CHAPTER 3
How to empower yourself
Eat to live, because all that you hope to gain
from eating will be lost if you die.
Goals
As
you start the program, you need to develop some goals for yourself. You
may or may not know what your goals are. So we will take a few minutes
and go over some of the common goals that people have and you can see
if any are appropriate for you.
The number
one goal that people have is to lose weight. With 65% of Americans overweight,
this is not surprising. The goal needs to be more specific then just losing
weight, however; you need to figure out exactly how many pounds you want
to lose. In addition, what time frame do you want to establish for losing
this weight? When you set the goal, it needs to be attainable. Most people
do not know how fast they can lose weight, so most will pick an unrealistic
number like 10 to 20 pounds a month. The old saying is that it did not
go on that fast, and it won’t come off that fast either. To loose
10 to 20 pounds a month amounts to 2.5 to 5 pounds a week. That is a lot.
Each pound of fat is 3500 calories. Most people take in 2000 to 3000 calories
a day if they are overweight. Moreover, most people will lose weight on
2000 calories a day if they have a weight problem. So to lose 2.5 pounds
a week of fat, you would have to cut 1000 calories out of your diet a
day. To lose 5 pounds a week, you would have to cut 2000 calories out
of your diet a day. If you are currently consuming 3000 calories, then
to cut it down to 1000 calories a day is not a good diet. The reason that
it is not a good diet is that you will end up in what we call a “catabolic
state”--that is where you are destroying your muscles in addition
to the fat. You can lose muscle from vital organs including your heart.
Just look at people who have been on this kind of a diet for a long time
and you will see why it is not good. For example, look at the men and
women who were in the concentration camps. In addition to the muscle loss
you will also have problems with constant hunger and you will find that
you are less likely to stick with such a diet for the long term. Most
people will not stick to this kind of diet for long. You need a diet that
you can live with. The best approach is to loose 1 to 2 pounds a week.
The problem for most people is that this does not seem like a lot, and
they want faster results. To shed fat and not muscle, you will have to
limit your weight loss to 1 to 2 pounds a week. That still is 50 to 100
pounds a year. To me that is a lot. So make your goal one that is reasonable
and attainable. If you pick goals that are not reasonable or attainable,
then you will get discouraged and quit.
One goal for
many people is simply to become healthier. To reach this goal does not
necessarily require you to lose much weight. Studies have shown that,
if you are overweight, losing just 10% of your body weight can produce
significant health benefits such as improving control of your blood pressure,
thereby decreasing the risk for heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure.
By pursuing this goal, you may not be shooting for your ideal body weight
but simply a certain percentage reduction in weight. If you add exercise
to your plan, then you will gain even more health benefits. Thus, someone
who walks every day and loses 10% of his body weight will have more health
benefits then someone who loses 10% but is sedentary.
Some may choose
to simply have a healthy weight—namely, one that may be within 20
to 30 pounds of your ideal weight. For a 6-foot tall man, his ideal weight
would be close to 170 pounds, but he may choose a weight of 190 to 200.
That is still in a healthy range, compared to the 250 or 300 that he may
be starting at. Or a woman who is 5 feet 4 inches tall may have an ideal
weight of 120 but prefer to weigh 140 to 150. That is still a lot better
then the 190 she may be at now. Some people choose a heavier weight for
many reasons. Some feel that their wrinkles are not as prominent with
the extra weight. I have had some patients whose families have made fun
of them as having “chicken legs” when they were at their ideal
weight and they wanted to be heavier to stop the ridicule. The best approach
in that setting is to let the family know that your goal is to take care
of yourself and that you want to be healthy. You are sorry if their own
weight problem is bothering them, but you are in charge of your own self
and you choose to take care of yourself. It is amazing to me that, driven
by their own selfishness, people will sabotage another person’s
attempt to help themselves.
Some may choose
improved stamina or a lower cholesterol level as their goals. This can
occur in several ways, either by lowering your weight or by increasing
your level of exercise. If you decrease your weight, then that will lower
your cholesterol. It will also improve your stamina. Weight reduction
can drop your cholesterol by 20 to 100 points depending on how much you
weigh and what other factors are affecting your cholesterol. Weight reduction
will also improve your stamina. If you lose 30 pounds, then you do not
have to carry the extra baggage of 30 pounds with you all the time. Think
of it this way: if you carried around a 30-pound grocery bag or a back
pack all day long and never set it down, that would make you tired. As
you get rid of excess weight, you will notice the improved stamina because
you are carrying less weight. If you have ever had a pet that you had
to put on a diet as we did, one thing that you notice is that the pet--in
our case our dog--acted like a puppy again; he had all sorts of energy
that was missing before. You can lower your cholesterol and improve your
stamina without weight loss. Exercise will do both. Walking can lower
your cholesterol--perhaps not as much as weight reduction--but it will
decrease it some. Walking will also improve your stamina; most adults
are out of shape, despite the fact that they think they are in shape.
If you were to start a walking program you would improve your ability
to walk longer distances.
For some,
the goal is blood pressure control: they want their pressure under better
control without adding more medicines to their list. For others, it is
control of their diabetes. Both are improved by weight reduction and by
exercise. Blood pressure can be lowered by as much as 30 to 40 points
by exercise. Weight reduction can lower it by the same amount if you are
morbidly obese (or more than 100 pounds overweight). All the diabetes
experts try to get their patients to walk because they know how much better
their diabetes will be if they do. Most will not walk, however; they just
want a pill for the diabetes. They do not want to have to do any exercise.
You have to determine which approach you want to use. Do you want to spend
all of your money at the pharmacy giving it to the drug companies, or
do you want to keep it for yourself, so that you can take a vacation to
the beach or the mountains, or a lake? It is your choice.
For some,
the goal is to spend less money on medicines. Many of the health care
problems that people face today are directly or indirectly related to
excess weight or lack of exercise. So for some, given that the cost of
medicine continues to climb, their goal will be to save money and to put
it in their pocket rather than to spend it on medications. If most people
were to get their weight down to the ideal range and take a daily walk,
they could come off 1/3 to ½ of their medicines. This would amount
to thousands of dollars a year in some cases. As people age, the longer
they can stay independent and have a good quality of life, the more they
will get to enjoy life. And, with the money they save on pharmaceuticals,
they will have more funds to enjoy their lives.
For some,
the goals will be related to exercise or physical fitness. They may want
to be able to walk to the store or do a 1-mile fun walk with their grandchildren.
Some may want to run a marathon and not be in the Clydesdale division,
or develop the strength and ability to do a 5K run. You need to look at
your own unique interests as you ponder your goals. Your goals can change.
One goal I had before the running the marathon from Marathon to Athens,
Greece was to get my weight down to 170 pounds back in 2000. This was
the site of the original marathon for which it was named. The Greek warrior
Filipides ran from Marathon, Greece to Athens to tell the emperor that
they had won the battle. Allegedly the story goes that he had already
run from Athens to Sparta and then back to Marathon. A marathon is 26.2
miles long. I was able to reach the goal. Because I reached my goal I
was able to run the marathon in the time that I was hoping for, just under
4 hours. I had to lose 15 pounds and I used the combination of keeping
up with what I was eating, getting on the scales every day, plotting my
progress on Dietpower.com, and skipping a few suppers. The running that
you have to do also helps, but for me even with running I cannot eat anything
and everything that I want. If I do I will not be able to lose weight.
