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.

Today Is the One-Year Anniversary of My Diet

What a long haul it's been, and it's not done yet! I've lost 56 pounds. I must say that I expected to  lose more than that in 12 months. Yet--I'm being told by people, who include my doctor, that I should not lose weight too quickly in any case. The tendency for about 90% of all dieters is to gain back the weight (which I have done several times in earlier diets), and that's more likely if the weight loss was very quick rather than very slow. 


My appearance is quite different. I'm wearing much smaller clothing of course. Also, for people my age, the wrinkles are appearing rather quickly, but when I was 56 pounds heavier, I often heard remarks about my lack of wrinkles. Sure, they were filled in by fat. Now, though, with my face so much thinner that the new wrinkles are becoming more obvious as the weeks pass. Disappointing, but better wrinkles than diabetes or worse. At least the hair hasn't gone grey yet but that's thanks to genetics, not diet.


Speaking of diabetes, recent bloodwork revealed that I am no longer pre-diabetec. I'm so very happy about that. Also, my cholesterol is way down. Another positive change is that the intense pressure is off my knees and hips, so my arthritis is not as strong. It's remarkable how much difference it makes when your hips and knees don't have to move all that weight. I recently had my left knee replaced and my healing, I believe, has gone well in some part because I can move around and do my therapy more easily than if I still had the extra pounds.

A question I am often asked, particularly by people who are thinking about dieting and really NEED to lose weight, is about my appetite. They always (and I do mean always) seem to think that I don't have the appetite I had a year ago. They think that I have gotten so used to not eating all the sweets and fats I used to eat, that I no longer crave them. Not at all true! I still love them and I must be very careful when exposed to them that I do not have more than ONE small piece of whatever it is. I cannot eat two pieces because if I eat two, I'll eat ten. It is a real addiction to me and I must be most careful. As I've mentioned before, this is not a real deprivation diet. I do eat things that I crave; it's just the amount that is greatly different. Who said "It is easier to avoid temptation that to resist it"? That person was right. If you are invited to an event that has snacks or free meals, be very very careful. Avoid going there if you can. An occasional huge meal won't make a big difference in your daily average, but if you have too many of them, your average will raise so high you might be discouraged and fall back into the enchanting, mouthwatering trap of gluttony. 


Now I can reveal what I weighed one year ago today. It was 234 pounds. Now I weigh 178. I am continuing the daily averaging of my caloric intake. It stands at 1536, and it barely moves from day to day, because I would have to consume 365 calories more, or 365 calories less, in any one day to raise or lower the calorie average by just one! Therefore, if you do cheat badly and your average jumps by just 3 calories, it will take many days of eating well under the average to get the average back down. Be careful when you cheat. I want to reduce my weight to 160. If I can get it lower, great, but my weight loss has slowed down so much, it may take me another year of calorie averaging to get to that goal. 

Mindful eating is still something I practice daily and am teaching my son, who is developmentally disabled, to do. He is grossly overweight.


Good luck with all your own weight loss efforts. I hope everyone can get healthier. I hope that my efforts have at least been informative. I will continue to post occasionally.

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 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.

16 Pounds Down; 68 to Go

Today I weighed myself at the hospital, on the same scale I weighed myself on February 7, the day after my diet started. I was very pleased to see that I had lost 16 pounds in 64 days. Since I'm such an "average" freak (you'll have to decide on the meaning of that), let's see how that works out mathematically. Dieting 64 days and losing 16 pounds means that I lost one pound every four days on the average.

Frankly, that seems like way too much. If the body of a 63-year-old woman my height requires 1943 calories a day to maintain a healthy weight, and my average consumption is 1554 calories per day, then I'm eating only 389 calories per day less. That's not really very much. Reckoning that a pound of body fat equates to about 3500 calories, it should take me about nine days to lose a pound. I'd be satisfied with that. I'm not exercising enough to cause many extra calories to burn. I'm wondering if the large weight loss is just because my obesity required many more calories in maintenance; in fact, one website said I would need over 3,000 calories a day to stay large. By that reckoning, I'm eating WAY less than I would need to stay big. Is that how "nature rules"? I'm sure that at some point, my calorie intake will more closely match maintenance calories.

