I'm still trying to find a way to record my food intake in a way that's convenient for me so I'll do it. I've started a spreadsheet, so maybe that will work. We'll see.
The holidays are coming up, and I'm hoping to be able to hold the line, but I wonder if I will succeed . . .
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
More of the Same
Not much has changed, especially my weight. But that's not a bad thing; at least I'm not going up. I have to keep working at exercise and curbing my eating. It's simple, right? But not easy!
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Physiology
Okay, it's becoming obvious that Shirley left some things out of her diet book, mostly having to do with addiction. I think Shirley didn't want to discuss addiction because that implies a lack of control, and she is all about control. Maybe she even went to a meeting or two of Overeaters Anonymous and found it wasn't for her. It's a shame, really, that OA is all we have for help with eating addictions because 12-step plans can seem a bit too pushy for some people. (I'm one of them.)
But as I've said before in this blog, organizations and programs that don't acknowledge addiction as the root cause of compulsive overeating are not going to be successful ultimately--at least not for the sufferer. (The programs are always going to be successful, whether they work or not, because what they are offering, really, is hope.)
Shirley's program at least hints at compulsion and the necessity to change the way we think about food. She was right in her theories about "subterfuges of fat," but I think she overestimated an addict's ability to go back to eating highly fat- and sugar- concentrated foods in a controlled manner. She used the term "levels of coping" to describe the fat person's ability to eat certain foods responsibly, and did acknowledge that some foods would never move beyond Coping Level VII, the "out of sight, out of mind" level where you can't even be around the stimulus food without scarfing it down. But she seemed to see that response as a rare occurrence and believed that most people would be able to move beyond Level VII for foods that they especially like. I'm not so sure she was right about that.
OA asks members to come up with a list of what they call "trigger" foods that (as alcohol does for alcoholics) trigger a conditioned response of indulging until you fall over and pass out from fat and sugar poisoning. But I think it's more than that one episode of overindulgence that is the danger. As with alcoholism or any other compulsion, once you give in, it's hard to stop. Like the wolf lurking outside a little cabin in the woods, the compulsion is there to pounce on you when you open the door to indulgence just a little crack.
I had a reminder of that the other day when I ate some chocolate for the first time in a while. I felt a little burning sensation (from the acid, no doubt) in my mouth, but also, immediately, somewhere else in my body, somewhere in my heart area--maybe it was in my blood that I felt it? I can't pinpoint its exact location but it was amazing how that first taste focused all my attention on what I was eating. Once the candy was consumed, I did not stop thinking about it and continued to go back to the source, eating more pieces until the desire stopped, long after I should have stopped eating and would have stopped had I not been addicted.
This is the problem with an eating addict's trying to consume reasonable amounts of food. For us, some foods prompt the cascade of sensations that give rise to the barely controllable urge to eat more and more until it's all gone or satiation is reached. Unfortunately, satiation isn't reached quickly--not at all. Shirley Simon talks about habit, about behavior and stimulus-response, but she doesn't talk about the physiology of the phenomenon. There is a physical sensation that certain foods set off, and it must be acknowledged and dealt with in order to succeed at controlling compulsive eating.
Some eating addicts would say that they don't have a binge problem. Okay, but they might have a nibbling problem (a little of this and a little of that adds up), or a hearty appetite problem (having the hamburger, the hot dog, the cole slaw, the potato chips, the baked beans, the pasta salad, the guacamole, the dip, the fruit, the veggies and then the brownies, the pie, the ice cream and the jello for dessert). You're habituated, you turn off your mind, you give yourself excuses, but you also physically crave that fat and sugar.
How to fix it, though? Ah, there's the rub, isn't it? I'm going to have to think more about that and get back to you.
But as I've said before in this blog, organizations and programs that don't acknowledge addiction as the root cause of compulsive overeating are not going to be successful ultimately--at least not for the sufferer. (The programs are always going to be successful, whether they work or not, because what they are offering, really, is hope.)
Shirley's program at least hints at compulsion and the necessity to change the way we think about food. She was right in her theories about "subterfuges of fat," but I think she overestimated an addict's ability to go back to eating highly fat- and sugar- concentrated foods in a controlled manner. She used the term "levels of coping" to describe the fat person's ability to eat certain foods responsibly, and did acknowledge that some foods would never move beyond Coping Level VII, the "out of sight, out of mind" level where you can't even be around the stimulus food without scarfing it down. But she seemed to see that response as a rare occurrence and believed that most people would be able to move beyond Level VII for foods that they especially like. I'm not so sure she was right about that.
OA asks members to come up with a list of what they call "trigger" foods that (as alcohol does for alcoholics) trigger a conditioned response of indulging until you fall over and pass out from fat and sugar poisoning. But I think it's more than that one episode of overindulgence that is the danger. As with alcoholism or any other compulsion, once you give in, it's hard to stop. Like the wolf lurking outside a little cabin in the woods, the compulsion is there to pounce on you when you open the door to indulgence just a little crack.
I had a reminder of that the other day when I ate some chocolate for the first time in a while. I felt a little burning sensation (from the acid, no doubt) in my mouth, but also, immediately, somewhere else in my body, somewhere in my heart area--maybe it was in my blood that I felt it? I can't pinpoint its exact location but it was amazing how that first taste focused all my attention on what I was eating. Once the candy was consumed, I did not stop thinking about it and continued to go back to the source, eating more pieces until the desire stopped, long after I should have stopped eating and would have stopped had I not been addicted.
This is the problem with an eating addict's trying to consume reasonable amounts of food. For us, some foods prompt the cascade of sensations that give rise to the barely controllable urge to eat more and more until it's all gone or satiation is reached. Unfortunately, satiation isn't reached quickly--not at all. Shirley Simon talks about habit, about behavior and stimulus-response, but she doesn't talk about the physiology of the phenomenon. There is a physical sensation that certain foods set off, and it must be acknowledged and dealt with in order to succeed at controlling compulsive eating.
Some eating addicts would say that they don't have a binge problem. Okay, but they might have a nibbling problem (a little of this and a little of that adds up), or a hearty appetite problem (having the hamburger, the hot dog, the cole slaw, the potato chips, the baked beans, the pasta salad, the guacamole, the dip, the fruit, the veggies and then the brownies, the pie, the ice cream and the jello for dessert). You're habituated, you turn off your mind, you give yourself excuses, but you also physically crave that fat and sugar.
How to fix it, though? Ah, there's the rub, isn't it? I'm going to have to think more about that and get back to you.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Cravings . . .
I had a bad day yesterday--eating everything I'm not supposed to. It's the cravings. They present themselves as hunger, but they're not hunger and I don't have a good response when they sweep over me. I might just have to gut it out. More later.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Heading Off Heading Up
Well, I'm still struggling, still hovering around 155, still fearful of heading back up. Today I weighed 157--not bad, but not good either.
What to do? Well, keep working at it. I had my usual breakfast this morning, which is a good start. Now, to just stick to the plan today.
Maybe I'll try the cloud again . . . Anyway, there's not much to say other than the usual lament of its not being easy and never will be easy, not the rest of my life.
Like any addiction, it digs in and won't let go. There's no way to get it out of my system; I just have to find a way to live with it.
Maybe I can try daily blogging? Is that a possibility?
My food today so far: 1/3 c oatmeal, 1 c. milk, 1 T walnuts, 2 T raisins, cinnamon, sweetner, 1 muffin, 1 t jelly, coffee. Totals: 1 bread, 2 meats, 1 milk, 2 fats, 1 fruit, 13 extra.
This is the hard part, folks. I know those of you who've been there know what I mean. Even if I were at goal weight, I'd be struggling. That's the path I've chosen, and I believe it's the right one, despite my not being entirely happy with its results.
See you next time.
What to do? Well, keep working at it. I had my usual breakfast this morning, which is a good start. Now, to just stick to the plan today.
Maybe I'll try the cloud again . . . Anyway, there's not much to say other than the usual lament of its not being easy and never will be easy, not the rest of my life.
Like any addiction, it digs in and won't let go. There's no way to get it out of my system; I just have to find a way to live with it.
Maybe I can try daily blogging? Is that a possibility?
My food today so far: 1/3 c oatmeal, 1 c. milk, 1 T walnuts, 2 T raisins, cinnamon, sweetner, 1 muffin, 1 t jelly, coffee. Totals: 1 bread, 2 meats, 1 milk, 2 fats, 1 fruit, 13 extra.
This is the hard part, folks. I know those of you who've been there know what I mean. Even if I were at goal weight, I'd be struggling. That's the path I've chosen, and I believe it's the right one, despite my not being entirely happy with its results.
See you next time.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Heading for Broadway
The best laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry, saith the poet Robert Burns, and I'm afraid it's all too true, as I have learned again this past month.
I'm still stuck at 155, which wouldn't be so bad if I weren't looking at climbing back up to my former weight. All my old habits are creeping back, and I'm eating more than I should, a troubling development, especially since I'm not exercising more.
(Also, the online recording has not worked very well--too cumbersome on the cloud.)
One of the criticisms I have of plans like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem is their insistence that food-addicted people can eat whatever foods they like, as long as they eat small quantities.
Well, duh! That's the problem!! If food addicts could eat small quantities of chocolate or ice cream or donuts or pie, don't you think they would? The people who hawk these plans know it, too. They want fat people to join the club, buy the expensive food, lose the weight, go back to overeating, gain it back, drop out of the club, and then a few months after they gain back even more weight than they originally lost, get back again on the plan. It's all good for Weight Watchers and company. They get paid no matter what.
So, is it possible to eat small quantities of food I like? I don't know. Shirley Simon believed it was possible and proved it by eating a small piece of her favorite treat, cherry pie, and throwing the rest away. Impressive, no? Of course. But then again, I can't find out what's happened to Shirley since her book came out in the seventies; maybe she's gone back to being fat. Maybe her addictions got the better of her.
If so, I can relate. I'm at the place where I've lost the war in the past. This is one of those forks in the road (apt metaphor, no?) where every dieter must make a choice: continue on the road less traveled, the path of eating righteousness, or shift back to the highway to heft--the broad way, as it were.
But having chosen the narrow path, how to stick to it? That's the question. I don't have the answer at the moment, but it's the crux of the problem for everyone who struggles with his or her weight. Solving this mystery is the key to conquering obesity, and I'm going to keep working on it.
What can I do today? Well, today I'm just going emulate the friends of Bill W. and try to make one small decision at a time. The first one: what to do with the two cookies I have left over from the DAR meeting? My choices: 1) buy ice cream to eat them with; 2) eat them with milk or coffee for breakfast; 3) save them to eat after dinner with yogurt; 4) take them to work and give them to skinny coworkers; 5) throw them away.
I must confess I don't like any of these choices. I've already eaten enough of them and want to stop, really. Taking them to work is the least objectionable, because it doesn't involve throwing them away, although it feels like I'm dumping them on my coworkers, who might not like them and might fear telling me that. Plus there are only two of them. Not enough to make me seem generous. Hmmmm . . .
There is a sixth choice: save them for practicing the Thin Gourmet technique. This is not a bad option, I guess, although I suspect I might be fooling myself into making cookie eating seem virtuous by calling it practice. I do need to practice that technique, however, since I haven't been very successful so far with eating slowly and contemplatively. But then again, I could practice on celery, couldn't I? I'll consider this option, though.
And I'll carry on, despite recent setbacks, and report on my progress here (although a little more frequently this time). See you later!
