800)

Only overweight people drink diet soda?

I have heard people say variations on this theme.  Mysterious powers have been ascribed to diet soda.  For example, I have read that it somehow prevents the burning of fat.  This idea is bad on many levels. First, it is a way of avoiding responsibility.  If diet soda is out to get you, then being overweight isn’t your fault.  There’s nothing you can do about it!  It’s also kind of a way to lose yourself in magic thinking.  Mysterious forces are at work, keeping you from being thin.  It’s great drama, but a poor way to take control of your weight.  

More interestingly, is the question of your eating goals.  Consider a person whose goal is to be full when they finish eating.  Wouldn’t drinking a lot of soda fit that pattern?  The goal of drinking – ha – of drinking something sweet, is just the pleasure of being full in a different context.  Someone whose eating is out of control, might also have soda-drinking out of control.  People notice that kind of thing.  

So what about a person who has remained thin?  I have watched them.  Today, in a restaurant, were the Doctor and seven rather thin people.  One woman bought a bubble tea.  The rest had water (so did I).  I have seen thin people drink coffee….. beer…. wine….. and very rarely, soda or diet soda, at parties.  However, I haven’t seen thin people casually drinking any flavored drinks during the day.  

I have my own goal for eating.  It’s to use hunger and and anticipation to maximize my pleasure in eating.  My goal is to eat just enough to last until my next meal.  While I was gaining weight, my eating goal was to feel full.  What is a thin person’s eating goal?  I haven’t thought about that before.  I may have to do some research.  Maybe their goal is to stay thin!  I haven’t paid any attention to drinking, because the calories are zero for diet soda, and why wouldn’t I drink it if my eating is under control?    It’s one thing about myself I haven’t questioned or changed since I started my new lifestyle.  

To finish the restaurant story, all eight of us had our lunch.  It may not surprise you to hear that the thinnest and smallest woman ate only half her lunch, very, very slowly.  (She didn’t ask for a doggie bag.  I have rarely seen a thin person take a doggie bag home.)  Everyone else finished their lunch.  I finished mine.  

Since my eating goal has changed, I have established some control over what I am eating.  My drinking goal has not changed.  I don’t think it’s hurting my progress, but it may be an area I revisit later on.  Perhaps I will have to change some more of my thinking.  Don’t be afraid to question everything!  It’s almost like thinking.  

-The Doctor

20190709 Daily report

There are two parts to controlling your body’s weight.  (1) Monitor your weight and (2) Regulate how much you eat.  #2 means, first of all, keeping a log of everything you eat.  You can’t remember it all, so write it down right after it happens.  I use a spreadsheet that I can customize. 

Also, by keeping track of what you eat, you are  engaged in measuring how many calories of energy you are eating.  You are also paying a lot of attention to what you are eating, and how much you are eating.  That is all necessary so you can be in control.

Forget about using willpower to make yourself do this, though.  Very few people have that kind of willpower.  You need a different approach.  Get your brain and body and will on the same side, and reward them for working together.  It’s very fulfilling to sense the different parts of your mind and body working together.  

Vegetable curry. No wraps required!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – pretzels (120); baked beans (200); rice (100)

  • 420 calories

Lunch – 6 x pizza slices (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 13.5 ounces of vegetable curry (350); 2.5 ounces of cooked white rice (80)

  • 430 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Kefir 1 cup (200); pretzels and cheese (200); Perdue chicken breast strips (150);  blueberries and nectarine (100); chocolate (130)

  • 860 calories

Total for the day: 2310 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Listen to what you are trying to tell yourself

Looking back at my food journal, I am seeing changes in my lifestyle, not always for the better.  For several months, I was allowing my calorie count to be higher on exercise days, and I was taking advantage of that by eating from 200-500 more calories on those days.  I was still losing 2-ish pounds per week, so it was part of a working system.  However, more recently, I have been pushing myself to keep to 1800 calories per day, every day of the week.  It turns out that is hard to do and has been a bit counterproductive.  I have felt a bit deprived and less well rewarded.  Maybe I needed some days to splurge, or cheat a bit.  To put it another way, don’t fix what isn’t broken.  Today, I kept that promise!

