Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Day 30: Thirty in Thirty

As measured from the weighing from Day 1 of the diet, I'm now half-way to the goal I set for myself. Today, at the regular time, I weighed in at thirty pounds below the measurement made almost a month ago.

It would be foolish of me to say that I'm halfway to my goal in terms of time, because I'm hewing to a sliding calorie scale that's designed to slowly take me out of the diet. As of now, I rate 1,250 calories in a day's period. As I move "up" the scale by losing more, it's almost a certainty that I'll linger longer at a specified weight level unless I can come up with some new tricks that work, pick up an aerobic exercise habit, and/or "reverse-cheat" on the calorie count.

Speaking of tricks: I'm going to try a new one over the course of this day. I got a bag of pretzels totalling 800 calories, which I'm going to consume over the course of this day instead of meals. The idea behind this "snacking day" is to move beyond five small meals a day to a few bites ten or more times per day. In addition to seeing if it'll help burn more fat, I want to see what it'll do to the hunger: will the pangs be allayed or will I end up being low-level hungry all day? Tomorrow, I'll write about what I felt while going through it; the next couple of days should determine whether or not I'm on another wild-goose chase.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 230 pounds flat.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Day 29: More on Social Outings

I went to another social outing last night, and decided once again to declare the day a write-off in terms of dieting. In addition to eating what was set in front of me, I downed a few "gifts" I had received, which I had stuck in the fridge, after it was over. Like the last time, I prepared for this ditch-the-diet night by not eating anything until the dinner in question.

With regard to food items that you can't refuse, I see four choices:

1. Work them into the diet by substituing some for regular meals;
2. Eating any "food donations" all at once on a specially designated off-the-diet day;
3. Storing them and passing them along to someone else, perhaps to the same person who gave them to you;
4. Letting them go to waste.

In the course of this diet, I've relied upon options 1,2 and 3, but not option 4. There's just something in me that hesitiates before getting rid of food. For a calorie-counter-based diet, option 2 might be the only practicable one if the "gifts" don't have a calorie count attached to them. Option 3 isn't practical for perishables, and perishability may cold-deck option 1. Option 3, with a food bank as the recipient, isn't practicable unless you've gotten canned goods or similar imperishables.

With regard to diet-bending social obligations in general, the possibility of them is one of the reasons why I deliberately "cheated" about two weeks into my own diet. It was a commitment test to see if I could fall off the tracks, get back on, and then stay on. With regard to abort-the-diet days or evenings, I suggest that a self-test of this sort should be done and passed before breaking routine in this way.

To get back to social outings: if going out-of-routine is unavoidable, I have two tips which'll help shave off the calories you have to consume:

a) Ask for meat;
b) Go to a place that has a dog.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: Despite the diet-bust last night, I weighed in at 232 pounds.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Day 28: Back To The Drawing Board

After cutting down my water consumption to the point where I began to feel real thirst, I have to say that it's a "wash" with respect to weight loss. Two days of doing so have led to a weight drop of only one pound per day, a largely normal rate for me. I have to chalk up my apparent below-weight appearance to my memory fooling itself. Evidently, there isn't any spare water hidden between the fat cells for me to lose.

So, it's back to the drawing board for me. I suppose that the new malleability of my body is due to the fat cells shrinking and little else, and my impression that there was "hidden weight," which I could slough out through going thirsty, was just another example of my eyes being too big for my stomach (so to speak.) It was worth a try, though, even if doing so made my hunger worse. All told, drinking as much water as you please seems the best option when dieting.

If you're interested: when I was a child, there was a commercial for "Special K" cereal whose theme was "Pinch an Inch and You're Overweight." Largely aimed at men, it encouraged you to pinch your belly and measure how much you got between your fingers, I tried it last night, on both sides of the belly button, and got 3 inches on both sides. So, I'm still safely in overweight territory.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 233 pounds.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Day 27: Inconclusive So Far

For the last day, I've been seeing whether or not a reduction in water intake speeds up the weight loss procedure. So far, I must report, the results are inconclusive. I have seen encouraging signs that a further weight drop is elicited, but they haven't shown up on the scale as of yet. So, it looks like my suspicions are either flat-out wrong or have to be tapped into through another technique. I'm going to give it another day before deciding whether or not I've been chasing the wild goose.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 234 pounds.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Day 26: Water, Water

As more fat gets burned, the belly and other associated parts should shrink. I've seen this happen, but something's been odd unless my memory's been confounded: why do I sometimes look like I did when ten pounds lighter than I now am? If you're dieting, you may be wondering the same thing.

The excess poundage I have is unusually malleable. I can walk around with the belt tightened at a notch I normally use when about 220-225 lbs, or at times even tighter. My belly bulges out, but I can still do it. If I'm wearing no belt, and carry myself in a certain way, I can look almost flat-bellied. When I lie down in bed in the prone position, I am basically flat-bellied: the bottom of my ribcage juts up.

This unusual morphability confirms what I've already suspected: some of the weight I'm carrying around is now water, because fat don't move. It seems time to test it.

So, starting right now, I'm going to let myself get a little thirsty, in this way: I'm drinking only coffee, with no separate mugs of water. This should show whether or not I'm right about the excess weight, as well as seeing whether or not I can shed it along with a little more fat. Once again: if this trick doesn't work, then it's back to the drawing board, to try something else, for me.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 235 pounds.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Day 25: A "Whups" From The Other Side

This afternoon, I bumped into a mistake I had made in my calorie-counting. I thought that a kind of chicken strip carried with it a count of 250 calories for one of them. Today, the count seemed suspiciously large for its the size, so I dug the box from the near-bottom of the recycling bin and found out that I was inaccurate: it's 250 for three of them.

This kind of mistake is the one to watch for if you're wondering whether or not you're riding on the diet track. If you underestimate in memory the calories of your menu, then you still have to watch yourself. If you overestimate, then congrats: at some level, you're committed to your diet.

Testing yourself and finding resolve does have a benefit: you can play around with your menu while still observing your daily constraint. When the hunger got too much for me last night, I pulled out one of those (now-old) licorice sticks that I last touched twelve days ago. The one I ate was a little stale, which is something that I would like to brag about...even if doing so is like bragging about a fine set of used clothes that just came in.