You might say that you are different if you are a runner, that you can’t
even walk. Can’t, can’t do anything. It was not long ago when
a 91-year-old man ran, not walked, the New York Marathon. One of my goals
is to do it when I am 100 years old.
Still others
may want to get into some clothes they have in the closet that no longer
fit. There are those who may seek a career in modeling, as well as men
who desire to have “six-pack” abdominal muscles. We are all
different, and our goals will be different. I have had patients with all
kinds of goals. We should not judge one person’s goals as being
better than another’s; they are simply their goals. We have the
right to have our own goals and to establish new ones when we are ready
to do so. Do not judge your goals by what you think others would choose.
This is about you and what you want for yourself.
One recent
study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at sexual
dysfunction in men. What it found was that men who were overweight and
couch potatoes were much more likely to have sexual dysfunction then men
who were physically fit and near normal weight. What kind of sexual dysfunction
do they have you might wonder, and why? The main dysfunction they had
was impotence or an inability to get and maintain an erection. They also
had less sexual desire than the thinner men.
By way of
example, I recently saw Robert, a 17-year-old man, for a problem with
his hemoglobin. The patient had been referred to me for blood tests. It
turned out his blood was fine. He had gone to see an endocrinologist because
he was having trouble maintaining an erection. He could not understand
his problem; he was too young to suffer from such a condition. But this
was the key: Robert was overweight; he weighed about 250 pounds and was
a football player. He lifted weights and did not use steroids, and had
worked hard to get his weight up to 250, which is where he wanted to be
to play football. We did a body composition analysis on him. I guessed
that he would have 40% body fat; well, he had 39.5% body fat, so he was
carrying around 75 pounds of fat. In both men and women, if you have a
lot of body fat then you will have increased estrogen levels because some
of the sex hormones in men, such as testosterone, that the body makes
are converted or as we call it “aromatized” to estradiol which
is a very potent estrogen; this occurs in the fat tissue. So when he had
his hormones checked, it turned out that his estrogen levels (female sex
hormone levels) were much higher than they should have been--in the range
of someone on estrogen or birth control pills. So what he needed to do
was to change some of the fat that he was carrying around into muscle
and his sex drive would return to normal. This is the same problem that
overweight men have as well. Most will not need the little blue pill (Viagra)
if they were to get their weight under control. Another man I saw in my
office for a blood problem that turned out not to be a significant problem
came with his wife. He kept forgetting to give important information as
we went along and his exasperated wife had to keep adding information.
After we were done and he was getting ready to go to the lab to have some
blood drawn, his wife whispered to him and he back to her, then she said,
“ I guess I will wait outside.” After she left the room, he
brought up the problem of his inability to keep an erection. His problem
was also the estrogen effect from his obesity. He remembered when he was
180 pounds that he was in good shape, but now that he is 275 he can’t
last. Needless to say he has found a reason to lose weight; his goal is
to regain his sexual function again.
Phil, a friend
I saw recently at the gym, had lost 69 pounds, and I was congratulating
him about how well he was doing. I mentioned the recent study to him about
male sexual dysfunction to see if he had noted any changes, as he was
now down to 180 pounds and works out on a regular basis. Phil said he
felt great—at least 20 years younger. He also noted that his penis
was larger; he joked with his trainer that one of the exercise machines
must be making his penis larger, and he wanted to know which one it was
because he wanted to spend more time on that machine. He was right: his
penis probably was larger because he had less estrogen in his body to
make it smaller. The machine that probably helped him the most was the
treadmill. In addition, the cross trainer helped him burn the calories
off, which, in turn, enabled him to lose weight. This is an exercise machine
in which you use your arm and legs, while your feet stay planted on foot
pads and move in an elliptical pattern. It is a great cardiovascular machine.
When we treat men with prostate cancer by blocking their testosterone,
they have the same problem: their penis gets smaller. So as you can see,
people can have many different reasons for losing weight. They can range
from controlling their diabetes, and hypertension, to saving money and
having a better sexual life. Everyone has different goals. You need to
figure out what your own goals are.
Now I would
like for you to take a few minutes and list the top three goals that you
have. Try to make them attainable. You can always create new goals when
you have attained the first one. Phil’s goal initially was to lose
20 pounds; after he lost that weight he felt so good that he decided he
wanted to loose another 20. Now his goal is to reach his ideal body fat—that
is, a range of 16% to 18% of his weight as fat. I know he’ll reach
his goal.
My goals are
1.
2.
3.
Plan To Use
Evaluation
is a continuous process; you need to evaluate your progress on an ongoing
basis.
What
diet plan are you going to use? You know that lots of options exist. You
can employ what you have learned here with any diet that you want to utilize.
If you want
to, you can also use the plan in this book. The most important thing from
my perspective is that you have faith in and enjoy the program that you
are using. I think that some diets may be easier to stick with than others;
the main factor associated with success in any diet is your ability to
stick with it. If you don’t follow the diet, then it will not work
for you. I also think that most diets are reasonable. You will hear people
proclaim that one diet is “the” diet. They tend to have a
religious fervor about it. Generally six months to a year later, they
are still passionate about the diet, only it is a different one.
It is important
to use common sense when you pick a diet. If something sounds off the
wall, then you may not want to use it. You were given a brain, so use
it. Just because someone recommends eating 10 candy bars a day as a new
diet does not mean that you have to blindly accept it as true—even
if they give you some story about how you will burn more calories and
you will feel stronger. Most people have a reasonable knowledge about
what is an appropriate diet. If something sounds too good to be true,
it probably is. All the tabloids at the grocery store checkout counter
have a new diet plan to lose 20 pounds in the next month, or a new machine
that will just melt the fat away. If you don’t use your brain, then
you will get suckered into things that you know are silly.
So is it low
fat, high fat, low carb, high carb, the zone, Weight Watchers, the Mediterranean
or just moderation? It is now up to you to choose what diet you want to
use to start with. Remember that solving your weight problem is a journey.
If you choose one plan and it does not work, don’t get discouraged;
try to figure out what you were supposed to learn from the experience
and then try another plan. In my opinion, the most important question
you can ask yourself every day is what was I supposed to learn today?
It may be a fact, or it may be some insight about relationships, people,
or life.
When I meet
a new person one question I ask is “What am I supposed to learn
from this person?” “Why are they in my life?” “What
are they here to teach me?” If one diet does not work for you, then
you need to look at it and say what was that diet supposed to teach me?
Perhaps it was a grapefruit diet and you knew in your heart that it was
not a good diet for you; then you may have learned to listen to your instincts
and trust them. Maybe you learned that you do not really want to lose
weight yet, and that you have other issues to deal with. Perhaps you are
afraid that if you lose weight, you will become attractive and you don’t
want to deal with the issues related to that. The important thing is to
look and see if there is anything for you to learn. It may be that there
is nothing from the diet that you were supposed to learn. Perhaps you
met someone because you were on a certain diet and you had an impact on
his or her life.
