The Diet Naked Blog

What you always suspected is true

So, it's offiical.  You must eat less than you burn if you want to lose weight.  Or, as the New York Times puts it, "people lose weight if they lower calories, but it does not matter how."

I've read a stack of diet books over the past few years and when you distill them to their essence, they are all about eating whole foods in moderate amounts.  Why?  Because when you do that several things will happen.  You will feel better, you will eliminate blood sugar highs and lows and you will--almost by default--eat fewer calories.  And the "fewer calories" part is all that really matters if you want to lose weight.

Some dieters focus on the calories themselves--the Weigh Watchers plan comes to mind.  (Weight Watchers might call it "counting points" but it's still old-fashioned calorie-counting.)  Some dieters eliminate junk food and sweets--thereby, lower their calorie intake.  I've followed plans that were all about eating mindfully and stopping at the first sign of fullness.  (Boy, that takes a lot of concentration for me.  True story:  the other night, I went to dinner with a group of women to an Italian place.  I was a quarter of the way through my dinner when the others started to say, "Oh, I'm so full!" and I looked at them in shock.  I wasn't even close to full . . . or maybe I was.  It's so hard for me to tell!)

This week I am going back to counting calories using the application on my iPhone.  It's very user-friendly.  (I use Lose It!)  I also need to focus on preemptive eating.  I've had too many days this week when I look up at and it's 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. and I haven't yet eaten properly.  (One day, all I had to eat by 4:30 p.m. was a few spoonfuls of frosting while making cupcakes.) 

But now . . . I am on the hunt for store-bought cupcakes to take to my son's classroom at school.  (No homemade stuff allowed at school due to student allergies.)  It's his 11th birthday. . . so I remember exactly what I was doing eleven years ago on this day!  Do you remember what you were doing?

 

Official Thursday Weigh In

I'm up a bit to 208.  This is due to the fact that I never started counting calories again last week after my weigh in.  I am going to do better this week, even though I am buried in an avalanche of demands and deadlines. 

How about you?  Weigh in now.

Sabotage

Dear Mel,

I know stress is sitting on your shoulder this week, holding clammy hands over your eyes and making you a little panicky and crazy.  But stop it!  You are making things worse by buying dinner at the grocery store AT DINNER TIME with two kids in tow.  Is it any wonder that you bought a package of chocolate chip cookies?  And how are those cookies going to get the stress off your back? 

That's right.  They won't.  In fact, as you know already, cookies + stress = guilt and distress.  So knock it off.  Eat your salad, eat your protein, drink your water and stop it with the sugar. 

You can get through this week.  Just do the next thing.  Don't fret about the deadlines, the company, the cleaning, the work, the birthday, the shopping, the money, the carpools, the Science Fair, the party, the taxes and the concert.  Stop freaking about what you will wear and about your pudgy chin--NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE CHIN BUT YOU! 

Seriously, girl.  Get a grip. 

(Now, don't forget to put money under your daughter's pillow tonight.  Don't forget to call the insurance company tomorrow--both for the van and the house--and remember to cancel the cell phone contract.)

You will be stressed out whether you overeat or not.  So just be stressed out without having to also regret the food you put in your mouth.  Stress will (probably!) not kill you, at least not in the short term.  (The question of how much longer you can maintain this pace is an entirely different matter but you do not need to think about that until next week when you have more time.)

Okay, deep breath.  Now go sleep.  (And STOP IT.  I mean it.  Get a hold of yourself.)

Love,
Mel

How often do you think . . .

. . . about your weight? 

I think about my body and my weight and my diet every single day of my life.  Even when I'm super fat and when I'm at a normal weight--the obsession is ongoing.

This cannot be normal . . . or is it? 

Does a day ever go by for you that does not involve some consideration of your physical being and what food you should or should not eat?

Weighing In

I weighed 206.8 this morning.  I can't remember what my weight was last week, but I think this is about the same. 

Be back later--or tomorrow--I have to bake four dozen birthday cupcakes for my son's birthday tomorrow, finish working (five more hours tonight), and go to the going-away party I mentioned a while back. 

Have a good weekend if I don't "see" you here before it begins!

Back and not really better than ever

Hey!  Is anyone still here?  I spent a whole day in bed yesterday fighting off the creeping crud my kids gave me.  My throat is still the littlest bit sore, but I don't have time to be sick, so I raced forward today at full speed.  Sick schmick.  Who has time?

I tracked my calories on "Lose It!" for a week and did great!  And then, uh, not great.  Something about being sick makes me want to eat ice cream.  I know that's comfort eating but I am powerless in the face of ice cream when my throat hurts.  Also?  I should know better than to make heart-shaped cut-out sugar cookies (made with real butter and powdered sugar).  A-hem.

Anyway, back on track.  Tomorrow is my weigh in and I will be counting my calories again (and coughing occasionally). 

(Interesting fact:  Tonight I had a very stressful email conversation with an estranged family member--and afterward, I marched straight to the bag of pretzels and ate some.  Why can I say, "Self, you are totally responding to this emotional upset by eating," and NOT STOP?  What I really wanted was to talk to my sister about the whole thing, but she's not around tonight.) 

Well, I did stop.  I stopped before the bag was empty (you true overeaters will know what I'm talking about), but I had wanted to avoid salt tonight because it makes me retain water and tomorrow morning, I face the scale.

