“[...]bad, really bad, abominably bad, bad, bad, bad!”Well, maybe not that bad, but Lord! it wasn’t good!”

I don’t even know if I can describe what has been going on. I did a better job of it on my personal journal. The core issue is that I am afraid of what I was becoming. What in the world do I do if I keep losing weight? What happens if I am no longer the big fat guy? What happens if I can buy clothes off the shelf? What happens to me? Who would I be?

Scary, scary questions!

I have been sub-consciously sabotaging myself for a while now. Not just small things, like sneaking a candy in here and there. Really bad things, like having a half-dozen donuts one day ‘cuz someone brought some into the office. Like stopping at a convenience store on the way home and having donuts, candy and chocolate milk. Like having a giant milkshake plus loaded fries plus a cheeseburger for a meal. Insane things, things that are obviously done to hurt myself, now that I can look back at them with an honest eye.

These are all stupid things. These are all demons from my past. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done these. How many times I’ve failed in exactly the same way. It’s not that I should know better than this. It is that I do know better than this. I know damned well the effects of my behavior.

One of my tweeple, @dabobie, suggested that I might feel like I don’t deserve to be healthy, don’t deserve to lose weight. There is definitely a lot of truth in there. I alluded to much of that in a previous entry here, where I suggested that I am a fraud. I had lost a pound even though I wasn’t being very good… At least this time I’ve earned the weight I’ve gained.

It’s hard to say exactly how much I’ve gained without going to WeightWatchers every week. From our home scale, it looks like I’ve gained 7lbs since June. So I have to lose that just to get back to where I was in spring.

Yeah, all in all, I’m not feeling good about myself right now…

- M

Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Never look a gift-horse in the mouth. And never be enough of a dunder-head to sabotage yourself! I had made a firm commitment to myself that I would follow the Plan completely, with no cheating, no fudging, no forgetting to track foods. Everything completely by-the-book.

That started on a Tuesday: by Friday I had not seen a loss at all. (On my home scale, of course.) I was very annoyed and discouraged, and I thought to myself: why bother being good? If I am not going to lose, or if I am going to gain weight while sticking to the plan, why not just eat what I want?

Image via Wikipedia

And so I went on a weekend splurge. Milkshakes! Burgers! Big bags of candy! It was – theoretically – yummy! (I say theoretically because I still face the problems I always do, i.e. things are never as good as I think they will be. ‘cept for the milkshake, that was damned good.)

Walking into WeightWatchers for the weigh-in, I knew what the tale of the scale would be. I figured I was looking at a minimum of a 2lb gain. At least 2lbs. Maybe more like 3lbs. So you can imagine my shock when I saw the result: down 0.4 lbs. DOWN!

Now, I know that you might expect me to be happy about that. A loss is a loss, right? But truth is, inside, I wanted to cry. Or stamp my feet. Because this means I sabotaged myself over the weekend. The first half of my week ended up kicking ass. I might’ve been down 2 or 3lbs if I had kept on keeping on. But since I went on my bender, I not only hurt my health, but I screwed my weigh-in for the week.

What the hell was I thinking?

- M

Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Okay, seriously, enough! Since the start of March, I’ve lost a total of 0.2 lbs. I managed to get rid of all of the vacation weight, and have been stagnant ever since. You can see my current weight chart at the bottom of the sidebar to get a feel for how things are going.

It isn’t a surprise when I look back at what I’ve been eating and drinking. If it isn’t having a splurge on donuts a couple of weeks ago, it was having a soda bender last week. In my defense, I was sick and soda is one of my comfort foods. Comfort foods can be the banes of one’s existence, of course. But there was a study out this week that suggests comfort foods might be worth the extra calories for the mental and emotional benefits. But only when done in moderation, of course.

My point is: I am responsible for my current plateau. This isn’t a case where I am doing everything right and my body is being weird. I am not following the Plan very well, and it is showing up on the scale. In the most annoying way possible. Grrr

- M

So now tell the truth: you didn’t think you’d hear from me again, didja? Figured I had tossed in the towel and given up, maybe had a horrible holiday season? Never give up on me, Dear Reader! I mean, sure, I have disappeared in the past. But the past is the past, and now is now! And I am very ready for 2011!

Not that I am starting out in the best of ways. I have been naughty this week, indulging in cupcakes and IHOP, of all things. What the hell is that, anyway? Cupcakes? Seriously? What am I, 10?

