Long term dieting

20190126 Daily report

Keep you aim high!  My aim is to have and achieve a proper and worthwhile goal of eating.  To the question of “why do you eat?” I want to answer that I am preparing for the next meal.  That means I can’t eat too much at this meal.  I am thinking ahead while eating a controlled portion now. 

Eating an excess of food will ruin the next meal.  It will ruin it because (a) eating too many calories means I won’t be in control of my body’s weight and (b) food tastes best when you are getting physically hungry.  If I’m not getting properly hungry for dinner, it’s not enjoyable or rewarding. It’s no good getting too hungry, you won’t enjoy what you’re eating then, either.  There is a balance of hunger.  When you are just hungry enough, then your favorite food will be most rewarding.  

This is nearly a pound of red beans and rice

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – red lentil stew with rice (300)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – ham (150); and Swiss cheese (100); on toast (150); with pickles, mustard, and horseradish (25);

  • 425 calories 

Dinner – 16 ounces red beans and andouille (500); 5oz cooked rice (160); black bread and butter (200); salami (110);

  • 970 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); 

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1815 calories (limit 1800)

Today worked

Keeping my eating goal in mind, I set myself up for a larger dinner today.  I had a frugal breakfast and lunch, and I was very, very ready to eat dinner.  The red beans and rice wasn’t quite ready at dinnertime either, so I had some black bread and butter and some salami I keep around for this exact reason.  But it was bad planning, since I was a bit too hungry by the time dinner was finally ready, snack or no snack.  When I am living close to the margin of hunger, I find I have to pay a lot attention to eating on time.  

Getting my head right is still my main focus.  While I liked the way I felt while my food intake was under control and I was losing weight, that’s not enough to keep me going.  What keeps me going is my life values.  My top value isn’t to be thin.  It’s to achieve weight control.  Once I am in control, I can pick the weight I like.  One of Terry Pratchett’s characters (a policeman) said that while no policeman was the law, the law was the policeman’s alarm clock.  That’s exactly right, it’s what animates you and gets you out of bed in the morning.  One of my grandfathers was famous for his top value – not being cheated.  When he got out of bed in the morning, you could imagine him saying “who’s going to try to cheat me today?”  And he spent a lot of his time and energy coming up with ways to keep people from taking advantage of him.  

Weight control won’t be my top value forever, but it will have to be in the top 3 to be effective.

-The Doctor

20200125 Saturday weigh-in

Part of the deal – if you are serious about controlling your weight – is to keep regular track of how much your body weighs.  I weigh myself every Saturday.  During most of the last two months, I have been avoiding doing that.  I was keeping track of how much I was eating, but not very carefully.  As I said yesterday, my mind has not been in the right place.

The fruits of all that are now ready.  

I weighed 246 pounds today.  The lowest I weighed, in November 2019, was 237.4.  Two weeks ago I weighed 245.4.  Beyond that, I have not taken my weight since November 30, 2019.  

Heading in the wrong direction

The last two weeks, while I have been trying to get myself back into a productive way of thinking, I’ve been paying attention to the way my clothes fit.  I feel like they are noticeably tighter.  This is probably a great way for people (who are paying attention) to notice weight gain.  You don’t need a scale!  Just go clothes shopping for your size.  (The problem with the clothes you already have, is that they might stretch and give you the idea that everything is ok.)

I calculate I might have gained as much as 9 pounds since my lowest weighing.  It’s hard to tell because I’ve had a couple of bad dieting days this week – that always inflates the number.  The increase fits with my observation that my clothes feel tighter.

This week my job is to make sure I am aiming high in my goal of eating.  I’ve had a couple of good days, and I am re-committed now to weighing every week.  My goal for eating, again, is to make sure I am hungry for my next meal.  In return, I commit to myself that the food will be worth the wait.  

Get your mind right and the rest will follow.

