400 Days of Dieting

I chose to title this post dramatically to remind everyone that losing weight is not a short-term experiment but a very long-term commitment. If you give up after a few days, you won't have any success. Also, even when you have reached your goal and think you are done, you still need to be vigilant.

Being about 15 pounds from a personally acceptable weight for my height and age, I am still quite actively dieting, counting every calorie and averaging them daily. My current average is 1541/day. My current weight is 175, and I still have the "love handles". I spot them when I look in my "rear view" mirror. I suppose, though, that when (I don't say "if" but "when") I reach 160, I may try for another ten pound loss or so!

The pounds are dissolving very slowly; however, I don't feel frustrated because I can see the results in my mirror daily. It's a good feeling to put on clothing, look in the mirror, and realize that how baggy it is. It goes right in a box of donations to Goodwill. This works out well too, since one of my sons works there!

I've made mistakes along the 400 days by letting myself go and then having to suffer to get back to where I was before the mistakes. I find that I "prime the pump", so to speak, if I fill myself too early in my day. I tend to lose management of my appetite too easily if my tummy empties when there are still several waking hours left. That's odd, but that's how it works for me. I can resist food more easily if I'm running more empty than full. The last meal of my day is the biggest by far. Then I go to bed full, and fall asleep before my appetite tells me to grab a sweet or a fatty thing. I will certainly have to be cautious for the rest of my life. You can't go up and down the scale repeatedly without hurting yourself. It's very easy going up and very hard going down.

Using the technique of mindful eating must continue as well. As for the Celiac Disease, I must admit that I dearly miss toast, sandwiches, pizza, crackers, and the occasional cookie or small piece of cake. I suppose I will always miss them.

Take care. Here's to the next 400 days. Time to get more little pads of paper for my calorie counting.

Mirror Image

Look at yourself naked in the mirror, side view and front. Take a hand mirror and reflect the image of your back. Do this at the beginning of  your diet and about once a month during your weight loss. After you lose about ten pounds you'll be asking yourself "Is my belly not hanging as low as last month? Do I have less flab hanging off my arm than I did before? And that creased fat hanging on my back above where my waist used to be--isn't it smaller?" But still you have your doubts. Maybe it's your imagination. But you reach a point where you can see that your belly is not hanging over your crotch. What a beautiful moment. That flab under your arm is not as deep or as flappy as earlier; you can see you have a waist and nothing is hanging over the back of  your elbow.

Try on your old pants. They're starting to hang lower than your waist instead of having to be hitched above it. Soon people begin to say "It's time for you to get a new wardrobe," and you plan a trip to the Goodwill or St. Vincent's or the Salvation Army Store. Best of all, you are feeling very good.

For six weeks I was worried that I was continuing my reduced calorie diet for nothing, because during those weeks I DID NOT LOSE A SINGLE POUND.  I admit I had feelings of discouragement. But I kept faith that my diet would kick in again, and I continued counting every calorie I ate and averaging the totals daily. Today my average caloric intake over the 278 days of my diet is 1555.

I saw my doctor this week for a physical in preparation for knee replacement surgery, and my weigh-in showed that I have lost 52 pounds. I am very pleased. My doctor is very pleased. My reflection in the mirror (sideways, front, and back) is far more pleasing than it was last Feb. 6, when I began counting my calories. I would like to lose about 30 more pounds, but I won't force it.

Herb-a-Licious Dishes Or Save the Salt for the Slugs

No, I don't mean salty slugs. I personally don't eat them although I'm pretty sure they are very high in protein. I mean save the salt to sprinkle on the slugs in your garden, because it kills them. And, guess what--it can kill you too!

My spice rack is where the magic of cooking flavorful salt-free foods begins. My son Ron made it for me, according to my needs and the space available. It's in a most convenient space a few feet from my stove, my counters, my table, and my pantry, and it's alphabetized (so my sister suggested; I used to have it arranged according to whether food is sweet, hot, spicy, meat, vegetables, etc.) so I just step over to it whenever I'm cooking or baking, and choose my spices and  herbs. I grow herbs too. My family is so accustomed to taste-full food that when we eat out they can tell that much of the flavor is just from salt.