Once again, though, I put myself on trial last night. Had I slipped, it would have been back to more self-watching, and perhaps other steps to tighten my menu had I slipped badly. I have found, though, that self-understanding does a dieter good. Even the consequent risk of pulling out of the diet entirely has its silver lining - not losing your sense of self-realism when doing so.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 236 pounds.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Day 24: Belt-Notch Variations

One interesting aspect of dieting, if you have a self-absorbed side, is to watch your body change shape in unusual ways. Since about a week ago, I've varied in the notch I buckle my belt to. Sometimes, I can get it all the way up to the sixth notch with little discomfort and no soreness; when I do so, my belly bulges out. At other times, I can only hitch it up to the fifth notch, and doing so leaves a tight fit. When the fifth notch is all I can reach, though, my belly is considerably flatter relative to my hips and rib cage.

Yes, the "body plentiful" puts on an interesting show when you're burning the fat in it. [Addendum: I seem to be "stuck on six" as of now.]

Speaking of fat-burning: as I should have expected, the transition from a "false ending" phase of the diet to the resumption of five snack-sized meals, with the same total of 1000 calories/day, has brought back the continual hunger. I find such hunger easier to endure because of a mind trick that's generally a psychological no-no: "disowning" the feeling of hunger.

What this means is, detaching yourself from it. Dis-ownership of a feeling means relieving yourself of the responsibility of acting on it, of taking the go-passive option when it sends its signal. Normally, this means disarranging your unconscious somewhat, but going "passive" with respect to hunger feelings while on a diet means that you ignore the feelings in favor of the calorie-count schedule. Hunger just becomes something to be endured. I've found that going passive in this way - with respect to hunger feelings - adds to staying on the track.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 238 pounds.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Day 23: Whups

This afternoon, after implementing the big breakfast and small dinner plan for one more day, I slipped without even knowing it. At the bank branch I go to, there was a plate of cookies - the kind with the sugar-topped strawbery jelly surrounded by filling - and I put one in my mouth without even thinking about it.

It's the downside of the "diet and feel good about it" approach: at times, you run the risk of forgetting that you're even on a diet.

In this case, the slip-up was sufficiently minor for me to deck tonight's dinner down to a lower-calorie option and to declare the pseudo-overeating experiment closed. If I don't remember that I'm dieting, then my unconscious must have been fooled as much as it's going to be fooled. So, it's back to the fat-burning, four-to-five meal a day option for me.

As far as the "big breakfast" is concerned, it was another cinnamon bun. If you're interested, it carried me through today from early morning to about 2 PM, when I started to wonder why I wasn't hungry. The hunger came shortly afterwards.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM (actually, 6:15 PM) today: the light side of 239 pounds.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Day 22: Life On The Plateau

I'm still stuck on what has proven to be a real plateau for me, 240 lbs. unclothed. After looking at my body's changes, I have to conclude that this plateauing is due to water retention even though I can't prove it. The secret in dieting with endurance exercises may very well be the water loss due to sweating, not primarily the calorie burn. Any exercise as well as physical work that I've done or had to do in these last three weeks have had close to zero effect on my weight, probably because I haven't sweated all that much while engaging in them.

With regard to last night's social outing, where it was already known that I was on a diet, eating a full meal resulted in me becoming pleasantly but unusually tired. That's how it most likely would show if your stomach capacity hasn't shrunk to the point where you get physiologically stuffed by a regular ration.

With regard to the shift from 4-5 meals a day to two, I used a kind of food which, I hope, will trick my body into thinking the good times are back: a cinnamon bun, with lots of frosting. It's the kind of treat that I haven't touched in three weeks, if you don't count that licorice binge. Doing so has quelled the hunger pangs for a time span about equal to both breakfast and lunch, although it was on top of the full meal I ate last night. It remains to be seen whether or not this attempt to trick my unconscious will have the intended effect.

If not, it's back to the drawing board for me.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: still 240 pounds.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Day 21: Social Outings

Here's the question that's facing me: what do you do if you're invited to a dinner with non-dieters and are on a diet? The ideal choice is to say that you're on a diet and ask for a minimal portion. What if such a choice is impracticable, though, if only because it isn't customary in such a gathering to use a calorie counter?

Afer thinking it over, I came up with three choices:

1) Decline the invitation, citing either the diet or a diet-related reason as the regrets;
2) Show up, but say "I'm on a diet, so I might be sending some food back;"
3) Show up and eat the regular portion, or up to the point where you're stuffed to the gills. If anyone looks strangely at you (being stuffed shows,) reply "well, I am on a diet." This option requires the decision to take yourself off the diet for the length of the meal.

I'm facing such an outing and I've decided to go with the third choice, with this added extra: I haven't eaten for about twenty hours. It was interesting doing so, because I've been long habituated to going to sleep on a full stomach. Late last night - actually, during the wee hours of the morning, as I've become a night owl - I fell asleep on an empty stomach.

It ties in with the recent variation I've tried to experiment on: scaling down the number of meals, and increasing the average calorie content of each, in order to trick my body into speeding up the metabolism a little. It would be reasonable to conclude that I saw this one coming yesterday...


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: despite having gone into temporary starvation mode, my weight's gone up slightly to 240 pounds. For me, the 240 level has proven to be quite the plateau.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Day 20: Jiggering and Poking

It's been twenty days, and I've lost a little more than twenty pounds. Despite intermittent ups and downs largely associated with fluid gain and loss, I've averaged a loss of a pound per day. (I suspect this rate is unusually high for the typical person because I'm the type who uses more calories than average.) I've one day to go until I've reached three weeks on the diet, the point at which, at least according to urban legend, quitting something you like becomes less hard.

The main obstacle to further weight loss is still homeostasis, the body's attempt to maintain the old equilibrium in the face of a change. When dieting, homeostasis kicks in through a lowered metabolism rate and other tricks the body uses to conserve fat. This reaction is healthy in the wild, as the closest thing to a diet there is the onset of a food shortage. We're built to survive on a day-to-day basis, not to diet efficiently.

