I need to write something here that sticks with me through the next 5 days.

• 3 days of motorways, hotels and lovely socialising.

Followed, without time for a breath, by

• 2 days of trains, long long work days and exhaustion.

Is what I’m doing right now taking me towards that feeling of being completely at ease in my body?

In my life, that always ended badly.

But still, I’m giving it a shot.

The past few days have proven to me that I can say all the right things:

• Eat only when you’re hungry
• Pay attention to how full you are
• Drink lots of water
• Stick to one glass of wine

But the DOING of them is lagging behind a little.

Because I’m not writing down everything that I’m eating or counting calories, it’s beyond essential that I finally master the art of eating only when hungry and stopping when full. I didn’t realise how far I was from being able to do that.

It turns out I still have diet shaped attitudes.

• Am I allowed that?
• Do I have enough Points/calories left to eat it all?

My body’s needs and my appetite don’t get a look-in!

My diet-driven thought pattern towards dinner last night was:

• cook something “I can eat”
• eat all of it – regardless of how much my body wants or needs.

As I was choking down the last bites of a lovely meal, completely stuffed, I found myself thinking,  ”And you thought you were over this behaviour…..”

So it’s a matter of continuing on with the basics.

Am I hungry?

Am I still hungry?

And the answer to “Can I eat that?” is YES.

Although I can talk “goal weights” with the best of them, my fantasy weight loss goal is actually having food be a complete non-issue.  You know – like when they ask a celebrity or a chef what they ate on a “normal” day and the answer is something like:

For breakfast I had a cup of espresso and a slice of mango.  Lunch was a a couple of biscuits with a chunk of really strong cheddar and a cup of tea.  Dinner was grilled salmon with new potatoes and green beans from my garden and a glass of white wine.

Yeah sure – and a packet of 40 cigarettes.

I KNOW it’s not true but it’s still my fantasy to have healthy eating “just happen”.

But how do I balance that goal with my long and sordidly unbalanced history with food?

• Step One: Remove as many “diet trappings” as possible.

What does that mean?  No more weighing of self.? No more journalling?  I guess it’s essential to decide which elements of the dieting trap are toxic and which are helpful.  This is purely personal; one woman’s help is another woman’s poison.

Toxic – Interesting exercise.  Turns out toxic is a state of mind.

thinking about food all the time.

ruining happy social times with thoughts of “I can’t eat that”.

tying my weight to any concept of success or failure of me as a person

behaviour that leads to guilt about eating

allowing myself to get carried away by short term results aka dieting euphoria

To sum up : negativity and obsessing of any kind.

Helpful – but only helpful if they don’t lead to the toxic stuff above

weighing self

measuring waist

weighing and measuring ingredients and portions

journalling food

How do I use those helpful tools in a non-toxic way? That’s the cruncher. I guess my question is my answer. To be non-toxic, these things have to be tools rather than obsessions. It will be a day by day assessment as to how I’m using them -or avoiding them, for that matter.

So here’s the plan:

For the first 3 weeks, I’m going to put away the weighing and measuring of food and trust what I’ve learned over the past 3 years about good ingredients and portion sizes.

I will weigh myself occasionally but only if it’s helpful to see if I’m not gaining.  Loss is going to be difficult to assess when I’m aiming to lose less than half a pound per week.  There will be no “weigh-in day” – just assuring that I’m headed in the right direction.

That’s enough to start.  I’m not sure if there’s a Step Two – I’ll think about that over the next couple of days.

Stay tuned.

I love straight-talking Paul.  Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was so unambiguous in their advice?

Paul,

I wanted to know what you thought of the 17 day diet? Is it something people who are overweight should look into?

Nichole from Winnipeg

Hi Nichole,

The 17 day diet is dumb. Let me explain to you the key to weight loss. Eat high nutrient dense foods specific to your metabolic rate, daily activity level and metabolic type. It is making the right choice for you as much as possible through your entire life time. Identify obstacles that prevent you from making the right choices.

Paul

YES!  And no.

Here’s what I’m thinking.  Paul is absolutely right because he actually wants to obliterate the “culture of diet”.  Just eat well according to your age, size and activity level and you’ll weigh what you’re supposed to.  I even wrote about it as a weight loss tool in The Maintenance Diet.

In fact, I think this three year journey has cemented both that intellectual fact and the practical ability to put it carry it out into my soul.  When I eat like that, I keep off the weight I’ve lost. However, I didn’t ever manage to lose those last few pounds permanently.  Why?

Because I don’t always eat like that (D’oh!) – and sometimes I need the motivation of a quick weight loss.  My eating sometimes needs a shake-up and I need the structure of some plan or other to get back into good habits.  That’s exactly what I’ve got from the 17 Day Diet.

Cycle 1 of the 17 Day Diet forced me to eat in a way that required more planning and food preparation than usual.  I couldn’t just mindlessly reach for the peanut butter and Ryvita because I was too lazy to prepare something for lunch. Instead I had to think about making a big salad for the two of us or scrambling eggs for breakfast in addition to the normal supper prep.