I especially appreciate my spices and herbs now that I must stay gluten-free.

Lists are pretty boring, so skip this list unless you REALLY want to know what I flavor my food with. 

Allspice, ground; Allspice, whole; Alum; Anis; Arrowroot; Bacon bits (real);Basil (a dozen varieties in my garden too); Cayenne; Celery salt; Celery seeds; Chili powder; Chive rings(and in my garden); Cilantro (in my garden too); Cinnamon sticks; Cinnamon powder; Cloves ground; Cloves whole; Cumin; Curry (very hot); Dill leaves (and in garden); Dill seeds; Garlic minced; Garlic powdered; Ginger ground; Mace ground; Marjoram; Mustard ground; Mustard whole; Nutmeg ground; Nutmeg whole; Onion chopped (and in my garden); Onion powdered; Oregano (and in garden); Paprika; Parsley (and in a flower pot); Pepper black; Pepper red crushed (and from my garden); Pepper white; Rosemary; Saffron; Sage ground; Savory; Sesame seed; Tartar, cream of; Thyme (and in garden); Turmeric; plus 12 salt-free blends.

This spicy soup is delicious.

Curried Carrot Soup

Sauté in 1 T of oil

5 stalks chopped celery

3 chopped onions

Add

5# of chopped carrots (in a 2-gallon pot)

Water to cover

Enough low-sodium bouillion to flavor (I used 11 tsp)

2 T strong curry

In last moments of cooking, add fresh or dry parsley to taste

This recipe is delicious. It makes two gallons of soup, with only 1335 calories in the entire pot. That’s less than 42 calories per cup. We each had a very large serving bowl of this soup as part of the main course. However, I added turkey sausages in the last 15 minutes of cooking the soup, so we had meat in our main course too. My son ate his on bread. I ate mine with prepared mustard (no gluten I hope).

I HAVE LOST 48 POUNDS. MY OLD CLOTHES GOT SO LOOSE I FINALLY DONATED THEM TO GOODWILL AND I'M PULLING OUT SOME OLDER, SMALLER CLOTHING. SOME OF THAT IS TOO LARGE FOR ME TOO. MY WEIGHT LOSS IS STILL MUCH SLOWER THAN PREVIOUSLY, BUT I AM HAPPY THAT IT CONTINUES AS I CONTINUE TO KEEP COUNT OF AND AVERAGE MY CALORIE INTAKE. MY AVERAGE AS OF YESTERDAY IS 1550/DAY.

I Lost 40 Pounds

In the last two weeks I have noticed that my weight loss is slowing down. I spoke with a nutritionist about that, and she told me that now that I am getting so much closer to my "goal" weight (I don't have it set in stone, though; I realize that it's emotionally healthier to accept what I can reasonably achieve and feel satisfied with it), my weight loss will not be as swift as when I was obese (wow, I'm not obese anymore). Proportionally, my daily caloric intake to maintain current weight is much closer to my future caloric intake required to maintain a more ideal weight than when I was 40 pounds heavier. 

I admit that I feel a little disappointed that the pounds are not "melting" away as they did in the first 150 days of my diet. I figured that I was losing the equivalent of one stick of butter every four days, and I impressed myself with that. Now it takes me about a week to lose that, still not too shabby. I want to keep it off, so naturally calorie counting and averaging is as important now as it was on Feb. 6, when I started my diet. My current average is 1544 calories per day. That number is much closer to the calories I'd need to maintain the goal weight. Then I'll need about 1943 calories per day. When I began my diet, I would have needed closer to 3,000 calories per day, but at that time I was eating only about one-half the calories I needed for maintenance. It makes sense that I was losing weight so quickly because maintaining my obesity required so much more food consumption. I expect that I will reach my goal around the winter holidays, and maybe into the year 2012. Come back and visit to see how I'm doing.