Despite this conservation, our equilibria in terms of weight do shift. We become fatter and thinner depending upon our net calorie intake. So, homeostasis is merely an obstacle.

It's one, though, that may be outfoxed. I've recently switched from eating five meals a day to four, in the hopes that any homeostasis reaction is reflexive - meaning, that the body adjusts to a specific new schedule of calorie intake but not to a new calorie level in general. It may be possible, by eating bigger and fewer meals which collectively add up to the daily calorie limit, to fool the body into thinking the "good times" have arrived again and to shift out of calorie-conservation mode.

Of course, homeostatis works both ways, so I may be fooling myself into thinking I can hasten the weight loss in this way; I may very well slow it down. There's only one way to find out, though...


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 239 1/2 pounds.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Day 19: Coping With Disappointment

Yesterday, for the first time in the course of this diet, my weight notched up by more than a pound. You may be interested in my reaction to this disappointment: I went straight to the water mug. Put in words, I decided, "if I'm going to bloat up, I might as well bloat up a little more with some [zero-calorie] water." A more detached viewer would conclude that I'm trying to take control of my setbacks.

There's a variation on this technique thanks to the proliferation of zero-calorie drinks. One flavor of diet soda can be labeled - ironically, I hope - as a "sulk soda." It would take the place of water for anyone who wants to take control of their own setbacks in the same manner as I did last night. Water is zero-calorie, but it lacks a commiserative taste. Many zero calorie drinks have a taste that can aid in salving this kind of disappointment.

As for yesterday's weight gain, it does look like fluid gain.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 240 pounds. I now rate, though perhaps temporarily, an up in the calorie consumption to 1000 calories/day, as specified by the table in this earlier entry.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Day 18: On "Cheating"

First of all, a disclosure. I did "cheat" with respect to the conditions I set for myself for this diet, but doing so didn't involve food. I went back to exercising with the dumbbell, which had the same effect as the last time: a near-sleepless night.

With regard to "cheating" in general, it flows from a dissatisfaction at living with a routine, or under a series of constraints. There are two reasons for doing so. The first is emotional, and it's a protest at having to restrict yourself in a way that's galling. The second is more intellectual: it's a self-test for the need of one or more of those restrictions. As long as glibness abounds, the latter reason for deviating might as well be called "rational deviancy."

Whatever the reason, deviating from the routine is something that can be planned ahead for. I note that I rigged things so that any break from routine didn't involve overeating, but exercise. Similar sneakaways can be done with TV, video games, sleeping around, "mental health days," etc. If the overall routine chafes, there are lots of ways to assert oneself, perhaps on the sly, that don't involve food at all.

Speaking of deviating from the routine, the story has ended with a weighing that has changed it into a tale of woe and regret:


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: on the heavy side of 242 pounds. This weighing may prompt the use of "dumbbell" in a somewhat different context, and not just because I mislabeled yesterday's entry with "Day 16" instead of Day 17. (It's now been corrected.)

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Day 17: Old Weight, Old Habits

In a way, the path I've been on has been easy, despite the abrupt shift from the overeating to eating about 850 calories/day and needing to gorge on water from time to time. Because the weight I reached at the start of the diet was abnormally high for me, I didn't have any well-engrained habits to fight off during the start of my diet.

Now that my body's beginning to look as it did when I was borderline-obese, despite my weight still being a little more than fifteen pounds over my norm for years past, those old habits are beginning to surface again.

Like many people, I ate when hungry. I had fallen into a habit of eating a large breakfast in the morning and a huge dinner, with no lunch in between. This habit, with a heavy ration of junk food once per week, kept my weight at about 220-225 lbs. unclothed, although it might have gotten higher at times.

Now, when I look at myself, I'm down to what I looked like back then. The sight of me at borderline obesity, for a man my height and build, has gotten me rehabituated to the same old eating pattern. So, I have to resist going back to my normal style of eating now that I've changed my look from unusually fat to normally chubby.

I believe this is more common than is realized. The dieter who starts off by "turning into the skid" - starting a diet after binge eating up to a new all-time high in poundage - may very well have a better chance than the dieter who starts from a normal weight for him/her, because the unusually high eating capacity isn't habitual. The latter kind of dieter feels the tug of old habit from day 1 of the diet, while the former kind doesn't. I've found this out, not only over the past 2 1/2 weeks, but particularly over the last day.


Last night, I went a little over 850 calories, in large part because I got bored with the food I had. My intake was below 900, but it's still over the limit I set for myself. I decided that this kind of overage is best treated by stocking the larder with more foods, for more variety.

Also, I've decided to set up a tabular sliding scale for myself now that I've lost almost twenty pounds. I'm sure this idea is not original, even if I'm of the opinion that the crash phase has to be endured before bringing this scaling into play. I've decided on this plan:
  • More than 240 pounds: same ration of 850 calories/day.
  • 231-240 lbs. unclothed: 1,000 calories/day.
  • 221-230 lbs. unclothed: 1,250 calories/day.
  • 211-220 lbs. unclothed: 1,500 calories/day.
  • 201-210 lbs. unclothed: 1,750 calories/day.
  • 200 pounds and below: I can eat what I want, as I've met my goal. (Normal intake for a man my size and build is about 2,500 calories/day.)

This kind of plan makes intuitive sense, as the diet gets tailed down as the ideal weight is approached. Also, it hooks any hunger pangs to an incentive plan. The drawback is that it takes some self-discipline, so I'd suggest not using this technique unless you're already acclimatized to dieting, as shown by one of these two means:

  1. Successfully going off the diet and going back on without any second derailments, or:
  2. Staying on the hard part of the diet for at least three weeks, so as to acclimatize yourself to the new habit.

Until one of these two points are reached, I'd suggest sticking to a fixed goal and enduring, as I have done. Taking it day by day in the early part is challenging enough.




Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: a flat 241 pounds.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Day 16: Shifting Lanes

I had a chance today to check my advice about following the repetitive task regimen, provided that a familiar task is stuck to. I wrote an article for a Webzine today and let several proofreading errors slip through, more than what I'm usually known for. This particular Webzine is one that I haven't written for since March.