-The Doctor

20200124 Daily report

When trying to control your weight, almost everything flows from your mentality, your psychology.  What is your reason for eating?  If you can answer that question, you are a long way towards understanding your own psychology of eating.  My desired answer to that question is, “I am eating so that I can be properly hungry for my next meal.”  When I was gaining weight, the answer was “I am eating enough so that I get the comfort of feeling full.”  In both cases, the answer was the same.  “I am eating until I feel satisfied.” So the key component is, what would satisfy you? Are you aiming high or low?

Recently my head has been in the wrong place.  When I started asking myself why I was eating this month, the answer was back to “I am eating for the comfort of feeling full, but not too full.”  It was the worst of both worlds.  My goal was low (full belly) and I wasn’t meeting it all the way (not too full!).  That’s terrible.  Eating the same controlled amounts of the foods I found satisfying in 2019 – with a higher goal of eating – didn’t satisfy me when my goal was the feeling of a full stomach.  

Satisfaction is mental. This is a pizza. Don't confuse them.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps (400)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – red lentil stew and rice (350)

  • 350 calories 

Dinner – Aldi pizza half (585); extra pizza (100); 

  • 685 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); Reese’s peanut butter cups (160)

  • 240 calories

Total for the day: 1715 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

It's Your Head, You Fix It

Nobody will fix your weight (or your head) for you.  But it is possible to figure out where your head is.  Just answer the question – what is the goal of your eating?  Why do you stop?  Why do you start?  For some people, eating is routine and by the clock.  For others, hunger calls them.  But when you are gaining weight, you often are eating just because you have room, because the goal is an emotion rather than physical hunger.  

Pay attention to your physical, rather than emotional, hunger.  Try to aim high in your goal of eating.  What is a high goal?  Quality over quantity, and increasing the joy and satisfaction that comes from eating a food that you are really looking forward to.  You increase that joy and satisfaction by being prepared, by letting yourself get hungry for it at just the right time.  You have to pay attention to your body.  When your head is in the right place, you get real joy from eating a controlled quantity of your favorite food, at just the right time. 

When your head is in the wrong place, you will eat an entire package of your favorite food.  It starts to all taste the same after the first serving, though.  And where’s the satisfaction in that?  

-The Doctor

20200123 Daily report

One of the keys to losing weight is obsession.  Yes, obsession can be good.  I think of it like a hobby you are really dedicated to: putting a lot of energy into paying attention to what you are eating, and recording it in your journal.  When it gets to feel like a chore, and not a hobby you are excited about, you know your mind is not in the right place.  When you are doing it right, it’s not like work at all.  It’s fulfilling!

Always excited for bacon!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps (400); extra bacon (70)

  • 470 calories

Lunch – chocolate, cherry, pecan, oatmeal cookie (300); macaroni cheese (100); lentil curry (150); rye bread (150);

  • 700 calories 

Dinner – 9 ounces Carbonnade a la Flamande (440); 5oz rice (160)

  • 600 calories

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

  • 230 calories

Total for the day: 2000 calories (limit 1800)

About those 2000 calories

Today has not been a total success in terms of weight control.  But then, I’m sure my head is not in the right place.  By that, I mean I am not looking at the world in a way that helps me reach my goals.  I’ve fallen into a place I don’t recognize.  I don’t know exactly what my goal of eating is at this moment.  It’s not to control my intake or my weight!  When I was gaining weight, I wanted to feel full.  Now I want ????  I’m not sure where my search for satisfaction is leading me, but it’s not productive.  

I will have to think about it.  Or else change my mind.  That worked once before.  

-The Doctor

20200121 Daily report

No pictures today!  That’s partly because late last night I had a thousand calories.  Tsk, tsk.  So my appetite was affected today.  That’s something I am working on.  My plan going forward is to wind down earlier in the evening and go to bed on time.  That will prevent a lot of late night eating.  Eating late at night has been a long term problem for me.  For most of 2019, I managed to keep it to a minimum.  