Crazy Diets of My Past, or How NOT to Lose Weight

When I was a young sprout, I tried some crazy diets. I invented one of the diets when I worked in the complaint department of the Chicago Tribune (by the way, it literally made me sick to hear nothing but complaints directed at ME all day, five days a week), and the file-room girls working there talked about dieting and fat girls every day. Whenever I went to the file room, I got very self-conscious about my body even though I weighed just 138 pounds, which I would be more than happy to weigh now.  My co-workers told me I was chubby; one of them was a young woman who must have weighed 40 pounds more than I did. I stood 5’ 6 1/2” and had large bones—6 ½ “ wrists and hands that were man-sized. I was NOT chubby—I know now. I was built. I was comfortable in a size 12 dress; I don’t know what size that compares with in current clothing sizes.

My crazy diet at that time, was to eat only one orange or one apple a day and drink water only. I dread to think what that did to my health. I did lose weight, though. I lost 19 pounds in 9 days. I got so weak I actually fainted. But being young and stupid, I stuck to the diet until I felt too weak to continue. I got sick the first time I had a normal meal. I had no money for new clothes, so I wore my size 12 clothing, to the derision of my co-workers. I never went on THAT diet again.  I left that job after two years.  I’m an old bean now instead of a young sprout and know better; also, I don’t mind wearing my old clothes no matter what anyone says!

Since that time, I’ve been on at least a dozen diets, but none that I had to pay extra money to be on. I always ate my own food. All but one of them have been calorie-counting diets. The one that wasn’t a calorie-counting diet worked well, and I lost 60 pounds in about seven months. After a year or so at my new weight, I stopped weighing myself, began pigging out at buffets again, and gained 70 pounds. The other 11 diets included one in which I restricted myself to 1000 calories a day. It was very tough going, particularly figuring out how to get most of my nutrients, so I supplemented that diet with multiple vitamins. To get my fiber, I ate much whole grain food and raw foods. I lost weight very quickly; once again I lost 60 pounds. When I got down to my goal weight, I stopped restricting myself to 1000 calories a day, and did well gradually building up to 2000 calories a day. However, my appetite was reanimated after long restriction, and after a time I returned to my previous high weight. So it went with every diet—lose weight, look and feel good for a time, then gradually gain it all back plus a few pounds. I finally reached my highest weight in February of 2011.

This means I must continue to count my calories. One way I make that as easy as possible on myself is by keeping the supplies I need near at hand in the kitchen, where most of my eating is done, and all of my cooking. The supplies on my kitchen table include my calorie-counting book, a calendar with space at each date for taking notes, a pad of paper, all the papers from previous days’ food and calorie intake (I frequently refer to them for information and review), a solar calculator, pencils, pens, erasers, pencil sharpener, and white-out. I take a pad of paper and a pencil with me to restaurants so I can keep an accurate a count of food intake as possible. Without having those supplies on hand, it would be too much of a hassle to look for them whenever I noted my calorie intake. At this point in my weight-loss history I find that I must note the calories or I just won’t continue to lose weight. When I reach my goal, I’ll still need to continue keeping track of the calories, maybe for my lifetime.

Another way to ease the complications of dieting is to grocery shop very carefully. The first stop is the produce department. Select a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables to consume daily. Try to not be without them in your refrigerator or on your counter, where you can see them. Pick only ripe or nearly ripe fruits instead of unripe, hard, bitter, or damaged ones. They taste awful. If the produce is browning, they are deteriorating, so pass them up. Hard plums and pears? Yuck. Bright yellow bananas? Inedible! Watermelons that don’t sound hollow when knocked on? Not so sweet!

The next best choice would be frozen veggies. Generally, don’t bother with canned veggies, particularly green beans which taste nothing like fresh. Today I ate green beans picked fresh from my garden and you wouldn't even know canned green beans are real after tasting fresh picked. You don’t have to give up flavor just because you’re cutting down on calories. Watch the salt content of soups and other packaged entrees (instant potatoes are dreadfully salty) because the salt makes you retain water and causes other problems. My next entry will be about seasoning foods rather than salting them. 

