Diet Day 004

I almost forgot to weigh myself this morning, a little trick played on me by my own unwilling mind. If that sounds paranoid to you, then you have no idea the tricks your own mind plays on you in an effort to keep you eating. It's the lizard brain, it's buried deep, it's absolutely terrified of staving, and it has a powerful effect on our behavior.

Anyway, I already had my clothes on by the time I remembered that I hadn't weighed myself, but I forced myself to strip back down to socks, pants, T-shirt, watch, and glasses - my weigh-in outfit - and get on the scales. In theory, you don't need to weigh yourself every day to get the feedback necessary to ensure you really are losing weight. The point is that it is something you do every day as part of your morning routine, making it something that is not going to get forgotten. That way you are not going to suddenly realize it has been a couple of months since your last weigh-in and climb on the scales only to gasp in horror at the unexpectedly high number you see.

Unsurprisingly, my weight hasn't changed since yesterday, but once again that isn't the point. It's about showing the lizard brain who's boss. Showing it that it can't sabotage your diet by making you conveniently forget stuff. I'm currently at 85.5 kilos, and that needs to come down. My goal is to get down into the 70s, so the dieting continues.

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A Message from the Author

If you are constantly losing the mental battle to steer clear of junk food, then the Mindset Diet may be for you. This is a whole new mindset. This book is packed with insights and tips to help you manage your weight and stay away from patterns of eating that promote weight gain. This is a back to basics approach, where you count your calories every day, but the latest insights into the psychology of appetite are combined to give you the best possible chance of losing weight.

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My budget for today is 1,600 calories, and after I made myself a coffee with a couple of biscuits for breakfast, for 183 calories (a tiny breakfast compared to what I would usually have) but it still left only 1,437 calories for the rest of the day.

Hunger pangs suddenly hit a couple of hours later. My stomach started rumbling and it felt like tectonic plates of hunger were shifting within me. It didn't last long, but it was uncomfortable and left me feeling empty inside, but I didn’t eat anything.

Later, I ended up in a bar - the sort of place that hands out free crisps (chips for US readers) and complementary little triangular sandwiches - but all I had was a soy coffee for 60 calories. Leaving 1,377. Okay, that's not all I had. I also got talked into a cocktail, a spritz to be precise, at 250 calories. This was brought to my table with a generous bucket full of crisps, which I stared at but didn't even touch. I knew that having one single crisp would lead to me mechanically chomping through the whole bucket. When I left the bar, I still had 1,127 calories in my budget and I was pleased to count it a victory.

By that point my calories for the day had mostly been unhealthy liquids, specifically caffeine and alcohol. So, when I got back home, it was time for some food. I had a couple of toasted cheese sandwiches and a glass of red wine: cheese 200, wine 100, toast 240, for a total of 540, which left 587. I was pleased at persuading myself to have such a relatively tiny meal and decided it would be a good idea to reward myself for good behavior, probably the most powerful behavior modifier of all. I gave myself a Milka choco wafer that had 165 calories in it, and still left me 422 calories for the rest of the day.

I gradually started frittering those calories away, starting with a couple of small cookies at 123, leaving me just 299 calories. I was feeling extremely confident with only minutes to go before bedtime. Then I suddenly realized that the Golden Globes were on that night, and had to make do with 250 calories of popcorn as I sat through the long hours of celebrity backslapping. That basically cleaned out my remaining calories. I had only 49 calories left, which wasn't even enough for dry toast. But I stayed strong and hit the hay under budget, only 49 calories under budget, but under budget.

If I had remembered the Golden Globes was on, I would have organized my day differently, but things worked out okay, anyway.

To end, just a reminder that the best way to support this blog is to buy one of my books. Simply go over to Amazon, or Kobo and get one.