I'm used to blogging, and can get through the blogging all right. I'm no longer used to writing a full article, so I bobbled the ball relative to my normal performance. So, based upon my own experience, I repeat the advice I gave earlier: to keep the sluggishness away, you have to busy yourself with a repetitive task that you're already good at, and avoid new ones (or, as I've just found out, ones that you haven't done for a long time.) Whether it be at work or not, the price of a diet is a routinized lifestyle.

I should also mention that I'm back on the "No Exercise" plan. I need the sleep too much.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: still 242 pounds, but approaching 241.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Day 15: Old Weight (Barely) In Sight

I've been plainly obese for more than a month now, but I was always on the borderline of being so. Normal weight for me, except for a stretch in the late 1990s, had been about 220 lbs. clothed. In the last several months previous to the beginning of June, I had gotten up to between 225 lbs and 230 lbs. clothed. Taking off 5 lbs. for clothes, this implies a range of 220-225 lbs. unclothed.

Today, I weighed in at 20 lbs. above the middle of that range.

Evidently, the technique suggested by "mk," of switching to 5 snack-sized meals a day, is working for me, although it could also be the exercise I'm doing. There does, however, seem to be a drawback to mixing diet and exercise, as I found out this morning.

The specific exercise I've been doing over the last few days is building up my left arm muscles with a 25-lb. one-hand dumbbell. I'm not doing this out of diet considerations, but because my left biceps are much weaker than my right ones. I'm using the dumbbell in order to reach upper-arm parity. So, my exercising is not specifically diet-related. I should also mention that I'm a bit of an odd duck when it comes to exercise: I don't get any adrenaline rush out of exercising - I tend to plow through it quietly. (Once, I listened to an audiobook MP3 while working out.)

This reaction may be a result of my earlier holiday from the diet, but I suspect that the exercise itself is mostly the cause: Early this morning, I felt a kind of hunger that wasn't as intense as the pangs I felt when I began the diet, but I interpreted it as less of a feeling and more of an intention. I felt seriously tempted to get up, walk into the kitchen, and have a little more food. I actually had to go back to bed to make the feeling pass; when I woke up again, the intention part of my hunger was gone.

Here's a guess for you: the diets that offer the chance to lose a lot of weight without exercise don't do so just to appeal to our sendentary side, they also do so because exercise makes the hunger less intense but more actionable. Exercise brings with it an increased physicality that comes with a hard stint of it - at least, for a fellow like me - and that makes you more action-oriented, including more oriented to the action of going to the pantry or fridge. Exercise may very well increase the rate of weight loss, but there is that added risk. Also, the common-sensical conclusion that a calorie burner needs more calories to burn become more compelling.

This being said, I'm noticing that the fat in my belly is becoming less viscous - more jelly-like. I have to say that it's fascinating watching the gut shrink.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 242 pounds. It might in part be due to fluid loss, though.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Day 14: Too Tired To Eat

Believe it or not, I'm becoming too tired to eat. What I means is, on the weekend when I have little to do, I'm doing a lot of sleeping. If anything, exercise seems to augment my sack time.

Of course, I'm in a special slot, as I've been working quite hard during the weekday and probably have a "sleep deficit" to make up on the weekend. Nevertheless, it's also true that my lowered calorie intake has been adjusted for by my body having less vigor and less initiative.

It's an easy conclusion to make. When overeating last month, I found that I got a metabolism boost. Now, I'm facing a metabolism drop, as my body has compensated for undereating just as it did for overeating last month. It should result in my rate of weight loss slowing.

It's truly ironic that I've never been more "fat and lazy" than when I'm sticking to a rigorous diet designed to shed that fat. Over and above waxing nostalgic about my own food extravaganzas, this realization makes me sympathetic to those fat people who think that a diet is more trouble than it's worth. Why would someone seek to be thin when the obstacle is being called "lazy" as well as "fatty," expecially when the "lazy" is a byproduct of a serious attempt to become a thinnie? Something for the diet enthusiast, whatever his/her own weight may be, to think about.

Another thought regarding the slowed metabolism: this facet is why I recommended taking up a repetitive task, as it does swamp the lowered-metabolism effect if you really get into it. I've found this to be true over the last two weeks, provided that there's enough pressure to get the adrenaline level at "excited" but not more.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: still stuck at 245 pounds, for a good reason: I took myself off the diet yesterday. Today, I'm back on it.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Day 13: Cheating Day

Starting at midnight, I had given myself free rein to cheat on my diet, with any food item in my larder. I did overindulge shortly afterwards, but I found that my appetite had shrunk, thanks to the diet, to the point where the effects weren't the diet disaster I had thought it would be. I've actually shrunk my stomach to the point where I couldn't eat all of a snack item (a 1-pound bag of red licorice) which I used to eat all of on a regular basis, even when my weight was about 20 lbs less than it is now.

I've bumped into the paradox of the serious dieter: I'm now "fat and hungry," with an appetite less that I had when at a more normal weight for me. Even when I cheat, I eat less than when I did normally: instead of being able to get down four Pizzas for One at a single sitting (when 226 lbs,) I only got down two plus a pizza pocket.

I've been in the den of the devil and have gotten the secret behind the insidiousness of cheating: the first burst of overeat doesn't seem like that big a deal. Myself, I only overate approximately 2000 calories, which puts my total consumption for the day at a little less than 3,000 calories. This amount is close to maintenance level for a man my size.

In fact, it's so close that it seems like less than a big deal to slough off entirely, to give up the dieting. This temptation is the real hazard of cheating: it seems like such a small potato at first.

Given this, instead of calling it cheating, it would be more useful, as well as accurate, to call it "going off the diet." These last eighteen hours, I went off the diet. I now have a decision to go back on the diet, or to stay off the diet. Repeated cheating might as well be known as "I brought the diet to an end." The use of moralistic words, strange as this may sound, obscures what's really been decided upon and done.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 245 pounds, same as yesterday.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Day 12: Too Busy To Eat

Days like that are wearying, but are also a blessing when dieting. That's the kind of day that I've had today, thanks to the verdict being announced in the Conrad Black trial, which I've been blogging as well. If the pressure's enough, you can even forget that you're really hungry. It isn't necessary that the activity be physically exerting, only that it be under near-continuous pressure.

