(Got
another phone call today from a friend I haven’t spoken to in awhile. She heard I’d lost 45 lbs and asked what I thought of Noom. I explained I’ve
never used Noom, and started trying to explain the Bev diet…so thanks, Monnie,
for pushing me into making this next post!)
One of the
most important aspects to this weight loss journey I’m on involves changing the
way I think about food and me. To be successful, you will likely have to do the
same.
First of
all, if food is one of your major sources of pleasure in life, you really are
going to have to dial that back. Figure out why that is, if there’s any other way to
inject pleasure back into your life (sans food!), and go for it! I’ve tried my
best to maintain some of my eating pleasures, like creamy pasta and ice cream! But
more on these later.
Another distorted
idea I needed to confront was this notion that “I didn’t really eat all that
much”. Which, on some level, is actually true. I never sat down with a whole
rotisserie chicken for dinner, for example. Or ate a dozen eggs and half a
loaf of bread for breakfast. But if, like me, you are basically 75 lbs
overweight, after a lifetime of on-again off-again dieting, you have to acknowledge
the lies you routinely tell yourself. Obviously, as reflected in the gallons of
fat stuck to my stomach, hips, thighs, breasts, etc., I CLEARLY AM EATING MUCH
TOO MUCH!
The clearest
evidence is in those curves and folds I’m always trying to camouflage.
I think I
can recall talk about this kind of thing in Weight Watchers back in the day*,
how people tell themselves they are “big boned”, etc. Listen, I’m 5ft 5inches
(and a half, let’s not forget that half-inch, which may be gone anyway, now
that I’m in my sixties, but whatever).
What I had
to do was analyze my weak points regarding food and over-eating. And the
biggest problem, for me, was dinner. Cooking dinner. Cooking anything, really,
but dinner especially. Because I would make dinner from about 5 or 6 pm, and I
was making dinner while I was hungry! So what happened was—especially when my
kids were young and I was fixing dinner after working a day in the molecular
genetics lab—was that I ate dinner twice: once while I was preparing the food,
and again when I sat down to the meal with my family (or, as we are empty
nesters now, with hubby). So I decided to do something daring:
I GAVE UP COOKING DINNER!
Yup. I told
hubby I was trying something new diet-wise and that it would help me immeasurably
if I no longer had to cook his meals. I started buying him frozen meals, too.
And then I found a great place nearby that makes tasty and reasonably priced fresh
meals (Le Maitre Boucher, if you’re a Westend Montreal local). If you’ve ever used
a meal service like Hello Fresh (and we did try it, for about 3 weeks: good
food, expensive compared to home cooking, high in calories, tremendous amount of shipping waste, not to
mention the necessity of being around to get the package of food or having to
worry about it being stolen! And then you still have to cook the darn meal!),
you already know what you’re willing to spend on dinner. It came to about $25
for the two of us, or $12.50 per meal. And that was using their introductory
specials, which seemed to rely on a lot of ground meat…but I digress.
Of course,
hubby could have taken up doing the cooking. But he’s really not into that,
which is fine (he does a lot of things around the house that I wouldn’t do myself).
Hubby seems to enjoy being a sous-chef (occasionally) but not being in charge
of the meal. Except for breakfast. But I digress again.
The thing
is, I’m sure this would have been a non-starter if my family was still young.
Which is why I stress that you must really think about your issues around
food/cooking and approach them accordingly. Like, if I still HAD to cook, I’d
have figured out some other strategy to confront my snacking during meal prep,
such as sucking on Hall’s throat lozenges (or something equally odious) while
cooking dinner (something that makes everything taste bad, so you’re not
tempted to eat while cooking). Chewing gum might work. Cooking on weekends
(never managed to do that when my kids were young, alas). Or eating a meal BEFORE
you start cooking, if you have to.
What kind of meal can you prepare in no time to eat before the real meal is cooked, you ask? Let me tell you about my secret weapon, a food I eat several times a week, preferably at dinner-time:
oatmeal.
One-third cup of oatmeal (in ¾ cups of
water, add a bit of salt, about 2 mins in the microwave but you have to watch
it & stir it down several times when it threatens to overflow the bowl!
Then let it cool covered for a minute, add ½ cup zero fat Greek yogurt and a
splash of milk. I mostly use artificial sweetener and cinnamon or 1/3 cup of
raspberries). This is a full bowl of tummy warming nostalgic goodness. Healthy
and filling. And the yellow no-name brand is the best!
So: you have
to confront the truth about eating too much. WAAY too much. For years and years.
And then
the corollary: you really are going to have to eat much, MUCH less. How much
less?
I try to
keep my calories below 1200** daily. I also eat three filling meals, and manage
to indulge my cravings for creamy pasta and ice cream, too. Well, frozen
vanilla yogurt, to be accurate.
I have never felt deprived or starving eating this way. And I’ve been doing it for 10 months now. But I do still struggle with eating too much frozen yogurt, or eating out once in a while. There are weeks when my weight fluctuates, before I finally get my act together and make it work again. I'm still human and fallible, but at least I’m relatively confident now that I can handle these ups and downs.
Psychological preparation and checking in on
how I’m doing helps a lot.
Finally, you have to be prepared to change what you think about eating: every meal does not have to be a three course extravaganza. Every lunch or supper does not have to include meat!
You need to eat much less than you think.
~~~
*And I’ve
been on WW about four times, including once when I was pregnant, as I thought
it would help me keep my weight gain down as my pregnancy advanced. Instead, it
was the most depressing thing ever, as my weight continued to climb…
**Of
course, this should vary with sex, height, and age. People who are male,
taller, and/or younger need more calories. Again, please consult a medical/nutritional
specialist, especially if you have health issues.
