weigh-2-go.org

My weakness lately has been a siomple trail mix of mixed nuts with dried fruit.  I get the mixed nuts unsalted, with no peanuts, and mix with any combo of yummy dried fruits including raisins, craisins, banana chips, papaya, mango, apples and so on.

Yummy, relatively healthy, better than junk food or candy, but still rich on the calories/POINTS.  So I can’t afford to stay as obsessed with this stuff as i got over the holidays.  Time to cut down.  But, I can’t see depriving myself of this treat, either.

And in an impulsive moment, I bought way too much of all the fixin’s of my yummy trail mix on a recent trip to Sam’s Club.  “I’m going to eat it anyway,” I thought.  “Might as well be economical,” I thought.  I wish the Rationalization Police had arrested me on the spot.

Having too much of a good thing in the house just invites me to eat more than I need, as soon as I want to eat it.  I am not naturally prudent with my portions, especially if I have this feeling of plenty from a well stocked larder.

So, I devised a plan that would help me manage my portion control but still give me the benefit of buying in bulk.  I mixed up all the nuts and fruit and rationed it.  Here’s what I did:

• Put single servings (1/2 c) of my trail mix into individual ziplock bags.
• Put 5 single-serving bags into one large ziplock bag.
• In each large bag, put in an index card with a number on it: 1,2,3, etc.
• I store the big bags on a high shelf in the kitchen.
• I pull the big bags out of the box as needed, in numerical order, and help myself to the single servings, one at a time.
• Every time I finish a large bag, I write the date on the index card, and I save the cards.

Do the words “anal rententive neurosis” come to mind?  Don’t I know it!  But it’s working.

I set myself a goal to only open one large bag per week.  Some weeks I don’t make it, but some weeks I do.  And as a matter of fact, as I look through the cards, the dates are generally getting farther apart.  And, I pack my lunch some days and come home having forgotten to eat my trail mix.

Let me repeat that just for emphasis:  some days I forget to eat my trail mix.  This is astonishing.

I think the rationing process has help cut off the obsessive response.  Just like a little kid, once I am given a rule I can learn to live with it.  So, without depriving myself totally, I have gotten my consumption of my sweet treat under control.

I’m not setting forth this exact system as a recommendation for others–it’s probably too personal to me.  If this story helps someone else come up with their own rationing system, great.  but perhaps the moral of the story is: fight obsession with obsession.  I am fighting my obsession with trail mix with an opposite obsession for control systems like my ziploc-index card system.

Three cheers for a little anal-rententive neurosis!

…not as I do.  I don’t recommend the following course of action:

I quit Weight Watchers last week.

I love WW and really believe in it.  My reasons for quitting are a combination of my own bad timing (stupidity?), recent backsliding, and new income situation.

In other words, I should have claimed “goal” and gotten Lifetime (free membership!) but I didn’t.  Now the fee is a little too steep and I need to opt out.

If you can learn from my mistake, please do.  My WW story is like so many others.  I got cocky.  I thought I had it in the bag.  I just missed that goal by a few pounds, and thought I’d reach it soon enough…but I never did, and I never stayed there for my 6 weeks to earn the free Lifetime membership. Doh!

And like so many others, I’ll be back.

As promised yesterday: my plan.

It’s time to get my act together and lose 15 pounds to get back to my goal weight.  Here is what I have going for me already:

1. I am starting a new job next week, so it’s a good time to re-evaluate my routines, including those around food and exercise.
2. My own personal “economic slowdown” is forcing me away from restaurants and towards more home-prepared (and self-controlled) foods.
3. I kicked my caffeine habit last week–got through the headaches and everything.  Yay!
4. My eating routine, though it could be more disciplined, largely excludes baked goods (wheat flour) and corn*, and almost completely excludes pasta,  potatoes, fried foods, and sweets.
5. I have lost 15 pounds before.

*Except for those darned tortilla chips at Mexican restaurants!  But #2 above will take care of that.

