Long term dieting

20200620 Saturday weighing & Triumphant Return

Yes, it is the triumphant return of The Doctor.  I have been away for almost two months and not written anything.  But now I have something to write about.  I have gained more wisdom and experience, but have lost some more weight.  Maybe the two are connected.

The lowest weight I reported on this blog was 237.4 pounds, from November, 2019.  What did I weigh this morning?

The scale does not lie. Not today.

This means since November, 2019 I have lost 2 pounds!  Oh, and since starting my diet in January 2019, I have lost:

Pounds!!
0

So why the pause?

Since November, 2019 I haven’t had much to say since my weight loss was not progressing and that was getting a bit embarrassing.  I was running out of excuses and didn’t have any good reason why that might be.  After 10 or 11 months of very, very successful weight loss (from ~325 to ~237 pounds), why would I suddenly stop?  My first thought was that I had hit some kind of physiological barrier.  More recently I thought it might be a psychological one.

No, not fear of success!  A growing up, maturity problem.  I am transforming myself into someone who is responsible for his own direction in life.  I don’t want to talk here about my previous mindset, but I will say that several things in my life started going wrong all at the same time, last year.  That was a clue.  

I have been thinking about my goals in life.  That shapes how you see and experience the world, since everything either becomes a thing you use to advance yourself towards your goals, or something to not waste time on.  Very recently I have started to pick a direction, a thread to follow.  I can’t express what it is yet, it all seems to have happened subconsciously.  Suddenly things have started working for me again.  And here we are.  

So there is a necessary ingredient to weight loss, and it starts at the top: pick where your life should be going and pick how you are going to experience the world.  You are also picking how the world experiences you.  Right now it is experiencing me as a 235 pound man.  Maybe by the end of the year it will experience me as a person of completely different appearance.  What else will change?  

-The Doctor

20200506 Daily report

Just paying attention is the first step in controlling your weight.  If you are weighing yourself regularly, writing down what you eat (in calories) in a food journal, and noticing patterns in what you like to eat, and when, and why – that is all valuable information.  You don’t even have to be trying to control your weight.  Just the act of watching, of paying attention, will give you all he ammunition you need to construct a weight loss lifestyle.

I can’t eat cake for breakfast.  (I’ll be hungry again in an hour.)  I can’t stand feeling deprived or hungry for very long.  I like my meals spaced out at 9, 11.30, and 5.30.  I learned all that about myself before I had lost any weight.  Another thing I noticed is that I am willing to put up with calorie restriction if I have a favorite meal to look forward to.

Yes, it's Wednesday. Time for gyros!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – colcannon soup with bacon (300); cold chicken pieces (100);

  • 400 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – barbecued chicken pieces (400); 

  • 400 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); mac and cheese (100); yogurt (100); pretzels (100); cheese (100);

  • 480 calories

Total for the day: 1880 calories (limit 1800)

Late night

Part of weight control is deciding you are going to be responsible for your body.  There is no magic food, magic diet, etc.  That is just a way of blaming magic for your problems. 

Now, I have noticed my body reacts well to some foods better than others.  Some are very filling and satisfying for hours.  Some leave me feeling hungry quickly.  And some I just don’t like.  I don’t like rolled oats.  I discovered I do like steel cut oats, and those are very satisfying.  They take a bit of time to cook, which is a tradeoff.  They take 40 minutes or so, and a lot more trouble than pouring a bowl of cereal.  But one way I keep from eating at night is promising myself a breakfast to look forward to.  And who looks forward to cereal?  Hot steel cut oats with maple syrup, though, are special.  You might be willing to put off eating (at night) foods that are not as good.

Eating at night has always been a troublesome behavior for me.  But I have found this way around it.  So far it works, if I make it work.  

What are you looking forward to?

-The Doctor

20200504 Triumphant return and Daily Report

The Doctor has been away for a few weeks.  I wish I could say that it was a spiritual retreat or related to Corona Virus things, but it was nothing so useful. 

