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!

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.