The Book

Surviving Myself - Reals Stories of Real People Mastering their Real Life Challenges

It's always clearer when it's someone else's life, right?

Following are stories of individual clients (or even me) finding ways to manage their struggles with food using behavioral and cognitive techniques.  Their specific circumstances may not be your circumstances, but try to identify with the nature of the challenge and their process rather than comparing the details of your life.

These stories demonstrate in a very concrete way how you can use your own often painful history to understand yourself and to predict your behaviors.  They can provide you with insights on how to to get on the right track right from the get go, or effectively head yourself off at the pass if it is too late for that.  Turns out, there's always lots you can do to set yourself in the right direction from the start or get off the tracks before the train runs you down. 

When you make your environment support you rather than test you, situations become easy wins rather than battlefields.  With repetition, these actions will become second nature. 

Except for my personal stories, the names and other identifying details have been changed to "protect the innocent", so any similarity you may see to anyone you know is purely coincidence.

If you have an inspiring story to share, please contact me at Susan@SusanHolmberg.com.  I would love to publish your "personal victory"!

Am I Ready For Weight Mangement 202?

I recently listened to one of my regular Wednesday night Clinical Rounds conference calls (on constipation this particular time*) and the practitioner started out by going over what he considered to be the basics when helping someone to solve a problem with constipation.  He went on to say that if they will not do these things, he won’t continue to work with them, not because he is insulted that they did not follow his advice, but because he simply will not be able to help them if they don’t follow his basic protocols.  Their body will not respond. Trying to skip the basics and jump ahead to the the next steps or more sophisticated options cannot override the existing internal conditions.  He called it “stacking” the behaviors.  It occurred to me that weight management works the same way.  “Stacking the basics” is sort of like the due diligence of weight management.

If you are like me, you may believe that you are faaaaar too complex of an individual for this simplistic approach to apply to you (it’s insulting actually), but, to paraphrase something I once heard an addictions counselor say: “I  have never met anyone too stupid to get this, but I have met plenty of people who were too smart!”  Gee, I wonder why that quote stuck with me all these years?

Weight Management Basics fall into two groups - the emotional and intellectual basics that pave the way for the behavioral basics.  The emotional and intellectual basics (which I elaborate on in the Morning Musings this month) are about convincing myself that I care, accepting some realities of my role in this process, and a grasp of what I need to understand about myself so that I can tailor these tools to fit my personality and lifestyle.  Behavioral basics (also in the Musings) are the actual action steps to:  nourish my body so that I can manage cravings, manage the environment so that I can minimize temptation, and move my body so that I can maintain a good fuel burning machine while keeping myself motivated.

Behavioral basics are not that hard to make habitual (ultimately it is just repetition), but staying convinced long enough to cement them is critical.  When clients come to me initially, they have always made that first contact because they have been convinced by something - a friend’s weight loss, a medical issue, self-loathing.  But often, usually even, whatever it was wears off and that initial psych seems to evaporate into thin air.  Sometimes it's because they buckle under the disappointment and frustration of their own ineveitable screw ups.  (Don‘t you hate having to keep learning from mis-steps?)  Sometimes it's because they are under the illusion that they don’t/shouldn’t have to continue to do the basics once they are rolling or once the weight is off.  Sometimes they unknowingly give their mojo away one little piece at a time and don’t recognize the process.  Check out the Surviving Myself Blog entry “Catch the Wave” (May 31, 2010) for more on this topic.

When I find that I can’t get myself to do one of the behavioral basics, some simple step that has nothing to do with willpower, that would pave the way for me, that isn’t even that hard to do (like buy some vegetables), I know I need to take a step back and look at the emotional and intellectual pre-paving I may not be doing.  Apparently, somewhere along the way, I stopped being convinced that I wanted this badly enough to do the basic footwork.  Keeping myself convinced is my job too.

When you think about it, every diet program on the planet simply does most of these basics for us.  Their plans are not rocket science or anything that we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves.  While their plan generally already incorporates the calorie and nutrition basics, it primarily serves as a means to lock us into a pre-determined format that locks us out of the discussion.  Probably the main reasons that they work is because we are not part of the food discussion...something that it would be well to make an integral part of our own forever program.

It is a behavioral basic to be making a food plan when I am in the “I care that I am thin and healthy” mode - not when I have not planned, nothing healthy is convenient, I am busy, stressed and too hungry, someone around me is no doubt consuming some delicious unhealthy choice....and now I need to decide if I still want to be committed?  Sound familiar?

Case in Point:   Mary Alice works for doctors.  Have you got any idea how much food doctors get in their office, particularly this time of year?  Are their pharmaceutical reps trying to keep them in business?  Ah, but I digress.  Anyway, she recently changed offices, having gained about 70 lbs. at her previous office.  She chose to use the opportunity as a chance for a do-over of her work eating habits.  Determined not to program this office the same way, she started practicing two basics:  providing enough of her own real meals and choosing to never open certain doors - one of them being Christmas goodies.  Right from the get go, she started providing plenty of her own choices, making sure to provide foods that could reasonably compete with all the junk coming in.  At last count, they had received about 56 lbs. of goodies.  She sends me an email daily with what she could have but didn’t eat.  So far, she has not gained seven and a half pounds she would have previously eaten -  and it is only December 16th.

Case in Point:  Eric is still working on night eating.  If you had his life...he is in his early sixties (tired) and still has a really stressful job that he feels grateful to have with his company constantly cutting back, the economy and his age.  He has worked hard all of his life and, believe me, this wasn’t the plan.  He also has a very difficult home situation, so that when he finally leaves the office at 7 and 8 at night, exhausted and often overwhelmed at all the work he is leaving undone, what he goes home to isn’t any easier.  Wouldn’t you eat too?

But, being seriously overweight at this age with all its inherent consequences isn’t what he wants for himself.  In fact, it only makes him feel worse - physically and mentally.  He figures it this way (his intellectual and emotional basics):  he can have these life circumstances and be an unfit, overweight person, or have these life circumstances and be a fit and healthy person. He has already successfully cleaned up his daytime eating by bringing tons of healthy delicious things from home that work to help him to avoid all the potential food pitfalls in his office.  He has covered his daytime basics.

The evening is still a work in progress.  After acknowledging all the psychological reasons (only “excuses” if he chooses not to solve them) for this being such a difficult time of day for him, he eventually came to the conclusion that a primary reason that the evening remains so challenging is that, unlike the daytime, he doesn’t have any concrete plan for it not to be.  He does all these things to set up his day, but gets home having done none of this for the night time - his most difficult time.

This was a really hopeful “aha”.  If he does even a few of the things for his evenings that he has done about the daytime, he can fix this too.  Like the old commercial where the guy slaps his head and says, “I coulda had a V8!”...I coulda had a meal plan!

*In case you wondered what the behaviors to prevent constipation were, BTW - I hate to leave you hanging - they were:  drinking half your weight in water daily, taking in 30+ grams of fiber a day minimum, thoroughly chewing your food, and taking time in the morning to sit for a few minutes, ideally with a hot drink, to let your body prepare itself to eliminate.

Under the Influence - Dealing with Saboteurs

It’s complicated.  That’s all I have to say.  And I will speak for myself, because I may just be a bit more nuts than the rest of you. 

I had invested a lot of years in creating an extraordinarily unhelpful food history with most of my long time friends.  For me, the fun has been the food.  If we happened to do something else while eating, well that was just more fun, but secondary.  

