Long term dieting

20190713 Saturday weigh-in

It’s…..Saturday!  Saturday is the day I live out the second part of my weight control system.  They are (1) regulate your food intake and (2) weigh yourself regularly.  I intend to follow both of those rules for the rest of my life, since one I get thin, I will want to maintain control over my weight.  I don’t want, after putting in all this effort, to wake up one day and get on the scale to find I have gained all of the weight back.  If I maintain (1) and (2), and the moral hierarchy that got me here, I should be able to keep any weight I choose.

So how did I do this week?  I’ve been ill recently, but the last 3 days have felt like getting back to normal.  My weight was all over the place, just like it always does when I get sick.  

Lowest number yet

Hooray!  My body’s weight is moving in the right direction again, and I have felt better for the last several days.  It’s 1.2 pounds less than I weighed at my lowest, two weeks ago.  

Pounds!!
0

Be skeptical

Last week, my weight went up to 264.8 pounds.  That might have been due to illness (two weeks of being sick, ugh).  I didn’t eat enough to gain that pound!  Over the last four weeks:

  • 263.8 lbs
  • 263.4 
  • 264.8 
  • 262.2

I will know by next week if I am all better.  Whenever I have been sick before, weight loss has stalled (or gone backwards) and then the first full week after recovery I usually lose about three pounds.  We shall see if the pattern continues.  Having everything written down in my food journal has been really helpful when this kind of thing comes up.    That’s another reason to keep one.  

Interestingly, people don’t notice you’ve lost weight (even 63 pounds) until you start wearing smaller clothes.  If you think about it, it’s a polite opportunity to mention  to someone that they have lost weight.  “New outfit?  Wow, you are looking thin!” 

Even though I have lost 63 pounds (more than half of the weight I want to lose!), there is still a long way to go.  It takes me a lot of care and attention to lose weight.  Frankly, from what I am seeing it takes a lot of care and attention to maintain your weight, once you are thin.  But wow, does this weight control system make it worthwhile.  You are required to cater to your own needs for every meal.  That’s three times per day, 21 per week, over 1000 per year. 

A thousand times a year that you will do something nice for yourself.  See how you will come to love and trust yourself more and more, and how that reinforces your ability to keep losing weight?  You will quickly appreciate all the attention and love you shower on yourself.  It makes eating less food completely and totally worthwhile; food is a source of pleasure and deeper satisfaction in my life than ever before.  And I am eating only 60% of what I need to maintain my weight!  

Once you realize it takes work to stay thin and doesn’t just happen, you can decide whether to put in the work.  It all starts with that realization and that decision.  Your body follows the mind. 

-The Doctor

20190712 Daily report

Being an impatient person, I was very sad that my illness has delayed my weight loss program.  My mind has already been changed and the body is a lagging indicator, so I am always a bit impatient with that.  I was even thinking (poor me) that being ill revealed a unique disadvantage to this weight control system.  That is, when I am ill, my appetite changes, my hunger cues are messed up, and I don’t have the energy to maintain the system of anticipation and reward I use to keep eating less.

But what diet goes well when you are are sick?  I didn’t gain any weight, so I am no worse off, except for my impatience.  One way of looking at this is: I took an illlness-induced break from dieting and nothing bad happened.  Now, I have started to get better.  My appetite is returning to normal and I have been hungry when it is time to eat!  

Serious curry and pretend naan

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1 cup Kefir (200); chicken wrap (260)

  • 460 calories

Lunch – 13.5 ounces vegetable curry (350); flatbread (100)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – 6x pizza slices (100)

  • 600 calories

Snacking – ham slices (100); hummus and pickles (200)

  • 300 calories

Total for the day: 1810 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

A very good disguise

Why would someone be excited that they are hungry?  Well, it is my goal now.  I use hunger as a positive.  Being full is now a negative for me.  In my past, I ate to be full, which is a job that never ends.  Result: overweight.  Now I prize hunger, so I am careful not to eat too much.  My goal is to be hungry for the next meal, and the next.  Result: a small portion of food is highly anticipated and rewarding.  It makes the sacrifice worthwhile.  The sacrifice is myself; that is, I give up the mild pleasure of anticipating a full stomach.  What do I get instead?  Try it yourself and see.  Eating a small amount of exactly what you want and have been anticipating, exactly when you are very hungry for it, is a powerful and satisfying experience.  A second serving is disappointing by comparison.  

