About 6 months ago, my doctor frowned at me and said what doctor's say to everyone from time to time. It is never IF they will say it, its WHEN they will say it. Sometimes I think doctors approach strangers on the street and ask them when they are going to drop a few pounds. I think it is a required course in medical school "Weight Management, or How Best To Frustrate Your Patients".
That aside, I was having some health problems so he really did have to say it this time. This was a nightmarish time in my life. My precious youngest son had died the month before. I was lucky to be standing erect and breathing, but my body was about to fall apart and I had to do something or cause my other son to lose his mother and my husband to lose his wife, on top of losing Andy. I cried when he told me I needed to lose weight and said "how do you expect me to solve the unsolvable problem of my life when I am in the worst time in my life?" He just gently patted me and said, I know, but it is what it is.
He told me to get out my phone and load a free app called My Fitness Pal. I didn't have a choice, he made me do it while I was there. I thought this was nuts, because I TRULY believed I was incapable of losing weight with every ounce of my being. I thought there was something wrong with me, because I didn't eat that much. I thought it was going to be one more time where I had to prove it to another doctor.
My Fitness Pal asks you to enter your height, your weight, your age, your sex, and your activity level--like sedentary or active or in-between. Then it asks you what you want to do--maintain your weight, lose weight, etc. I guess you could put in gain weight, but holy cow!!! Then it asks you how much weight you want to lose--I put down 4 pounds a month. I know that sounds like its too slow, but slow and steady will get you there, PLUS it keeps you from getting discouraged-very important for me. After you do that, it tells you how many calories a day you require to meet your goals.
Then all you do is start recording what you eat in the app. There are a couple of ways to do it--you can type in what you ate, like "bread" and it will search and show results for you to choose from--like white bread, etc. You also can scan the bar code on the bread wrapper it will enter that for you directly through the app. You can adjust the serving, like if you ate more or less than one serving, and it tells you what a serving is. It then adds those calories and subtracts them from the total for the day--and tells you how many calories you have left for the day. At the end of the day you can click a button and it will tell you that "if every day were like today, in 5 weeks you will weigh ___" That is really encouraging to me for some reason. It will also show you how much protein, fat and carbs you had and tell you how you did. You can also look at a week or a month and see if you are eating a healthy balance. Really interesting information....
If you exercised, you can add the exercise and it will calculate the calories burned and add extra calories for you to eat for the day.
The main reason this simple process worked for me is the mental aspect--this is what was different. First of all, I agreed that this app is private information that only I see. I also made an agreement with myself that I will put EVERY bite I eat in there no matter what, so I really know what I am eating. If I let myself slip one time in this area, I know I will fail so this is my only absolute non-breakable rule. I put a piece of fudge cake in the app on my birthday, and another piece the day after and just kept on trucking. The other agreement I made with myself is that I could eat anything I wanted, (yes ANYTHING) and that I would let up a little on the weekends, as long as I put what I ate in the app. (The app has all of the restaurant and fast food restaurant nutrition information, so if you ate a Sonic burger and fries it is fast and easy to enter it.) The other agreement I made was to stay away from the scale. Eat anything you want and don't weigh--sounds insane, right?
But here is what happened: when I knew I could have a burger and saw how many calories a Sonic burger was, and what I would weigh in 5 weeks if every day was like today, I stopped wanting Sonic burgers. It was completely without stress. When I discovered that Ranch dressing on a meal salad is 510 calories, I stopped suffering through lettuce lunches. I found some things I love to eat instead, like fresh cooked vegetables. I make a big pot of greens, or green beans, or okra and tomatoes, --all from scratch, and ate that for lunch instead of a dumb salad. I really enjoyed that and found it easy and very natural for me to do. Eating what is natural to you is important as long as you know the calories you are consuming and are responsible for that. One day I was really craving hot cheese dip and Fritos, so I sat in the parking lot at the grocery store and figured out the calories in the app. I ate that for supper and enjoyed it immensely and happily made up the calories and nutrition the next day by choice. But I haven't done it again--that satisfied me.
It is sort of like personal finances, if you think about it. You would never think of going to the mall and writing check after check on things you want without knowing your bank balance. But if there is something you really want, you can save your money for it. In a sense, that is exactly what we are doing by not knowing the calories taken in that day and eating anything you want. I know this for sure: I can eat what I want and as long as I am honest in the app and I stay below my calories, I will definitely lose weight. I don't have to think, or feel guilty or wring my hands either.
When I stopped weighing (sometimes I won't even let the doctor weigh me), I started thinking in terms of what I was eating in a week, or a month, instead of in a day instead of being terrified about the next weigh-in. If I have a bad day, it doesn't bother me as much because I know it will work out over time. The first time I weighed I had lost 30 pounds, the second time 58 pounds! It felt incredible! Do you know how freeing that is to not have to answer to that stupid scale? I just did what I was supposed to do and trusted the process. Also, if I want to plan a big day, I can do that--naturally, and I emphasize naturally--what is natural for Susan.
Susan is not a meat eater, and diets that make you consume lots of fat and no carbs is not natural for Susan. Susan does not like salad that much, so eating salad is not natural. If I make myself eat things that are not natural, I feel deprived. I love fruit, and I know it is good for me, but a lot of "diets" won't let you eat fruit. I have to live this way forever, you know. I love potatoes. (sigh) The answer to that has turned out to be that I eat only fresh home-made potatoes because they have less calories (a lot less) than frozen or restaurant. It is also not natural for me to peel potatoes with any regularity, so I don't eat very many anymore. However, I know I can have them when I want them. In this simple process, I am eating healthier and eating nothing processed. Did you ever read the label on frozen dinners? They are VERY high in calories, are gross and you get hungry later. I can't afford that.
Is it really this easy? It never occurred to me to use my own brain to lose weight. If I know that cupcake is 600 calories, and know what it will cost me, I won't eat it. It's not willpower, it is about my own desire to not want to weigh that big number in 5 weeks over a stupid cupcake. If I REALLY crave a cupcake, I eat one--and record it. The next day, that cupcake is in the back of my mind and I am noticing that I always make better choices to make up for it.
Who knew that the best doctor was the doctor in me? If I know what am eating, and what I will weigh if I eat it, my brain chooses the right answer almost every time. If I know I can have a bad day and still lose weight because I am not afraid of the scale, I find it easy to keep going. Absolutely no willpower, just brainpower that comes from knowing what is crossing my lips and exactly how it will react in my particular body. Isn't that what a lifestyle change really is?
One other thing that is a incredibly important: you need a safe environment. I don't keep chips and cupcakes, and especially Cheetos in the house, because I will EAT them. This is also very natural for Susan! However, every Sunday, I put food in the house that I like to eat that won't hurt me. When you get hungry, or stressed, your brain gets stupid in that area, for some reason. If I find Cheetos when I am hungry or stressed, I will eat Cheetos--there is no compromise in this. So I don't ever keep Cheetos in the house. I allow myself to stress eat, that is also natural for me! I keep gallon jars of those big dill pickles in the house just for that, because I love them. (Get that celery away from me!)
Somehow, miraculously, I have lost nearly 60 pounds in 6 months without exercising (yet), without feeling hungry or deprived during the most stressful time in my life. It really was that easy.