I quickly got tired of all that planning and prepping and cooking but not before it jolted me out of my “usual” and into a diet where every calorie provided something my body needed.  After a couple of weeks, I find that I’m naturally eating a little every couple of hours until my evening meal.  In a way, snacking on healthy food has become the norm so there’s no time or room for snacking over and above my caloric needs.  I’m craving a bowl of plain yogurt or a little piece of cheese or an orange or a carrot. By supper I’ve packed in a lot of nutrients but not a lot of calories.

So why have I stopped the 17 Day Diet?  I got the jolt I wanted, lost a few pounds, and now feel able to go on without all the restrictions.  The family budget was straining under the weight of all that protein and I much prefer the idea of eating a little meat and a little brown rice with a lot of veg. I must say that we’re not eating nearly as many carbs as before.  Both the husband and I have learned that we can live without a FULL portion of rice or potatoes. In fact, we haven’t even had a potato yet – but there are some lovely little Jersey Royals in the potato basket.

I will certainly got back to Cycle 1 if I ever need to lose a few pounds again, but, for now I’m happily back to losing ounces and feeling energetic and enjoying food including healthy carbs and a bit of wine.  But I’m very grateful to the 17 Day Diet for giving me that kick that I needed.

I’m bored.

Sorry.

The good psychology of short cycles became abundantly clear to me yesterday as I tried to imagine eating anything that was 17DD friendly.

What did I want?  More flavour? No, I can get flavour by adding herbs and spices. Variety?  Maybe, but we don’t have huge variety in out regular diet.  Grains?  Goes without saying, but rice won’t fill the emptiness I feel when I think about one more chicken breast with a pile of veg.

…..SAUCE!  That’s what I want.  I want sauce on my food at least once a week. Sauce with strong flavours.  Sauce from a jar.  Sauce that someone else has made.

So I chucked a jar of balti and a jar of tomato and basil sauce into my online trolley and am feeling like I might just make it through the next ten days.

First though – tomorrow’s champagne brunch…..

It’s the beginning of the third week and I’m wavering between encouragement and disappointment.

• Weight: It’s all over the place between 146 and 148 – up and down and up and down and etc…..

I’m not used to this stubborn lack of downward trend – especially when I’m eating the correct input/output balance of calories that should lead to a loss. That’s discouraging – but I’m still down overall and I can’t possibly not lose a little given the way I’m eating and moving.  So I’ll plough on.

• Exercise: Yesterday I did my “accidental” 10k in 70 minutes.

Must explain the “accidental”.  I run 5k with a group of women every Sunday and the group meets around 2.5k from my house.  We are currently without a car so, if I want to run with the group, I need to cover 10k.  Last week I walked down and back.  This week I ran a bit and walked a bit down and back and ran most of the 5k in the middle.  Result: a 70 minute 10k.  I’m looking forward to improving on that next week.

So the “things to do by 50″ project moves forward.  My hair is almost all grey, I’m into the New Testament on my read through the bible and I can now cover a 10k in a respectable time.  If my weight isn’t exactly where I envisioned it, then I can hardly beat myself up.

If, on my 50th birthday, I wake up weighing 147lbs but able to run 10k in an hour, I won’t be disappointed.

But I still want to get that waist down another inch so I will keep working hard till the end of April to see if I can do it.

EDIT!  I wrote the above in my dressing gown, went upstairs, put on my jeans and did up my belt.  To the next hole.   Just the motivation to keep going and show a quick 2 fingers to the scales.

I decided to take a different approach to this “regime”. (The word is in the news so much these days that it just seems to fall off my fingers onto the keyboard.)

Basically – I sat down and thought about what I wanted to eat every day that would still allow me to lose weight. That’s  such a different starting point than sitting down and wondering what I should cut out of my diet every day.

I came up with this:

• breakfast – a big bowl of porridge, fruit and yogurt (porridge made with half a cup of oats and 2.5 cups of water.) Right now my fruit is tinned pumpkin heated up and stirred in with the yogurt.  I’ll probably have blueberries next.

• lunch -cottage cheese and 4 slices and ryvita. I eat 150g of cc which is about a quarter of a large tub. Sometimes I nibble on a couple of the crackers about an hour before I eat the rest.

• snack – dried fruit.  About 60 calories worth and, I’m afraid, for now I’m buying the over-packaged individual portions for some extra built-in self-control.

• I also build in 6 big mugs of coffee and/or tea per day – each with 1/3 cup 1% milk.  I tried to have less milk but it tasted like a diet, so I got rid of a 100g yogurt snack and just enjoy my milky hot drinks.

• dinner – a big plate of vegetables and lean protein.  I originally had thought about half the protein and a small portion of rice, but I’m happy with more chicken and no rice. (One less pot to wash.)  These past couple of days have been chicken breast cut up with a green, red and yellow pepper, an onion and 2 carrots, all tossed in 2 tsp of olive oil and roasted in the over. I think the next 4 days will be a big pot of veggie chili.

• alcohol -  In the absence of a commute, I do like a drink to signal that the working day is over.  Wine is hard to control once that bottle is open so I’ve opted for a well tonicked G&T.  I use a measure of gin and a 300ml bottle of Fever Tree naturally light tonic which is very tasty.  It’s nice long grown-up tasting drink with only 1 unit of alcohol.