My recommendation
is to use the diet that seems right for you. Weight control is a life-long
challenge; you will probably try many different approaches during your
lifetime. Whatever you do, do not give up. Recognize that this will be
a problem that all of us have to deal with on a daily basis for the rest
of our lives. Remember that knowledge is power and the more that you know
about your body and your diet, the better off you will be.
So do I recommend
moderation. Well, yes, to me that seems to be the plan that makes the
most sense. That is what I use; I try not to over eat at meal times, then
I try to have an apple at 10 and at 3 so that I am not starved at lunch
time. I try to stop eating when I start to feel full, because I know that
it will take another 10 to 20 minutes before the information will go from
my stomach to my brain. I try to never, never, never eat at a restaurant
which has a food bar, because I know I will overeat, so that is to protect
me from myself. Even though I use moderation I also know that I have weaknesses
and I have to avoid them or else I will probably overindulge. I stay away
from chocolate, ice cream and cookies. I will eat them but try to do it
very sparingly. This is what works for me. It also works for many, many
others. We will discuss more about this as the book unfolds.
Hypnosis and Past Life Regressions
Some people
with eating disorders have a subconscious need to eat. It may be related
to relationships that they had when they were children or it may not be
anything that they are aware of. Even though they are on a diet, they
cannot lose weight because their subconscious tells them to eat. You might
think this is strange that you would not be able to lose weight but it
is not. Your subconscious will win.
A person may
have been given cookies and candy when they got hurt as a child. Then
as an adult, they know that when they have problems and they are suffering
either physically or mentally, food will make them feel better. Usually
they will eat the same kind of things that comforted them as a child.
So when the boss tells them that they did not do a good job at work, or
their spouse is fussing about something, the thing they run to is what
they learned many years ago will make them feel better.
I have a friend
just like this; he learned long ago growing up that food was there to
make him feel better. He will eat Ho Ho’s whenever he gets stressed.
He will go out and buy them by the box. When he is in a good relationship
with a woman then he does fine, but just let the relationship take a turn
to conflict and the Ho Ho’s come back in full force. Because of
this, his weight tends to yo yo. He will stay in the 350 pound range until
he has developed a good relationship, then he will lose weight. When conflict
arises the weight goes right back on. He uses the Ho Ho’s to soothe
his hurt feelings.
So how do
you deal with this kind of problem? First, it’s helpful to understand
what your subconscious is. The theory is that your conscious mind is the
part that you are currently aware of, while the subconscious part is there
but does not make itself obvious to you. It remembers things from the
past but it does not bring it into the conscious part of your memory.
The subconscious part of your memory does influence you, however, and
when you suffer pain, it remembers what helped you in the past. It tends
to make you do things that you learned before that would make you feel
better. It is there to help you. Sometimes what it thinks is helpful is
not. It may think that just because you got your feelings hurt, you need
a banana split with all the trimmings. What you really need to do is to
deal with the emotional issues at hand. Instead of dealing with the issues,
though, you may go and get the banana split. Sure enough, you feel better
for now. However, you have not dealt with the issue at hand; you have
only suppressed it. You will eventually have to deal with it. So you might
as well deal with it now, rather than later.
When you fell
and bumped your knee as a child and your mother wanted to get you to stop
crying and to make you feel better, she may have given you a cookie. You
remember that and so when, as an adult, your boss said he was not pleased
with your work and your spirits were bruised, you went and got the cookies
and tried to recapture the feeling that you had many years ago that made
you feel better. You probably were successful, in the short run; it probably
did make you feel better.
So shall we
blame your parents or someone else for your desire to eat that is embedded
in your subconscious? No. We are responsible for who we are, and we can
change when we are ready to change. It may be that we respond the way
we do because of how we were raised, but that was in the past and this
is now. We have the opportunity to change as long as we want to. The real
question is: Do we want to change? If the answer is no, then we won’t.
Some people
may want to go to a psychologist and try to work through any issues that
may be there from the past. They may want to examine the issue of having
cookies when they got hurt, or the fact that food was used as a source
of comfort. Should you blame your parents? No. Your parents did the best
that they could with the knowledge that they had at the time. I don’t
think that most parents get up every morning and say, “What can
I do that will mess up my child today?” They try to do the best
that they can to make their child feel good. At the same time, they are
dealing with issues that they may have gotten from their parents. Still
they are doing the best that they know how. Just as you have done the
best that you knew how in the past. You did not make the decision to overeat,
just so that you could be obese. You did the best you could. Now however,
you can do better, you can make changes, with the use of knowledge, you
can get your weight under control and become healthy. You can choose to
eat well, and avoid your weaknesses.
If you find
that you have unresolved issues, though, it is best to get help. You can
do this with Overeaters Anonymous or with other support groups. I don’t
think that one group is better than another; it all depends on what you
need. If a group is not meeting your needs, then get individual counseling
or find another group and try to deal with whatever issues you uncover.
It is possible
that the issue is not readily present in the events from your lifetime.
It is possible that for some the problem may go back to a former lifetime.
Some people may think this is strange, the concept of a former lifetime
that is, but as we learn more in medicine we find that there is increasing
evidence that we may travel this road more than once. It used to be a
Christian belief that reincarnation existed. Many religions in fact do
believe in reincarnation. Apparently a few hundred years after the death
of Christ, that was changed and then it became blasphemous to talk about
reincarnation. It was felt that if people thought they had more than one
chance to get it right, they would not be “good people” so
the concept was abolished in the Roman times.
Dr. Brian
Weiss has done a lot of work in the field and many people now accept that
reincarnation probably does exist. His book Many Lives, Many Masters was
his first attempt to bring this topic to the public. He is a physiatrist
and was the head of that department at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami.
A patient was referred to him with some minor problems or so he thought.
He figured that with a few sessions that he could get to the bottom of
the problem and help the patient get better. One year later the patient
was no better off. She was not better. Then one day he told her to “go
back to when the problem began” this was a statement that he never
used, and then she was in a different life time. So the journey began
for Dr. Weiss. After the experience he spent several years pondering if
he should bring the information forward. He finally did but he was fearful
that he would be called a crack pot, or charlatan. His second and third
books Messages From the Masters, tapping into the power of love, and Only
Love is real: A story of Soul mates reunited, were likewise very informative
and are worth reading if you have not done so. His other books include
Through time into healing, Mirrors of Time: Using Regression for Physical,
Emotional and Spiritual Healing and Eliminating Stress, Finding Inner
Peace. So how could this possibly fit into the problem of obesity? Well,
it may be that for some the desire to eat and overeat has to do with the
fact that they were starved to death in the past--either in great famines
or perhaps in a concentration camp. How will one ever know? The only way
to find out would be to do a past life regression with a qualified professional,
such as a psychiatrist who works with hypnosis or perhaps with Dr. Weiss.