A side benefit I have enjoyed from deliberately addressing this preoccupation, by the way, is that I have learned to be more present to the people dynamics in social situations.  I am more present to the friendships themselves.  I once didn’t eat anything at a BBQ (having promised myself a really good burger later - a deliberate strategy) and I left there knowing what everyone’s kids were doing, where they were in college, how their jobs were going.  I had never realized before that how much my preoccupation with the food - whether I was eating it or not, whether you saw me eating it or not, whether you would judge me if I had thirds, whether or not you had thirds, how I was to pay this back, and on and on and on....just how much that had removed me from the actual social experience.  I have a nephew who forgets to finish his meal, so engaged is he in the social aspects of the gathering.  Can you imagine?

So, in all fairness, I created most of the saboteurs in my life.  I trained them to assume that I wanted to “be bad”.  They learned.  But, other than those folks, I have the fortune to be surrounded with support both in thought and deed.

But not so for everyone else.  I have heard story after story of clients getting sabotaged by “friends” and family who know they are diligently, and sometimes desperately trying to change their lives and weight.  Yet nonetheless they seem to deliberately set them up, or maybe just not care enough to forgo their own overeating plans.  In all fairness, there are also those who truly “don’t get it”.  You probably know who they are.

And, let’s face it, sometimes I am well aware of who this might be and I do nothing to save myself.  I let the idea of the indulgence get a hold of me.  I fantasize about the indulgence (romance the scone, so to speak), and then I can’t get myself to back off and accept the disappointment of not having it.  It is important to know who these advertent or inadvertent saboteurs are if I have any intention of heading myself (and them) off at the pass.  I can suggest a non-eating activity or a safe restaurant right from the start, from the intitial conversation.  If I don’t do this right away, chances are I am not planning to.  Oh darn, they want to go for pizza.  What a surprise. 

Sometimes being “bad” together is how we bond, and I think that they are going to feel betrayed and sort of judged by my lack of participation in this tradition we have created.  At least that is what I am afraid of.  I’m guessing that this is particularly hard if this is one of the dynanics you have with your spouse.  It is sort of like one of you getting sober.  You just changed the rules of the game midstream. 

I do have a bunch of options though.  If I want to help myself at all, I may try to find a non-food activity to do with these friends.  Or, I may bring something along to try to manipulate the food to be a little less disastrous.  And, while creating other non-food traditions with good friends would likely serve me better in the long run, I always have the option of just going with the flow by banking my calories in advance.  This would never work with anyone you live with or eat with all the time though.  And, whatever conversation you do have about it might be best had out of context. 

I have a client with a newborn.  Both parents come from obese families and have a history of personal struggle with their weight.  They want to change the family legacy for their kids.  So they sat down an discussed this before their little boy was born.  They agreed on a list of 10 food priorities/rules for their home (like how often they would eat red meat or eat out, what snacks they would keep in the house, that they would serve fruit for dessert, etc.), and posted it on the refrigerator.  So far, so good. 

Sometimes people who love you need you to tell them how they can support you.  For example, asking me “if I should be eating this” isn’t one of them.  Poor spouses.  Sometimes there isn’t a right thing they can do or say.  They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  Here are some of the creative ways I have heard that couples have found to support each other.  One husband buys this wife the expensive fruit that she can’t justify.  Another watches the kids so his wife can get to the gym.  Another takes responsibility for getting rid of desserts when they entertain.  One supportive wife keeps her junk food in the office or the trunk of her car.  Another only bakes for company, gets it off the kitchen counter before he is home, packages it up and leaves it in the downstairs freezer. 

Sometimes they truly mean it in the nicest possible way. They intend this gesture (like making you chicken and dumplings because they think you can use a treat given all the stress in your life) in the nicest possible way. They likely just don’t get it.  Doesn’t everyone have at least one relative or friend like this? 

They don’t get that a five pound block of expensive chocolate is not a gift.  It is a curse.  However, somewhere along the way they must have gotten the impression that you love chocolate and want them to bring it to you.  Where did they get this idea?  Do you want them to keep doing it?  Can you find another way to manage it besides eating (wearing) it or asking them not to bring it?  Is there something else they could bring you?  Can you re-gift it?  Are you even willing to once you have it in your hot little hands?  That is the real question, right?  There are lots of choices, but I have to know where along the continuum I am still willing to make them.  Nose to nose with the chocolate is usually too late for me

Sometimes people sabotage you with an unintentional (?) back handed compliment.  You can see the blood, but not the knife.  “Oh, you’ve lost weight!...again,” they say.  I personally often won’t say anything to someone who has clearly lost weight because I don’t want them to think I am watching them.  Once I have acknowledged to you that I am noticing, I am stuck.  What will I say if you gain it back?  Do I become oddly silent?  Or maybe they don’t comment because they struggle with their weight too and don’t want to draw attention to it.  Or maybe your loss makes them feel guilty about their own weight.  Sometimes their lack of comment has nothing whatsoever to do with you.   

My advisor at college really put her foot in her mouth and felt just terrible about it when she gently asked me if perhaps I was pregnant(?).  I don’t know which was worse, her thinking I was pregnant at eighteen in 1976 or the fact that I had gained forty pounds in one semester.  It got to be really challenging to avoid everyone and everyplace anyone had ever seen me thin once I wasn’t anymore.

I occasionally run into a former client who has put weight back on and I go out of my way to avoid them, so uncomfortable am I with putting them on the spot, making them feel like they have to explain.  Maybe they wouldn’t feel that way, but when that was me, that was how I felt.  And if you didn’t say anything, that was equally uncomfortable.  I bet that these are some of the reasons why we don’t always get the compliments we think we deserve.

In fact, I have a number of clients who feel that they are not entitled to enlist the support of friends and family precisely for this reason.  They have gained weight back several times and they feel stupid asking for support from others when they clearly pull the rug out from under themselves over and over.  How can I ask you not to keep potato chips in the house when you see my candy wrappers in the trash?

So what’s my point?

Most of us has at least some people who love us and truly want to help - but it is our responsibility to let them know how.  Sometimes they just don’t what we need.  Tell them.

Sometimes I am on my own to set up the situation for my success...perhaps in the face of an intentional saboteur.

And sometimes my worst saboteur is me.

There is a solution though - using my history to be aware of situations long before I find myself in them...and doing something about it.  As always, I may not have control over whether or not I have an issue with food, but I certainly have control over whether I do something about it.  The sooner I can get a hold of and act from my best self (before my I-don’t-care-self gets her hands on me) the better.

100 Calorie Packs - Is Less More?

I get interviewed by a website called HerCampus.com fairly regularly.  I always enjoy contributing although I never know till they write it up whether or not I will be quoted.  They do a really interesting variety of college relevant topics.  Check it out sometime.

Anyway, this is one I recently did on 100 Calorie packs that I thought would be interesting to my clients too.  You can see the writer's questions and my answers.

Her Question:  What exactly do you do as a Nutritionist?

My answer:  I deal specifically with weight management in my practice of 20 years and although my focus is largely behavioral (I think people don't so much lack knowledge about what to do, but more lack the ability to figure themselves out well enough to get themselves to do it on an on-going basis), I have found myself focusing more and more on teaching people how to nourish themselves adequately.  I found out from long experience with my own painful eating disordered history, that I had made the process of recovery infinitely harder by eating in such a way that I was never nourished.  A poorly nourished brain can in itself create distorted body image issues and literally cannot process logical thoughts properly.  That is outside of the fact that the internal biochemical signals to feed an under-nourished body are extremely complex and strong, or human beings wouldn't have survived years of famines in our histories. 

