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Ah, the food log….
After having faced a number of people that are struggling to get off those last few pounds, and knowing I am in the same boat. I got the food log out.
I guess I feel guilty about giving them a piece of weight loss advice and not following it myself. I lost 1 pound in the first week of logging, and 2.5 total pounds lost, so the results speak for themselves.
Not that long ago, many female friends and I challenged each other to see who could lose 3 pounds the fastest. A colleague asked me if this was a fair contest since one of the women had a lot more weight to lose than the others. I asked if it was fair that I have a superior knowledge base than the others and should lose the weight the fastest. Something to ponder. Well there was no winner, so both points are moot.
In the meantime. The caloric difference between weighing your current weight and your goal weight is somewhat easily calculated. Assume you burn 10 calories per pound (most everyone does, somewhere between 9 and 11 is very common). Take your current scale weight and multiple it by 10, and do the same with your goal weight. So if you weigh 180, your calories are 1800. If your goal weight is 150, those calories are 1500. Subtract 1500 from 1800, and the difference between your calories to maintain your current weight vs. getting to your goal weight is 300 calories.
My goal is to lose 3 pounds, and using the calculations above, means the caloric difference is 30 calories.
Either 30 or 300 calories, it is easy to be over and not know it. Oh look, mints on your coworkers desk that you grab as you go by, jelly bellys in the break room that find their way into your mouth when you are there, samples at Costco, uh oh, Easter candy is out, that was 5 ounces of salmon not 3, that was full fat sour cream not low fat, need I go on?
As a general rule, the mistakes made in the diet when you are within 30 pounds of your goal weight are minor and numerous. It isn’t one thing. If it were one thing, you’d know what it was and you’d do something about it. But when it is a bunch of little things, it is harder to see. Thus the food log.
I recommend using online logs or apps. Be sure to choose the free ones, and ignore the ads.
Primary and Secondary Payoffs for emotional eating
My focus for this week’s blog is on the primary and secondary payoffs we receive from a weight and food management problem. These payoffs can prevent us from successfully losing weight and maintaining it. Over the years a common refrain that has been repeated by the clients I have mentored is how much they wanted to lose weight and change their relationship with food. These are for the most part are highly responsible individuals who follow through with what they expect of themselves in every area of their life but this one – the management of their weight and general health. For many years this was puzzling to me until I realized that no matter how much someone states they want to lose weight or change their life style the fact is the if they are not able to achieve this it is because sustaining there current life style is satisfying a payoff which is important to them. To many at first, this can seem implausible – “ what kind of payoff would keep me doing this my blood pressure is sky high”, “my doctor says I am a prime candidate for a heart attack”. This week the focus of our discussion was the thoughts, beliefs or habits that interfere with our ability to make the life adjustments necessary to manage our health/weight in an effective manner. At a primary levelfood serves as a convenient reward for the busy schedule many of us keep – after all we can indulge in food when we are too tired to do anything else. Food can be the place we refuel ourselves and it helps avoid our feeling a sense of deprivation in our life – again because there just may not be time for anything else. Eating can help sooth or comfort us from feelings that are unpleasant for us to experience such anger, fear of rejection or sadness. These needs for periodic escape, pleasure or the emotional replenishment of our selves are not inappropriate requests to be satisfied. A significant task in assuring that we manage our weight loss successfully is that we find positive substitutes for the role food has played. It has been my experience that most people find changing certain life behavioral patterns (over working, needing to care for others, fear of rejection) to be very uncomfortable and at a secondary level having a food control and weight problem although frustrating is at least familiar to us and it provides us with a distraction from problems that are much more unnerving for us to look at. For many being over weight allows them to maintain a certain lifestyle – for workaholics it allow them to continue to put in long hours in pursuit of professional success, for the caregiver it allows them to put in the same amount of intense hours into caring for others For others maintaining an overweight condition allows them to feel protected and insulated from ever becoming involved in an intimate relationship – the rationale being who wants to be with someone who is overweight. In order to be successful at maintaining the weight you will lose on the Optifast product it is important to begin to be explore how the needs met by our current life style can be satisfied in other ways.
