Stay on a diet

20190424 Daily report

Wednesday!  Not many people look forward to Wednesdays, but I am one of them. 

I am keeping this record as part of the commitment I have made to becoming a person in control of his weight.  The commitment has two parts: (1) I weigh myself once per week and (2) I keep a journal or food diary and monitor my food intake every day.  Before I created a new life for myself, my goal was just to eat until I was full, which I told myself made me happy.  It didn’t, really.  Now my goal is to be hungry for every meal.  As my reward for eating less and getting hungry for meals, what I give myself to eat has to be worth the wait!

Big Greek Cafe's $5 Gyro Wednesdays!!! Definitely worth waiting for.

My daily food intake and calorie count are:

Breakfast – Strawberry shortcake roll (350)

  • 350 calories

Lunch – Greek Gyro (600)

  • 600 calories

Dinner – Jambalaya and rice (350); carnitas wraps (250).

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Reese’s PB Cup (80); Chocolate caramel candy (55); Nestle Lil drums (110)

  • 325 calories

Total for the day: 1820 calories (limit 1800)

Yesterday didn’t go so well.  My mind and body weren’t working together.  Today, I made sure that I listened to myself.  I wanted Strawberry shortcake roll.  That was breakfast.  Carbs are not an issue on this weight loss program, I don’t restrict myself that way. 

And the shortcake roll is really worth eating.  I made it myself for Easter.  It has a jelly roll cake exterior, a homemade strawberry jam layer, and an inner layer of whipped cream and mascarpone cheese.  I didn’t wrap it as neatly as I might have, but it was my first time and nobody complained.  So that was probably ok.  Anyway, yesterday I withheld the strawberry shortcake roll from myself – I wasn’t listening.  I ran out of calories to spend on it.  I didn not make that mistake today.  I had the cake first.  That way it was a reward.

Recently, I’ve noticed I can get hungry around 3-4PM.  I’ve been fighting it for some reason, and withholding a snack.  I’m not going to any more.  If having a snack around that time (within my calorie budget of 1800 per day) will keep my body satisfied with my food control program, that is ok. 

I am realizing that learning about yourself takes constant attention and you have to be willing to listen.  The reward is big, though.  I get a true feeling of accomplishment while I am losing weight, working body and mind and soul together.  Really, losing weight is almost beside the point.  I am so happy with my self-relationship.  My food intake is under a much greater control than it ever has been, and it’s not a fight or starving myself or eating what I don’t want.  It’s fulfilling.

-The Doctor

20190423 Daily report

Part of my plan to turn myself into a person who can successfully control his weight is a daily log of my food intake.  It’s the price I am paying to lose weight and keep it off.  However, I am getting a lot for my investment.  For one thing, I am accumulating a lot of self knowledge.  I am paying a lot of attention to how my body works, how my mind works, and how they are not always working together.  And there’s more – I can eat whatever foods I like, so long as I limit and keep track of the calories.  I’ve used that, as you have seen, to make sure I am happy to be losing weight.  Sometimes what my body is craving is conventional (like strawberry shortcake roll), and sometimes more particular to myself.  Idiosyncratic, that’s the word. 

Behold, the post-Easter ham, roasted Brussels sprout, and horseradish sandwich wrap. 150 calories.

My daily food intake and calorie count are:

Breakfast – Paska bread and butter (450)

  • 450 calories

Lunch – 4 x pyrohi (75) with sour cream, butter, and caramelized onions (150); half a carnitas burrito (120)

  • 570 calories

Dinner – Jambalaya and rice (350).

  • 350 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 2 x ham, roasted sprout and horseradish wraps (150); candy (200); chocolate (150)

  • 730 calories

Total for the day: 2100 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Today was a swimming day.  My body is still not back to normal following my intestinal bug of the last week and a half, but I am getting better little by little.  My appetite is back all the way.  Notice that my calorie counts Sunday and Monday were low and I had little appetite for more.   It was a strange illness where I felt unpleasantly full and hungry at the same time.  I don’t recommend it.

