Let me just state at the outset that I'm not one of those skinny women with a fat complex. I am fat, by any standard of measure. I have a BMI of 30, and while some of that should be adjusted for muscle mass (I'm a fairly muscular person), there is also a fair amount of fat under there as well. I could blame a lot of things on my weight, but at the end of the day, it comes down to my own poor choices. Yes, I have slower metabolism; yes, I don't lose weight particularly quickly because of PCOS; yes, I've four children in five years. But at the end of the day, the weight I've gained and lost over the last five years is mostly my own fault. The weight itself has became a source of stress for me, and sometime in March, I started half-heartedly tracking my calories using
MyFitnessPal after a friend recommended the program. I'm a Weight Watchers drop out, and found the point system very frustrating (and easy to game, frankly), but I've found the MyFitnessPal database to be much more extensive than WW, and I'm finding it easier to keep up with. Plus, I had a kind of revelation this summer that has helped me get my head in the game, so to speak. At the good advice of my confessor, I started seeing a therapist again this year after the stress of Birdie's constant illness started to take a toll on me. We talked about my poor relationship with food during the course of our sessions together. At one point, in a sort of shining light moment, she said to me, "Listen, you have to stop arguing with yourself about food every day and make a decision that this is the way it is going to be. Otherwise there is nothing to stop you justifying cookies for breakfast every day." That statement was a complete revelation to me, and the beginning of an interesting journey.
I walked out of her office that day with her words ringing in my head. I repeated them over and over, like a mantra, and over the days and weeks that followed, I found I was able to step away from many of the bad eating habits that were holding me back from real weight loss. It is always difficult for me to tell myself that I can't
ever have something (there is a whole lot of emotional baggage related to those kinds of statements), but I can tell myself to have it
later. I also started reading weight loss success stories wherever I could find them. I read almost all of
Geneen Roth's books and started to be mindful of what was going in my mouth and to start paying attention to my body's cues about hunger and satiety Sounds like elementary school stuff, right? For me, I had to relearn a lot of things about food and hunger.
I had to stop being afraid of my hunger. If there is one bad lesson I've learned from having small children it is that if you don't eat as fast and as much as you can, you may not get it later. Learning that I didn't have to be afraid of my hunger, that I didn't have to grab it all and eat it now in order to be sure I would get some was a game changer for me. I stopped being afraid of my hunger, stopped being afraid of blood sugar crashes, stopped worrying about whether there would be enough for me. I finally figured out that there would always be enough for me, and if there wasn't, it didn't really matter anyway. It was silly to invest so much emotional energy and power in food.
At the same time, I found myself cutting sweets in a big way. I've always had a pretty intense sweet tooth, and diets that restrict sweets have always been difficult for me. Every time I craved something sweet, I reminded myself that "This is the way it is going to be," I found my craving diminish. I still have sweets, but I've found my tolerance for sweets is much lower, and I'm satisfied with less. I used to think those girls who said, "I just have some dark chocolate every day and that's enough," were somehow deluded, or kidding. Actually, it is enough. But I couldn't have gone from eating baked goods and sugary sweets every day to being satisfied with a few squares of 70% dark chocolate or even just a cup of coffee all at once. It was a long gradual process of weaning. I still eat baked goods from time to time, but I know that I have to allow for it in my daily calorie allowance, and that it has to be a once-a-week sort of thing, rather than daily. I pay attention to how they taste and I'm not afraid to throw away a treat that doesn't taste great. I'm very careful about portions, and try to trim calories where I can by using less oil, or a reduced fat cheese, or whole milk in my coffee instead of half-and-half. I try not to drink my calories. I read
The Portion Teller Book, which gave me a better handle on eyeballing portion sizes, and also gave me ideas for small changes I could make that would help me lose weight over time. Given
my propensity to extreme choices, making small incremental changes was hard for me--I wanted big change, and I wanted it NOW. But I also knew that my previous weight loss history suggested that extreme changes all at once was not the way to sustain it. I had to make permanent lifestyle changes that I could sustain over time, not just when things were going well. I needed to be able to eat out sometimes, or have a dessert with a friend, or even indulge in a calorie bomb once in a while. But I had to learn how to do these things in stages.