Healthwise, I have decided to try and help my intestinal recovery along.  I bought a bottle of drinkable yogurt that has certain beneficial bacterial flora included as ingredients.  Will it help?  Your guess is as good as everyone else’s.  It’s fruity, but needed at least a packet of splenda to be palatable – it’s very tart!  It’s the Trader Joe’s kind.  

The vegetable curry was an interesting meal.  Per the recipe, the entire curry was only 2100 calories, but weighed about five pounds when cooked.  That means I had 13.5 ounces for dinner, it seemed huge.  Nearly a pound of curry – what a way to diet.  

That’s where things are now.  I am trying to get all better, and I am trying to get my weight control scheme back into balance.  It’s a very intense experience, doing all this weight loss.  I am really involved in a lot of day to day decisions about food and eating that I was very casual about for a long time.  I have months of records to show for it, and a few blog posts.  

Tomorrow I want to talk about diet soda.  It’s an interesting topic that reveals a lot about your mindset.  I don’t think it affects your diet one way or another, as a food, but in the realm of how you think about food, it can be an indicator.

-The Doctor

20190708 Daily report

For many years, I refused to do what was necessary to become someone capable of losing weight and being in control of my body’s weight.  I mean that I refused to change my mind.  I was willing to force myself to eat less food, temporarily, but my body wasn’t cooperative with that opinion.  However, I wasn’t willing to change anything else about myself.  How do you lose weight, and get control over your body’s weight, when (1) your body won’t cooperate and (2) you can’t change anything about yourself?  Answer: you don’t.  But you sure feel bad about yourself.  You have placed yourself where you can’t win.  You can call yourself names, and try to motivate yourself, but that won’t do a thing.

Change your mind and your body will follow.  The food actually gets better – more satisfying and fulfilling, both in its taste and its significance to you.  

Hot dog buns are 130 calories each. This bread? 22 calories.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x pulled pork wraps with pickles (250)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – 2 x grilled bratwurst wraps (300) with flatbread and onions fried in Pam 

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 2 x BLT wraps (200)

  • 400 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); candy (200)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1780 calories (limit 1800)

Wrap-oh-no

It was a day of wraps.  My plan was to have vegetable curry for dinner, but that didn’t work out timewise.  So instead, I had wrap sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Vegetables….well, today I had the lettuce and tomato on my BLTs, and no vegetable curry for dinner.  Tomorrow: no wraps at all, and vegetable curry for sure.

One problem I have noticed is that pulled pork, when cooked really well (North Carolina style), is so rich and flavorful that I get saturated with eating it.  I made a 5 pound pork shoulder and it is just way too much.  Next time I will freeze most of it!  I have also noticed I can get tired of other really rich foods, too.  One piece of self knowledge is the realization that I can use those foods as rewards, occasionally, but not as standard meals where I have days worth of leftovers.  I just don’t look forward to them once I am fatigued with their richness. 

We were talking about changing your thinking.  It is so hard to let go of your old thinking.  Many people won’t even try.  Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying that people would rather die than think.  But with some effort, you can decide to change your values.  What do you value?  What don’t you value?  When I was gaining weigh, I didn’t value being thin very highly.  That’s not a flippant remark – I did want to be thin, but it was priority #99 out of 100.  I was busy with other things!  That is, I valued a lot of other things more.  Once I decided that weight control should be in the top three of my values, that meant action had to be taken.  How could I live that out?  

  1. Count your calories and record what you eat in a food journal.
  2. Weigh yourself regular.  I weigh in weekly.  

I plan to do both 1 & 2 from now on.  

Everything flows from the decision: I value being thin more than I value doing almost anything else.  More than enjoying my friends, more than spending time with my family?  More than I valued my old eating goal: eating until I was completely full.  Once I valued being thin, I could see being full as the shallow fulfillment that it is, for the person that I am.  (If I was starving to death, being full would be a worthwhile goal.  But you can see how first-order it is, as a goal.)  I moved up a level and now value being hungry.  Tomorrow, I will talk more about hunger.   Embracing hunger allows you to refine your sensual experience and learn more about yourself.  When controlling my weight, the quality of the food experience is greater than my need to eat.  There are some things more important than being full.  Try fulfillment.  

-The Doctor

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The End