One of the criticisms I have of plans like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem is their insistence that food-addicted people can eat whatever foods they like, as long as they eat small quantities.
Well, duh! That's the problem!! If food addicts could eat small quantities of chocolate or ice cream or donuts or pie, don't you think they would? The people who hawk these plans know it, too. They want fat people to join the club, buy the expensive food, lose the weight, go back to overeating, gain it back, drop out of the club, and then a few months after they gain back even more weight than they originally lost, get back again on the plan. It's all good for Weight Watchers and company. They get paid no matter what.
So, is it possible to eat small quantities of food I like? I don't know. Shirley Simon believed it was possible and proved it by eating a small piece of her favorite treat, cherry pie, and throwing the rest away. Impressive, no? Of course. But then again, I can't find out what's happened to Shirley since her book came out in the seventies; maybe she's gone back to being fat. Maybe her addictions got the better of her.
If so, I can relate. I'm at the place where I've lost the war in the past. This is one of those forks in the road (apt metaphor, no?) where every dieter must make a choice: continue on the road less traveled, the path of eating righteousness, or shift back to the highway to heft--the broad way, as it were.
But having chosen the narrow path, how to stick to it? That's the question. I don't have the answer at the moment, but it's the crux of the problem for everyone who struggles with his or her weight. Solving this mystery is the key to conquering obesity, and I'm going to keep working on it.
What can I do today? Well, today I'm just going emulate the friends of Bill W. and try to make one small decision at a time. The first one: what to do with the two cookies I have left over from the DAR meeting? My choices: 1) buy ice cream to eat them with; 2) eat them with milk or coffee for breakfast; 3) save them to eat after dinner with yogurt; 4) take them to work and give them to skinny coworkers; 5) throw them away.
I must confess I don't like any of these choices. I've already eaten enough of them and want to stop, really. Taking them to work is the least objectionable, because it doesn't involve throwing them away, although it feels like I'm dumping them on my coworkers, who might not like them and might fear telling me that. Plus there are only two of them. Not enough to make me seem generous. Hmmmm . . .
There is a sixth choice: save them for practicing the Thin Gourmet technique. This is not a bad option, I guess, although I suspect I might be fooling myself into making cookie eating seem virtuous by calling it practice. I do need to practice that technique, however, since I haven't been very successful so far with eating slowly and contemplatively. But then again, I could practice on celery, couldn't I? I'll consider this option, though.
And I'll carry on, despite recent setbacks, and report on my progress here (although a little more frequently this time). See you later!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
New Strategy for Tracking Consumption
I haven't posted for two weeks, but I'm continuing to work at solving the equilibrium problem. I'm still getting hungry every time I try to cut back on food, and I'm still not exercising enough. Is there any wonder I'm staying put at 155 pounds?
I've been experiencing cravings for junk food quite often. I suppose that's a result of dabbling in treats every now and then. Such indulgences trigger cravings that then have to be ignored for several days until they subside. Alas!
It's a daily struggle, but I'm sticking with it. I'd like to record my eating somewhere on the web, so that I am reinforced by posting it, but I'm not sure where to do it. Facebook would seem to be the logical place, but I don't want to go that public with it. Maybe I can post it to the Cloud and then post a link to that site. Hmmmm . . . I'll have to look into that possibility. Meet you back here in a while . . .
Okay, I looked into it, and decided I needed to create a spreadsheet that contains my food diary, then make it available here on this blog. So I've set up a link to Google Docs that opens my food diary spreadsheet. Check it out--top of the left hand column.
Maybe it will help to post my food there each day. And I can get to it from the internet any time I want to, so I can do it at work, too.
It might be a good strategy, especially since I enjoy fiddling with spreadsheets. I'm rewarding myself in that way for tracking my consumption. We'll see whether it works.
I'll keep you posted, as ever, on my results. Chow! (er, I mean, Ciao!)
I've been experiencing cravings for junk food quite often. I suppose that's a result of dabbling in treats every now and then. Such indulgences trigger cravings that then have to be ignored for several days until they subside. Alas!
It's a daily struggle, but I'm sticking with it. I'd like to record my eating somewhere on the web, so that I am reinforced by posting it, but I'm not sure where to do it. Facebook would seem to be the logical place, but I don't want to go that public with it. Maybe I can post it to the Cloud and then post a link to that site. Hmmmm . . . I'll have to look into that possibility. Meet you back here in a while . . .
Okay, I looked into it, and decided I needed to create a spreadsheet that contains my food diary, then make it available here on this blog. So I've set up a link to Google Docs that opens my food diary spreadsheet. Check it out--top of the left hand column.
Maybe it will help to post my food there each day. And I can get to it from the internet any time I want to, so I can do it at work, too.
It might be a good strategy, especially since I enjoy fiddling with spreadsheets. I'm rewarding myself in that way for tracking my consumption. We'll see whether it works.
I'll keep you posted, as ever, on my results. Chow! (er, I mean, Ciao!)
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Last-20-Pounds Campaign Continues
Okay, it's two weeks later and things are getting better. I'm no longer indulging in all the foods I crave. Following the "brownie incident" there was a withdrawal period, of course, as there always is with addictive substances. But I'm pretty much back on track again, although I'm still sitting at a balance point with my weight.
What to do? It seems that every time I try to reduce caloric intake, I get hungry. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not. I guess I could try to just live with it for a short amount of time. Or I could try eating a small amount of something. That strategy doesn't usually work for too long, though. Maybe I need to eat more protein. I should try eating a more highly protein snack at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I'll look into that. I've noticed that eating three slices of lunch meat instead of two helps me get through the afternoon better, so maybe eating cottage cheese instead of peanut butter would work better at mid-morning.
For me, being hungry is frightening because when my blood sugar drops, I get cranky and light headed and even weak. Maybe I don't have to react quite so quickly, though. It's possible that I'm just panicking because I'm afraid I'll have a blood sugar attack, not because I'm having one at that moment.
I have noticed that if I'm busy at work, I forget to eat my snack sometimes, which means that my blood sugar is probably okay.
Another sticking point I have is eating too fast. I'm still doing that, but I do try to slow down. It's not easy, though, as most people will tell you. I'm afraid my food's going to get cold and won't be palatable. That's a silly reason, really, when you think about it. If I'm eating it fast I'm not tasting it anyway, so how can its getting cold matter that much? I can always warm the food up if it gets cold, anyway, and I frequently do. So, no excuses for eating fast. How to slow down?
Years ago I tried an experiment of eating two cookies in 20 minutes. That was an interesting and surprisingly difficult exercise assigned by Shirley Simon to train people on the "Thin Gourmet" technique she espouses. I haven't done that this time, but I really should try it again and work at it so that I can get used to eating that way. Maybe I'll do it today.
Today I'm going to a party and I'm hoping I'll be able to resist eating all the wonderful food there will be available there. I don't think I will, but maybe I'll be able to eat it slowly and concentrate on conversing instead of eating. Have you ever noticed how slim people don't pay much attention to the food on their plate when they're at a party? Not fat people. They are constantly shoveling food into their mouths at a party, talking about the food to everyone who will listen. "Have some of these brownies," they say, "They're great!" Or "Who made this lasagna? It's wonderful!" Not thin people. They might comment on the food when asked, but usually they're pretty much ignoring the food. They're conversing about other matters more important or entertaining than food.
I always go back to alcohol comparisons. At parties, alcohol addicts are always seen with a drink in their hand, always looking for another one, and trying to get everyone else to indulge. Same as food addicts.
There's a good exercise for me today. Instead of focusing on the food I'm eating (or not eating), I can pay attention to what the fatties and the skinnies are doing, conduct an informal study, write up the results. Hmmmmm. I like this idea. It will give me something to do at the party in addition to socializing. We'll see. Maybe a miracle will happen and I'll actually forget about the food because I'm having such a good time talking!
Stay tuned for the results . . .
What to do? It seems that every time I try to reduce caloric intake, I get hungry. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not. I guess I could try to just live with it for a short amount of time. Or I could try eating a small amount of something. That strategy doesn't usually work for too long, though. Maybe I need to eat more protein. I should try eating a more highly protein snack at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I'll look into that. I've noticed that eating three slices of lunch meat instead of two helps me get through the afternoon better, so maybe eating cottage cheese instead of peanut butter would work better at mid-morning.
For me, being hungry is frightening because when my blood sugar drops, I get cranky and light headed and even weak. Maybe I don't have to react quite so quickly, though. It's possible that I'm just panicking because I'm afraid I'll have a blood sugar attack, not because I'm having one at that moment.
I have noticed that if I'm busy at work, I forget to eat my snack sometimes, which means that my blood sugar is probably okay.
Another sticking point I have is eating too fast. I'm still doing that, but I do try to slow down. It's not easy, though, as most people will tell you. I'm afraid my food's going to get cold and won't be palatable. That's a silly reason, really, when you think about it. If I'm eating it fast I'm not tasting it anyway, so how can its getting cold matter that much? I can always warm the food up if it gets cold, anyway, and I frequently do. So, no excuses for eating fast. How to slow down?
Years ago I tried an experiment of eating two cookies in 20 minutes. That was an interesting and surprisingly difficult exercise assigned by Shirley Simon to train people on the "Thin Gourmet" technique she espouses. I haven't done that this time, but I really should try it again and work at it so that I can get used to eating that way. Maybe I'll do it today.
Today I'm going to a party and I'm hoping I'll be able to resist eating all the wonderful food there will be available there. I don't think I will, but maybe I'll be able to eat it slowly and concentrate on conversing instead of eating. Have you ever noticed how slim people don't pay much attention to the food on their plate when they're at a party? Not fat people. They are constantly shoveling food into their mouths at a party, talking about the food to everyone who will listen. "Have some of these brownies," they say, "They're great!" Or "Who made this lasagna? It's wonderful!" Not thin people. They might comment on the food when asked, but usually they're pretty much ignoring the food. They're conversing about other matters more important or entertaining than food.
I always go back to alcohol comparisons. At parties, alcohol addicts are always seen with a drink in their hand, always looking for another one, and trying to get everyone else to indulge. Same as food addicts.
There's a good exercise for me today. Instead of focusing on the food I'm eating (or not eating), I can pay attention to what the fatties and the skinnies are doing, conduct an informal study, write up the results. Hmmmmm. I like this idea. It will give me something to do at the party in addition to socializing. We'll see. Maybe a miracle will happen and I'll actually forget about the food because I'm having such a good time talking!
Stay tuned for the results . . .
Sunday, July 15, 2012
No More Hanging Out With the Fatty Food Gang!
Well, another three weeks have gone by and things are about the same. I didn't pare down my eating. In fact, my husband's birthday gave me a reason to drive the diet bus into the ditch and cruise around there for a while. So that ends another experiment. The results are in: I can't handle complete freedom of eating!
There's something to be said for the Overeaters Anonymous viewpoint. Compulsive eating is an addiction. I knew that, I just needed another round of convincing. I'm not sure the 12-step approach is the best, but that doesn't mean that I can't be careful of what I eat, staying away from those foods that generate whole-scale swerving, such as a half dozen frosted walnut-filled fudge brownies and a few pints of ice cream!
So I'm going to have to refrain from eating all those goodies once again and get back on track. Then I can continue to whittle away at the extra calories and pounds through less eating and more exercising. The exercising part is the more challenging, since I'm time constrained. But the calorie-whittling is also challenging, since it seems every time I try to eat less I end up being hungry and eating more! So I'm still deciding how I'm going to work this out. Maybe just doing the exercise part will work. I'm going to have to get creative about including more exercise in my day, though. We'll see what happens.