It still feels like my mind and body are not totally working together.  This might be due to illness.  But today I made an effort to eat meals on time, listen to my body, and eat when I was hungry.  I was a bit less successful than I hoped.  For example, I wanted to wait and have a slice of strawberry shortcake roll for dessert, but I ate candy I had lying around instead, around 3PM.  You see, I cheated myself out of what I wanted!  It’s a great example of my head and my body not working together.  And it’s a chance to learn.  Why was I so interested in candy that I didn’t really want? 

When I opened the candy box, I thought I just wanted a few pieces, but I ate the whole thing – 200 calories.  The right thing to do would have been to have strawberry shortcake roll at 3PM instead of candy.  Instead, my mind (or conscious will) insisted I should wait and eat the cake for dessert (after dinner).  And then I rebelled against myself.  My mind wasn’t listening to my body and what I really needed.  Instead, I was trying to force myself to do something I didn’t want – to wait.  OK, I can see I need to listen more and get the parts of myself working together.  That’s when this weight control system works the best.  I am grateful that I have decided to learn from this and not punish myself for a failure. 

-The Doctor

20190422 Daily report

Part of my commitment to a new lifestyle is to keep track of my food intake.  I count my calories and put everything I eat into a food journal.  Every day.  It’s a serious commitment which takes a fair amount of time.  I enter food into my journal as soon as I eat it.  That is done right after the meal and I consider it part of the meal.  I don’t wash the dishes or do anything else until everything is entered in my spreadsheet.  Because otherwise, I wouldn’t remember everything and my journal wouldn’t be accurate.  I have gained a lot of experience dealing with myself over the last several months, and I recommend it to everyone trying to be in control of their body’s weight.  It’s been very valuable to me as I transform myself into a person who can lose weight successfully and keep it off.

Homemade strawberry shortcake roll! Now that’s a diet I can live with, forever.

My daily food intake and calorie count:

Breakfast – Paska bread and butter (450)

  • 450 calories

Lunch – Carnitas burrito (400); ham slice (100)

  • 500 calories

Dinner – 2 x Ham wraps (150); strawberry shortcake roll (250)

  • 550 calories

Snacking – tea (120)

  • 120 calories

Total for the day: 1620 calories (limit 1800)

There are two parts to successfully controlling your weight.  I found them by observing people who are thin and remain thin.  (1) They absolutely do monitor their weight and (2) they regulate their food intake.  I have committed to performing both of these actions for the rest of my life.  That’s how I will lose weight and keep it off. I have doubts about the long term application of the other diet plans out there, though I wish people on them all the best.  

I was reading yesterday the story of a man who lost 140 pounds on a keto diet, with lots of exercise.  And it was strange to read about the diet – the keto diet was developed to treat people with certain mental disorders such as seizures.  It is believed that the ketone bodies in a dieter’s blood affect the brain chemistry enough to mitigate the seizures.  And it seems to work, though it has some side effects.  But it is now wildly popular as a weight loss program, used by people who didn’t have any seizures at all. 

You can see how a keto diet would fit into the Doctor of Things program of weight control (and how it wouldn’t).  Keto dieters do regulate their food intake.  A lot of them commit to eating very few calories while losing weight: mostly meat, fat, and a few leafy vegetables.  It must take a lot of willpower.  They can lose weight rapidly, like the gentlemen I mentioned who lost 140 pounds.  But after the weight loss, what will they do?  Such a person wouldn’t know anything but (a) how to gain weight using their old life patterns and (b) how to lose weight using the keto diet.  How would they maintain their new weight?  It could lead to a vicious cycle of gaining and losing weight, unless they could teach themselves a new lifestyle. 