I hope to see you next week,
Randy Brandeis
Taking Steps
Steps Against Domestic Violence took place last Sunday at Greenlake. In the four years that this event has occurred, I have attended three, usually with assorted family and friends. A friend of my brother started this event as a way to honor his sister and help others. Because this man is important to my brother, and the cause is important to this man, my family and friends come out to do this walk as a show of support to these men and the cause.
Eating right and exercising provides me with the health and fitness to do this kind of event, to show my support in this unique way. This is part of my value system and is one of the things I choose to do with my health. I have a number of things that are of value to me, and because I am healthy, I can participate in them, as well as (I hope) participate in them at a nice old age.
Motivation is something many people rely on to help keep their health/fitness/weight behaviors going. But if there is no value to you, it will be hard to continue the behaviors, to maintain your motivation.
Instead of complaining about going for another walk, picture yourself going up the steps of the Parthenon or Leaning Tower of Pisa (both physically challenging) and ignore the dark, dreary, damp Seattle winter.
What is important to you? What do you value? What do you want to do because you are healthy and can do it?
- Being with friends and family doing what they are doing?
- Travelling?
- Being fit to hike or ski or snowboard or water ski? Other sports, spectator or participant.
- Other hobbies? Painting, pottery, crafts…
- Road trips?
My family and friends do many fun runs each year as a group:
- Dawg Dash benefits UW scholarships (a bunch of us are alums)
- Jingle Bell benefits Arthritis Foundation
- Beat the Bridge benefits Juvenile Diabetes Foundation
- Candy Cane Dash benefits non-revenue sports at Shorecrest High
- Christmas Rush benefits Kent Parks (but also it is because we go to brunch after)
- Lake Quinault Bike Ride benefits Grays Harbor Cancer Society
Consider the cause, consider your values, consider your health goals and get out and take steps too. https://sites.google.com/site/stepsagainstdomesticviolence/
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got
What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. How does this apply to weight management? How about yo yo dieters? Those that start the latest and greatest diet, lose weight and then resume their old eating habits and regain the weight.
What to do? One thing to keep in mind, whether you have 5 pounds to lose or 50 pounds, the task can seem anywhere from overwhelming to impossible. It is interesting that many overweight people I meet are achievers. They can get the job done at work, but not in this area. That achiever in them is actually a barrier to weight loss rather than a benefit. Why, because they are so adept and skilled, they forgot all the learning and struggle that went into becoming a master at their craft.
How to master a new skill? Walk before you run, crawl before you walk. Keep in mind that a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. The steps needed to manage weight long term are many, so start with a few. What are your issues? Consider:
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Inadequate water intake
- Eating often at restaurants or take out
- Using food to fill mental or emotional needs
- High fat diet
- Lots of junk food
Need I go on? Make a list of ten behaviors to get to your goals. Pick one to focus on and just dabble with the other nine. Everyone’s needs are different, if there was one diet there would be one diet book. Find what is right for you, your life, your physiology, your tastes, your job, your family…
Quick caveat. Your ten goals need to be behavioral in nature. Losing 20 pounds is the outcome, the behaviors are what get you there. Those behaviors may include:
- walking 1 mile a day
- eating breakfast every morning
- changing the mid morning Mocha to an Americano
- meditate daily
- go to bed by 11 pm
- drink 64 ounces of water a day
Once your list of ten items is accomplished, pick 10 more, if you are not at goal weight. If you are at goal weight, you now have a list of behaviors that work to manage your weight.
Have a backslide? Lapses happen, so pull out your list and start again. But don’t be surprised if your priorities have changed, being flexible and adaptable is a tool that needs to be in every successful person’s tool box no matter what the task.
Hey, does this sound like a lot of the quality assurance stuff that was so popular in the 90’s? You bet, if you have skills in that area for work, try applying that same tool to your weight management.