Once I figured out what I wanted to eat, it was easier to figure out what needed to be temporarily off the menu, namely:

• cheese
• peanut butter
• bananas
• wine
• all other forms of crackers and bread

With wine, the thought process was, “I want wine but can’t control it.  What should I have instead?”

With all the others, I didn’t actually notice I wasn’t eating them because I started from “What do I want to eat every day?” and they didn’t feature on the list.  Interesting.  If I’d wanted to eat peanut butter every day, I would have made it work, but it didn’t even come to mind.  Not just interesting – bloomin’ amazing.

Tomorrow:  What happens on the days when I can’t just eat to my own selfish routine?

Yesterday I got thinking about the difference between these two statements.

I’m not hungry.

and

I feel satisfied.

I figure you’ll never see an ad (advert, commercial – we’re nothing if not bilingual around here) for a diet where someone says “And I always feel satisfied!” (big smile on a skinny body.)

The fact is that many of us overeat to feel “full” – not just to take the edge off hunger.  I can eat an orange and not feel hungry but it doesn’t satisfy if I’m trying to feed something other than my appetite.

Yes, I know, it’s Weight Loss 101.  But I’m not sure how to conquer it completely.

Yesterday, because I had given myself permission to be utterly selfish (anti-social, really) about food, I spaced my eating throughout the day to suit no one but myself.  I only felt hunger when I needed to – as a signal to eat.  I ate enough to satisfy that hunger.

Was I satisfied?  Only because the thought of losing weight replaced the need to “feel full” in my stressful life. I figure it will be a good five days before “diet satisfaction” starts to wane and I need to replace it with something else.

So, thinking ahead, how am I going to stay satisfied without feeling overly full?

Something to think about today.

I’m not big on military imagery but this weight loss thing certainly has some parallels with “warring”.

These past 2.5 years have been a series of battles won and lost, interspersed with periods of peace – and it’s time for the “last battle”.

The first thing I want to point out is that the enemy is not my body.  And the enemy is not food.  Those are both good, no, wonderful things and my closest allies during these next few weeks.

The enemy is my own attitude – that is, the sizable commitment gap between what I want and what I’m prepared to do to get it.

This week I’m prepared to close that gap by throwing all my ammunition at these last few pounds.

Ammunition?

Burning off at least 200 calories through exercise no matter what.

• a 2 mile run
• a 3 mile walk
• 2 hours of shopping
• Those are daily minimums.

The thing I’m not going to do is spend one whole day doing nothing because I know that I’m going on a 5 mile run the next day.  While the battle is raging, this has got to be an everyday commitment.

Eating with exacting discipline.

• Breakfast lunch and dinners will be the same for 4 days at a time.  Boring but it makes planning and shopping easier.
• All ingredients weighed and measured.  ie The 1/4 of milk I usually journal for coffee is actually 3/8.  That won’t matter a bit in a few weeks, but it matters in battle.
• Eating more than the recommended 5 a day of fruit and veg. This means snacking on carrots even when it’s easier to grab a cracker.

Counting the cost.

• As someone in the bible wrote, “No one goes into battle without first counting the cost.”  Really?  I do it all the time with predictable results.
• The cost to me this week is no wine in the house.  At all.
• The cost is eating very carefully during the day when I’m going out for dinner in the evening.
• The cost is choosing what I’m going to eat at the restaurant before I go – and sticking to it.
• The cost is not being a very flexible human being when it comes to food choices.  I will stick with my decisions even when they are socially a bit awkward. (This is my biggest “cost”.)

I will keep up this lack of flexibility (regime, dare I say, “diet”?) until the scale is really moving.  Then I’ll rethink my strategy.  I’m assuming that I will be eating like this until I leave for Canada at the end of March.

And what has prompted this last push?  I’ve made a decision that, whatever I weigh when I wake up on my 50th birthday will be the lowest weight I will ever aspire to again.  I’ve had enough of “ought” and “should” and even “want”.  Time to hit real middle age with my head high  – no matter what I weigh.

In the meantime, realising that I am serious about that has made me think that I will be very disappointed if I don’t ever keep that promise to myself to get down to 140lbs and live with it for a while.  Hence the battle.

(Now, where are my bagpipes?)

After a full year of waiting and worrying and scanning and waiting and worrying some more, I have a letter stating that there doesn’t appear to be anything sinister about the complicated thing on my liver. I’m not sure I will ever be very happy that it’s sitting there but I know the decision has been made by some top docs.  I could choose to lose 3-6 months of my life and about a 5th of my liver to major surgery but chances of dying during that are about the same as just living with the “thing”.  So for now the “thing” stays.

And my weight?  Well – it seems that I managed to hit that level of stress where I lose my appetite so I still weigh around 145 pounds.  That’s a good thing.  And I’ve decided NOT to test my “ability to gain weight just in case I’m dying” because that always ends badly.

Instead, I’m going to enjoy the feasting ahead and look forward to a happy and healthy 2011.

Merry Christmas.

ps I might just start blogging a little more too.