Hopefully this next week will find me completely better and back in my new lifestyle.  As you have been reading, it is an intense and rewarding experience to lose weight, and to live, this way.  Maybe being sick for a couple of weeks and taking a break, was a blessing in disguise.  A very, very good disguise.

-The Doctor

20190711 Daily report

When you are eating, what’s the goal?  For most of us who are overweight and gaining weight, the goal is to feel pleasantly and comfortably full.  Sometimes, there are other goals, like finishing everything on your plate.  Sometimes, the goal is to prevent waste, so you eat everything left from the kids’ plates, which they have hardly touched.  Sometimes, the goal is even to keep experiencing the pleasant taste of the food, or dessert.  Can you see where I am going with this?  All of those goals lead to overeating.  Overeating becomes weight gain, a few hundred calories at a time.  Every extra 3500 calories you eat is believed to result in 1 pound of weight gain.    

Measuring your food intake and knowing exactly what you are eating is part of getting lifelong control over your body’s weight.  

Savory!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 1 Cup Kefir (200)

  • 200 calories

Lunch – two Johnsonville bratwurst (260); quarter bread wrap each (25)

  • 570 calories 

Dinner – 12 ounces homemade sausage chili (480); 1 oz tortilla chips (130); 1.3 Tablespoon sour cream (40)

  • 650 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160)

  • 160 calories

Total for the day: 1580 calories (limit 1800)

Focus on hunger

What is the goal of eating for people who are thin and stay thin?  We already know that people who stay thin work hard to stay thin.  If you know any thin people, you know it is their obsession.  The person who stays thin without trying is a myth, and a harmful one.  Even if someone tells you that, it’s not true.  It’s probably a form of modesty, as the thin person is avoiding bragging about all the hard work they are putting into their appearance.  Modesty, and maybe avoiding some shame, at people thinking they are shallow (interested only in appearance).  

I don’t know.  When thin people eat, what is the goal?  Maybe it’s to avoid feeling full.  Maybe the goal is to eat just enough to stay thin (but how can they tell?).  My guess is that people who stay thin have a way to measure their bodies.  One thing I have noticed is that as you get thinner, the clothes cut for your body fit more tightly to you.  It’s possible to get a lot of feedback from that feeling.  Even if a thin person is not obsessively weighing themself every day, they can tell based on whether their tightest clothes still fit them.  (Do their shirts still button?  The pants?  Is the belt fitting loosely or tight?) 

My eating goal is simple.  My goal is to focus on hunger.  (I have had a rough couple of weeks where I have been ill with a low grade intestinal problem.  It has played hell with my diet and weight and how I feel and get hungry.  My appetite has been strange, my hunger cues are mixed up…..maybe this is just excuses, but I feel like I am not in a normal condition.  The last couple of days, there are hints I am getting back to normal.  Maybe it’s the active cultures in the yogurt drink I have been having.  Maybe it’s just time healing all wounds.  But I was actually hungry for lunch today, for the first time in days.  It felt good.)

Focusing on hunger means that ideally, I am always thinking about the next meal.  When I am eating lunch, I am thinking about being properly hungry for dinner.  Hunger is great because when you eat food you really like, when you are very hungry for it, it is very, very satisfying.  You want to experience that again.  It helps with portion control too.  If you start hungry, and your portion is just enough, you will notice you are not enjoying a second portion nearly as much.  Then you aren’t hungry for dinner and the meal is not as satisfying.  I really want to get back to that lifestyle, it feels really good!  Let’s hope I get all better soon.  You all stay well, too.