In the last two weeks, I have started to get a grip on myself and re-establish my weight loss mindset and lifestyle that I have used so effectively during 2019.  My weight is near my low point, but not quite there yet.  I am approaching 240 pounds for the third time, or maybe the 5th time.  It’s been a hard nut to crack.

Pizzarific!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1/16 birthday cake (550)

  • 550 calories

Lunch – 10oz walnut chicken (450); flatbread (110);

  • 560 calories 

Dinner – 5oz rice (160); 8oz red lentil curry (400)

  • 560 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); kit kat (210); chocolate almonds (300);

  • 590 calories

Total for the day: 2250 calories (limit 1800)

Where's the pizza?

Yes, that is one of my stock photos.  I had no pizza today.  

I discovered something – again.  I can’t have cake for breakfast.  I get hungry again within an hour and I spent the rest of the today feeling deprived.  It is for this reason that my Snacking section contains a lot of chocolate and my calorie total for the day is high.  I am doing pretty well otherwise.  I lost a pound last week, for example.  Not bad considering I haven’t been allowed to swim (the Corona shutdowns have closed them all here).  My physical activity is relatively low.  Maybe that’s a factor and I would be losing more weight per week, but I just don’t know.  

It’s getting late so I will be brief tonight.  The Doctor has returned!  More weight control and food intake control adventures to come.

-The Doctor

20200326 Daily report

When living to control your body’s weight, a big enemy is deprivation.  If you are working hard to convince yourself to eat less food, the last thing you need is to feel deprived after all that effort.  If you don’t pay close attention to your body and its needs, you are in danger of pushing yourself too far.  Then, the risk is that part of you will take over and you won’t be in control of your food intake any more.  

You’d think that being at home more (due to coronavirus quarantines and restrictions on a lot of us) would make it easy to stay on top of food intake and avoid deprivation.  Who could feel deprived with roasted pork and apples for dinner, with roasted Brussels sprouts?

Roasting Brussels sprouts makes them sweet and tender

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Johnsonville bratwurst (260); and 1/4 wheat wrap (25); with fried onions (15);

  • 300 calories

Lunch – 1 ounce Ukrainian bread (100); Aldi half pizza (570);

  • 670 calories 

Dinner – Pork loin (180); baguette bread (150); roasted Brussels (50); banana (50);

  • 430 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); hummus (100)

  • 180 calories

Total for the day: 1580 calories (limit 1800)

Deprivation is bad for dietation

You will notice I had 1580 calories today.  Part of that is because I ate a small breakfast.  And that is because last night I lost control and ate 300 calories after dinner!  I knew right away that I had been feeling deprived but hadn’t paid a lot of attention.  And where did the feeling come from?  I had plenty of calories yesterday, including a gyro for lunch at my favorite Greek cafe!  

The answer is I put lunch off too long.  I didn’t eat until 1 o’clock, when I was hungry (and knew it) at 11.30.  I got busy while I was out picking up my sandwich, and did a few chores and errands….I convinced myself it would only take a few minutes, but it took longer.  By the time I got to the gyro, I was too hungry and I didn’t really enjoy it – ate too fast for that.  You would think by now I would notice these things and try to head them off!  I threw away a lot of work last night, because I didn’t pay attention to my body and meet its needs.  

Today, I explored the possibility of eating less and was comfortable eating 300 less calories for breakfast.  But if I had felt deprived I would have eaten the full 1800 calories for the day.  It’s no good ruining two days with deprivation and making myself angry and resentful.   But today I was more careful and ate my meals more on schedule, though I was still slightly late with lunch (12 PM instead of 11.30).  I did notice that I was a bit too hungry at dinner time, maybe that was because I had lunch a bit late.

Don’t let yourself feel deprived!  It is too much to ask – actual deprivation on top of food intake restriction.  That’s a way to break your diet and demoralize yourself.  Aim higher and pay attention to how your body is acting.  Learn the danger signs and put weight control first over your other priorities!  If you want it to work, anyway.

-The Doctor.