I'll record my progress here, as ever.
There's something to be said for the Overeaters Anonymous viewpoint. Compulsive eating is an addiction. I knew that, I just needed another round of convincing. I'm not sure the 12-step approach is the best, but that doesn't mean that I can't be careful of what I eat, staying away from those foods that generate whole-scale swerving, such as a half dozen frosted walnut-filled fudge brownies and a few pints of ice cream!
So I'm going to have to refrain from eating all those goodies once again and get back on track. Then I can continue to whittle away at the extra calories and pounds through less eating and more exercising. The exercising part is the more challenging, since I'm time constrained. But the calorie-whittling is also challenging, since it seems every time I try to eat less I end up being hungry and eating more! So I'm still deciding how I'm going to work this out. Maybe just doing the exercise part will work. I'm going to have to get creative about including more exercise in my day, though. We'll see what happens.
I'll record my progress here, as ever.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Week 71: Crunching the Numbers -- Again
Well, after three weeks of virtually no change in my weight, I've concluded that I must be at equilibrium--calories in equal calories out. I'm eating too much and not exercising enough, apparently, to change my weight.
I thought for a while about whether or not I wanted to stay at the weight I'm at and keep my intake and output as they are and eventually decided that I do want to be lighter. So, I had to go back to crunching numbers to determine what needs to change.
I took a look at my eating log to see what I was actually eating and determined that while I was ostensibly following the diet plan, I was really consuming more calories than I thought. On a good day, I am eating at least 1800 calories, which is about what I am using, apparently, in an average day of mostly sedentary activity.
So, what to do? Well, I have to pare down my eating. How can I do that? I looked at what I was eating and what I could give up without too much heartache. My plan at the present looks like this:
Even at 1600 calories, I need to exercise more to lose weight. A very active person, supposedly, burns 15 cal per pound of weight per day. A moderately active person, uses 14 calories, a lightly active person uses 13 calories. A sedentary person, I figure, uses 12 calories per pound per day.
I weigh 155 lbs right now. If I consider myself lightly active, that's 13 calories per pound or 2015 calories per day. If you subtract 1600 from 2015, you get 415 cal per day, or 2905 calories per week. A pound of fat = 3500 calories, so if you divide 2905 by 3500 you get .83 pounds per week. That sounds good, right? It's about what I've been losing, on average, over the course of 16 months. So then why have I stopped losing weight?
The answer must be that I'm eating more than 1600 calories a day, and exercising even less than 13 calories worth per pound per day. And indeed, as I said above, a quick estimate of my average caloric consumption equals 1800+ per day.
If I eat 1800 calories per day, and exercise at least 13 calories per pound a day, I would be eating the equivalent of a person who weighs 138 lbs (138 X 13 = 1794 cal). So, that would still net me 215 calories lost per day, times 7 is 1505 calories, or about a half pound per week.
But I'm not losing even that much, so I must be eating more than 1800 calories on average (very possible--adding in the short deviations from the straight and narrow), or I'm not even burning 13 calories per pound, or both.
Well, let's say that I'm eating an average of 100 more calories per day. That would make 1900 calories, or only 115 calories lost per day. 115 X 7 = 805 per week / 3500 = .23 pounds per week. That is less than a quarter pound, which means it takes me four weeks to lose one pound. That sounds about right. No wonder I'm not losing. That's very slow progress--too slow.
So, what to do? Well, I'm going to have to pay closer attention to how many calories I'm consuming. And I'm going to have to be sure I'm at least exercising lightly each day. I could cut down the calories, too, and try to exercise more. For now, though, I think I'll just focus on not going over the pre-arranged totals for the day. One way to do that is to write down everything I eat and also record the calories consumed. Measuring more accurately would also help, so that the calories I think I consume are actually the calories I do consume.
The meat calories are a case in point. I'm only allowed three red meat meals per week (fatty meats, that is), because those meats typically have more than 50 calories per ounce (1 meat = 1 ounce). Hard cheese falls into that category too, so there's a limit on that consumption as well (up to 5 oz). I'm supposed to eat 3 fish meals per week, but that's because fish is so nutritious. But it also helps that there are fewer calories in an ounce of fish, making up for the extra calories in the beef-type meats. If I eat more beef meals than I should, I end up consuming more calories per week. Same result if I don't measure/weigh accurately.
Fruits and vegetables are also a frequent source of excess calories. I often assume it's okay to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I want, but there really is a limit. They may be lower in calories, but they're not calorie free. I need to be aware of how much is too much.
One of the biggest factors in my calorie count is the Extras I eat every day. I'm only allowed 50 calories, so if I eat one hard candy (20), one tablespoon of ketchup (20) and two tablespoons of cereal on my yogurt (20), I'm over my total. Every day I'm doing that and more, so that's a source of excess right there.
Evidently, I have a lot of work to do. So this week I'm going to really try to stay within my plan and see if that works. I'll also try to exercise more, but for now, this is my plan.
I'll let you know how it turns out!
I thought for a while about whether or not I wanted to stay at the weight I'm at and keep my intake and output as they are and eventually decided that I do want to be lighter. So, I had to go back to crunching numbers to determine what needs to change.
I took a look at my eating log to see what I was actually eating and determined that while I was ostensibly following the diet plan, I was really consuming more calories than I thought. On a good day, I am eating at least 1800 calories, which is about what I am using, apparently, in an average day of mostly sedentary activity.
So, what to do? Well, I have to pare down my eating. How can I do that? I looked at what I was eating and what I could give up without too much heartache. My plan at the present looks like this:
- Breads: 3 X 100 cal = 300 cal
- Meats: 10 X 50 cal = 500 cal
- Milk: 2 X 100 = 200 cal
- Fats: 3 X 50 = 150 cal*
- Fruit: 4 X 50 = 200*
- Vegetables: 4 X 40 = 160*
- Starchy Veggies: 1 X 40 = 40
- Extra: 50 cal*
Even at 1600 calories, I need to exercise more to lose weight. A very active person, supposedly, burns 15 cal per pound of weight per day. A moderately active person, uses 14 calories, a lightly active person uses 13 calories. A sedentary person, I figure, uses 12 calories per pound per day.
I weigh 155 lbs right now. If I consider myself lightly active, that's 13 calories per pound or 2015 calories per day. If you subtract 1600 from 2015, you get 415 cal per day, or 2905 calories per week. A pound of fat = 3500 calories, so if you divide 2905 by 3500 you get .83 pounds per week. That sounds good, right? It's about what I've been losing, on average, over the course of 16 months. So then why have I stopped losing weight?
The answer must be that I'm eating more than 1600 calories a day, and exercising even less than 13 calories worth per pound per day. And indeed, as I said above, a quick estimate of my average caloric consumption equals 1800+ per day.
If I eat 1800 calories per day, and exercise at least 13 calories per pound a day, I would be eating the equivalent of a person who weighs 138 lbs (138 X 13 = 1794 cal). So, that would still net me 215 calories lost per day, times 7 is 1505 calories, or about a half pound per week.
But I'm not losing even that much, so I must be eating more than 1800 calories on average (very possible--adding in the short deviations from the straight and narrow), or I'm not even burning 13 calories per pound, or both.
Well, let's say that I'm eating an average of 100 more calories per day. That would make 1900 calories, or only 115 calories lost per day. 115 X 7 = 805 per week / 3500 = .23 pounds per week. That is less than a quarter pound, which means it takes me four weeks to lose one pound. That sounds about right. No wonder I'm not losing. That's very slow progress--too slow.
So, what to do? Well, I'm going to have to pay closer attention to how many calories I'm consuming. And I'm going to have to be sure I'm at least exercising lightly each day. I could cut down the calories, too, and try to exercise more. For now, though, I think I'll just focus on not going over the pre-arranged totals for the day. One way to do that is to write down everything I eat and also record the calories consumed. Measuring more accurately would also help, so that the calories I think I consume are actually the calories I do consume.
The meat calories are a case in point. I'm only allowed three red meat meals per week (fatty meats, that is), because those meats typically have more than 50 calories per ounce (1 meat = 1 ounce). Hard cheese falls into that category too, so there's a limit on that consumption as well (up to 5 oz). I'm supposed to eat 3 fish meals per week, but that's because fish is so nutritious. But it also helps that there are fewer calories in an ounce of fish, making up for the extra calories in the beef-type meats. If I eat more beef meals than I should, I end up consuming more calories per week. Same result if I don't measure/weigh accurately.
Fruits and vegetables are also a frequent source of excess calories. I often assume it's okay to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I want, but there really is a limit. They may be lower in calories, but they're not calorie free. I need to be aware of how much is too much.
One of the biggest factors in my calorie count is the Extras I eat every day. I'm only allowed 50 calories, so if I eat one hard candy (20), one tablespoon of ketchup (20) and two tablespoons of cereal on my yogurt (20), I'm over my total. Every day I'm doing that and more, so that's a source of excess right there.
Evidently, I have a lot of work to do. So this week I'm going to really try to stay within my plan and see if that works. I'll also try to exercise more, but for now, this is my plan.
I'll let you know how it turns out!
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Record Challenges
Things continue as they have been: I'm confronting diet challenges daily and making moderately successful efforts to meet them. One of the challenges I continue to have is keeping my food diary--my performance has been spotty lately on this task. So, this past week I decided to try an experiment--I would write down only those extras I eat, instead of writing down everything. I thought maybe that would substitute for the total accounting.
I'm not sure there was much of a difference, since I still had trouble remembering to record even those few items. The pared down recording certainly didn't stop me from eating those foods that were outside my diet plan, such as a cookie and a small slice of ice cream pie (both treats people in my office brought in).
So, I'm going to go back to writing everything down. I did lose some weight this week, despite those deviations. I think I'm at the point now where what I eat almost equals what I'm burning, so I have to eat less or exercise more in order to continue to lose. And, more importantly, since I'm going to have to get used to a lower caloric intake when I reach my goal weight anyway, I'd better start working on that now.
This week I also looked at a weight loss plan devised by my insurance company that does seem to have some good suggestions, especially with exercises for gaining muscle. I'm going to have to look at the plan more closely to see if I can start doing some of the exercises this week. More muscle tissue = more calories burned, so I really would help myself by doing more weight training.
The annual company picnic is coming up this Friday, so I'm going to have to stick with the diet plan every other day so as not to go completely off track.
I'll let you know how things work out next time!
I'm not sure there was much of a difference, since I still had trouble remembering to record even those few items. The pared down recording certainly didn't stop me from eating those foods that were outside my diet plan, such as a cookie and a small slice of ice cream pie (both treats people in my office brought in).
So, I'm going to go back to writing everything down. I did lose some weight this week, despite those deviations. I think I'm at the point now where what I eat almost equals what I'm burning, so I have to eat less or exercise more in order to continue to lose. And, more importantly, since I'm going to have to get used to a lower caloric intake when I reach my goal weight anyway, I'd better start working on that now.
This week I also looked at a weight loss plan devised by my insurance company that does seem to have some good suggestions, especially with exercises for gaining muscle. I'm going to have to look at the plan more closely to see if I can start doing some of the exercises this week. More muscle tissue = more calories burned, so I really would help myself by doing more weight training.
The annual company picnic is coming up this Friday, so I'm going to have to stick with the diet plan every other day so as not to go completely off track.