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – skipped 

  • 0 calories

Lunch – ham (100); bread (250); chips (150)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – pretzels and hummus (300); lentils and rice (200)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160); chocolate almonds (100); chicken (100); cheese (150); cottage cheese (50); banana and mandarin oranges (100)

  • 660 calories

Total for the day: 1660 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

It will all average out; have faith

One thing I learned from the last year is not to make up for a bad diet day by starving (punishing) myself the next day. That’s two days ruined.  Instead, I try to make the next day and every day afterwards perfect.  The bad day will average out over time.  If the vast majority of your days go well calorie-wise, you will still be in control of your body, mostly and effectively.  

But what I wanted to talk about today was exercise.  Recall that I have been swimming twice a week for several years.  When I lost significant weight in 2019, I was surprised that my lap times didn’t seem to decrease.  Somehow I thought it would go faster, since I was pulling less weight through the water.  At the same time, I worried I would burn fewer calories since I had less weight to work with!  

Strangely, this year (2020), my lap times have decreased by several seconds.  I think my body is starting to catch up with being a little lighter.  That’s one explanation.  I’ve also been working on improving my strokes, which is another explanation.  They’re related.  Since I lost some weight, it’s easier on my legs and wrists to swim and so I have been able to concentrate on swimming efficiency rather than just avoiding discomfort.  Also, my breathing is easier while exercising.  That might be due to the weight loss.  Halfway through my workout I took my pulse and it was around 80bpm.  That’s not bad for an exercising heart rate.  

I am a little worried about not getting back on my weight control diet yet.  What am I missing?  How can I get myself focused, or interested, motivated, or sufficiently rewarded?  I will have to give it some more thought.

-The Doctor

20200120 Daily report

The Doctor is trying to cheerfully return to his former weight control diet glory!  And there is a lot of trying involved.  So far, it has been a mixed bag of some days on, then some days not going so well.  In 2020, I haven’t had one solid week of good weight control.  And I really don’t want to gain weight back.  So even though things are not going as consistently well as I would like, I am very interested in keeping on writing down everything I am eating and a calorie count.  

To entice myself back into good habits, I made cookies this weekend.  

a chocolate, cherry, pecan, and oatmeal cookie is 300 calories!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco pepperoni pizza (355)

  • 355 calories

Lunch – Costco cheese pizza  (375)

  • 375 calories 

Dinner – chicken wraps  with hummus (450); chocolate (210); chocolate, cherry, pecan, and oatmeal chocolate (300);

  • 960 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); bread (150); rice and red lentils (80)

  • 310 calories

Total for the day: 2000 calories (limit 1850)

Starting and stopping

So I am not having much success dieting consistently right now.  Obviously it’s better when things are going more smoothly, rather than on-and-off again.  I have several possible explanations why I am having so much trouble.

  1. All the work I did last year had an emotional and maybe physical toll.  Maybe I needed a break from all the careful dieting.
  2. I am not feeling well.  That always makes it difficult to diet.  I had all the classic symptoms: weight gain, sudden hunger, craving for carbohydrates, intestinal problems.  
  3. Seasonal/daylight.  It’s possible I am having some kind of reaction to the winter weather and short days.  I seem to need more sleep than usual, find it hard to get up in the mornings.
  4. The weight control method requires a lot in your life to be stable so you can concentrate on the weight control side.  It’s not automatic.  I am having to pay a lot more attention to work and family over the last few months, so I have limited energy and attention for weight control.
  5. I’ve gotten a bit lazy or arrogant and have gotten disconnected from what I need to be successful at controlling my food intake.  

These aren’t mutually exclusive explanations.  The solution to almost all of these, though, is to keep trying.  I have gotten into a bad place mentally – I didn’t even weigh myself Saturday.  My excuse, that I was sick, was also an expression of worry that I wouldn’t like the number on the scale.  Things can have more than one explanation.  

So: just keep trying?  This is a short week (Monday was a federal holiday and I didn’t work).  I can try being really careful about going to bed on time and getting up on time, getting a lot of rest.  I can make sure all the foods I will want are in the house and ready.  I can (and have) plan all the meals for the week.  Of course, I tried to do these things last week, too.  But I will just have to keep trying.  I have no better plan.  The danger is that I will get tired of all the unrequited effort on the days I am successful, ruined by a couple days of slackness.  It is then you are in danger of quitting the entire thing.