I live with another person who is not dieting, and soon two more people will be living with me. I will be cooking for them too. None of them have Celiac Disease, so I’ll be cooking gluten-containing products for them but not for me. One of them cannot have much salt. I already cut down greatly on salt in my diet, so my cooking is very low salt. If someone wants salt, he will just have to shake it out!

Good Riddance to 31 Pounds and Un-Welcome to Celiac Disease

As of Wednesday, June 8, I have lost 31 pounds. That’s an average of one pound lost every 3.96 days; actually this is an unintentional rise in the speed of weight loss. I do not want to lose weight too quickly and then have more medical problems or a fast bounce-back because of it. The loss comes to 4.4 ounces per day, but naturally if I weighed in every day it would vary quite a bit from day to day. I had not weighed myself since May 11.

On my calendar I put a sticky note on June 24; this is the day I estimated reaching a certain goal in weight loss. As it appears now, I’ll probably reach that goal three to four days ahead of time. I’ve been using current averages to figure out the date, but lately I’m speeding up instead of slowing down, as I thought I would. My instinct is telling me not to lower my average daily calorie count any more than it now stands: 1545. In spite of this average, I went to a restaurant twice this past month. I estimated calories in everything I ate there, and gave a few things to my son to eat—like soup (probably had too much salt and fat anyway) and buns.

Speaking of buns, on Wednesday I also learned that I definitely have celiac disease. Restaurant buns have gluten in them; that’s the connection. A nurse practitioner had told me I might have a touch of it several months ago. Then a doctor told me he suspects I have it. Finally a specialist told me I do have it. It is not severe at this point, and I want to keep it that way. This diagnosis is based on results of several blood tests. So, now I know what caused the symptoms. One symptom threw everyone off, even the expert. It is a deep reddening of the face—and only the face. In fact, you could clearly see a line on the edge of my face, with deep red above and pale Polish white below.  In July of 2010, shortly after breast cancer surgery, I began to experience this condition about 50 times a day. My face would get so hot that I would almost faint from it. When I’d get a beet-red face during radiation therapy, the therapists would take my blood pressure thinking it was going up sky-high, but my blood pressure was always normal. Then I was tested for various causes. (It definitely was not due to change of life.) Over more recent time, the reddening lessened, and in the last few months, the frequency went down to three to five times a day, particularly after I started my diet. I had cut down drastically on eating breads and pastas because they are so high in calories. This means I cut down on gluten consumption. Cutting down on gluten affected my symptoms of celiac. Now that I’m changing my diet to nearly eliminate the gluten (wheat, rye, and barley), the reddening may cease. I should eliminate gluten entirely, but gluten products are at least trace ingredients in too many foods.

 

You can learn more about Celiac disease at http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/celiac-disease/DS00319 and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celiac_disease. After I read these articles, it occurred to me that I have probably had this disease for a long time in a mild form. I recall speaking with a doctor eleven years ago about certain symptoms that occurred every day; even long before that, these symptoms occurred far more often than normal. However, my doctors always suggested the more common causes for them. Twenty years ago a doctor told me to eliminate milk products, but that never made a difference, so I returned them to my diet. Nowadays celiac disease is being diagnosed earlier than in the past because of doctors being more aware of it and sending patients for improved tests.

So, this new development will affect my diet even more, as I will cut down again on gluten products. I guess my son will be eating the breads and tortillas, and I’ll have boiled potatoes and rice and on hand for a dinner side. Next stop: finding recipes I like for rice, corn, potato, oat-based, and other grain breads and muffins. The Internet is loaded with them.

My Entire May 2011 Calendar

Below you see what a full month’s diet calendar looks like. I waited until today to blog again so that I could show you precisely how my monthly record looks. I can compare my intake from one day to the next and see how my average fluctuates more slowly as the number of days of dieting progresses. When I eat restaurant food my day’s calorie count goes way up, and I work it down day by day by eating less than the average.