I'll let you know how things work out next time!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Trigger Guards Needed
Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been continuing to work the program, though not always successfully. I've been finding it hard to eat things that slim people occasionally eat--like cake, ice cream, pie, doughnuts, cookies, chips--without triggering cravings for those foods and a feeling of longing after just one.
The other day I had ice cream and cake for my birthday, but after I had eaten a rather large serving, I was feeling frightened by the desire to eat some more as soon as possible. I wanted to resist the powerful urge to finish them off, to get rid of them (by eating them, of course), as if they were radioactive. So I decided to put them into the freezer and have them at another holiday occasion, Memorial Day.
I tried to think what a slim person would do with leftover cake and ice cream. She wouldn't feel compelled to eat the cake and ice cream as quickly as possible. She wouldn't be consumed with thoughts of the treats waiting in the refrigerator until a socially acceptable time to eat dessert arrived. She'd probably ignore them until a festive occasion prompted eating such foods--a special occasion. She wouldn't be thinking, "Oh, there's cake left, let's eat it." She wouldn't feel as though good cake was going to waste just because it wasn't being consumed.
I never feel that way about alcoholic beverages. I never think good beer is going to waste just because it's sitting in the refrigerator for days or weeks. I don't think about the leftover whisky I might happen to have in my cupboard, even if it sits there a year.
That's how slim people feel about treats--they don't. They enjoy eating them when they have them, but they stop when they're satiated. And they don't feel compelled to continue to eat past satiation, just because the treats are sitting on the plate or in the refrigerator or the cupboard.
I'd like to be at that place someday, where I'm enjoying food without compulsion, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, I have to take steps to prevent the overeating that will inevitably follow the eating of any of my "trigger" foods.
It's all part of the process of learning to be thin. See you next time.
The other day I had ice cream and cake for my birthday, but after I had eaten a rather large serving, I was feeling frightened by the desire to eat some more as soon as possible. I wanted to resist the powerful urge to finish them off, to get rid of them (by eating them, of course), as if they were radioactive. So I decided to put them into the freezer and have them at another holiday occasion, Memorial Day.
I tried to think what a slim person would do with leftover cake and ice cream. She wouldn't feel compelled to eat the cake and ice cream as quickly as possible. She wouldn't be consumed with thoughts of the treats waiting in the refrigerator until a socially acceptable time to eat dessert arrived. She'd probably ignore them until a festive occasion prompted eating such foods--a special occasion. She wouldn't be thinking, "Oh, there's cake left, let's eat it." She wouldn't feel as though good cake was going to waste just because it wasn't being consumed.
I never feel that way about alcoholic beverages. I never think good beer is going to waste just because it's sitting in the refrigerator for days or weeks. I don't think about the leftover whisky I might happen to have in my cupboard, even if it sits there a year.
That's how slim people feel about treats--they don't. They enjoy eating them when they have them, but they stop when they're satiated. And they don't feel compelled to continue to eat past satiation, just because the treats are sitting on the plate or in the refrigerator or the cupboard.
I'd like to be at that place someday, where I'm enjoying food without compulsion, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, I have to take steps to prevent the overeating that will inevitably follow the eating of any of my "trigger" foods.
It's all part of the process of learning to be thin. See you next time.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Let's Hear It for Science!
I've neglected my blog for a while, mostly due to ennui and being on the road, but I'm back!
I'm at the point now where I'm struggling to stay on track. I've not lost weight in the last two weeks; in fact I've gained .6 lbs after losing .8 since I last posted. So that means I've lost about .2 lbs in three weeks.
But it's not about the losing and never really has been. The problem now seems to be that I'm stuck on a few stubborn behaviors that don't want to change. One of them is not paying attention while I eat: I'm still eating too fast and not really tasting and enjoying the food. Another is not writing down what I've eaten. I'm still very lax in that regard. A third is eating foods that are not on my diet plan without accounting for them in some way.
This third is the most difficult to deal with. Perhaps I shouldn't have skipped that step where I deal with extra-diet foods by calling them "controlled trades" (127) and monitoring them. With the controlled trade technique, I am supposed to know ahead of time what foods I want to eat, then plan what foods on the diet plan will be the controlled trades. Otherwise, it's just an uncontrolled cheat and counts as a minus in the "right?" column.
So far, I've been saying that I'm experimenting with "normal" eating behavior by eating these foods and calling them okay and not deviations. That's not good. It's a form of unconsciousness and needs to stop.
For example, the other day, someone brought in doughnuts to share and I had one. A doughnut is a highly caloric food--fats and carbohydrates galore. Probably the one I ate was at least 300 calories. It was extra, plain and simple. I justified it by telling myself that once in a while I could have a doughnut like a normal person.
But I need to stop calling these deviations "experiments," I think, because I feel the urge to conduct more and more such "scientific" explorations, which really are just attempts by my fat self to get back into the driver's seat.
So, what to do instead? Well, if I want to do real experiments, I should use proper procedures. Shirley Simon's "controlled trade" method is that kind of procedure. When I want to have something not on my diet plan, I should plan ahead. And I'm only supposed to have so many of those trades. Since I've been on the diet for 63 weeks, I should be allowed 60 trades. That's too many, obviously, since it's about 9 per day. Shirley says I should still be eating the main diet most of the time. So let's say I eat about 20 different trade-able foods per day; at least ten of them have to be normal diet items. I'm not doing that most days, and don't really want to.
But let's take the case of that doughnut. If I'd planned ahead, I could have the donut, but only it it were a small, plain one. The one I had was not very small and it had chocolate frosting on it. But if I had the plain one, it would have been considered a Saturday special (a once-a-week extra that doesn't have to be traded), not a regular trade. And then, I needed to use the "thin gourmet" technique to really savor the treat once I'm eating it. After all, from what I've observed, that's how thin people eat.
So using the controlled trade technique is how I should be handling this "normal" eating behavior experimentation. I'm going to try harder this week to do that instead of just eating whatever I want and calling it an experiment.
Let's hear it for science! See you next time.
I'm at the point now where I'm struggling to stay on track. I've not lost weight in the last two weeks; in fact I've gained .6 lbs after losing .8 since I last posted. So that means I've lost about .2 lbs in three weeks.
But it's not about the losing and never really has been. The problem now seems to be that I'm stuck on a few stubborn behaviors that don't want to change. One of them is not paying attention while I eat: I'm still eating too fast and not really tasting and enjoying the food. Another is not writing down what I've eaten. I'm still very lax in that regard. A third is eating foods that are not on my diet plan without accounting for them in some way.
This third is the most difficult to deal with. Perhaps I shouldn't have skipped that step where I deal with extra-diet foods by calling them "controlled trades" (127) and monitoring them. With the controlled trade technique, I am supposed to know ahead of time what foods I want to eat, then plan what foods on the diet plan will be the controlled trades. Otherwise, it's just an uncontrolled cheat and counts as a minus in the "right?" column.
So far, I've been saying that I'm experimenting with "normal" eating behavior by eating these foods and calling them okay and not deviations. That's not good. It's a form of unconsciousness and needs to stop.
For example, the other day, someone brought in doughnuts to share and I had one. A doughnut is a highly caloric food--fats and carbohydrates galore. Probably the one I ate was at least 300 calories. It was extra, plain and simple. I justified it by telling myself that once in a while I could have a doughnut like a normal person.
But I need to stop calling these deviations "experiments," I think, because I feel the urge to conduct more and more such "scientific" explorations, which really are just attempts by my fat self to get back into the driver's seat.
So, what to do instead? Well, if I want to do real experiments, I should use proper procedures. Shirley Simon's "controlled trade" method is that kind of procedure. When I want to have something not on my diet plan, I should plan ahead. And I'm only supposed to have so many of those trades. Since I've been on the diet for 63 weeks, I should be allowed 60 trades. That's too many, obviously, since it's about 9 per day. Shirley says I should still be eating the main diet most of the time. So let's say I eat about 20 different trade-able foods per day; at least ten of them have to be normal diet items. I'm not doing that most days, and don't really want to.
But let's take the case of that doughnut. If I'd planned ahead, I could have the donut, but only it it were a small, plain one. The one I had was not very small and it had chocolate frosting on it. But if I had the plain one, it would have been considered a Saturday special (a once-a-week extra that doesn't have to be traded), not a regular trade. And then, I needed to use the "thin gourmet" technique to really savor the treat once I'm eating it. After all, from what I've observed, that's how thin people eat.
So using the controlled trade technique is how I should be handling this "normal" eating behavior experimentation. I'm going to try harder this week to do that instead of just eating whatever I want and calling it an experiment.
Let's hear it for science! See you next time.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
No U-Turns Allowed
This week was a difficult one. There were no particularly challenging moments, nothing out of the ordinary, but nevertheless, I felt myself sliding back into my old eating habits, and that concerns me.
That old unconsciousness is creeping back. One way it manifests itself is through not writing down what I eat. If I don't write it down, I forget I ate it. Then later in the day, I don't remember that I've already eaten more than I should that day so I go ahead and eat something else I shouldn't. Writing it down makes it conscious, and that's crucial.
For instance, I might pass by a coworker's candy dish and grab a piece of candy, go back to my cubicle, then pop it in my mouth while I'm working. It's gone quickly, along with my memory of eating it. Eating only at a designated spot (not my computer, by the way) and then writing down what I ate are two techniques designed to keep that kind of unconscious eating from happening. Writing down what I'm going to eat is also a way to prevent rogue eating episodes. I haven't been doing that one, but I'm just starting to see the value of it.
Another sign of unconsciousness is not measuring ("eyeballing"), or allowing measurement creep. If I pretend I measured it or that I measured it correctly, I can pretend I ate the right amount when I really didn't. It's a kind of magical thinking.
And then there's the problem of eating quickly and unthinkingly, putting away what's on my plate until it's gone and I'm uncomfortably full and I don't know how I got that way. (See above: measurement magic.) If I'm paying attention, I will stop eating when I'm full, even if I measured correctly. Reading can be a distractor, as can conversing sometimes.
Lest I forget, there's the compulsive "cleaning up" behavior--eating the bits left over in the pan or the serving dish that somehow don't count because they're left over. Magical thinking again.
All of this unconscious behavior allows the compulsive eater in me to take control of my thinking mind and--if not stopped--will put me right back where I was a year ago.
So, what to do? Go back to the basics, I suppose. I want to eat like a thin person, but that's not what I'm doing. I'm eating like a fat person, someone who is inordinately fond of . . . I was going to say food, but that's not it, really. It seems the food is less important than something else, something more compelling. Perhaps it's the desire for self indulgence, giving oneself a treat, rewarding oneself or comforting oneself with food. Whatever the reason, the behavior is compulsive, and it's fat-person behavior. A thin person would not eat the way I eat.
Will I ever be able to eat in a thin-person way? Well, I might be able to eat that way, but I will probably never think that way. As I've said before, it seems I'm always going to have to be vigilant in order to stay thin.
So this week, I'm going to try to be more vigilant and remember that my eating self is always looking for a way back in, a way to take the wheel again and drive us back to fat city. But I'm not going to let her!
See you next week, a little ways down the road to being thin.
That old unconsciousness is creeping back. One way it manifests itself is through not writing down what I eat. If I don't write it down, I forget I ate it. Then later in the day, I don't remember that I've already eaten more than I should that day so I go ahead and eat something else I shouldn't. Writing it down makes it conscious, and that's crucial.