So here is my plan:

1. Eliminate my personal list of “bad carbs”** completely: wheat, corn, potatoes, peanuts, and sugar.  My personal “good carbs” are oats, rice, nuts (besides peanuts), beans, fruit and vegetables.
2. Soup.  Lots and lots of soup.  Homemade as much as possible.  Today, a tomatoey veggie concoction with cabbage and yellow squash.
3. 4 hours of cardio per week, plus two sessions of weights or yoga.

This is similar to my weight loss regimen of 2.5 years ago except for the carbs.

** My “bad carbs” are just foods that I feel like I’m addicted to when I eat them.  Good carbs are foods I can take or leave–for which I don’t have that “I bet you can’t eat just one” response.  By making this distinction, I will test a theory about the Atkins diet (which is what I did 2.5 years ago): does it work because of ketosis, which causes the body to burn fat instead of glucose for energy?  Or does it work (for me) because it just got me unaddicted to the foods that I find most irresistable?

I will keep blogging about how I’m doing.

I did go to the Y yesterday for the first really good workout in about 2 weeks (don’t ask why).  The soreness feels *good*!

A wise person I know recently reminded me that as much as we may hate it, important lessons are not learned linearly. We have to relearn them over and over again. So it is with weight loss and maintenance–not just the ups and downs on the scale, but the actual lessons of living healthfully.

I even articulated this concept in my seminar and in this post about my “Bowflex Myth.” I still have to be reminded about it from other people!  That is how hard this stuff is.

This is not a linear journey. In maintenance mode, we seem to have to “re-lose” the same few pounds over and over. And likewise, I (for one) have to re-learn how to do that.

My clothes are tight, and I am 15 pounds up from my lowest weight (reached about 18 months ago). I just had a birthday and I am feeling like I better take some action. The holidays are over so there are no more excuses.

Tomorrow I will blog the plan.

From the people who bring us Grammar Girl at QuickAndDirtyTips.com, we also have Nutrition Diva, with podcasts and blog, to provide tips and debunk nutrition myths!  This is a great resource for not just being healthy, but making sense out of all the health propaganda that is put out there by various food industries.

The Nutrition Diva, Monica Reinagel, also authors the blog on NutritionData.com, which is also on my Resources list.

This is a fascinating article about the mental characteristics of long-term weight losers.  This subject particularly fascinates me, because it help me to answer the questions: How did I lose weight? Why did it work this time?

Weight loss is all in your head

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/personal/06/29/in.your.head/index.html

The article describes a study that correlates successful, long-term weight loss with people whose brains are geared for methodical, disciplined thinking.  In other words, people who have all their CDs alphabetized and all their paid bills neatly filed are more likely to have success in weight loss.

This makes a lot of sense to me.  I have been reading a lot about the human duality between what we say we want (rationally) and what we really want (emotionally). People who are good at sticking with the rational sides of their brains are better at weight loss, because doing it right is a rational process that doesn’t tolerate emotional responses, such as eating sweets “because I had a hard day” or skipping exercise.  It takes discipline, and some of us have more disciplined brains than others.

Now, do I have such a brain? I wouldn’t say so.  But my motivation to improve my life in other ways kept me focused on the rational path to the goal.

The good news in the article is that if you aren’t naturally methodical and disciplined, you can consciously exercise that part of your brain to support your goals.  Alphabetize your CDs and your spice cabinet.  Start a food diary. Schedule activities and be prompt.  Cook from a recipe or follow other directions exactly as they are written.

This article also talks about meditation and rebirth, which I would like to blog about later.

Although it is kind of salesy, I really like the general approach and the content on the web site Dietriffic.com.  Overall, it advocates making small, manageable changes–as opposed to digging in and overhauling your entire life.  A few recent posts as of January 2:

• Keeping a food diary: people tend to get slim just from the exercise of keeping a food diary, whether or not they actually use the data to count points or calories.  A diary simply makes you conscious of what you are eating.
• 8 Steps to successful New Year’s Resolutions: tips include making those goals small, but making the new habits lasting.

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