During my 30's and 40's we were under the misguided nutrition direction that we needed to eat as little fat as possible.  This, along with tons of processing of our foods in general, gave rise to a whole food industry centered on refined, fat free carbohydrates and totally artificial condiments.  To their credit it must be said, when they told us to eat low fat and high carb, BTW, they meant broccoli and brown rice, not Snackwells and bagels. 

Even so, anyone with any kind of food/mood issues is not going to be able to create adequate brain chemicals to make enough neurotransmitters.  Add this to the fact that fat free (or fake fat) refined carbohydrate foods (missing virtually all their vital nutrients) actually stimulate appetite, and you have the makings of an appetite that is out of control.  Recent research demonstrates (see David Kessler's The End of Overeating) that when you get the exact right combination of sugar, fat and salt, you will override the natural mechanisms that would have down-regulated appetite, and instead override them and create a need for more of the substance to get the same level of pleasure -  just like cocaine, BTW.

So, to your question about the value of snacking and the 100 calorie packs in particular, I would first say that it totally depends on how you are using them;  that is, what place they hold in your overall nutrition program. 

Her question:  How big should our meal proportions be?

My answer:  However big they need to be to fill you up without causing you to overspend your budget.  It you don't want to weigh a lot and do want to eat a lot, you simply have to eat more of your volume from lower calorie foods (vegetables and lean proteins specifically).  An invaluable thing to figure out about yourself is how much volume it takes you to be satisfied and full and then how much of that needs to be vegetables for you to be able to make your budget work.

Her question:  Additionally, how big should our snack proportions be?

My answer:  I think it is more an issue of what percent of your budget can be allotted for them without preventing you from getting your nutritional needs met.  If you don't weigh much, you have less room to play, unless you are willing to increase your available budget with exercise.  I think that, especially in slim women, it's hard to get your nutritional needs met if you allot any more than 15-20% of your daily calories to junk.  Fortunately if you do get your nutrition covered, you will likely not be craving so much of the junk.  It is a bit of a catch 22.  The more crap you eat, especially early in the day when it has a tendency to both biochemically and behaviorally "open Pandora's box", the more you will want.  You can't really just "get it out of your system".  It is more like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors:  the more you feed your appetite for crap, the bigger that appetite actually gets.

Her question:  In general, what are the nutritional benefits and drawbacks of replacing meals with snacks? Are there any long- term effects from doing so?

My answer:  I think the real issue is what you snack on.  If you snack on real food, then you may well find that eating several mini-meals during the day works really well for you as long as you can make it convenient.   It does regulate insulin better, which would be better for blood sugar management and theoretically appetite.  I have also found that people aren't overweight because they are eating too much real food.  The great thing about it is that if you aren't really hungry, chances are you won't want it.  When it comes to junk, who can tell if they are actually hungry for it?  Try asking yourself if you want to finish off your lunch salad and you will immediately be able to tell if you are really hungry.  But cheese nips always sound good.

So the nutritional issues with picking junk is that not only are you not getting any nourishment, but you are actually pulling nutrients from your body to process them (the nutrients that nature would have naturally included in the food before we processed them out), your appetite is not lessened - it is likely increased, and now you have created cravings for more of the same so that you will be looking for more crap not more real food, and finally, that it tends to dull your palate for real food.  They call these foods hyper-palatable for a reason.

Her question:   "100 Calorie Packs" are a college girl's go-to snack. Are these healthy for you? Are there any "100 Calorie Packs" that you'd recommend over others?

My answer:  The only 100 calorie pack I know of that is not junk is raw almonds, but there may be others.  Anything that is still real food in its natural form could certainly be a healthy thing.  But even dehydrated fruits and veggies, while not processed exactly, have shrunk by so much that it is easy to eat tons more than you would have of the real thing.  They are very calorie concentrated when you remove all the water. 

The real benefit to 100 calorie packs is mainly that they create a barrier between you and the next 100 calories.  If you keep multiple options available you will likely end up with several hundred calories of several different junk things, all eaten in 100 calorie increments!

Her question:  College girls are obsessed with counting calories in order to lose or maintain their weight. What are the pros and cons of doing so? What else do we need to consider when getting fit?

My answer:  The pros are that you do have to be accountable to a budget and calories quantify the task.  Also, once you know what things "cost" you can have a conversation about whether or not it is worth it to you, not whether or not some outside authority (diet program for example) has told you it is allowed.  You decide.  Also, you are not stuck wearing your over-expenditures be they planned or unplanned.  You always have the option of being accountable to your budget - just like with money.

The cons have to do with what you choose to do with this information.  If you use it to eat badly and just make the budget work, then you will likely never solve a weight problem because most overweight people can't pull it off for the same reasons I outlined above.  Even if you can, I believe that there are severe long term health consequences to a nutritionally deplete diet.  Fortunately or unfortunately, you may not see or feel these when you are 19 years old - they show up much later in many cases.  I didn't eat for an entire summer when I was 19 and, other than being cold, felt pretty much fine at the time.  Lord only knows what long term problems that may ultimately have created, but you couldn't tell me that at 19 and getting "skinny".  I also wish I hadn't smoked.

I do think that most eating disordered people tend to be severely nutritionally depleted and for sure that is making it much much harder to pull themselves out of that endless cycle.

But fitness is another issue and requires exercise that balances cardio bursts with strength training, stretching and flexibility.  They are all part of the puzzle with cardio only filling one quarter of the picture.  I know that I overdid the cardio all throughout my 30's and 40's.  If I knew then what I know now, I would probably be sporting 10 more pounds muscle so vital to metabolism and longevity.  Live and learn, right?

Her question:  What are some healthy snack ideas?

My answer:  any that involve vegetables and proteins for starters.  Also fruit in moderation is great when combined with a protein and fat.  In addition to the ones I mentioned above... any leftover real food from your meal, turkey and cheese roll ups with a slice of pepper inside and hummus as a dip, a quarter of a turkey sandwich or even pb and j, hearty soups (that are not all noodles or rice), leftover Chinese veggies with some sauce, a few brown rice sushi pieces that have big pieces of fish to outweigh the rice, turkey chili, hard boiled eggs (even made up into egg salad), tuna salad on celery or some whole grain crackers, pumpkin seeds with the shell (Trader Joe's are the best).  I have a ton of ideas and also what to eat for breakfast on my website under So, What Should I Eat?

Her question:  In terms of nutritional value, do a bunch of snacks equal a meal?

My answer:  If your snacks are real food, then a bunch of them can in fact equal a meal - like individual cottage cheeses and fruits, peanut butter and apple, pear and goat cheese, hummus and carrots or peppers.

Her question:  How often do you think a college girl, or young women, in general should eat during the day?

My answer:  Typically every three hours or so, but some people feel much better if they eat more frequently.  More than four hours (although you may not feel hungry while you are not eating - especially if you are busy at something) often leads to overeating when you finally do eat.  It really works well to eat before you are really hungry.  Ultimately she needs to eat as often as it takes to keep her from cravings and overeating.  But content of diet is at least as important if not more than timing.

For those who are afraid to "handle" food that often, I think they will find that that is not such a problem if they are choosing real food.  It is naturally more likely to be self limiting, especially if you focus on proteins and veggies with some fat and don't go for the breads and crackers. 

**One final note, especially for college girls - no matter how much you know or how good your intentions are, everyone is influenced by what is around them.  I you, or your roommate, create a veritable smorgasbord of 100 calorie options under you nose all the time, you will likely eat them.  I really recommend limiting the variety of what junk you keep on hand at any given time as both a statement to yourself of your intention of not having so much of it, and an environment that supports that intention, and makes it possible.

 

When is a Calorie Not Just a Calorie?

