Starve a cold?

Sometimes, the only redeeming part of being sick is that you get to lose weight with no extra effort. It's something we brag about, "Yeah, I was so sick that I couldn't even get out of bed. I lost like five pounds!" This is not a good plan.

I have been dealing with a bad tooth (root canal coming next week, I'll probably lose a couple pounds not eating for a few days - lol) and some sort of stomach bug that my boss was nice enough to pass around last week. Consequently, I feel like crap and I don't want to eat, because there are bad consequences every time I do. So, I try not to eat, but then I get starving and eat whatever is around. Or I feel crummy and try to go for the comfort food and very few things on my comfort food list are good for me.

Fortunately for me, I had packed all healthy lunches last week (still doing the DASH diet, down about 5 pounds in about 2 weeks), so when I went to grab the nearest thing because I had to eat *something*, it always turned out to be my stupid health lunch and snacks. And, this long weekend I am home with my husband, who is actively dieting and exercising to avoid going on insulin, so I am not willing to make really bad food choices in front of him because I don't want to mess him up.

Turns out there could be something to the ideas of "plan ahead" and "get support."

Tomorrow's Fat Friday

I work in an office that has the luxury (or curse) of having lunch provided most of the time. The facility is a training department that is far from any convenient choices to allow students a lunch break in a reasonable distance. Instead when we have students lunch is catered in. As an employee of the department, I get the chance to make lunch out of whatever leftovers there are.

The caterer is feeding a large number of people most days and therefore makes economical bulk meals usually containing pasta of some form. We also have a fridge with a constant supply of sugary sodas and a snack room full of snacks and treats.

I’d like to say that when dieting I am above the temptation of all these options but I would be lying. Truthfully, the urge to snack comes more from boredom or the desire to step away from my desk rather than any sense of hunger.

My workplace is the first saboteur of any diet I am on. One of my coworkers has a lot more willpower and control that I do. I admire her strength and ability to avoid snacking, stick to green tea instead of coffee and salad instead of pasta. One of the ways she sticks to her diet (she has lost 50 pounds in the past year on a low fat, moderately controlled diet) is by allowing the occasional indulgence.

The office is aware of one of her favorite rules. She sticks to her diet all week except at lunch on Friday. The time is now known as Fat Friday. Whether we have pizza leftovers or order some other treat in, she allows herself a moderate treat on some Fridays. She doesn’t seem to feel like she has cheated or fallen off the wagon by allowing the indulgence.

I wonder how she has talked herself into such control. I realize that most of weight loss is mental. You have to have control in order to practice moderate eating habits and regular exercise. I apparently don’t have what it takes.

So if giving in just once ruins my entire attempt to diet,
how am I supposed to get anywhere?

Yuck

I read Noelle's post from yesterday and the Caesar salad frappe made me about lose my dinner. I have to agree, however, that starvation whether by choice or by broken tooth seems like a horrible way to lose weight.

Anyway, now that our stomachs are turned a little sour I have a few comments of my own. I've decided ONCE AGAIN that it is time to think about going on a new diet. I'm not interested on any that I've tried before so I'm looking for something new. I should say that if I could find an ALL SUGAR diet I might be able to survive or maybe an all carb diet. I mean seriously, is there any way that I can keep my sugar and caffeine dependency and still lose weight??

Apparently not.

So back to the new diet. I can't decide what should be next. I was thinking the Flat Belly Diet because hey who doesn't want a flat belly and I got the ad for the book in the mail from Prevention last week and crazy me I actually ordered the book. However it hasn't yet arrived.

Since I'm feeling the spark of motivation I don't want to let it go to waste (or is it waist?). Anyway so I heard an ad for the Zone diet on my way home to work.

I'm headed to www.Zonediet.com to check it out. I can honestly say, I've never tried this before so I plan to read up on it tonight and maybe I'll start on Wednesday. I'll let you know if this one bombs like all the others or if there's something I can work with.

Just stop eating!

There are a variety of starvation diets. I remember one from my childhood in the 70's where people would have their jaws wired shut so that they could only drink liquids. People were highlighted having their meals made into shakes - a Caesar salad frappe, anyone?

What a horrible idea - it reminds me of Inquisition-type tactics. Why not just manacle yourself into your bedroom for a week? You'll definitely lose weight - until you start eating again, which is where these programs always seem to fall down.

Of course, for me the prospect of not be able to TALK for months actually seemed like the hardship, but any sort of voluntary medical intervention seems like a really extreme measure to take, although I have to admit I've considered bariatic surgery more than once.

