Long term dieting

20200319 Daily report

Another day is another chance to control my body’s weight!  Believe it or not, you can get to a place where that is something you look forward to.  It fulfills a need in you.  And that all comes from setting weight control as a great moral good in your mind.  You create a vision of the future where you have you body’s weight under control.  You can be thinner, or heavier, as you choose.  It does mean though that you take responsibility for what happens to your body and yourself.  You decide to make the changes needed to bring this moral reality into being. 

Before I became interested in weight control, controlling how much I ate was a huge bother and I would give up easily.  That’s because my vision of the future (at that time) was centered around being full, and that became more and more of a source of satisfaction.  Now, I think of being full as a cheap thrill, hardly worth it.  My mind has changed and the way I see food and eating has changed.  My goal now is weight control.  

When the leftovers are as good as the original!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 3oz soda bread (275); 6oz baked beans (270)

  • 545 calories

Lunch – Corned beef (100); and cabbage (10); wraps (100); with potato (10); carrot (10); and TI dressing (100);

  • 330 calories 

Dinner – bread and hummus (210); 8oz baked beans (360); bread roll (220);

  • 790 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Trader Joe’s chocolate (125);

  • 205 calories

Total for the day: 1870 calories (limit 1800)

Day to day

I don’t quite understand it, since I have not been exercising due to the quarantine for coronavirus, but I woke up ravenous and ate breakfast earlier than usual.  I could have eaten more, but I wanted to be careful not to spoil lunch.  When this kind of thing happens, I have to make sure I eat enough so that I don’t feel deprived; that’s when trouble begins and overeating looks attractive.  So I was careful to eat just enough.

Lunchtime – yes, I was ravenous again, and was staring at the clock from 10.30 onwards.  Leftover corned beef and potato, carrot, and shredded cabbage wraps hit the spot (especially if you warm them up).  It’s hard to believe that Thousand Island dressing has 130 calories in 2 tablespoons, by the way.  Very expensive in calories, but it does bring the sandwich together.  

Dinner – yes, starving by 4.30 again.  I have no idea what’s gotten into me, though I have made a change recently.  I’ve been having tea with half and half daily as a treat, and I noticed that the half and half was not lasting as long as it used to.  Maybe the container had a hole in the bottom.  But really, I’ve clearly been having quite a bit more than I was supposed to, since I hate to drag out the measuring spoon every time I have tea.  But I have discovered that 2 tablespoons of half and half weigh about 30 grams, so now I just pour it into my cup while on the kitchen scale.  Yes, all calories must be measured when you are trying to achieve weight control.  

Today I went to Aldi because I needed exercise.  So I walked and took a backpack.  Once I got there, it was an interesting scene.  This store has been hit hard by panic buying and has had to do major restocking every night, and the hours have been restricted to limit hoarding (a recipe for more panic and hoarding if you ask me).  The store had not completely recovered but it had a little bit of everything: some dried meat, some bread, lots of produce, some fresh meat, some milk, and some canned goods, and a little pasta.  Very little rice, very few fruit cups, no flour or granulated sugar (plenty of powdered sugar), no yeast available.  There was plenty of lunch meat, frozen goods, chocolate and sweets, and tons of snack chips of all kinds, plenty of crackers and lots of cheese.  They had a lot of eggs too.  There were about half the customers compared to normal.  

Next: a report on Trader Joe’s!  I hardly shop there, but they have also been hit hard by the panic.

-The Doctor

20200318 Daily report

When your focus is on weight control, you can make it work for you whatever the circumstances.  Right now, I am working from home, the pools are closed, and most of my social outlets are cut off.  But my lens for looking at my world is still: what can I do to control my body’s weight?  And from home, for me, there’s a lot I can do.  For one thing, I can make my patented (not really) Reuben wrap sandwich, with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing toasted and wrapped up in a flatbread.  It works and it is very, very good.  I even make it on the kitchen scale so I can weigh out the corned beef.  My toaster oven makes it easy to melt all the cheese.  