I started reading Gillian Riley's Eating Less.  But I haven't gotten very far.  (She has a website here, called Eating Less.)  Someone here recommended it, though, and I am going to see if it helps me.  Maybe it will help you, too?

Okay, that's it for now.  Sorry for my silence here.  Aside from the sickness, life has been super crazy around here.  When is it going to slow down? 

Oh, one more thing.  If you want to, you can follow me on Twitter, though I am super boring, even though I am super busy.  (You can see my Twittering on the right sidebar.)  My Twitter name is MelodeeMelodee.  You can also find me on Facebook.  (Email me for my Facebook name.) 

That's all, folks! 

"Mom, are you on a diet?"

I lied to my 6-year old daughter today.  She asked me if I am on a diet and I hesitated, then said, "No, I am just trying to eat healthier."  She accepted this without comment.

I have never ever announced to my kids that I am On A Diet because I don't want to draw attention to the issues I have with food.  I avoid criticizing my body in front of them and commenting about my weight.  I have never told them, "I am on a diet."

My husband, however, is "on a diet" and has told the kids so.  (He is "doing" Jenny Craig--that always sounds vaguely naughty, doesn't it?)  While he wants to lose weight, he doesn't have the lifelong psychological struggles with dieting and body image that I have.  When he looks in the mirror, I am pretty sure he sees himself in a positive light--he grew up with a positive self-image and reinforcement.  Twenty extra pounds to him are just twenty extra pounds.

I look in the mirror and see FAT OLD UGLY WRINKLED (did I mention FAT?) .  Twenty pounds to me is disfiguring.  It's crazy-talk, I know.  I do know, but I have this mean voice in my head that tells me how unattractive I am, especially when I gain weight.  The mean Mel points out every flaw I have and emphasizes the effect that weight has on my appearance. 

I would never say those things out loud, especially around my daughter.  I don't want to pass along any of my dysfunction.  So, the other day when she said, "I need to go on a diet," I said, "No, you don't.  You are perfect the way you are."  And she is, too.  She's in the seventy-fifth percentile for both her weight and her height.  She is perfectly proportioned and I would be devastated if she started to think of herself as "fat." 

I started to think of myself as fat when I was just a young girl.  By third grade, I had become self-conscious, aware of my size--which was completely normal, though tall, and not at all chubby.  It just kills me how wacky my perception was when I was a girl. 

And so, I will continue to avoid talking about being "on a diet."  In fact, I am trying my best not to be "on a diet."  I want to eat healthy foods in moderate amounts so that I can quarantine my craziness about food and avoid contaminating my precious daughter.  If I can't do it for me, I must do it for her.

Official Thursday Weigh In

Down (!) to 206.8.

I am tracking calories and actually feeling some freedom since theoretically I can eat anything. . . I just can't eat everything.

Weigh in if you want. Have you maintained your momentum or are you losing heart or are you somewhere in between?

On the move

I have a new iPhone and discovered an application for it that makes tracking calories seem fun. It is called LoseIt. So I am going to try that and see how that goes. Reporting live from Interstate 5, Melodee

Shame

I was invited to a going-away party for someone I like very much and my initial reaction was to figure out a reason why I cannot attend the party because I am ashamed of how fat I've gotten.  All the women who will be at this party are younger than me (by ten or fifteen years) and are fit and cute and I am old and chubby and embarrassed by my appearance.

On the other hand, I was thinking about a dear friend of mine today.  I haven't seen her for a long time and she claims that she's gained weight.  I thought about that fact and then realized that I don't care one bit about the size of my friend's behind, even though she is concerned about the size of her pants.  She's still the same to me, size 8 or size 14.  I couldn't possibly care less.

But the size of my pants makes me want to turn down the invitation.  It's not just that my pants are two sizes bigger than before.  It's that I was fatter, then dramatically less fat and everyone made such a big deal about my weight loss while it was happening.  Such scrutiny during that process--and now?  Scrutiny again, I suppose.  Overeaters will recognize what is happening to me, but all the runners and yoga-enthusiasts will wonder how it is possible that I have regained weight.  They'll shake their heads in pity and I cannot stand the thought.

And they will know that I have overeaten and that fact makes me blush.  The lack of control mortifies me and the idea that everyone knows that I haven't controlled myself is the ultimate mortification.  I imagine it's like being caught passed out from drinking too much or having someone hold your hair out of the toilet while you vomit.  (I wouldn't know since I have never had alcohol and I have only vomited twice since 1977.)  Still.  Shameful and embarrassing to be caught in big pants.

The thing is that once you start making excuses to stay inside, you end up pulling the curtain to the outside world closed.  Before you know it, you are sitting in the dark with a bag of greasy chips, cut off from people that matter to you and events that you want to attend and satisfaction that comes only from experiencing life in all its pain and glory.  I don't want to be that girl.

So the only option is this:  Find something that will make me not look as fat as I am and eat a sensible diet instead of soothing my shame with food.  Refuse to let shame blanket me.  Stand up straight and tall and remember that I am not my body.  I am the same person inside that I was when my pants were smaller.  Get dressed, fix my hair, put on my make-up and don't look down.

And once I find something to wear, I will go to the party where I will eat like a thin person and make people wonder why I am so fat when I eat so little.  (Ha, you know it's true.)