20200325 Daily report

Suppose, dear reader, that you wanted to gain control over your body’s weight.  There are many, many successful tools to use.  However, none of them seem to work.  It might be useful to consider: why are you eating?  What is the goal?  This has an obvious answer: to stay alive.  But it only takes a small amount of food to keep you alive.  How much is hard to say – if you look it up online, you only get lots of opinions that you shouldn’t do it, and few hard figures.  Someone on a survival site mentioned 1300 calories a day would be enough to stay alive for a few months, if you don’t have to do a lot of physical activity.   

So why eat any amount above that minimum?  What is the goal of that?  Well, you can eat more because you are physically hungry, or because you are growing, or want to gain weight.  (Being physically hungry can result from increased physical work – just look at how much the armed forces members have to eat!)  You can eat more food just for pleasure.  You can eat more because it fills an emotional need.  Or it can be some combination.

Do you know how many calories your own body needs to stay the same weight?  To gain or lose weight?  It does vary from person to person.  

Personally, I am eating for pleasure, but a productive and rarefied kind of pleasure that is consistent with weight control.

Big Greek Cafe Gyro Wednesday laughs at Coronavirus!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Bratwurst (260); and 1/4 wheat wrap (25); with fried onions and mustard (15); a homemade chocolate chip cookie (215);

  • 515 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 1/6 Spanish tortilla (333); 1Tbsp mayonnaise (100); 1 homemade chocolate chip cookie (215)

  • 648 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1843 calories (limit 1800)

Walking

I am having a hard time getting an exercise routine going.  Before Coronavirus quarantine, I exercised 2x per week at the pool, and I made time for it in my workday schedule (flexible).  I also did a fair amount of going up and downstairs for car trips to various stores, which I didn’t appreciate until they all closed and we were encouraged to stay home.  Swimming uses arms and legs, and my main exercise at the moment is walking (including steps).  I hate to think about the lack of exercise, which I enjoyed.  I always liked swimming and I make sacrifices to do it.  It’s not like forcing yourself to do situps and pushups, though I guess there must be people who actually like doing those too. 

Anyway, I read that George Washington used to walk 7 miles per day for exercise, after he had retired from the Presidency.  People back then also rode horses and generally had more physically active lives, but even so 7 miles is a lot, nearly 2 hours.  I am doing 20-30 minutes, so only a quarter as fit as George in his 70s.  I’ll have to think about this some more.  I always liked cycling a bit, but was never the kind of person who buys bike gear and spends big bucks on a bike.  I was also never interested in going 100 miles per day or anything.  I was happy to be able to cycle to and from work, usually well under 10 miles each way.  But I am definitely not loving walking to the point where I will sacrifice and move around my day to do it.  But a routine would be nice.  Fifteen minutes walking in the morning and at lunchtime, and some more after work or after dinner, might be acceptable.  

What activities are you missing?

-The Doctor

20200324 Daily report

Another day!  I made cucumber salad, but didn’t eat it.  I made cookies, and successfully resisted them.  This was all part of preparation.  Part of being in charge of your body’s weight is being willing to do the work so that the rest of you willingly comes along with the program.  If you work to please yourself, then you don’t resent the restrictions on portions.  It’s a trade.  It’s like you are two people: one who is gung-ho about weight control and a second person who is not interested and can ruin it for the first person.  But that second person can be negotiated with, bribed, and satisfied so that they will play along.  

The last of the corned beef.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps with 4 pieces bacon (280); a wheat wrap (110); lettuce, tomato, and horseradish sauce.

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Reuben wraps with corned beef (140); cabbage, carrots, potatoes, a wheat wrap (100); and thousand island dressing (130); Let’s say 50 calories for the veggies.

  • 410 calories 

Dinner – 5oz spaghetti (300); 5 meatballs (230); sauce and cheese (20); 

  • 550 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); wheat beer (140); pretzels and cheese (300);

  • 520 calories

Total for the day: 1880 calories (limit 1800)

Balance the load

Yesterday, I had a beer.  Today, I accounted for drinking the beer.  In effect I had 140 more calories yesterday and 140 less today.  It’s a trick I only pull sometimes – like when I forget to count something.  It’s too hard to remember once you start trying to make up for overeating one day by under-eating the next day.  

