This week I did pay attention to my eating-and-reading chain, a habit I have that is apparently not the best for changing one's eating behavior. (Is this one of the "chains I forged in life" that Jacob Marley was warning about?) I didn't stop doing it, but I did try to pay more attention to how it was affecting me. I concluded that reading does prevent me from paying attention to what I'm eating somewhat, thereby causing some unconscious eating behavior, which is dangerous, as we know.
But it's very hard for me to stop doing it, mostly because it's a well entrenched habit. And despite my excuses for why I must continue (I don't have time to read otherwise; I tend to zone out while I eat anyway), the power of habit really is the main reason. So what to do? Should I continue to read and try to pay attention to my food? Abandon the effort altogether? Or really try to go without, just to see what happens? If I choose the last, it will be hard, I know that. But, we'll see.
I've lost 25 pounds now, which is a milestone of sorts. It's been six months, 26 weeks at about a pound a week. Not too bad considering I had to get past some holidays and birthdays and travel. The true test will come with the upcoming holiday season. I feel confident I can make it, but it will mean some extra vigilance.
I haven't been this weight since 1996. It seems strange, not like me. I'm not quite used to it yet, I guess, despite the slow progress. I enjoy the extra energy I seem to have from not carrying those 25 extra pounds. But I kind of miss my belly, too. It's been with me for a long time, after all. I felt this way when I was gaining the weight too. I remember feeling surprised to be so wide that I couldn't squeeze through narrow passages, or having difficulty bending over or twisting to the side because my bulk was in the way.
I think people who lose a lot of weight (especially if quickly) don't fully appreciate the feeling of loss that emerges, the need to mourn the old self. Part of it is because they expect only elation. Our culture is so focused on shape and size, people think that losing weight can only bring good effects, and the struggle to lose weight and change a lifetime of eating behaviors will all be worth it. But the fat person those behaviors created has come to identify with her shape and size, for good or ill. A major change in those physical characteristics requires a major adjustment in the way she sees herself, and in the way others see her as well.
My father went through this when he decided to lose weight after he was diagnosed with diabetes. He watched his mother's health deteriorate from the same disease, to the point where she had to take insulin injections and ended up losing her legs and eventually her life. He vowed he would not go down that road, so he got a diabetic eating plan and followed it religiously. It took him about a year to lose 100 pounds, but he did it. He was slim for the first time in my life, and I was in my late twenties. I thought it was pretty cool.
My father was a short man, and small framed, but his fat made him seem big. I don't think he realized what it would feel like to suddenly be so small. I could see he was struggling with that (although he did seem to enjoy buying clothes that fit him in the bright colors he preferred), and my mother, too, confessed that she wasn't completely happy with her husband's new shape. She liked him big because he made her feel small, she said, especially when he gave her one of his bear hugs.
And then there were the wrinkles. Fat fills out a person's face and limbs, areas that normally start to look pretty saggy as we age. My dad, who was around 58 at the time, would look at his newly slim face and arms and express distaste for the wrinkles he saw there. Not only was he smaller, but wrinklier too--two blows to the ego that were hard to take, even with the benefits of improved health. The unpleasant changes didn't drive him back to eating, but they did lessen the pleasure he thought he was going derive from losing weight. He didn't anticipate any negatives, so he was disappointed.
Lately I've been looking at my slimmer face and noticing the wrinkles there and in my upper arms. I'm waiting for my thighs to start sagging too. The gradualness of the weight loss helps, I think, to give the skin time to bounce back. But age is the primary cause, I'm sure. Do I want to continue to be padded so I don't look so old? No, but it would be nice to have it both ways. Alas, plastic surgery is the only way to do that, and it has its own dangers. So I guess I'll just keep working at losing weight, and try to stay aware of the changes it brings.
Today I've got a baby shower to attend. No doubt there will be food offered, so I should fortify myself a bit before I go, but not too much because I don't want to refuse everything and risk offending the hostess. I'll just have to play it by ear, I guess. Wish me luck!
See you next week.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Deciding to Be Thin
This week was much the same as last week, except that I did consciously try to eat less and get more out of what I do eat by choosing more wisely from among the various options I have for the day's food.
For example, I'm allowed three to four fruits and two milk choices per day. I have to decide how to spread those five to six items out over the course of the day. I typically like to have my fruit as snacks, but sometimes I have one fruit at breakfast, then another in the morning and a third in the afternoon, which leaves one for evening snack, if necessary.
But the afternoon is the longest part of my day, since I have lunch at 11:30 but don't have supper until 6:00. So from 12:00 to 6:00 I have to eat snacks about every two hours to keep my blood sugar up. Usually I have my first snack at 2:30. It would stand to reason, then, that my next snack would be at 4:30, then supper at 6:00. That's two afternoon snacks. If one of them is the fruit, then what would the other one be?
