Long term dieting

20190524 Daily report

There are two rules for controlling your body’s weight.  These rules are observed by people who are thin and remain thin.  (1) Monitor your weight and (2) Regulate your food intake.  Note that these rules are mechanistic – How you control your weight.  Finding a way to live that brings you enjoyment and satisfaction while living out those two rules, is a very different matter.  

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Pizza (250)

  • 250 calories

Lunch – chicken sandwich (300); pretzels and cheese (250)

  • 550 calories 

Dinner – meatloaf wrap x 2 (250)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); ice cream sandwich (220); Cheerios and milk (250)

  • 550 calories

Total for the day: 1850 calories (limit 1800)

Dieting while sick?

I still have a cold.  I am napping during the day, it’s that kind of illness.  I also have an appetite for carbohydrate-rich foods.  I am not sure why, but I overate of them – look at my calorie count.  I didn’t even swim today, I didn’t have the energy and it didn’t sound appealing.  Also, The Doctor has found that weight measurements while sick are not reliable.  Therefore I will not be weighing tomorrow, just posting my food log.  Hopefully I will get rid of this cold and things can go back to normal.  

Today, I had an interesting food encounter with a man I know slightly.  He is medium build but has stayed that way for several years.  I decided to test him – and mentioned that the Costco pizza has 700 calories per slice while other brands have as little as 125 per slice.  He already knew, and made several comments about how much of various foods he could eat while staying under his limit.  More proof, if it is needed, that people who stay thin are putting effort into it.  The Doctor doesn’t believe that the naturally thin person exists.  A thin person might believe they are not putting effort into maintaining their weight, but they are paying more attention to the rest of us!  IT’s true and helpful to know: thin people weigh themselves and have a system for maintaining their weight.  That is the simple part.  

The hard part is becoming the kind of person whose weight is of primary importance to you.  It has to bring you satisfaction and fulfillment to maintain your weight and control your body.  That’s the kind of person who keeps the weight off.  It doesn’t make you a better person, or happier.  But it makes it easier for you.

-The Doctor

20190523 Daily report

The mechanism of the Doctor’s transformation into a person in control of his weight has two parts.  (1) Weight yourself and (2) regulate your food intake.  #1 is done once per week and #2 is done every day.  I never used to do either of those things.  My goal for eating was to be full, and I was pretty enthusiastic about it.  The consequence was constant calorie overload and weight gain.  Being thin was not high on my hierarchy of values.  But whatever satisfaction comes from having a full stomach was.  Dieting was a total failure under those conditions.  Now I have changed all that and become a new person.  Unfortunately, that new person still gets a cold from time to time.  

No pictures today due to illness

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x meatloaf wraps (250)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – chips (200); ice cream sandwich (190); Nestle Drumstick ice cream cone (280); 1.75 ounces Sarris Peanut Butter Meltaway egg (320)

  • 990 calories 

Dinner – nothing (not hungry)

  • 0 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); ham slices (200)

  • 280 calories

Total for the day: 1770 calories (limit 1800)

Eating while sick vs. eating while dieting

Being sick is no fun.  I have noticed before, though, than when I get sick (with a cold or ordinary flu) my appetite is for carbohydrate or sugar rich foods.  I had meatloaf for breakfast, but everything after that was more carbohydrate rich.  The Doctor is not on (and does not espouse) a low carbohydrate diet.  The Doctor has lost 50 pounds so far and continued to eat from every type of food group, though the amounts are now regulated.  However, there is no doubt that when sick, I rush to carbohydrate rich foods, and I am not sure why.

The last time The Doctor had a cold was in February and during that time, I mostly had carbohydrate rich foods too.  I didn’t even track the amounts – I just have question marks in the calorie counts for those days.  Once I was better, my appetite returned to normal.  Because I keep a food journal, this kind of information is easy to find.  

Anyway, during that February cold, I let myself eat without any regulation.  This time, I am trying to stay within my calorie limits.  But I imagine this will still affect my weight come Saturday.  I wonder how many of the weight loss plateaus people complain about are actually illness related?  I have been sick three times since starting the diet and each time it has affected my weight, in one case for three weeks.  We will find out!  