Now that it's toasted, add sauerkraut, dressing, and roll!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2x bacon slices (70) on a toasted bagel (300)

  • 440 calories

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

  • 530 calories 

Dinner – 8oz chili (340); 3oz soda bread (280);

  • 620 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); chocolate almonds (150)

  • 270 calories

Total for the day: 1860 calories (limit 1800)

Diet without exercise

You can lose weight without any extra exercise, just by controlling your food intake.  However, you do’t have to feel good about the lack of exercise.  But how and why would you control your food intake?   First, you have to commit to measuring it.  You can only do that if you have decided to make weight control one of the top values of your moral existence.  I’ve found (after failing on lots of other ideas) that I am willing to do this, so long as I don’t feel deprived, punished, and miserable while I am controlling my weight.  That does take a fair amount of work because you have to anticipate the needs and desires of your own body, and learn about yourself and what you want, and be willing to put in the work (or spend a lot of money getting other people to work for you) so that will happen. 

Just sitting around all day, your body will burn a regular amount of calories.  Today, I hardly left the house (does walking to my car count?) so my calorie burn was at the minimum.  Tomorrow I hope to do some walking.  When I swim, I have calculated my normal routine burns about 600 calories.  Think about the numbers, though.  I swim twice a week and burn 1200 calories.  In that same week, I will eat about 13,400 calories (ideally, if I want to lose weight).  So exercise is a small fraction of my total calorie throughput and a lack of exercise should only marginally affect my calorie calculations.  But there are other benefits – exercising makes you stronger, for example, and you might look better.  On the whole, I like swimming twice a week.  

Find a way to make weight control into something you like and appreciate, and work to keep yourself liking it.  Then you will always do it, and failing that, can always come back to it.

-The Doctor

20200317 Daily report

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day at the Doctor of Things!  That means it’s time for New England Boiled Dinner and Irish soda bread.  I like the meal a lot, and it means I have Reuben sandwiches out of the leftovers for some time.  Since corned beef hardly ever goes on sale apart from this time, I usually buy two and freeze one for later.   Actually I bought three, but two of them are quite small (2-3 pounds) and one large (5 pounds).  

Annoyingly, the cabbage is hit or miss.  Sometimes it’s uniformly tender and sometimes, like this year, it turns out a mixture of tender and tough leaves.  But the carrots and potatoes turned out nicely.  And I had a success with the soda bread – used golden raisins this time.  

Apparently this is not a traditional meal for Irish people – just Americans.  But it seems like many of us do celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this way.  “Why” is a mystery and may stay that way forever.  For me, it’ a handy holiday with a food I like.  

Caption

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 4oz Ukrainian bread and butter (400)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – 12oz jambalaya (420); 2 pretzels (100); Cheddar cheese (100);

  • 720 calories 

Dinner – Corned beef (100); potatoes (50); cabbage (25); carrots (30); soda bread (300); beef broth (100);

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); ice cream sandwich (190);

  • 270 calories

Total for the day: 1990 calories (limit 1800)

Excuses, excuses!

I normally manage my food intake to be around 1800 calories per day.   It can be a fun job and I work hard to make sure it is fun and worthwhile.  Today I made an error – I thought the jambalaya was only a few calories when it was really over 400!  Then I had an ice cream sandwich and that put me over the top today.  It was all perception – I believed that I had deprived myself at lunch by only having a low calorie portion of jambalaya, so I felt deprived afterwards and rewarded myself with an ice cream.  Oh, well.  Normally I would fret over this a little, but I see this week I have had a few days that were below the 1800 calories I strive for.  In the game of calorie averages, today should be ok.  