I was brought up in the tradition of calorie counting, and as a result, once I had learned how to know what I was spending, despite some serious eating issues - both behavioral and nutritional - never again gained my weight back. So, naturally I had a bias for that particular tool.  And I hope I don't insult anyone when I say that I still do think/observe that the primary reason that many of us are overweight is simply because (through genuine calorie ignorance or deliberate unwillingness to accept responsibility) we fail to be accountable for our overspending.  Haven't you been appalled when you have seen the published calorie numbers for some of your favorite treats?  I know I have.  Remember when Nutrition Action Magazine listed the calories of the Pecan Cinnabon as roughly comparable to a Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast?  Who knew?
 
However, that having been said, there are biochemical pieces of the puzzle that we are just beginning to understand that do influence both metabolism and fat storage.  The content of your diet, metabolism issues, the exact way you exercise, chronic stress (Uh-oh!), even time of day you eat do have an influence on a many biochemical pathways in your body that influence your weight.  There do appear to be times when just working the numbers isn’t enough.

For instance, when circulating insulin is high, your body is in fat storage mode.  When insulin is high (whether from the insulin resistance brought about by consuming products that interfere with receptor function, like high fructose corn syrup) testosterone and growth hormone levels are decreased, and muscle building is decreased.  When insulin is high it decreases sex hormone binding globulin and therefore more of your estrogen is free and in its active form - hence more fat storage and boobies in overweight little boys.  When cortisol levels (stress hormones) are high from continued chronic stress, the body converts more of your T4 (the precursor to T3, the active form of thyroid hormone) to something called “Reverse T3”.  This form of T3 works against the active form.  When cortisol levels are too low from adrenal burnout, it intereferes with the function of thyroid receptors and again thyroid hormones don’t work effectively.  All these conditions potentially contribute to “inexplicable” weight gain or difficulty losing weight. 

The high fructose corn syrup found especially in soft drinks (like sports drinks) actually interferes with the function of the insulin receptors, and broken insulin receptors are a step on the road to diabetes.  HFCS is one of the substances that is actually used to induce insulin resistance and hypertension in laboratory animals so that they can test drugs on them.  Scary thought.  Elevated insulin levels in turn interfere with the production of growth hormone and testosterone.  “When insulin is out to play, growth hormone and testosterone go away” to quote one nutritional biochemist.  Elevated insulin also promotes fat storage.  Seems a little self defeating, don’t you think, to drink a sports drink containing HFCS that both interferes with the growth hormone and testosterone you would want to be producing, and at the same time interferes with fat burning post exercise?

I wish I had known when I was younger that I was torturing myself with my eating/starving style and especially the content of my diet.  I craved carbs all the time.  I didn’t understand why.  In fact, no one seemed to understand then that the nutritional guidelines being promoted at that time were bound to have this appetite enhancing effect.   Many of my clients were around my age, and like me, their 30‘s and 40‘s fell in the “fat is bad” era where everyone just ate carbs, and especially those that turned to sugar quickly - pasta, bagels, and a myriad fat-free dry crunchy things.  Mind you, in all fairness, when they said to eat low fat and high carb, they meant broccoli and brown rice, not Snackwells and bagels.   Little did I know that I probably needed anti-depressant meds because I literally had no raw materials (proteins and Omega 3 fats) to even make a neurotransmitter!

I would readily (and maybe almost proudly) admit to my clients that I spent most days on the edge of a binge; that the only reason I didn’t cross over was that I effectively used so many environmental control strategies that I could keep the demon in check - strategies that I could teach to them. 

We did not understand until recently that the content of our diets was exacerbating what many of us experienced as a broken appetites.  I know that I just assumed that I was that eating disordered.  I think I can fairly say that virtually every new client I get who complains about constant hunger and low energy has been starting their day with cereal and skim milk, or something nutritionally comparable.

Most people in the nutrition field absolutely abhor the very idea of calorie counting for this exact reason - they see so many of us just working the numbers and paying absolutely no heed to our nutrition.   Many nutrition experts will say:  your body is not a bank account, it is a chemical factory.   

I don’t know.  It is still my observation that the reason most of my clients can’t eat mostly carbs and continue to keep their weight off is because they can’t manage their appetites, not because there is some unique biochemistry of insulin mismanagement that makes their body store everything. They understandably cannot keep their appetites, and thus calorie consumption, in check.  Calories are the currency of your body.  You can’t ignore the math.  Calorie knowledge allows you to do your part in maintaining accountability.  But clearly calorie knowledge alone cannot override your biochemistry and it only makes sense to eat in a way that gives your body the best possible opportunity to run efficiently.

So to the question “Do calories count or is there something else going on?", I think the answer is:  yes, and yes.  Both are true. 

Eventually my science knowledge (it only took about 11 years, a Masters Degree in Nutrition and about a bazillion hours of continuing education credits to finally have an influence on me, mind you) guilted me into improving the content of my diet, and I no longer set the standard for the black sheep of the nutrition community.  I still overeat on the weekends, but it is more likely to be real food these days (like steak or eggplant parm), not 1500 calories of Pepperidge Farm chocolate chip crumb cake.   At least with real foods I eventually get sated.  Truth be told, I got exhausted by the struggle with my appetite all the time.  Finally, after years of torturing myself to pay off the caloric debts of my hedonism, the disappointment of not having the pleasure of these foods in my diet as much as I want is far outweighed by the relief at the removal of the obsession. 

And who knew that after enough time had gone by, it wouldn’t even be that hard.  I’m sure that it is because (aside from the now ingrained habit of controlling my environment) some biochemical change has been brought about by that very change in my diet.  Believe me it is not virtue on my part.  Somehow, food is more in its proper place of importance in my life these days.  If you cancelled our Saturday night dinner date, I wouldn’t feel compelled to go out and eat something indulgent by myself (or order in) anymore.  It’s no longer the be all and end all.  I can actually enjoy other things as much as I did eating...well almost.

Strategies for the BBQ-Challenged

Just when you had convinced yourself that you are the only one on the planet earth who ever had to work this hard at this…here are a few tried and true deliberate Labor Day BBQ strategies courtesy of my clients, friends and family:

Emma brings the crudites platter (from Costco) and makes a deal with herself that she to eat at least a cup or two of raw veggies and dip before anything else.  The deal is to hold out for at least the first half hour or forty–five minutes to get the edge off her appetite.  And, as an additional bonus, since it is never the most popular appetizer, she is frequently sent home with the remnants and they get turned into her roasted veggies for the next few days.  Guess who taught her this one?  :)

Larry, new on his weight loss journey, has a big salad first and then has everything else he wants (burger, chicken, sausage) on yet more salad.

Janet brings this great broccoli salad and then proceeds to eat a whole bunch of it as her appetizer course, and Andrew brings mozzarella with tons of homegrown tomatoes and basil from his garden…and then eats most of the tomatoes with one piece of mozzarella cut into teeny, tiny pieces.  It takes him time to eat and lets his brain get the message that food has indeed arrived.
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I bring this great crab salad appetizer everybody loves (or so they say!) with tarragon in the sour cream dressing.  It is served in a hollowed out loaf of pumpernickel, which I have no trouble not eating.  I look like a thoughtful guest – not just bringing a bag of potato chips - and it is really a no-brainer to make.  You can use the real thing or the fake crab.  This crab (really Surimi or Pollock – a white fish) is another thing you can get inexpensively in bulk from Costco, BTW.  The protein, once it kicks in, helps take the edge off my appetite.