-The Doctor

20190522 Daily report

Every day, I have committed to writing down my food intake in my food journal.  This is for a simple reason: people who are thin and stay than constantly monitor their weight and regulate their food intake.  I have chosen to do this very explicitly.  Everything I eat is measured and written down in my food journal.  My limit is 1800 calories per day.  Sometimes I don’t know how many calories are in my food.  Usually I make my own food, and that makes it easy to calculate.  But today is Wednesday, and I buy my lunch on Wednesdays. 

Keeping myself happy on 1800 calories per day includes one of these

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – Big Greek Cafe $5 Gryos sandwich (600)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Reuben wrap (250); breaded chicken piece with cheese and lima beans (250)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160); cherries (50)

  • 210 calories

Total for the day: 1710 calories (limit 1800)

Wednesday meditation

The gyros sandwich is from a local chain, The Big Greek Cafe.  The $5 Wednesday gyros is unbeatable!  Calorie information is not available though, so I have had to guess.  That is, about 200 for the bread, 200 for the meat, and 200 for the tzatziki sauce, tomatoes, and bit of Feta cheese on the side.  I also Googled calories in a gyros sandwich, and 600 was a good consensus number.  So far this kind of educated guessing has worked.  

A lot of people probably would be worried about my regime, where you are about 1000 calories in deficit every day; they worry they would get hungry.  I was worried about it when I started.  And reading the weight loss forums, you see people advising others that they will just have to get used to being hungry.  This is where the Doctor’s system shines. 

When the point of eating is a full stomach, anything less goes against your nature and against your eating goals, and is a constant source of deprivation and resentment.  You hate dieting and can’t wait for it to be over, and you are suffering and resentful all the time.  Your goal of eating is still to be full, and on a diet you are never, ever full, until you have a bad day and binge.  When you meet your eating goal (by overeating), you feel bad, you feel shame!  With that mindset, when dieting you will feel hungry all the time, because hungry means you are not full.  That’s a terrible situation to be in.  When even a successful diet ends, any sane person would flee back to their old life…and gain the weight back!  

No, dieting is too hard, and keeping the weight off is too hard.  You have to maintain that the rest of your life; losing 120 pounds might take a year or more.  Who would want to suffer for a year, and then suffer for the rest of their life?  Nobody.  Make it easier.  Change your thinking.  The goal is not to be full.  Full belly is a caveman’s goal, a monkey’s goal.  It is said that a dog will eat itself to death.  Don’t be a dog. 

Instead, change how you see the world.  The Doctor’s goal is to be hungry…just in time.  Eat just enough to last until the next meal.  When your goal is hunger, your definition of “hungry” changes, from “not completely full” to “ravenous.”  But the meal must be worth waiting for.  I always look forward to Wednesdays, because lunch is worth it!  

-The Doctor

20190521 Daily report

A lot of people who are losing weight are counting their calories.  There’s an acronym for it – CICO.  That’s Calories In Calories Out.  So the mechanics of losing weight are well known and freely available on places like Reddit /loseit.

The important question for us is: how to keep doing it?  For most of us, our unconscious goal when eating is to be full.  Eating less than that – trying not to be full – flies in the face of everything we want from food.  Counting and restricting calories are consequently very hard to do.  Essentially you have to force yourself using willpower.  You can only will that for so long.  I think a lot of people find that intimidating.  Much better to replace your food goal and alter your system of values.  Then it’s not a question of willpower – you are acting in accordance with your goal and not against it.  

I look forward to my homemade Reuben wraps

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x Meatloaf wraps (250)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – Chocolate bar (220); Nestle Li’l Drums chocolate ice cream cone (120); Stroopwafel cookie (160)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 6 ounces cooked spaghetti (300); 5 meatballs (235)

  • 535 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160)

  • 160 calories

Total for the day: 1695 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Self knowledge is the way

What is self knowledge?  In this dieting frame of reference, it is rich with meaning.  It can be which foods are the most satisfying to you.  It can be the knowledge that you will eat too much if you have a bad day. There are many parts to a person’s mind, many layers.  What is the part of you that overeats candy when your will has forbidden it?  Are you taken over by someone else?  Probably not, but it’s evidence that you can be of two minds about things. 