Dr. Weiss has a web page at www.brianweiss.com
for those interested in his work. For some this may help. If the person
was, in fact, in a concentration camp or lived during a great famine in
a previous life, then when he relives this time he may be able to heal
the problems that were left over. So for some the answer may be in the
distant past.
This approach
is not for everyone, but for someone who has tried everything without
success, this is an option to consider. Hypnosis may help you resolve
issues in the subconscious from this life or a past one. For some the
idea is crazy--but for others, it is exactly the idea they need.
When you are
looking at what you need to do to get your health back, you need to be
willing to do anything that you need to do. Look at all your options and
don’t rule out anything. Use the systems that make sense to you
but if you are up against the wall with what seems to be no options left
then, begin to look at other options.
Obese Children
How
do we deal with children who are overweight? To some of you, this will
pose a major challenge. If you are already dealing with your own health
issues related to obesity, you hate to see your child have to deal with
these very same issues.
One thing
that you need to figure out is what messages are you sending your child?
Do you let them know that they do not have to clean up all the food on
their plates? If your children are overweight, that may be a message you
want to give them. Perhaps you need to serve smaller portions or encourage
them to order smaller amounts when you go out to eat. If, on the other
hand, your children are underweight then they may need to be told that
they have to clean their plates before dessert. You have to be the parent—not
the child. Parenting is probably the hardest job that exists, and all
of us do it with little or no training other than what we saw as we were
growing up. It’s all “on the job training,” so to speak.
One of my
patients with cancer was in the hospital and she had been doing very well,
and I saw her that evening to follow up on some tests that we had done
that day. When I went to see her, the family was also there and she introduced
me to two of her grandchildren. Both were young-- approximately 10 and
14 years old--and both probably weighed over 200 pounds. She told me that
she needed to get home soon so that she could make sure that her grandchildren
had some food when they got out of school. She would normally make an
entire meal for them when they got home. They would also eat supper. So,
in effect, they got 4 big meals a day. What would have been better for
her to do would have been to have some apples and a glass of milk waiting
for them. She was very proud of the fact that she had a meal for them.
They will be the ones who pay the price.
You need to
do all the things with your child that I have gone over that you need
to do for yourself. First, determine what types of food are their weaknesses
and get them out of the house. No more chips, cookies, candy, cake, brownies,
soft drinks or ice cream--just get rid of them. If you think you have
a problem controlling your weaknesses, what do you think a child will
be able to do? They have even less will power then you. Instead, you do
need to have some nutritious foods in the refrigerator such as apples
and vegetables. However, if they are in the fruit compartment of the refrigerator
then you can expect that they will probably rot before they have been
found. Put two or three in a bowl so that they are in plain sight when
the door is opened. If good food is not on their radar screen, children
will not think about looking in the fruit and vegetable drawers of the
refrigerator. Help them out a little; put it at their eye level when they
open the door.
Getting rid
of their weaknesses is not going to be fun--no, you and I know that very
well. There will be a lot of whining and fussing for a few weeks until
they know that you mean what you said. Sure, they may try to get some
of the contraband from friends, or at the local gas station, but if you
are the parent then you need to set the rules and follow them. If the
contraband is found, put it in the garbage. If they continue to break
rules you have to do what parents have to do and that is determine what
consequences are appropriate for the crime. If they do the crime they
do the time. If they choose to break the rules that you have set up for
your house then they have to deal with the consequences of that action--just
as you and I do if we choose to go through a red light. Our society imposes
consequences for our actions and, in the realm of your own home, you have
to impose consequences that seem to fit the infraction. This will also
help your children learn that they have to live by the rules that you
set. One problem that parents have is that they do not want to set the
rules; they do not want to be the heavy, so to speak.
Once you have
gotten rid of your children’s weaknesses, what are you going to
do next? How do you get them moving? How do you get them off the couch
and out the door walking, running, playing, skipping, or in general doing
physical activities? This may require a little thought on your part. You
may have a child that has never been active; their role models are also
inactive. Of course they will want to do as their parents do. If you sit
on the couch and just watch TV, then they will probably want to do the
same. If your children are normally very active, then probably just getting
rid of their weaknesses will allow them to get their weight under control
in a few months.
Let’s
say your child just sits in front of the TV or computer. You, as the parent,
need to set limits. How much TV are they allowed to watch? Is it time
to remove the TV from their room? Is it time to limit their time on the
computer? The answer is probably yes. It is time for you to set the rules
and enforce them. Now you may not want to make all the changes in one
day. Your life will be easier if you start with one area, and in a month
or so make some more changes as necessary to get the results you were
after. You also need to be certain that both parents are on the same page.
If you are working in one direction and the other parent is not, you will
have more trouble. Try to discuss these issues and look at what is best
for the child as you work out a plan. If you are divorced, then you may
have special problems--especially if your divorce was ugly. You may find
that one parent in this setting will purposely try to sabotage the effort
so as to gain favors with the child. The name of that game is not “Let’s
help the child with his or her problem”; rather, it is all about
“me.” If both parents can agree to act in the best interests
of their children, that will go a long way towards helping them stay healthy.
Let’s
say you’ve limited your children to X number of minutes a day on
both the TV and the computer. But they’re still just sitting on
the couch vegetating--so what can you do? Try to get them involved with
Scouts, 4H, church groups, or a service organization. Sports would be
great, as that will allow them to burn up a lot of calories. Again, you
have to be the parent; however, if you make them play sports, you probably
won’t be successful for long. You need to look at what their talents
and interests might be, and then capitalize on it. If they like to write,
get them to go out and do some stories for their school paper; you never
know, the local community paper may also enjoy having a column that is
written by a student that deals with the school. If they are interested
in cancer, have them work with the relay for life, or a run for a cure.
One thing that would be good is if you would go with them for a walk every
day. That could be bonding time; of course, it may be whining time too.
If it became a time for the child to whine, then you would have to set
up the ground rules for the walk. For example, you might tell them: “We
are going for a walk every day; there will be no whining, or fussing and
after the walk, I will help you with your homework.” That does not
mean that you do their homework. Or you may do something else that they
would like, as long as it is calorie-free.
Don’t
forget to look at what they are drinking, too. If they are drinking a
lot of soft drinks, then they are getting a lot of calories in liquid
form. Many times we forget the calories that exist in soft drinks. It
is best if you can get them to drink other things besides soft drinks
or drinks with a lot of calories. Try to get them to drink low-fat milk
or water. Tap water is fine, and easier on your wallet than bottled water,
which can be very expensive. Yes, juices have sugar in them as well so
you need to stay away from the little juice boxes that are out there.
It is better if you encourage water consumption. I think that a glass
of juice in the morning with breakfast is fine but that is not to be substituted
for soft drinks. If you do you will end up with the same result--excess
sugar and obesity. It is a good idea to have a picture of water in the
refrigerator so that when they open it they will see a picture of nice
cold water. They will learn from your behavior and if you drink water,
they will learn as well especially if you do not have sugar drinks around.
If you choose
not to deal with the problem of obesity in your child they will have a
tough road to deal with as it relates to health issues. You need to try
as hard as you can to teach your child the proper things to eat and what
a normal portion size is. They need to know that what most people are
eating now is not normal, but is supersized. If you eat supersized, you
also will become supersized.
