Daily tracking

20200828 Daily report pizza!!

Pay attention to how you are thinking about food and eating.  If you teach yourself to eat when you are bored, or tired, or frustrated, or angry, or anything besides hunger, then you are in danger.  Your food intake becomes disconnected from your body’s physical hunger.  Ignore that message and the first step towards uncontrolled weight gain has been taken.

But why does that lead to weight gain and not weight loss?  Aren’t people just naturally going to gain weight?  Isn’t that an ancient caveman fact of life?

You are thinking about only half of the issue.  There ARE people who lose weight uncontrollably because they disconnect their physical needs from their food intake.  Yes, anorexics.  Be grateful that weight gain isn’t usually a pathology!  

Best homemade pizza ever. Meatball and olive and pepperoni...

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – skipped, not hungry;

  • 0 calories

Lunch – Pork burger (450); Ole wrap (50); 2x cookies (60); milk (80);

  • 700 calories 

Dinner – pizza (600); salad and cucumber salad (50)

  • 650 calories

Snacking – pretzels (200); cheese (50)

  • 250 calories

Total for the day: 1600 calories (limit 1700)

Another food week is done

I have eaten my last meal for the week.  When I wake up tomorrow it will be a new food week, and I will weigh in.  Before breakfast.  I never know until I get on the scale just how much I will weigh.  But I gave myself all the advantages: didn’t overeat, and I went for a walk today.  Last week I lost a lot (down to 222 pounds) and I am not sure what will happen tomorrow.  But whatever happens, I will keep on with my weight control lifestyle.  It’s just better for me.  I’ve gotten so I like being hungry for a meal and it feels strange and uncomfortable to be all the way full.  I even throw away food I don’t want to eat (even cookies and cake that aren’t worth eating).  

Pay attention to how you are thinking.  Do you want to be in control of your weight? Look at people who have stayed thin as adults.  Figure out how they think.  Maybe you could think how they think.  Doing what they do is not possible, without the right thinking.  If you do what thin people do, then you are just forcing yourself to do strange and unnatural things.  When you stop forcing yourself, your old habits and mindset are there, waiting for you.  You must change your mind.  The mind is the important part.  Your body will catch up – a lagging indicator.  

Enjoy a new food week!

-The Doctor

20200827 Daily report burger

It’s not a nothingburger!  It’s a tasty, tasty grilled pork burger.  I had it for dinner with cucumber salad and tomatoes on the side.

The burger itself got horseradish sauce, onion and lettuce.  It was so good it didn’t need anything else!

Alas the angle of my photo doesn’t show how delicious the burger looks.  That’s a lesson for next time.  At some restaurants they leave the top bun off just so you can see the full burger glory.  That would have worked, too.

Need a flatter angle on the burger....

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – fried chicken (200); bread (120); crackers (80);

  • 400 calories

Lunch – meatballs (280); cheese (70); Ole wrap (50); Reese’s candy (170);

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – pork burger (450); roll (200); cucumber salad (40);

  • 690 calories

Snacking – chocolate (40); 

  • 40 calories

Total for the day: 1700 calories (limit 1700)

A high calorie day!

1700 calories doesn’t sound like a lot for a whole day for a man in his 40s, does it?  But it’s more than it appears.  A year ago I was losing a lot of weight eating 1850 calories per day.  It’s just I have become less active with all the corona virus restrictions.  I am also burning fewer calories now, since I weigh 100 pounds less than when I started.

These are things that comes up on a long term plan to control your weight.  I don’t say diet, it’s a bad word for me.  I associate dieting with deprivation and heavy use of willpower.  I can’t handle that, as I have shown many times.  I never lost any real weight that way.  

Almost two years ago, I decided I needed a new set of values and a new life built around those values.  That life would have to be attractive so I would want to keep it going.  I would have to negotiate with myself (!) to find out what I wanted.  And I had to come up with a system of rewards to keep myself happy and encouraged so I wouldn’t feel unhappy and deprived.  

What I came up with was a mental transformation and a new lifestyle.  Now I prize hunger, instead of being full.  I want to be hungry going into a meal because I will enjoy it more.  When I was gaining weight, I would never pass up cookies or cake at the office, because being full was associated with good feelings.  Now, I actually *throw away* cookies and cake that I didn’t like very much.  They were wasting my time with bad cookies!  I’m not going to get good and hungry (which takes work) and reward myself with bad-tasting food.  

Mental transformation has worked for me and I have had a great time and have enjoyed getting hungry and then eating restricted portions, while losing weight.  That’s only half of the puzzle.  Negotiation with yourself is also important.