It’s important to think through this and learn as much about yourself as you can.  Learn how to get your two minds working together.  Learn your insecurities and triggers and be aware of when your parts are working together and when not!  Never, ever put yourself in the position where you are saying, I hate myself.  The next day after you have overeaten is a prime example.  Your two minds can’t work together if you say you hate that part of you.  That hated part is important and necessary and you must gain its cooperation.  It’s all part of you and you have to get the parts lined up and negotiate a way through to your new goals.  Then the different parts of your life come together and you will feel satisfied and full of meaning.  You will start to wonder why you would live any other way.  

-The Doctor

20190520 Daily report

The price of getting thin and staying thin isn’t steep, but it does take some time every day.  It is high priority time.  My food journal must be filled out right away after eating.  Keeping a daily food journal is one of the two parts to controlling your weight.  The other part is weighing yourself.  Thin people do both of these things, though not in the same ways.  Show me a thin person and I will show you someone who keeps track of their weight (they may use a tape measure or belt or judge by the way clothes fit).  I will show you someone who is careful about how much they eat.  People have different strategies for regulating how much they eat.  I count calories.  

Some bacon may have fallen on these wraps before I ate them.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2 x BLT wraps (200)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – 2 x Reuben wraps (250)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – Meatloaf with potatoes and carrots

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 1.75 ounces Sarris peanut butter meltaway egg (280)

  • 360 calories

Total for the day: 1760 calories (limit 1800)

Can I keep losing weight this way?

Recently it’s been strange.  I am eating 1800 calories per day, but I must have gotten used to it.  Now it seems like a lot of food.  I had what seemed like three large meals today.  Am I going to lose weight when I feel like I am eating a lot?  Well, it’s worked so far.  But it is still strange the way perceptions change.  Don’t forget that part of this system of counting calories means no extras between meals.  It’s amazing what you can eat when not paying attention.  My Sarris peanut butter meltaway egg (one pound) has lasted a month since Easter and I have only eaten half, about an ounce at a time, a couple of times per week.  Before I started paying attention, that egg would have lasted two days, maybe.  I used to drink about a gallon of milk a week.  Paying attention is a challenge in so many ways! 

I was looking at Reddit /loseit again.  The people who have lost weight or are losing weight have lots of great advice.  But most of them sound like they are recommending willpower to get it done.  Other people are posting and complaining they can’t get motivated or stick with a diet.  That was The Doctor, not too long ago.  I’ll have to come up with some ways to talk about the transformation you can make, to become a person capable of losing weight and controlling weight.  

The most important part is to get rid of your old thinking and not be too stubborn!  One Reddit /loseit poster asked for advice when starting a diet.  Five different people answered him with great advice.  He rejected them on the grounds that he would get too hungry.  They didn’t know how to answer that – a couple suggested he would have to get used to being hungry.  He was hilariously stubborn – being hungry was for barbarians and could cause health problems!  Modern people shouldn’t get hungry. 

The Doctor didn’t feel the original poster would benefit from his insight that hunger depends on the food goal.  If your goal is to be full and satisfaction comes from being full, then hungry is any time you are not totally full.  Your idea of hunger is distorted by the eating goal.  On the other hand, if your goal is to be ravenously hungry – your stomach actually shouting for food – then your goal is met anytime you have eaten anything substantive.  Tie that to the idea that your food is worth getting hungry for, and you will become a self perpetuating weight loss machine.