How Do You Do It?
Now
that you have had time to learn a lot about nutrition and exercise, how
do you act upon this information to your best advantage? In other words,
how do you go about losing weight and keeping it off? It’s easier
than you might think. We’ll go ahead and outline some simple steps
to help you get started
By now, you
know what some of your weaknesses are. You have had time to think about
them and sleep on the concepts and hopefully you have been honest with
yourself. If you have not been honest with yourself, now is the time to
come clean. What are your weaknesses? Are they donuts, potato chips, or
soda pop? I have some patients who say they don’t have any weaknesses
other than food. If that is your case then we will have to work on portion
control. However, If at all possible, get your weaknesses out of the house.
Put them in the garbage or donate them to the soup kitchen. Don’t
eat them, whatever they are. Protect yourself from yourself.
Second, you
have now begun the process of thinking about what you are doing and why,
so now is the time to start recording what you are eating and why. Start
with a plain piece of paper and write down all the things that you put
in your mouth. Next to that, put down the time of day and in the third
column, write down why you put it in your mouth. Were you hungry, thirsty,
bored, angry, sad, happy—and were these factors that led you to
eat what you did? This is for you, so be honest with yourself. After you
have kept the diary for a week, then you need to take a few minutes and
sit down and think about what you are eating. This is your dietary history,
this is about you; what can you learn from it about your motivations for
eating? If you were depressed, did food make you feel better? After you
ate, how did you feel? Were you stuffed and bloated, or did you feel good?
This second
step is very important, since you need to learn as much as you can about
why you eat when you do and why you choose to eat what you do. The answers
may not come to you right away; it may take time, because this involves
making a life-long change. Remember that knowledge is power: give yourself
time to obtain the knowledge that you need so that you will have control
over the problem.
Now we need
to look at what you eat and how much you choose to put on your plate.
I hope that you are now aware of the quantity of the food you are consuming.
When I want fast food, I know that a junior hamburger and small fries
will satisfy me and I will be fine. I also know that the people at the
fast food restaurant would rather that I buy a giant combo of some sort.
But I resist that temptation, and order the junior hamburger and small
fries. It gives me the taste I am after and enough calories so I am satisfied,
not stuffed, and feel good about what I ate, as well as how much I ate.
Most people
get into trouble when they dine at restaurants. They tend to overeat.
So what do you do at lunch if you go to work? I hope that you do like
I do: namely, make your own lunch and take it with you to work. If you
take your own lunch, then you know what is in it and have some idea about
how many calories you are eating. It is important to try to make lunch
your larger meal, then make supper a little smaller. The reason for this
is that if you eat a large meal at supper, then all you will want to do
is to sit in front of the TV or stereo. You will not have the energy to
do anything because you have overeaten and you feel bloated and lethargic.
So consider eating a smaller meal in the evening. Some people believe
that if they eat a large meal at supper and then go to bed, it somehow
just goes to fat. Not so. Your weight ultimately hinges on the total number
of calories that you ingest, not the time of day that you ate them.
It’s
very important that you begin a daily exercise program. Depending on where
you live, you may want to do it in your apartment or house, or go to the
gym. It will take 30 days before the exercise program becomes part of
your life and is something that you do not have to think about. Like brushing
your teeth, if you do it every day for a month, then it will feel funny
if you are not doing it. Take walking, for example: you must set aside
time for it every day. If it is raining you wear a raincoat; if it is
snowing then warm clothing; if there is a tornado, then wait until the
severe weather has passed and do it. But stick with it. If you begin making
excuses for not exercising, then you will never do it. This is about a
life change. This is about staying independent and healthy so that you
can enjoy the rest of your life. Our life is very short as it is, so we
need to stay healthy and enjoy the time we have been given.
It is important
to track your progress. By that I mean get on the scales and see how you
are doing. The problem with body fat is that it is not going to change
as quickly as your weight in pounds will. You will be more satisfied with
monitoring your weight in pounds to start with. As you see the pounds
drop off, then you will see the percentage of body fat begin to change.
I get on the scales every morning; some people recommend getting on them
once a week. I check my body fat once a month, because it will change
the slowest. Do whatever feels good to you. Knowledge is power and the
more you know about what is happening with your weight, the more you can
control the outcome. If you never get on the scales, then you will never
know what you are doing. I prefer to get on the scales daily; that way
if I see the scales going in the wrong direction, then I can begin to
plan what to do about it. Rather then waiting for a week or two and finding
that 5 or 10 pounds have crept into the equation, I prefer to keep my
pulse on the scales. Some will say that is too obsessive-compulsive; the
bottom line is to do what works for you. This is not about me; it is about
you.
What do you
do if you need a specific diet plan to follow? We will furnish you with
some specific ideas in the following chapters. Try not to be too rigid
when it comes to your selection of food. We have been blessed with a wide
variety of foods to eat on this planet, so enjoy them in moderation.
There are
very few foods that I think you should avoid like the plague. One is soft
drinks, as they only give you a sugar hit and salt; the second as you
start the diet is to avoid alcohol as it will tend to make you hungry.
It lowers your blood sugar and you will eat more. I also do not think
that sugar should have a role in your diet. It has no nutritional value
and will only add pounds to your weight. So as you start your diet, make
a strong effort to avoid those three. As your diet goes forward then you
can add some alcohol as there is evidence that it may be beneficial for
your heart. I do not recommend adding sugar or soft drinks at any time.
When it comes
to portion control, you need to learn what normal portions are. By the
way, they are not the sizes that you get at many restaurants--in fact,
most of those are double portions. When you go to a restaurant and if
you were to take the serving and cut it in half, you would probably be
much closer to normal portions then what you have on the plate. What some
people do is to eat half of the food on the plate and then sit back and
chat for a while with the friends at the table. Thirty minutes later,
if they are still hungry they will finish the food on their plate. If
they are not hungry, they will leave it there or get a doggie bag. They
know that it takes 20 to 30 minutes for the brain to register that the
food is in the stomach and they give it time to see if they are still
hungry. It works.
A
fighter pilot’s lunch was said to be a bag of potato chips, a candy
bar, and a soft drink or cup of coffee followed by a cigarette to provide
for the five basic food groups: salt, fat, sugar, caffeine, and nicotine!
You Choose What You Eat
When
you acknowledge that you do choose what you eat, you then take control
of the problem. You have to admit that everything that goes in your mouth
was put there by you. You chose to eat it. That is okay. Maybe you could
have made a better decision about what you ate, but you chose to eat it
and you chose how much of it you ate.
We all make
choices every day. What we eat is only one of them. We choose the clothes
that we are going to wear and the time we are going to get up in the morning.
We choose how we will go to work and what we will say to people along
the way. We choose to make our lunch and what it will be--or we choose
to eat out. Choice is involved in everything that we do. You don’t
blame others for the clothes you have on--so why blame others for what
you ate?
Everything
in life is based on the choices that we make. Sometimes we choose wisely,
and sometimes we don’t. We choose to speed on the way to work and
then have an accident, or get a ticket. We either choose to wear the seat
belt or choose not to. You have to accept the outcome based on what you
chose.