On each day’s entry I mark the number of added calories; that is, added to the total calories I’ve had up to the previous day. Then, I show the current total of calories throughout my diet, and divide it by the number of days of my dieting. I note the day of the diet on the lower right-hand corner of each day’s block for quick reference. After the dividing, I mark the average at that point in the diet. On the bottom of the entry, in parentheses, I note the number of calories I would have eaten if I were just maintaining a healthy weight. As noted before, this number may vary according to the site on which you found the number. It’s variable, so I just stick to 1943/day because changing that number whenever I find a new site that looks “better” would be very confusing. I also note if I ate at a restaurant. In May I ate at a restaurant only once. I’m keeping that frequency down (another “average”!) because restaurant food is so loaded with the things I want to cut down on: sugar, fat, and salt.

Much of my weight gain over the years came from buffets and general restaurant food. One example is restaurant breakfast vs. my home breakfast. In a restaurant, you find you have a number of very tempting choices: pancakes with rich syrup and maybe whipped cream; several eggs, sometimes prepared with a sauce such as Benedict; hash brown potatoes fried crisp in fat; pre-“buttered” toast; omelets with fatty cheese; fat-soaked bacon or sausages; ham; waffles; a side bowl with butter, margarine, and jelly to spread; unlimited coffee (by itself with no calories), and if you drink it with half and half (which I don’t—I use only powdered creamer) and/or sugar, many extra calories. Figure out the calorie count next time you breakfast in a restaurant.

My breakfast at home: cereal, hot or cold; skim milk; powdered creamer in my coffee; maybe a fruit afterward or for a mid-morning snack. That’s it. By lunch I may have had 400 to 500 calories. In any case, I try my best to stay under 700 calories until dinnertime. I like to end the day with a large enough intake of calories to cut down on my mid-night hunger. A small steak (mine must be well done but herbed and spiced up) is more satisfying than just about anything else, but I don’t buy steaks often. I think I’ve had seven in the last year.

Below are six of my individual diet sheets for the month of May showing exactly what I ate each day and the number of calories of each food, with the total at the lower right hand side. That total matches the calendar entry. I hope you can read the entries.

If I ever make a booklet about this diet, I’ll show every single day’s food intake. I’ve kept all the sheets. There are now 114 of them.

Calorie Counting in Wisconsin

Today is day #100 of my “Average Advantage” diet. Reaching this day is monumental. I have been tempted too often to indulge my hunger in gluttonous ways. A few times a week I still awake midway through the night with hunger pangs. I’m guessing all of us who diet experience that. I still resort to eating my 4-minute crackers, and somehow Betsie always knows I’m doing so and she joins me for her share. I suppose that means I'm actually eating 7 calories fewer than I'm counting.

My most recent weigh-in of May 6 showed a weight loss of 22 pounds, but that was 11 days ago. Going by my average weight loss of one pound every four days, it is likely that I now have lost close to 25 pounds. My average calorie count as of yesterday is 1555 per day. It jumped up after a Mother's Day buffet, but it is slowly going down again. 

Yesterday I went to a meeting of one of my art groups, and people who had not seen me for a while noted that I lost weight. My shirts and pants are looking a bit baggy. That makes me feel good. I gave my art buddies my blog address. I’m also taking my older, smaller clothing out of storage because I’ll be able to wear it again soon! (I’m not a fashion maven.) To show you the power of positive thinking, I’ve been holding on to smaller clothing that I have not worn for decades, thinking that some day I would lose the weight I packed on. Now I can look retro right out of my storage boxes.

One might feel that it’s useless to count calories since various sources report different calorie counts on the same foods. However, you need to make a decision on which you will follow and then stick to it rather than change the count according to your feelings. An example is skim milk. That’s the only kind I’ve drunk for several decades and at this point, even 1% milk is too rich for my taste.