Well, I've been eating yogurt in the afternoon, but I can only have the yogurt if I haven't had a milk at breakfast. If I did have a milk at breakfast, then I can still have the yogurt, but only if I don't have a milk in the evening. If I don't have the yogurt, though, what can I have? Fruit is my only other option, unless I want to eat a vegetable. I could also save part of my lunch meat to eat, but three ounces is already a small serving, and a part of that might not last the rest of the afternoon.
Unfortunately, sometimes I find myself hungry at 1:30, and then 3:30 and then again at 5:00. But if I eat three snacks instead of two in the afternoon, I'm sure to have no foods left for my evening snack. It's a dilemma.
The goal is to keep from being hungry, mostly because when I get hungry I get weak and sometimes fuzzy headed. It's funny, though--yesterday afternoon I had some coffee (something I very rarely do) because I was sleepy, but I found that it also took away my hunger for a little while. I guess that's the appetite suppressant feature of caffeine, and why it's used in diet pills. I wonder how it works . . . ?
One thing I used to do which did not work so well is to eat my yogurt and fruit together in the afternoon. That was tasty, but not too smart, because it eliminated the fruit that I was saving for later, which meant that I had to eat an additional fruit that day.
But I don't like to eat the yogurt alone. So I've started eating my yogurt with celery sticks, as a sort of dip. That solves the problem of the lonely yogurt without using up the fruit. Maybe other types of vegetables would work for that too. It's something to consider. It would have to be a bland vegetable, though, like cucumber sticks, so the taste of the yogurt is not overpowered. Peppers wouldn't work, but maybe zucchini would.
The point of describing all this minutiae is to show how important these types of decisions are to changing our eating behavior. As Shirley emphasizes over and over, unconscious eating is the enemy. Shoving high calorie food into my mouth every time I get hungry is effective for eliminating hunger, but is not a good long term solution to the problem of low blood sugar because it has negative consequences, not the least of which is weight gain.
A person does not have to be fat if she has low blood sugar. There is a way to eat a reasonable amount of food and deal with metabolic imbalance. It just requires planning, preparation and monitoring of food choices and portion size. It requires conscious decision making every day.
Oh, sure, reckless abandon can be fun, for those people who rarely indulge, who can handle occasional blow-out sludge fests. Those people can go back to their normal eating routine the next morning with hardly a look back. However, if you're reading this blog because you need to lose weight, you're in the other group--the group where every day could turn out to be a day of reckless abandon followed by a night of regret and a morning of amnesia.
So I'm going to keep making conscious decisions about what I eat, and I'm going to keep telling you about it. See you next post.
For example, I'm allowed three to four fruits and two milk choices per day. I have to decide how to spread those five to six items out over the course of the day. I typically like to have my fruit as snacks, but sometimes I have one fruit at breakfast, then another in the morning and a third in the afternoon, which leaves one for evening snack, if necessary.
But the afternoon is the longest part of my day, since I have lunch at 11:30 but don't have supper until 6:00. So from 12:00 to 6:00 I have to eat snacks about every two hours to keep my blood sugar up. Usually I have my first snack at 2:30. It would stand to reason, then, that my next snack would be at 4:30, then supper at 6:00. That's two afternoon snacks. If one of them is the fruit, then what would the other one be?
Well, I've been eating yogurt in the afternoon, but I can only have the yogurt if I haven't had a milk at breakfast. If I did have a milk at breakfast, then I can still have the yogurt, but only if I don't have a milk in the evening. If I don't have the yogurt, though, what can I have? Fruit is my only other option, unless I want to eat a vegetable. I could also save part of my lunch meat to eat, but three ounces is already a small serving, and a part of that might not last the rest of the afternoon.
Unfortunately, sometimes I find myself hungry at 1:30, and then 3:30 and then again at 5:00. But if I eat three snacks instead of two in the afternoon, I'm sure to have no foods left for my evening snack. It's a dilemma.
The goal is to keep from being hungry, mostly because when I get hungry I get weak and sometimes fuzzy headed. It's funny, though--yesterday afternoon I had some coffee (something I very rarely do) because I was sleepy, but I found that it also took away my hunger for a little while. I guess that's the appetite suppressant feature of caffeine, and why it's used in diet pills. I wonder how it works . . . ?
One thing I used to do which did not work so well is to eat my yogurt and fruit together in the afternoon. That was tasty, but not too smart, because it eliminated the fruit that I was saving for later, which meant that I had to eat an additional fruit that day.
