Stay on a diet

20200309 Daily report

When you’ve had a bad diet day (Saturday for me) it takes days before you feel like your body has returned to normal.  It’s yet another reason not to have a bad day, or to keep the damage to a minimum.  This raises the question of why would you have a bad day in the first place.  And I think the answer to that is obvious: everybody does.  One bad day, once in a while, doesn’t hurt too much.  It’s when you start thinking of the bad day as a normal day, that the trouble begins.  When you are keeping track, every day, you can see the cost and the effect of such a bad day.  You are paying attention.  That’s how I know that even today (Monday) things are not back to normal.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after.  That will feel…good.

I change em up with American cheese today

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 2x bratwurst (260); half whole wheat wrap (55);

  • 580 calories

Lunch – steak and cheese sub (500)

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – cheese lasagna (640)

  • 640 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120);

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1850 calories (limit 1800)

Early to bed and rise at all would be nice

Daylight savings time is hard if you are keeping a schedule.   I have to be in bed in 5 minutes.  So I will be brief.  I am working hard on envisioning the future I want and the person I want to be.  That person has his body’s weight under control.   Once you have your mind right, then your body will catch up eventually.  It’s a pattern that has worked well for me.  Keeping your weight under control is a full time job and requires constant work and attention.  That is the price, and the price is higher the thinner you want to stay.  Having a bad day when I weigh 185 will be a lot different that when I was 244 pounds.  But you have time to study yourself and figure out how to get yourself there and keep yourself there.  Just pay attention.

-The Doctor

20200308 Saturday Sunday Mix

Saturdays, I do a weekly weighing.  It keeps the whole calorie-recording and food-journaling businesses honest.  I might think that I am doing well and keeping within my calorie limits, but am I really?  Weighing is the reality test.  So far, I have been pleased to find that my food journal is predictive of the direction my body is going.  It has even been useful as a predictor – if my weight unexpectedly goes up, I know I am getting ill.  

This week, I am trying to re-establish my central goal as a person who is in control of his body’s weight.  It’s been hard to keep that going for the last few months.  

I weighed 245 pounds on Saturday.  It’s more than the 237 I recorded as my lowest ever, but not hopeless.  

Abbreviated post today

If your vision of yourself and what you are trying to achieve is strong, you can tolerate a little uncertainty, a little trouble, a little stress, and keep on achieving progress.  But you can be pushed off balance and lose sight of your goal.  How then do you find your way again?  How did you do it the first time?  Can you remember?

I am finding that relatively minor levels of personal or emotional turmoil are enough to derail me right now.  I had a good diet week, but then on Saturday (after weighing) I had a bad day for weight loss.  It takes several days after a bad day to feel yourself again.  It is the price you pay for losing your way.  I am willing to pay – I have had a lot of bad diet days over the last year, and always recovered – but it feels extra discouraging.  Maybe I am being too hard on myself.  This is a long term (life long) project, after all.  But it would be nice to have two good diet weeks in a row.  

Well, I am willing to work towards making things right.  I have prepared for the week: lunch and breakfast foods are cooked, portioned, and ready.  Dinners are premade and ready to go.  I shouldn’t have any anxiety about food availability this week! All the clocks are set ahead for daylight savings.  Preparation makes it easier to perform during the week.  Now I will go to bed and read a bit more and think about the person I want to be.  And how I can make that happen.

Good night!

-The Doctor

20200306 Daily report

The last thing I want is to backslide on weight control, but that is the easiest thing in the world to do.  Weight control is a long term strategy.   First, you imagine yourself as a new person.  This new you values controlling their body’s weight more than just about anything.  The new you is almost obsessed with this goal and has it near the top of their mind all the time.  As Terry Pratchett might say, nobody is naturally thin, but when you wake up in the morning, it is weight control that is your alarm clock.  It’s the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last thing at night.  When you eat, you hardly finish before you rush to your journal to write down what it was.  Sometimes, I write down the meal before I even eat it, but wait to fill in the calorie count until I am done, haha.  

Backsliding is easy because the old you is still in your brain, and maybe you have years of experience thinking and acting like the old you.  Lose concentration for a while and you will go back to the old way.  A month of not paying much attention might cost you 10 pounds.  You can’t lose sight of why you are doing all this.  The new you knows the answer to that and you should listen.

