wdarling

Just posted this over on my regular blog, thought I’d repost it here, as it might help somebody.

Here are some of my favorite “diet foods,” i.e. things I eat almost every day, since they keep me full, are low in calories and taste good:

- lf cottage cheese
- pineapple
- soy sausage links/patties
- lf yogurt
- milk
- apples
- tea
- low-cal wheat English muffins
- whole wheat bagels
- vegie chili
- “lite” (no syrup) fruit cocktail
- “lite” (no syrup) canned pears
- low-cal fruit smoothies
- apples, nectarines, tangerines, etc.
- oatmeal
- Diet Coke*

* Yes, I know about the recent study showing diet sodas may lead to weight gain and/or mess you up.

Food Log

I’ve found that resisting temptation has been pretty easy thus far. Just today there were three instances where I could have easily gone off track but pretty much said “No thanks” moved on: 1) bowl of hard candies in my office break room, 2) Hershey’s Kisses and Sweet Tarts at a team meeting at work, and 3) free beer and cookies at a volunteer meeting.

How was I able to say no? Well, my calorie limit is 1500 cal. a day and basically I wind up being ruled by logic. One Kiss is probably as many calories as a whole grapefruit. A grapefruit is delicious and takes five or ten minutes to eat. A Kiss is down your throat before you even realize it, and yet the calories are in your body. Now a bottle of beer, on the other hand, is probably as many calories as my whole lunch or the main part of dinner. So if I have a beer, I can’t have dinner without going over the limit. And dinner is more important than beer. I can eat four or five things at dinner or I can have some cookies and a beer. Of course the cookies and beer lose, on the scales of logic.

That’s really how it works. It’s true, I *can* eat some “junk” food, but since by and large such food is high in calories, I can only have a small amount of it — or else I have to sacrifice eating a lot of lower calorie food which would be more satisfying anyway.

This all plays into the fact I’m using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as the basis for my weight loss plan. A large part of CBT is forcing yourself to reason instead of letting your feelings overpower you and drag you to places you don’t want to go — depression, undue guilt, and even overeating. Here I’m using reasoning to tell myself that I can have a nice dinner and snacks or give in to an impulse to have a “treat” and then end up hungry. I don’t want to be hungry!

Tomorrow: This diet makes me feel like I’m eating all the time, much more than usual. But I’m only taking in about half the calories.

Did my weekly weigh-in this morning and found I’m on track. So far I’ve lost 6 lbs. What’s funny is that this is about all the weight I lost the entire time I was working out at the gym for eight months straight. And I did this in two weeks just by following a calorie regime.

I’m not starving myself either, but just learning to eat reasonable portions and consider calories instead of just the contents of the food. At this point I even seem to be developing a rhythm, with breakfast, lunch, dinner and three snacks (morning, afternoon and night), with about the same amount of food, calorie-wise, each time, and I feel satisfied after each meal, now that my stomach is getting used to it.

Later this week I’m going grocery shopping and stocking up on all the foods that I’ve found to be the best choices as far as “repeat” meals, like grapefruit, cottage cheese, yogurt, eggs, etc. I hope that by keeping all these things in stock I will avoid the temptation to just grab whatever food is handy.

I’ve been following the 1500 cal/day regimen for a week now and it’s going pretty well. However, the last couple of days I’ve gone a little bit over, according to the calculations of BuddySlim’s food journal. When I do my review next Monday I will look at which things I should perhaps mark as “not worth it” in terms of calories. One thing that really surprised me in terms of calories was olive oil and canola oil. Kind of annoying, as those types of oils are good for you in the sense of general health. I’m also surprised that an apple has 100+ calories. Anyway, overall things are going well and I think on average I am still doing about 1500 a day, and the average is what I’m supposed to be concerned about, not that I hit 1500 exactly each day.

Oh, and on the weight front, according to what I logged Monday, I have already lost a couple of pounds, which surprised me. I am trying not to make a big deal of this, since according to my program it’s weight loss trends (last four weeks) I’m supposed to care about, not week to week numbers, but still, it’s encouraging!

So I’ve managed four straight days of keeping on track with the 1500 cal. daily diet.

I’ve actually never done a calories-based diet before, only ones that had to do with avoiding certain types of food or eating mostly one kind of food. One of my big problems over the past few years is that I’ll eat healthy, natural food, like a ton of fruits and vegies and whole grains, but that’s the problem — I eat a TON of it. And I’ll toss in snacks and “treats” that add on calories. I think I must’ve been taking in at least 3,000 cal. daily previously, and often more I bet.

So now I’m working on way less and it’s fine because I’m determined not to think of it as a “hardship” but as a necessary thing I have to cope with. Furthermore I’m working to make sure that I *enjoy* everything I eat, so I’m using all my cookbooks, being creative, thinking about choices rather than just opening the fridge and popping whatever I see into my mouth.

So far the yummiest thing I’ve had that was “diet” food was a red snapper dish I made Friday night. The best dessert I’ve had was crushed canned pineapple, which if you get the kind that’s *just* pineapple is very low in calories but really delicious. See the log below for today’s food.

Food Log

I won’t be starting my official weight-loss program, using cognitive-behavioral therapy, until the start of the year, but I am “warming up” to it by cutting back my daily intake to 1500 calories in advance. This way I will get over my cravings before I even start, which hopefully will make things easier.

Another reason I’m starting now is that I ate so irresponsibly over Christmas. I pretty much ate whatever was in front of me, so I had tons of fruitcake, candy, cookies, cheese, butter, gravy, the works. I even had eggnog with whipped cream, which I know is a huge no-no. But I can’t be mad at myself, I can just say, “No more of that!” In future I will plan out a way to deal with tempting occasions like holidays, family visits, etc. I can have some of the food but shouldn’t eat everything in sight!