I was looking at the data on Amazon regarding best sellers during all this Coronavirus business.  Amazingly, while everyone was horking the toilet paper (or Bogarting it, if you prefer), the sales of baby diapers, diaper wipes, and sanitary products for women have not been affected.  What kind of targeted freak out are people having?  Look at the Amazon top sellers in food: Rice Krispies treats, powdered mashed potatoes, cereal, noodles, and bags of chips.  And evaporated milk.  Fresh milk has been another odd target of all the horking.  You see people walking out of the store with two and three gallons!   What they will do with it I do not know.  There has also been a huge demand for “survival garden” seeds – presumably people are looking to grow their own since they are stuck at home anyway.  

I went to Costco today – part sightseeing, and partly to get some soap and shampoo as we were nearly out.  There were not a lot of customers, and almost everything was fully stocked, including meat.  It is obvious that the first wave of panic buying is over and people are sitting at home with piles of powdered mashed potatoes, pasta, cookies, cereal, and toilet paper.  

I hope my food is a bit more interesting. Quality homemade food is an important part of my weight control system, and I intend to keep that going.   I just wish the pools were open.

-The Doctor

20200316 Daily report

Well, I started this work week off with a bang!  Like many of you, the Doctor is (mostly) home for a few weeks trying to slow the spread of coronavirus.  So my food preparation can be highest quality.  Today I made Bacon for breakfast, Boston baked beans (homemade) on toast for lunch, and then a Reuben grill wrap for dinner.  I did not feel deprived at all today.

How deprived would you feel with a BLT breakfast?

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps: 4 slices bacon (280); whole wheat wrap (110); tomato and lettuce; horseradish sauce;

  • 400 calories

Lunch – 8 ounces Boston baked beans (360); bread roll (200)

  • 560 calories 

Dinner – Reuben grill wrap with 4 ounces corned beef (140); 3x slices Swiss cheese (50); sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing (130); wheat wrap (110);

  • 530 calories

Snacking – sourdough pretzels (200); chicken and grapes (100);

  • 300 calories

Total for the day: 1790 calories (limit 1800)

Sorry, the pool is closed

One sad effect of the restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus is that all the pools and gyms are closed where I live.  How will I stay in peak physical condition without any swimming???  I will miss that because I like swimming and I do it willingly twice a week.  And this means I don’t have my excuse for eating extra calories on swim days.  There’s no hope for it, I will have to come up with another exercise.  

On the good side, I can unleash my creative energies cooking at home.  Tomorrow I have a full St. Patrick’s feast planned: New England boiled dinner and soda bread.  There will be pictures.  Apparently it’s an American thing to do any of that for St. Patrick’s day, though.  For a laugh, if you have time, take a look at some of the videos on Youtube called “Irish People Try” things.  Here’s one that’s relevant.  The Irish people in the video spend most of the video laughing at the idea that people might eat food on St. Patrick’s day – mostly they drink Guinness instead.  

For me, it’s the one time of year when corned beef is less than $3/pound, so I buy several.  The one I have from Costco is a masterpiece, though it was more like $5/pound.  It’s a truly beautiful brisket and I am looking forward to tomorrow.  When you are controlling your food intake, having something to look forward to at every meal is very effective and satisfying.  I recommend it.

-The Doctor

20200315 Daily report

Chili day!  Chili for dinner is a family favorite. My recipe involves ground pork sausage meat and kidney beans, with a chunky tomato sauce flavored with onion, garlic, chili powder, and cumin.  I have seen recipes with wine, and different spices, or all beef, or even mixed pork and beef.  But this one is very, very good.  I’ve eaten it plain, or with tortilla chips and sour cream, or in a burrito with other toppings (like rice, guacamole, refried beans, lettuce, cheese).  It never lasts very long since the whole family likes it.  This kind of dish is ideal for weight control.  It’s so good that it’s worth eating a measured amount; so good that you want to approach your first bite with an empty and hungry stomach.  