I will continue to keep my average about the same as it is now, and I'll have to count calories well into the future so I don't bounce back again. I'll also continue to eat a well-balanced diet. Now that spring has finally sprung and my garden is calling me, I'll be getting more physical activity as well. My goal every growing season is to make my garden more spectacular than it was the year before, and that means working harder and longer than the year before!

Feeling Full after a 560-Calorie Supper

Yesterday was day 55 of my diet. Although I never went in much for pre-processed foods, now I am even more determined to cut down on salts, fats, sugars, and unpronounceable chemical additives in foods I consume. Therefore, nearly all my food is prepared by me. While shopping at Woodman's, my favorite grocery store (employee-owned), I searched the section that had the foods "on the cusp", as it were, or shortly about to expire. Most of it is still quite good. I bought a pound of mustard greens and 4 chicken sausages with cranberries and cognac. They had only 100 calories each and were exceptionally low in salt and fat, but high in protein. I put them together with other foods and created a new, nameless recipe. Maybe some day I'll make a recipe book of all these low-calorie meals I'm creating. Here's the calorie count I did on the recipe. You are welcome to try it.
                                                                                          calories
mustard greens, 1#                                                                  100
chopped tomatoes in their own juice                                       145
potatoes, 5 fairly small                                                             400
carrots, 4 small, peeled and left whole                                     45
chicken sausages, 4 left whole                                                  400
Italian seasonings 2 T                                                             miniscule
chopped onion                                                                        30
hot sauce I made  2 T                                                            miniscule
garlic, chopped  2 T                                                              miniscule

                                                                          Total calories             1120 / 2 servings=
                                                                                      560 calories per serving

I shared this meal with my adult son. It was not only extremely tasty with all those good things in it, but it needed NO SALT because of the seasonings, and I added no form of fat whatsoever. That hot sauce turned out really hot; I made it from water and hot peppers blended together. I used enough water in the pot to cover the food while it was cooking. I did not serve bread with the meal because I felt there was enough starch in the potatoes. We were completely satisfied after eating that great amount of food out of two large serving bowls. Later I ate a small scone to satisfy my sugar craving. I must admit that after having only 1316 calories yesterday, I awoke at about 4 AM terribly hungry and unable to sleep, so I ate three crackers mindfully and finally got back to sleep. Betsey got only a few pieces from me.

This is my calendar entry for the day:

Saturday, April 2, 2011
+ 1316 = 
85,379 / 55 =
1552 
(106,865) [total calories I would have consumed over 55 days if I had been eating only to maintain a healthy weight] 

On April 18 I'll be seeing my cancer doctor and I will have a weigh-in at a good scale. I'll let you know how many pounds I lost. I know it's going well because my clothes are getting loose. Now I guess I'm sorry that I donated 20 boxes of my old size 10 clothes. Many of them were brand new. Just think, I could have been WAY out of style if I wore those 20-year-old clothes again. I think I'd have some fun with that.

At last I finished the painting I was working on. It's not my usual subject. I do people portraits and landscapes, and I like for them to be quite dramatic. In this case, I painted flowers, but they are not done in a "feminine" style. (I've frequently been told that NONE of my paintings  look like a woman painted them. I guess I just have to figure out exactly what that implies.) I made a portrait of dramatic peonies in my garden. I photographed them in June, and the time of day was sunset, with the sun very low on the horizon.

The 2,236 Calorie Buffet

On Sunday, March 20, 2011, while celebrating the Vernal Equinox, my youngest son and I went to a restaurant that was, for us, new. It's in a small town about 12 miles north of the smallish town we live in. I had purchased a $30 coupon for the restaurant for only $9 and, well, I HAD to use it or lose it! We went to the Sunday brunch buffet. Do I sense an "Oh, oh"? My fear was not great because I felt confident in my method of averaging.