Remember above I talked about the second person, who is also you, living in your head?  That person is not interested in weight control, that person is interested in being kept happy.  But they are willing to put up with weight control as long as you, the first person, do all the work of keeping them happy and satisfied. It takes work and discipline, but the result is that very little willpower is needed to resist food.  Did I mention above that I made chocolate chip cookies tonight and didn’t even eat a bite of any of them?  It didn’t take any willpower.  I just know that I will be happier eating them tomorrow, when I am properly hungry and full of the right kind of anticipation.   

I also know that the first cookie will be the only one worth eating, from the physical-hunger standpoint.  Eating more than one chocolate chip cookie (unless you are skipping meals) does not satisfy your hunger if you are eating regular meals.  

But I will have a cookie tomorrow, and blog about it.  This is control of intake.  Control of intake leads to control of the body’s weight.  We will find out on Saturday.  

-The Doctor

20200323 Daily report

Weight control in the time of Corona!  Does weight control really matter at this time, Doctor?  Why yes, I believe it does.  Many of us are stuck inside with only trips to the grocery stores and pharmacies allowed.  Sitting at home, it is very tempting to eat.  Eating can be emotionally satisfying, bringing comfort when you feel full, helping you wake up, it’s something to do with your hands, and keeps boredom and loneliness away.  There are many reasons to eat, and very few reasons to stop or limit it.  So, during this time of general lockdowns and quarantines during Coronvirus, it is important to keep yourself fixed on your highest goals for living including controlling your body’s weight.  

Roasted pork loin with apples, and a wheat beer.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 9oz baked beans (400); 2 ounces Ukrainian Christmas bread (200);

  • 600 calories

Lunch – 2x bratwurst (260); wraps (55); with fried onions (25)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 3oz roasted pork loin with apples and white wine sauce (150); macaroni (150); and green peas (40);

  • 340 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chocolate almonds (160); pretzel (100);

  • 340 calories

Total for the day: 1880 calories (limit 1800)

Sunday Dinner on Monday

This is usually a Sunday roast, but I was tied up Sunday and couldn’t make this.  I was also planning something grander, including buttered egg noodles and oven-roasted Brussels sprouts, but it being Monday and working on the computer all day, I couldn’t pull that off.  As it was I ate dinner at 7PM and had to have a snack around 5PM.  This is one of my favorite pork loin recipes because the meat is butterflied and seasoned all the way through with butter, roasted garlic, sugar, and salt.  It is cooked in a sauce of onions, apples, thyme, herbs, and white wine (why yes, it is a French recipe!).  Almost as good as the roast, is the outcome that I have several days worth of sandwiches and wraps available from the leftovers.  The rest of the family don’t like a lot of leftovers, but it works for me.  

I will make my sour cream and dill cucumber salad recipe and use that to garnish future pork sandwiches.  Yum!  Meals like this are worth the wait, worth getting hungry for, and are very, very satisfying even if you have only a controlled portion.  Notice I am not counting the beer in my daily total.  I don’t drink very often, that’s my excuse.  But if you keep yourself fixed on the goal of satisfying physical hunger, and do the work, you can find portioned food very satisfying and you will not feel deprived.  Feeling deprived is the death of so many good impulses.  Don’t let that happen to you.

Aim high!  Control your weight and your body, and see what that does for your life.  Don’t worry about being thin, that will take care of itself.  

-The Doctor

20200322 Daily report

Welcome to more coronavirus diet news!  What makes it a coronavirus diet?  Absolutely nothing!  Except, that I am really talking about the quarantine and the fact that gyms have been shut down for a lot of people (including The Doctor – moi).  That means a lot of us are sitting at home with not much left of our regular routine left, including going to the gym (for those of us who do that).  Personally, I prefer to swim, and the pools are closed at least through next week and maybe longer.  Sitting at home, with all the temptations of food and none of the routine and exercise that helps keep all that in check.  