Did I mention some people serve chili on hot dogs or over noodles?  I’ve tried both.  This chili is wasted on hot dogs, the flavor is too strong for them.  On noodles, I feel like it dilutes the flavor too much.  You have some noodles with a lot of chili and most of the noodles just with a whisper of chili.  See, I know what will work, and what will satisfy me, in detail.  That’s actually important knowledge when controlling your weight.

This chili is 42.5 calories per ounce. Worth it!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 4 ounces Ukrainian bread and butter (400)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – lasagna half (300); bread roll (200);

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 4oz chili (170); bread (80); ice cream sandwich (190); chocolate almonds (160); salad (25);

  • 625 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 4oz Boston baked beans (180)

  • 260 calories

Total for the day: 1785 calories (limit 1800)

Deprivation and diet (do not mix)

I have said many times that leaving yourself feeling deprived is a sure way to mess up on a diet (or when attempting weight control, a far more permanent change).  Almost every Friday this year, and for many in the past, I am careful to not overeat Friday so that when I get on the scale Saturday, I will record the best possible weight loss.  Guess what happens?  Sure enough, I overeat most Saturdays.  It’s because I am leaving myself Friday in a state of feeling deprived, like I am forcing myself to not eat, and then Saturday I have a reaction to that.  That’s not even true, but I am putting myself there by not taking care of my need to not feel deprived.  There are two parts to not feeling deprived when restricting calories.

The first is to make sure you do get enough to eat and that it is food you like and appreciate.  Make sure you get it at the right time.  I often get a bit careless about dinnertime and can delay it by an hour or more.  Then I am in deprived territory.  The second part to not feeling deprived is to have something to look forward to tomorrow.  Not the weighing; my body (or my subconscious) doesn’t work that way.  It feels deprived for food and no amount of numbers on a scale makes up for that!!!!  So I am going to try and make sure I have a great breakfast planned for Saturdays, or maybe a great lunch to look forward to.  That means: getting to bed on time (less chance to binge eat late at night if you are already asleep) and getting up early enough to make breakfast.  

Being responsible and keeping your weight under control are partners in that way.

-The Doctor

20200314 Saturday weighing

Today I fulfilled the second half of the weight control method: weighing.  After a week of careful calorie counting, discipline, and concentration on my vision for how I want to live, it is time to find out how it is going.  Is there progress?  That means I am in the zone of effectiveness.  Did my weight stay the same or go up?  That could mean illness, overeating the day before, or even ineffective weight control.

Last week, when I got on the scale the number was 244 pounds.  This morning when I got up, the number facing me was 242.6.  Progress!  That ‘s not bad.  I have been talking myself down all week to manage my expectations, since I had a super bingey day last Saturday.  I also had about 2000 calories the day before my weigh-in, with a post dinner snack Friday evening.  And I still lost a bit.  

Persistent plateau?

For the last couple of months, my weight has gone:

  • 246.0
  • 243.6
  • 239.4
  • 249.6 (big swing!)
  • 244.0
  • 242.6

So I have been hanging around this weight level with a fair amount of bouncing around.  The corresponding daily calorie averages for those weekly weighings were (in parenthesis):

  • 246.0 (2200)
  • 243.6 (1880)
  • 239.4 (2000)
  • ——— (2320)  – didn’t weigh-in that week
  • 249.6 (2400)
  • 244.0 (1930)
  • 242.6 (1980)

It seems like a magical pattern.  The weeks where I managed my food intake well (averaging below 2000 calories per day) my weight decreased, and when I had bad weeks with a lot of calories per day, my weight rose.  If only it were as easy to eat less food as it is to say you intend to eat less food.  

This confirms what I thought all along.  Controlling your weight takes constant effort and hard work, and the thinner you are the more work it must take – more work meaning paying constant attention and keeping up your discipline in food intake, all the time.  

Your system for weight control had better be attractive and self fulfilling, if you want to have any hope of carrying it out forever.

