Long term dieting

20200712 Daily report: relax

Today I rested.  That’s putting a gloss on it, though.  I woke up with an almost-headache.  That’s bad because it feels like you are about to get a headache and it’s very foreboding, like it’s hanging over you and you are reluctant to start anything.  So resting it was.  I had no interest in planning anything complicated or cooking anything complicated, as you will see.  The most complicated thing I cooked today was my sandwich, and I didn’t even take a picture.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – skipped 

  • 00 calories

Lunch – bagel (330); ham (100); salami (110); cheese (50); olive tapenade (30);

  • 620 calories 

Dinner – chicken pieces (100); chips (100); buffalo chicken wrap with tomato and lettuce (170);

  • 370 calories

Snacking – 99g ice cream (240); pretzels and cheese (300)

  • 540 calories

Total for the day: 1530 calories (limit 1850)

More rest!

The almost-headache didn’t go away until late afternoon.  I did manage to get a few things done, but between my headache-ish lethargy and the hot weather expected for this week, I have planned out a very simple menu.  Yes, part of the price for the weight control lifestyle is to spend part of the weekend planning and preparing for the next week.  That’s done and I won’t starve.  I was even able to cut up a watermelon, which is a very good one, and so I have snacks prepared too.  I know I have to take care of myself so that I will be happy eating a restricted number of calories.  

Really, 1850 calories is not a small amount.  But it is a restriction and part of me doesn’t like to be restricted.  That part has to be kept appeased.  Instead of forcing myself to eat “less” than I want, I plan ahead to make sure that at least the 1850 will be very, very nice food.  Just what I want.

Have a good week!  It’s a new week and a new week can be a good week.  Don’t worry about last week, you can’t change it now.  

-The Doctor

20200711 Saturday report, white feather edition

I was too scared to get on the scale this morning.  That’s because I had an extra 1000 calories before bed!  And the latter half of the week was also calorie loaded.  So I have no idea what I weigh this week.  But it wasn’t going to be a triumphal number.  It’s just a lost week.  Next week can be better.

No picture today, since I didn’t get on the scale.  I only post pictures of victories, anyway, so even if I had gotten on, I wouldn’t have taken a picture.  

It's just a number

For the week, my daily calorie average was 2248, usually 1800-1900. In fact, the last two weeks my average daily calorie count was just below 1800 and my weight didn’t budge.  I blamed illness, and it might have been.  Can I blame my recent food bingeing on recovery?  It’s tempting.

But if I have recovered then I can get back to weight control.  I’ve made a start.  Let me explain.  My last five days of calorie counts were:

  • 3155 (Monday)
  • 1870
  • 1955
  • 2275
  • 2855 (Friday)

…and today, Saturday, I had 1850.  Right on the target.  I do not feel like eating any thing else and I am not feeling deprived, resentful, or have anything like appetite for any more food.  As a matter of fact, I feel tight across the middle, and heavy.  It’s hard to put into words.  But I don’t have the bouncy, energetic feeling I get when I am much closer to an empty stomach.  It will take a few days for me to get that back.  That’s the consequences.  And there is no guarantee that next week’s weight will be an improvement over 235.2.  But the week after that probably will be.  This is a long game with my body as a lagging indicator of my mental state or mindset.  

I was talking to a friend who has stayed thin through her adulthood and she complained that she has gained 10 pounds since everything here shut down for Corona virus craziness.  That is, since late March.  She explained her weight gain by saying that her routine, her lifestyle was disrupted.  Normally during her workday (she has an in-person service job) she skipped lunch or just had a bite on the go.  Now, she finds she had more time and is eating lunch.  

This story is very interesting.  I always listen to what thin people tell me.  She knew her weight had increased and by how much.  So she has been checking!  I went for years without checking my weight.  As part of my observation of thin people, I learned that people who stay thin usually monitor their weight.  She also introduced me to a new concept: thin people maintaining their weight by skipping meals.  I kind of knew that, I know another woman who only eats carrots for lunch (sometimes a hummus serving also) so she can eat ice cream at night and still stay thin.  This also has social benefits because everyone who knows them sees that they hardly eat a thing.  Remember Gone with the Wind, where the main character says in so many words that one should eat like a bird when anyone can see you?  Then go to the kitchen later and eat the rest, haha.