Milton brings (and then waits to make till the last time they cook) his favorite hot dogs.  He is such a hot dog snob that he won’t eat yours.  This allows him to wait out all the overcooked burgers and garden variety dogs and spend on one that is truly worth it to him.  Typically he has one with a roll and one without, saving the other 150 roll calories for a McDonald’s cone on the way home. 

Frank bribes himself with a great burger just the way he likes it - at a steakhouse afterward.   He stole this one from me since he also likes his burgers rare and typically they are like hockey pucks.  

Denise brings Starbucks coffee and real Half and Half and goes to the trouble of setting it up herself (just tell her where you keep your coffee maker) in advance and gets it brewing so that she can savor a cup of her favorite java to delay attacking the desserts.  No one ever usually thinks to make coffee at a BBQ, but most everybody has it if you bring the good stuff, I notice.

Melanie drinks several "Bloody Shames" (the British name for Bloody Mary's without the vodka) complete with celery stalks before eating anything else.  She makes them super hot an spicy so that they are sure to take the edge off her appetite.  It's like having a couple of bowls of gazpacho.

I bring that David’s Cheesecake from Costco that is already individually divided with paper so I can’t cheat and eat it while I am cutting it up (you know how that cheesecake just annoyingly clings to the knife – one is just obligated to clean it off).  It is such a caloric commitment per piece, and my favorite anyway, that I can pass up the other desserts.  Since it goes on a plate and requires utensils, you really know you ate it.  There is evidence.  If I pay attention, I can make it take a long time to eat.  I could never bring that into my own house, so bringing it to you allows me to have it and escape relatively unscathed.

Leslie is famous for her fruit kebabs (a self-defense strategy that turned out to be a big hit with her teenage pals at her sleep-over earlier this summer).  They can be grilled (or not) and served with this great dip made of Greek yogurt (mixed with Cool Whip if you don’t mind foods that are made entirely from synthetic things that are not actually food) with some Amaretto in it.

Joe hangs with his kids, playing badminton, or in the pool.  I don’t know if he does this deliberately to keep away from all the food, but it certainly works.

My brother-in-law keeps busy taking pictures of the rest of us…eating.  Of course, his very favorite food on the planet earth is grapefruit, so you can’t really count him among us!

You Can Have Your Cake and Not Wear It Too

One of the things it is easy to get stuck behind in the quest for successful weight management is the delusion that I have to be perfect, deny myself every food pleasure or I may as well not bother.  I’m just gonna have to give up all food enjoyment or I’m gonna have to stay fat.  Ahhh, well.  Maybe that is because so many of my dieting experiences were only with the kind of radical dieting that really does deny me everything including, in some cases, food. 

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard myself create an out for myself by saying, “Well, if it is going to be this torturous, then I am simply not willing to do it.  I can’t be expected to live this way.”  I stayed a heavy smoker for years behind that one.  Mind you, I never once said this on a day where I was doing fine, eating enough and well and keeping temptation out from under my nose.  On those days, it doesn’t seem that intolerable.  It is only when I have allowed myself to get nose to nose with irresistable temptation that it feels unbearable. 

Who said I had to deny myself every indulgence to successfully manage my weight, anyway?  It works pretty much like money.  I can spend what I want.  It is up to me.  I never had to be “good” all of the time, I only ever had to be “good” enough of the time.  What I can’t do and remain debt free (stay thin) is refuse to pay a caloric bill I have incurred when it comes due.  Oh, and I can’t start over.  I can decide to focus again, to get with it again, but the old unpaid debt is awating me like an unpaid credit card balance.  And if I waited too long to offset it, it is hanging out on the outside of my body.

So, aside from the obvious (it goes without saying) value of learning to reward myself with something other than food, I can still choose to indulge...and just take responsibility for it.  The rest of the world is not choosing to never indulge, to never enjoy some fun foods.  On the other hand, they appear to have figured out how to do some indulging and not ruin their health over it.  Like so many other things in life, there is a happy medium...that doesn’t come naturally to me at all, but that I can learn.

While clearly not a complete fix, managing the budget is a huge relief.  I think that people who have never had the experience of losing weight and gaining it back over and over just don’t get how demoralizing that is, how undermining to any future efforts.  Overeating doesn’t constitute a failure, just an obligation that won’t go away on its own.  But, calories are forgiving.  Whatever I ate may be stupid or regrettable, but it can be fixed.  I have been relentlessly self-recriminating for my spontaneous gluttony (the kind where I am literally watching my hand escort yet more food into my mouth that I am no longer even tasting much less enjoying, meanwhile mentally berating myself for every bite...stop, stop, STOP).  At least with the use of calorie balancing knowledge, I never have to wear the evidence of that behavior on the outside of my body.  It takes enormous pressure off and buys me precious time to work on the other tools.  And, Lord knows, they take some time. 

So often clients will say, “I didn’t record it because it was soooo bad.  I can never possibly pay it back.”  While an understandable emotional response, that makes absolutely no practical or mathematical sense at all.  Again, think of it like money.  That is like saying, “I racked so much up on my credit card that I can never pay it back - so I’m not going to look and I won’t even try.”  You may have noticed that that debt stays there till you pay it back down.  You can’t zero it out and start again.  Your body works basically the same way.  Try reframing that thought this way - yes, you’ve got to pay it down, but you also get to pay it down.  You are not stuck with wearing it unless you choose not to do what it takes to fix it.

So, exactly how can I have my cake and not wear it too?   Let's use the example of a Summer BBQ

I will need to know a few things about myself up front:  historic, behavioral and caloric.  The behavioral questions are probably the most important to ask first, because if something is not going to work for me (that is:  I can’t contain it, can’t stop the speeding train), all the mathematical manipulating in the world won’t save me from major derailment.  

Clues From My History:  I need to use my history to determine whether or not I am stepping onto a slippery slope for me.  

It doesn’t matter if it works for someone else.  For example, I can safely budget for ice cream (at least in individual servings purchased outside my home), but I don’t manage potato chips or donuts nearly as well.  Everybody is different.  Lots of my clients are unable to start on chocolate, but some of them can safely do bagels for breakfast.  Go figure. 

Or, I can manage over eating in restaurant setting where the portions are at least finite (if huge), and I only stay there for a limited period of time.  But, for me, an all day eating event is another animal altogether.  It needs different strategies. 

So, if I decide to build in anything from an ice cream cone to an entire BBQ,, but find that I have woken the sleeping dragon and can’t get a grip back, just budgeting for it, although helpful, won’t be enough to save me from myself.

How Have I Acted in this Situation Before?  What has specifically worked or not worked for me?

Bearing in mind that I am a bit more of a lunatic than most people, here are some of the things I would need to know about my history for this calorie budgeting plan to work: 

Have I been to this person’s BBQ before?  What did they serve?  How did I do with it last time?  How much did it calorically cost me?   What was the hardest part of it for me?  Did I bring anything?  Did what I brought help or hurt me?  Did I stay derailed afterwards?  Does it matter for me whether this is on a Friday (and I potentially stay derailed all weekend, or have other events coming at which I continue to escalate) or on a Sunday which is reliably followed by my "skinny" Monday?  Was there anything in particular that was problematic for me, like social pressure, who I sat next to, or the crap I ate before I even got to the real food?  Where did I spend most of my time?  How early did I get there?  How long did I stay? 

No doubt certain things are lynch pins for you too - too many beers, eating once you drank a bunch of wine, grazing foods like potato chips and nuts, eating every time they cooked or each time guests arrived with new stuff (burgers, hot dogs, sausage and peppers, ribs, chicken, kababs), having all 5 different starches ostensibly called “salads”, the dessert table with the predictable brownies, cookies, chocolate chip cookies and rice krispie treats - all in excusably small pieces, cleaning up and eating as you package food up, taking leftovers home to help out all the starving nations of the world, etc.