(Once note on the exercise I've been doing: for me, it worked as a sleeping aid once.)

Yesterday, I broached the subject of cheating, through disclosing a worry of mine over a calorie-counting mistake I may have made in my favour. Tomorrow, I'm going to enter the den of the devil, so to speak; I've set it aside as a "cheating day." I plan to simulate what someone driven to it by hunger would do: an open larder, free rein with the foods that I've been using as mini-meals. Also, I'm planning to open up that package of licorice in an attempt to mix in a simulation of someone who sneaks in some "cheating food." Afterwards, I'll go down the recovery trail.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 245 pounds. Some of the day's drop may be due to fluid loss.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Day 11: Counting and Miscounting

This afternoon, I was reviewing the calorie count for my shifted menu, and began wondering if I had overcounted. Instead of shrugging it off, I felt anxious about having (possibly) gone over the 850 calorie/day ceiling.

It's moments of uncertainty like this which test whether or not you're ready for a diet, as well as what stage of the diet you belong in. Shrugging it off, with a what-may-be-done-is-done attitude, may be the best reaction if you go back to the diet regimen subsequently. It implies that you're used to the diet, are relatively happy following it, and thus have less need of a routine. Of course, if being carefree proves to be the preface to a slippery slope, this reaction can be the worst. The best way to distinguish between the two is to watch yourself when it comes time to draw the line again.

My own reaction - anxiety - shows that my attitude has shifted to diet-favouring but I'm not quite comfortable with life as a dieter as yet.

Panicking isn't a good sign. Had I panicked, I might have wondered later if I had been pushing myself too hard. Had my answer been "yes," I would have felt entitled to a compensatory lackadasicalness for mental health purposes. That would not have been the best direction to go, even if I had refrained, because I would be associating the diet with unadulterated pain and sacrifice. This self-punishment would make it harder for me to stay in the diet. It would also put me at the mercy of the scale, which (as I've disclosed earlier) wanders from day to day, and not always in the right direction.


(Note on the dumbbell exercise: it does work fairly well as a sleep aid, at least for the first night spent lugging it up and down.)


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: a flat 248 pounds. I'm back in trend.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Day 10: Belt Tightening

One old-worn dieting aid is "tightening the belt," literally: buckle up at a notch that's tight on the hips. The idea behind it is to make the uncomfortableness serve as a reminder to stick to the diet. The benefit of this technique isn't known, but it does have a side benefit if you have a belt that's old and you're thinking of a new one.

I'm now at the fifth notch - a level that would have signalled overeating when I was at a more normal weight for me, but now means I'm on the right track. It's partial evidences like this one that keep the morale up.

Two days ago, I got a suggestion from "mk" to effectively split three meals into five. I'm trying it today, and have found out something about my own technique: it depends upon routinization, upon structure. I've eaten three meals a day at about the same time each day, and had found that the hunger pangs have eased. Today, the hunger pangs have come back. So, a word to any dieter or would-be dieter: routinization makes your "willpower" grow considerably, especially if you keep yourself busy with something you're already good at. I've been easing the structure of my own diet recently, as a test, but I still have the basic template to fall back upon, which I'm largely following still.

If the monotony of a fixed diet is growing tiresome, here's an idea I've already implemented: substituting new foods that are slightly fewer in calories for the meals in the template. This associates variety, and relief of eating boredom, with a slight cut in the calorie intake. The basic meal plan can serve as the template of maximal calories, thus associating a slight calorie increase with monotony, if also a sometimes needed structure.

I'm still finding out how much my weight varies during the day. Last night, while my bladder was mostly full, I weighed myself, then weighed myself again right after urinating. I had lost two pounds, more than I've managed to shed off in two days of "official" measurement. It's observations like this one that, if you're in a cheerful frame of mind, give a sense of perspective to the whole matter.


(Note: This diet is supposed to be done without exercise, as one followed by an active but sendentary man. I might as well let you know, though, that I've gotten a 25 lb. dumbbell for what will probably be recreational use. It may work well as a sleeping aid.)


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 249 pounds. Evidently, I spoke too soon yesterday, but the direction is fine.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Day 9: Canary In The Mine

It may seem odd, but while shopping for food last night, I also bought a 1 lb. package of red licorice, of the kind that I've eaten regularly (if infrequently) for at least a year.

The reason I've done so is to keep it on my shelf as a kind of canary in the mine. If I'm truly not committed to losing weight, it's best to find out through cheating with a sweet but relatively low-calorie bag of treats. The entire bag has about 2000 calories; if I gobble it down, then I've bumped by daily intake up to about 2,850 calories, which is a little more than a man of my size uses in a day. In retrospect, the water I had gorged was an attempt to deflect any cheating reflex I have, although some people may prefer to use cabbage, lettuce or a low-calorie protein drink, as "mk" has suggested in the comments section of yesterday's entry. You may be interested to know that, after I laid down subsequent to coming back from the store, I had a "taste memory" of the licorice. So far, the package is unopened.

Despite the plateauing I went through yesterday, my belly is noticably shrinking. Thankfully, the loping path of weight loss contains enough partial evidence to provide a little good news each day, or a plausible reason why there'll be some soon.

As far as the stomach itself is concerned, I might as well disclose the reason for my going through a hard crash-diet phase: it's another cheat trap. If I shrink my food processor as much as possible in the early stages, then any subsequent cheating will top out sooner, thus limiting the damage done. (It'll also make it easier to keep the weight down when finished.) This approach will only work if a few (or several) small-calorie and small-volume meals are eaten during the day. Of course, the use of the cheat-reflex deflection technique does work at cross purposes to this secondary goal.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 249-250 pounds. The current plateauing may be over.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Day 8: Plateau Management

This last day, I've hit the first plateau since starting the diet. I didn't lose a pound over the last twenty-four hours, and it cannot be ascribed to guzzling water because I haven't downed that much today. And yet, I haven't really lost heart.