-The Doctor  

20190519 Daily report

Some people are unhappy with the idea of keeping a food journal and weighing yourself for the rest of their life.  I see it on Reddit /loseit often.  Dieting, in their minds, is temporary.  After reaching the goal weight, people just want to believe things will work out.  It’s an attitude that says, “my body should maintain its weight all by itself.”  I think it’s a moral attitude.  But “should” doesn’t do the job.  Keeping your weight under control is one of those things that must be maintained, or else it is lost.  It’s like going to the dentist every year.  If teeth need care and attention, so does our weight.  Thin people absolutely pay attention to their weight and 99.9% of people who stay thin throughout their lives must keep working at it all the time.  We have to accept that this work takes time and attention.  You are no different.  You too can be thin and under control, but there is that price. 

Is it worth it?  The Doctor argues that the struggle to refine your goals and aims, and hold yourself to them, adds a lot of meaning to your life.   

Cabbage has about zero calories but makes part of a great sandwich

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 80 grams of Ukrainian Paska bread with butter (360)

  • 360 calories

Lunch – 5 x pizza slices (100); chicken wrap (180)

  • 680 calories 

Dinner – corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots (500)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 3 x Jaffa cakes (50)

  • 230 calories

Total for the day: 1770 calories (limit 1800)

Food security while dieting

The way the Doctor keeps himself happy, while eating less food and eating under a system of control, is to make the foods that are most satisfying and worthwhile.  My eating goal is to be hungry and to anticipate my next meal.  It’s no good to get ravenously hungry and run to the kitchen and realize there is nothing there I really want to eat.  I call this food security: I cook ahead of time and make sure there is food around that I am very interested in.  When I get hungry, I can find a food I really crave and put it together quickly.  If I had to eat something I was indifferent to, I wouldn’t be interested in making myself hungry for that.  

I’ve also talked about the problem of a meal not working out.  Pre cooked bacon was a good example – it’s not nearly as good and not nearly as satisfying.  Anyway, when I’ve gotten my hunger revved up and I eat and the meal is unexpectedly disappointing, it is demoralizing.  My body says, why did you get me all excited for????  My old values said – eat it anyway, don’t waste.  But my new values are supposed trump the old.  It is a struggle, but my ideal now is to throw away the disappointing bacon and eat something else.  

Someone asked how much advanced planning I do for my meals.  Unfortunately, it’s complicated and while some of it is planned (usually while shopping) some is opportunistic.  There is no hard and fast rule, except I have to really be looking forward to eating it.  I don’t mind eating less, since it will be so good.  Living this way really heightens my enjoyment in eating, and I lose weight at the same time.  That is nice.

-The Doctor

20190518 Saturday weigh-in

There are two parts to the Doctor’s system for weight control.  The first is to weigh yourself weekly.  If you don’t know what you weigh, you are not in control!  Sometimes getting on the scale is hard.  When you are 120 pounds overweight, it’s hard to be sure you have lost weight.  Can you trust your body?  Maybe you think you did all the right things and paid attention to how much you were eating.  Can you trust yourself?  Will your body reflect what you did, or think you did?  The Doctor thinks it takes a long time to start to trust yourself again, when you have that much weight to lose.  But so far…

Caption

…everything has gone according to the reality that I have recorded in my food journal and calorie counts.  Hooray!  This means I have lost:

Pounds!!!
0

Changes have started to happen

I have been living my new life of weight control (and finding new meaning and enjoyment in it) since January.  Doing this has been enjoyable and not as much of a struggle as you would think, thanks to the changes I have made to my thinking.  But things happen so slowly when you are paying this much attention!  It wasn’t until late April (more than 40 pounds lost) that my clothes really started to fit differently.  I can’t find any tool that lets you plug in your height and weight and get a waist size, and I have no idea what my waist size will be when I weigh, say, 205 pounds.  

I started in January in size 52 pants and 52/54 belt.  Now I am wearing size 50 pants and a 48 belt.  A bit confusing, but it’s probably specific to my body.  As I lose more, things will change.  I am really looking forward to breaking into the 30s (waist size).  Only 12 sizes to go!  According to the “roll of paper towels” model of body shape, as the roll of paper towels gets smaller, each sheet taken off has a bigger and bigger effect.  It’s a good model, based on volume to surface area.  Anyway, I don’t want to get too far into fantasy land.  There is a here and now to deal with.  What I am doing is working.  