There are lots of specific strategies you can use if you will break it down like this.  We do this strategizing all the time with other areas of our lives and don’t consider it odd or even difficult.  But when it comes to food, we say, “If I can just keep my head in the right place….”.  As Dr. Phil would say, “And how well has that been working for you?”

How Does the Math Work? 

Let’s call her Sara.  For the purpose of this example, Sara’s goal weight is 150 lbs.  She is a 55 year old woman who weighs 190 lbs. now, has lost weight before and gained it back…several times.  She has not been doing strength training along the way to maintain her pre-50 year old metabolic rate.  Sometimes she walks with friends, but when they stop, she stops.  Sound familiar?

Rather than being perfect on her, for instance, 1200 calorie a day plan (or harder still, her 500 calorie Ball or HCT Diet), or deciding instead that she is “off her diet” for this day, she can learn to go through these events maintaining the budget for her goal weight, acting as if she is already at the wight she wants to be.  Then, she will have learned how to go through events when she is at her target weight and not gain back.  That’s the real task after all – learning to live within her new means, not dieting forever.  Her goal weight calories are her permanent new budget.  This is a task she must master if she is to stay there.  Think of it like learning to live on your retirement income before you actually retire so that you will be practiced at it when you get there.  Just logical, right?

She can use her history to figure out what this type of event calorically cost her the last time so she knows what has to be reconciled with her new forever budget for 150 lbs.  BTW, it is always wiser to bank for the worst case scenario the first time you try this so you are covered!  Not safe to assume skills you are not sure you have yet mastered. 

And, I guarantee that if she will go through this exercise even once, when she realizes what she is spending on each item, it will invariably change the conversation about what is “worth it” to her to bank for or have to pay back.  Ribs and potato salad are rarely worth it to me now, for example.  But a good burger is.  Knowing this doesn’t make me immune to temptation or give me willpower, but it does make me careful about how much I expose myself to things I will regret having wasted my skimpy calories (and heart disease risk chits) on.

Here’s how the math would work to fit in a 2800 calorie BBQ into her goal weight weekly calories of 10,500 without borrowing from another week.   

If she exercises, of course, she can add these calories on like having part time job income to add into the mix.  So, we’ll throw on 2 miles 3X/week for another 600.  So, Sara has 11,100 calories total for the week.

It doesn’t matter that she is not at her goal weight yet.  Since she weighs 40 lbs. more than that now, she will still lose weight, since she is still eating for less than it takes to maintain her current weight.  She just won’t lose as much as she would have lost if she had stuck to the 1200 diet.  (And not as much as she has gained, no doubt, when she has decided that she was “off her diet” for the day and never reconciled the surplus).

Subtracting out the 2800 calories out for the BBQ,, she then has 8300 calories for the other 6 days – approximately 1370 a day.  If she makes this work, no matter whether she banked in advance or paid afterward she will have programmed her body for her goal weight of 150 lbs. (including this BBQ), and eventually this will reconcile itself on the scale too.   

• 150 lbs. x 10 (calories per pound per day) = 1500 daily calories to maintain 150 lbs.
•  x 7  (days) = 10,500 for the week
• + 600 of exercise = 11,100 total available calories for the week
• (-) 2800 BBQ calories = 8,300 for the rest of the week
• divide by 6 days = approximately 1370 daily for the other 6 days to balance this off within the week*

*It is always smart to balance off surpluses within the week.  Carrying it over and telling yourself you will pay it at some future date is how many overweight people stay that way.  They are wearing all the debt they were going to pay off...tomorrow, next week, “after this”, anytime other than now.

It can be really useful to figure out what you averagely spend in whatever eating circumstances recur regularly in your life.  Then you can develop day-after recovery menus that are behaviorally and calorically specific to your life.  I have an example of a “Binge Recovery Menu” on my website now.  You can figure out how many of those recovery days you would need per week to keep your budget balanced.  Executed well, these days can reset your appetite biochemistry as well as get you mentally and emotionally back on track.  Phew!

You can tailor and regularly build into your week in advance however many of these skinny days you will need.  I do a couple of these every Monday and Tuesday.  Starts my week off on the right foot, and I am set for the weekend.  They can be adjusted it for particularly social periods.  This is what Weight Watchers is trying to do for you with their Flex Points.  Only problem is, you may need 70+ of those flex points on a given week, not just the 35 they had you set aside!  And if you spend 70, you need to pay back 70.

Once you figure this out a few times, like with your money, you will likely not have to go through all the math to get the drift for yourself.  You will develop your own routine calorie balancing menus that work in your life.  And if you get really good at it, you can bank in advance, which has the advantage of allowing your indulgences to be guilt free...priceless.

Caveat:  For anyone without major metabolic problems this will work.  If it doesn’t, chances are you are either not correctly accounting for how you spend, or something is broken metabolically.  In my experience in my practice, it is far more common to be inaccurate about intake and/or have unrealistic expectations about how much and exactly when the scale will move.  However, some people do appear to need to follow a specific food plan (typically low carb) to get a good response from their dieting efforts.  Whether this is because insulin resistance and/or lack of activity (especially lack of resistance training) is making them more of a storer than a burner, or simply because they don’t keep their carb intake managed still remains unproven.  If this seems to be you, try doing low starchy carbs, a low glycemic index diet for a period of time.  And, for a more permanent fix, resistance training can help you build a better furnace.

 

Willpower-Free Zone

Rather than depending on that fickle willpower, hoping that “your head will be in the right place,” why not try some of these strategies (painstakingly developed) by some seasoned veterans of the weight management wars to handle some of their greatest challenges:

Challenge: Night snacking that spirals out of control

Here’s what Lottie does: Takes a pre-portioned snack up to her bedroom earlier and leaves it on her bedside table.  She eats it only after she’s in bed in jammies, house closed up, kitchen lights off, face washed, etc.

Challenge: Eating leftovers “saved for others”

Here’s what Terry does: she finds out how much they really want to keep, then packages their leftovers in personally labeled portions, and stores them in the back of the refrigerator or in the freezer in opaque containers.

Challenge: Skipping lunch and then overeating in the late afternoon

Here’s what Michelle does: makes sure to prepare her lunch the night before, either when she makes her kid’s lunch or while preparing dinner.  Then, if she still skips lunch, whenever she does eventually want a snack, she eats her “late” lunch instead.

Challenge: Eating pizza co-workers had delivered for lunch

Here’s what Mark does: orders low-cal Chinese (steamed with sauce on the side) before they place their take-out order, reminding himself that he wouldn’t eat a food he doesn’t like (i.e., liver) if they ordered that.  Nancy has her secretary automatically order her low calorie luncheon salads early in the day every day.

Challenge: Losing control with desserts at social functions

Here’s what Holly does: bribes herself by stashing at home for later an individual portion of her favorite frozen yogurt from the yogurt store.

Challenge: Eating too much junk at a meeting

Here’s what Jeff does: waits until the end of the meeting and takes something when he leaves (and doesn’t have access to more).  If necessary, he puts whatever he especially wants aside so that he can stop negotiating with himself and pay attention to the meeting.

Challenge: Getting completely out of control on vacations

Here’s what Denise does: saves her favorite treats till the end of the trip, and has whatever she wants on the last day.  However, she has learned the hard way to make sure her home has been set up in advance to support being “on track” when she arrives home.

Challenge: Exercise routine grinding to a halt

Here’s what Matthew does: tries not to lose momentum by not missing more than three days in a row, puts on his workout clothes no matter what, doesn’t allow himself to shower till it’s done, and often makes a deal with himself to only do 10 minutes and then to renegotiate.