For instance, I might pass by a coworker's candy dish and grab a piece of candy, go back to my cubicle, then pop it in my mouth while I'm working. It's gone quickly, along with my memory of eating it. Eating only at a designated spot (not my computer, by the way) and then writing down what I ate are two techniques designed to keep that kind of unconscious eating from happening. Writing down what I'm going to eat is also a way to prevent rogue eating episodes. I haven't been doing that one, but I'm just starting to see the value of it.
Another sign of unconsciousness is not measuring ("eyeballing"), or allowing measurement creep. If I pretend I measured it or that I measured it correctly, I can pretend I ate the right amount when I really didn't. It's a kind of magical thinking.
And then there's the problem of eating quickly and unthinkingly, putting away what's on my plate until it's gone and I'm uncomfortably full and I don't know how I got that way. (See above: measurement magic.) If I'm paying attention, I will stop eating when I'm full, even if I measured correctly. Reading can be a distractor, as can conversing sometimes.
Lest I forget, there's the compulsive "cleaning up" behavior--eating the bits left over in the pan or the serving dish that somehow don't count because they're left over. Magical thinking again.
All of this unconscious behavior allows the compulsive eater in me to take control of my thinking mind and--if not stopped--will put me right back where I was a year ago.
So, what to do? Go back to the basics, I suppose. I want to eat like a thin person, but that's not what I'm doing. I'm eating like a fat person, someone who is inordinately fond of . . . I was going to say food, but that's not it, really. It seems the food is less important than something else, something more compelling. Perhaps it's the desire for self indulgence, giving oneself a treat, rewarding oneself or comforting oneself with food. Whatever the reason, the behavior is compulsive, and it's fat-person behavior. A thin person would not eat the way I eat.
Will I ever be able to eat in a thin-person way? Well, I might be able to eat that way, but I will probably never think that way. As I've said before, it seems I'm always going to have to be vigilant in order to stay thin.
So this week, I'm going to try to be more vigilant and remember that my eating self is always looking for a way back in, a way to take the wheel again and drive us back to fat city. But I'm not going to let her!
See you next week, a little ways down the road to being thin.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Some Challenges But No Major Disasters
Well, I managed to lose .8 pounds this week despite a few challenges. Coworkers brought in food that I did partake of, although in small amounts. On Monday, there was a delicious cake that I split with a coworker, and on Tuesday, a little tiny lunch from another coworker that was so beautiful and thoughtful, I ate it all, despite its being less protein than I usually like to have.
The rest of the week was normal, and I tried to keep up my exercise as much as possible. Today is Easter, and fortunately, I don't have an Easter basket to consume, so I'll make do with a special pot roast meal and possibly some ice cream. We'll see.
It'll be another six or seven months before I get to goal weight, so I guess there's no rush. I'm still aware every day of my potential for slipping down that slope, so I think I'll make it.
This week I tried to eat more slowly, something I'm still having trouble with. I can stretch out dinner pretty well, but breakfast and lunch still seem pretty short--15 minutes or less. I think I should take at least 20 minutes for my meals, so I'm going to try to work on that more this coming week.
Until next time!
The rest of the week was normal, and I tried to keep up my exercise as much as possible. Today is Easter, and fortunately, I don't have an Easter basket to consume, so I'll make do with a special pot roast meal and possibly some ice cream. We'll see.
It'll be another six or seven months before I get to goal weight, so I guess there's no rush. I'm still aware every day of my potential for slipping down that slope, so I think I'll make it.
This week I tried to eat more slowly, something I'm still having trouble with. I can stretch out dinner pretty well, but breakfast and lunch still seem pretty short--15 minutes or less. I think I should take at least 20 minutes for my meals, so I'm going to try to work on that more this coming week.
Until next time!
Sunday, April 1, 2012
The Last 20 Pounds
This week was a more normal week of eating mostly allowed foods and exercising just about every day, so I did manage to lose 0.8 pounds, or about the normal amount for me.
I'm still having trouble writing down my intake, so this week I'm going to try (again) to do better with that.
I think I'm getting to the "last 20 pounds" threshold. Veteran dieters say that the last 20 pounds are the hardest to lose, which makes sense, since the less weight you have, the less energy it takes to haul that smaller carcass around. That means that the number of calories consumed and the amount of exercise I do now are not going to be enough before long. I'm going to have to step it up.
So this week I'm going to examine ways to do that without getting too hungry and going off my eating plan.
Wish me luck.
I'm still having trouble writing down my intake, so this week I'm going to try (again) to do better with that.
I think I'm getting to the "last 20 pounds" threshold. Veteran dieters say that the last 20 pounds are the hardest to lose, which makes sense, since the less weight you have, the less energy it takes to haul that smaller carcass around. That means that the number of calories consumed and the amount of exercise I do now are not going to be enough before long. I'm going to have to step it up.
So this week I'm going to examine ways to do that without getting too hungry and going off my eating plan.
Wish me luck.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Demon Chocolate's Return
Well, this week I tried again to eat trail mix, and found I still could not just leave it alone after a few bites. The trail mix I bought was 50 calories per tablespoon, so I couldn't eat very much of it without going overboard. But having it sitting there in my cubicle, I just kept going back to it until I found and ate all the chocolate candy pieces and the almonds and the cranberries--the stuff I liked. I did finally throw the peanuts and raisins away. But I'm sure my "experiment" amounted to 300 or more extra calories consumed.
But it wasn't just the calories; it was the loss of control and the unhappy realization that I can't just lightly snack on anything that has chocolate candy in it. I also had a piece of Indian New Year coffee cake that one of my coworkers brought in. It was good, and I didn't feel out of control eating it, but it was extra. Plus, this week I didn't exercise every day as I usually do, so it's no wonder I gained almost a pound.
Apparently, I'm still at the lowest coping level with chocolate candy: Level VII - Avoiding or eliminating the stimulus. Will it ever change? I don't know, but I guess I need to stop testing myself until I'm really ready to take on the challenge, using Shirley Simon's zeroing-in technique.
Shirley's technique with cherry pie (her nemesis) was to very gradually ascend through the coping levels, from highest to lowest:
I. Face to face without any help
II. Face to face under safe conditions
III. Competing response: keep your hands busy
IV. Competing response: keep your mouth busy
V. Competing response: eat the right food
VI. Making the stimulus hard to get
VII. Avoiding or eliminating the stimulus
She started out at level VII and then gradually took on cherry pie at the various levels: bringing it into the house but not eating it, and showing that she could be around the pie by doing other things such as eating fruit or drinking coffee. When she finally reached level I, she could eat a small piece of pie and not eat any more of it, in private with no help from hubby.
Do I want to have that kind of control over chocolate candy? It would mean having only one piece of chocolate a week, for instance. Right now I'm thinking, what's the point? But that says to me that chocolate is not food, it's a drug, since the only way to consume it is to overconsume it to obtain whatever effect it provides. Can one obtain that effect from just one piece of chocolate? That's a good question. But a better one is: Why risk it?
It's like the question of drinking coffee with caffeine or not, or even drinking coffee at all. There are benefits to caffeine; it stimulates the brain and possibly the metabolism. Coffee tastes good, even if it's decaffeinated. But the consequences for me are an increase in heart flutters and a painful bladder. I don't know if the benefits outweigh the harms.
If I ask the same question about chocolate, what do I answer? Benefits: good feeling, taste bud pleasure. Harms: eat too much and gain weight, put too much fat into body, hurt bladder. If I could eat just a little chocolate, would I get the same amount of benefit? I don't think so. I suspect that the benefit comes from eating a lot of chocolate. As it turns out, people have done studies on that question (mostly funded by candy companies). Here's one website's review of the chocolate research: Chocolate's Potential Health Benefits.
I found the word "potential" in the title to be important because when I look at the research as a whole, the results are inconclusive, and there still lingers the question of how much chocolate is enough. If the amount that produces benefits will also produce obesity and fat-related illnesses, is it worth it? And if the benefit-producing amount is small, can a chocolate-addicted person stop at that amount?
I think I'll just stick with other healthy foods for now and leave chocolate alone. Maybe someday I'll take it on and get to coping level one. In the meantime . . .
I'm hoping to have a less challenging week coming up. Wish me luck.
But it wasn't just the calories; it was the loss of control and the unhappy realization that I can't just lightly snack on anything that has chocolate candy in it. I also had a piece of Indian New Year coffee cake that one of my coworkers brought in. It was good, and I didn't feel out of control eating it, but it was extra. Plus, this week I didn't exercise every day as I usually do, so it's no wonder I gained almost a pound.
Apparently, I'm still at the lowest coping level with chocolate candy: Level VII - Avoiding or eliminating the stimulus. Will it ever change? I don't know, but I guess I need to stop testing myself until I'm really ready to take on the challenge, using Shirley Simon's zeroing-in technique.
Shirley's technique with cherry pie (her nemesis) was to very gradually ascend through the coping levels, from highest to lowest:
I. Face to face without any help
II. Face to face under safe conditions
III. Competing response: keep your hands busy
IV. Competing response: keep your mouth busy
V. Competing response: eat the right food
VI. Making the stimulus hard to get
VII. Avoiding or eliminating the stimulus
She started out at level VII and then gradually took on cherry pie at the various levels: bringing it into the house but not eating it, and showing that she could be around the pie by doing other things such as eating fruit or drinking coffee. When she finally reached level I, she could eat a small piece of pie and not eat any more of it, in private with no help from hubby.
Do I want to have that kind of control over chocolate candy? It would mean having only one piece of chocolate a week, for instance. Right now I'm thinking, what's the point? But that says to me that chocolate is not food, it's a drug, since the only way to consume it is to overconsume it to obtain whatever effect it provides. Can one obtain that effect from just one piece of chocolate? That's a good question. But a better one is: Why risk it?
It's like the question of drinking coffee with caffeine or not, or even drinking coffee at all. There are benefits to caffeine; it stimulates the brain and possibly the metabolism. Coffee tastes good, even if it's decaffeinated. But the consequences for me are an increase in heart flutters and a painful bladder. I don't know if the benefits outweigh the harms.
If I ask the same question about chocolate, what do I answer? Benefits: good feeling, taste bud pleasure. Harms: eat too much and gain weight, put too much fat into body, hurt bladder. If I could eat just a little chocolate, would I get the same amount of benefit? I don't think so. I suspect that the benefit comes from eating a lot of chocolate. As it turns out, people have done studies on that question (mostly funded by candy companies). Here's one website's review of the chocolate research: Chocolate's Potential Health Benefits.
I found the word "potential" in the title to be important because when I look at the research as a whole, the results are inconclusive, and there still lingers the question of how much chocolate is enough. If the amount that produces benefits will also produce obesity and fat-related illnesses, is it worth it? And if the benefit-producing amount is small, can a chocolate-addicted person stop at that amount?
I think I'll just stick with other healthy foods for now and leave chocolate alone. Maybe someday I'll take it on and get to coping level one. In the meantime . . .
I'm hoping to have a less challenging week coming up. Wish me luck.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The March Madness Challenge
This week was challenging because of March Madness Wings Day at work. I was in charge of making it happen, which meant that I had to order the wings we'd be eating. Of course, I had to ensure they tasted good, so I tried some the day before, and then I had to eat some at the luncheon, too. And when there were leftover wings, I had to take some home because I knew how much they cost and didn't want to waste any (sound familiar?).