I expected to give myself a food treat on occasion, and realized that it would throw off my average. But here's the fact: It wasn't thrown off much at all. Because I ate 1 french toast; 3 breakfast links; 1 slice of bacon; a large serving of cooked vegetables; a small serving of mashed potatoes with a bit of gravy; mixed fruits; 2 pieces of chicken; a slice of ham; 1/2 a cinnamon roll; a serving of carrots; an average slice of lasagna; vinegar-dressed cole slaw; a small cheese sweet roll, and 2 servings of scrambled eggs; my calorie total for one meal came to 2,236. That added with the 361 calories I had already eaten came to a grand total of 2,647 calories. That sounds very bad, and it gives you an idea of what I actually used to eat before I started my diet.

A look at my calendar entry for the day reveals that my brunch buffet excess has not irreparably ruined my diet; in fact, it was easy to bounce back today.

+ 2697= [I add to this my previous 41 days' total calories]

65,803 / 42 =

1567 [the average daily caloric intake over the 42 days of my dieting]

(81,606 ) [the calories I would have eaten for maintenance in 42 days of not dieting)

So, today I ate less than 1550 calories, and that will begin to bring down my average again. 

In about two weeks I'll be eating out again, but will not have a buffet! It is much easier to count calories when I make the food at home than when I go to a restaurant and do not know how much grease and sugar are added to the food. Because of this, I overestimate rather than underestimate calories. I also don't like to consume much salt, and was pleased that the food I ate at yesterday's buffet definitely tasted unsalted. I drank only water. By the way, as my stomach and guts are now used to much less food than that, I experienced, shall I say, a sudden weight loss about 90 minutes after consuming that meal.

I will have a weigh-in at my hospital this week and will report on my weight loss.

I'd like to note that an elderly lady played the piano at the restaurant. She is a widow who brought herself up from depression after losing her husband by delving into her music. She played the pop of her day: Ramblin' Rose, Tie a Yellow Ribbon to the Old Oak Tree, I Love You Most of All Because You're You, etc. I told her that my dad  used to play those tunes on his harmonica and that his favorite was Red Sails in the Sunset. She played it for me. What a charming lady she was.

Rituals

You know how you always take a shower the same way? Or put your clothes on in the same order? Try changing the order and see how it throws you off.

We have standard procedures for doing certain things. They become ritualistic and if we start to do them in a different order we know something isn't right. We aren't following the ritual. Doing certain things the same way every time is reassuring and it becomes important to getting those things done satisfactorily.

My diet ritual involves record-keeping. Every morning I put my calendar in front of me on the kitchen table. I get my little note card with the calorie counts from the previous day. I open my little solar-powered calculator and make sure I have everything added up correctly. Then I transfer the important numbers to my calendar and figure my average caloric intake. After that, I get my little note card ready for the day's notations. It's always the same. I feel good when I've done that. It makes me feel ready to tackle another day of dieting.

 I also read the backs of cans and boxes and bottles to make sure I get the correct calorie count. I use my nutrition book to determine the counts on recipes and other cooked food. If I cook from a recipe, I look up every ingredient and count the total calories, then divide by the portions I am serving to my little family. But those just are not ritualistic. The true rituals are a comfort.

I lost another pound.

My 2X Tops Are Getting Looser

For the past couple of days I've noticed that my tops are not as tight as they were getting. The holidays saw a 10-pound weight gain that affected how my tops fit. I am looking forward to when they are loose. It's been a long time since I've worn 1X but that day will come. Sorry to say, one of my 2X slacks is still too tight to wear. I'm working on that!