-The Doctor

20190710 Daily report

Welcome to the daily report!  This is the place where I record my food log and work out how to control my body’s weight using the power of the mind.  This is because the power of my will was not up to the job.  

Chili by the ounce

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – pulled pork (100); nectarine (60); blueberries (40); Kefir (200)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Thai Penang curry with pork over rice (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 13 ounces homemade sausage chili (500);

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); beef jerky (90)

  • 170 calories

Total for the day: 1570 calories (limit 1800)

Only overweight people drink diet soda?

I have heard people say variations on this theme.  Mysterious powers have been ascribed to diet soda.  For example, I have read that it somehow prevents the burning of fat.  This idea is bad on many levels. First, it is a way of avoiding responsibility.  If diet soda is out to get you, then being overweight isn’t your fault.  There’s nothing you can do about it!  It’s also kind of a way to lose yourself in magic thinking.  Mysterious forces are at work, keeping you from being thin.  It’s great drama, but a poor way to take control of your weight.  

More interestingly, is the question of your eating goals.  Consider a person whose goal is to be full when they finish eating.  Wouldn’t drinking a lot of soda fit that pattern?  The goal of drinking – ha – of drinking something sweet, is just the pleasure of being full in a different context.  Someone whose eating is out of control, might also have soda-drinking out of control.  People notice that kind of thing.  

So what about a person who has remained thin?  I have watched them.  Today, in a restaurant, were the Doctor and seven rather thin people.  One woman bought a bubble tea.  The rest had water (so did I).  I have seen thin people drink coffee….. beer…. wine….. and very rarely, soda or diet soda, at parties.  However, I haven’t seen thin people casually drinking any flavored drinks during the day.  

I have my own goal for eating.  It’s to use hunger and and anticipation to maximize my pleasure in eating.  My goal is to eat just enough to last until my next meal.  While I was gaining weight, my eating goal was to feel full.  What is a thin person’s eating goal?  I haven’t thought about that before.  I may have to do some research.  Maybe their goal is to stay thin!  I haven’t paid any attention to drinking, because the calories are zero for diet soda, and why wouldn’t I drink it if my eating is under control?    It’s one thing about myself I haven’t questioned or changed since I started my new lifestyle.  

To finish the restaurant story, all eight of us had our lunch.  It may not surprise you to hear that the thinnest and smallest woman ate only half her lunch, very, very slowly.  (She didn’t ask for a doggie bag.  I have rarely seen a thin person take a doggie bag home.)  Everyone else finished their lunch.  I finished mine.  

Since my eating goal has changed, I have established some control over what I am eating.  My drinking goal has not changed.  I don’t think it’s hurting my progress, but it may be an area I revisit later on.  Perhaps I will have to change some more of my thinking.  Don’t be afraid to question everything!  It’s almost like thinking.  

-The Doctor

20190709 Daily report

There are two parts to controlling your body’s weight.  (1) Monitor your weight and (2) Regulate how much you eat.  #2 means, first of all, keeping a log of everything you eat.  You can’t remember it all, so write it down right after it happens.  I use a spreadsheet that I can customize. 

Also, by keeping track of what you eat, you are  engaged in measuring how many calories of energy you are eating.  You are also paying a lot of attention to what you are eating, and how much you are eating.  That is all necessary so you can be in control.

Forget about using willpower to make yourself do this, though.  Very few people have that kind of willpower.  You need a different approach.  Get your brain and body and will on the same side, and reward them for working together.  It’s very fulfilling to sense the different parts of your mind and body working together.  