We have to
acknowledge that we are the ones in control. We are the captain of our
ship. We will decide to overeat or undereat, to choose healthy or unhealthy
foods. Our life journey will be affected by what we choose. If we choose
poorly we may develop diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, or strokes.
You did not say out loud that you wanted diabetes, but then you did not
say that you wanted a ticket when you were speeding. They just go hand
in hand. So if you choose one, you get the other. You have to take responsibility
for your choices. You will affect your life based on what you choose.
You also then
have to accept that you are the way you are because you choose to be that
way. I am not saying that you consciously said “I want to be overweight,”
but that was the end result. If you can accept your role in the process,
then you begin to own the problem and you start the process of resolving
it. You are not destined to live a life based on what happened in the
past. The past is simply that--the past; but this is now and you can choose
differently if you want to. You are the one in charge--not some fast food
chain, or the commercials on television. You have the power; you are in
control; this is your life. What do you want to choose for the future?
You can still write the end of your life story. It is up to you.
I had a patient
with Parkinson’s disease named Steve who used to go to the gym and
work out regularly. I was always impressed that he was there. He is 80
years old, shaped like the letter C due to his osteoporosis, with his
wife always at his side. Then I noticed that I did not see him so very
often. One day his wife brought him into the office; he was so weak that
he was not able to get off the commode. They had to call the rescue squad
to transport him. We admitted him to the hospital thinking that his medicines
must be out of kilter. We started physical therapy and it turned out his
medicines were fine. He then went into short-term rehabilitation for three
weeks and got his strength back. Steve returned home and was doing great
except that he chose not to continue to do his exercises. Over the next
month, he grew weak and we had to admit him to the hospital, and once
again added in physical therapy and then rehab. This time we pointed out
that if he did not choose to keep his exercise up, his strength would
decline and he would spend the rest of his life in a nursing home. Since
then, he has done great and is walking, staying mobile, strong, and enjoying
life. Steve chose not to spend the rest of his life in a nursing home.
He rewrote the end of his story; once he saw what was ahead he decided
that was not the ending that he wanted and he chose something different.
You can, too.
When you acknowledge
that you have the ability to choose, then you can either continue to choose
what you have been choosing or you can change it. You need to accept that
when you have problems related to overeating you have chosen that path,
and that the problems are yours to own. If you don’t like the problems
that you are facing, then you must change what you are doing. You don’t
have to like the situation that you are in but you need to accept it as
part of your own doing. You also need to look at your situation and see
why you choose to be overweight. When it comes to controlling your weight,
if you think you can or you think that you cannot, you are probably right.
You are the captain; you are the one in control. I hope that the choices
that you choose for yourself in the future are ones that make your life
healthy and enjoyable.
Some people
become very defensive when you suggest that they are the ones in control
of the situation. Many times people want to have someone or something
that they can point to and say “See, it’s not my fault.”
As if fault is the issue. The problem is not a fault--the problem is the
choices made in the past were not the best ones that could have been made.
You need to let the past go and live in the present. The past is just
that: the past. If you spend the rest of your life beating yourself up
over bad choices that you made, then you are destined to live a miserable
life. Your life will consist of self-flagellation, and constant self beratement
over your choices in life. You can use the past to help you learn for
today. To help you make decisions that can be better. You have to let
the past go and try not to be so hard on yourself. Yes, to be honest you
did make the decisions that you made in the past and they may not have
been the best that you could have made but you did the best you could
at the time. The time is different now and you have the chance to choose
differently if you want to.
Proactive vs. Reactive
As
you deal with the issue of weight control, it is generally better to be
proactive than reactive. When you respond in a reactive way, you do not
have the upper hand. In contrast, when you take a proactive approach and
plan for the contingencies that may occur, you are in better control of
the situation. That is why the military employs war games, and the Emergency
Medical Service (EMS) stages mock medical disasters. It may not be perfect,
but if it gives you an idea of what you might do in the situation, then
you will be in a better position as you try to deal with the crisis that
has arisen. You will not be able to foresee all the different scenarios,
but we will go over a few so that you can think about them. As you think
of events that occur in your life, you need to formulate a plan of attack.
To start,
think back to when you tried to lose weight before; did you run into any
problems? If so, what were they? How did you handle them? Were you successful,
partially successful, or did you fail? This situation will probably recur
during your current endeavor as well. You need to figure out how you might
play your cards so that you get a different outcome. You may want to stop
and think about it for a few minutes and jot down your thoughts as you
try to replay the story in your mind. Remember that you can re-script
the story so that it will end the way you want it to. Just change the
things that need changing.
Let’s
suppose that you do not lose weight as quickly as you want to. You have
set a goal for yourself, and now you are not meeting the goal. What are
you going to do? You may need to go back to the goal and see if it was
too high. Perhaps you need to redefine your goal and make it a number
that is attainable. Many people want to get the weight off in 2 to3 months,
after it took them 10 years to put it on. For most people, it is reasonable
to plan a goal of 1-2 pounds a week. So go back and look at the goal and
see if it is attainable. If it is not, then re-formulate your goal. You
have the right to re-define your goals as often as you want. By taking
a proactive stance, you tell yourself from the beginning that if you do
not reach your goals on schedule, you will re-evaluate your goals and
try to bring them into line with your ability. It is also important that
you don’t sell yourself short. You have the ability; you just have
to believe in yourself.
Let’s
say you have the opposite problem: you find that you’re losing weight
a lot faster then you had planned. You are shedding 8 pounds a week. What
are you going to do then? You may not think that losing weight too fast
is a problem but it can be. When you first start a diet, it is not unusual
for people to lose a lot of weight in the first week or two. Many people
think that this is mostly water and salt--so in that situation you should
not worry if you are dropping the weight too fast. However, if you continue
to lose weight rapidly you can get into a situation where you are losing
a lot of muscle mass, and you enter what is called a “catabolic
state.” This is not good. Your muscles will get weaker, and your
electrolytes or the salts in your blood can get out of control. This is
a bad medical situation. If you lose a lot of muscle, you will get to
the point where you do not have the strength to get up and do what you
want to do. All you will be able to do is to sit in a chair and watch
TV. In severe cases, I have see patients who got so weak that they could
not get up off the commode or if they fell, were so weak that they could
not get off the floor. If your electrolytes get out of control, the same
things can happen. If your potassium gets too low, again you become very
weak and are at risk for heart arrhythmias (abnormal rhythms) some of
which could be lethal. It is much healthier to plan on a moderate weight
loss of one or two pounds a week. If you are losing 8 pounds a week, then
in reality you are not eating much of anything. You are basically starving
yourself. If this occurs, then you need to immediately re-evaluate the
situation and start eating at least 2,000 calories a day to stop the muscle
loss and give the body the fuel it needs to function. Then when things
have stabilized you can restart the diet, but remember to cut your intake
by perhaps 10% to 1,800 calories per day.