Challenge: Overeating at extended “Cocktail Hours”

Here’s what Emily does: makes a deal with herself to start out by eating nothing except raw veggies (and she must eat 1-2 cups) for some predetermined window of time.  For BBQ’s, she brings a bucket of lite popcorn, (big enough for everyone) to give her something “cheap” to munch on that can compete with chips.

Challenge: Incorporating special holiday foods

Here’s what Annie does: spreads out the special holiday recipes over the course of the week, preparing one item (i.e., Matzo ball soup) with each dinner.  Michael makes his secret family recipe individual kugels in muffin cups.

 

Challenge: Eating junk at Little League games during the dinner hour

Here’s what Charlene does: capitalizes on the fact that she’s a captive audience and actually makes this a “low calorie day” by bringing a portable lite dinner from home.

Challenge: “Eating dinner” while preparing dinner

Here’s what Audrey does: prepares her dinner salad first and eats that while preparing the rest of the meal.

Challenge: Managing the food at children’s parties

Here’s what Allison does: picks up her favorite “reasonable” take-out Chinese on the way over and eats that while everyone else is chowing down on pizza and cake.

Environmental Will Out

Probably 80% of my ability to manage my weight is through using the specific tool of planning for and controlling my environment.  I don’t care how intelligent, committed, or desperate I am – like everyone else, I’ll eat what’s there!  Is it a pain in the neck to take responsibility for what food is around me?  Of course it is.  But not as much of a pain as carrying around the weight I would most certainly be carrying if I didn’t do it and just allowed myself to be a victim of the environment - the environment, by the way that I have often created for myself! 

By taking charge of my environment, I can relieve myself of constantly fighting temptation. I can also avoid all those feelings of deprivation that invariably get generated when I continue to stimulate myself by exposing myself to foods that I had promised myself I was definitely not going to eat.

Controlling the environment can take many forms.  To me it means:

• My freezer is not Siberia…

• Bringing my own coffee to a meeting or conference so that I never even see what “outrageously wonderful” baked goods thy have no doubt provided…

• Pre-arranging to give away to my guests all but one serving of the high calorie leftovers (somehow if I keep a little stash, it is not so hard to give away the rest)…

• Having a portable phone in the kitchen so that I can talk somewhere else besides the “food room”…

• Stashing an individual portion of frozen yogurt in my freezer before an event to have when I come home.  Then I have created an option, or bribe if you will, for avoiding high calorie desserts…

• Developing a repertoire of “safe” restaurants where I always order well so that they can be “easy victories”…

• Having a small refrigerator in my office constantly stocked with several low cal items – after all, it’s only fair, there is a vending machine down the hall, and that’s fully stocked…

• Rarely relying on eating “on the road”…

• Following a particularly indulgent day, planning the next day’s menu, and actually preparing the meals in advance so that I’ve made it easy to get right back on track…

• Never running out of popcorn…

 

 

 

 

Exercise - The Real Magic Bullet

Probably the only reason I finally got started exercising regularly was because of Smokenders.  Oh, I had been “intending” to exercise since my early 20’s (and I had 3 expired health club memberships to prove it).  My third time back to Smokenders, I decided to do something truly unique for me – I decided to follow all their directions.  This was one of the big ones.

In fact, if you’d ever have told me that I would be considered one of the “regulars” at a local gym, I would have laughed.  Me?  Me, who’d rather read than take a walk, who still thinks that tennis sounds like torture, who wouldn’t to this day play Frisbee at your BBQ?

What had gotten in my way for years was that I kept waiting for the magical transformation, you know, the one where I‘d want to exercise, where it wouldn’t be a struggle any more.  In hindsight, I realize that I got the exercise ball rolling one walk at a time, one class at a time.  That, in fact, it was a long slow process of baby steps – which, had I realized it, I wouldn’t have had the patience for.

Here is what finally got me going.  Humbled, and smoking yet again, I had finally surrendered to the advice of Smokenders to exercise, and made a date with my friend Joanne to meet her at her club for a class.  Notice that I had to commit to someone else?  Promising myself had become absolutely meaningless, laughable even.  While we were in the ladies locker room changing for the class, I said to Joanne quite flippantly, “Joanne, you can’t imagine how hard this was for me to show up here tonight.  I almost cancelled about 10 times today.  And here you are, just coming every day after work like it’s no big deal.”  Joanne’s response turned out to be one of the most influential comments ever made to me about my struggles with making difficult changes.  “Oh no,” she said.  “It’s not like that at all.  For the first 6 months that I came here, I used to cry while I was putting on my leotards.”  She stopped me dead.  I had always rationalized that if you could do something and I couldn’t seem to, them it was obviously easier for you – that it was uniquely difficult for me.  What I realized was that it had been at least as difficult for Joanne, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t do it.  And, or more importantly, she wasn’t crying now.  She said that she was acutely aware that she often didn’t want to come, but that she’d learned not to participate in any negotiation – just to persevere until that little voice gave up.

I’d like to say that “the rest is history,” but nothing is really ever that simple, is it?  One thing has become clear to me along the way:  I often really don’t want to exercise.  My success at maintaining my continuity is based upon one thing – when the pitfalls and stumbling blocks have show up, I’ve more often than not chosen to treat them as problems to solve not reasons why I can’t.  Because, one thing I am absolutely clear about is that I personally must exercise to have a chance at managing my weight.

Without a doubt, maintaining continuity is the single most critical focus.  My absolute priority is never to stop for any real length of time – never let my couch potato self get a grip again.  On the one hand I try to be kind to myself.  I don’t expect every workout to be a major effort.  They can be very half-hearted.  Actually, almost anything will count in my book as long as it’s deliberate.  When I think I’m too tired (in other words, all the time), I make a deal with myself to just do 10 minutes before I decide to quit.  If I’m really too tired, I‘ll find out, and I have permission to stop. 

If it is at all possible, I do it first.  Then I spend the bulk of the day congratulating myself and feeling relieved every time I remember that I did it already, versus spending the bulk of the day feeling guilty and thinking of creative ways to justify not doing it later.  The very same exercise becomes a burden rather than an accomplishment.

On the other hand, I’ve mostly learned not to listen to that part of me that rationalizes not doing it at all.  No exercise just begets no exercise, and a few days of nothing is the kiss of death.  There goes all my hard won momentum and I’m back to struggling with myself about doing it at all.  Since I’m clear that any chance I have of managing my weight long term depends on maintaining exercise, I don’t want to waste energy fighting with myself about it all the time. 

Most of my strategies are geared around this concept of continuity.  I schedule exercise into my calendar just like everything else I truly plan to get done.  I know that if it’s not specifically planned into my day, then I’m not really planning on doing it.  It also helps if I hook my exercise to something I know I will do with regularity, like walking during or after work, or making phone calls I already have to make while walking on the treadmill.

Here’s what I learned not to do:  don’t say I’ll do it later if I can do it now.  If I’m not willing to do it now, why am I going to be any more willing to do it later?  Especially when I just practiced (again) talking myself out of it.  Don’t stop exercising to answer the phone.  If I were in the gym I wouldn’t have heard the phone anyway.  Don’t  “just do this little thing first.”  Anything that I really need to get done will get done, but I’m likely to blow off the exercise if time gets tight.  Usually the time I take exercising doesn’t preclude the other thing getting done anyway.  Don’t wait for the “mood to strike”.  It doesn’t.