Vegetable curry. No wraps required!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – pretzels (120); baked beans (200); rice (100)

  • 420 calories

Lunch – 6 x pizza slices (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 13.5 ounces of vegetable curry (350); 2.5 ounces of cooked white rice (80)

  • 430 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Kefir 1 cup (200); pretzels and cheese (200); Perdue chicken breast strips (150);  blueberries and nectarine (100); chocolate (130)

  • 860 calories

Total for the day: 2310 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Listen to what you are trying to tell yourself

Looking back at my food journal, I am seeing changes in my lifestyle, not always for the better.  For several months, I was allowing my calorie count to be higher on exercise days, and I was taking advantage of that by eating from 200-500 more calories on those days.  I was still losing 2-ish pounds per week, so it was part of a working system.  However, more recently, I have been pushing myself to keep to 1800 calories per day, every day of the week.  It turns out that is hard to do and has been a bit counterproductive.  I have felt a bit deprived and less well rewarded.  Maybe I needed some days to splurge, or cheat a bit.  To put it another way, don’t fix what isn’t broken.  Today, I kept that promise!

Healthwise, I have decided to try and help my intestinal recovery along.  I bought a bottle of drinkable yogurt that has certain beneficial bacterial flora included as ingredients.  Will it help?  Your guess is as good as everyone else’s.  It’s fruity, but needed at least a packet of splenda to be palatable – it’s very tart!  It’s the Trader Joe’s kind.  

The vegetable curry was an interesting meal.  Per the recipe, the entire curry was only 2100 calories, but weighed about five pounds when cooked.  That means I had 13.5 ounces for dinner, it seemed huge.  Nearly a pound of curry – what a way to diet.  

That’s where things are now.  I am trying to get all better, and I am trying to get my weight control scheme back into balance.  It’s a very intense experience, doing all this weight loss.  I am really involved in a lot of day to day decisions about food and eating that I was very casual about for a long time.  I have months of records to show for it, and a few blog posts.  

Tomorrow I want to talk about diet soda.  It’s an interesting topic that reveals a lot about your mindset.  I don’t think it affects your diet one way or another, as a food, but in the realm of how you think about food, it can be an indicator.

-The Doctor

20190708 Daily report

For many years, I refused to do what was necessary to become someone capable of losing weight and being in control of my body’s weight.  I mean that I refused to change my mind.  I was willing to force myself to eat less food, temporarily, but my body wasn’t cooperative with that opinion.  However, I wasn’t willing to change anything else about myself.  How do you lose weight, and get control over your body’s weight, when (1) your body won’t cooperate and (2) you can’t change anything about yourself?  Answer: you don’t.  But you sure feel bad about yourself.  You have placed yourself where you can’t win.  You can call yourself names, and try to motivate yourself, but that won’t do a thing.

Change your mind and your body will follow.  The food actually gets better – more satisfying and fulfilling, both in its taste and its significance to you.  

Hot dog buns are 130 calories each. This bread? 22 calories.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x pulled pork wraps with pickles (250)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – 2 x grilled bratwurst wraps (300) with flatbread and onions fried in Pam 

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 2 x BLT wraps (200)

  • 400 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); candy (200)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1780 calories (limit 1800)

Wrap-oh-no

It was a day of wraps.  My plan was to have vegetable curry for dinner, but that didn’t work out timewise.  So instead, I had wrap sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Vegetables….well, today I had the lettuce and tomato on my BLTs, and no vegetable curry for dinner.  Tomorrow: no wraps at all, and vegetable curry for sure.

One problem I have noticed is that pulled pork, when cooked really well (North Carolina style), is so rich and flavorful that I get saturated with eating it.  I made a 5 pound pork shoulder and it is just way too much.  Next time I will freeze most of it!  I have also noticed I can get tired of other really rich foods, too.  One piece of self knowledge is the realization that I can use those foods as rewards, occasionally, but not as standard meals where I have days worth of leftovers.  I just don’t look forward to them once I am fatigued with their richness. 

We were talking about changing your thinking.  It is so hard to let go of your old thinking.  Many people won’t even try.  Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying that people would rather die than think.  But with some effort, you can decide to change your values.  What do you value?  What don’t you value?  When I was gaining weigh, I didn’t value being thin very highly.  That’s not a flippant remark – I did want to be thin, but it was priority #99 out of 100.  I was busy with other things!  That is, I valued a lot of other things more.  Once I decided that weight control should be in the top three of my values, that meant action had to be taken.  How could I live that out?  