-The Doctor

20200826 Daily report: aftermath

Today I was dragging more than usual.  It’s tempting to blame the wine: I had two glasses last night and I usually don’t drink wine.  Sometimes I have a small glass of sherry.  On the bad side, I didn’t feel like I came alive much today or was able to concentrate 100% at work.  On the good side, my appetite was suppressed and I didn’t eat much.  I did enjoy what I had, though.  I recommend you always eat foods you really like so that it’s rewarding after a day of sticking to your weight loss plan.  

I had already eaten half the beans and potatoes before I took a picture!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 4oz fried rice (200); crackers (50);

  • 250 calories

Lunch – ham sandwich with bread (140); ham (130); salami (100); Muenster cheese (70);

  • 440 calories 

Dinner – fried chicken (300); roasted potatoes (100); green beans and tomatoes (50);

  • 450 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160); 

  • 160 calories

Total for the day: 1260 calories (limit 1700)

Data driven diet

There’s an article online about dieting which is very interesting to read, at least the second half is!  You can click the link.  The first half is just setup, but the second half describes a data-driven weight loss program.  It’s somewhat invasive and has you measure your blood chemistry after you eat like a diabetic would.  You can use that information to tell which foods (and quantities) you should avoid.  The lady in the article said two things I like to hear: she is keeping a food journal (she calls it logging) and she is excited about using the system for the rest of her life!  It’s enjoyable to her.  That’s the best way. 

As the Doctor says, if you enjoy the weight control lifestyle you are on, you will fight to stay there.  Willpower isn’t needed to force yourself to do things you want to do.

And think of the benefits of that system.  You would look at foods in a whole new way.  Portion control would be easy as you learned to link the chemical results with how foods make your body feel.  You would avoid any food  (or more than a few bites) that has a bad effect on your system.  

On the other hand, you might learn you should only eat raw broccoli and raw oats.  I wouldn’t stick to that!

-The Doctor

20200825 Daily report with wine!

People sometimes say to me: “Doctor, how do you keep up your diet for the long term?  You have been doing this since January 2019!  Don’t you get tired of it?”

And the answer is, dear Reader, that I found a food lifestyle that I like and so it is easy to stay with it.  I don’t call it a diet because of the negative associations of diets, unpleasantness, and deprivation.

And I have had two glasses of wine, which also helps.  I don’t count the calories in wine or other alcohol.  At the same time, I record the 80 calories I have with my tea (in the milk).  What’s with that?  Aha, it’s because I hardly ever drink alcohol.  I don’t like the bitter taste of most alcohol and don’t want to go to the trouble of making whiskey sours or margaritas every time I want a drink.  

The lasagna is hiding!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 10oz fried rice (350)

  • 350 calories

Lunch – bagel (330); 2oz ham (90); salami (100); Muenster (70)

  • 590 calories 

Dinner – lasagna (300); sausage (120); bread (150); salad with dressing (70);

  • 640 calories

Snacking – ginger cookie (60); Cabot cheese (50)

  • 110 calories

Total for the day: 1690 calories (limit 1700)

Calorieeeeeeeeees

I recorded 1690 calories today, but it is an undercount.  I also had some watermelon and grapes and didn’t record them.  I often don’t record small amounts of fruit like watermelon or blueberries or grapes.    But they do have calories.  Such is my lifestyle.  But I have to admit: today I let go and had more calories than usual.  I also had wine, probably 200 calories in two glasses. 

With the wine and the fruit I am surely way over my limits, today.  But am I worried?  No.  I have had several very good weeks in a row, and if I let go a bit today, it won’t hurt my average.  On the other hand, I have been trying to feed my physical needs, and not my emotions.  I have to wonder if I really wanted all those calories today.  Truly, I was very hungry for dinner and I did enjoy it very much.  That and the wine.

And I went for a walk today, too.  

Could you stand a lifestyle where you eat delicious food, exercise, have wine from time to time, and fruit, and mostly stay under a calorie limit?  Could you do that for a long term?  I am convinced that I can, because I have done it for quite a while now.  It’s not hard to want this lifestyle and controlling my weight is a nice benefit.  

Don’t waste your willpower.  Pick a lifestyle you want to live and you will fight to stay on it.

-The Doctor

20200824 Daily report

Why do people gain weight when they aren’t paying attention?  People seem to think that gaining weight is a default, normal, requiring no explanation.  Everybody knows that losing weight is hard and needs a special diet!  Actually, I think both gain and loss take effort.  Staying at your current weight is probably the most default and normal situation. And why not?  People get into a routine, they eat the same foods and probably the same amounts.  At the holidays, when the routine is interrupted, people always complain about gaining weight.