I got to do a mini-version of this diet last week when I cracked a tooth over the weekend. I couldn't chew anything hard at all and only soft things on the right side or I experienced excrutiating pain. It felt like I was chewing tinfoil. I couldn't drink anything, at any temperature, without wimpering or even yelling.

By the time the dentist got me fixed up Monday afternoon, I'd lost at least two pounds. Sorry, this is one diet plan I'm not willing to recreate for anything.

It's DASH, but it's not quick

As I end my first day on the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet for people (me) with high blood pressure, I am reminded why so many of these diets are flops so quickly. They are too much work. I have to make a meal plan with the special guidelines. I have to go to the grocery story and buy the foods for the plan. And, since I have not been eating all this healthy, multi-grain, low-fat, good for me stuff, it takes over an hour in the damn store to find everything. Then I have to come home and put it all away. That’s exhausting.

Then, a couple hours later, I have to prepare dinner to include sensible protein, a starch, vegetables (frozen is easiest) and a salad. I didn’t plan very well, because after I got everything cleaned up and put away, I realized I had to pull it all back out to prep my lunch for tomorrow. Don’t think the Kraft mac and cheese wasn’t calling me, with its fifteen minute preparation time from putting the water on to boil to eating the artificial orange food yumminess.

I have to present the counterpoint, of course – Optifast, which can be done with zero food preparation time, has been a diet failure for me, too, but for different reasons, although missing real food was one of them. Where is the diet with the right balance of food preparation, which can definitely be an enjoyable experience and usually leads to healthier eating, and convenience, which every tired, stressed one of us needs?

Jenny Craig, Part I (1990)

The first time I tried Jenny Craig, I liked it. I tried it on the suggestion of a new acquaintance at work who could not say enough good things about it. At the time, I had been married for about 15 months and had gained about 40 pounds since the wedding. I was approaching 200 pounds, which seemed like an impossibly large number (ah, youth!). Looking back, I wonder about the circumstances that caused a 20 year old to gain that much weight that quickly, but I put it down to eating out with the new hubby, getting through the last year of college, taking on the responsibilities of an apartment and almost full time job, etc.

Things went well for about six months. At the time, I think they gave you a 1200-calorie eating plan with 90% their food and a few things you bought – fruit, lettuce for salad, some veggies, milk. It cost about $75 a week for the food. You had to meet with a counselor once a week to weigh in, talk a little and get next week’s food. You were also supposed to attend a small group session – usually a video and discussion led by a counselor – preferably on a different day. The idea was that you were in the center at least twice a week for encouragement and reinforcement.

It worked while everything in my life was going well. I had graduated college and was in a job I enjoyed. I had friends at work that I liked and a gym in the office building that was convenient and fun. My husband was supportive – he was preparing his own meals and we were not going out to eat.

At some point though, things started to fall apart personally and the diet fell apart with them. I switched departments at work for more money and began working for a guy that I discovered I truly could not stand. Even all the other great friends I made in the department could not mitigate the awfulness of the man. The husband got tired of taking care of himself and wanted me to cook and/or for us to eat out more. We had a higher income – a move I made to help get us out of debt – but it was getting burned up on dinners out and buying extra crap for the new, bigger apartment we took on.

I started eating an entire fast food meal in the car on the way home at night, stopping at a gas station to toss the trash, then coming home and making dinner or going out to eat. Of course I stopped losing weight. When I wasn’t visibly making progress at weight loss, the husband announced that we were wasting money at J.C. (not knowing what else was going on since I wouldn’t tell him and risk getting criticized for being a fuck-up). I agreed, embarrassed to talk to the counselor about my inability to lose weight and unable or unwilling to talk to my husband about my unhappiness. So, I cancelled a few weekly meetings and just stopped going.

Overdoing It

Earlier I wrote about getting too much exercise before you are ready. Moderation seems to be one of the most lasting catch phrases in dieting as well. I didn’t last even 2 weeks on diets like:

South Beach
Atkins
Grapefruit
Slimfast

The single biggest reason why I did not lose weight with these diets was that it was way too much change in too little time. Such drastic limits on my food intake were often combined with an all or nothing approach to exercise. I have tried to completely change my life with the flick of a switch. On more than one Sunday night I have sat on the porch and made a list of how I would change my life starting the very next morning.