  1. Count your calories and record what you eat in a food journal.
  2. Weigh yourself regular.  I weigh in weekly.  

I plan to do both 1 & 2 from now on.  

Everything flows from the decision: I value being thin more than I value doing almost anything else.  More than enjoying my friends, more than spending time with my family?  More than I valued my old eating goal: eating until I was completely full.  Once I valued being thin, I could see being full as the shallow fulfillment that it is, for the person that I am.  (If I was starving to death, being full would be a worthwhile goal.  But you can see how first-order it is, as a goal.)  I moved up a level and now value being hungry.  Tomorrow, I will talk more about hunger.   Embracing hunger allows you to refine your sensual experience and learn more about yourself.  When controlling my weight, the quality of the food experience is greater than my need to eat.  There are some things more important than being full.  Try fulfillment.  

-The Doctor

20190707 Daily report

Recently, I have become a bit stalled with my weight.  There are multiple possible reasons for this (see yesterday’s post) but the correct thing to do is power through, relying on the system that has been so successful so far.  No matter what else, I have lost 60 pounds since starting, and that’s something.  I have never succeeded at that before.

One of the nice things about this weight control system is that it is easy to resume if there is any problem, like having a bad day, getting sick, or whatever.  The lifestyle I have created is so compelling that I am motivated to get back to it.  To get started again, I just have to ask myself what I really want to eat tomorrow.  

The Doctor's own - inventor and sole eater

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200); extra bacon (80)

  • 480 calories

Lunch – 2 x sandwich wraps (45) with 5 Kirkland meatballs (230); 3 Tbsp hummus (120); red cabbage sauerkraut (negligible); and horseradish sauce (10)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – Jimmy Dean sausage chili, 12 ounces (480)

  • 480 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 88 grams of ice cream (210)

  • 290 calories

Total for the day: 1700 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Measuring and rewarding

Since my last weighing was a bit disappointing, I put some thought into what to do next.  I let myself get a bit down yesterday, and get into a non productive place.  That’s over.  What I decided was to quickly re-establish my system of rewards, focusing on my own pleasure and satisfaction.  That makes it worthwhile and motivates me to succeed.  And what did I want for breakfast?  A BLT wrap.  

I cook my bacon in the oven, it’s more uniform and less messy than almost any other method.  In the summer, I don’t usually like to turn on the oven, but luckily it was a cooler day after a week of 92+ days.  I made bacon that I really wanted, and had it on flatbread with lettuce and tomato.  It was great!  It’s easy to measure too, because the bacon (Kirkland) is 70 calories per slice and the flatbread is 110 per bread.  Four slices of bacon are 280 calories.  The lettuce and tomato don’t count for much.  

I wasn’t hungry again until noon.  Then, I wanted the Doctor’s Own Famous beef, hummus, red sauerkraut and pickle sandwich on a flatbread.  It’s like a Middle Eastern pita sandwich (think beef kofta, pickled vegetables and hummus.)  It was very satisfying.  And easy to measure!  The hummus is 40 calories per tablespoon, the flatbread 110 calories each (cut in half to make two), and the meatballs 230 calories for five (Kirkland again).  The pickled vegetables don’t count for many calories, but I round up to account for any missed.  

Last was sausage chili for dinner.  I made that this morning.  (It’s most valuable, if you are counting calories, to make your food yourself.  It tastes much butter than anything you can buy, and you can control the calories more precisely.)  The sausage had 1620 calories, plus 780 for kidney beans, 300 for tomatoes, and 200 for olive oil, for a total of 2900 calories.  I don’t worry about the few calories in spices and garlic and onions and bell pepper.  To measure it out, I put it in a tared bowl and weighed the entire chili.  It weighed four and a half pounds, or six servings of 12 ounces each (480 calories per serving).  Weighing out 12 ounces into a bowl was very easy.  And it was plenty to be satisfying.