Then there is the time thing.  There are lots of things I don’t do because I spend that time exercising just like people do when they commute or take on volunteer work or sing in a choir.  The bottom line is that if I truly want to be a regular exerciser, then it needs to be a time priority.  There are many other things in my life that I thought I really wanted to achieve also, but apparently not, because I never made them enough of a priority to get them accomplished – like playing the piano.  I was never willing to make the time sacrifices it would take to learn to play.  My piano teacher actually told my parents to stop wasting the money.  So, to this day, I can’t play the piano.  I chose.

Fortunately exercise generates its own momentum (which of course you can only find out if you do it).  It’s not nearly as hard to keep it rolling as it is to get rolling.  It’s actually easier to do more.

Why am I willing to make the sacrifices I make to stay active?  For the same reasons that anyone does anything I guess – it’s worth the payoff to me.  I’d like to give you some noble reason, like I do it for my health or so that I’ll be around for my family, but here’s the truth:

• Vanity – I hate to admit that.  But I am more fit, and look it, than I have ever been.  I like that.
• Calories – the exercise calories I burn literally buy me my more indulgent meals over the weekend.  I can eat for someone who weighs 40 lbs. more than my actual weight.  I really like that.
• Mood – exercise is mood elevating and it helps me to feel more in control of my life (illusion though that may be!).
• Psych – it’s the closest thing to a magic bullet for me.  I truly believe that it is the only reason I began to develop any health behaviors in the first place.  Thank you Smokenders.
• Sense of accomplishment and self-mastery – every step I take is still a personal victory.

 

 

Mind Games

One of my favorite cartoons of all time was a Ziggy comic where he’s looking at himself in a mirror, and the caption reads, “Well, what’s it going to be today?  Are you with me or against me?”  That’s the story of my life.  Most of the “harm” inflicted upon me has been inflicted by me.

Whenever I do something really stupid food-wise, (usually something that I am well aware from my past history is a big mistake), I have to ask myself, “What the heck was I thinking?” (not the Dr. Phil almost rhetorical version, but a legitimate question).  Having spent years painstakingly developing effective strategies to manage food situations perhaps just like this one, why am I sometimes simply unwilling the employ them?

One reason I have determined is that I have gone way too far down the path of self-destruction to stop myself.  I have allowed myself to reach the “I don’t care” place.  You know the place?  Nine times out of ten, the food is already either under my nose or actually in my mouth.  I’ve noticed that I rarely arrive at “I don’t care” with no direct food stimulus.

When I pose that same question to clients (“Really, what were you thinking?”), they often pause and then reply, “I wasn’t thinking.”  After years of an agonizing weight struggle, and although I know that I can really only speak for myself, I’m not sure that it is correct that I actually think nothing.  But, in that split second in which I cave in, the guilt is so unbearably painful that I do get really good at either ignoring the thoughts, shutting them down as quickly as they enter my mind, or deluding myself into making it OK with some sort of line that is essentially just blanket permission

However...there is that split second.  I can learn to use that.

What form do these speed-of-light denial mechanisms take?  Usually promises, excuses and rationalizations.  They all work slightly differently.  See if you can identify which one works best for you.

Promises really only mean one thing…“not now”.  They get me off the hook by explaining how, at some future date (suspiciously not specified) I am going to be totally willing do something that I am currently totally unwilling to do.  Somehow practicing talking myself out of it yet again is supposed to make me better at talking myself into it.  Since practice makes perfect so the saying goes, how is practicing bailing out going to make me better at following through?

A promise might go something like this:  “I’ll definitely start exercising when my new treadmill arrives.”  Apparently the mere presence of a piece of exercise equipment in my home will magically turn me into an enthusiastic athlete.  Or how about:  “I’ll eat this piece of cake now and pay it back later”?  I wouldn’t stop to ask the appropriate questions like:  “Exactly when, and by doing what … that I am apparently unwilling to do now”?

Excuses are especially gratifying.  They represent permission to never take responsibility for my actions as long as I can convince myself that my reasons are good enough.  They get me off the hook without lots of tiresome explaining to do.  Of course, try telling that to the bank account that is my body.  One of my clients recently started telling her binge story by asking me if it “counted” that she was really stressed by something her mother-in-law had said to her.  My answer:  “not to your thighs”.  I don’t think my body particularly cares if my reasons for overeating are valid.  It only reflects whether or not I balance the budget eventually.  Excuses mean that I’m not intending to.

One excuse that I make/hear all the time is:  “I’m too tired.”  What’s so great about this one is that it’s so versatile.  I mean, it can work in so very many different situations.  When wouldn’t it apply?  And the beauty of it is its very believablity.  I probably really am tired. 

PMS is another great one, and this one we women get to use fully 12 times a year, and for a whole week at a time!  It's not that I don't need to have a special plan for that week, and that plan might just have to have chocolate in it (!), but it still counts and has to be worked into my month. 

Rationalizations are my personal favorite.  I like to believe that they are the “thinking woman’s” tool.  Unfortunately the cleverer I am, the cleverer they are.  They are different from excuses in that they seem to provide a plausible explanation for my behavior.  I can make them seem oh so reasonable, and there is always at least a grain of truth to them that allows me to buy right into them.  However, they are never the whole truth. 

Here’s how I might rationalize, “I don’t want to totally blow it but I want a treat, so I’ll get take out Sesame Chicken for Sunday night’s dinner and I’ll only eat half.  I’ve done that successfully before”. 

Here’s the truth.  Sesame Chicken is 1600 calories of (often) twice-fried food, which is more than a day’s worth of calories for me.  Sunday is historically my worst food day, so that’s not likely to be all the caloric damage I will do.  In fact, for me it is likely a catalyst to more overeating.  Once I start eating it, I will no doubt remind myself of how poorly leftover fried food freezes, so I may as well finish it all now.  And, yeah I did only eat half - maybe once that I remember…back in 1979!

I think that the rationalization I hear most is, “Well, it could have been worse”.  No doubt true, and a valuable platitude for life, but not very effective for weight management if I’m still eating for a weight that’s 75 lbs. above what I claim to want to weigh.  I can’t eat for 225 lbs. and end up weighing 150 lbs.  Just not how it works.  And, since when do I want to compare myself to my worst self anyway?  Perhaps I might want to raise the bar a bit! 

I’m sure we all excuse, promise and rationalize sometimes.  The good news is:  that still doesn’t have to stand in the way of me being the weight I want to be.  I always have the option of paying the caloric bills I have incurred and not wearing them, no matter how regrettable my choices and no matter how long after the fact I choose to take responsiblitly.  We call this “dieting” – paying the accumulated debt I had failed to pay along the way.  And, once I get good at predicting my behaviors, I can pay that caloric bill in advance.  Then the overeating feels like a reward for work well done, rather than punishment.  Calorie knowledge is not intended to be used as permission to eat poorly, but it is forgiving.  It provides another tool to accomplish my goal of long-term weight management, even when I’m not perfect.

(Aside:  clearly eating “right” virtually all the time is the nutritionally appropriate thing to do (duh!) and would negate the need for this discussion.  If we only ate healthfully, most of us wouldn’t need to worry about deliberately balancing our budgets.  It would happen by default). 

When all said and done, the only person who can help me is me, and the only one in my head to even witness the conversation is me.  So, learning to listen to the rationalizing, excusing, promising “bad angel” and discover the secrets of her persuasiveness could be of great value to me.  I could learn to argue back.  I could learn to tell myself the truth…the whole truth.  I could give that sabotaging angel a run for her money. 

If I capitalize on that split second while I still have a choice, I can learn to have that conversation.  With enough practice, the good angel’s voice might even drown out the bad angel’s – at least enough of the time.