The great strength I am developing with my weight loss plan is self-knowledge.  That includes finding out how much I can eat and learning how to lose weight or maintain weight.  In my system, I can eat any food I want, so long as I control how much I am eating and write it down in the journal.  I have learned to negotiate with myself to make the trade-offs I need to be satisfied and content while eating fewer calories.  I have learned not to punish myself for breaking my discipline, but instead listen to my needs and wants, and to find out and appreciate when my mind and body are working together.  Once I have lost all the weight I want to lose, I will be in a great position compared to someone who only knows dieting and overeating.  When was overeating, I had no idea how much of anything I ate or how many calories I was eating.  Deciding to write it all down was a hard decision.  I had to be prepared to learn some humiliating and bad things about my old self.  But that old life was not worth keeping.  The new me, who is in control of his body, has a better life and is happier about the way things are going.

-The Doctor

20190421 Daily report

How much should you eat during a holiday meal?  In my case, I made everything myself and it was all fabulous.  Remember that on my weight control plan, I’ve found I am willing to eat smaller portions if the food is really good.  I can look forward to it, savor it, and enjoy having eaten it.  Normally, my goal is not to get full….just full enough to last to the next meal.  On special occasions, I break that rule.  For example, last week I went to an Indian buffet for an enormous lunch and then didn’t eat any dinner.  That’s a situation where I was eating until I was full, with no consideration of my next meal!  It does mess my diet system up a bit, so I try not to do it often.  But today was one of those days.  I had lunch today and have no desire for dinner at all.  Strange because my calorie intake was well under control.

This year’s Paska bread was my best ever.

I heated a smoked ham and some kielbasa, and made pyrohi (like pierogis, only more Ukrainian), paska bread (a very rich, eggy Easter bread from Ukraine), beets with horseradish (a condiment), and roasted Brussels sprouts.  For dessert, I made a strawberry shortcake roll.  Not that we needed dessert, but I like to be thorough.  So I was really looking forward to this meal.  That part, at least, was according to my food control lifestyle.

My daily food intake and calorie count:

Breakfast – Reese’s peanut butter creme egg (170); beef jerky (90); tea (80)

  • 340 calories

Lunch – Ham and kielbasa (300); pyrohi with sour cream and butter (400); Paska bread and butter (250); roasted Brussels sprouts (40)

  • 990 calories

Dinner – skipped.

  • 0 calories

Snacking – tasting during cooking (100); strawberry shortcake roll (250)

  • 350 calories

Total for the day: 1680 calories (limit 1800)

It was a big meal.  At least, it is big as I am thinking about it now.  According to the calorie counters you find online, someone like me was eating over 3500 calories per day to gain weight.  Having gotten used to less food per meal, usually 500-700 calories, this meal was big.  And I felt pretty full afterwards.  My standard for one of my 500-700 calorie meals is that it’s just enough to satisfy me until the next meal.  Today, there was no next meal.  So it messes with my system.  Frankly, it messes with my head a little. 

Having done this a few times now (having one big meal for the day), I am finding that I prefer three smaller meals to one large one.  Eating one big meal that makes me feel full is starting to feel distasteful, isn’t that strange?  If I had eaten more carefully portioned lunch and dinner, the total calories would have been the same, but I would feel better about it.  More in control.  And that is my aim – to be fully in control of my food intake. 

On the good side, it is wonderful to be on a diet where I am so happy about what I am eating.  Who knew diet food could be wonderful?  I satisfied many parts of myself during this meal: physical, mental, and spiritual.   

Happy Easter!

-The Doctor

20190420 Saturday weigh-in

Hello, everyone.  I weigh myself once per week – on Saturday mornings – and keep track of the results.  It’s part of my program to be in control of my weight.  I have committed to a lifetime of keeping up two patterns I have observed in people who are in control of their bodies.  Thin people (1) monitor their weight frequently and (2) control their food intake carefully.  To monitor my weight once per week is the culmination of a week of careful control of my eating.  I have been weighing myself since January 1, 2019, when I was 325 pounds.  Last Saturday, I was 282.4 pounds.  How did I do this week?