I did have calories left over for dessert.  Ice cream can be weighed in a tared bowl.  That’s much more accurate than trying to measure a half-cup or whatever.  88 grams of ice cream was 210 calories.  A good trick is to serve it in a small bowl.  The bowl looks really full.

An important part of satisfying and rewarding yourself is to not allow distractions while eating this food.  They are some of my favorite foods, and I got good and hungry for them and really wanted them.  So I sat and paid attention to every bite.  It was a great experience.  And now I am going to bed, full and happy, and happy with myself, and eager to keep things going until next Saturday.  Then comes the weighing!  I can hardly wait – when things are going well, I have learned to feel that perfect balance between hunger and satisfaction, the feeling that I am losing weight all the time.  You wil learn what that feels like, if you try!

-The Doctor

20190706 Saturday weigh-in

Disorder!  Calamity!  Discord!

I fell into a classic mental trap today and didn’t help myself at all.  Let me explain.  This system of weight control has two mechanisms that reinforce each other.  First, I monitor and control my food intake.  Second, I weigh myself regularly, which keeps the whole thing honest.  

This last week, I have been recovering from some stomach or intestinal ailment.  During that time, eating was out of control and it was all I could do to write down and record everything I ate.  There was no attempt to stick to my diet.  Towards the end of the week I started to claw my way back, and by Friday I was feeling pretty good about it – I went swimming and that went well, my calorie intake was good, etc.  I hoped I might even be on track to lose weight for the week and have my lowest weight ever on Saturday.  

Did that happen?  No.

The Trap

No picture of my happy feet today either – I only post pictures of victories.

I got on the scale and my weight was 264.8.  That’s an increase of a pound since last week and the week before.  Oh no, have I hit the dreaded plateau?  The one I have been saying doesn’t exist?  Well, I can think of a couple of more likely problems.

  1. Still recovering from being ill (intestinal complaint).  This is the fluid weight problem.  Am I retaining fluid? 
  2. First half of the week was spent eating a lot of food, and all carbohydrate rich foods.  Was all that still in my system?  
  3. I have been exercising a lot more than usual the last few weeks – nothing too strenuous, but lots of free swimming in the outdoor pool.  Have I put on some muscle?  That weighs more than normal tissue.  

They all could be true (or none).  But the answer to all of these is the same – be patient, keep persevering using the system that has served well so far.  These problems should resolve themselves, given a week of steady weight control eating.  On the other hand, what if I am in some kind of extended pause that doesn’t resolve itself?  In that case, I will probably accuse myself of cheating or not counting all my calories properly.  The answer to that is another week or two of very careful calorie counting.

Anyway, I have said many times that if you have a bad day, or week, you should never punish yourself.  You will rebel and things will get very bad.  Instead, try to learn, focus your attention on getting back into your new lifestyle.  Did I do that today?  No.

After the weighing, for my meals today, I ate a collection of leftovers and other snacks I didn’t really want.  I had nothing to look forward to, I felt a bit paralyzed about my next move and unmotivated even to make a dinner.  Was I punishing myself?  It sure felt that way.  Can you guess the result, based on what I said above?  My body rebelled, of course.  I had a few pieces of candy which turned into a lot of candy, ice cream, and other goodies.  I am nearly a thousand calories over my limit today.  All because I fell into a trap I knew was coming. 

Can I learn from this?  Absolutely!  I will start with getting the next week back in order.  I will leave now to start cooking and I will make sure to treat myself well from now on.  My own eager participation is essential to this system.  If I have spoiled the new week already, oh well.  I will keep going for two weeks.  I will take motivation from wherever it comes.  But this is a joyful system, when done right.  I will pick up the pieces and build it all up again – it is worth it!

-The Doctor 

20190705 Daily report

According to my records, for three days this week I ate more than 3000 calories each.  For four days, I had 1800 calories or less (give or take a few calories).  What a mixed week!  But you see, I have the records.  It’s one of the many uses of a food journal.  