Well, with so many excuses for eating wings, of course I got to eat quite a few this week. I don't think it hurt my diet too much in terms of calories, but in terms of reviving old cravings, the fatty wings created some problems. I found myself wanting to eat more fat, but worse perhaps, I started to think I could eat it with impunity. Once I realized I was slipping back into that old mentality, I pulled back. But the experience let me know, once again, that I'm never going to be out of the woods. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live with that and stay vigilant.
Otherwise, I had a fairly successful week, though I'm still having trouble recording my eating. I need to contemplate how to make that process more helpful so I'll keep up with it. I'll try to do better this week and report my progress next weekend.
Until then . . .
Well, with so many excuses for eating wings, of course I got to eat quite a few this week. I don't think it hurt my diet too much in terms of calories, but in terms of reviving old cravings, the fatty wings created some problems. I found myself wanting to eat more fat, but worse perhaps, I started to think I could eat it with impunity. Once I realized I was slipping back into that old mentality, I pulled back. But the experience let me know, once again, that I'm never going to be out of the woods. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live with that and stay vigilant.
Otherwise, I had a fairly successful week, though I'm still having trouble recording my eating. I need to contemplate how to make that process more helpful so I'll keep up with it. I'll try to do better this week and report my progress next weekend.
Until then . . .
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Puttering Along at Week 55
Another two weeks of sticking mostly to the Learn to Be Thin plan: continued challenges to recording my food intake, but not too many challenges to my resolve.
I'm not sure what lessons to report from the interval, but I do find myself getting hungry again during the day, mostly mid-afternoon. I'm not really sure what to do about that, other than to try to eat food that sticks with me. I don't want to add more calories to my diet, since I get plenty, I think, and I'm losing weight slowly enough as it is.
Perhaps a higher protein breakfast would help . . . I may try that. I could eat fish instead of cereal . . . hmmm. Maybe I'll buy some smoked salmon or some kipper snacks. Or perhaps tuna would work. I'll have to think about it some more.
I'm also starting to feel a little smug about my success. I look around me at people who should be dieting, but aren't, and I congratulate myself for my ability to do what others seem unable to do. Then I think: Well, if they'd just use my diet, they'd succeed too. It's hard not to proselytize to the masses to try to convert them to my approach. I guess that's how these born-again Christians feel about the transformative power of religion. They really want people to feel good the way they do. Ah well, people have to use what works for them, and since I can't control them, I'll just try to set a good example.
What helps more than anything, though, I'm beginning to think, is writing this blog. Because I have to report my progress, I try to have something good to report every week. And because "someone" is waiting to hear about it, I know I can't stray too far from the path. The Learn to Be Thin diet plan is a good one, but it's not easy to stick with. Writing in this blog makes the "sticking to it" part easier, so it's one of the most useful tools I've come up with to make sure what I learn continues to help me get and stay slim.
Exercise is important, too, and helps increase my metabolism, or so I've read. My husband makes sure we get our exercise (that's his bailiwick), so together we make a good team. And he continues to make nutritious meals for us, another important tool for ensuring our success.
So I'm still puttering along, still losing, still learning to be thin. See you next time!
I'm not sure what lessons to report from the interval, but I do find myself getting hungry again during the day, mostly mid-afternoon. I'm not really sure what to do about that, other than to try to eat food that sticks with me. I don't want to add more calories to my diet, since I get plenty, I think, and I'm losing weight slowly enough as it is.
Perhaps a higher protein breakfast would help . . . I may try that. I could eat fish instead of cereal . . . hmmm. Maybe I'll buy some smoked salmon or some kipper snacks. Or perhaps tuna would work. I'll have to think about it some more.
I'm also starting to feel a little smug about my success. I look around me at people who should be dieting, but aren't, and I congratulate myself for my ability to do what others seem unable to do. Then I think: Well, if they'd just use my diet, they'd succeed too. It's hard not to proselytize to the masses to try to convert them to my approach. I guess that's how these born-again Christians feel about the transformative power of religion. They really want people to feel good the way they do. Ah well, people have to use what works for them, and since I can't control them, I'll just try to set a good example.
What helps more than anything, though, I'm beginning to think, is writing this blog. Because I have to report my progress, I try to have something good to report every week. And because "someone" is waiting to hear about it, I know I can't stray too far from the path. The Learn to Be Thin diet plan is a good one, but it's not easy to stick with. Writing in this blog makes the "sticking to it" part easier, so it's one of the most useful tools I've come up with to make sure what I learn continues to help me get and stay slim.
Exercise is important, too, and helps increase my metabolism, or so I've read. My husband makes sure we get our exercise (that's his bailiwick), so together we make a good team. And he continues to make nutritious meals for us, another important tool for ensuring our success.
So I'm still puttering along, still losing, still learning to be thin. See you next time!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Challenge of Not Being Challenged
Well, it's been almost two weeks since I've posted. Last week I was doing some other writing instead, and since I have limited time on weekends, I decided not to post.
But not too much has happened since my last entry. I was challenged once again by free chocolate treats (There are certainly a lot of them around my work place!), but otherwise I puttered along with my normal routine. There was a luncheon out with my coworkers, but I chose a nice piece of salmon instead of something fattier, and stopped eating when I was full. And I tried to concentrate on conversation instead of eating, which was a good strategy since I got to know my coworkers a little better as a result.
One thing I found challenging this past week or so was keeping up with my food journal. I found myself forgetting whole days of recording, which was annoying, since after about a day I no longer remember what I ate. Someone might say that I should quit recording, but I'm not ready to do that, since it helps me pay attention to what I'm eating. And I need that daily reminder because I'm still likely to veer off the pavement and head for the ditch, as it were.
I'm not using it as completely as I should, though. One of the diet diary's purposes is to reward myself for good behavior. Those little check marks every hour are supposed to help me stay on the road to thinness by giving me an "attagirl" for eating what I should. When I forgo that reward, it seems that maybe I don't need it, that I'm confident of my ability to get through each hour successfully. Perhaps that's true, at least as long as I'm in my routine and not faced with any challenges. I think I need to do more to make myself aware of the choices I face, though. I should probably start writing about those choices in the columns available for that. We'll see . . .
Meanwhile, I still have 25 pounds to go, and I think those pounds may be the hardest to take off, especially since I tend to get hungry more often now. But I'm not giving up--not ever. Not even when I reach goal weight. This is the end of the line for Fat Cheryl. I'm no longer going to be obese, fat, or even slightly pudgy. Those days are over. Over!
See you next week.
But not too much has happened since my last entry. I was challenged once again by free chocolate treats (There are certainly a lot of them around my work place!), but otherwise I puttered along with my normal routine. There was a luncheon out with my coworkers, but I chose a nice piece of salmon instead of something fattier, and stopped eating when I was full. And I tried to concentrate on conversation instead of eating, which was a good strategy since I got to know my coworkers a little better as a result.
One thing I found challenging this past week or so was keeping up with my food journal. I found myself forgetting whole days of recording, which was annoying, since after about a day I no longer remember what I ate. Someone might say that I should quit recording, but I'm not ready to do that, since it helps me pay attention to what I'm eating. And I need that daily reminder because I'm still likely to veer off the pavement and head for the ditch, as it were.
I'm not using it as completely as I should, though. One of the diet diary's purposes is to reward myself for good behavior. Those little check marks every hour are supposed to help me stay on the road to thinness by giving me an "attagirl" for eating what I should. When I forgo that reward, it seems that maybe I don't need it, that I'm confident of my ability to get through each hour successfully. Perhaps that's true, at least as long as I'm in my routine and not faced with any challenges. I think I need to do more to make myself aware of the choices I face, though. I should probably start writing about those choices in the columns available for that. We'll see . . .
Meanwhile, I still have 25 pounds to go, and I think those pounds may be the hardest to take off, especially since I tend to get hungry more often now. But I'm not giving up--not ever. Not even when I reach goal weight. This is the end of the line for Fat Cheryl. I'm no longer going to be obese, fat, or even slightly pudgy. Those days are over. Over!
See you next week.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Another One of Those Pesky Pig-Out Holidays
I'm at week 51 now and still hanging in there, though I gained a half pound this week, making my total weight loss over two weeks 1.5 pounds, or about my average of .75 pounds per week. I knew that was going to happen, so I'm not disappointed.
This week so far I've had to deal with Valentine's Day, a traditional pig-out holiday (there seem to be quite a few of those!). I did pretty well on the day itself with eating a bit of cake, a cookie and some little bits of chocolate offered me at work. But I do find myself craving the chocolate, after only a small piece. I did okay with the cookie, though. I think I'm over cookie addiction pretty well, but chocolate candy is another thing altogether, it seems. Maybe I'll never get over that addiction.
Today I found myself thinking about the chocolate I still have (one piece), and how I can "get rid of it" (by putting it into my stomach, of course) so that I can stop thinking about it. These are all signs of addiction, of course. So I guess my coping level with chocolate is still at the "keep it away from me" level. Well, maybe I'll try again at the next chocolate-eating holiday (that would be Easter, I think).
Otherwise, I'm puttering along with my eating plan and my daily exercise. I'm telling more people about it, too, these days. That's a good sign, I think. It means I feel pretty confident that I'm not going to slide back to my old ways. If I weren't so confident, I'd be afraid to tell people because they might be disappointed with me later if I fail once again to get slim.
These are all familiar feelings to those of us who struggle with our weight. But I still think I can win this battle and stay slim, despite all the challenges. I'm really starting to understand what it means to be "recovering" instead of "recovered." It's never over; I'm never going to be completely free of eating addictions. But as long as I know that, I can continue to keep them at bay.
Until next time . . .
This week so far I've had to deal with Valentine's Day, a traditional pig-out holiday (there seem to be quite a few of those!). I did pretty well on the day itself with eating a bit of cake, a cookie and some little bits of chocolate offered me at work. But I do find myself craving the chocolate, after only a small piece. I did okay with the cookie, though. I think I'm over cookie addiction pretty well, but chocolate candy is another thing altogether, it seems. Maybe I'll never get over that addiction.
Today I found myself thinking about the chocolate I still have (one piece), and how I can "get rid of it" (by putting it into my stomach, of course) so that I can stop thinking about it. These are all signs of addiction, of course. So I guess my coping level with chocolate is still at the "keep it away from me" level. Well, maybe I'll try again at the next chocolate-eating holiday (that would be Easter, I think).
Otherwise, I'm puttering along with my eating plan and my daily exercise. I'm telling more people about it, too, these days. That's a good sign, I think. It means I feel pretty confident that I'm not going to slide back to my old ways. If I weren't so confident, I'd be afraid to tell people because they might be disappointed with me later if I fail once again to get slim.
These are all familiar feelings to those of us who struggle with our weight. But I still think I can win this battle and stay slim, despite all the challenges. I'm really starting to understand what it means to be "recovering" instead of "recovered." It's never over; I'm never going to be completely free of eating addictions. But as long as I know that, I can continue to keep them at bay.
Until next time . . .
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Week 50: Step 10 - The Zeroing In Technique
Week 50 is here, which means it's been almost a year since I started my eating plan (a little more than a year since I started this blog). I haven't lost nearly as much weight as I'd hoped to (not even a pound a week), but I've made great progress on learning the behaviors I will need to stay thin for the rest of my life. And for the first time, I'm below 160 pounds, which means I've reached another milestone.