Consider another
scenario: let’s say you have been on the program now for 5 months
and you get sick. You have pneumonia, or the flu or something that is
keeping you home from work and you are in bed. Should you stop the diet,
continue the diet, or supplement the diet with other nutrients? If you
have been doing well with the plan and have been losing weight slowly,
then there is no reason to modify what you are doing. Stick with the diet.
If, however, you have been losing weight too quickly, then you probably
need to stop the diet immediately and increase your nutrition to 2,000
calories a day. Many people also take vitamin C supplements and eat chicken
soup when they are sick, and this is a reasonable addition to your diet
in this instance. Just because you are sick is not a reason to quit the
diet. If you eat a balanced diet, then you are fine. If you happen to
lose your appetite while you are sick, simply try to eat and drink a balanced
diet.
Let’s
say you have done well on your diet and now it is time for the family
vacation to the beach or the mountains. What are you going to do in this
instance? You face the same choices: continue the diet, stop the diet,
or modify the diet while on vacation. The important thing is to consider
the options and plan ahead what you want to do. This is your life and
you get to make the decisions. What you choose will depend a lot on you
and your past history. If you know from past experience that stopping
the diet will be the death of the diet, then definitely don’t stop
it. You will have to find a way to deal with it while on vacation. If
you find that sticking with the diet will destroy the vacation for the
family, then you will not want to stick with it unless it is critical
to you. You may decide that you will try to do the best that you can,
realizing that you will be eating out more and that it will take a little
more effort on your part. The diet set forth in this book is not difficult
to follow unless you find yourself surrounded by a lot of the foods that
are your weaknesses. In that case it will be a challenge. The important
thing is to decide before you go on vacation what you are going to do.
How are you going to do it, and what are the consequences that will result
from your actions? You may work out a compromise with your family so that
that none of your weaknesses will be around you. Make out a plan ahead
of time. If they go out to eat every night, some nights you may choose
to eat only fruit; other nights a regular meal without dessert; and still
other nights an appetizer, a salad and dessert.
So you can
see a lot of different scenarios can occur; the central question is how
are you going to deal with them? How will you deal with temptations, such
as the food that is brought to the office and put in the snack room for
everyone to share—like pizza, sodas and cupcakes? Or children selling
chocolate bars and donuts as fund raisers for the local school or church?
What will you do at moments like this? Are you going to buy the food and
throw it away? Tell them “Thanks, but no thanks”? Make sure
that when you go to the snack room that the food is gone? Try to eat something
before the party so that you are not starved when you arrive? Again, think
about the different situations that occur in your life and try to decide
what will work for you. We are all different and have different lives,
so I cannot tell you what you should do. You have to decide based on your
life, your relationships, your journey, and your goals.
If you occasionally
over-eat, don’t beat yourself up, don’t put yourself down,
just continue with the diet and do your best to stay on it. The most important
thing to do is to think about the scenarios that you have had in the past
and learn from them. If you do not learn from them, then you are destined
to repeat them. Go over the different problems that have occurred and
make a plan, be proactive, don’t get caught with your “pants
down” so to speak. Use the old Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared,”
and plan ahead.
How to Empower Yourself
So
how do we empower ourselves? Well, to be honest it is not easy. It is
hard when your stomach is grumbling and you feel hungry to tell yourself
that you don’t need the extra food. The reality is that you don’t
need the food, and you do need to lose weight. Yet the devil is on your
shoulder and is coaxing you to eat it. It is hard, especially at first.
Most Americans do not want to do something that is hard. We want things
to be easy and we want them now. No delayed gratification for us. That
seems to be the American way. That is not how it is with weight loss.
It is slow and it is one of the hardest things that people have to do.
Just look around and you will see how hard it is. If it were easy then
there would not be a problem with obesity in this country.
Some people
may ask, “Why does it have to be hard? There has to be a pill I
can take, that will let me eat everything I want.” Still others
may say: “You don’t like me and you are doing this just to
spite me.” It is amazing to me how many people actually think this
way. The time will come when we may have a pill, but it will probably
not be in the foreseeable future. So until we have Utopia, and all the
streets are paved in gold then we will have to deal with reality. Namely:
you are responsible for your choices. You have to acknowledge that in
the past you have chosen to be overweight. If you are still overweight,
then accept the fact that at present you still choose to be overweight.
Acknowledge your responsibility; don’t blame others, because it
is not their fault.
What do I
do when my stomach is growling? Well, that is a good question because
we all have to deal with it. One thing that helps me is to know that when
it is growling, I am in the process of breaking down fat for fuel. When
the stomach is saying that it wants FOOD!!! You need to know that the
body will comply and will start breaking down fat to form the fuel that
the body needs. So when this occurs, you can view it as a good sign that
things are beginning to work. Well, that’s fine to say but it still
doesn’t feel good while it’s happening. We do not like that
feeling, at 2 a.m. or any other time.
One thing
that that does help is to drink two tall glasses of water, one right after
the other. That will put something in your stomach so that you do not
feel as hungry. This can buy you an hour or two, and that will give your
body time to break down a little of the fat to form energy for the body
to use.
If the water
trick does not work for you, then the next thing to try is to put something
in your stomach that does not have a lot of calories. What a lot of people
use is raw vegetables. They are fine, but you also have to remember that
everything that is food has calories in it. So if you eat carrot sticks
that’s better than a cinnamon bun, but water is still preferable.
There are
hundreds of people who are trying to winnow themselves down to the size
of the models that you see in magazines. If that is your goal, then acknowledge
it as such. I hope that instead, most people will choose to go by a system
that looks at the percentage of body fat, or BMI (Body Mass Index), in
combination with your total body weight. If you can get your percentage
of body fat into a healthy range, or even bring your total body weight
into accordance with the standards for life insurance tables, then you
will be in reasonably good shape. The only time that you need to try to
get your weight to conform to that of pencil-thin models is if you plan
on a career as a professional model. For those of us, either male or female,
who are not going to be models, getting your weight to that range is not
necessary, nor is it healthy. If you get your weight into a normal range,
at least that will enable you to have an improved quality of life.
I was talking
with someone recently who told me, “You know, I never get hungry.”
This man is at least 60 pounds overweight. He’s flabby, with a waistline
of approximately 50 inches. So how do you deal with the fact that you
eat when you are not really hungry? This is a real problem for me, as
well as for you. Sometimes people eat just because they know the food
tastes good. I have that problem sometimes. I know how tasty a bagel is
to me, and I will eat one even if I am not hungry.
Some people
eat just because it is noon. They may have had breakfast at 9:30 a.m.,
but it is now noon so they immediately head for the lunch table. They
are eating out of habit by the time clock, not their own internal clock.
So how do you deal with this? First, recognize that it is happening. Acknowledge
that you are doing it. If you can acknowledge it and name it, then you
have a better chance of dealing with it and changing it.
One thing
you could do instead is to say, “I will not eat a meal unless I
am hungry.” Who says that you have to eat lunch at noon? What’s
wrong with 3 in the afternoon, if that is when you get hungry? At least
you have the chance to get hungry. If you eat at 3 p.m., who says you
must have a full course meal at 6 p.m. for supper? What’s wrong
with two apples and a glass of water at 7 or 8 p.m. before you go to bed?