Here's why: first of all, I'm comfortable with my weight, so I've calmed away any sense of desperation. I knew it would be a long haul - a self-estimated 2-3 months - so the lack of weight loss on one day isn't that big a tragedy. Part of this attitude is regarding any daily weight drop of more than a pound to be either a windfall or the result of tailing back on the fluid consumption (plus frequent visits to the "water closet," including at sleeptime.)

The second reason comes thanks to an adaptation of a technique left here by "mk" in a comments section. He said that he had drank a lot of water while pulling his weight down; I've been doing so too thanks to him sharing his success story. In addition, though, I've been using water to manage the plateau effect before it happens. Here's how: when my weight takes a dive, I drink more water. When the weight is stuck at a certain level, or is going up, I scale back. By doing so, I'm self-plateauing through using weighty, but calorie-free, water.

I'm controlling the plateauing effect through doing this. Hence, when I hit a real plateau, I'm not left feeling helpless or desperate.

This practice may only be a control ritual, but it seems to work, at least in easing a think-through for the reasons why I haven't lost a pound over the last day. The answer is that my metabolism is slowing down, without a compensatory increase in task pressure to offset the lassitude yesterday. A weekend slowdown, which should vanish now that the weekdays are back.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 250 pounds again.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Day 7: Watching The Body

The body doesn't operate according to linear functions, and this is evident in dieting. Last Thursday, I had moved my belt from the fourth notch to the fifth, and had assumed (with natural pride) that I had dropped to that belt level for good. I was actually planning to brag about it a little in this blog, although I didn't because another subject came up.

In retrospect, I was lucky, because I would have had to take it back because I had to loosen up the belt back to the fourth notch as of Friday. The body does not follow a linear function.

Even though I've gotten back some bulk around my hips, I'm seeing shrinkage in other areas. As far as I can tell, my belly juts out as much as before in the front end. It's beginning to shrink in the side parts of the front, though, so my pot's developing a dent or two. Also, a pair of pants I had begun to burst out of are a little less tight than they were about ten days ago. Once again, I note that the body does not follow a linear function. (For the pedants in the room: I'm referring to the biochemical processes of the body at the macro level.)

The only lesson I can draw from this uncertainty is to watch the calorie counter and tell yourself that if you're dieting and you're eating less than you use, then you're going in the right direction, regardless of what the most visible evidence tells you either way. The body does not follow a linear function.


A technique that some may want to experiment with, although I lucked into it. Some months ago, I got a bunch of popsicles as a gift. I accepted them, although I didn't later have much of a desire for them. Some of them are still in my freezer.

Here's the point: there have been some high-calorie treats in my freezer that I've basically ignored because they're not on my favourites list. I didn't have one of them, even while gorging myself last month. If you're in a pre-diet phase, it may be worth your while to shop around in the treats aisle for a high-calorie treat that you find you don't really have a taste for. Then, buy some and keep in it the shelf/fridge/freezer before starting your diet. Once you shift to diet, you can use that treat as a mental anchor, in this way: "If I can let [such-and-such] lie around, why can't I let [the more tempting target] lie around too?" Untested, but it may work, especially if backed with the wisdom that tastes are subjective, and can change over time.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 250 pounds.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Day 6: The Psychological Sink

Last night, I had to buy something from the grocery store. While there, I lingered over the old foods that I used to enjoy. I felt a certain trepidation while going there, and at times experienced a headache with saggy cheeks and pursed lips, while there.

As it turns out, that trepidation was for good reason. Today, the bursts of hunger were worse, and without a pressing task in front of me, a listlessness took over. For the first time since the start of this diet, I "woke up" right after eating.

I believe that the difficulties I had today were caused by me breaking structure too soon. I'm still "food-homesick," to put it another way. Thankfully, I haven't cheated, but I was veering to a close call.

The usual method I use to get my mind off my hunger has a drawback, which I found out about last night: doing the same task while using a different method leads to doing it badly. This may result from the tiredness, but the tiredness largely results from the hunger. Word to anyone who tries it: stick to the old procedures if practicable, and budget time for (perhaps extra) checking if your repetitive task is work. Going robotic is a possible side effect.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 252 pounds. Yep, for the first time since starting, I've gained a pound. This wasn't surprising, as the three-pound drop yesterday was suspiciously big. I probably gained a pound of water today, as I've been drinking a lot of it.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Day 5: Drifting Back

The sleeplessness that had dogged me ever since starting this diet is still there. In addition, the nostalgia technique seems to have set off an added spate of hunger. This morning, I thought that my being late for a meal yesterday meant that the experiment format was broken. (Actually, this diet is too loose to be a real experiment, as I don't control for water intake and activity.) So, I thought of shifting my diet a little to include a food item that I indulged in last month, only in a sufficiently small quantity to fit into the 850 calories/day intake I've confined myself to for the last five days.

Planning for it released a fair bit of hunger today. Even the water couldn't quell it like before, making the regimen harder to stick to.

Evidently, my self-insulation through nostalgia hasn't gone far enough. Me following through on that intention would put my diet at risk.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 251 pounds. Given my earlier weight-loss rates, this looks like a pre-plateauing bonus.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Day 4: Waxing Nostalgic

Nostalgia (or the diet itself) may keep me awake late at night, but it also serves to distance myself from my previous food binges. When I woke up and read this report on a hot-dog eating contest, I just smiled, and remembered my own relatively picayune efforts in that direction. Joey Chestnut did America proud yesterday.

I'm finding that nostalgia does work, as long as you have the inner fortitude to ignore the hunger pains and are working under a moderate amount of time pressure. In fact, I'm finding that being pressured in that way, to the point of excitement but not of anxiety, has made me forget to eat a scheduled meal at the scheduled time already. It has worked, provided that the tasks in question are ones that are familiar to me.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 254 pounds. Still slow, but in the right direction.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Day 3: Surmounting The Catch-22

Like many dieters, I've used a small but tasty portion of food as a meal in order to make the dieting process less unpleasant. Unfortunately, doing so leads to a certain catch-22: the body interpreting the meal as an appetizer. The net result if that you're just as hungry, if not hungrier, a short time after the meal. (This effect has been made the centrepiece of a diet, which I've described in this entry.)