Not as well.  In fact, I weighed 286.4 pounds at noon today.  That’s backsliding a little. You may be wondering, where is the customary picture I take standing on the scale?  There isn’t going to be one.  As Mark Twain said, in the battle-galleries of Versailles there are no paintings of French defeats, only victories.  I am the same.  I will admit the truth of what I weigh, but I only take pictures of the victories. 

So what happened this week?   Did I really gain 4 pounds??  My records of food intake for the week show that I was in calorie deficit and didn’t exceed an average of 1900 calories per day.  Per the USDA, a man my age needs 2500 calories per day to maintain his weight (there is lots of arguing about the exact number, I suppose it depends on the person).  My food intake was not steady – some meals were skipped, some meals were large, and my stomach seemed a beat or two behind.  I had some kind of stomach upset or illness all week.  It’s tempting to say that my gain was due to illness, and possible fluid retention.  Using that theory I don’t really know what my weight is this week.  The last time I had the flu (February) I didn’t bother weighing myself until I was better, so I don’t know what to expect. 

I noticed that I was falling into old patterns this week, too.  (Saturday is the day I reflect on my week and try to notice and figure out any problems.)  I noticed I was eating too quickly, not paying attention when I was eating, and sometimes letting myself get too hungry and desperate.  It didn’t feel in control.  When I put myself in control, it produces certain feelings, and a sense of satisfaction.  The satisfaction comes from working with different parts of my being aligned in a common purpose.  That produces a strong sense of meaning and adds a richness to the experience.  As I’ve tried to make clear from my pictures and descriptions, being on this diet is a wonderful experience.  I don’t spend any willpower starving myself.  I eat all the foods I like.  There is a trade-off, but I am willing to make it.  The trade is that it takes a lot of time and attention to make this work.  That takes some willpower.  Paying attention is hard.  

Making that trade is hard: you have to decide that you value your appearance and control of your body higher than almost anything else.  It becomes a hobby that you devote a lot of time to.  How much time?   At least an hour a day.  Is it worth it?  Oh, yes.

-The Doctor

20190419 Daily report

It’s amazing that food can have calorie content and emotional content.  Today was my exercise day, and I needed it.  I came home and made Ukrainian pierogi (pronounced like the Polish version, but the last “g” is more like an “h” sound).  I made them for Easter, even though I am reading they are not traditional at Easter.  Anyway, working with some friends I made about six dozen potato and cheese dumplings, with butter, caramelized onions and sour cream. 

No, I didn't eat the whole bowl!

One bite and I was back in my childhood, in my Babcha’s kitchen, with the clock ticking, “helping” her make them.  It was difficult to approach this nostalgia food with my new mindset – eat them slowly, enjoy, not to eat too many.  I wasn’t totally successful.  To be fair, there were six people at the table and 36 pierogi disappeared between us.  I had 6.  Or maybe 7.  It was hard to stop but I was totally, totally full.  I have no idea if I have adjusted to smaller portion sizes, or ate way too many.  But I was full.  I am still full 4 hours later.  It’s hard to believe I will be hungry in the morning, but the calorie count doesn’t lie (much).  I did not break my food intake regimen.  

My daily food intake and calorie count are:

Breakfast – Paska bread and butter (300)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – 2 x bratwurst wraps (300); 2 x Reese’s peanut butter cups (80)

  • 760 calories

Dinner – Appetizers (100), 6 x pierogi (80 ea. + sour cream and butter 100 each), cake (100).

  • 900 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (160), 2 x Jaffa cookies (50)

  • 260 calories

Total for the day: 2220 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Swimming went much better today.  My lap times were almost back to normal.  I think whatever illness I had is going away.  

I checked my food journal for this year.  I have been sick one other time since starting to control my weight.  That was in February.  I don’t know what happened, because I didn’t weight myself that week.  Now I have more confidence in myself and in this weight loss program.  I will get on the scale and record the weight.  Even if the result is a higher number than I want, I am going to take it easy.  I will not punish myself, I will listen and try to get back on track for next week.  I don’t think I have over eaten (much), but I suspect being sick affects my weight.  See, I have an excuse all ready!  