I still look forward to pizza night!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Noodles and red sauce (250); Doritos (150)

  • 400 calories

Lunch – 4 ounces rice (120); 12 ounces vegetable curry (330);

  • 450 calories 

Dinner – half Aldi pizza (570);

  • 570 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); bread (150); Reese’s peanut butter heart (170); 

  • 440 calories

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

Third time hopefully the last time

I didn’t weigh myself regularly the last month and I am not sure what tomorrow will bring.  But I am pretty sure I will be above 240 pounds.  I had a good week and there is every chance to have another good week now, so I am pretty happy on that front – the prospect of progress is alluring.  But if I am right, and even headed in the right direction, it will be the third time crossing that mark.  I weighed 237 at the end of last year, went up to 246, then back down to 239 just a few weeks ago.  All this zigzag!  

But that is the danger of losing focus, letting go.  Your old weight gaining life is waiting for you.  This is the price of weight control and I am coming to understand that every thin person I meet is working to stay that way.  The thinner they are, the harder they are working at it.  That’s my guess.  Someday, I might know for sure.

Do you see the attraction of the system where you eat the same foods every day?  How much simpler it makes the work!  But it doesn’t make it any easier.  That comes from the top.  Make it your alarm clock. 

-The Doctor

20200305 Daily report

Day by day is how you live the weight control lifestyle.  One good day after another turns into a good week.  Three or four good weeks in a row and a month has been completely and fully lived.  Paying attention to what you are eating and making that an important part of your life can be very rewarding and worthwhile.  Paying attention to the constructive things you are doing every day in service of your goals and values…..wonderful.  It doesn’t make it any less difficult.  Controlling your body’s weight takes discipline, but very little willpower.  

By discipline I mean work.  The work of controlling your body is difficult but fulfilling and achievable.  Discipline also means you are doing a little every day.  Willpower is different.  Willpower in its negative sense means you are forcing yourself to do something.  It won’t last because you can’t force yourself forever. When controlling your weight, you don’t want to be using a lot of willpower.  You want your system to be self reinforcing and attractive.  Part of that is in the mind.  You create a new image of yourself who is in control, and live as is you are that person.  Your body then slowly catches up to the person you are now.

I am a person who cooks and eats delicious foods….just not too much of them.  I relish the fulfillment that comes with getting hungry and then satisfying that hunger with a controlled amount.

Curried vegetables with rice. The thing on the right is cauliflower.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – Costco pepperoni pizza (710)

  • 710 calories

Lunch – 5oz cooked rice (160); 1 pound vegetable curry (440)

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – Italian bread (130); deli ham (100); deli chicken (100); Swiss cheese (100);

  • 430 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120);

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1860 calories (limit 1800)

A good almost-week

It was good because I have been keeping my aim on the worthwhile goals of eating that I have been talking about.  It was an almost-week because I only really got going on Sunday, and my diet week starts on Saturday.  So I had one day of about 2300 calories while the rest have averaged very near 1850 per day, which is about perfect.  Next week can be a perfect week.  I feel it all coming back to me. 

It’s been a difficult start to the year, as I lost sight of my good aims and have been on-again, off-again in 2020.  I have been using more willpower than attractive power, to try and get my successful pattern back.  But as I said, I have been concentrating on aims and goals this last week or two.  It may surprise you that my goal has little to do with being thin.  My goal is weight control.  I am (or should be) in control.  If I am not, what can I do about it?

-The Doctor

20200304 Daily report

One you are focused on your new goal of eating, it can be very rewarding.  You have no idea how exciting it is to be physically hungry for every meal until you try.  Not hungry in a deprived sense.  If you are feeling deprived and unhappy you have waited way too long.  I am talking about a narrow window where you are looking at the clock anticipating your next meal.  The combination of anticipation and fulfillment in the first few bites is very dramatic.  Today, I really made that work for me because I was looking forward to one of my favorite lunches.  Don’t judge me, to each his own!

Return of the living Gyro!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – half slice Costco pepperoni pizza (355)

  • 355 calories

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

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 5oz  cooked rice (160); 12oz vegetable curry (330)

  • 490 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); hummus (70); chipwich ice cream and cookie sandwich (240);

  • 390 calories

Total for the day: 1835 calories (limit 1800)

What is this Gyro and why is it so important to you?

When you are paying attention, you will notice favorites and start to anticipate them.  Years ago when I was gaining weight, a gyro was just another sandwich I had infrequently, but it came with Greek fries (basically a whole lot of fries, Greek servings are very generous that way) and that doubled the calorie count.  Don’t believe me?  1 large fries at McDonalds has 500 calories!  Greek fries were larger, say 600 calories, and the Gyro sandwich another 600.  Add a soda and two other equally large meals per day and you will gain weight.  Anybody would.  My goal at that point was fullness; if eating some was good, eating more would be better.

