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.