Obviously, I am a little worried about this week and my dieting progress.  But I have other things to think about this weekend, and I am confident that the underlying weight loss program works.  The keys of my program are (1) monitor my weight and (2) control my food intake.  I control my food intake by paying attention to what I am craving and making sure I get hungry for it.  Because living this way is a high quality experience, I really enjoy it and try to make it work.  It is a rewarding way to live.  It’s so rewarding, that feeling full is alarming!  Feeling full used to feel sooooo good. Not now.  Now it is a relic of the past.  Time to let go of the past.

-The Doctor

20190418 Daily report

Today I am making bread for Easter.  It’s a delicious tradition.  This is Ukrainian Paska (Easter) bread that I made last year.  The round one is for the holiday, and the loaf pan breads are for enjoying any old time.  This is wonderful bread.  Sliced and served warm with butter is my preferred method.  The recipe has 6 eggs, a stick of butter, and 1/2C sugar, so you see it is no ordinary sandwich bread.

Maybe my baking will turn out even better this year!

I am slowly recovering from a stomach bug that started affecting me Monday morning.  Today I feel tired.  Last night around 10PM, my appetite returned, so I had a sandwich and some ice cream.  This counted against some of the calories I was missing Tuesday and Wednesday due to lack of appetite.  When I got up, I was also really, really hungry.  So while I was buying horseradish for Easter I also bought some breaded chicken in barbecue sauce from the grocery.  For some reason, I ate them all, though it was more than my usual portion.  For a little while I was feeling my old “want to be completely full” mindset.  That was as bit worrying.

My daily food intake log and calorie count:

Breakfast – Breaded barbecue chicken (800)

  • 800 calories

Lunch – skipped (0)

  • 0 calories

Dinner – 2x chicken, tomato and hummus wraps (200).

  • 400 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); peanut butter cups (160)

  • 240 calories

Total for the day: 1440 calories (limit 1800)

NOTE also that late last night my appetite came back very suddenly.  I had ice cream (400) and a ham sandwich (300).  That affects my weekly total of calories, which I keep track of too.  (More on that Saturday when I weigh-in.)  Anyway, since the total was 900 calories short on Tuesday, I am still on track.  

Back to my feelings from this morning.  After I had eaten all the chicken, I was a little worried.  I was feeling more full than usual, because it was a bigger meal than usual.  I was starting to feel disgusted with myself.  However, after carefully checking my feelings, I decided that I had just waited too long to eat breakfast and was having a reaction to food insecurity.  (Look at this post, section #4 or search for insecurity on the page.)  I usually pay a lot of attention to being hungry since that is part of the bargain I have made with myself for my new lifestyle.  The bargain goes: I will sacrifice the feeling of being totally full, so long as I don’t have to go hungry for more than a few minutes at mealtime.  The food also has to be worth waiting for.  

In this case, I let myself go hungry.  I really, really have to get into the habit of carrying a snack with me.  Really.  I will destroy my morale and go into a panic food insecurity reaction if I don’t.  That seems clear.  I am learning so much about my body in this new lifestyle.  It’s all about paying attention and being willing to learn and listen.  

The temptation is to punish yourself after overeating, by withholding food.  I didn’t do that.  I just waited until I was actually hungry, which took until 4PM.  After dinner and some chocolate and tea, I really wasn’t hungry any more.  So I didn’t force it.  Tomorrow is a new day and I hope things will return to normal.  

This week is going to be rough on my weight loss program.  Due to my illness, my body is not behaving normally.  I have my record of what I have been eating, but who knows what kind of fluids I am retaining due to illness.  Looking ahead to Satuday, I am not going to let myself get emotional about my weigh-in this week.  This is something I haven’t thought about much while I have been losing weight.  Well, I have resolved to listen to myself.  I don’t want the pressure of losing weight on top of feeling ill.  If this Saturday my weighing will be unreliable, it will get better the week after.  We shall see!