I can add this meal skipping to my other two strategies: calorie counting and total food management.  I count calories and keep a food journal, which takes some effort and fuss but is accurate.  I know other people who just eat the same thing all the time (food management) or some variation, like the man I met who cooks once a week and then eats a 1/7 serving daily for the rest of the week.  Now there is meal skipping, too.  I wonder how else thin people manage their bodyweights?

Keep your eyes open!

-The Doctor

20200710 Daily report: end of week

It’s very lucky to live in a world where each day gets to be a new day.  You don’t worry about what happened with your lifestyle yesterday and what problems you had, and you don’t try to fix what happened yesterday by sacrificing today.  You try to live today right.  In the long term, your weight will be under control even if not every day goes well.  

Homemade Swedish meatballs and gravy. With the right condiments they make a good sandwich wrap! That's dill on top.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco half pepperoni pizza slice (355)

  • 355 calories

Lunch – 7x Swedish meatballs (47); whole wheat wrap pieces (80); chicken (130); hummus (70);

  • 610 calories 

Dinner – pizza (600); 

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels (110); chicken (100);

  • 290 calories

Total for the day: 1855 calories (limit 1850)

Feeling it

I am sitting here and typing and am having an urge to eat more food.  It’s not hunger – I had a good dinner with two kinds of pizza, including stuffed crust.  There is some other reason for me having an urge to eat something.  I am currently resisting because I indulged this urge yesterday and the day before, and that didn’t do me any good.  I didn’t feel any better emotionally and I felt over full physically.  Maybe I am still recovering from having some stomach issues last week.  

As far as the pizza goes, the DiGiorno stuffed crust was kind of disappointing.  The pepperoni was tasteless and the stuffed crust cheese was also tasteless.  The texture of the pizza was sub par.  Much better was the Freschetta cheese pizza.  No stuffed crust, but the sauce and cheeses were tasty.  On balance, I don’t like the rising crust style of frozen pizza.  Much better is the crispy thin crust style from Aldi or similar.  

I am a little tired, I think.  On the weekends I usually look forward to cooking ahead for he week, and today I am not feeling that excited about it and can’t think what I would like to cook.  It’s also the hottest part of summer here and I don’t like to heat my home up too much.  So I am looking at simple meals this week for both reasons!  

I hope you had a good week.  Now the weekend.

-The Doctor

20200709 Daily report with extra crow

Crow is the wrong word.  But you can see it that way.  

I’ve been trying to get my head in the right place, but it’s not going according to plan.  Yesterday I talked about making a success of weight control by creating the world I wanted to live in.  I didn’t make it today!  Luckily, tomorrow is a new day and soon there will be a new week.  

Dinner once, breakfast three times

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco pepperoni pizza half slice (355);

  • 355 calories

Lunch – 11oz pork vindaloo (480); 

  • 480 calories 

Dinner – 9x Swedish meatballs (48); cucumber salad (100); lingonberry jam (50): noodles (100); 

  • 680 calories

Snacking – chicken wrap (200); pretzels (150); chocolate (110); almonds (140); 2x kit kat bars (80);

  • 760 calories

Total for the day: 2275 calories (limit 1850)

400 more than I wanted

These days, feeling full doesn’t feel nice and comforting the way I used to believe it did.  Now, it feels strange.  It also gives me a bad feeling, like failure.  Luckily, it’s for today only.  Tomorrow is guaranteed to be a new day that could be good.  

Today, I felt hungry when I woke up – unusual.  I also got quite hungry around 10AM, but didn’t do anything about it until 11.30 when I had lunch.  Then I was hungry again at 2, and I had a chicken wrap with lettuce and tomato, at 3PM.  I can see I was already making myself feel deprived!  Too much waiting.  This kind of thing has gotten unusual, most of the time my food routine is predictable.  In the past I have tried to satisfy these kind of sudden, urgent hunger feelings.  Sometimes that works.