• The list often looked something like this.
  Lose 20 pounds this month
  Start South Beach
  Start exercise plan
  1 hour cardio before work each day
  20 minutes of weights 3 days each week
  Read one diet motivational quote every morning
  Weigh in on Wednesday and Sunday
  

I tend to be an overachiever so a plan like this might also include 2 work goals and 2 or 3 writing goals to be accomplished in the same month.

For some reason I’m still surprised when I’ve given up by Thursday because I just want to go to sleep and not think about exercise or how far behind I’ve gotten on writing my 1000 words per day.

Overdoing it, setting too many goals with too high of expectations is a great way to stop yourself from sticking to a diet. It is the fastest way I’ve found to not lose weight. Yet I repeat the pattern at least 3 or 4 times every year.

Too much exercise

I prefer adding exercise to my life instead of dieting. There are 2 main reasons for this:

I like to eat
I hate to think about food all day long

Like anything in life, it is probably best to add exercise in moderation. One of my favorite workout options is tapes from http://www.beachbody.com/. They have great options including:

Slim in 6
Turbo Jam
Tony Horton 10 Minute Training
Power 90X
Hip Hop Abs
Rockin’ Body

I’ve done the first 3 and while I was doing them, I loved them and they worked. The problem was that these programs start off gradually (usually 30 minutes a day), then work up to 45 minutes or 60 minutes a day. However, the plan is that you work at least 6 days a week. I don’t know about you but if the plan is 6 days a week and I have a crappy Monday, then the rest of the week is blown.

I usually plan Friday as the day off because I try to exercise in the evenings and I want Friday evening to lounge in front of the TV and turn my mind off from the week at work.
Still, adding an exercise program that makes you work out 6 days a week could be a good thing. It could help you gain muscle and lose fat fairly quickly. UNLESS all that stress on your muscles causes a tear or extreme fatigue that leads to injury half way through your second week. At which time you end up having to spend a month on the sofa while you heal and your muscles lose strength.

The weight blog

I ran across an article today about blogging to lose weight.

Check the blog site: http://www.diet-blog.com

Check the specific entry: http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2008/04/04/could_writing_a_blog_help_you_lose_weight.php)

The argument is that writing a blog about your quest to lose weight will help motivate you. The benefits of blogging about your weight include:

Community support
Accountability
Tracking your progress
Helping others
If you’re lucky – getting a book deal

For some people starting a blog may be exactly the way to go for all (or most) of these reasons. If you need support and guidance from others (even strangers) then a blog might help you. If you know that having to write about or track your diet and exercise daily will make you stay on track – consider a blog. After all, experts say that keeping a diet and exercise journal is a great way to be accountable and helps people keep weight off once they’ve lost it. Your blog may be what it takes to make your accountable and successful.

Having been working on this blog for a few weeks now, I have also found some problems. For me, writing a blog about weight loss has not helped my dieting or exercise for several reasons:

I’m thinking about dieting all the time
I look at every diet I’ve even been on to find material
I focus on the negative
Getting readers is takes work
Working on the blog distracts me from exercise
I crave soda and caffeine while sitting at my computer
Whenever I think about what I didn’t do (eat right, exercise, drink water, whatever) I get irritated

But remember I write about not losing weight. It is possible that the topic of this blog is sabotaging my weight loss.

Losing too fast

While we all want to lose weight fast, this is not always healthy. This became obvious a few years back when my mom tried the cabbage soup diet. I should tell you that the soup smells terrible. It is successful encouraging you to avoid food because it smells bad and the taste isn’t welcoming either.
It is very possible to drop 10 – 15 pounds in the first week or two. The few people who make it more than a month on this diet usually have impressive weight loss – sometimes as much as 30 pounds.

This might sound ideal but I’ve noticed that most people I’ve know who lost weight that fast found themselves weak and ill at the end of the month. You see all that weight loss was water and muscle – rarely fat. That diet is similar to starvation.

The end result of this diet – rapid weight gain when you stop the diet and weak muscles.

Food Poisoning

The greatest quick weight loss I ever managed was purely unintentional. Three years ago I managed to combine a night out drinking heavily with a dinner that gave me food poisoning.

The result – in less than 12 hours I was so ill I couldn’t hold my head up. At first I thought I just had too much to drink. I figured once I tossed it all up I would be able to go back to sleep and feel better the next day.

I was not so lucky. Two days later I was still in bed, still sweating and puking my guts out at regular intervals.

By the time I recovered and stepped on the scale I had lost more than 10 pounds in less than a week. I kept it off for more than a month too. I’m sure that’s unusual but I remained dehydrated for several weeks no matter how much water I drank.