Fourth Day: What To Do When Leftovers Arrive

On the last run, I discussed what to do when social outings require a temporary deviation from the diet plan. I recently faced a special one - a going-away dinner - and I followed the procedure I set out beforehand for "cheating:" casting it as a temporary respite from a diet, one that will supply good memories to tide me over when the going gets especially lean. In its place, nostalgia works - which explains why "forceum" plans often don't.

This time 'round, though, I faced a greater challenge: I got some leftovers which I had to get rid of in some way.

I say "leftovers," as opposed to gifts of food, because that's what they were: a kind of hand-me-down package of food. Since I have qualms about getting rid of a whole load of food outright, I decided to eat it as speedily as possible. This decision, plus the dinner beforehand, put me up several pounds.

I can say to the weight-obsessed that such respites are little more than setbacks. A sense of overall perspective is needed: since a serious diet is going to take a month minimum, and possibly a couple or a few months, prolongation of it by a week or less isn't going to do that much harm. Perspective leads to robustness; lack of perspective may mean an underlying lack of staying power. "Efficiency-centred" often entails a certain brittleness.

Perspective also drains self-absorption. Someone who doesn't share my sense of mission in this regard may decide that I'm simply hungry, or that I'm starving myself disproportionately to my need to lose weight. Looking starved, no matter what weight you are, does tend to invite charity from people who really care for you.

This point being noted, though, I have come up with a procedure to limit a deviancy from becoming a new rule. In a word, it's sequestration. That's why I tend to polish off any extras I receive as soon as I can - to get them out of the way. I admit that this approach does tread towards Bulimia Land, but it seems the best way to make the diet the norm, and heavy eating the exception. That way, my sense of the norm, and my habits, are inclined towards weight loss.

As far as receiving extra food is concerned, this procedure is the one I'm following:

a) Work any received low-calorie items into the diet, if they do in fact fit.
b) Those that don't, eat as soon as practicable unless you have no qualms about throwing them out.
c) Don't mix your diet food with the "extras" - keep them apart.
d) Some items don't make up much of a meal by themselves, or in combination with the others you're received. For these, it is tempting to go to the grocery store for extra ingredients to make "real meals" from what you've got. This is the slippery slope that's likely to make you an ex-dieter. Why? Because ingredients almost never balance out. So one trip turns into two, which turns into three, which turns into a regular habit. (Consider also that it shows that you really needed the food that you received, which makes for a happy giver who'll be encouraged to give you more of the same.) If you have to eat like a wolf for a time, so be it. Doing so will make it less jarring to go back to the diet plan.
e) For the eat-a-rama, it may be best to down the high-calorie items first and the lower-calorie items later. This practice leads you back to low-cal food, and makes the climb back up to the diet plan less abrupt.

Another point: the more you go off the diet only to get back on, and stay on, the more practice you have cutting down your food, and the more acclimatized you become to cutting back. There's little wrong with yo-yoing as long as the overall net change is downwards.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 247 pounds - a five pound, if temporary, setback.