This past week I was challenged by lunch out with my coworkers at a restaurant that featured large quantities of high-calorie foods. I would have liked to have met the challenge more successfully, but I did learn some things. The first challenge was the cost of the meal: it was much higher than I'm willing to pay normally. This by itself was not bad. The problem was that with a meal that expensive I wanted to get my money's worth, but to do that meant eating more than I should. So I had to decide whether I would be happier eating less than my money's worth, or eating more than I should. Was there a way to compromise? I tried to find one by eating from the salad bar first so that I might be too full to eat much of the meats that were offered in quantities limited only by the diner's appetite. Since the idea of going to a Brazilian steak house is to eat the meat, I felt I was at least going to get an experience for my money by choosing both the salad bar and the meat.
Well, the first part worked pretty well. I ate from the salad bar some nice veggies (asparagus was one), but also ate some of the creamy soup and bacon chunks (they were much bigger than bits) and a little pasta roll. The second part was also moderately successful. When the meat started to arrive, I ate small slices, but it was so fatty that even a small slice was probably high in calories. It was tasty though, and I tried to eat slowly and enjoy it. I ended up not eating everything I was served, but I was still pretty full when I pushed the plate away. When the dessert cart came around, I said no along with my fellows.
Interestingly enough, when I saw the dessert cart, the first thing I asked myself was, "Is it included?" Of course, that should make no difference. The proper question should be, "Do I want any dessert?" Once again the old "waste not, want not" subterfuge (in one of its variations: "I have to get my money's worth") came into play, tempting me to ignore the fact that I'd already had more than enough to eat. Even then, I might have gone for it if someone else at the table had offered to share a dessert (no one did). The cakes and puddings looked very rich and were probably delicious, but again, that was not the issue.
But this is the kind of eating behavior problem that persists in showing up to try to take me down just as I'm getting close to my goal. And they're not going to go away without some extra effort. In her book, Learn to Be Thin, Shirley Simon offers what she calls "Extra Help Techniques" to deal with the more stubborn eating problems that prevent people from succeeding. I've already outlined the first technique that was introduced in Step 9: The Clue-Finding Technique. Step 10 describes the "Zeroing-In Technique" (160).
In the Zeroing-In Technique, we choose the eating problems we want to work on and then find and employ the best way to solve them. In this step she also introduces coping levels 1 through 7. The coping levels outline how well you deal with temptation when faced with it. For instance, if one of your eating problems is that you can't stop eating ice cream once you start, you might not be able to cope with ice cream at level one, the highest level, where you are face-to-face with your nemesis without any help--that is, the take-it-or-leave-it level. The lowest coping level, seven, is where you can't even stand to have it around and so to avoid temptation, you have to keep the problem food out of your life entirely. In between are coping levels 2-6, where you can have it around, but have to do something to avoid eating it, whether it's facing it under controlled conditions, or keeping your hands or mouth busy without eating it, eating something innocuous instead, or making it difficult to get to it. In psychology terms, the process of moving through such coping levels is called successive approximation.
For each problem eating behavior, you choose which coping level you are at currently, then gradually try to move up to level one: face-to-face without any help. So take my problem of not eating responsibly at a restaurant, for instance. To change that behavior, I need to work on getting to level one, where no matter the occasion or the restaurant, I will eat only those things that are appropriate to eat and refuse those that aren't. Before I do that, though, I need to decide what level I'm at now. I'm not sure about it, but I'm going to do some research and find out.
So that's what I'm going to do this week coming up. I'll report on my results next week!
This past week I was challenged by lunch out with my coworkers at a restaurant that featured large quantities of high-calorie foods. I would have liked to have met the challenge more successfully, but I did learn some things. The first challenge was the cost of the meal: it was much higher than I'm willing to pay normally. This by itself was not bad. The problem was that with a meal that expensive I wanted to get my money's worth, but to do that meant eating more than I should. So I had to decide whether I would be happier eating less than my money's worth, or eating more than I should. Was there a way to compromise? I tried to find one by eating from the salad bar first so that I might be too full to eat much of the meats that were offered in quantities limited only by the diner's appetite. Since the idea of going to a Brazilian steak house is to eat the meat, I felt I was at least going to get an experience for my money by choosing both the salad bar and the meat.
Well, the first part worked pretty well. I ate from the salad bar some nice veggies (asparagus was one), but also ate some of the creamy soup and bacon chunks (they were much bigger than bits) and a little pasta roll. The second part was also moderately successful. When the meat started to arrive, I ate small slices, but it was so fatty that even a small slice was probably high in calories. It was tasty though, and I tried to eat slowly and enjoy it. I ended up not eating everything I was served, but I was still pretty full when I pushed the plate away. When the dessert cart came around, I said no along with my fellows.
Interestingly enough, when I saw the dessert cart, the first thing I asked myself was, "Is it included?" Of course, that should make no difference. The proper question should be, "Do I want any dessert?" Once again the old "waste not, want not" subterfuge (in one of its variations: "I have to get my money's worth") came into play, tempting me to ignore the fact that I'd already had more than enough to eat. Even then, I might have gone for it if someone else at the table had offered to share a dessert (no one did). The cakes and puddings looked very rich and were probably delicious, but again, that was not the issue.
But this is the kind of eating behavior problem that persists in showing up to try to take me down just as I'm getting close to my goal. And they're not going to go away without some extra effort. In her book, Learn to Be Thin, Shirley Simon offers what she calls "Extra Help Techniques" to deal with the more stubborn eating problems that prevent people from succeeding. I've already outlined the first technique that was introduced in Step 9: The Clue-Finding Technique. Step 10 describes the "Zeroing-In Technique" (160).
In the Zeroing-In Technique, we choose the eating problems we want to work on and then find and employ the best way to solve them. In this step she also introduces coping levels 1 through 7. The coping levels outline how well you deal with temptation when faced with it. For instance, if one of your eating problems is that you can't stop eating ice cream once you start, you might not be able to cope with ice cream at level one, the highest level, where you are face-to-face with your nemesis without any help--that is, the take-it-or-leave-it level. The lowest coping level, seven, is where you can't even stand to have it around and so to avoid temptation, you have to keep the problem food out of your life entirely. In between are coping levels 2-6, where you can have it around, but have to do something to avoid eating it, whether it's facing it under controlled conditions, or keeping your hands or mouth busy without eating it, eating something innocuous instead, or making it difficult to get to it. In psychology terms, the process of moving through such coping levels is called successive approximation.
For each problem eating behavior, you choose which coping level you are at currently, then gradually try to move up to level one: face-to-face without any help. So take my problem of not eating responsibly at a restaurant, for instance. To change that behavior, I need to work on getting to level one, where no matter the occasion or the restaurant, I will eat only those things that are appropriate to eat and refuse those that aren't. Before I do that, though, I need to decide what level I'm at now. I'm not sure about it, but I'm going to do some research and find out.
So that's what I'm going to do this week coming up. I'll report on my results next week!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Checking Out the Other Half
Well, I skipped a week (or so) on my weight loss log, but not much happened that was different. I'll summarize: mostly I stuck to my eating plan but occasionally I indulged in a treat or two (at work, of course). When I did find myself with my wheels off the pavement, I had a little bit of a hard time getting them back on the road. It just goes to show you, those old habits die very hard.
One treat tends to lead to another, I've found, so each time I wandered towards the well trodden path I was reminded that I'm not out of the woods yet. (Boy, the journey metaphors are just piling up!) Maybe I never will be. But I do want to go on experimenting so that I can continue to learn where my boundaries are.
I still like to see what the thin people are doing (how the other half lives, you might say). I notice that they can take or leave a piece of cake or a doughnut, and are not persuaded by the pleas of food profferers to indulge. They just say, "No, thanks!" and move on. My goal is to have that attitude. It would match the one I have toward alcohol, where I slowly drink 3 bottles of beer over the course of a month. (One is still unopened from New Year's eve.) I can't imagine doing that with a bag of candy, so I'm still in thrall to treats, I guess.
But I feel self-righteous occasionally, too, when I'm able to keep on with my program despite the occasional minor setback. This blog helps a lot, more than I had ever imagined it would. It's the perfect sounding board. I can confess my difficulties without worrying about its reaction. And it never lectures me or scolds me. It doesn't praise me, either, which is fine. I know that what matters in the end is whether or not, when I reach my goal, I can stay there for the rest of my life.
I'll write more this weekend. See you then!
One treat tends to lead to another, I've found, so each time I wandered towards the well trodden path I was reminded that I'm not out of the woods yet. (Boy, the journey metaphors are just piling up!) Maybe I never will be. But I do want to go on experimenting so that I can continue to learn where my boundaries are.
I still like to see what the thin people are doing (how the other half lives, you might say). I notice that they can take or leave a piece of cake or a doughnut, and are not persuaded by the pleas of food profferers to indulge. They just say, "No, thanks!" and move on. My goal is to have that attitude. It would match the one I have toward alcohol, where I slowly drink 3 bottles of beer over the course of a month. (One is still unopened from New Year's eve.) I can't imagine doing that with a bag of candy, so I'm still in thrall to treats, I guess.
But I feel self-righteous occasionally, too, when I'm able to keep on with my program despite the occasional minor setback. This blog helps a lot, more than I had ever imagined it would. It's the perfect sounding board. I can confess my difficulties without worrying about its reaction. And it never lectures me or scolds me. It doesn't praise me, either, which is fine. I know that what matters in the end is whether or not, when I reach my goal, I can stay there for the rest of my life.
I'll write more this weekend. See you then!
Monday, January 16, 2012
Those Precious Treats
It's that time of year again, when everyone who wants to lose weight resolves to do so, and then looks for a way to make it happen. This past week, I heard a couple of coworkers talking about losing weight. They were describing methods they've used in the past that didn't ultimately work. (One was a 1,000-calorie-and- four-hours-exercise-a-day plan.) I tried to interject with my weight loss story, but they weren't paying attention. I find that somewhat disappointing. I have a method that actually works and works well, but no one wants to know about it. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. People want a fast and easy way to lose weight, and don't want to hear about the long and difficult road to slimness. They want the benefits of weight loss but don't want to change and give up their destructive eating habits--at least not forever.
Believe me, I understand. I still have nostalgia for those pint-a-night Ben and Jerry's ice cream fests. If only such pleasures were consequence-free! But alas, an addiction's an addiction, no matter how you trick it out to make it look harmless or even wholesome. Collecting unneeded fat cells on your body is no different from collecting stacks and stacks of unread newspapers, or boxes and boxes of useless trash, or dozens and dozens of cats in your apartment. It's a type of hoarding, after all, and just as debilitating a condition, in my opinion. If you look at the symptoms, you'll see similarities, I think.
Here are the symptoms of compulsive hoarding (taken from Wikipedia):
For an obese person to learn what kinds of food are good to eat and what kinds aren't is fine, but it's more or less beside the point. Even if a compulsive eater didn't know the nutritional value of a big piece of chocolate cake or a serving of french fries (hard to imagine these days), he would not be helped by watching a TV show where a doctor describes in detail (complete with hideous pictures of ruined organs) the many hazards of eating such foods.
Educational remedies are well-intentioned but not very realistic, especially when dealing with addictions. We can see that's true, I think, when we watch the therapists on Hoarders try to get a hoarder to throw away just one thing. Though the hoarder agrees that she and her family are being destroyed by her mountain of useless junk, she still resists. And for those of us watching, the magnitude of the task seems overwhelming, nearly impossible. We want to opt for the quick and easy solution: Put a match to the place and walk away. But I think we all know that even if everything the woman hoarded were destroyed, she'd be building another, probably bigger pile of junk as soon as she recovered from the loss of her current one.