-The Doctor

20200313 Daily report

Friday, the last day of the diet week!  I have found my body responds on a daily and a weekly scale to persistent weight control living.  I tried weighing myself every day for a week last year, and every day I weighed about 0.4 pounds less.  By the end of the week I had lost just over 2.5 pounds.  But there are sometimes swings, and I have found it best for myself to weigh in once per week.  It’s a more dramatic change, every even days.  The nice part about that is that while a bad diet day can affect you for a few days, each new week is a chance to have a good diet week.  If you have a good week and balance your food intake and make that worthwhile, you will enjoy it and your body will lose weight.  

This week I am not expecting any miracles.  I had a bad diet day on the first day of the week, and while I have had a good week after that, the bad day will color the result.  No worries.  Next week can be perfect.

Mia lasagna. No meat, in this recipe.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Bratwurst (260); 1/4 wheat wrap (25)

  • 285 calories

Lunch – 1/6 lasagna (640); 

  • 640 calories 

Dinner – Aldi pizza half (570); bread and pulled pork appetizer (200);

  • 770 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chicken pieces and cheese (200)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1990 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

The pace has slowed

This year, my calorie average per week has generally crept up around 1950 per day, up from 1850 per day last year.  I still should lose weight, but not at the quick pace I managed last year.  Also, the fact that I had a bad day at the beginning of the week, and then had nearly 2000 calories today, will probably minimize any real loss I had this week as far as my weighing tomorrow.  But that’s ok – any inflation of my weight tomorrow means the loss I have during the next perfect week will look larger.

Even if the pace of weight loss slows a bit, I can probably increase that pace over time.  A small success – a pound per week, say, is the basis for a larger success.  This is a long term affair.

I am typing on a different keyboard from usual, a very cheap one (my backup wired keyboard).  You have to really thump each key pretty hard to get reliable keystrokes, and that increases errors.  So it’s a lot of effort AND creates a huge number of spelling errors I have to go back and fix.  I can’t stand it, I am getting a different keyboard.  Amazingly there is a project going along to recreate the old original IBM keyboard from the 1980s with their buckling springs, what I always used to call the “spring-click” keyboards.  It turns out those keyboards were very quality items and were originally designed and built for mainframe computers that cost big bucks.  Anyway it is nearly $400 for one of these recreated ones, no thanks.  A company called UniComp still makes a watered down version of the IBM keyboard and I ordered one of those instead, much less expensive.  I am looking forward to using a spring-click again to write some blog posts.

-The Doctor

20200312 Daily report

This diet week – weight control week, to be precise – was slightly spoiled by beginning with a bad eating day.  Of 3000 calories or more.  One mistake I’ve made in the past (and other people do this too) is try to make up for the bad day by restricting calories for the next few days.  It will all balance out that way, I would tell myself.  No, it doesn’t work.  You feel deprived and hungry on top of the fact that your body takes several days to recover from bingeing.  It took me until today – Thursday – to return to normal after overeating Saturday.  And I didn’t deprive myself at all during that time, so this was pure recovery with no added angst.  I kept eating 1850 calorie per day, give or take.  It was definitely the right move.  I have a long term strategy and a lifestyle of weight control that I am building.  Punishing myself and deprivation are no way to build your new life that you will be happy and proud to live.  

Jambalaya for lunch! Much more enjoyable than lunch meat.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – ham and cheese sandwich (370)

  • 370 calories

Lunch – 5oz rice (160); 12oz Jambalaya (420)

  • 580 calories 

Dinner – 5oz pulled pork (270); roll (220)

  • 490 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 2 Samoa cookies (150); chicken pieces (50);

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1720 calories (limit 1800)

Not sure how that happened

I only had 1670 calories today?  I didn’t notice.  I wonder how I did that!  I wasn’t even particularly hungry for lunch until past 12 noon.  Usually my stomach is calling for lunch by 11.15!  Still, this means I am still well focused on my highest goals for eating and living.  

It’s another early-to-bed night.  I hope my body resets for dalight savings time soon!