So, while I'm still in the middle of this journey (I am down 20 pounds so far), I wanted to pass along a few things that I've found work well for me. One thing that helped me a lot, especially as I was making the small changes in the beginning, was reading what worked for others. (I should also state that I have gastroparesis, which means my fiber intake has to stay extremely low or I face fairly severe GI consequences. So as a result, traditional "diet" fare like salads, huge amounts of raw vegetables, high-fiber bread, whole grains, oatmeal in the morning, etc. are out. I can have oatmeal about once a month but that is my limit. I recently had oatmeal three days in a row and paid for it dearly).
1.
Eat breakfast every day. But not too much. I've found if I don't eat breakfast, I set myself up to overeat in the afternoon or evening, but I've also found if I eat a calorie-intense breakfast, it throws off my caloric intake for the rest of the day as well. So I aim to have between 250-350 calories for breakfast. Recent breakfasts include the following meals:
Breakfast #1
8 Trader Joe's Honey Wheat Pretzel Sticks
2 Sargento Reduced Fat Colby-Jack Cheese sticks
1/2 medium apple
Coffee with splenda and 1/4 cup of whole milk
Breakfast #2
Grilled Cheese-Egg sandwich:
2 slices white bread, buttered with two tsp whipped butter, grilled in skillet
1/4 c. shredded Mexican reduced fat cheese (although I'd probably half this next time as half the cheese fell out anyway)
1 large egg, fried in 1 tsp butter
Coffee with splenda and 1/4 cup whole milk
Breakfast #3 (this is going to have to be a rarity for me)
1/2 cup dry old fashioned oats
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup water
salt
3 T. shredded Mexican reduced fat cheese
1 tsp chocolate chips
Coffee with splenda and 1/4 cup whole milk
2.
25% air. I read this in a yoga magazine and while I don't go in for New-Age type stuff, this phrase stuck with me. "After each meal, you should strive to be 50% food, 25% liquid, 25% air." I know that sounds a little dumb, but the visualization helped me to figure out when to stop eating. I have long been in the habit of eating past "full", which I believe is the characterization above. It does take some mindfulness while eating (a neat trick with three young children, all of whom are high needs and crazy during meal times), and I don't always get it right, but keeping that phrase in my head certainly helps.
3.
Pay attention to how food makes you feel. I used to buy Little Debbie snacks fairly regularly because they reminded me of childhood, and because they were easy to eat with one hand. They are also completely fake, and total calorie bombs. (Anything that lists carnuba wax as one of the ingredients probably shouldn't be ingested anyway). I started paying attention to how it tasted in my mouth, and how I felt afterward, and suddenly discovered, these things are disgusting. I've learned that about a lot of things I used to crave--paying attention to how they tasted and made me feel afterward helped me to realize that I was trying to soothe myself with food, rather than filling a nutritional need. That knowledge has helped me to make better food choices. I do try to steer toward whole foods that are minimally processed, or at the very least, have less than 7 ingredients on the label, but I'm not strict about it. Mostly I do it because I find that highly processed food makes me feel awful, and tends to set me on a course of bad food decisions. I've found as I've cut processed foods, my sodium tolerance is much lower, and some restaurant foods that used to be such a treat just don't taste that great anymore (IHOP pancakes, I'm looking at you...) And while I miss the
idea of Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, I don't miss the way the donuts made me feel afterward.
4.
Eat anything you want, but be sure you really want it, that you are hungry, and stop when you are full. This is basically Geneen Roth's food philosophy, and I like her approach. But I would add that you should be sure to account for it in your daily tally. So if I want to have Utz Ripple Potato Chips one day, I have them. But I try not to eat them two days in row, I account for every chip in my daily calorie tally, and try to pay attention to when I'm satisfied. Do I overeat the chips sometimes? Yes, of course. I try not to get all bent out of shape about it, just tell myself to do better next time, and move on. Not every food moment needs to be a deal-breaker. (That is the biggest part of the "this is the way it is going to be" thing--realizing that I'm in charge of what I put in my mouth, and I can decide to overeat. But I have to take responsibility for it, and stay in charge of the situation by making better food choices next time to balance everything out).
