A list of what I like

This first post will be a long one.  Sorry.

I've been impressed by the blog losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com.  It's written by a guy named Sean who started out at 505 lbs and is now down to his goal weight of 230!  I don't even know him and I am so proud of him.  The number one difference in his success and my failure in the weight loss world is that he was consistently GRATEFUL for every little thing.  He loves little McDonald's soft serve ice-cream cones and would blog about how cool it was that he got to eat them and still lose weight.  He was grateful for the smallest things--the day he looked in the mirror and could see his ears, when he realized he could walk around Walmart and not be winded--any and every step along the way.

I haven't quite decided the purpose of this blog.  As the title states I am THE Rebel Dieter.  I've tried to lose weight all my life and always wind up deeply resentful of the whole process.  One day I decided to write down a quick list of the things that bother me about dieting--with the idea that if I wrote them down I could put them behind me.  In about 5 minutes had written no less than 80 separate issues.  Hmmmm, seems that I have a bit of a problem.  These issues have evolved into a book I hope to publish someday.  Maybe I'll even post some things from the book here (but not too much as I still cherish a dream that this will be a phenomenal best-seller).  I've lost and kept off about 30 lbs without dieting using the principles I discovered.  But I'm a long way (about 50 lbs) from getting where I need to be. 

So, what am I doing here in cyber-space?  Well, I'm not being particularly accountable.  I tend to feel oppressed rather than motivated when people are counting on me to do something I'd rather not do ie: lose weight.  I'm also not going to reveal exact specs on what I weigh and how that progresses or not--for one thing that puts far too much value on what the scale says and then I start playing mind games and...well, the scale was one of the original 80 issues.

What I think I need to do is to track roughly what I'm doing--hopefully everyday, and then reflect (briefly) on the previous day and what would have made my efforts more successful and enjoyable. I'm also going to track what feels great about any healthy thing I do and/or if I'm not being so healthy, is there anything that I dislike about the feeling or results of eating say---3/4 of a pizza by myself.  Mostly, I need to feel more genuinely grateful for the terrific body I already have, and celebrate the little improvements--and have this on record so that I REMEMBER that I have much to be thankful for.

So, here goes. 

The plan du jour is the Lean and Free plan written by Dana Thornock in the 90's.  Her idea is that if you are optimally nourished you really can, and SHOULD eat till you're satisfied which will probably be about 3 to 4,000 calories.  Her recipies are really yummy and I love the idea of eating till I'm full as opposed to say what weight watchers thinks will keep me full.  For that optimal nourishment you should drink a lot of water and at every meal have a fruit, vegetable, protein and grain.  The fat content should be kept at about 20%. 

I've been doing this (sort of) for about the last two weeks.  I feel terrific and my skin is visibly younger looking.  Plus my rabid cravings for salt have largely subsided. I've been surprised at how few fruits and veggies I really had been eating--I thought I generally did quite well!  The problem is that I sort of missed the part (although she has it in bold several times in the book) about how you need to very gradually increase your calories.  ooops.  I've been loading the fruits and veggies, having extra sandwiches, eating lots of "healthy" dips and trying out some muffins and date bars, plus being a lot more free with anything else that was billed as sort of healthy like granola bars-- all of this I ADDED to my already more than plentiful non-dieting eating style.  Big ooops.  I'm up about 5 lbs and feel distinctly pudgy.   Still, I'm convinced this program's got the right idea.

One of the reasons I rebel against diets is that the better you follow them the less you are rewarded.  Take Weight Watchers--if you lose weight then you eventually have to give up points so you get to eat even less.  Some reward. 

With this plan if I do well, I can ADD more calories if I want them and the theory is that my metabolism will be conditioned to handle them.  We'll see.  I badly want this to work because I really hate the alternative.

Sooooo, here's the plan. I really needed to get a grip so last night I carefully planned out what I would eat today.  I'm bringing the calories back in line to about what I think I eat on a day of reasonable behavior--about 2,200 cal. Unlike my normal behavior though, I have all those fruits and veggies AND I kept the fat percentage down to 20%.  It turned out to be plenty of food and about 2,400 cal, but what was embarrassing was how much more I know I would have eaten had I not planned this out!! Good heavens!  How much have I been eating these past two weeks?????

Until the end of Feb. I will keep the fat and calories at this level and be pretty rigid about planning things out.  I'm confident that IF (always a big IF) I actually do this I will lose weight and inches, because even though it sounds like I'm eating a lot--it's still considerably less and healthier than my normal patterns.  Best of all, the better I stick to the plan, the better the rewards get!!! I will add more calories if I need them (I might, I'm hungry right now--and I'm supposed to eat until "full satisfaction"), and eventually I'll be less tied to the planning as well--maybe only really counting once a week or if my weight starts creeping up. We'll see how it goes. 

Exercise-wise the weather is getting warmer and I have a terrific job that allows for "wellness time."  I've joined a group that meets on Monday afternoons to walk and learn various healthy things.  There is a "walking plan" that slowly builds up until we all walk the Ogden Half Marathon together in May.  I like it.  I like to walk, but because it's easy I imagine I do it more than I probably do. This week the walks on the program are beginning to be a bit longer than I normally do.  I'm pretty sure I could step out the door and walk the marathon right now, but I'm determined not to slack.  It takes me 30 min to walk to work.  Today the plan was for  40. I left 10 minutes early so I could get it in.  It's a small effort but I'm proud of myself.

Food-wise I had 2 cups of frosted mini wheats, milk and a banana (veggies aren't mandatory for breakfast), Lunch was carefully controlled nachos with three corn torillas worth of chips, cheese, guacamole, plain yogurt, jalapenos, refried beans, and a fruit cup.  Snack was a date bar.  Right now I'm hungry but I won't get to eat dinner until after my night class---a big sandwich (hoagie bun alone is 300 cal--I could make a better choice, but Dave already bought the buns specially) with lots of veggies, an apple and some pretzles.  That's it.  What's noticably missing is the CHOCOLATE and any kind of dessert.  But I wanted a lot of cheese on the nachos, and I figured a relatively sugar-free say wouldn't hurt me in the least--it's been waaaay overboard lately.  So I'm okay with it for one day.

Grateful---I walked for 40 minutes--no prob!  Even though I feel really fat my clothes still fit.  I feel good that at least today I'm more or less in control.  I really loved the nachos. Best of all, I don't dread tomorrow because I feel as though I can live at this level and still be happy.