Weight loss and weight control are for your whole life and have to be paid attention to all the time.  Don’t let yourself get discouraged!  

-The Doctor

20200116 Daily report

My job every day is to keep track of how many calories I am eating.  Some days that is easy and some days that is hard. 

This is one of the hard days.  That’s because I have been having some intestinal issues since Monday, and it’s reached the point where I am having trouble going on controlling my food intake.  Yesterday I was very tired and drained, especially by evening.  Today, full of energy.  Yesterday, I was too cold.  Today, I was too hot.  Lots of intestinal activity since Monday.  All week, I have done a good job of keeping my calorie intake under control.  Not today!  

So I’m not going to go on about it.  Hopefully my body will take care of it by this weekend.  I’m not feeling ill and it’s not affecting my life much – I’m not taking any medication even.  I can wait a little longer.  

-The Doctor

20200115 Daily report

Every day is a new day at the Doctor of Things.  It’s a new day for things to go right, but it is also a new day for things to go wrong.  If you want things to go right with your weight control lifestyle, you can make it easier on yourself.  I like to make food ahead, and even plan out my meals for the week ahead of time.  It’s what the weekend is for!  It does take some time to do that.  But in exchange, there is no having to roam around looking for things to eat at critical moments! 

When you are in calorie deficit, the last thing you want is having to put off a meal just because you don’t know what to pick.  Then there’s a lot of pressure to just start grazing on many things.  It’s also hard to keep track if you are just grabbing and eating whatever comes to hand.  Make it easy on yourself.  

I know what I will be having for lunch Wednesdays!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – steel cut oats (230) 

  • 230 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 3.5oz meatloaf (310); whole wheat wrap (110); potatoes and carrots (90); small peanut butter and jelly bread (90)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); kitkat (70); cookie (95); pretzels (150); chocolate almonds (150)

  • 545 calories

Total for the day: 1975 calories (limit 1850)

They all work

My position is that losing weight is a mental rather than a physical challenge.  That is, the method you choose for losing weight almost doesn’t matter to your body.  People are losing weight by avoiding fat, avoiding meat, avoiding sugar, or limiting calories generally.  My father has lost a good amount of weight by avoiding fat in his diet.  I have lost 80+ pounds by restricting general calories (though I am definitely cutting carbohydrates more than anything else).  

Look at the top diets listed in the US News and World Report:

  • Weight Watchers
  • Vegan
  • Volumetrics
  • Flexitarian
  • Jenny Craig
  • Ornish
  • Engine 2
  • Mayo Clinic
  • Raw Food
  • Dash

I don’t even know what most of those diets are.  And most people in the US probably don’t either.  You know what I don’t see on this list, though, are high fat diets like Keto, Atkins, and other low carbohydrate types.  Apparently US News and World Report ranks the diets by how well they fit to a subjective standard of how nutritionally balanced and healthy they seem to their staff writer.  

That’s nonsense, of course.  Mark Twain said over 100 years ago that all diets are healthy.  There is little evidence of any particular diet program increasing most people’s lifespan.  But on Reddit and other weight forums I have noticed most people are losing weight quickest using variations on the Keto diet.  I am biased towards effectiveness in losing weight, though.  

My father is fond of saying that if there are multiple treatments for some condition, none of them work.  But in this case, I think all of them work equally well as vehicles for a person who is disciplined and psychologically prepared to lose weight.  These plans all give a framework to that discipline.  

Pick any one!  But prepare your thinking carefully.

-The Doctor

20200113 Daily report

Being in control of your weight happens one day at a time.  That’s no fun and takes effort.  But you can make it worthwhile.  What are you giving up, anyway?  And what are you getting back?  If you decide the trade is worth it, you might be able to convince yourself to do it.  

