Trust

                One of the truly bad symptoms of dieting is that I no longer can trust myself.  I know I’m not alone in this.  Here’s the usual scenario: I start a diet.  I do what it takes to lose the weight.  On day eight, nine or ten, I have some candy, or cake or breakfast strudel.  Then, I snap.  Since I’ve had forbidden food, I think, what else have I missed?  What have I been longing for?  Then I eat whatever I can grab. 

                To help me, my kids will start shouting, “Your diet!  What about your diet?”  I will shout back, “None of your business!  Look, is that Pikachu behind the couch?”  While they’re searching, I’ll tiptoe over to their Halloween/Easter/Birthday stash and snag a few more candy bars.  I’ll feel evil laughter building in my throat.  Mwahahaha!

                 My husband has tried to have a few heart-to-heart conversations with me about this.  “Give yourself permission to eat food,” he’ll say kindly.   But I’m too far gone.  I think, what does he know? Who is he to give me advice?  He doesn’t diet.  He doesn’t know what it’s like.

                After a day or so, the storm will calm and I’ll either be back on the diet, or I’ll give up completely.  You can bet good money on this pattern.  Oh, sometimes I’ll make it an entire three weeks before the snap, but it’s going to happen.  I can’t remember the last time I went an entire month.  Oh, wait, Weight Watchers around a year ago—I manipulated the point spread well enough to contain my cheating.  I was “good” for three months.  It didn’t help me lose any weight, but, on paper, I didn’t “cheat”.  

                 So when I find myself radically altering my life to change eating habits, I can’t help but wonder how long will it last?  I don’t have a good track record.  Well, actually I do have a consistent track record.  It’s a track record of eating whatever the heck I want when I want it.  I can always trust myself to revert to that. 

Goals and Changing Diets Again

                What are my dietary goals?  To find a way of eating where I can lose and keep the weight off forever.  I think that’s straightforward.  One of the problems is I want to get a few tons of weight off relatively quickly.  That requires radical eating changes.  Another problem is diets have broken me, so radical eating changes are nearly impossible.  Yeah, I know I sound a little overly dramatic, but I’ve been on diets for decades, and it’s hard for me to stay on any of them for very long.  I mean, look how well diets have worked for me.  I needed to lose 10 pounds to look great in my wedding dress.  I lost it, but gained it all back plus five.  Then I went on a diet to drop the 15.  Lost eight, but gained it all back, plus.  I think you get the picture.  I’ve dieted myself from a size 6 into a size 14.   Now I have all these deprivation and food-control issues.  It’s so tedious, I bore myself. 

                That’s why I flit from diet to diet, trying to find one I can live with.  I do eat a healthy diet, but it’s not enough.  If you followed that silly food pyramid, whichever one the government is promoting this week, that’s a lot of food to eat in one day.  So I keep looking, trying to find something that will keep me healthy and lose the weight. 

                I’ve found something new, and I like it, but I question my ability to stay on it.  I was looking for recipes to perk up the very dull Cycle 1 foods, and ran into some good recipes on Mark’s Daily Apple.  (If you want to take a look, the link is: http://www.marksdailyapple.com)  Then I started to look at the dietary information there.  He promotes a way of eating called the Primal Blueprint.  At first, I wanted to roll my eyes thinking it was one of those caveman eating diets.  You know where you eat bugs and raw meat or something.  This wasn’t that.  He can describe it a thousand times better than me.  But for me it boils down to eating meats, vegetables and fruits.  Healthy, but hard to imagine a life without grains, because that’s a big part of the eating plan—no grains, at all, and stay away from sugar.

                Since I felt so great after a few weeks of not eating any grains or sugars on the 17 Day Diet, I thought this might be an interesting way to live.  So many foods I eat are processed to the point of null nutrition value, and most of the processed foods are grain-based.  The Primal Blueprint is more of a way of thinking and therefore eating, rather than a list of approved and disapproved foods.  There’s a heck of a lot more variety eating this way than on Cycle 1.  But there’s more variety in Cycles 2, 3 and 4—so that’s not the real issue. 

                For me, it’s better than Atkins where I always go nuts after week two because I crave extra cups of salad, carrots and apples.  I get depressed on Atkins.  I need more carbs, and there are plenty of vegetable and fruit based carbs on the PB diet. 

                I was on the PB ‘diet’ for nearly a week and a half.  Then I got the flu.  I’ve been feeling off for days, but then the fever hit and my stomach went crazy.  Coincidence?  That I get a summer stomach flu after radically changing my diet?   Or did I catch it on vacation or from someone at the grocery store?  I have no idea.  On the second day of the fever, I had noodles with my kids, and have been eating processed carbs since.  I’ll go back and try it again.  I like the idea of it.  I’ll have to see how far I can go.

I do love to complain

                I have a hard time with all this cooking.  I like to cook, but not almost every meal, every day.  Then you add cooking for the rest of the family, and I’m in the kitchen for a few hours a day.  I don't know  how to get away from it.  The 17 Day Diet calls for foods cooked without a lot of oils.  Then, there are all those very specific fruits and vegetables.  I think it’s harder when you first start the diet.  I need time to accumulate extras.  I’ll make some soup this week and put most of it in the freezer.  I made a breakfast frittata the other morning and managed to have two pieces left over for lunches the next day.  I roasted a chicken last night for salads, tacos, etc., but my husband and kids managed to eat nearly half, “picking” at it.  I don’t mind that they eat it, it’s much better than “flaming hot” snacks, but I do wish they’d help with the cooking. 