5.
Be honest with yourself about how much you are eating. With the Weight Watchers Points system, I found it too easy to game the system, and not really account for what I was eating. I don't know exactly why
MyFitnessPal is easier for me to stay honest, but it does work better that way. I try to steer toward restaurants that publish calories per portion because that helps me make better choices when we eat out. The only thing I find difficult to be accurate with is recipes I make myself because it is hard to gauge what a portion is. (For example, I have a beef stew that I make that says "serves 8", but I find it feeds our family of five twice. But I don't think that means it is 10 portions, because the boys don't always eat as much as the adults--although sometimes they do--and also, I'm not sure how to account for a portion. I should really just ladle out the whole recipe and figure out how many ladles there are and divide it that way, but til now I've just been guessing. Ditto for the pumpkin bread recipe that goes with the soup--I don't always pay attention to how many slices come off the loaf, so I'm a bit flummoxed about serving size. Again, I need to pay more attention next time. See #3).
6.
Realize that one calorie bomb dessert, one 1,000 calorie restaurant meal, one 3 oz bag of chips isn't going to make or break you. You are in charge of your food choices, and as long as those things stay in the 5% of the time and under (meaning once a week or less), it isn't going to derail your efforts. But be mindful of why you think you need the whole thing. I used to tell myself all the time that I was going to eat the whole thing, and it was okay. And it
was okay, but I think
telling myself that it was okay to eat the whole thing perversely made it easier
not to. So sometimes I leave food on my plate, but sometimes I eat the whole bag of chips. It is okay.
I'm hoping that I can reach my goal weight in the next few months, and that I can sustain my lifestyle changes through the next pregnancy. (I'm
not pregnant now, just for the record). I'm not one of those cute preggo girls who looks like she has a basketball under her shirt at 40 weeks. I look more like I'm hosting the whole basketball team by about 24 weeks and look rather frightening at full term. But knowing that pregnancy weight gain is inevitable, while also understanding that excess weight gain is something of a head game will help me, I think.
I could say that I'm doing this because I want to be healthier (and that is true), or that I'm doing it for my kids (not really); mostly I'm doing it because I want to look and feel better. As the weight has come off (slowly at times, more quickly at others), I've noticed that I feel better overall. I have fewer stomachaches, fewer lower GI symptoms, and I'm not dragging through my days so much. I don't jump out of bed in the morning full of pep, but at least I don't feel like I
can't get out of bed in the morning. I like that my clothes fit better, and that some are getting too loose on me. (I don't love that what little I had in chest department has basically flown the coup, but that is another story...) I'm not exercising because in the past, my approach to exercise has been to get myself into a completely dysfunctional relationship with it. But
I do climb a lot of stairs every day, and carry my barnacle-like 30+ pound two-year-old around a lot, so I think that counts for something. I've been taking the bus every day for preschool pick up, which has increased the amount of walking I do every day, but I'm not stressing out about the amount I move every day. If I spend a day on the couch, that is okay too.
Do I have it all figured out? No. Am I terrified of falling back in bad eating habits and destructive self-soothing methods? Of course. I think that the struggle with food will always be with me, but I feel like I now have some tools in my arsenal to help me weather the bad patches. I also worry that by posting something like this publicly, I'm inviting close scrutiny of my plate, which I most certainly do not want. But I also know that these types of posts from other bloggers and magazine writers have been so helpful to me during this process.
I've made a few other lifestyle changes that have nothing to do with food, and learned a few life lessons (that I hope to discuss in a future post) and I think those changes have also contributed to
a better sense of well-being. Food has ceased to occupy such a huge space in my head, and now there is more room for thinking about other things. Like writing novels.