-The Doctor

20200311 Daily report

Controlling my body’s weight using a maximum enjoyment strategy is very rewarding, but takes a lot of work.  The reward makes it worth doing.  I have learned it’s important that I not feel deprived, or I will need to apply a lot of force (willpower) to control my serving sizes.  Done right, set on a rewarding goal, I don’t feel deprived.  I am fulfilled  by the food quality and by paying attention to my own needs.  Done wrong, and your willpower is needed; eventually, the willpower runs out and you aren’t controlling your food intake or weight any more.  What is the goal?  Hint: it’s not losing weight.  That is just not a rewarding goal for most situations.  

The goal is self-control, control of your body’s weight, taking responsibility for yourself.  If that is your goal, any mechanism will work.  That’s why there are so may diets that have worked for so many people.  If your goal is to be thin, you will never get there.  No mechanism will work, and you will be tempted by magic diet plans.  Thinness is achieved best as a side effect of your real goal.  

Is barbecued meat on your diet? Should be.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2x Bratwurst (260) and half a wheat wrap bread (55)

  • 575 calories

Lunch – Mission Barbecue two-meat platter; 1/3 pound sausage (400); 1/4 pound brisket (240);

  • 640 calories 

Dinner – 1/6 lasagna (640); 

  • 640 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (40);

  • 40 calories

Total for the day: 1895 calories (limit 1800)

Slightly over the mark

I got to the Big Greek Cafe today for a Wednesday gyros sandwich…..and they were closed!  A sign on the restaurant next door said BGC had a fire.  There were certainly a lot of cleaners and construction people on site – I thought they were customers until I got inside.  I hope they are back in business soon.

I went to Mission Barbecue.  They have a nice operation but are a bit more expensive than Big Greek Cafe.  Still, I needed a lunch after anticipating a gyro all day.  So barbecue it was.  I got brisket and jalapeno sausage (the brisket looks a bit blackened in the picture but it was browned, not burned, and quite good with Kansas City Classic sauce).  

My calorie count was slightly higher than I wanted today.  Usually, that doesn’t matter.  But this has been an unusual week, and it had a bad start with a 3000-calorie day (Saturday).  When I get on the scale in three days, I will have no idea what to expect (as usual)!  But if this week doesn’t work out, there is always next week.  This is a life long project.  

-The Doctor

20200310 Daily report

I’ve decided that lunch is the hardest meal of the day.  That’s because I am working at my office during the day and I have gotten a bit spoiled being at home to prepare meals fresh.  Part of my weight control strategy is to maximize my enjoyment in each meal and balance that against the desire to eat a lot of food.  That is, I can dramatize mealtimes so that I let myself get physically hungry (just a little), prepare just the right meal, and eat a measured amount.  The first few bites are always the best, and if you eat too much you won’t enjoy your next meal to the full extent.  It’s a good system but it does mean you are spending a lot of time sopping, cooking, preparing, portioning, and then cleaning the kitchen.

On the other hand, you can make wonderful food to eat.

3/4 pound of my sausage jambalaya, pass the Tobasco!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 12oz steel cut oatmeal (320)

  • 320 calories

Lunch – ham, cheese, and salami sandwich (550); chips (150)

  • 700 calories 

Dinner – 5oz rice (160); 12oz jambalaya (420); half sausage (140)

  • 720 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1860 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Getting there

After my bad diet day Saturday, I have been waiting for my body to get back to feeling normal.  I am not quite there yet!  And this is the third day after the bingeing.  On the other hand, I have found it very easy to stay in my calorie limits this week so far.  Getting full now feels unrewarding in almost every way.  The one way overeating feels good is very immediate, and in my case has an emotional connection – emotional rather than physical hunger being satisfied. 

I can see I have run out the clock again.  Hopefully I will adjust to the daylight savings time soon and have more time in the evening to write.  Until then, goodnight and I hope you can figure out how to separate your physical and emotional needs, because it’s no good to get those mixed up.

-The Doctor

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