A new routine is required, if you want to keep it together.  I am planning to start each day with an early walk (30 minutes), count calories carefully, and take an afternoon or evening walk as well.  Stairs will be climbed.  Children will be chased.  And why would anyone do all this?  For two reasons: 1. I have decided that controlling my weight is more important to me than almost everything else.  2. I have succeeded, over the last year, in finding ways to make all the calorie counting and meal planning worth doing.  

Corned beef and cabbage wraps - with carrots and potato. Savory and satisfying!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 8oz baked beans (360); 2oz Ukrainian bread (200);

  • 560 calories

Lunch – 1/4 pound corned beef (140); bread (130); TI dressing (130); Swiss cheese (150);

  • 550 calories 

Dinner – ham (100); bread (130); cheese (50); ice cream sandwich (140);

  • 420 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); pretzels (200); french toast pieces (70);

  • 350 calories

Total for the day: 1880 calories (limit 1800)

Clickety Clack

Last week I said I needed a new keyboard.  It has arrived!  I bought an Ultra Classic from Unicomp, which uses the same principles (and mechanism) as the old IBM keyboards from 20-30 years ago.  It was expensive – $120 all told.  But so far it is very much worth it.  The keyboards are made in Kentucky and the action is much better than the cheap keyboard I was using recently.  Since I type so much, I thought this might be worth the money.  So far, I am happy with it.  It does sound a bit louder than most recent keyboards.  Maybe it will make me sound productive.

When you are viewing you life as an exercise in controlling your body’s weight, and shape, it can become a kind of obsession.  I think that is correct and likely the only way you can do it.  In my life so far, dieting by exerting willpower has never been successful.  By willpower I mean that you make yourself change how much you are eating and consequently feel resentful and deprived.  You keep that at bay with force of will.  That is all that is keeping you from going back to your old habits.  Based on my experience so far, I only have a limited amount of that kind of will, and then I fail and feel bad about myself.  So I don’t set myself up for that kind of failure any more. 

I can make each day a success by reframing the exercise: did I successfully prepare for each meal by getting physically hungry just at the right time?  Did I satisfy myself my making sure the controlled portion of food I was eating, was a high quality item that I would really appreciate?  Put another way, I work hard to make sure that eating less food is a positive.  I don’t feel deprived and don’t have to exert that kind of willpower, because I am looking forward to a deeper kind of fulfillment.  Emotional reasons for eating are not seen as satisfying and being truly stuffed full feels strange and distasteful to me now.  

Make sure you are able to achieve success every day and every meal, and you will look forward to that.  If you don’t, you might seek fulfillment in being full.  

-The Doctor

20200321 Daily report

Every Saturday is weighing day.  Sometimes I don’t want to get on the scale, but I do it anyway.  My goal is to control my body’s weight and knowing how much I weigh is an important part of that.  I plan to weigh myself every Saturday for as long as it matters – for the rest of my life, that is.  That’s part of my commitment to weight control.

When I got on the scale today, I weighed 241 pounds.  That’s good, steady progress for the week, especially considering I didn’t get much exercise.  

Measuring progress

For the last few Saturdays my weight and (daily average calorie count) have been:

  • 244 (1932)
  • 242.6 (1980)
  • 241 (1913)

That is about 1.5 pounds per week, with fluctuations per the calorie count.  My plan is to keep plugging away, since in 10 weeks I will have lost 15 pounds assuming things stay the same.  Once I get below 240 (again), I will start planning how to reward myself for the next milestone of 230.  Since I have already taken a reward for getting below 240, I don’t feel very celebratory about going above 240 and then down again.  Remember though, in my system every meal is meant to be a kind of reward: fulfilling and worth waiting for and worth eating a measured portion.  

And that is the secret to progress under the weight control system.  Planning and working ahead, portion control, self-knowledge and paying attention to how I am feeling, a focus on weight control as a central part of my life, and rewards.  Plus getting weighed every Saturday.  When you say it like that, it sounds complicated.  Better to start at the top: focus on being in control of your body and what you eat.  Have a vision for where you want to go: towards weight conrol – you can pick the weight you want and work for that.  Make weight control your alarm clock: thinking about it is what gets you out of bed in the morning.  It really has to be that important, especially if you are trying to lose a lot of weight – in my case, 120 pounds.  Maybe it is different once you are just trying to maintain the weight you have achieved.  