At dinner I was quite hungry, and felt like having more dinner.  I did!  But after dinner, I felt, not quite hungry, but rather deprived.  And here I am, 700 calories later.  

Tomorrow I will try again.  That’s the beauty of the system: every day is a new day that you can get right.  My goals are achievable, but difficult, and that challenge makes this worthwhile.

-The Doctor

20200708 Daily report and deprivation avoidance

When you are getting yourself invested in weight control, you have to set things up to avoid feelings of deprivation.  There is no surer way to fall off a diet – weigh control or otherwise – than to make it punishing and painful to do it.  You have to create a world you want to live in, and then you can watch in amazement at how happily you want to go live there.  

In my world, this is Wednesday.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Half Costco pepperoni pizza slice (355);

  • 355 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 9oz chili (390); bagel (330)

  • 720 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 80g ice cream (200)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1955 calories (limit 1850)

I like this world better

Yesterday, I let myself feel deprived.  I tried to make up for extra calories I ate the night before.  That didn’t work.  It never works.  Every day is a new day, and part of the meaning of that is you don’t make up for yesterday’s problems today.  Today has its own problems.  Just try to make today work.  Yesterday is gone.  You can learn from it but you can’t cheat your way out of it.  You ate too much yesterday?  Well, don’t try to make up for that by eating less today.  Eat what you are supposed to.  Maybe weight loss will take a little longer, but falling off your diet and getting resentful about it won’t work at all, ever.  

Today, I tried to return to normal, but I was still feeling deprived so I let myself go over the top – 1955 calories total.  Normally I try to stay under 1850.  Well, tomorrow is another chance to have a perfect day, and I want to concentrate on that world.  Letting yesterday go is a hard lesson to learn.  You can still learn from it though.

Feeling deprived can come for a number of reasons.  It can be emotional.  It can be illness.  You might slack off and not take care of yourself well – normal human laziness.  It can be a combination, or totally unknown!  If it happens a lot you should try to figure it out, and prevent it from interrupting your weight control lifestyle.  

But in the best world I can create, I am motivated to eat by physical hunger that comes at pretty regular and predictable intervals.  I anticipate satisfying that hunger with a measured amount of the food I am most hungry for, and make sure that it is ready when I am most ready for it – when I am getting pretty hungry!  The food tastes wonderful when I am hungry and when I am anticipating it.  It’s a satisfying experience to eat what you want when you are just ready, and you might have three wonderful meals like that in a day.  In this world, you will control your weight and be pretty happy about it.  Eating like this is a richer and higher experience.  

Create a world you would like to live in and you will try hard to get there.

-The Doctor

20200706 Daily report with skipping

I didn’t post yesterday!  What a thing to forget.  I had taken pictures, too.  If I get a chance I will go back and post it.  

Talking of which, this weekend I made pancakes from scratch.  They are much better than boxed pancakes and no harder to make.  I did notice that putting blueberries inside them doubled the cooking time, though.  I count each 3-4″ pancake as 75 calories.  I use a Splenda-based syrup so essentially no calories there.  The blueberries were rather tart so the pancakes were, too.  Anyway, the buttermilk pancakes cooked up tall and fluffy, exactly the kind of thing you can look forward to. 

There may be butter. I'm not saying.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – last 1/10 piece of Texas blueberry cobbler (280)

  • 280 calories

Lunch – 12 ounces pork vindaloo (525); pretzels 110

  • 645 calories 

Dinner – sloppy Joe (500); fries (100);

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (70); chocolate almonds (200); Reese’s PBCs (160);

  • 430 calories

Total for the day: 1955 calories (limit 1850)

Catching up on calories?

I don’t know why but I was very hungry today starting around 3PM, and then again at 5PM.  I had breakfast around 10AM because I wasn’t that hungry!  

Anyway my calorie total is high today (1955) and yesterday it was low (1745).  It evens out, but I didn’t mean for it to work out like that.  I was just hungry this afternoon and evening.  Since my stomach has been a bit off I wonder if this means it is back in business!  

