Another good day.
I have been thinking about an exchange I had with Makaren and some things Cate and others have said. I suppose I am obsessed with keeping exact track of everything I eat and my calorie count. I can be a bit obsessive compulsive and right not directing that into making sure I don't over eat seems important. TM complemented my on my organization, but its not really organization so much as focusing my compulsion on something other than maximizing my calorie intake. I know I tend to say positive things here, and they are true, today was a good day and I do feel a lot better and better about myself than I did before starting this diet. However doing this is not as easy for me as I let on. I still have cravings and I know that at any time I could fall off the wagon. Its happened every other time I have had a successful diet, I live in fear of it happening again this time. I struggle with the food craving compulsion most every day, some days more than once. It does get a little easier to fight off, but I know there is a risk that one day it will catch me in a moment of weakness.
Thinking about it there are two things I am doing differently this time around. First I have accepted that this needs to be a permanent lifestyle change, not something that will end when I reach some goal weight. Secondly I am eating differently, I eat a lot of food, its just low calorie food, most of my previous diets were more like periods of starvation. I am hopeful that this approach will be more sustainable. I do have folks here to thank for advice and direction.
One of the things that has made it clear to me that this has to be a permanent lifestyle change has been reading diaries of people here who lost the weight some time ago and are in a kind of maintenance. Even some people who by my standards did not have a whole lot of weight to lose in the first place. It looks to me like those folks still struggle with eating right and staying healthy. I know if I "make it" this time the only way it will work is to continue the struggle in my own life, it gives me confidence to see others who are doing it.
I did not begin this diet with any real vision as to what it would be, except to eat fewer calories. At first I did kind of go the starvation route, but gradually, much of it as a result of advice from people like LaMa I got into the high fruit and vegetable diet and that seems to be working for me. It is new, I have probably eaten more veggies and fresh fruit in the past 2 1/2 months than in the previous 2 1/2 years.
I mentioned a few of you here, I know I have more folks to thank, please don't think that if your names are not here that I don't appreciate you.
Oh well, enough for tonight's ramble.
Monday
breakfast
yogurt 80
cereal 100
lunch
yogurt 80
cereal 100
1 apricot 17
cherries 61
snack
popcorn 80
2 apricots 34
cherries 65
dinner
raw veggies 80
tuna 140
bean thread noodles 57
peanut sauce 80
snack
crackers 60
cheese 116
total calories 1,150
In 1150 the town of Neuruppin in Brandenburg, Germany was founded. Not a very well known town, but one I have been to. I had work there in the 90s shortly after the Russians pulled out. I got a tour of the abandoned Russian Tank base, it was a site to see. The Russians destroyed everything of any value before leaving. They drove the tanks through walls, and broke every piece of glass, every plumbing fixture, every light and electrical switch, everything. At least I was told it was the evacuating Russians who had done it, I don't really know; but whoever did it they put a lot of work into that destruction. The cold war ended more peacefully than other wars, but not without its problems.