Once I changed my mind about why I was eating and picked a new set of values for living my life, it was time for a rethink.  I was paying attention.  Now, I think that if a few bites are good, you should make those few bites the best they can be.  That means enhancing the experience and eating foods you really like a lot.  

Enhancing the experience is often just looking forward to what you know is coming.  If it’s Wednesday, I don’t pack a lunch.  And I eat a light breakfast, just to make sure I am hungry for the sandwich, which makes it even better.  That’s another enhancement!  And it is a great sandwich, prepared by the Big Greek Cafe restaurant.  By contrast, on Mondays I often have a steak and cheese sub from the short order grill in my office building.  It’s good, but not great.  I don’t spend the day planning around it.  It’s nice.

As long as I am going to all this trouble to control my food intake and lose weight, I need to reward myself very highly.  This works for me, as a trade.  But it all starts with “why are you eating”?  It’s a question with many layers of answer.

-The Doctor

20200303 Daily report

I’ve never been able to lose significant weight before.  But in 2019, I was able to lose 80+ pounds.  OK, there are still 60 pounds to go.  But even so, that’s significant.  What changed?

I developed a vision of the person I wanted to be.  Nothing so one-dimensional as “being a thin person.”  I want to be a person who is in control of his body’s weight.  I decided I had to value that more than practically anything else, even if doing so costs me time and money or other things I value.  

With the aim in mind – being in control of myself, or put another way, being responsible for myself – I developed methods that worked for me.  What works for me?  Maximum enjoyment and fulfillment at every meal.  That means two things: I had to prepare for each meal by allowing myself to be a little hungry, and I also had to be responsible for making sure each meal was worth the effort, the sacrifice.  

That’s a matter of taste.

Tasty sandwiches work for me.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – ham and cheese sandwich on toast with pickles (300);

  • 300 calories

Lunch – half-pound short rib burger (600); toasted bread (100);

  • 700 calories 

Dinner – Costco pepperoni pizza (710); 

  • 710 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); cookies (140)

  • 220 calories

Total for the day: 1930 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Get the top level right

The top level of your mind, or your thinking, that is.  If you have your mind in the right place, then everything else follows.  It takes discipline and effort, but it is very rewarding to be on this weight control lifestyle.  The reward does not come from losing weight.  That’s kind of a bonus.  

No, the effort and discipline are all in service of fulfilling yourself and maximizing enjoyment of every meal.  You make yourself do that because it is rewarding and feels much better than living the old way.  In my old thinking, enjoyment came from eating until I was full.  You might say “I eat until I’ve had enough” but how can you tell what is enough?  If one of the main joys in your life comes from  feeling full, then you will start filling yourself at every meal.  Who can do that without gaining weight?

In my old thinking, I would try to force myself to diet and punish myself for not doing it.  I’ve come to think that is a very lazy way to try to lose weight.  You’re asking your body (really, your subconscious mind) to do all the magical weight loss things for you.  When you run out of willpower, the temptation is to punish yourself and make excuses for the failure – weak willpower, genetics, etc.  Then you are into self-loathing and good luck getting yourself to diet again, after a few repeats of that game.  It’s all in your head!  Change your thinking and become a new person living inside your head.  That person puts a lot of effort into making sure the body and mind are fulfilled at every meal.  That person trades quantity (measured portions of food) for quality – the exact foods that will make you happy delivered at the moment when you would most appreciate them.  

Keep the top level of your thinking where it needs to be!  

-The Doctor

20200302 Daily report

At the top of the moral hierarchy are the things you value the most in life.  The higher your goals, the better chance you have of achieving those things in a meaningful way.  For example, one of my highest goals at this moment is to be in control of my body’s weight.  But sometimes it is hard to keep your aim high and then you will fall into lower ones.  For good or bad, the reason I eat food is to feel satisfied.  When my aim is high, the feeling of satisfaction is difficult to achieve and highly rewarding.  That is, I finely balance the need to eat with portion control – the exact amount of the exact food that will create the greatest feeling of fulfillment.  

When my aim is low, the satisfaction comes from the emotions I associate with having a full stomach.  When others talk about “eating their emotions” I think I know what they mean.  

