Report from the Food Addict Front

October 5, 2002

So, it's been - what - two weeks since I posted about changing my tune,

lowering the calories and stopping what seemed to be a slow but inexorable

march towards regain. (By the way Dan - great post on the hard work. That's

really the crux of it for me. I don't want to work at it, I don't think it's

fair that I have to work at!!)

By and large, I have been held in the grips of dieter's euphoria. You know

that kind of all-powerful, righteousness when you are controlling food to

your satisfaction. It's gone pretty well. I am mostly off sugar, and

keeping my total calories between 1,500 - 2,000. Most days 1500 (that

includes 500 in protein shakes). It's not physically hard, I'm not really

hungry - but it is so difficult psychologically. Had an unfortunate

incident with Cheeze-Its, and just discovered to my dismay after the fact

that a Whopper with Cheese has 760 calories in it! Thank God I only ate half

of it.

Controlling portions and timing food is all critical for me. Given enough

time, I will eat a whole lot (ala my 6000 calorie day a few weeks back). I

have to really focus on throwing away the food when I am reach fullness,

instead of just waiting 10 minutes and eating some more. And, I have to be

quite rigid about when I eat. Eating in the morning typically sets me off

for overeating all day. It defies all nutrition and diet logic, but what

works for me (in the right here and now) is to not eat until lunch time.

Now the good news is that I have lost 3-4 lbs. Yay me! The not-so-good

news is that I bought a new scale which now agrees with the gym scale and the

doctor's scale. So instead of thinking I was now smugly back down to 147, I

am actually at 151. Hell's bells - that's 20 lbs. over my goal. I hate

being obsessive about the numbers; I know I look pretty damned good where I'm

at; how can I possibly be unhappy with a size 10? But I am committed to

hitting 140 by Thanksgiving.

Has anyone else noticed how much harder it is to lose weight when you're

smaller? All these years I've had no sympathy at all for those little skinny

people moaning about trying to lose 5 or 10 lbs. Ack - they were right -

it's really hard!

Kate

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