Losing weight in spite of myself.

I began this blog in February 2011 as a way to help me not quit trying to lose weight, and to learn a few things. It's been an interesting and powerful experience. It certainly confirms what I've long suspected--that although I am a genuinely happy cheery person in the main, I am NOT a happy cheery dieter. I DETEST losing weight. I resent being overweight in the first place and I am a virtuoso in the art of self-sabotage. And YET--I'm doing it! I'm fighting and kicking and EATING all the way down, but the weight is finally going down. The plan I was following in February was a half-baked one largely based on wishful thinking. I gained a little weight and decided to get real. I knew I couldn't just join weightwatchers or count calories or do any one plan and expect to be successful. I decided if I was going to bother to make the effort to lose weight I was going to throw everything I could think of at the problem. And so I do. My real "Day One" for this blog is April 1, 2011. I joined weight watchers, I joined caloriecount.com (awesome website), I read the blog losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com religiously, I keep this blog faithfully, I joined the health programs sponsored by my insurance, I use the principles from overeater's anonymous, I use my church's 12 step program as well, I subscribe--and use--Healthy Cooking Magazine.



The result of all this? Painfully slow progress (About 20 lbs in 10 months). But it IS progress and like the little engine that could I keep on trying in my rebellious way. I have no intention of quitting. This is by far the longest sustained weight loss effort I've ever made in my life. Successful I think, because for the first in my life I've done this MY way--which I've discovered, involves a lot of pizza and restaraunt food. I'm convinced this is the only way to lose weight. For me it must be MY way. For you it MUST be YOUR way. Not weight watcher's way, not your doctor's way, but YOUR way. Any plan or idea I use is only a tool.

The latest plan to lose weight my way began on Oct 29, 2013. It really is my own crazy plan. As you'll see if you read that post. I've implemented the best ideas of all sorts of eating plans and thrown out the scale. A couple of months in and I'm definitely healthier. I'm actually enjoying myself. I won't weigh until April 1, 2014, so I'll see then if this works the way I hope it will.

There is no magic weight loss bullet. But there IS a great deal of magic in the discovery of what I can happily live with (very different from what weight watchers tells me I can happily live with) and still have the body and health I want.

Good luck to all of us on this journey. It's quite a trip!







Monday, July 30, 2012

489 some pros and cons

Okay---lets see how intuitive eating stacks up against regular dieting--at least in my own twisted mind.

IE In some ways MUCH harder than a regular diet. Right now, on a regular diet I'd just be eating the pretzels with veggie cream cheese dip that I brought to work. With IE I'm having to wait until I'm hungry. I also have to deal with what I'm really feeling--do I have the munchies because I don't want to call my sister? Probably. Solution---call my sister. Then wait till I'm hungry, then eat what I want.

I actually LOVE this. Working through this type of thing IS the problem. These emotions ARE the problem. The solution of fixing the real problem, while eating as I need to feels like REAL progress, not just artificial diet "I hope I can hang on" progress.

Problem! I'm not at all sure this is going to work!!!! I'm not one of these people who claim to "eat so much" while actually eating 1/2 a salad. I really can put it away and I enjoy doing so. Also, I believe that the body really does have a "set point" and you have to override this pretty consistently to get the body to move in either direction. Thank goodness--that's why I haven't put on a bunch of weight in spite of my many "exceptions". The thing is though, that I've been pretty good about going back to WW after the "exception". I know the "exceptions" won't decrease in frequency--I'm afraid they won't decrease in amount either--and if I don't reign my eating in in between times...then I'm in big trouble.

IE--it DOES work even with me--at least to some extent. I did the classic IE thing in about 8 years ago in Cedar Rapids. I got competely fed up with the idea of a diet, and gave up. I decided not to worry about it--that I would only do something healthy if that was what I truly wanted to do. It worked--I lost 20 pounds. The catch? It took me 5 years to lose that 20 pounds! The bigger catch. I stopped there. It wasn't until I joined weight watchers at the beginning of this blog that I lost another 20. However---I wasn't using all the ideas of intuitive eating. I wasn't actively searching out my hunger and full signals or looking for ways to cope other than eating. Perhaps that's why my weight loss froze?

Diets. Dave lost 50 pounds on weight watchers. He's kept it off for about 5 years, but it's crept back on--galloped back rather than crept in this last year. It's hard not to think "well, he should have just been a bit more careful and caught the weight gain early on" Also, there are people like Sean of 505 lb fame who seem to be able to diet and successfully lose it for keeps.

However--I DON'T want to live like Sean! Monitor every single calorie for the rest of my life? Especially at the 1500 cal level???!!! NO THANKS!! Richard Simmons is another "success" story--except that I don't want to live his lifestyle either. Also--I've got about 40 years of evidence that no matther how much I may want to I can't stick with a diet long enough to get where I want to be.

I do have a little bit more IE evidence. Thanksgiving. I never stuff myself to bursting. It is the one day when I really give myself total carte blance to eat and I never binge. This has limited value though---for while I don't eat everything--I DO probably eat at least 5,000 calories. So it's not something I'd want to do every day. Although I'd like to. Another time Dad took me to Las Vegas for a week with buffets at every meal. Sure enough--by the last day I went to a fabulous buffet and ate a small slice of roast beef and a little cottage cheese and didn't even look at the dessert bar. I was just plain stuffed. I expected to gain a bunch of weight but I didn't gain any at all! In fact, I think I even lost a pound or two. However, I think that was partly due to being young. Fast forward 15 years or so and I went on a 7 day cruise. Again I ate freely with total abandon. Although I couldn't quite manange to eat much at the midnight buffet, that was the only time I didn't eat much on that cruise. The only reason I pooped out at midnight was because I'd already eaten a five course dinner that included steak, lobstor, quail, a mountain of sides, and a chocolate melting cake AND the nightly special dessert. Anyway--I gained 8 pounds on that 1 week cruise. The good news was that I lost it right away--but that's not because of any native intuitive eating virtue. It's because I simply don't have the means to fix all that food for myself every single day. I loved the buffets. I'm not at all sure that if I lived on a cruise ship that I would ever top out. I think I could happily eat my way to 400 pounds plus given half a chance. That makes me very nervous about intuitive eating.

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