You have to remember that feeling hungry at times is not bad. You won’t
die because you are a little hungry, and sometimes it helps to realize
that there are hundreds of thousands of children that go to bed hungry
every day because they do not have enough food. It they can do it, so
can you. Generally speaking, skipping breakfast and lunch are not good
ideas. Your body needs the fuel. However, if you ate breakfast at 9 a.m.,
you may not be hungry for lunch at noon. You may have to take a lunch
break at that hour because it is a requirement of your job. If that’s
the case, then simply eat ½ a pineapple or a couple pieces of fruit,
or a mango. Pick something light; it does not have to be a triple burger
from the local fast food restaurant. You can choose something healthy.
There is an
old saying with a lot of truth to it: “If you think you can or you
think you can’t, you are probably right.” So if you think
you can lose weight you are probably right, and if you think you can’t
then you are probably right also. If you believe that you cannot do something,
you will not do it. The mind is a very powerful tool. Most people underestimate
what it can do. If you are not careful, it can take you down a very slippery
path.
So what do
we do when we go do a restaurant with a tempting buffet? What is your
weakness? Don’t tell me the answer; tell yourself. You already know
what it is. We may not want to say it aloud, but we know. So what do you
do? Are you going to go the buffet to get your meal or are you going to
order from the menu? Well, many of us will go to the food bar because
we want to get our money’s worth. We don’t want to be cheated
out of one calorie. I will occasionally go to a food bar, and when I do
I acknowledge right up front that I will overeat. Once while vacationing
in Mexico, I just wanted to go to the buffet to try all the different
things that they had for breakfast. I knew that I only had 2 more days
at the hotel and I wanted to try some of the traditional foods. I acknowledged
it, and went ahead to the food bar. I enjoyed the food; I was uncomfortable
for an hour or so after eating because I did overeat. Was it worth it?
Well, the answer was yes because I did get to try all the foods that I
wanted to try. In general though you should never, never go to a restaurant
that has a food bar of any sort. If you do you will overeat. You will
feel bloated, and miserable for at least 2 to 4 hours.
When you get
full, do you need to clean all the food off your plate? We all know the
answer to this question is NO. However, the reality is that most of us
will clean the plate even after we recognize that we are full. Why? Probably
because many of us were taught when we were young not to waste food. That
was in your past, and you do not have to let your past dictate your present
if you do not want to. You can let the past go. It is true that wasting
food is not a good thing, but it is not a bad thing either. We view it
through our own perspective and then we make it good, bad or indifferent.
If you don’t want to waste food because in your worldview, it is
a bad thing, then don’t order as much food. There are those who
may contend that restaurants are at fault for serving portions that are
too large. But you are responsible for what you order. If you don’t
want as much food, order an appetizer as your main meal; I often do that.
Consider taking home a doggie bag or simply leaving the extra food on
your plate. You have the power to decide when you have had enough. Now
if the food is good and you want to eat it all, then fine, acknowledge
that fact and finish it. But accept that once it is in your stomach, you
own the calories. They are yours and yours alone. You have the choice
now to store them as fat or to burn them as fuel; that choice is also
yours.
You need to
acknowledge your weakness and then you can begin to deal with it. Until
you are willing to acknowledge that you are not perfect and that you have
weaknesses like the rest of us, you will not be able to overcome it. Bagels,
as well as chocolate, are two of mine. Usually I do fine with chocolate,
as long as it is wrapped up in a package that has not been opened. If
I have the first piece, then I know I will eat not one but probably 20
pieces, and in some cases the whole box. So what do I do? I make sure
that it is not around. Some people will say, “Well, that is not
fair to my spouse or children” or other family members. I contend
that when you have a weakness, you need to take care of yourself. You
are the one that is important here. To draw an analogy, if they were alcoholics,
would they argue that they needed to keep alcohol in the house for their
spouses, just in case they wanted a drink? Wrong. You have an obligation
to take care of yourself. Your family will appreciate the fact that you
care enough about yourself to try.
One question
you must ask yourself is do you live to eat, or do you eat to live? The
person I mentioned earlier who ate by the time clock obviously lived to
eat. So how can you learn to eat to live? The first step is to acknowledge
the issues at hand. If you live to eat, see if you can find another reason
to live. Maybe you need to get more active in social groups, or volunteer
with the organization of your choice. Go to the schools and help children
learn to read; go to school sports events and root for a team; get a life.
If your life consists solely of eating, then you need a new one. You need
a new purpose. If you are busy then you won’t be thinking about
food all the time; you will be too busy enjoying the things you are doing
and you will be helping others at the same time. You may need to get rid
of your TV and your recliner. I know that may be considered sacrilegious
to some people, but if you think about it you may find that I am right.
You will also not be bombarded with all the commercials for food, which
by the way are very effective. They will make you hungry, and if you don’t
think so, ask Pavlov.
So who is
Pavlov? He was a scientist who demonstrated that if you fed a dog food
whenever you pushed a buzzer, that after a short period of time, you got
the dog to salivate simply by pushing the buzzer. You do not have to give
the animal food; they start to salivate simply in anticipation of receiving
food. The same is true with human beings and I suspect that you have done
it before, but just for the fun of it we will do again. I want you to
imagine that you have a perfect lemon in your kitchen. It is probably
the best one you have ever seen; the color is so yellow, and the shape
perfect. As you take the knife and cut it in half you can see some of
the juice drip on to the counter and the inside is so firm and fresh.
You then cut it into quarters and you pick up one of the pieces and bite
into it. Your mouth puckers and your tongue quivers, your lips are drawn
tight and your saliva is pouring forth into your mouth. As you read this,
you probably had some of the sensations that were listed. Why? You did
not eat a lemon, and you did not even see a lemon; all you did was read
about one. Watching a commercial on TV does the same thing, only with
more visual power.
So we need
to learn to eat to live and not allow some of the things that we see on
TV, or in magazines and billboards make us live to eat. It is your choice
and when you realize that then you have the option of choosing which way
you want to live.
As we travel
down the road of life, we have to accept the consequences of the things
we do. Many people in America do not want to accept responsibility for
their situation; it is always easier to point the finger at someone else.
The reality is that you are responsible for your own actions, and therefore
you have to accept responsibility for being over- or underweight. You
have the choice to choose differently from what you did in the past. So
don’t blame anyone else from your past. This is the present, and
you have to be willing to deal with the present. I am not saying that
what happened in the past was not bad, but you cannot live in the past--you
can only live in the present. So if you are not happy with your weight,
then you have to take responsibility for the problem and begin the process
of changing it. You do have the ability to do that. You cannot live in
the future either, since that is only a construct of your mind. Action
is the only thing that works, so if you intend to lose weight, but never
take action then it won’t happen. If you intend to train for a marathon
because you want to run 26.2 miles but you never put on your sneakers
and learn to run, you will never do it. Similarly, if you plan on losing
weight and changing your diet, you will need to take action.
What are your weaknesses? List them here:
Food
1
2
3
4
Drinks
1
2
3
4
Snacks
1
2
3
4
Chapter 4 >
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