I actually have an explanation. It’s not an excuse, but it at least explains the cupcakes. This week both my wife and my daughter had a birthday party. One of the many naughty bits of food available were cupcakes. EVIL!!!! Do not fall under the spell of those wanton hussies! 

They tasted pretty damned good though!

Don’t even ask me about IHOP. I took my son and older daughter there after we went b’day present shopping. IHOP apparently is a major red-light food for me, ‘cuz once I started eating, I couldn’t stop ’til I had cleaned my plate. I almost never clean my plate anymore. That was very odd, and kinda unexpected.

That’s my long-winded way of saying I’m gonna gain a few pounds this week. I know it, and I know what the cause was, so I am not freaking out. But I don’t like that I’ll be starting 2011 on a negative note.

[le sigh]

-M 

A typical example is for Halloween. In the first cell, one would draw a picture of kids trick-or-treating. The next cell would be a picture of the left-over Halloween candy sitting in a bowl on the table. The next cell would be your strategy for avoiding the trap. For example, you might draw a picture of you grabbing an apple. Or taking the candy to the dentist for a candy buy-back program. Maybe throwing all the candy into the trash.

That is a very good storyboard. If you want to storyboard but haven’t done so yet. Or aren’t sure exactly how to do a storyboard, steal that previous paragraph. It’s good stuff, trust me. This can be done mentally, of course. If you think visually, that is a strategy that will work well.

I have to be contrarian, of course. I build storyboards in my head. But those storyboards are exactly wrong. I picture stopping at a gas station, going into the convenience store and grabbing a package of Zingers and a big carton of chocolate milk, and then snacking all the way home. I can visualize each step of the process. The sound of the bell when I open the door. The crinkles of the Zinger’s wrapper. The cold of the milk carton. The sound of the cash register. Hearing the clerk say “have a good day.” And then the feeding frenzy.

This is the kind of thing I have to fight against. Almost every week. Somewhere along the way, I am able to shake the cobwebs out, realize that I cannot give in to those thoughts. I have to rely on an impulse to kick in, to keep me from giving in.

Hmmm… maybe I should storyboard a strategy for dealing with negative storyboarding…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Show notes:

Lost a bit this week. Yay!

Mother’s Day was a problem, but I had been good enough during the week to minimize the damage.

Hydroxycut is in the news, reminds me of phen-phen from a decade ago.

And it turns out that those of us who are obese might just be addicted to junk food.

2002 Study:
Reduction in Dopamine correlation with BMI,  Result: use over-eating to trigger the reward centers
http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/food/junkfood_addiction/dopamine.html
2008 Study
Very similar: ghrelin.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/archive/tags/junk+food/default.aspx
http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v11/n4/full/oby200368a.html

Video entries are fun! I don’t promise I’ll do them every week, but I’ll sure try.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Show notes:

Current weight
Eating out
Strange week schedule-wise
Snacks and binging
Food for the overweight like drugs for addicts?

I’ll be back with another video update next week!

It’s been wacky, for certain. And I haven’t been sticking 100% to the Weight Watchers plan. But I have been making at least some better choices, and I’ve been trying to watch my portion sizes. And so far, this is paying off: according to my scale, I am about a half-pound lower than I was at my weigh-in on Wednesday.

I learn and relearn some lessons, but some I take to heart: if you are going to splurge, make your self stick to good foods while you do so. Have a box of WW 2 Pt. Bars instead of a box of Twinkies. Have a glass of strawberry milk instead of a milkshake. Have a yummy, yummy tangelo instead of a pb & honey sandwich.

Splurge, sure, absolutely if you can’t help it. But minimize the impact.

Of course, one should also avoid Red Lobster’s Alotta Colada. But we won’t talk about that one….

Do you know the Mountain Man
The Mountain Man?
The Mountain Man!
Yes I know the Mountain Man
Who brings the bags of sweets

Do you hate the Mountain Man?
The Mountain Man?
The Mountain Man!
Do you hate the Mountain Man
‘cuz when he comes I eat…

Damned friggin’ vendors selling big bags of candy, trying to tear down my willpower. I’ve learned, though, that I absolutely cannot get large portions (bags, boxes, etc) of candy, ‘cuz I’ll eat every single one.