Anyway, back to pancakes.  Part of the Doctor’s insight into system of weight control comes from the observation that small rewards are motivating.  It’s hard to motivate yourself to accomplish anything with punishments.  I think that’s why many people fail when trying to tame vices like overeating, smoking, drinking.  Psychologically they are punishing themselves because they see those vices as essential comforts and withholding them as punishments to be resented.  It’s hard to do things out of resentment.  

You have to do the work, though.  Rewards don’t come to you just because you wish for them.  If you can’t force yourself to lose weight, you can make it easier and rewarding to lose weight.  You can set up your life and your diet so that there are lots of incentives.  I reward myself every day by making sure that the food I get to eat is food I want and enjoy.  That’s the trade: I eat for physical fulfillment, which is a measured amount of food.  In return, I make sure that food is worth eating and worth waiting for.  It avoids the trap of forcing myself to eat less food using willpower.  Scott Adams talks about changing how you see the world – decide you are going to eat healthy, for example.  That way, each meal is a chance to succeed.  If your goal is to eat less you will fail every time because you could ALWAYS eat less.  Terry Pratchett calls that playing games with words!  You use the words to describe the world in a way it’can’t ignore.  Change yourself and change the world.

-The Doctor

20200704 Saturday weighing report

Saturday and Fourth of July weekend!  A good combination.  I weigh myself every Saturday.  It’s important to do that, even if you know you didn’t have a good diet week.  I have skipped sometimes, if I am not feeling well for example. I have found that my weight is unreliable when I am not well.  As it happens, I have been recovering from illness this week and I have no idea what my actual weight is.  Let me explain.

In 2019, when I got sick my weight was all over the place.  The first time it happened I worked hard to keep the calorie count under control, though it was an effort.  Maybe I really wanted the comfort that comes from eating and feeling full, when I was sick and suffering.  But it didn’t do any good, apparently.  After I was better, my weight was exactly the same as before I got sick.  The next time I got sick, I let myself eat whatever and however much.  The same thing happened – after I got better, my weight was the same as when I started.  What is the truth of it?  I am not sure.  

But I am trying hard to get away from the idea that food should be eaten for comfort reasons.  It is better to enjoy the food because you need it physically.  Anyway, what was my weight today? 

The lowest number yet!

This means since starting my diet I have lost more than 90 pounds!  That’s a good milestone.  How many pounds have I lost?

Pounds!!
0

What is my weight?? And what reward?

My food intake has been under very good control this last few weeks.  But my weight record has been 241-239-235-235-234, an inconsistent loss.  I blame being sick.  I have this feeling that I should have lost more weight since my intake has been so controlled, but who knows how your body’s energetics change when you are sick.  Anyway, I will find out next week what my “real” weight is.  I have been looking in the mirror hoping that I have lost more than that, but it’s hard to judge small changes in weight.  

This is kind of a milestone, reaching a loss of 90 pounds.  Typically I reward myself for reaching each decade of weight, so I would normally be looking to reward myself at <230 pounds.  There’s also the fact that I have been hanging out above 240 for six months or so.  So it’s notable that I have reached a kind of milestone (under 235#s).  I won’t make a big deal out of this milestone, though.  I will reward myself for getting under 230 pounds, and also when I have lost 100 pounds (under 225).  That’s a lot to lose. 

But this is good.  This is a new low.  A new low every week means I will get to my destination someday.  Remember: you change your mind and become a different person.  Your body is a lagging indicator and has to catch up more slowly.  I also have to remember that it took a long time to gain all this weight.  It’s hard to not be impatient if you look at the scale and your progress.  But you can be happy about how quickly and completely you changed your mind.  The new me is in there.  

Change yourself and change the world.  Change at least the way the world sees you.