Fried rice - the ham makes it work.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Pizza (450)

  • 450 calories

Lunch – 4oz ham (150); Snickers ice cream bar (180); Hershey’s chocolate bar (220)

  • 550 calories 

Dinner – 12oz fried rice (400); cookie (100); chocolate (80);

  • 580 calories

Snacking – none

  • 0 calories

Total for the day: 1580 calories (limit 1700)

Facing the scale

I usually don’t get on the scale unless it’s Saturday.  This week, I got on again Sunday and my weight had gone up a bit!  I prefer a weekly trend because it can be demoralizing if I bounce around a little from day to day.  But last week was such a big drop to 222 pounds, that I am sure it was not 100% real.  I will be happy on Saturday if I am at 221.8!  At least it will be movement in the right direction.  

Facing the scale is easy, if you have your mind right.  You face the scale because you want the knowledge: what do you weigh?  How is that different from last week?  If you don’t measure it, you don’t know if you are gaining or losing.  You aren’t paying attention.  Paying attention is hard.  There are a lot of things you should be attending to.  But we are talking about the scale.  It’s just between you and the scale.  You don’t have to tell anybody.  It doesn’t know or care what you weighed last time.  Unless it is a scale with a memory feature, and who would want that?

Getting your mind right just means you have decided that tracking your weight is very important.  It’s more important than anything else you do Saturday morning.  It’s even more important than what you are doing on Friday.  You might be extra careful of what you are eating Friday so that the Saturday weighing shows all your progress!  And that’s not cheating.  It’s what you weigh!

It also means that your weight is so important to you that you will be getting on the scale every week for the rest of your life.  Get your mind right and everything you eat becomes part of that important job: having a good Saturday weighing.  

It’s only Monday!  Get your mind right and the scale is just a tool.

-The Doctor

20200823 Daily report with thunder

Boom!  We had thunder last night and more rain today.  It was welcome.  

Every day, I am responsible for my body’s weight.  I have successfully changed how I think about food and eating.  Mentally I am like a thin person.  My body is slowly catching up.  How does that work from day to day?  I’m glad you asked.

Homemade pizza is hard to beat!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 4oz ham (170); Muenster (70); roll (180);

  • 420 calories

Lunch – Enchilada (350); plain yogurt (50)

  • 400 calories 

Dinner – Pizza!!! (600); 

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1500 calories (limit 1700)

Daily lifestyle changes

Anyone can make the changes needed to control your body’s weight.  The changes are mental.  You just have to stop thinking like a person who is gaining weight and start thinking another way.  Yes, people who are thin and remain thin as adults have to work at it.  I have learned about it and so can you.  

OK, it is asking a lot for you to rewire your brain.  I am asking you to give up your old self, your old values, and develop a new existence.  To reinvent yourself as a person who is in control.  You are the only one who can do it.  On an ordinary diet program, you are making temporary changes, often forcing yourself to do it.  It’s not sustainable and many people fail.  Even those with the iron willpower needed to lose weight that way (not me!) the weight often returns when they go back to their old self and lifestyle.  That is what has to change.

Daily, this comes out as a transformation in how you think and act.  You first decide that controlling your weight is more important to you than anything else in your life.  That’s right.  Nothing else takes precedence.  

You must decide to eat only for physical need and not for any other reason.  You will have to learn to be honest about that and to unlearn your old habits of eating for non-physical reasons (boredom, tiredness, emotions).  You can and should still take pleasure in eating and you can eat your favorite foods and still control your weight.  It all comes from preparing yourself (getting hungry) and then eating a measured portion (eating for the right reasons).  

I have done it and so can you!  It does take work, but less willpower than you would think.  And it is rewarding in many ways.

-The Doctor

20200821 Daily report with extra walking

The Doctor always says: pay attention.  Just paying attention makes a big difference.  Try measuring and recording everything you eat for a week and keeping a calorie count.  Don’t try to restrict your food intake.  You have to write it down right after eating, though.  Don’t try to reconstruct what you had last week or even yesterday.  If you do that, you will find you start noticing patterns in how you eat, when, and the amounts.  You will learn about yourself and that is good.  You may start to wonder about your calorie count – how much are you eating per day? 

And that’s just from paying attention.  If you don’t pay attention then you won’t know and you will never notice or ask any of that.

I learned that I like enchiladas.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – bagel (330); 1oz salami (110);

  • 440 calories

Lunch – 2x bratwurst (260); Ole wrap (50)

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – 2x chicken, bean, and cheese enchiladas (200); sour cream (60)

  • 460 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1550 calories (limit 1700)

Keep your mind on today

Tomorrow is a new day.  But today is today and it is my job to make the most of today.  I choose to prioritize my body’s weight today.  Don’t dream about how you will start doing something tomorrow.  Dreaming doesn’t get you anywhere.  Figure out how to make it happen.