So, too, with us fat-cell hoarders. Giving up even one piece of pie or serving of french fries or box of chocolates--no matter how old, cheap, dried up, badly cooked or tasteless--presents a monumental challenge. We resist, we offer excuses, we lash out at those who would deprive us of our "precious" treats. And if we get desperate and go for the drastic "put a match to it" solution (with some crash diet/exercise plan), it isn't long before we start over, building a bigger and better mound of fat cells.
Like the hoarders, compulsive eaters can't get over their addiction in one day (or in one half-hour television episode). Such drastic change takes time and lots of hard work, and the outcome is never certain. This past week, I went back to my relatively restricted diet and tried to increase my exercise, and I lost .8 pounds, or about what I should be losing. I'm making very slow progress, but I'm sticking with it, as monumental a task as it seems. And each week I'm learning more and more not what I should be eating, but how to be thin.
See you next time!
Believe me, I understand. I still have nostalgia for those pint-a-night Ben and Jerry's ice cream fests. If only such pleasures were consequence-free! But alas, an addiction's an addiction, no matter how you trick it out to make it look harmless or even wholesome. Collecting unneeded fat cells on your body is no different from collecting stacks and stacks of unread newspapers, or boxes and boxes of useless trash, or dozens and dozens of cats in your apartment. It's a type of hoarding, after all, and just as debilitating a condition, in my opinion. If you look at the symptoms, you'll see similarities, I think.
Here are the symptoms of compulsive hoarding (taken from Wikipedia):
Compulsive hoarding (or pathological collecting) is a pattern of behavior that is characterized by the excessive acquisition and inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that would seemingly qualify as useless or without value. Compulsive hoarding behavior has been associated with health risks, impaired functioning, economic burden, and adverse effects on friends and family members.If you substitute the word "objects" with "fat cells" and "hoarding" with "eating," you gain a different perspective on compulsive eating, I think. Hoarders have excuses for why they must collect and save all these useless items, but they don't really bear scrutiny--any more than do the excuses given by compulsive eaters for why they must buy, prepare and consume thousands of calories that will not be needed to fuel or sustain their bodies at any time in the near future. Shirley calls such excuses "subterfuges" because they attempt to conceal the true reason for eating--that we can't stop ourselves. Hoarders must face the same truth: they continue to hoard because they can't stop.
For an obese person to learn what kinds of food are good to eat and what kinds aren't is fine, but it's more or less beside the point. Even if a compulsive eater didn't know the nutritional value of a big piece of chocolate cake or a serving of french fries (hard to imagine these days), he would not be helped by watching a TV show where a doctor describes in detail (complete with hideous pictures of ruined organs) the many hazards of eating such foods.
Educational remedies are well-intentioned but not very realistic, especially when dealing with addictions. We can see that's true, I think, when we watch the therapists on Hoarders try to get a hoarder to throw away just one thing. Though the hoarder agrees that she and her family are being destroyed by her mountain of useless junk, she still resists. And for those of us watching, the magnitude of the task seems overwhelming, nearly impossible. We want to opt for the quick and easy solution: Put a match to the place and walk away. But I think we all know that even if everything the woman hoarded were destroyed, she'd be building another, probably bigger pile of junk as soon as she recovered from the loss of her current one.
So, too, with us fat-cell hoarders. Giving up even one piece of pie or serving of french fries or box of chocolates--no matter how old, cheap, dried up, badly cooked or tasteless--presents a monumental challenge. We resist, we offer excuses, we lash out at those who would deprive us of our "precious" treats. And if we get desperate and go for the drastic "put a match to it" solution (with some crash diet/exercise plan), it isn't long before we start over, building a bigger and better mound of fat cells.
Like the hoarders, compulsive eaters can't get over their addiction in one day (or in one half-hour television episode). Such drastic change takes time and lots of hard work, and the outcome is never certain. This past week, I went back to my relatively restricted diet and tried to increase my exercise, and I lost .8 pounds, or about what I should be losing. I'm making very slow progress, but I'm sticking with it, as monumental a task as it seems. And each week I'm learning more and more not what I should be eating, but how to be thin.
See you next time!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Week 46: Time to Do the Math
This week I gained a pound, so I had to do some research to see what happened. I know I ate small amounts of food not on the diet plan--more of the chocolate that was available--and fudged on measuring some foods. But those seem like relatively harmless transgressions. I decided I needed to "do the math" to see what's going on.
What I discovered is that my caloric intake (even when I'm going strictly by my menu plan) is very close to what I would need to maintain the weight I carry now. Moreover, it is exactly what I will need to maintain my goal weight of 135 pounds. The 1700 calories I'm allowing myself per day is designed to take off only 0.81 pounds per week. But my weight loss over the 45 weeks I've been on the program has averaged only 0.75 pounds per week. At this rate, I will not get to goal weight for another eight months. Suffice it to say that it wouldn't take much "fooling around" (as Shirley puts it) to slow my progress even more.
So, what to do to change this? Well, I have two choices: eat less or exercise more. My relatively high level of caloric intake is based on a fairly low level of activity. Changing one or both of the two factors should make a difference. But as it is, my current menu plan is barely adequate to keep me from being hungry, especially in the afternoon. I could tinker with my evening meal, though, or cut my evening snack to pare off some calories. I'm the least hungry at that time. Or I could delay breakfast and have it at work in place of my morning snack. Usually I'm not hungry early in the morning anyway.
Getting more exercise is also a challenge. I do a half hour of dancing in the morning, but then don't exercise much after that. I walk around the office some, but it doesn't amount to very many minutes, and the rest of the time I'm sitting. I could try to incorporate more activity into my day--walking every time I go to the bathroom, for instance, or moving my arms and legs as I'm working on the computer. Those are possibilities. Finding the time for additional workouts is a problem, though. I don't think I can stay later at work, since I have so little time at home as it is, and getting up earlier would mean going to bed earlier, which would cut into my time with my husband.
The third option is just to leave things as they are, and be content with the amount of time it will take to get to my goal. And if I can cut down on the excess, I will at least stay on target to make weight by mid-September. That's not a bad thing, because if I continue to eat 1700 calories a day for another eight months, I'll be used to it by the time it becomes my maintenance plan. By September, I will have learned how to eat like someone who weighs 135 pounds. And that's the ultimate goal, now, isn't it?
This week I'll do some experimenting with cutting calories and adding exercise and see how that works. I'll let you know the results in my next post.
Until then . . .
What I discovered is that my caloric intake (even when I'm going strictly by my menu plan) is very close to what I would need to maintain the weight I carry now. Moreover, it is exactly what I will need to maintain my goal weight of 135 pounds. The 1700 calories I'm allowing myself per day is designed to take off only 0.81 pounds per week. But my weight loss over the 45 weeks I've been on the program has averaged only 0.75 pounds per week. At this rate, I will not get to goal weight for another eight months. Suffice it to say that it wouldn't take much "fooling around" (as Shirley puts it) to slow my progress even more.
So, what to do to change this? Well, I have two choices: eat less or exercise more. My relatively high level of caloric intake is based on a fairly low level of activity. Changing one or both of the two factors should make a difference. But as it is, my current menu plan is barely adequate to keep me from being hungry, especially in the afternoon. I could tinker with my evening meal, though, or cut my evening snack to pare off some calories. I'm the least hungry at that time. Or I could delay breakfast and have it at work in place of my morning snack. Usually I'm not hungry early in the morning anyway.
Getting more exercise is also a challenge. I do a half hour of dancing in the morning, but then don't exercise much after that. I walk around the office some, but it doesn't amount to very many minutes, and the rest of the time I'm sitting. I could try to incorporate more activity into my day--walking every time I go to the bathroom, for instance, or moving my arms and legs as I'm working on the computer. Those are possibilities. Finding the time for additional workouts is a problem, though. I don't think I can stay later at work, since I have so little time at home as it is, and getting up earlier would mean going to bed earlier, which would cut into my time with my husband.
The third option is just to leave things as they are, and be content with the amount of time it will take to get to my goal. And if I can cut down on the excess, I will at least stay on target to make weight by mid-September. That's not a bad thing, because if I continue to eat 1700 calories a day for another eight months, I'll be used to it by the time it becomes my maintenance plan. By September, I will have learned how to eat like someone who weighs 135 pounds. And that's the ultimate goal, now, isn't it?
This week I'll do some experimenting with cutting calories and adding exercise and see how that works. I'll let you know the results in my next post.
Until then . . .
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Holiday Challenge
Last week I was on vacation, so didn't post. But it was an instructive two weeks. The first week I had to contend with food gifts from my coworkers, which was very kind of them, but I would rather not have had to make the choice. I gave away some and ate some of the goodies, but it was hard not eating them up right away. I didn't do too well for the most part, and it made me realize that I still don't handle well those eating occasions where I have to say "no, thanks" to people who are trying to please me. I generally take the treats, then tell myself I will not eat them. That doesn't work very well, but refusing seems wrong too. I'm going to have to think more about what to do next time.
Though I didn't stick strictly to my meal plan during the holidays, I paid attention to what I was eating, evaluating my decision to eat what other people were eating. For instance, I ate meals with my mother at her nursing home that were high on carbohydrates and fat and low on vegetables; the protein was about right, at least at the noon meal. I ate the desserts, and on Christmas day, I ate the foods my sister served--though not in mass quantities--including fruit cake, ice cream and whipped cream for the pumpkin pudding. It was filling, but I don't think I overindulged. I passed up the chocolates (except for one chocolate Jordan almond), but not the egg nog. It was an experiment--an attempt to eat "normally"--and for the most part I think I did okay. I didn't go crazy with eating, but I didn't refrain either, and was able to avoid those arguments about dieting techniques that tend to spoil the holiday mood.
I did try to keep up with my exercise, and succeeded for the most part. That probably helped to keep my weight gain low: only .4 pounds over two weeks.
I'm pretty happy with how I got through the holidays this first year of my new eating plan. I incurred no massive weight gain that will need to be reversed in the first month of the year, and I think I ate more like a person without a weight problem. I had a good time as well. Thus I learned that the holidays really could be enjoyed without ingesting mass quantities of fattening food! Amazing!
I'm looking forward to another year of learning to be thin!
See you next time and Happy New Year!
Though I didn't stick strictly to my meal plan during the holidays, I paid attention to what I was eating, evaluating my decision to eat what other people were eating. For instance, I ate meals with my mother at her nursing home that were high on carbohydrates and fat and low on vegetables; the protein was about right, at least at the noon meal. I ate the desserts, and on Christmas day, I ate the foods my sister served--though not in mass quantities--including fruit cake, ice cream and whipped cream for the pumpkin pudding. It was filling, but I don't think I overindulged. I passed up the chocolates (except for one chocolate Jordan almond), but not the egg nog. It was an experiment--an attempt to eat "normally"--and for the most part I think I did okay. I didn't go crazy with eating, but I didn't refrain either, and was able to avoid those arguments about dieting techniques that tend to spoil the holiday mood.
I did try to keep up with my exercise, and succeeded for the most part. That probably helped to keep my weight gain low: only .4 pounds over two weeks.
I'm pretty happy with how I got through the holidays this first year of my new eating plan. I incurred no massive weight gain that will need to be reversed in the first month of the year, and I think I ate more like a person without a weight problem. I had a good time as well. Thus I learned that the holidays really could be enjoyed without ingesting mass quantities of fattening food! Amazing!
I'm looking forward to another year of learning to be thin!
See you next time and Happy New Year!
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