Also, the Doctor was thinking about the bariatric or lap band surgery some people get for weight loss.  How would that fit into the Doctor’s weight control program?  If a person’s eating goal is to be full, well then, the lap band surgery will make it easier to feel full.  You wouldn’t have to change a thing about your thinking!  (The lengths we go to, just to avoid changing the way we think.)  Much easier and better to change your thinking.  Having hunger as my eating goal is working for me.  Surgery not required! 

The Doctor’s system also works for when the weight is lost and the new body needs to be maintained.  The Doctor’s system of self knowledge and a focus on being hungry at the right time means you can keep off the weight (as long as you pay attention).  If you relied on your stomach telling you it was full, with a lap band, then watch out!  When the lap band is removed, your eating goal will remain the same and you may gain back weight.  Stick with self knowledge and focus on hunger.  It works!

-The Doctor

20190517 Daily report

My daily posts have a main purpose – to help me control my food intake.  I do this by keeping a food journal every day.  I enter what I eat, right after I eat it.  I don’t remember everything if I try to do it all late at night.  Another part of entering food into the journal is to pay attention how much I am eating.  If I only wrote in the journal at night, I might find out I had overeaten during the day.  (I am actually writing a post now about how to recover from a bad diet day.)  Then it’s too late! 

Don’t play the game of trying to force yourself to eat less tomorrow to make up for today, either.  That day is done and you can’t get it back.  Look towards the future and try again tomorrow.  Tomorrow, be aware of how much you are eating and enter it into your journal right away. 

100 calories per slice!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – leftover sesame chicken (150); mini apple pie (210); 26 grams Sarris chocolate (140)

  • 500 calories

Lunch – 6 x pizza slices (100)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – BLT wrap (200); Moroccan lamb ragout (350)

  • 550 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80)

  • 80 calories

Total for the day: 1730 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

The limits of calorie cutting

It’s not too hard to  reduce your total calories to a certain point, but then it gets to be more and more work for less and less reward.   No matter what you do, it takes 3500 calories per week to lose a pound of weight.  After a while, there just aren’t many left to cut.  

As usual, this week I have been swimming twice.  Normally on those days I am extra hungry and feel free to reward that a bit.  This week I wasn’t really extra hungry so didn’t eat more – I stayed below 1800 calories per day all week.  Does this mean I will have lost an extra pound this week?  Ha, no.  My swim routine takes about 600 calories, so you could say I was down 1200 calories this week from my usual.  That’s only 1/3 pound!  I’m not sure I would even notice that on my scale.  Looked at another way, I have reduced my intake to 1800 calories per day.  If I tried to bring the total down to 1200 calories per day, I would probably be hungry all the time and would be down….a pound (600 x 7 days in the week = 4200) for the week.  One pound is not worth the price of being hungry all the time.  I don’t have that kind of willpower. 

Losing weight seems really slow.  But I am not going to complain about “only” losing 2-3 pounds per week.  That’s fantastic and will get me to my target weight.  Don’t get in the way of being fantastic.  

-The Doctor

 

20190516 Daily report

If you watch people who are thin, you will learn from them how they do it.  People who stay thin pay a lot of attention to their weight.  (Some will tell you that they don’t pay attention, but I think they are a bit embarrassed about it.  Who wants to admit they are obsessed with their weight?)  Compared to those of us who have lost control of our weight, thin people pay a lot of attention.  So, pay attention to your weight.  It is the price of keeping thin.  It’s like keeping your checkbook balanced.  Ignore it for a while and you will get in trouble.