It's really a catch-22. In order to avoid it completely, the meals have to be insipid as well as low in calories, which makes a tough regimen even worse. One way around it is to vary your meals, substituting one tasty low-calorie dish for another, but the runaround involved lasts only as long as there are different foods available that qualify. In the long term, this dodge encourages you to yo-yo diet.

Another trick, which I haven't tried, is to fill your stomach with near-zero-calorie bulk food after the induced hunger pains start - something like cabbage or carrots. Since I haven't tried it, I can't comment on it; I can only offer this observation: if you want to shrink your stomach as well as lose weight, this approach won't help with the former goal.

It looks like the only option is just to plow through, to the point where the appetizer reflex fades away. These reactions are unconscious habits; like all others, they can be lost.

Besides...there's always tasty water.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: this may be due to me drinking less fluids yesterday, but it's now 255 pounds.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Day 2: Tossing and Churning

Those who have tried to diet after a lengthy spell of bulky eating may nod in recognition at this. Despite having turned in at 3 AM last night, it still took me about two hours to nod off. While in bed, less than an hour after my third and last meal of the day, my stomach growled for the first time.

I found, though, that accepting myself as being fat, and having a liking for what got me there, has a soothing effect that makes dieting easier. I'm beginning to feel something akin to nostalgia for my earlier gorgings. It's as if I had had to move from Fat County to Diet County and am beginning to have fond memories of the former. Remembering the good times, I've found, also keeps me from going fanatical, and has mostly quelled the headaches.

Of course, there are still the stomach aches. I've continued drinking water copiously as a food-substitute, and have found that at times it makes the achings worse, but at other times it doesn't. How you react to such a pain is likely to determine your success in sticking to your diet.

Another side effect of drinking a lotta fluids: it makes your colon act in a manner similar to getting a case of diarrhea. Enough said about that.

I'm past the first day on a 850 calorie/day menu, and I have a couple of tips that might be helpful to anyone starting out:

Tip 1: Prepare for the possibility that you won't get much sleep the first night of your diet. If you sleep with someone else in the same bed, this may mean taking to the couch or a spare bed, or at least warning the other person in advance.

Tip 2: I haven't felt any metabolism slowdown, because I've been swamped with work. It's too early to say definitively, but I have a hunch that beginning a diet at a time when you're swamped with repetitive tasks which you're already good at - but not new tasks - might counteract the metabolism slowdown. It certainly helps get you through the day after a near-sleepless night.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 259 lbs. This lack of drop between yesterday and today doesn't bother me for two reasons: first of all, I can attribute it to the water intake, as I saw my weight go up 3-4 pounds earlier today after gulping down several mugs' worth; secondly, I tightened my belt up a notch relative to where I wore it as of the end of last month.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Day 1: Acclimatizing

Most of the first day of the new regimen is now over. I've stuck to the plan that I've set for myself.

The difficulties at this point are mainly physiological, in the sense of the body adjusting to the reduced intake. My stomach has been sending out hunger pangs off and on for most of the day, and my second meal allayed them for little more than half an hour.

There has been, though, an effect that seems psychosomatic: the kind of headache that comes with the scalp muscles tightening up. I believe that this kind of ache is a willpower matter: if you find this kind of pain (if it pops up at all) daunting rather than bracing or ignorable, then you're going to have a tough time with a diet.

To the end of getting through it, I unconsciously gave myself an ego boost this morning by imagining myself to be thinner, even if a weighing revealed this feeling to be illusory. My memory was reminding me of what I felt like when I was thinner, so I 'felt' less heavy even though I wasn't. This psychological boost made it easier to start off, through giving me a beforehand taste of a thinner state. This illusion was butressed by me carrying myself in such a way that I looked a little thinner, too.

The second ego-reinforcing technique I used was to accept myself as fat. Rather than use throttled aggression, regret or shame, I decided to treat it as a simple shift of course. I wanted to be fat earlier, and now I want to be thin. Evidently, I need a feeling of control to get me through it. Part and parcel of this control is not only picking your own diet, but also choosing the starting time. You can't have control if someone else is controlling you.

To assuage the feeling of hunger when it got particularly bad, I tried a suggestion left by this commenter and drank a lot of water; it seemed to help. There's also a background sensibleness to this technique: since most of the early weight loss in a diet is water loss, anyone who uses it loses less intially but has the benefit of a smaller plateauing phase later on. It smooths out the weight loss process.

The new part of my menu tasted quite good. Eating something new does help in distancing yourself from your old habits of indulgence, in part because of the new taste variety.


Weight as measured at approx. 6 PM: 260 pounds. I've a long way to go.

The Diet Begins

After a little more than a month of overeating, I've decided upon a diet regimen that will seem strange to many, but its purpose will be explained in this entry.

Simply put, I'm going on an invariant menu, with three items each day that make up three meals. The total intake under this regimen, according to the calorie counters I'm using, will be 850 calories/day. This is about a third of what a man of my size should consume to keep his weight steady.

- The reason for me going on a crash diet is because of the metabolism factor. I've found out this last month that overeating bestows a metabolism boost, which is part and parcel of the homeostasis effect that delays weight gain when piling in the calories. During the diet, I want to see how my behaviour is affected by what will probably be a metabolism drop.

To put it more simply, I want to put together a self-based psychological profile of someone who's sticking to a diet rigorously: behavioural signs to watch for that says a person on a diet is being faithful to it.

- The reason for eating the same thing every day, except for flavour variations, is to watch the plateauing effect. By holding my intake and calorie count as constant as reasonably can be, I'll see the plateauing effect, which has long dogged dieters, right in front of me. Given my weight-gain pattern, I suspect that I'll plateau at 240 and 220 lbs., but I cannot be sure.


Two of the meals each day are foods that I haven't eaten in a long time. The whole diet is balanced enough with an added vitamin supplement. Any liquids with zero calories are not restricted at all. The reason why I've budgeted nothing for snacks is that a "taste of the good life" runs the hazard of me going back to my old life. Once you've got the habit up, it's a hard habit to lose.