                I don’t know how someone could do this diet without all the cooking.  Breakfast is limited in choices.  I know I can’t make it through the morning on blueberries in Greek yogurt.  I’m hungry in half an hour.  So my other option is egg whites and veggies.  Most mornings I have an egg white scramble with a variety of onions, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes or salsa.  I boiled a bunch of eggs on Tuesday.  So I don’t necessarily have to cook every morning, but for some reason, I can’t eat hard boiled eggs very often.  

                I’ve debated about supermarket roast chickens.  I don’t know exactly how they cook them, but sometimes they’re very greasy.  They must slather them in some oil before roasting.  Sometimes they’re not cooked all the way through and I have to put them into the oven for another 15-20 minutes.  I may as well roast one of my own.  I still have to wash the roasting pan.  While I’m being “good” on the diet, I don’t want to eat oil saturated chicken.  

                I eat a salad for lunch nearly every day.  I love salads.  I pile them with shredded carrots, strips of peppers, green onions, two types of lettuce or cabbage.  And chicken, I love chicken on my salads.  I’ll poach or sauté the chicken in broth, or grill it on a hot pan with a spray of oil.  I chop extra vegetables for dinner or lunch the next day, but I like things to be fresh, so I can’t chop for more than a day or two in advance.  I also end up eating more vegetables than I plan, or someone else in the household who said they didn’t want a salad, ends up wanting one after they smell or see what’s going on.    

                Yesterday was my youngest’s birthday.  He wanted homemade spaghetti and garlic bread for his birthday dinner.  He also wanted mini pudding pies.  My mom makes a simple, yet great pudding pie for every holiday.  My youngest wanted to make big ones for his family birthday later this month, but wanted to practice making little ones.  So we made yummy little pies.   I’ll admit I had three bites.  They were great.  He was happy.  It was easier ignoring the spaghetti.  I heated up a jar of his favorite sauce and boiled the angel hair pasta.  That was easy.  The garlic bread was a little tougher.  It’s one of my favorites.  I put fresh garlic in butter, then slather that through a loaf of fresh French bread.  We put it in the oven covered in foil, with only part of the top showing.  That makes the middle soft and garlicky, while the outside forms a nice crust.  Ahhhhh, heaven--but I stayed away from it.  I figured the three bites of pie were enough cheating.  He had his favorites, and since I get to eat as much protein as I like, along with great vegetables, I didn’t feel too cheated.  

                All in all, it’s pretty easy sticking to the foods I have to eat, but I need to figure out how to get out of the kitchen more often. 

I Ate My Way Through Oregon

                I just got back from vacation and I’ve gained weight.  Surprise!  I didn’t diet while on vacation.  Actually, I stopped dieting a few days before we left for Oregon.  Cycle 1 of the 17 Day Diet doesn’t allow any sweets or processed carbs.  I knew I was going to eat the continental breakfast served in many of the finer motels along the way.  Since that’s usually a stale bagel, a mini box of sweetened cereal or a stale Danish served alongside urns of bad coffee, I knew I’d fall off the wagon.  And I did. 

                Let’s see, we ate wonderful Voodoo Doughnuts, a Portland specialty.  Then we discovered Oregon has See’s Candy.  Chocolate for everyone!  We had gelato at the mall.  Then we had candy and popcorn at the movies.  Some of the motels have make-your-own-waffle makers, and we did.  Sometimes lunch was grab and go—hot dogs, crispy (fried) chicken sandwiches, tacos with sour cream and cheese.  On our last day in Portland, I felt very sick.  It reminded me of the time when I was around five and had an entire bag of caramels for myself.  I ate most of the bag in one sitting.  It was heavenly until I wanted to vomit.  I was sick for hours.  You’d think I’d have learned. 

                Exercise was limited to walking around the malls, streets and beaches.  That was fun.  I didn’t go near any of the gyms or swimming pools.  (I’d sooner die than be seen in a bathing suit in public.) 

                After having lost eight pounds in nearly four weeks, it felt like I gained back six.  It turns out it was only two.  It’s bad, but it’s better than gaining six.  We drove home yesterday, and I happily went back to Cycle 1 foods. 

What exactly is a dilettante dieter?

I am a dilettante dieter. I try a different diet almost monthly. Right now, I have subscriptions to Jillian Michael's and SparkPeople’s online programs. I have two copies of the 17 Day Diet. I keep my eye on Weight Watchers, but don't belong--right now. I'm always searching the internet for the right diet. My problem is it takes me a long time to get the weight off, and I frequently get too frustrated to continue. I have terrible eating habits. I love chips and anything sweet. I despise diet food. Who wants fiber in your ice cream? Or artificial sweeteners in your oatmeal? How is that healthy? How is that supposed to make me "better"?

I am, depending on my mood, 40 to 60 pounds overweight. The BMI tests place me as fat, but not obese. I think being 5'6" helps, but not too much. I'm usually a size 14, but I don't like to advertise that fact. (I'm sure anyone who looks at me could guess.)

I offer great diet advice. I mean, who better than me to tell everyone the best way to lose weight? I realize I'd have a lot more credibility if I weighed 120 pounds.  The reason I have so much knowledge is, in the past year, I've been on: The No-S Diet, Weight Watchers, eat up to 1200 calories a day diet, Atkins, eat two meals a day diet, eat one meal a day diet, Jillian Michael's diet plan and the 17 Day Diet.  That's just the past 12 months.  Right now, I'm liking the 17 Day Diet. 

This blog is about the journey. It's also a tool to hold myself accountable. You are more than welcome to come along.

I need and want to lose at least 50 pounds. If I keep gaining at this rate, they'll have to bury me in a piano case.  I really don't want that.  I will lose the weight, but I warn you, I am not the most consistent person on the planet. So if you need a consistent partner in this journey, you should find someone else. But if you're serious about losing weight, and a bit of a goof, come along.  Always feel free to offer advice and comments.