-The Doctor

20200703 Daily report and blueberry time

This morning I did some baking and then some stovetop cooking, even though it was going to get to 96 degrees outside today.  More on the cooking later – it was my first time pressure cooking.  On to the baking.  It was Texas blueberry cobbler, which I have never made before but was recommended by one of my throngs of devoted readers.  The chief benefit is that it’s easier than making a pie.  It’s not your typical cobbler but turns out like a cake with pockets of blueberries and blueberry-soaked….cake.   So it is no runny at all, like a pie or cobbler would be.  It also has a stick and a half of butter in the recipe, which is an America’s Test Kitchen adaptation.  So even if the blueberries are marginal in terms of flavor, it’s still a nice lemon butter cake.  I cut it into 10 pieces of 280 calories each.

Texas style blueberry cobbler
Much easier than pie, quicker too.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1/10 serving Texas Blueberry Cobbler (280);

  • 280 calories

Lunch – 4oz chili (170); toasted bread (100); ham (100); salami (130); provolone cheese (70);

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – 5oz rice (160); 8oz pork vindaloo (350)

  • 510 calories

Snacking – none so far!

  • 0 calories

Total for the day: 1360 calories (limit 1850)

Yes, I will have a few more calories

1360 calories for the day is pretty low for me.  I will be having something else.  On the other hand, I do have a weighing day tomorrow so not too much!  Part of weight control is being careful about rewards.  You accomplished something – you kept your mind in the right place and kept your calorie intake where you wanted.  You can’t then punish yourself by getting hungry and resentful.  When you are restricting your calorie intake you have to pay a lot attention to your subconscious and its needs.  

I’ve said this before, but there’s a part of you – call it the subconscious – that has to be treated like someone you care about.  You can’t force that part of you to do things you want, like lose weight, exercise, stop smoking, or improve whatever vice you have.  What works is to stand that relationship on its head.  Normally the conscious willing part of you says something like “eat less!”  and the burden falls on your subconscious self to carry that out.  That part gets resentful fast.  Better for the conscious part to take up the burden and do most of the work.  After all, it is giving the orders!  Using this trick, I have managed to lose a lot of weight and not feel resentful or deprived.  It does take work and discipline.  But the kind of work and discipline is not intuitive or obvious to those of us in an uncontrolled/weight gain mindset.  

There is a thin way of thinking.  Wach people who have stayed thin and you will see how they do it but not what they get out of it – why they are doing it and how they are thinking about it.  That takes a bit more work.  But if you talk to them, you will get important clues.  A thin person is often quite proud of their weight discipline, though I have found many of them are shy/modest or pretend that what they are doing is no big deal.  The best person to talk to is someone who has struggled with their weight and managed to keep it under control.  They know how to think about it and are successful.

You can be successful with weight control too.  Just work out how.  It won’t just happen by itself!

-The Doctor

20200702 Daily report with ice cream perhaps

These days I am having success with a skimpy breakfast plan.  I have a quite small breakfast and a normal lunch, then a snack, and after dinner there are often 300 or more calories left in my budget that I can spend as I like!  The amazing part is that with my focus on hunger as my reason for eating, I am often not even using the whole 1850 calories I budget per day.  On a regular diet I would probably be eating right up to, and a bit over, the limit, and being unhappy about it.  But by setting my mind right first, the 1850 becomes more of a guideline than a goal.  If I get hungry I check my food journal and say “no wonder, I’ve only had 700 calories so far today” or “I shouldn’t be that hungry, I’ve already had 1600.”

Half a pound of chili and some garlic bread - dinner.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – baked beans (180)

  • 180 calories

Lunch – 5oz cooked rice (160); 12 ounces vegetable curry (330)

  • 490 calories 

Dinner – 8oz chili (340); 60g garlic bread (250)

  • 590 calories

Snacking – pretzels (100); 2x Reese’s PBCs (80); 110g ice cream (250);

  • 510 calories

Total for the day: 1770 calories (limit 1850)

Yes, I decided to have ice cream

But I didn’t have a cone.  And I do like my waffle cone with the right kind of ice cream.  They are 80 calories.  But I didn’t need it today.  To really enjoy it, I would have to be hungrier. 