Study people who are thin and who have stayed thin for years as adults.  You will find they work at it and pay attention.  The thinner they are, the more work they are putting into the job.  What are the differences between thin people and those who are not in control of their weight?  Why does nobody ever get thinner naturally?  Why is it always in one direction?  Why does getting thin and staying thin take work????

Imagine a bicycle ride.  You notice there are lots of uphill climbs and think: “No problem.  On the way home it will all be downhill.”  Later, you ride home.  If anything, the return is more uphill than the other way!

Yes, it takes work to be thin.  Believe it or not, it also takes work to go overweight, especially very overweight.  It doesn’t happen naturally for the vast majority of people.  To get overweight, you have to learn to keep eating, to use food for treating your stress or loneliness.  It takes dedicated eating to become overweight.  According to the standard counters online, I have to eat 2800 calories per day to maintain my current weight!  A bit less now, because I am more sedentary than before with the Corona virus business.  

To eat more than 2800 calories a day, all the time, takes work.  Am I saying that being overweight is just as hard?  Well, yes.  But with a caveat – any work is hard if you don’t want to do it and your work is easy and burden light when you want to do it.  When you are gaining weight you are seeing the world a certain way and you have a lifestyle that has gotten comfortable.  When you see the world like a thin person does, you can flip that over and it becomes hard to eat and hard to gain weight!  

Think about how to see the world a new way and you will be a new person.

-The Doctor

20200820 Daily report: almost there!

Weight control is a daily job.  Day-by-day, I keep track of my calories and portions in a food journal.  Ideally, I recommend filling it in as soon as you have eaten.  That means measuring your food before you eat it!  

Chicken enchiladas. Pretty and pretty good.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Strata with eggs, bacon, cheese, and bread (300)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – Bratwurst (260); 1/4 Lavash wrap (30); Hershey’s chocolate bar (220);

  • 510 calories 

Dinner – 2x chicken cheese and bean enchiladas (200); sour cream (50); salad with dressing (75);

  • 525 calories

Snacking – pretzels (110); 

  • 110 calories

Total for the day: 1445 calories (limit 1700)

The shrinking calorie limit

When I first started on the weight control lifestyle, I was making a study of how thin people saw the world.  People who had stayed thin throughout adulthood.  I saw that they were putting a lot of effort into it.  So I developed the Doctor’s Law of Diminishing Returns:

“The thinner you want to stay, the more effort it takes.”

Is it profound, no.  But I am finding it is true.  The closer I get to a normal weight the harder it is to lose!  When I started all this, I lost about 2 pounds a week eating an average of 1850 calories per day.  Now I am finding it difficult to match that performance on an average of 1650 calories per day.  OK, there is the fact that I am not exercising as much.  But I think it will get slower and harder unless I keep up with some exercise, more often than I am doing now.  

Pay attention to how much you are eating and why you are eating and you have learned everything you need to know yourself and control your weight.

-The Doctor

20200819 Daily report zoomer

The Doctor is on a long term diet.  The term is life.  Doesn’t that sound depressing?  Diet and long term just sound so punishing, and negative.

Words matter.

The Doctor is living an exciting and fulfilling weight control lifestyle.  He is taking full responsibility for his presence in the world and his direction in life.

Punishment salad??!?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – chicken breast (150); toast (220)

  • 370 calories

Lunch – 2x Italian sausages (230); 1/2 Lavash wrap (60);

  • 520 calories 

Dinner – Skillet strata with onions, bacon, eggs, bread, and cheese (400); salad with oil and vinegar (100)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – Snickers ice cream bar (180); 

  • 180 calories

Total for the day: 1570 calories (limit 1700)

The salad was just an appetizer

I had a nice and appealing dinner, thank you.  I don’t eat salad for dinner.  There are salads you can have for dinner – they tend to have meat, eggs, and cheese in them and they can be quite nice.  But this was a lettuce salad with a few olives and a bit of feta.  I thought it went nicely with the main course, the skillet strata.  That’s a kind of a poor man’s quiche with no crust.  It was so good, actually, that I am planning to make it again.  

That’s my way of looking at the world.  I have to eat and I want to be in control of my body’s weight.  So I make sure that I am eating for the right reasons and that the food is worth the wait.

There are people who learn to think of food as just fuel and don’t care much how it tastes.  That’s probably an advantage for weight control.  But I have trouble doing that.  I like blueberry pie too much.  And too many other things.  I have made that work for me by emphasizing the importance of physical hunger and its fulfillment.  It’s no good eating a whole pie in one go.  Instead you have one piece a day, and learn to look forward to it.  Then you will avoid other foods so that you can enjoy the pie properly.

Learn about yourself and you can achieve!

-The Doctor

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

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