Diet Day 006
Here comes day six of my diet, and it is another good one. This was Tuesday, 7 January, 2020. My weight was down a little today, which is great, that's the whole point of dieting, of course. My weight was now 85 kilos, and I am supremely confident that it is heading in the right direction. The down side of being so successful at starving myself of calories over the last few days, however, is that I woke up hungry.
Today was a work day and my first appointment was at 12:00. What I do isn't important but it's no secret either. I am an English teacher, originally born in the UK, and now working in Venice, Italy. In my free time I self-publish books, so it should be no surprise to find out I've written a diet book.
Living in Venice means my morning commute is beautiful, cold at this time of year, but beautiful. I take the water bus from where I live in the ancient city, and head to the language school's comparatively modern offices on the mainland. It is a journey I have made hundreds of times now (I have been working at the language school for years) and that brings some problems with it. Before the diet I had gotten used to popping into a little supermarket that is located on the ground floor of the building that houses the English school offices, and I would buy the most ridiculous crap there, pretty much every day. That's not entirely my fault, the supermarket's selection of snacks does not contain low calorie options, but what I bought really was stupid. I used to buy a pizza square that has to have 500 calories in it, and a small bag of crisps (chips for US readers) with 150ish calories, and a pack of Mon Cheri (hey, they're vegan) at 250ish calories, making a whopping 900 calories, just for breakfast. Obviously, with a budget of just 1,600 calories per day, there is absolutely no way I can afford to take a hit like that so early in the day. It would leave me with just 700 calories to get me through the many, many long hours before bedtime, when the giant calorie counter in the sky resets.
A Message from the AuthorIf you are constantly losing the mental battle to steer clear of junk food, then the Mindset Diet may be for you. It is a book that 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.
I instead decided to have nothing at all for breakfast, and tough it out until lunch time. I used to regularly do that as a student so I'm pretty sure I don't need breakfast. With my sedentary lifestyle, it's not like I'm going to feint if I don't have something to eat. Anyway, the real test came as I pass the supermarket and every fiber of my being was telling me to go in and buy something, my lizard brain (the amigdala) was telling me to do it, because it is in the habit of doing that, and my stomach was telling me to because I was hungry, but I'm an experienced dieter, and I'm smarter than the both of them put together. I was able to resist today. When I'm not on a diet, not thinking about the 900 calories in that 'breakfast' of junk food, when my lizard brain and stomach spring the idea of going into the supermarket at the last minute, I'm pretty much helpless to resist, but not today. Forewarned is forearmed.
I got hungrier and hungrier, the closer I got to the supermarket. It felt like an animal paw squeezing my guts. Luckily, I know that hunger pangs do pass, so I just had to wait them out, and I'm also trying to see hunger pangs as my friend. They are immediate feedback and proof positive that very loudly say I am definitely losing weight. Just sitting there, on the commute into work, I was losing weight.
I did manage to detour past the supermarket and have zero for breakfast, and I was very proud. Lunch, a little later, was two slices of toast with plenty of spread (200 calories), along with a milky coffee (60 calories). Taking 260 calories from 1,600 left me 1,340 for the rest of the day, a very comfortable number.
A little later I read yet another story about weight loss in my daily paper, the Guardian, this time about a pair of celebrity dieters. That's not stars on a diet but dieters who became stars. They say something that resonates with me, as a diet book author starting to bring his weight down again after allowing it to rise. They are asked if the body of any diet author should always be taken as a measure of success.
“It can’t not be,” Featherstone says. “We think about things a lot. It’s why we’re both so anxious all the time … We still struggle. Even now. We kind of fluctuate. We have a steady loss.”
As the journalist notes, fluctuation and steadiness may seem contradictory, but we dieters whoa are sharing their weight loss ‘journey’ know what they mean.
My next meal was soup, always a good option for a dieter. That's 40 calories for Parmesan cheese. Then 152 calories for the soup, and 460 calories for two burger buns to dip, not forgetting 100 calories for a glass of red wine, that makes 752 calories. The bread is the real monster there, but I had a lot of calories left, specifically 1,340, so taking away 752 left 588 calories. That's not too bad, not bad at all.
Then, while watching TV, I had 363 calories for a bowl of crisps, leaving 225 calories, followed by a corner of a chocolate biscuit, for 60 calories, leaving 165.
For supper I had toast and cheese, which left me with 5 calories unspent. I beat my calorie budget by five whole calories, and I absolutely see that as a victory.
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.
"Pumpkin Soup" by ccharmon is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
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