In preparation for the 4th of July weekend, I bought a pineapple and a watermelon and some blueberries.  With any luck I will make blueberry crumble tomorrow morning.  It will be a hot day, so cooking in the morning is sensible.  And I will have watermelon and pineapple in the refrigerator, ready for the predicted 97 degrees!  I have decided that blueberries and watermelon are essentially calorie free (not 100% true) so I often don’t record eating them.  Plus I don’t have them that often.

Weight control is partly about having things to look forward to.  But at the highest level it is about resetting your view of food and eating.  Instead of thinking like an out of control person who will gain weight, you can learn how thin people think.  There’s lots of emphasis in the diet world on aping some of the behaviors of thin people, but a lot of it won’t work if you don’t have the thinking right.  If you think like a person who has successfully stayed thin through their life, those behaviors will make more sense and you can implement them consistently and with purpose.  Your body, a lagging indicator, will slowly catch up to your change of mind.  Watch thin people and figure it out.  Talk to them and they will tell you all about it.  

My system is complicated.  Not every overweight person is willing to solve their problems by keeping a food journal for the rest of their life, and many people who stay thin don’t do that.  But I have a special situation with my former weight gain.  I feel like my ability to judge how much food is enough, and remember what I have eaten, is unreliable.  The journal evens the odds.  It is my hobby.  

Listen to what the thin people are telling you.  Keep an open mind.

-The Doctor

20200701 Daily report with a $5 Gyro

It is important to have things to look forward to, but that has to be done right.  When I was uncontrolled in my food intake and gaining weight, I looked forward to meals.  Since I had learned to associate feeling full with comfort, completion, fulfillment, I could look forward to all those things at nearly every meal.  But that wasn’t good fulfillment.  I figured out later that those emotional goals associated with food are kind of shallow.  I call them ‘cheap thrills’ now.   

A worthier reason for eating is also a simpler one: because you physically need the food.  It is a worthier reason because it allows for higher goals.  You can fulfill your senses, like with a favorite food, instead of gratifying your emotions.  You can anticipate, not your emotional fulfillment (which should really come from accomplishments and pride in your work well done) but physical fulfillment, which comes no matter how you feel about things.  

That is, enjoy the food, rather than how eating a lot of it makes you feel.

Big Greek Cafe $5 Gyro Wednesdays!!!!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – pancakes (150)

  • 150 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 5oz cooked white rice (160); 12 ounces curry (330);

  • 490 calories

Snacking – pretzels (250); cheese (80); snickers ice cream bar (180);

  • 510 calories

Total for the day: 1750 calories (limit 1850)

Erratum and datum

On Saturday I said I reached a new low weight of 235.2 pounds, but I was wrong.  The previous Saturday’s weight was also 235.2 pounds – look at the picture.  So I didn’t lose any weight that week, possibly.  I mean, it doesn’t count much since I was a bit ill and had a lot of water weight changes at that time, but I did claim it was a new low.  It wasn’t.  Will I be all better Saturday, in terms of water weight?  We shall see.  My calorie counts have been great and under control for this week and last week.  But we shall see.  That’s what Saturdays are for.  

Like I have said many times, since starting the weight control lifestyle, feeling full has gotten to be uncomfortable for me.  That is completely opposed to my old incentive, when I was gaining weight.  Feeling full was the goal!  That is no longer the goal.  I am seeing the world in a new way, like I imagine a thin person does.  It is working out, and I tell myself that my body is a lagging indicator.  That means my weight is slowly catching up.  

I have also been thinking about dieting and what a waste of time it is.  I have lost a lot of weight without going on a diet.  I can’t make those work, it’s the feeling of deprivation and my reasons for eating that were the problems.  I imagine there are lots of people who feel this way.  Maybe you would reply that I am on a diet – defined as losing weight by eating less food.  But I define a diet differently: an attempt to force yourself to eat less food, while staying exactly the same person on the inside, who gained that extra weight in the first place.  You see, you will gain the weight back again once you stop forcing yourself.  A diet is contrary to your being.  Weight control is an attempt to redefine your being.  Your body catches up to your mind. 

Change your mind, change your body!  Never the other way around.  

-The Doctor

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