-The Doctor

20190417 Daily report

Today didn’t go according to plan.  I woke up and wasn’t hungry.  That’s unusual, especially given my calorie deficit yesterday.  Then at lunchtime, I went out and ordered a cheese steak sub.  That sounded good.  But when it arrived it was all disappointing.  That was bad for my motivation.  In my new lifestyle, I sacrificed a future where I found fulfillment in being full; and traded it for a better future, where I get fulfillment from the quality of the experience.  I want the food I am really craving, in other words.  I didn’t get that.  So it was very sad, a letdown.  When I got home I had to make it up to myself using ice cream and chocolate. 

Only 120 calories, and fun to eat!

My daily food intake and calorie count:

Breakfast – Bratwurst wrap (300)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – Steak and cheese sandwich (500)

  • 500 calories

Dinner – Beef stroganoff (400) and noodles (200).

  • 600 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chocolate (160), Nestle Li’l Drum chocolate cone (120)

  • 360 calories

Total for the day: 1760 calories (limit 1800)

So, you might ask, my solution to a disappointing meal is to binge?  Isn’t that bad for the diet and the lifestyle? 

As it happens, binge is a strong word.  I had 160 calories of chocolate and 120 calories of ice cream cone.  That kept me on target and true to my aim.  And it took away my disappointment.  Now, this probably isn’t the best solution.  Those 500 calories of disappointing sandwich were eaten and I couldn’t get them back.  Eating chocolate does add more calories to my total.  A better answer might have been to not eat the cheesesteak sandwich I found disappointing, and then eat a better meal later on.  But I wasn’t prepared, I was hungry, and didn’t bring a snack to tide me over.  (The cheesesteak wasn’t bad, just not very good.)  Maybe always having a snack with me is a good idea.  Little packets of beef jerky would do, I like jerky and it keeps well at room temperature. 

My old values included not wasting food.  I have tried changing that in my new lifestyle by making that imperative less important, and also by changing the definition of waste.  Now food can be a waste by not being worthwhile.  It should be thrown away.  I don’t want it in my body.  Maybe that sounds bad – throwing away food because it isn’t fulfilling enough.  But I have a serious problem I am trying to get out of – how do I get in control of my eating?  It’s a case of waste or waist.  And my new values say, waist comes first. 

Anyway, it’s time to get ready for Easter!  I have a lot of food fun planned for this weekend.  This will be a great time for dieting and celebrating rebirth.  And my birthday is coming soon, too. 

-The Doctor

20190416 Daily report

Today was a swimming day.  I like some exercise, especially swimming.  I go twice a week and take some time in the hot tub afterwards.  This routine was part of my life well before I started taking control of my food intake and weighing myself weekly.  It’s safe to say that swimming doesn’t make me any thinner.  I don’t depend on it to, either.  But swimming is one of my favorite ways to exercise, and always has been.

My daily food intake and calorie count are:

Breakfast – skipped (0); still didn’t feel well

  • 0 calories

Lunch – pizza slice (100); 2 x medium carnitas wraps (300); chocolate (150); Li’l Drum ice cream (110).

  • 650 calories

Dinner – 4 x small carnitas wraps (500).

  • 500 calories

Snacking – tea with half and half (80), grapes (60), banana (110)

  • 250 calories

Total for the day: 1400 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)

Note that I wasn’t trying to diet extra hard today.  (That’s counterproductive in my book, forcing myself to starve. ) I just wasn’t very hungry.  This might be due to my large lunch yesterday but is probably mostly because I have a little stomach upset since I woke up yesterday.  Exercising today was a little difficult – I got winded quickly and didn’t keep up with my regular lap times as I got late into the routine.  It seems like I was a little ill.  Hopefully that goes away soon!  Maybe I will still eat those 500 missing calories on another day if I get really hungry. 

Back to exercise.  Presumably there are people who can make themselves lose weight by exercise alone, but I am not one of them.  Props to them, but I think my situation is more common.  There are also a lot of people who have lost weight just by changing their food intake and no exercise at all.  Luckily for them, that works – so long as you make the changes to your lifestyle and to your values, and not just for temporary.  That way you have a great chance to make the weight stay off.

