Life Enters a New Phase

I've done it before, but this time I'm approaching it differently. What is "it"? A diet. I don't know how many times I've lost weight and then gained it back, with added pounds. I've counted calories, followed specific-food diets, and eaten just enough to cut down on the physical pain of an empty stomach and guts, and these diets have led to as much as 60 pounds lost. But here I am at a weight that I am too embarrassed to share with anyone. Yet until I was 42 I weighed in at under 135 pounds.

So, on Sunday, February 6, 2011, my life entered a new phase. Although I once again am counting calories, I am recording them in a different way. Previously, I just kept track of them, and I was very strict with myself. Now, I'm taking a more relaxed approach. After noting everything I eat on small note papers (which I keep), I record my caloric intake on a calendar I keep specifically for that purpose. Every morning I first note how many calories I consumed the day before. Under that I write the total of those calories plus all the calories I've eaten since the start of the diet. I then average it by the number of days of my diet. Under that, I write in parenthesis how many calories I would have needed to consume in those days to maintain a healthy weight for my age (63), sex (female), activity (average), and height (used to be 5'6", but now 5'4 1/2"). I gleaned from researching internet sites that I'd need about 1943 calories a day. My calendar resembled this on the second day of my diet:

Feb. 7

+1418=

3273 /

2 =

1637

(3886)

On day 12 it looked like this:

Feb. 17

+1625=

18,808 /

12 =

1567

(23,316)

On day 23 the average was quite encouraging:

March 1

+1535=

35,779 /

23=

1556

(44,689)

On day 23 I weighed in at my hospital's scale, where I had learned my original weight. I found that I had lost 7 pounds, even though I was not engaging in drastically low caloric intake. I was very encouraged to see that weight loss. 

When I wrote that I am not being as strict with myself this time around, I meant that by keeping averages, I do not feel discouraged if I happen to have a day when my calorie consumption is high. I am less likely to give up because I am still enthusiastic about the overall average. I even went to a buffet one evening without the average suffering irreparably. It began to fall again the next day.

The reasons for this diet? After a bout with cancer, my doctor's predictions of impending diabetes, the presence of high cholesterol, rising blood pressure, a problem with my liver, and increasing arthritis in my hips and knees, I knew it was time to try once again to lose weight. I believe that obesity has been contributing to these problems. Advancing age could be contributing to them as well, but now my goal is to keep that age advancing!