Anyway, I was ill from last Thursday through Tuesday or so this week, and I didn’t really feel well until today.  That’s in my food journal, too.  I exercised Friday, but skipped Tuesday, since I wasn’t feeling well. 

Because I keep a record of all this, I can watch myself carefully and control my food intake and know what’s going on.  I have learned so much about myself this way.  Self knowledge is the key to losing weight and the key to keeping it off once you have lost it.  

Pulled pork and pickle wrap!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x North Carolina slow cooker pulled pork wraps (250)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – Bratwurst wrap (300); Snickers ice cream bar (180); Twix ice cream bar (160)

  • 640 calories 

Dinner – 2 x plain grilled Johnsonville bratwurst with mustard (260)

  • 520 calories

Snacking – candy (150); blueberries (25)

  • 175 calories

Total for the day: 1835 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Recipes and food programming

The pulled pork is a slow cooker recipe, which is very nice in the summer.  That means you don’t have to turn on the oven and heat up the kitchen, and pulled pork shoulder cooks really well in the slow cooker.  And once it’s prepared, measuring portions is easy – just weigh what you take and multiply by 55 calories per ounce.  I had just over 7 ounces in two half portions, which came to 400 calories total.  That plus the flatbread wrap came to….500 calories for that meal. And I was really looking forward to it, and it was delicious.  I was seriously hungry for breakfast, which made the whole thing really satisfying.  

It is my plan to link my recipes to the blog content.  I’ve created a new page for recipes and will start linking to it soon.  It will be handy for others to see how I am portioning food and making meals that work while I am losing weight.    I have a lot of data about foods that work for me.  Some of them might be interesting to you.  Some of the rewards might be fun to share, too!

It’s been a hard week with being ill, and also it’s been a real blast of summer this week too.  I am looking forward to next week, when I can get back on my food routine for all seven days, and it’s supposed to be cooler.  I would love to feel like the second half of my weight loss program is officially started.

-The Doctor

20190704 Daily report

Once you have changed your mind (how you think about food) and once you have changed your values (how you look at the world), and start living those changes out, your body will follow.  The revolution in my thinking happened in late 2018 and I have been living out the consequences since January 2019.  Since that time, I have lost about 60 pounds, with another 60 to come.  For too many years, I tried to diet without changing anything about the way I thought.  It didn’t work.  It has to be the other way around.  Change your thinking, change who you are.   

The fruit of the grill

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Leftover half Chuy’s King Carnas burrito from yesterday (600)

  • 600 calories

Lunch – chips (150); granola bar (100); cheese stick (80)

  • 330 calories 

Dinner – 2 x Grilled bratwurst wraps (300); Bush’s baked beans (125); corn on the cob (125)

  • 850 calories

Total for the day: 1780 calories (limit 1800)

Recovery

I’ve spent the last week recovering from an anonymous stomach ailment.  This has not been a great week for calorie reduction!  But part of keeping track of everything I eat, is that now I have data and can take an honest look at where I am.

Last weekend I weighed 263.4 pounds.  This week, I have been eating a diet rich in simple carbohydrates, with very little restriction.  I was sick and sad, and wanted to feel full and comforted.  You would think that this week has been wasted, right?  But I have data.

According to my food log, I should finish out the week at 15,610 calories eaten.  For the last several months, I have had about 13,000 calories per week.  I have also generally lost between two and three pounds per week.  The difference is about 2500 calories.  What does that mean?  Since we know it takes 3500 calories per week to lose a pound, it means I will still have lost weight this week, just not as much.  I might be down a pound from last weighing.  I won’t be going up, even though I have been eating very different food and more of it!  So, maybe I haven’t lost a week. 

Keeping a record of your calorie count, even if you are eating more than you plan to, can still tell you a lot.  Especially when you get weighed, which I do every Saturday.  There are many reasons to keep your food journal up to date.  You too can do it, if you have made the necessary mental transformation. 

-The Doctor

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