• On most of my boxes of dry cereal, ½ cup of skim milk is valued at 40 calories, making it 80 calories a cup.   
• The skim milk I buy from a Wisconsin-based gas station, Kwik Trip, is valued at 90 calories a cup.
• Another milk distributor values it at 100 calories a cup.
• The Nutrition Facts reference book values skim milk at 86 calories a cup.
• Caloriecounter.com values skim milk at 83 calories a cup, and so does newcaloriecounter.com.
• Various other web sources value skim milk at 85.75 calories, 90 calories, 91 calories, etc., per cup.

So, should you count the calories according to whichever you feel like counting for the day? That would increase insecurities about the inaccuracy of your daily totals. I simply always count skim milk as having 100 calories a cup, no matter which brand I drink. Although that is a relatively small overestimation, I would much rather overestimate than underestimate my calories. I think that makes it seem like I’m losing too much weight—I’m probably eating fewer calories than I am accounting for.

Another thing you’ll notice is when a calorie counter gives you three different counts for the same food, as when you see that pears are graded as small, medium, or large, with mildly differing counts. You may feel confused by the size of the pear, so it may be good to just go for the medium count in any case. It will even out in the end. That’s the “Average Advantage” again. However, if you feel that overestimating is the way to go, always use the largest calorie count. There is a definite advantage to that as well. 

According to the calendar, spring has been here for nearly two months. Even my bulbs are saying it's here; nevertheless, the last two nights have seen frost, and I've had to take many potted plants back into the house for frost-free nights.

The Average Advantage

If I ever write a book based on this blogspot and this diet, I will name it The Average Advantage. It is just so. Averaging my caloric intake day by day keeps me feeling positive about the diet, and I think we all know how important it is to continue feeling positive about what dieting does to us emotionally.

If I did not figure out the average every day, I would focus on the daily calorie totals. I might even be thinking of a caloric maximum goal for myself, such a 1500 calories. Then, on days when I would go over that total, (knowing myself) I would say such things as:  I failed; I really messed up this time; this diet isn’t going to work; I’m so weak; it’s no use; I’m giving up; I may as well eat all I want, because I’ll never stick to any diet; it’s better to enjoy all the food I love, since I’m going to die fat and sick anyway. However, when I go through my daily morning routine, I see that the average has not moved very much. In fact, as the total number of days of my diet increase, the average tends to stay within a few points. This is a “growing” fact; now that I’ve concluded day 79, I must have either 80 calories more or 80 calories less than the previous average in order for it to move up or down by just one calorie! And you can’t feel discouraged by that tiny amount.

To illustrate, on day 60 my average was 1548 calories (although the total calories on that day was 1477). On the next day, I went to a restaurant buffet and pigged out, bringing my daily total to 2101 calories. Ordinarily that would worry and discourage me. However, when I figured out my 61-day average, it was only 1557. That’s nothing to worry or discourage me! Furthermore, on day 62 I ate only 1456 calories, bringing my average down again, to 1555. That’s how the averaging works. On day 79, my average was 1544. I worked it down by having fewer than 1544 calories several times between days 61 and 79. It’s not difficult at all!

Another “average” thing is infrequency of weigh-ins. I’ve been averaging about 22 days between weigh-ins. In the past I’ve been discouraged when weighing myself almost daily. You know how diets are. Sometimes you’ll lose two pounds between frequent weigh-ins, and other times you lose not an ounce. Once in a while you’ll even gain weight. That can make you feel pretty bad. However, if you weigh in about every 22 days, you’ll find you’ve lost an amount that makes you feel pretty good. Then you can run an average on that weight loss, figuring it from the beginning of your diet. I’m still averaging about a one-pound weight loss every four days. This diet is very good for me emotionally as well as physically.

Next time I write an entry, I will give you another recipe. It’s all vegetables, filling, and very low in calories. In fact, it’s a vegan recipe I invented while my vegetarian son visited over the holiday weekend. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Tonight I ate two Girl Scout cookies and I don't feel bad about that. My calorie count for the day is still under my average! 