There’s no doubt that being in control of your body’s weight (and finding emotional fulfillment that way) is more meaningful than eating until full at every meal.  Eat just the right amount, then every carefully measured meal will be a reward and an inducement to prepare for the next meal.  Don’t overdo it!

Steak and cheese, please

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – 12 ounces steel cut oats (340)

  • 340 calories

Lunch – Steak and cheese sandwich (500);

  • 500 calories 

Dinner – 6oz noodles (300); homemade beef ragu sauce (250)

  • 550 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); cookies (140); chips and salsa (140);

  • 400 calories

Total for the day: 1770 calories (limit 1800)

It is all tied together

I have been having trouble keeping my aims and goals at the highest level.  That has allowed my old eating behavior to return, though not for very long, thank goodness!  Anyway, I decided to make things easier on myself and stop writing posts for a while, and focus on my eating behavior.   Boy, was that a mistake.  It was like I pulled an important card out of a card house and it all came down!  So everything is tied together.  If I stop doing anything, it all stops.  So I will keep posting as I figure things out.  

I am pretty sure the trouble lies with my aims and goals at the highest level.  If I have those right, everything else will follow.  If I have those wrong, everything else is seems arbitrary and that makes it hard to find meaning in what I am doing.  And I think a lot of this is about finding meaning in my life.  The methods I have developed to lose weight are just tools, after all.  It’s the meaning they bring that makes them worth all the trouble.

Be careful when you choose aims!  They have to be worth it.

-The Doctor

20200210 Daily report

It is best to track your food intake daily.  Really, you track it by the meal, but a day is flexible.  You can have a small lunch and a large breakfast.  But the calorie total is a daily matter.  For me, 1850 calories per day, 13,300 calories per week, is the aim.  So you pay attention to the meal, the day, and the week.  If you have a good day, you can use it for momentum and keep having a good day tomorrow.  If you have a bad day, well, that day is gone.  There’s no point in starving yourself tomorrow to make up for your mistakes today.  Losing weight is a long term game and you win by keeping your average calories per day as close to your aim as possible. 

You can console yourself (since you are, while controlling your weight, depriving yourself of the feeling of being full) by making sure you have something to look forward to all the time.  Then you get the feeling of reward instead of deprivation.  

Vindaloo , absolutely fork-tender and delicious!

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – granola (200)

  • 200 calories

Lunch – pot luck, estimated (600);

  • 700 calories 

Dinner – 8oz pork vindaloo (350); 5oz rice (160)

  • 510 calories

Snacking – Reese’s peanut butter cup (80); chocolate (80); noodles (300);

  • 460 calories

Total for the day: 1870 calories (limit 1800)

Emotional eating

It’s hard to describe, but one of the dangers of my old way of living and eating was to eat for reasons other than physical hunger.  I usually call it emotional hunger, but which emotion?  

Another (thin) coworker approached me today to compliment my weight loss.  I have noticed that people who are thin themselves, and work at keeping their weight under control, notice and appreciate this kind of effort in other people.  This supports my observation that for the vast majority of people, weight control is achieved by constant effort.  Anyway, what he (my coworker) said was much appreciated.  Like other people who have approached me, he talked about his own efforts, and asked me what I had changed in my own life to achieve results so far.  Luckily, this is something I think about every day, and write about here, so I have an elevator speech ready all the time. 

It’s very obvious, when you think about it, why thin people notice you losing weight and are willing to bring it up, while heavier people are less interested (or are more shy).  It’s because to become thin, and stay that way, it has to be high up on your list of values and you almost have to live your life thinking about it and maintaining your weight.  An overweight person is usually not thinking about that and is much less interested.  That was me, so I understand the thinking.  

Anyway, after I had eaten my food today and written everything down, I felt compelled to eat another 600 odd calories for emotional reasons.  I didn’t record that above, but it’s in my calorie count spreadsheet!  So my calorie count today was actually 2400.  That’s not good for my daily count or weekly calorie average!  But as I find myself saying a lot, tomorrow is a new day.  Things can go better on the new day.

-The Doctor

20200208 Saturday weigh-in

Saturday!  I weigh myself every Saturday.  What will happen?  To me it is always a surprise.  By keeping my calorie count, I have a rough idea of whether I will lose weight.  Sometimes I don’t, even though my calorie count has been properly limited to under 13,300 for the week.  I have learned to associate that situation with getting sick, and the weight issue is temporary.  But usually, if the calorie count is acceptable, I lose up to 3 pounds (usually two) per week.  There are two complications this time: 1. Until recently I have having trouble getting my head focused on proper weight control goals and values.  I lost about 87 pounds last year using that focus, but then gained back nearly 10 pounds in December and January.  This was through not paying attention and letting my focus wander.  2. My calorie total this week was 14,000, mostly because I had one bad diet day at the beginning of the week.