Yesterday I ate so much that I was quite full, yet the calorie count was just 1526, below the previous average of 1550. Here's my intake:

Monday, March 7, 2011

29th day of diet

oatmeal                       160

coffee creamer             100           260

onion soup                   100           360

chili lime tortilla chips      70           430

1 orange                        64            494

cake                             150          644

steak, well done            270          914

green beans                     60         974

onions                             42         1016

red pepper                      20         1036

1/2 T butter unsalted       25         1061

mushroom soup              120        1181

Eng. muffin                     120        1301

1 cucumber                      30        1331

3 C salad                         45        1376

salad cream                    100       1476

salad fixings                      50        1526 [total for the day]

The calendar entry:

+1526=

44,929 / 29 =

1549

(56,347) [total I would have eaten in 29 days to maintain a healthy weight]

My breakfasts are most often high fiber cold cereal or oatmeal. I eat plenty of vegetables and fruits. These foods have been on my diet for my lifetime. The weight gain was not prevented by eating these healthy foods, but by eating excesses of foods that have fat and/or sugar in them--two things that make my mouth water!

A Treat Is Not a Permanent Failure

Yesterday, which was day 27 of my weight-loss diet, my youngest son and I went to a subway shop. Afterward I went online to look up the calorie count, and found that it was not too bad; however, the sub was small and not satisfying. I was still hungry after eating it. That's two lesson for me: avoid eating too much bread, and eat more vegetables instead. [Not a deliberate rhyme.] The final calorie count for the day was 1721, way above my previous average. Yet, when I averaged that with my previous 26-day totals, it came to 1553 calories. Thus, I was not discouraged. I did not feel like I blew my diet, nor did I get that "give it up" feeling at all, as I have done in past diets. I just forged on ahead and am ending today with a low calorie count.

I depend on a reliable book to help me figure out the calories. Its 947 pages give me counts on home-made foods (I most often cook my family's meals) and on prepared foods(I keep these to a minimum) and on restaurant foods (ditto). I sometimes enjoy just looking through it and seeing other nutritional information as well, such as cholesterol and fiber counts. I do eat a lot of fiber. There is no one food I totally deny myself, but I do manage to stop myself from eating great quantities of cookies and cakes by keeping them out of sight. I love that stuff. When I do eat sweets, as when I made a pumpkin custard two weeks ago, I limit the amount I eat and I count every calorie.

I keep my little note papers with lists of eaten food and their calories on my kitchen table, along with the Nutrition Facts book and my dieting calendar. Here are a few days' worth of my food lists:

Monday, Feb. 14, 2011

9th day of diet

oatmeal                           130

coffee creamer                100            230

1 lg orange                       75            305

bean + cheese burrito      280            585

salsa                                30            615

crackers + spread            100            715

bean soup w/veg             410           1125

bread                               75           1200

crackers + cheese            300           1500 (total for the day)

I was still going to bed hungry after dieting only nine days.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

19th day of diet

coffee creamer                   100

pineapple                           157             257

cottage cheese, fat free       90             347

small apple                          63             410

Fiber One tart                    189              590

pasta + shrimp                   570            1160

small orange                        64             1224

milk                                    90             1314

doughnut, tiny                     83             1397

crackers                              70             1467 (total for the day)

I keep saltine crackers at my bedside so that when I am super hungry at night and unable to sleep because of it, I very slowly eat one to three of them. My son's little cat (she's seven years old but weighs only six pounds--she was the runt) loves crackers, so she joins me. I give her a few crumbs and then she cuddles. Where else can you get such love for a few crumbs but from a pet?

Friday, March 4, 2011

26th day of diet

oatmeal                                130

coffee creamer                     100              230

fat-free sandwich meat           60              290

apple cider                           120              410

English muffin                      120              530

ICBINB Meditteranean            70              600

carrots, parsnips, sprouts     130              730

chicken skinless                   165              895

potatoes                              190            1085

1 sl whole wheat bread           75             1160

milk                                     100            1260

honey mustard sauce              30            1290

tiny scone                            100            1390  (total for the day)

My calendar entry for the day was this:

+1390=

40,218 [total calories since starting diet]/26=

1547 [average over 26 days]

(50,518) [number of calories I would have eaten if maintaining a healthy weight]

It's getting late. I have an urge to work on a painting tonight. I am visualizing what I will do with it; I probably need four more sessions to complete it. I'm a slow painter.

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!