But I don't like to eat the yogurt alone. So I've started eating my yogurt with celery sticks, as a sort of dip. That solves the problem of the lonely yogurt without using up the fruit. Maybe other types of vegetables would work for that too. It's something to consider. It would have to be a bland vegetable, though, like cucumber sticks, so the taste of the yogurt is not overpowered. Peppers wouldn't work, but maybe zucchini would.
The point of describing all this minutiae is to show how important these types of decisions are to changing our eating behavior. As Shirley emphasizes over and over, unconscious eating is the enemy. Shoving high calorie food into my mouth every time I get hungry is effective for eliminating hunger, but is not a good long term solution to the problem of low blood sugar because it has negative consequences, not the least of which is weight gain.
A person does not have to be fat if she has low blood sugar. There is a way to eat a reasonable amount of food and deal with metabolic imbalance. It just requires planning, preparation and monitoring of food choices and portion size. It requires conscious decision making every day.
Oh, sure, reckless abandon can be fun, for those people who rarely indulge, who can handle occasional blow-out sludge fests. Those people can go back to their normal eating routine the next morning with hardly a look back. However, if you're reading this blog because you need to lose weight, you're in the other group--the group where every day could turn out to be a day of reckless abandon followed by a night of regret and a morning of amnesia.
So I'm going to keep making conscious decisions about what I eat, and I'm going to keep telling you about it. See you next post.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Week 24: Identifying Problems and Finding Solutions
I've arrived at a plateau this week, it seems. I didn't lose weight or body fat, so I guess I'm going to have to make some adjustments to my eating plan.
For instance, I've gotten accustomed to eating a snack in the evening. I don't want to eliminate it altogether, since I find I'm hungry if I don't eat something. I don't know if it needs to be so big, though. Usually I have fruit and yogurt or milk, but maybe I don't need both, since I go to bed so soon afterward. I'll try that out this week, see what happens with it.
I could also skip the third bread occasionally. Usually I have that at supper, but maybe I can do without it now and then. Of course, I do look forward to it. I could also cut down on the ounces of meat I have at supper--go for four ounces instead of five. All these are minor adjustments, but maybe they'll have an effect, even if I adopt only one.
Another thing I need to do is exercise more, although finding the time is the problem. Maybe morning dancing is a good choice, combined with a walk at lunch. Or perhaps I can do more frequent walks of shorter duration at work, say five minutes per hour. It's something to consider . . .
This was the week I was supposed to launch Step 7, Eating Only. I had some limited success, but mostly in the area of trying to pay more attention to my food and to slow down the process more. I'm still reading while eating lunch and breakfast, but trying not to let it distract me too much. I may have to accept only partial fulfillment of this step.
I had a bakery bagel for my extra bread this past week. It was pretty good, but not that spectacular. I think I would've enjoyed a piece of toast more, to tell the truth. But these things have to be tried so that I can learn what really motivates me to eat something. If I feel bagel-deprived, eating a bagel (and really paying attention to what it tastes like) should help me get over that feeling. I guess that's the best reason to gradually add "forbidden" foods to my diet: to de-mystify them, you might say. I think my bagel experiment did that fairly well. A bagel is chewy bread with a nice crust. Nothing miraculous there! The problem with a bagel is that typically it's big (and therefore high in calories) , but a quarter of a bagel is not satisfying the way a piece of bread would be. So maybe the solution is to find something that would give the same satisfaction without tipping the scales.
As Shirley tells us with respect to the Controlled Trade technique, when you eat something on that list, you should know why you're eating it. What craving is it meant to satisfy? Don't gulp it down just because you can. Determine what you hope to get from it; then once you've eaten it, you can evaluate its success in giving you what you wanted. I can do that with any number of foods I consider to be treats and thereby learn how to incorporate them into my diet in a sensible way.
And that's the essence of this program: gaining the knowledge you need to make rational decisions about eating. Those plans that only change what you eat are doomed to fail because those with eating disorders need to change how they eat in order to stay permanently thin.
See you next week.
For instance, I've gotten accustomed to eating a snack in the evening. I don't want to eliminate it altogether, since I find I'm hungry if I don't eat something. I don't know if it needs to be so big, though. Usually I have fruit and yogurt or milk, but maybe I don't need both, since I go to bed so soon afterward. I'll try that out this week, see what happens with it.
I could also skip the third bread occasionally. Usually I have that at supper, but maybe I can do without it now and then. Of course, I do look forward to it. I could also cut down on the ounces of meat I have at supper--go for four ounces instead of five. All these are minor adjustments, but maybe they'll have an effect, even if I adopt only one.
Another thing I need to do is exercise more, although finding the time is the problem. Maybe morning dancing is a good choice, combined with a walk at lunch. Or perhaps I can do more frequent walks of shorter duration at work, say five minutes per hour. It's something to consider . . .