If I hated exercise, it would be harder for me to maintain my new life.  I might resent forcing myself to go and exercise on top of persuading myself to stay within my food intake limits.  That’s why I don’t recommend that someone starting a diet add any new exercise to their routine.  There’s plenty of time to exercise once you have lost weight, are secure in your new lifestyle, and are living a fulfilling life where you trust yourself and your mind and body are working together. 

I do believe that exercise moves my weight around, hopefully from my fat areas to my muscles.  I won’t know for sure until I am a bit thinner!  I may have lost 43 pounds since I started in January, but I still have 77 to go.  That distorts the body a bit.  But the important point is that I am using my exercise to help regulate my food intake.  I like to swim, so I don’t have to persuade myself to do it.  Instead, I take the calories that I burned and use them to keep myself happy with my diet.  I’m always extra hungry on exercise day, and for good reason.  The calculation goes: I burned 600 calories exercising, so I will allow myself 500 extra.  It’s win-win.  I get to swim.  I get extra calories to play with, and I get extra hungry, which increases my enjoyment of my food.   Last, I go into deficit another 100 calories as a bonus.  (600 burned minus 500 eaten = 100.)   So this is a great compromise that is working for me.

-The Doctor

20190415 Daily report

Today was a day to deliver on a promise I made to myself on March 30, 2019.  On that day, I weighed myself and was less than 290 pounds (starting at 325 pounds on January 1, 2019).  What was this promise and why did I make it?  The promise was that I would reward myself for making my new lifestyle work.  It’s all about meaning and reward.  I rewarded myself with a really big lunch and I have been looking forward to it for weeks!

It was a pleasure to keep this promise.

Are you asking yourself, can he lose any weight eating that?!?  Actually, yes I can.  This is a reward, not an everyday meal.  And will lose weight this week.  I have made the calories fit. 

My daily food intake and calorie count:

Breakfast – Bratwurst wrap (300)

  • 300 calories

Lunch – Indian buffet (1500).  This is more or less an estimate, but it’s a reasonable guess.  A fair amount was vegatables, but in rich sauces.  I’m not going to beat myself up over a reward.

  • 1500 calories

Dinner – Not hungry.

  • 0 calories

Snacking – not hungry (0)

  • 0 calories

Total for the day: 1800 calories (limit 1800)

As I was developing my new food lifestyle, I learned that one way to find meaning in your life was to get different layers of yourself, of your being, aligned and working together.  Body and mind (and soul, if you can manage that).  If you’re just sitting there, forcing yourself to eat a lettuce-only diet to reach your goal weight, it’s a pretty terrible existence.  I decided that was why dieting didn’t work for me – diets depended on pure willpower, on forcing myself to do things I didn’t want and didn’t find rewarding or meaningful.  Even if I succeeded in losing some weight by force of will, I had no plan to live any differently after the diet ended.  My old life would be there waiting for me, and the old body would come back.  There is no way that I would lose 120 pounds and then have it come back.  It’s more than I could stand, I would really hate myself.  I needed a new way.

I invented a new way of being.  Along with that came a new system of values.  In that hierarchy of things I value, having my body under control was at the top of what I was aiming for in life.  How do you get your weight under control?  Do what thin people do.  Make a lifetime commitment to (1) monitor your weight and (2) regulate your food intake.  If I was successful, I would get my weight under control and keep it where I wanted it.  I decided this should be a joyful way of living.  Force would not be used.  I should be able to find meaning in the journey and the journey should not end with a goal weight.  This is my lifetime goal.  It should be rewarding!

For now, I reward myself for keeping it together, keeping my new values at the top (where they should be).  I reward myself for making this new lifestyle work.  The rewards reinforce my weight loss and are not counterproductive.  I make the promises to myself and then I keep them, so that I trust myself and have an incentive to keep the different parts of myself together willingly. 

-The Doctor

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