You can do it, and you are the only one who can.   You are in control of what you eat and what you weigh, so put yourself in charge.  It can’t be done part time or by forcing yourself, I think we have all tried and failed doing that.  

With all the quarantine going on for coronavirus (also called SARS-CoV-2), it’s going to be hard to maintain your routine and easy to stay at home and eat.  Eating can be comforting, but the danger is linking fullness with well-being and comfort.  That is the gateway to eating for emotional fullness rather than physical.  But if you work hard, you can uncouple those and find better ways to be emotionally fulfilled.

-The Doctor of Things

20200320 Daily report

My exercise routine has had to change while all America is doing this semi voluntary quarantine for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.  The gyms and swimming pools are closed in order to slow the rate of infection, and swimming is my favorite exercise.  But even little things like walking downstairs to the schoolbus are no longer part of my day since schools are closed too!   And I am doing 100% telework, so no going to the office.  I am having a very physically inactive week.  I am starting to get very creaky.  Walking sis all I have right now, though I am thinking about getting a bike.  Bikes are nice.  So: today I walked to the store, I walked up six flights of steps, and I chased some children on their bikes.  I took any excuse to walk down to my car.  It’s not 40 minutes of swimming, but it is better than nothing.  But it’s true, as a commenter has pointed out, that a sedentary lifestyle burns fewer calories than an active one.  This lack of exercise will definitely make weight loss more difficult.  

Reuben wraps - I like the pinwheel effect

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Steel cut oats (320)

  • 320 calories

Lunch – Reuben grill wrap: 1/4 pound corned beef (140); wheat wrap (110); 2Tbsp Thousand Island dressing (130); Swiss cheese (150); sauerkraut (inconsequential calories);

  • 530 calories 

Dinner – Aldi frozen pizza (525); 

  • 525 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); ham (150); chocolate (250);

  • 480 calories

Total for the day: 1850 calories (limit 1800)

The coronavirus diet

This is going to be a challenging time for many people.  The danger of runaway infection and after that, overloading the hospitals and medical people with too many cases at he same time, has everybody in agreement: the spread of the virus must be slowed.  This is sometimes called ‘flattening the curve’ and even has a Twitter tag #FlattenTheCurve.  So many people are being told to stay at home for the good of the public health.  I wouldn’t be the first to note that the usual forms of exercise will be unavailable.  But it is dieting and really, weight control, that will be an issue for many.  Activity is down for most people, since people aren’t doing anything more strenuous than walking around the house or from a car to the store and back.  Carrying groceries is the new exercise!

But it is weight control that will have to be encouraged during this time.  With so many people cutting their physical activity and having nothing to do but sit at home with the temptations of eating all around, all the time, we can predict a few consequences.  #1.  Baby boom.  I’m not the first to say that either, but I am sure that there will be one.  #2.  Routines are disrupted and that means interrupted sleep.  Interrupted sleep in my experience makes it harder to focus on controlling your weight.  It also means people will eat more because eating seems to make people more awake.  #3.  Less physical activity and the opportunity for regular meals and disrupted sleep cycles will mean overeating and lots of weight gain.   

So I will keep writing and extolling the virtues of weight control.  Part of controlling your weight is establishing and sticking to an eating and sleeping routine that will support your ability to control your weight.  If your top desire in life is to be in control of your weight, then you must and will create a new routine and eating schedule that works during this disrupted time.

Weight control starts with a simple realization: the goal is not to be thin.  The goal is control, to be able to choose any weight you want and make it happen.  Once you place yourself in control of your weight, then you can see that being heavy or thin is in your control.  That does mean that being heavy is a choice or trade-off you have made for some other, more important good in your life.  You can work on making weight control an essential and all-but-central part of your life.  It will be what gets you out of bed in the morning.  

Choose your weight carefully.  The thinner you want to be, the more work it is.

-The Doctor

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