The Doctor gave up several things: eating to satiety, carefree living, and convenience.  I willingly gave that up to become a new person.  That new person doesn’t get to fill himself with food.  He takes some care to plan his meals, count calories, and portion.  And he has to work at it: planning, shopping, cooking, and watching the clock.  

What would make any of that worthwhile?

Steak n Cheese, almost Philly but not quite

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – BLT wraps: 4 strips of Kirkland thick cut bacon (280); one whole wheat wrap (110); lettuce, tomato slices, and horseradish sauce (30)

  • 420 calories

Lunch – Diner steak and cheese sandwich (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 6 ounces cooked rice (190); 20 ounces vegetable curry (450)

  • 640 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); chocolate cookies (190)

  • 310 calories

Total for the day: 1870 calories (limit 1850)

Take care!

I had lunch late.  Then I had dinner late.  (It was a tough schedule today.)  Luckily, with careful preparation over the weekend, I had dinner ready (veg curry) and I knew I was buying lunch today.  Being prepared takes some of the guesswork and stress out of life.  But since I am eating so few calories for my age and weight (about 1850 per day), my body gets pretty demanding about eating on time, and eating food that is worth all the effort.  Delaying meals is not good practice.  I will have to make that up to myself later.  

I was reading this weekend about Ethan Suplee, who played ‘Randy’ on the show My Name is Earl.  At one point, he weighed 500 pounds and he was recently as low as 220 pounds.  There weren’t a lot of details about how he achieved that kind of weight loss, but he was in an odd situation because he found being heavy was actually good for his acting work.  He also said that he weighed 200 pounds at age 10, which is very unusual.  

Sadly, I don’t have that excuse.  I had a fairly normal weight as a kid and only got very heavy at the end of graduate school and afterwards in my adult life.  With any luck, I will be able to beat Suplee’s lowest weight this year, though I didn’t start at 500 pounds.  

Take care of yourself as you work on your difficult self!

-The Doctor

20200111 Weekly weigh-in

245.4 pounds

That’s how much the Doctor weighed this morning.  It’s a bit higher than the 237.4 pounds I weighed on November 30, 2019.  It’s also the first time I have weighed myself since November 30, 2019!  Was 237.4 my low-water mark?  Am I ever going to weigh less than that?  What am I working towards in 2020?

For the last month and a half, I have been effectively taking a break from the weight control lifestyle.  I was still recording what I was eating, more or less, but not as carefully.  I was also not trying to restrict my intake very much, though I didn’t think I had eaten enough to really gain weight.  Now, I know!  Maybe I was wrong, since my weight is up, but we will see what happens once I have a week or two of successful intake control.  On the good side, I have had a month and a half to slow down and take a look at my body.  I bought some better-fitting clothes and thought about the future.  Why am I doing this, anyway?  What will happen once I achieve an appropriate weight?  It’s one thing to carefully restrict your intake to lose weight, but what is it like to restrict your intake to maintain a weight?  Is it really something I will have to pay close attention to forever?

Coming off a break

The month or two before I took my break from weight control, I was starting to have a hard time.  My appetite was getting out of control, and I was hungry for carbohydrate rich snacks and foods.  At the time, I thought I was probably having a physical reaction to an intestinal illness or something.  But I realize now it might have been more emotional.  The weight loss I had last year did depend on a lot of things in my life staying manageable.  And I put a lot of work, effort, and concentration into weight control.  I was maybe more tired than I realized.

To the good, I am a person who can lose 80 pounds.  I couldn’t say that before.  I’m still not a person who lost 120 pounds.  That is yet to come, if I can make weight control my top value and goal for this year, too.  Paying attention is a harder way to live than my former carefree lifestyle, when I didn’t think about any of this.  I have to recognize that, too.  So now I have more questions to ask myself: what would satisfy me in my life?  How does weight loss fit into what I am trying to achieve in other parts of my life?  Is there an emotional cost?  What would make that worthwhile?  How could I recharge?  

Learn about yourself to change yourself!

-The Doctor

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