This was the week I was supposed to launch Step 7, Eating Only. I had some limited success, but mostly in the area of trying to pay more attention to my food and to slow down the process more. I'm still reading while eating lunch and breakfast, but trying not to let it distract me too much. I may have to accept only partial fulfillment of this step.
I had a bakery bagel for my extra bread this past week. It was pretty good, but not that spectacular. I think I would've enjoyed a piece of toast more, to tell the truth. But these things have to be tried so that I can learn what really motivates me to eat something. If I feel bagel-deprived, eating a bagel (and really paying attention to what it tastes like) should help me get over that feeling. I guess that's the best reason to gradually add "forbidden" foods to my diet: to de-mystify them, you might say. I think my bagel experiment did that fairly well. A bagel is chewy bread with a nice crust. Nothing miraculous there! The problem with a bagel is that typically it's big (and therefore high in calories) , but a quarter of a bagel is not satisfying the way a piece of bread would be. So maybe the solution is to find something that would give the same satisfaction without tipping the scales.
As Shirley tells us with respect to the Controlled Trade technique, when you eat something on that list, you should know why you're eating it. What craving is it meant to satisfy? Don't gulp it down just because you can. Determine what you hope to get from it; then once you've eaten it, you can evaluate its success in giving you what you wanted. I can do that with any number of foods I consider to be treats and thereby learn how to incorporate them into my diet in a sensible way.
And that's the essence of this program: gaining the knowledge you need to make rational decisions about eating. Those plans that only change what you eat are doomed to fail because those with eating disorders need to change how they eat in order to stay permanently thin.
See you next week.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Week 24 and Step 7: Getting Closer to the Goal Posts
Last week was fairly routine, although I found myself feeling hungry quite often, which bothers me a little, especially at work, where I don't have as many options for eating appropriate snacks. I managed to do alright with it, but I don't like it and want to find a way to avoid it, if possible.
John says that loss of body fat brings hunger because you don't have the fat stores to draw from that you once had. That makes sense to me, but I wonder how to fix it? If I don't have fat stores, then I'll have to rely more on the food I eat. I think maybe I need more protein in my meals; it lasts longer than carbohydrates. I'm going to work on that this week.
Over the last couple months, I've been idling at Step 6 of the Learn to be Thin Program. You might remember that was the first step of "Breaking the 'Eating and . . .' Chains" by eating in a specific designated eating spot each time and not eating anywhere else. Step 7 of that pair is eating without doing anything else, or Eating Only. That means no reading, working, driving, cooking, watching TV, etc. I guess it's still alright to eat and talk at the same time, else we'd all have to eat alone.
So I guess I've stalled long enough and have to tackle this step now. It's not going to be easy, because I still read while eating and watch TV during my evening snack. I'm not sure how well it's going to work to not read, because it's almost the only time I get to read. I'll just have to find a way to set aside more time for just reading. When, I don't know . . .
Harder still will be eating and only eating because it seems at first glance to be boring. But I guess it's a good time to really think about what I'm tasting and chewing and swallowing. Unconscious eating is the enemy, as I've learned over the weeks. Maybe I'll find that conscious eating is more pleasant. I'd better go someplace besides my desk to do it, though, so that my coworkers are not tempted to interrupt me. Wish me luck!
John says that loss of body fat brings hunger because you don't have the fat stores to draw from that you once had. That makes sense to me, but I wonder how to fix it? If I don't have fat stores, then I'll have to rely more on the food I eat. I think maybe I need more protein in my meals; it lasts longer than carbohydrates. I'm going to work on that this week.
Over the last couple months, I've been idling at Step 6 of the Learn to be Thin Program. You might remember that was the first step of "Breaking the 'Eating and . . .' Chains" by eating in a specific designated eating spot each time and not eating anywhere else. Step 7 of that pair is eating without doing anything else, or Eating Only. That means no reading, working, driving, cooking, watching TV, etc. I guess it's still alright to eat and talk at the same time, else we'd all have to eat alone.
So I guess I've stalled long enough and have to tackle this step now. It's not going to be easy, because I still read while eating and watch TV during my evening snack. I'm not sure how well it's going to work to not read, because it's almost the only time I get to read. I'll just have to find a way to set aside more time for just reading. When, I don't know . . .
Harder still will be eating and only eating because it seems at first glance to be boring. But I guess it's a good time to really think about what I'm tasting and chewing and swallowing. Unconscious eating is the enemy, as I've learned over the weeks. Maybe I'll find that conscious eating is more pleasant. I'd better go someplace besides my desk to do it, though, so that my coworkers are not tempted to interrupt me. Wish me luck!
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