 

This bread I did make, and bake, then take.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 100 grams Ukrainian Paska bread and butter (450); banana (100)

  • 550 calories

Lunch – Moroccan lamb ragout with hard boiled egg and rice (450)

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – Homemade Sesame chicken (450); green beans with butter (50)

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 1.25 ounce of Sarris peanut butter meltaway egg (110)

  • 190 calories

Total for the day: 1690 calories

Anticipation

I have often said my food goal is to be hungry and anticipate the delicious food I have planned for the next meal.  That way I have an incentive to not eat between meals, and I find my body and mind are willing to eat less food at each meal.  It works, but there is a price.  Part of the price is that I find a lot of foods are not worth waiting for.  My mind and body are fine with getting hungry and then getting something delicious as a reward.  Nobody wants to get hungry and then be rewarded with salad (the ordinary kind), or some chips, or unappealing leftovers from last week.  Food can be fuel, but I am getting some extra work out of it.  

This week I have been concentrating on my food goal – I should be hungry for each meal!  Really hungry.  If you think about it, when most people say they are hungry they are saying they are not full.  Have you ever said, “I could eat something.”?  That’s proof that most of us have being full as our food goal.  Consider – the only time most of us would refuse food is if we are already completely full.  Our food goal has been met!  Otherwise, we could eat, and we do.  Result: calorie overload.  

If hunger is the goal, that is all turned upside down.  Such a hunger-focused person would refuse food unless they were empty and their stomach calling LOUDLY for food.  You might even recognize hunger in yourself as something to avoid.  But it works as a goal.  You don’t want to be hungry and unsatisfied between meals.  You want hunger at the right time.  The side benefit is that your food tastes really wonderful and exciting when you embrace hunger for it!  Make sure it is something worthwhile. 

-The Doctor  

20190515 Daily report

Welcome to my daily report!  It’s a new day in my new life.  And I have committed to keep a food journal for the rest of my new life.  Hear me out.  Everybody who stays thin has a system for keeping their weight under control.  Not everybody keeps a food log, there are other systems people use.  But I am keeping a food log.  The logic is simple.  I am trying to lose 120 pounds.  I am not going to go to all that trouble and gain it all back again.  I have transformed myself into a person who can control his weight.  I keep the food log.  And I will also weigh myself every week for the rest of my life.  These parts are essential for weight control. 

On the positive side, I will lose 120 pounds and be in control of my weight.  Also on the positive side, I can eat from an unlimited menu of exciting and delicious food.  I have lost 51 pounds so far eating like this.  

It's a cheesesteak, or as close as you can get outside Philadelphia

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 100 grams Ukrainian Paska bread and butter (450)

  • 450 calories

Lunch – steak and cheese sandwich (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – Moroccan lamb ragout and rice (350)

  • 350 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chicken wraps (250); pretzels (100)

  • 430 calories

Total for the day: 1730 calories (limit 1800)

Rediscovering my eating goal

Astute readers will notice that today was a Wednesday, but I didn’t get a gyro sandwich.  The Doctor was too far away from the Big Greek Cafe for that today.  So I got this cheesesteak from a lunch counter.  It’s pretty good!  I made sure I was hungry for it, so it was as good as possible.  

Food just tastes better when you are hungry for it.  That’s the knowledge that led me to my greatest insight – my food goal was all wrong for weight loss.  I was eating with the goal of feeling full.  But how can you lose weight if your enthusiastic goal is to be completely full?  By dieting (eating less), you are working against yourself.  You have to use a lot of willpower to keep from filling yourself at every moment.  It feels wrong, not being full!  So unsatisfying.

My new food goal is to be hungry in time for each meal.  Success is to eat just enough so that I am hungry for the next meal.  Today was a partial success.  I woke up hungry, had my delicious home baked bread for breakfast, then didn’t eat again until 12.30 when I was hungry.  But at 3PM, I got hungry and had some chicken.  And then some more.  With hummus.  I stayed in my calorie limits today, but dinner felt unsatisfying, because I wasn’t hungry for it.  I have to learn to treat hunger symptoms with something more filling, or at least something in a package of 100 calories or so, like beef jerky.  It’s so easy to overdo it and then ruin my appetite.  

I am accumulating so much self knowledge on this diet!  By the time I am done losing this weight, I will be an expert on my own eating needs and behaviors.  Keeping the weight off might be less of a challenge.  

-The Doctor

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