Will this work? I don't know. I'm aware that I'm breaking many diet conventions and, probably, sound advice. Nevertheless, this regimen will enable me to discover certain things about how the body sheds off weight under a reasonably constant input. I plan to measure my weight, stripped (except for glasses, which I need to see) at 6 PM. From now on, the entries will be daily progress reports.

Half of Twenty-Four

What better way to celebrate Canada day than twenty-four brews. This is the task ahead of me as I bring the stuff-myself phase to the end. Given the other experiences I've shared, a day's bender seems the most appropriate way to bring the pre-diet to a close.

If you're interested in the particulars: last Friday, I walked home a two-four of Lakeport Strong beer. (5.9% alcohol.) The walk was about a half-mile, necessitating a few rest stops along the way. (The fact that I have no car, and the closest beer store is that half-mile's distance, pretty much assures that this will be a seldom occurrence, unless I smarten up enough to use either a bundle buggy or public transportation. Both seem unlikely in my case.)

This entry will be a liveblog, updated every hour on the hour. As you may have already guessed, the quality of the writing, as well as the editing and proofreading, will deteriorate as afternoon turns into evening.


Weight before the final fling: 263 lbs.

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The following took place between 12 PM ET and 1 PM ET: I have to stipulate to a certain patriotism. A large part of the first hour of ye bender was devoted to watching CBC's televised Canada Day celebrations; I stuck around for the pomp. I watched the Governor-General of Canada inspect the Horse Guards and a winning poster design for this year's Canada Day. At the end of my stint at this, there was a song by a band called "Delhi2Dublin," which performed a song that was a mix of traditional Indian music and Irish riverdance. I was impressed with how well the two meshed. During this time, I quaffed 2 beers plus a bit fo a third.

The following took place between 1 PM ET and 2 PM ET: I started watching Hang 'em High, starring Clint Eastwood. (The judge is played by Pat Hingle.) This movie is a sympathetic portrait of a stereotypical "hanging judge," humanized through showing what he faced. Even the prisoners like seeing another one offed. One interesting part of it was the use of a schizophrenic as a minor character, who was shot because he wouldn't (couldn't, really) heed the marshal. I believe that the addition of black people as deputies and bailiffs was realistic, as such a hiring practice is consistent with the Reconstruction effort to make it clear that black people were freemen. As of 2 PM, I've quaffed 5 1/2 beers.

The following took place between 2 PM ET and 3 PM ET: I continued with Hang 'Em High. The focus in the 45 minutes of so that I've seen since the last update is the difference between the cop's view of juistice and the judge's. The cop's view is the one treated sympathetically relative to the judge's, as the cop would go easy on a person that the judge would administer upon the full penalty of the law. This difference, though, is supposed to show the law's disinterestedness. As of now, I've guzzled down 7 1/3 beers.

The following took place between 3 PM ET and 4 PM ET: Break. I couldn't get through more, so instead I lied down and snoozed for a bit.

The following took place between 4 PM ET and 5 PM ET: An outright snooze.

The following took place between 5 PM ET and 6 PM ET: I woke up, and went back to the movie while nursing a "pre-hangover."

The following took place between 6 PM ET and 7 PM ET: I finished Hang 'Em High, whose denouement provided a reason explaining why frontier justice was often rough justice: no checks and balances. It was also made clear throughout the movie that the people wanted swift justice.

The following took place between 7 PM ET and 8 PM ET: After filling my gullet, I started on another Clint Eastwood movie: The Outlaw Josey Wales. It's a movie about how an army's descent into marauding calls forth opposing guerillas who would otherwise have been peaceable. I'm up to 10 beers consumed.

The following took place between 8 PM ET and 9 PM ET: Sometimes, you have to throw in the towel. It tuns out that me getting through that movie in a one-shot is too tiring right now, so I lied down and turned on some music. The same thing goes for consuming all the beers I've gotten; it retrosepct, thinking I could consume all twenty-four in a day was foolish. My tolerance is just too low.

The following took place between 9 PM ET and 10 PM ET: After mulling things over with the help of music, I finally figured out what made this stunt dribble off: I find it too lonely drinking alone. I just can't stand it.

The following took place between 10 PM ET and 11 PM ET: It finally sunk in that the food fest is over for me; tomorrow, the dieting starts. The twelfth and final beer of the day is gone, so this means I'm going to have two six-packs in storage, for what likely will be a long time.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Nearing The End - Food For Thought

As this last month of stuffing myself comes to an end, I've bumped into another plateau. No matter how much I've eaten recently, my weight hovers between 260 and 264 lbs. My hope of pushing myself into scale-overflow territory has dwindled.

This means that, starting July 2nd, I will have about 65 pounds to lose. (July 1 being Canada Day, I've decided to extend the stuffit fest one more day, liveblogged.)

A few times, I've bumped into my eyes being greater than my stomach. This is a common human trait, but the consequences are quite profound. As long as we have this tendency to get more food than we ourselves can eat, we're inclined to share what we can't stuff down our own throat.

I really suspect that this fact is behind our tendency to share with others. As long as we're inclined to hunt or gather more food than we can eat, we'll also be inclined to share some of it with others because such sharing doesn't cost us a thing at the margin. If it's a choice between passing food someone else's way versus self-inducing a stomachache by eating it all (or the third option of wasting it), which is the more rational choice?

In a way, this realization is profound, as it explains a lot of the gut-level hostility to savings and capital accumulation that recurs throughout our history. The common-sensical, if primitive, view of money as "stored food" would excite a lot of rancour if the person with more money than spending doesn't give away the surplus.

All because we tend to have eyes bigger than our stomachs. We might even be genetically programmed to be this way.


h/t: This thought didn't just come from eating. It was sparked by my re-reading of a neglected classic, The Myth Of the Welfare State by Jack D. Douglas - specifically, the chapter entitled "The Ancient Dawn of Welfare Statism."

[By mistake, I had earlier put Chapter 2; it's actually Chapter 3. There also exists overestimation of memory skills.]