The Magnificent Cold Potato

Potatoes have long been my favorite food. I enjoy them most mashed, then baked, as French fries, hash browns, pancakes, scalloped, kugelis (with bacon and sour cream--oh my!), in casseroles, potato salads, and just about any other way. But all these methods add more calories. I don't need that. That leaves me with another way I've always enjoyed potatoes. It's a way that adds not a single calorie to the potato. From the title of this entry, no doubt you have guessed this way.

Boil the potato in its skin. Cool it off; they are okay refrigerated but most flavorful at room temperature. Keep the skin on; it's loaded with fiber. Cut the potato into small slices and eat it slowly in order to prolong the pleasure. Salt lightly if you wish, and savor the saltiness combined with a sort of sweetness that you would not expect in a lowly cold potato. It's a treat you will want often, especially when you need a small snack. And think of this: it has only a few more calories than an ordinary cookie. Yet, think of the nutrition you are absorbing; think of how it will satisfy your hunger much more than a cookie would. It is truly a magnificent food. 

Oh, and by the way, it's a very CHEAP treat/food too. You can't argue with that!

The lowly potato is a worthy diet food. Its history goes back 7,000 to 10,000 years. See its story at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato.

Today I saw my cancer doctor. He gave me a very good report and said I don't have to see him again for a year. I'm due to see my cancer surgeon soon, though, and get a mammogram on both sides.

I weighed in at the doctor. I've lost 18 pounds, so I'm still losing at a rate of one pound every four days. I finished a painting of the aurora borealis a couple of days ago. I'm painting five signs for my garden club's plant sale in May. Also began a new painting of the Mississippi River and surrounding bluffs last night. I'm so glad art is in my life again. I missed it. I need it.

The Four-Minute Cracker

Last night I awoke with tummy growlings. I needed something to stifle them. I had consumed only 1390 calories during the day. On the headboard/bookcase I keep a package of crackers that I open when I get these growlings. I don't want to eat the crackers suddenly. Frankly, I could put a cracker in my mouth and give it a couple of gnashes, destroying it in seconds and swallowing it. I would barely taste it AND it would not give me much satisfaction. I would probably dig a handful out of the package and might eat 15-20 crackers that way before I'd no longer feel the hunger pangs. 

I awake hungry during the night about three times a week. Rather than wolf down the crackers, I eat one tiny bit at a time. I practice "mindful eating" (after the book by the same name, authored by Jan Chozen Bays, MD) while I eat the cracker. With each bite, 

• I control my impulse to quickly swallow it; 
• I feel the crunch;
• I roll the cracker between my tongue and my upper palate while thinking of the texture;
• I taste the saltiness;
• I feel the crunchy texture slowly moistening and softening;
• I think about the reason I am eating the cracker;
• I feel the hunger slowly subsiding with each bit of cracker;
• I think about the process of making a cracker (and about the recipe for crackers that I found on a website--maybe I'll begin making  my own herbed crackers when I finish my current box of crackers);
• I think about the people who made the cracker;
• I think about the little bit of nutrition I get with each bite;
• I wonder about the fat and sugar that may be in the cracker, and I remind myself to check the box next day;
• I think about why I am eating in bed at 3 AM; and
• I wonder how many tiny bites I'll take before the cracker is finished.

During this process, little Betsey, my son's 7-pound adult Manx cat, is posted at my right shoulder, staring at my eyes quietly. She's asking for a piece of cracker. She's a silly little thing. I'll give her the next tiny bit and she'll eat it much more quickly than I ate mine. She does not practice mindful eating.

By the time we finish just one cracker, four minutes have elapsed. I wait a moment, then begin my next four-minute cracker. I may challenge myself, trying for a five-minute cracker, but I fail. By the time I am finished, I've eaten 2 1/2 crackers and Betsey has eaten 1/2 cracker. I remind myself to count the calories in 2 1/2 crackers in my next calorie total. I hope that the cat-lovers of the world will not berate me for giving a cat crackers.

I practice mindful eating during my meals too, but not to this extent. If I did so, meals would all go cold after the first half-hour of such mindfulness. By the time I would finish one meal, it would be time for the next.