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.

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.

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.

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.