Last week was the first time I had lost weight since November, 2019.  My total weight last week was 243 pounds, down from 246 two weeks ago.  So I still have some work to do to get below my previous low weight of 237 (November).  So what happened this morning on the scale was a surprise.

When I got on the scale this morning, my weight was 238.6.  That’s down 5 pounds!  I took a shower, and when I tried weighing again, my weight was 239.4.  Surprise!  On the good side, both weights were below 240, which I wasn’t expecting.  But what I actually weigh, I am not sure.  I always use the first weight the scale gives me, but it was very strange today.  One doesn’t normally gain a pound by taking a shower.  Usually washing away the dirt would make you weigh less!  

Unexpected weight gain and loss

When I diet well but don’t lose weight for the week, I know I am getting sick.  When I diet well (excepting one day) but lose 4-5 pounds, what does that mean?  I can only speculate as that kind of thing doesn’t usually happen.  Anyway, I seem to weigh less than 240 again.  I had that accomplishment once before (November 2019). 

My next goal: 230 pounds.  That is interesting because it’s on the way to 225 pounds.  At that point I will have lost 100 pounds from when I started.  My original goal was to lose 120 pounds.  That would take me down to 205 pounds.  How will I celebrate the loss of 95 pounds, 100, 110, and 120?  It will be pretty exciting.  Based on last year’s results, it will take about 4-5 months to reach that goal.  Maybe….July?

It’s exciting to think about.  Goals pull you forward, and I feel pretty inspired to have a good diet week.  Once I get below 237.4, I will start posting pictures of my scale again every Saturday.  

Have a perfect week!

-The Doctor

20200207 Daily report

Counting calories is my way of keeping score.  How else could you be precise about how much you are eating?  Well, I have watched thin people and they have a few different ways of doing it.  Some eat the same amounts of the same things every day.  Some portion out their meals every week.  Some restrict what kinds of foods they can eat (carrots, or fruit, and vegetables) during the day, and then do some calorie counting of “fun” foods at dinner.  I have seen people blend these approaches.  But there appear to be a few who just don’t eat very much food.  This is the kind of person who orders in a restaurant, eats seven bites, and just abandons the rest on their plate, usually more than half the serving.  Maybe those people count their bites, maybe they are very in tune with the feeling that they have eaten enough – I have not figured that out.

With counting calories, I don’t have to rely on that.  I just use the kitchen scale!

A measured portion of Shepherd's pie.

My food intake and calorie count

Breakfast – half slice Costco pepperoni pizza (355)

  • 355 calories

Lunch – beans on toast (350); bread and hummus (250);

  • 600 calories 

Dinner – 7.5 ounces Shepherd’s pie and 7.5 ounces mashed potatoes (685);

  • 685 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (120); cookie (95);

  • 215 calories

Total for the day: 1855 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Time for a good week ahead

Next week I have a chance to have a good diet week.  It’s a chance to get everything right.  This past week of weight control didn’t start so well, but I steadied down by the end of the week. 

Today was a swim day, and that was fun.  I am not sure if exercise is a necessary component of losing weight, or is just helpful.  It does burn calories, but it also makes you feel hungry.  That can be good, because food tastes best when you are hungry.  And I did enjoy dinner tonight, after swimming.  It was cold and windy outside, but I had Shepherd’s pie to keep me warm.  

Interestingly, the recipe calls for a small amount of beer, and I used a wheat beer called Konig Ludwig, which is one of the few beers I like.  It made the recipe very tasty.  Last week I made a beef Carbonnade, which also calls for beer.  In that case I used 3/4 cup of a super expensive Belgian beer – 17 dollars for a 750mL bottle.  It was a very good beer, but not worth $17.  I will stick with Konig Ludwig for most purposes.  But cooking with beer is not my usual approach and I only have the two recipes I have tried.  I have read about something called beer can chicken, where the chicken is mounted on an open beer can and grilled, but I just don’t like the taste of most beers enough for that to be appetizing.  

But I am learning what does motivate and interest me, in terms of food.  I can use that knowledge to keep myself happy while eating measured portions.  It does work.

-The Doctor

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